Once, Wrevondale had a monarchy. Until the Clearlanders decided it too undemocratic and set about designing an alternative. Of course, by the time the family in the high castle knew much about it, they were about a rough quarterhundred from having their heads wholesale unburdened from their shoulders and democratically rehomed on a comfortable set of stakes with plenty of air, day-long sunlight, and a lovely view of the great city bridge morning till night.
The seven hereditary barons of the seven largest cities formed a council and decreed a valley-wide system of one Vote fore ev?ry Man. The seven of them were the Men and they quite enjoyed their Votes. King’s Gate became Baronbridge. Roads grew, business flourished, and the arcane retreated further into the high niches of society. I don’t know if that was before or after they forced out those of us who became the Foresters – the middle chapters of the history book had been torn out for longfrost kindling, just as in most other Dreadfall books. But there was something in the fierce scowl of the grand statue opposite my chair, imposed in his own personal niche in the wall, taller than anyone I’d ever seen and built like a bull frothing to stampede, forged in eternal bone-white marble upon a plinth labelled Clement, Tenth Baron Dryadden, something that made me feel he was itching to come alive and start chasing us all out of his city again. I waited for the clerk to finish reviewing my forms. I didn’t care to investigate what else it said on Dryadden’s golden, shimmering plaque. Why should I? He wouldn’t care to know about me.
“You’d do well to improve your spelling, dearie,” mumbled the clerk, but her voice carried. Echoey chamber. Empty foyer. Why was it so empty? “You’ll already be on the back foot because of your…” she followed as she gestured at me, head to boot, with a handful of my forms in her hand. “Arcanists do incline towards a level of open-mindedness inherently. As I said, you aren’t the only one like you here, but there aren’t many of you. So anything you can do to help your case will be in your interest.”
A hope blossomed in my chest as I peered under her words. “You’re saying I’ll have to hone my blade to be here, but… that would only matter if I’m here anyway…?”
She smiled that tight smile again. Her monochromatic face belied little. “Your answers read well, wheresoever they’re legible. As it stands, we are several weeks into the amberfall semester, so I’ll expedite your forms to the admissions officer. She’ll see them tomorrow. I can’t promise anything, but almost everyone who completes them is afforded a chance.”
“Almost everyone?”
“If you have the diligence and patience to sit for near two hundredtimes writing in silence just because you were asked to, you’ve probably enough tenacity to be worth a try. And in the face of yet more war, we need to reach out to anyone who’s on our side. Even someone like you.”
“Of course I’m on our side! We fight alongside Clearlanders and since the entire Deep Marsh declared war on the entire Wrevon Valley, it’s Foresters and Clearlanders together whether we –”
She shook her head slowly, sadly, and I caught myself. “It’s a rare conflict that only has two faces. You don’t need to worry yourself about it. Not now. You’re not even a firstling, not till you’re accepted. But I’m guessing this isn’t a case where I can send you back home to await confirmation?” I looked down and my shoulders slumped. “Mmm. I’ll speak to our head of accommodation. There’ll be somewhere free tonight and we’ll add it to your fees – which of course need to be paid off by the end of the semester. We can advance you for now, but after Deepfrost, if you want to return to your studies, you’ll have to have payment in hand. Forty long-squares covers a semester for firstlings.” I hid my flinch under my cloak. “I can hand you the enrollment paper, but understand if you do sign it, you’ll owe the Institute that much irrespective of your subsequent fortunes. Our diviners are very good at finding people – trust me, they’ve had ample practice. And in your own time, you’ll perhaps feel more comfortable in a more standard scholarly attire.” The clerk turned sharply on her chair and picked another page from a neat little drawer in the cabinet behind her.
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“Standard attire like a uniform?”
“Oh my, no,” she said as she whirled back around. “Uniforms are control, dearie. They’re the first rung on the ladder of militancy. I just mean something to blend in. Just until you’re ready to stand out.” Her smile returned as the paper ruffled in the air and she handed it across the desk. “Here. Take your time with them. Ask yourself if it’s really what you want, or merely an escape from what you don’t want.”
I snatched at it. The spirits couldn’t drag me back to my fate if I moved quick enough.
*
The halls of the Institute wandered cave-like into the depths of the castle, decked all the way in tired antique splendor like the warren tunnels of some great and ancient dragon from the storybooks. It felt a cobbish thought now but on my odd trip to Baronbridge, the castle had never seemed quite this big from way down in the city. That and the locals shot you scornful looks if you paid any overt attention to it.
Once within the castle walls, life appeared, actually flourished: bustling people carrying books, whole actual collections of books, or cases or files or satchels or bags – some glowing faintly, some humming flatly – clad in the kinds of ornamented, tailored robes that not many could afford in Dreadfall, and if you could, you certainly had enough sense not to wear them in public. Another who must have been a professor of some kind, tailed by students the way chicks did to a hen.
I followed the head of accommodation: a treetrunk of a man who’d taken me from the gatehouse, introduced himself with a name I instantly forgot, and looked me over like I was a lamb at the market. That said, he did have the beard and brow to be a farmer… I did my best to ignore the askance glances at my own appearance, rough clothes and all. I couldn’t blame any of them. I was doing the same.
The main stem of a corridor branched off at intervals around a grand fountain – the sheer audacity of a fountain to reside indoors evidently not brazen enough to keep its waters flowing. A few students stood in its dry basin, pointing across at a chair floating at chest height with a folded paper bird perched on its seat, chattering excitedly, chuckling in unison, and the head of accommodation led me the other way and up a staircase twice as wide and twice as carpeted as it really needed to be. A gold handrail on either side as well. Paintings of people descending the walls who all looked like if they had to pose for one more hour for this blasted portrait, the ensuing event would put their name on the front of tomorrow’s newspaper. Altogether, the whole ostentatious works.
None of the vacant dormitories had a window. A few rooms which did, did still have space for a firstling, but I couldn’t stomach imposing myself on a secondling and thirdling, no matter how nice the man said they all were. He left me to settle into my personal windowless cell, and worked on convincing myself I wasn’t about to make the biggest mistake of my life.
A surprisingly modest chandelier hung in the centre of the room but I couldn’t find a way of lighting the candles. No matches anywhere in here. Not that I’d be tall enough to reach anyway. So at least while there was no one in the halls outside, I left the door open a sliver and finally dropped my kit bag to the floor, dropping myself onto a bed much the same. Since I’d have the choice of three beds, all nestled in their own individual alcove, I picked the one closest to the door so at least I’d have a chance at reading through the papers the clerk had given me. And if I squinted, I could about make out the words. The gaping space at the bottom where my name would go, soon enough. If I was accepted. If I had no other choice to escape my fate, the same fate of all those born in Dreadfall, and pretty much anywhere else in the Sunken Woods. If it was my only chance at survival.
My body recognised the bed under me, and the sleepless week caught me weak and sleepless and slipped me defencelessly into a chokehold. I laid down once my boots were off. No point fighting what you knew you couldn’t beat.
No point fighting…
