Chapter 74 – Break

Three cycles later, Mirian woke to Lily shaking her. “Mirian. Mirian! Don’t you have class or something?”

Groggily, Mirian opened her eyes.

“What is… what just hit me? Is that water? Wait, is that a hole in the ceiling?”

Mirian closed her eyes again. She could hear Jei scolding her about pushing herself too hard. Whether or not she wanted to overcome her exhaustion, it seemed her body had other ideas. If the water hadn’t been splashing her on the face, she might have closed her eyes again. “Made to the 3rd of Duala,” she muttered. “Just one more day….”

Lily made a face. “What are you talking about? Also, how late did you stay up studying last night? You look terrible.”

By then, Mirian had already missed her window of opportunity to catch the first spy in her usual spot. No doubt, she could chase him down or storm the headquarters or do something to get the cycle on track, but the very idea of it just made her want to close her eyes again. “I’m skipping Alchemistry. Just gonna sleep for a bit longer. Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll ace it.”

Lily said, “Who are you and what have you done with Mirian? Last night you were convinced you were going to fail.”

Last night. ‘Last night’ had been two years ago now. She’d been fighting the Battle of Torrviol for a year. It seemed like a lifetime ago. The magnitude of it all felt like it had its own gravity, like the shadow she was tethered to was made of iron and to even get up she’d have to drag that weight around. She closed her eyes and saw the statue of the Ominian looming over her.

You understand, she thought. She remembered the words of the Prophets she’d studied with Priest Krier. Your sacrifice was out of love.

Love. She thought of the word as she looked at the black ooze calcified around the statue’s empty wounds. It had been nearly three years since she’d seen her family. Nearly three years since Zayd had run up to her and hug-tackled her legs and screamed “Mi-Ri!” By now, she should have started that cozy artifice shop in Madinahr like she’d planned, where she’d only be a two days walk from home.

Home, she thought. She hadn’t seen her village either. Their apartment wasn’t much, but she missed it.

Mirian drifted back to sleep, ignoring Lily as she puttered about and talked at her. When she woke up, Lily was gone, though she’d set an alarm candle to go off soon. Mirian took the nails out of it and blew it out. She knew what she was going to do. She could take a break for one cycle.

She was going to visit her family. She was going home to Arriroba.

Mirian changed into the single outfit she’d brought that wasn’t an Academy uniform, though she only had the one cloak. Then she left a note for Lily telling her not to worry and that she’d worked everything out with the Academy, took out a loan at the bank so she’d be set for money, and then set off.

Some sort of issue with the primary spell engine delayed the train, so it was late in the evening when she arrived in Cairnmouth. She took lodging at one of the inns. The bed was clean and the shelves dusted, but the walls inside were thin. She could hear the people in the room next to her having a muffled argument, while the people above her were possibly preparing for a floor-stomping competition and had decided to get in some last-minute practice. Mirian slept poorly. The breakfast made up for some of it. Whatever butcher they’d gotten the sausages from knew a thing or two about flavors, and it complimented the sauteed apples and toast perfectly.

In the morning, Cairnmouth was claustrophobic as always, with too many people packed between the equally tight buildings. It was nice to see the colorful outfits people wore, rather than the elegant but ultimately drab colors that resulted from the Academy’s dress code. It was not nice that they all seemed to be in a hurry and had no compunction simply bumping into her. This was not Mirian’s first time in a city, so she kept her hand firmly on her bag so that pickpockets wouldn’t try to get adventurous with it.

She coughed up the silver she needed for a room on one of the sleeper cars, and took the next train to Alkazaria.

The room was quite small, but it had a nice plush carpet, and it was nice to take her boots off and wiggle her toes in it. She stuffed her bag in the closet, then sat on the bed. The sheets smelled freshly laundered, and there was a little desk she could pull out so she could write while sitting on the mattress.

Mirian hadn’t brought any of the books she’d been studying with her. Instead, she pulled out some drawing paper and her pen set and went about sketching pictures for Zayd. There was already a drawing and a letter in the mail, but Mirian would no doubt beat it to Arriroba. Zayd always loved the drawings she made for him. One time he’d gotten so excited he’d torn off a piece and eaten it—though to be fair, he had been three at the time. These days, he would turn the drawing over and use a charcoal stick to scribble spirals and lines all over the back of the drawing to add his own contribution. Mirian would always hold it up and praise his masterworks.

Gods I miss him, she thought. And her mom and dad, too. In the dry summers of southeast Baracuel, they’d bring a pack of ingredients and cookware to make spiced lamb tagine, hiking up to the overlook grove, where hardy trees and cliffs sheltered a view of the south. As the stew cooked, they’d read books together while a cool breeze passed by (or in Zayd’s case, play with the children of the other families who joined them there). On clear days, they could see the ocean, and if it was really clear, they could just make out some of the mountains across the East Sound that separated Baracuel and Persama.

There wasn’t much to do on the train, which had been her intent. She knew she needed to force herself to relax. She spent the hours reminiscing about home, drawing, and just getting lost gazing out the window. It was nice. Gradually, the landscape went from forests to fields to finally foothills as they passed north of the Casnevar Range. Once they crossed the Cairn River, the foothills faded into the scrublands, and it started to remind her again of home. She liked the vast stretches of shallow hills and the subtle mixes of oranges, browns, and yellows that were painted in the stones and shrubs. Something about the steady motion of the train and the low rumbling of the wheels lulled her to sleep easily.

The second day of traveling, her guilt kicked in and she felt she was wasting time. After wandering back and forth between the train cars and impulsively buying a full meal from the diner, Mirian went back to her unit and pulled out her spellbook. First, she kept it closed, going through Jei’s forty exercises twice. Then she perused through her spellbook and remembered how useless the damn thing was before she started scribing useful spells in it.

Her mind wandered as she contemplated magic, and she found herself wondering if certain glyph combinations might lead to viable spells. Likely, someone had tried them, and maybe they’d failed, but she no longer had libraries or professors to check with. She’d spent a great deal of time scribing spells formulaically, and found the idea of scribing creatively a fun way to pass the time.

And if she accidentally incinerated her spellbook, so what? It would be good as new soon enough.

Sixthday, she arrived in Alkazaria as evening was approaching.

Alkazaria was a port on the East Sound, and also sat astride the mouth of the Ibaihan River. It was dominated by dozens of thin white spires that rose high above everything else. It was another of the ancient cities, so it was encircled by a massive sandstone wall that stretched for miles around the city. Once clustered only inside the great walls, the flat-roofed buildings common to the region now spread well outside the wall, dispersing into surrounding farms. Even from a distance, Mirian could see the city center, where great temples and the Alkazaria Citadel clustered across the central hill.

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Alkazaria was also called the ‘City of Temples,’ and for good reason. Hundreds of temples dotted the city, and the people took great pride in them. Each of the white spires represented a destination for holy pilgrims, where they might visit sanctums dedicated to both the Gods and Prophets.

The train passed right by the First Spire. Below that thin marble tower was a shrine to Altrukyst, welcoming travelers into the city. Unlike western Baracuel, where the statues were drab, the statues of the Gods here were clothed in bright raiment, and equally colorful ceramic tiles decorated the walls by landmarks like the statue. Only the train station seemed out of place, the wrought iron columns and glass ceiling feeling far too modern to quite fit in a city brimming with more traditional forms of art and architecture.

The city was far more open than any of the west Baracuel cities, with broad avenues lined with strip-gardens of cacti and succulents that thrived in the arid environment. The shops along the roads had sliding screen walls on the front that opened up in the day, and they were all mixed together with the carts that unfolded into their own open-air shops. Crowds casually strolled throughout the city, and the relaxed atmosphere made the city far more welcoming than the packed streets, narrow doors, and iron-grated windows of Cairnmouth.