“Your targeting still needs work,” Einar whispered to Pai. “You missed the spot by four halls!”

“I know,” smiled Pai, almost glowing with pride and joy. “Sorry, master.”

***

“Juel! Pai's learned Transvolo!” That was Jarmin, greeting the team leader with a happy yell when Juel returned from his training on the college grounds. “And I’ve finished my painting!” added the little boy no less happily.

Juel took a deep breath, leaned against the wall and stood there in silence for a while. Then he slowly sank to the floor and sat there, cross-legged and bow-backed like a sullen stone gargoyle on a graveyard.

“Juel, are you okay?” asked Jarmin, all his mirth turned to worry in an instant.

“I’m just tired,” said Juel. He didn’t even try to sound convincing.

After that day’s excruciating training in the blazing sun, the news of Pai’s success became a final blow to the young Faizul. Reality shoved his true mission into his face again and there was nowhere to run. Indeed, if he were to try, his own master, Kangassk Abadar, would find him even beyond the charted lands and kill him, slowly. Same with Irin, Lainuver, and Kosta: their Kangassks took the Order’s oaths as seriously as Juel’s master did. The rest of the boys, those with more liberal masters… the rest Sainar would find and destroy himself.

Juel Hak had no choice. He had to go. And he had to make everyone follow him whether they wanted or not. Strangely, these thoughts helped Juel calm down, and when he did, a dream, fiery, rebellious dream, lit up under his heart again: to subvert the Order’s expectations and instead of sacrificing the boys to the mission, lead them safely to Benai Bay.

Juel’s breath steadied, his emotions stopped their frantic dance; the young warrior was at peace with himself and felt safe on his journey again. It was a false feeling of safety, he knew, but just like wild Faizuls, his people, the ones he didn’t even remember, he used self-deceit often to keep going and knew how to trick himself into believing the lie. So he did.

“Tell me about your painting, Jarmin,” he said, in a surprisingly good-natured way. “What kind of world is it?”

“Oh, it’s Primal World, of course!” Jarmin explained, eagerly.

“Primal World…” musingly repeated Juel and smiled, as sincerely as he could, sealing that dream, that lie of his.

***

In the library reading hall, empty in the evening, Einar Sharlou gathered the rest of the junior magisters. They didn’t even try to act serious. All of them were their usual selves, what senior magisters called “mere kids in mage robes”.

Einar made a nervous gesture asking for silence. His peers hushed up a little, half-curious about what he was going to say.

“Do you know why I’ve gathered you here today?” asked Einar.

His audience – four junior magisters – nodded.

“It’s about those Lifekeeper boys,” said Mariana Ornan, the youngest of them all. Young though she was, that mage was much closer to casting her first Transvolo than Einar.

“Exactly!” he said, trying to sound brave. That wasn’t easy when Mariana looked him in the eye. “I need your help, my colleagues and friends. Let us accept the boys into our college. We can do that even in the absence of the senior magisters…”

“Only if we vote unanimously,” remarked Ronard Zarbot (Aven Jay Zarbot’s younger brother was obsessed with laws; his growing up with the head of the Crimson Guard for a sister was showing again).

“Yes, I know…” Einar cleared his throat. “Well, Pai and Milian are young but we can help them catch up with grown-up students and…”