Leah wakes up with tears in her eyes, and a sudden strange desire to own a dog.

The initial confusion gone, she sees the hospital room, lit with bright pink sunrise light, casting marvellous shadows along the ceiling and walls.

A few seconds later, the pain hits. She writhes a bit on the cot, then stills and just trembles. Someone nearby stands up and approaches; she hears the footsteps, though she can’t turn to see the source.

The newcomer is John, she finally realises. He stops by the bedside and hands her something to drink. She recognises the taste, but too late – the same willow bark, coca leaf, and maple tea that Wellen once gave her.

He helps her sit up, and talks her through what happened. He confirms what Seffon said; that the militia are still tracking one last member of the enemy force who is hiding in the woods, and that the bodies are being examined for signs of their provenance.

“Not Cheden? For sure?”

“Absolutely syure. Shure.”

“Close ‘nuff.”

John grins, and Leah suddenly worries that she might be spending too much time with the boy.

“Do you know if I’m allowed to stand, or walk?”

“Uhh…” John looks over her shoulder, and Leah turns to look; the same guard as before – or militia member? Militant? What’s the proper term? – Lieutenant, Leah thinks, although the pronunciation was unclear and may in fact have been the woman’s first name. She’s a sturdy build, though some of that might be the armour, and has medium length light brown hair done in a Dutch braid. The woman watches the whole room, but most carefully watches Leah, brown eyes unreadable.

“Can sy uau?” John asks.

“Sy cannau; sy fou ge lai-he’ fethen secons. Sy soudnau by setteng u.” The woman’s accent is stronger than most Olues accents, in Leah’s experience. The last word in particular, pronounced almost as a hiccup, is particularly baffling.

John instructs Leah to remain lying down, and take it easy. He leaves to fetch Seffon. Leah stares around the room until Seffon arrives, using the time to get a better idea of their level of technology and knowledge about medicine.

Clean rags, clear alcohol, and boiled water. The doctor used the candle flame to sterilise the sewing needle. Not bad, all things considered. I’d almost trust them to remove my appendix, if I needed it. No painkillers, though…

Seffon arrives and sits down on the next cot, looking a bit more formal than before. He carries a scroll case. He opens it and unrolls the scroll, and reads:

“Th Lõ of th’Enterlan, Nor’n Jun bi yõ noeng, reques’s an audyens ue th governmen of Valren. Uy reques saf pasaz thru yõ lans fõ an envoy, as bi th lau of ol tims, bi th lau of yõ nason, an bi th laus of morl fo. Uy bẽ yu neus of betrayl an uã, ʁus sors by a muceual enemy teu aữ nasons.”

Leah nods, recognizing the text.

Seffon rolls it back up. “That is the scroll you received? The one you read and translated?” At her confirmation, he nods and stores it away. “We sent out several of these. None of the teams reported success in delivering them, so the one you took was the only one that made it to the keep. The bit about ‘by the laws’ is just standard political posturing, and the inclusion of Volst’s name for the region was a more polite bit of posturing. Personally I hate writing these.” He tosses the scroll case to the side and rests his elbows on his knees.

Leah thinks over the words. “I didn’t ask when I first arrived, because I didn’t want to seem like a spy, but now I’m curious: who is the mutual enemy?”

“Devad,” Seffon explains. “They’re isolated on the far side of the Gulf, with few enough trade options, and a Cheden-Volst alliance would wall them off from all trade. Besides that, their pride is tied up in owning ‘East Devad’ – that’s us – and keeping it from Volst, yet they have never successfully governed it.”

“I assume this has something to do with the infiltrators?” Leah asks.

“The infiltrators carried coins minted in Devad, and the leather they wore was made from Hef-hon cattle – it’s a small brown species suited to forests, and mainly found in Devad. They hid it well, but they were supplied by Devad.”

“So they were pretending to be from Cheden?”

Seffon shrugs. “The steel of their weapons was from Cheden, and two of their archers had composite bows made with ibex horn, from Cheden. Neither of these facts confirms it entirely, but equally, neither Devadiss item is so rare as to confirm their origin. They did a decent job of disguising who sent them. We found their trail, and followed it back towards Devad and coastward. The best scouts of the Hold are still on the trail, reporting back regularly, and they will follow it until it either runs out, reaches Devad’s border, or ends at the water.”

“Would Cheden have any reason to want to harm you, or the Enterlan?”

“Not unless they wished to lay claim to a chunk of the mainland, but now that the marriage has been completed – you were correct, it was yesterday – they have that connection. For that matter, it may have been a gesture of good faith, on the wedding day, to try to assassinate the one who’d caused Valerin such trouble.”

“What trouble exactly?”

“Existing,” Seffon says, with a casual yet bitter shrug.

“No,” Leah says firmly. “What trouble?”

Seffon looks at her, raises an eyebrow, then leans back. “You know that Volst is very anti-magic, and each province enforces that rule more or less as strictly.” Leah confirms. Seffon gestures around. “Do you know what this place is?”

“A hospital?”

“This whole place.”

“The Enterlan?”

“The Enterlan is immense. Our corner of it is unnamed, though sometimes ‘Seffon’s Hold’ gets applied to it. The building itself, Seffonshold, is a school.”

Areiu was right…I should have asked sooner. “You named a school after yourself?”

Seffon stops, looking confused. “It has been around for over sixty years. My grandfather founded it, and I inherited my role from my mother. My wife and I run it now.”

“Wife?”

“It carries the family name.”

“Wife? Wait, family name? Your first name isn’t Seffon?”

“The school,” Seffon says strictly, getting back on track, “Teaches magic use to learned-magic users, and teaches refinement of skills to those born with magic. Our existence so close to the border has always been seen as an aggressive act, but when the school was a small independent entity, we were no threat. I have expanded it; I brought in techniques developed from Cheden’s military magics, and self-discipline techniques from Nent’s cults, and even scansion-spells from Algi. We used to just teach basic control of one’s abilities, some specifics on defence against divination and emergency first-aid, but we have become a proper institution now. We teach almost every branch of magic, as well as their related skills; anatomy, metalworking, horticulture. Magic users know of us, and our quality, and we have standing.”

Leah takes this in. “How many students?”

“This year? Seventeen total.”

“Pfft,” Leah says, without thinking, then quickly blushes. “Sorry, I’m new to this world. Is that comparatively a lot?”

“I understand. It’s not as much as in Bair, but more than all of Cheden’s military colleges combined. Outside of those two nations, magical schools are unheard of. Most learning happens in a mentor-student relationship, and Seffonshold follows that pattern to the best of its ability.”

“So the existence of this school, and how it has expanded lately…that’s the threat? That’s why they hate you?” Leah crosses her arms and frowns in thought. “Whenever I asked people in Valerin, they refused to say, but a school…for people who hate magic, I don’t understand what’s so dangerous about letting your citizens know that a magic school exists.”

Seffon raises an eyebrow. “You were surprised when I told you this was a school, yet you’ve been here about a week. You took quite the tour through the Hold, saw many things – we’re still working on figuring out the security loopholes, by the way.” Leah shrugs, half-apologetic, half-proud. “With what you saw, why didn’t you know from the start that it was a school?”

Leah thinks. “I saw the militia, standing watch and patrolling the hallways.”

“The guards,” Seffon corrects her.

“I’ve said ‘guards’ before and you said they were called militia?”

“We have both, here. They are distinct groups.”

Leah nods. “Okay then. I saw guards. I saw forges, and people carrying weapons from them, and a training area.” She thinks more. “I saw a private study type of area, and a lot of statues and artworks. I saw a sort of barracks place, right before the final tower. None of this really says ‘school’ to me.”

“Seffonshold is our home, and the core of this region. It is a living space, and the protector of the people who live around it and who farm the lands that it owns. We have a duty to them, and that includes administrative matters and cultural matters, but also military matters.”

“Okay, magical Downton Abbey, got it.”

Seffon once again looks at her in desperate confusion.

Leah waves a hand dismissively. “I recognise this sort of political system from my world, I understand what it entails a bit.”

Seffon continues. “The reason the school – and myself by extension – are so hated is that we are becoming large enough and successful enough that people from abroad will sometimes travel to attend the school, or do business. Valerin always knew about us, but both sides carefully avoided contact with each other, to keep tensions down.

“The high point came when Probesc was founded, one generation ago. It split from Valerin, and one of the sons of the Valerid family became the leader. A different son, who had previously attended Seffonshold early on in my mother’s tenure, claimed that as the elder, and as first-enrolled, he ought to be granted the title.”

Leah holds up a hand. “Valerid? Can I get some clarification of family trees?”

“The two arguing parties were the current Lord Valerid’s uncles, on his father’s side.” Seffon says. “The one Volst granted the title to had undeniable claim, in a nation that did not recognise magic as a moral or legal practice, but the contender’s status was never properly settled – they called him a ‘pretender-lord,’ too. He ended up challenging his brother to a duel and cheating – well not cheating, using magic to bolster his strength. The arbitrator noticed, and the brother was executed for magic use. The title stayed with the first brother, one of whose children has recently ascended to her station, but the whole affair gained us an unfavourable reputation in Valerin, and even in Volst. The current Lord Valerid was quite young when all this took place; this was…forty years ago? I was just born.

“Anyway, that’s the story of it. Magic is never discussed publically in Volst, and only sometimes in Valerin, so the duel is not acknowledged. It is an embarrassing part of the family’s history.”

Leah lies back and tries to work this in to her mental image of Valerid. Suddenly, the Lord’s tetchiness makes much more sense. Wow, and they call Devad proud. Why keep this a secret? It must have been some nasty cheating.

She rolls over to face Seffon. “So, if they’re so anti-magic, why is someone from Cheden marrying a Valerin noble’s son – married to, rather?”

“Because of Devad. Despite the fact that the last cleric or constable to pass our way was over a decade ago, they still consider us to be their citizens, and any insult to our students is an insult to them. Volst has been rankling over our seizure for three centuries, and Devad feels they are not respecting the terms of the treaty that ended the war, by so snubbing one of its provinces.”

“Is Devad a threat to Volst, realistically speaking? What are their strengths?”

“Mostly, Volst is a threat to Devad, but if war is declared and Devad sends an army bolstered by magic users, they would at least be able to overrun Valerin, possibly even Probesc and pieces of Volst. They wouldn’t be able to administrate, as we’ve seen,” Here a certain tone, “But without magical defences, Valerin would collapse.”

Leah props her head up on a hand, feet tapping restlessly. “But if they’re so anti-magic, then even allying with Cheden won’t mean they start using magical defences.”

“They don’t need to. If Cheden and Valerin are allied, Cheden will have a reason to go to war with Devad.”

“Oh! Oh!” Leah’s eyes widen, and she snaps her fingers a few times. Seffon looks eager to see if she’s connected the dots. “Cheden can freely use magic against Devad, and since their magic is mostly militarised they’ll have the edge there. They want to have a foothold on the mainland, so beating Devad and claiming a piece of their territory would give them that. Regular aquatic Cheden-Valerin trade would create a sort of informal blockade of ships, cutting Devad off from supplies, basically an economic siege – an embargo. They could do it, and not even have to announce it, just have it be incidental to their new alliance.” Leah thinks hard. “And the infiltrators…it would make sense for Cheden to pre-emptively start testing Devad’s defences. Maybe they even have, but not necessarily here…no. We are the best target for Cheden’s war, here, because they’d want to be close by their allies on land, and since Devad insists on the Enterlan being theirs it’s just as much throwing the gauntlet in their face to attack here as to attack their capital. And since your family started this whole thing by letting a Valerid attend the school, Devad could step in early and kill you to get rid of that trouble, all while pinning it on Cheden.”

Seffon grins. “Kill the pretender-lord, re-establish Devadiss rule.”

Leah laughs. “Look at you, smiling like an idiot at your own assassination attempt.”

Seffon laughs openly.

“But no…Devad probably expects you to die in the coming war anyway, so why kill you beforehand and stage it, if you could die legitimately later on? Cheden would do all the dirty work…unless they only expect the war to start much later on, and they don’t want to give you time to prepare or plan. How dangerous are you?” She asks it sincerely. Seffon grins, but also seems to be treating that question as less than a joke. “No…no, something’s still missing. Why would Cheden want you dead…or, why would Cheden want you to think that Devad wanted you dead? Wait. Does Volst covet the Enterlan as much as Devad does?” Seffon gives an ambiguous nod-shrug. “If Cheden wanted to deliver Jun province back to Volst…or maybe put one of their own in charge, under Volst…how proud are they? Devad is proud, but Cheden doesn’t strike me as such…” Leah at this point is leaning on her side, excitedly tapping a foot and tracing ideas in the air with her good hand. Seffon is watching with glee.

“Sy souldnau by da azetay’,” the lieutenant says strictly, coming over to settle her down.

“Sy’s brliyn,” Seffon says in deep respect. “Brilliant. You are so different from Leah Talesh.”

Leah simmers down at that, frowning. “I still think people underestimated her…you can’t be a good tactical fighter if you’re bad at memorizing plans or learning new techniques. That diary…I keep feeling that she was on to something, and wrote in intentionally misleading short statements to keep her ideas hidden. Olives…”

“Olives?” Seffon prompts.

Leah shakes her head. “I can’t say more, I’ve forgotten most of it. It probably doesn’t matter; she can’t have gotten more important information than what we’ve got here with those infiltrators.”

Seffon is still smiling.

“What?”

“That’s not the first time you’ve referred to the people here as ‘we.’”

Leah considers, then shrugs. “Well, if I’m going to be taking hits for you, I might as well accept my new posting. Hey, any spots opening in the school soon? That ice spell, that was awesome.”

Seffon’s face falls. “It’s not one of the branches we teach here.” He offers no more.

“Oh.” Leah waits, then accepts that that’s all. “Something small, then.”

Seffon relaxes. “When you’re better.” He gives her a reassuring pat on the shoulder and leaves her in the care of the guards.

*

The guard changes, and John leaves to take his lunch. Leah asks him to bring her a book, something in Volsti, about war. He understands this as a logical sequitur, and promises to do so, returning even before going to eat with a thick volume for her to flip through.

She lays on her side to read it. It is written recently, and has recent biases, Leah notices. Perfect.

She reads for a couple hours before eventually her shoulder and neck get sore, and all she has learned is that there was indeed a treaty to end the Volst-Devad war, three hundred years ago. Called the Treaty of Cayta, it drew the new border between the two countries – the book does not note where the border was previously. Leah also notes something in the margin about an “atonement price,” and then a number of casualties. Looking into it further, shifting uncomfortably on the cot the whole time to keep the book at a readable distance, she finds that the atonement price refers to a sum paid by the winning side, or whichever side successfully cowed their opponent; they pay for the lives lost in the fight, and the money must be used by the losing government to pay pensions to the soldiers’ widows and widowers.

Wait, what was that thing about Devad and divorces…?

Looking again at the footnote, she realises that Devad’s law about spouses fulfilling each other’s military duties, or else divorcing, means that if Devad ever loses a war, the atonement price will be received by the government, but very few widowed spouses would be left to receive it, leaving it in the hands of the government. Oh the sneaky buggers. I wonder if that was intentional on their part, or just a lucky side-effect of the law.

In the case of the Jun War, Devad refused to pay, until it was rephrased as a payment for the land claimed. Devad was able to win the land, pay their atonement, and keep their pride. Volst was able to support their parentless families. An unfortunate side-effect is that Volst also never truly considered the lands fairly won in battle, because they were technically bought. Meanwhile, Devad is satisfied that the lands belong to them twice over, and are deeply offended at any implication that their claim is illegitimate.

Leah finally sets the book down and rests, a deep pain in her neck. The guard changes for the evening, and a new face arrives, carrying her supper. The woman sits cross-legged on the ground, tugging at her brown leather pants to keep them from pinching, then helps Leah sit up and eat.

This time, supper is a bit more hearty – to aid recovery, Leah supposes. Watercress, enoki, parsley, tarragon, vinegar-oil dressing, almonds, and a bit of extra meat. Leah makes the connection while eating, and realises that the beautiful birds in the garden are probably the source of the meat. She feels a little bad about it, but not enough to stop eating.

The woman keeps up a steady, light stream of one-sided conversation in Olues the whole meal, friendly but not expecting an answer, helping Leah hold her plate and eat one-handed. Leah feels deeply grateful, and hopes that this is indicative of a general shift in opinion towards her.

*

The doctor returns the next morning, alongside someone who is apparently one of the students. They putter over a book for a while, then head to a cabinet along the far wall and take out a length of sinew and splinters of wood, bringing them to Leah’s side.

This jogs something in Leah’s memory, of the spell Wellen used. She allows them to go forward with it, watching curiously to see if she remembers more, or if their version has any changes. They pierce the splinters in, weave a pattern around them, and then with a twitch of her hand the doctor calls a spark from the fireplace to light the sinew. It burns, then soothes, and Leah suddenly is aware of just how much pain she has been in.

“Ƃau does tha fyl?” the doctor asks, seemingly unaware that she is not speaking Leah’s language.

Well, to be fair, I understood that one. “Good. It feels better.”

The student continues reading instructions from the book, looking between it and Leah’s arm, apparently observing the process rather than undertaking it herself. Good. I don’t want a med student fixing me up. I’ll take the professional for this, thanks. As Leah thinks this, the doctor reaches for a pitcher of water, pulling some of the contents up with a twist of her hands, and extinguishes the sinew.

Immediately the pain triples, and Leah hisses in a breath.

The doctor continues the hand motion, and Leah swears she can feel things moving around under her skin. She gets one brief memory of blood-bending, but before she can fear the consequences it’s over.

Over. The arm does not hurt.

“Th fles has ryconne’.” The doctor turns the limb over as she says this, poking and prodding. “Legamens fex’, veins, fa, aull fex’. Jus sken lef teu hyl. Cou yu descri ʁau e fel?”

Leah stares at her with wide eyes, trying to wordlessly convey that she does not speak the language. The doctor stares back.

“Could I describe…how it felt?”

The doctor nods.

“It felt soothing, then you poured water on it and it hurt, and I mean hurt, and then it felt completely normal.” The doctor does not seem guilted by this. However, Leah notices, she seems to be understanding it all. “Do you speak Volsti?” Leah finally asks, and the doctor shakes her head.

“I can understan e, b cannau spy e.”

“Huh.”

The doctor leaves before Leah can ask more, and she resolves to focus more on learning Olues – this strange woman fascinates her, and as much as the political situation is pressing, Leah cannot suppress a sort of glee at all the strange discoveries of this world.

The student applies an ointment to the tiny scar left by the wound, and binds it lightly with clean cloth. After checking that the scratch on her rib is still clean and replacing those bandages, the student then gestures to the door with a smile.

“Yu ã recovẽ’.”

Leah hesitates and stands only slowly, unsure. The student fetches her a top of clean linen, much looser than the suedes and leather from before.

“I uh…I don’t know where my new room is.” Seeing the student’s blank but attentive face, she tests her ability. “I donnau know uer…uẽ…uhh, my room. Room? Uẽ e es. Rooooom.” She draws a square parallel to the floor as she says ‘room,’ and that seems to get the point across.

The student leads her down hallways, more public than those Leah has been led through so far. Off-duty guards-militia and a handful of teenagers and children pass them as the student leads her to a new room.

Across from the door is a painting of an immense humanoid with stone skin, pouring greenery from her hands over a cliff-side. The framing is different from the usual religious paintings Leah knows, but the subject matter feels religious in a way.

Within, the room is the same snug size as before, containing a single bed with posters but no canopy, a low wooden dresser, a mirror, and a narrow window of pebbled glass, letting in light but allowing no visuals. The floors and ceiling are bare wood, but a pattern-less woven wool tapestry hanging against the exterior wall provides some sound deadening – and presumably insulation, in winter.

Leah settles in, putting the book and her sliced leather shirt on the dresser and examining the drawers, finding her things already transferred over. The student returns shortly and gestures for her to follow.

Leah then has the uncomfortable experience of being led into the mess hall, located on the ground floor looking out on the courtyard – the door she had initially thought was to a barracks or some similar building. The tables are basic planks of wood over triangular supports, narrow and with barely enough room for the plates on them.

Many heads turn to stare at her, but the general atmosphere seems distracted. Leah picks up the words “Cheden” and “Devad” and “spi,” which she assumes means spy, but none are directed at her, she thinks.

They wait in a line to receive their plates of breakfast from a pair of servants, and the student sits with her to eat. The food is the same as Leah had been eating all along, only this time she eats it in a crowded noisy room of people who have probably tried to kill her before – and she them, in another life. She eats quickly and says a short goodbye to the student who brought her down. The student waves goodbye, not rushing to finish her own plate, then points to what appears to be a cleaning station where Leah sees other people dropping off their dirty dishes.

Leah realises she is allowed to just walk in, eat, and leave, despite who she is. The freedom makes her sweat a little, and she immediately returns to her rooms for privacy and the chance to come to terms with her new normal.