Taking a few steadying breaths in front of the door, Ranvir looked up at the sky. “Please Goddess, don’t let this be bad.” He took a moment to sink his gaze on the Goddess’ third eye. Vejka rode low in the sky, curving just barely over the horizon, while the sun blazed almost directly above him.

With a final deep breath, and a jittery yellow feeling in his stomach, he pushed the door open. He faced a hallway with an open doorway to his right and a closed door on his left. Tentatively, he stepped into the open room. Behind a desk, that cut off a third of the space sat a man a couple years older than Ranvir.

He wracked his brain, trying to remember the name Pashar had given him, but couldn’t.

“Hi.” Ranvir finally spoke up. “I’m Ranvir. I’m supposed to meet with Pashar today.”

The man looked up briefly, before cleaning the quill and stoppering the ink, carefully.

“Hello.” He stood up, leaning over the table offering Ranvir his hand. “Himir. You're Miss Pashar’s meeting?”

Ranvir nodded again, shaking his hand. They were surprisingly soft, not the calloused hands he expected from someone at the academy, but then again not everyone could be tethered soldiers.

“I’ll go get her. It might take a little while.” He stepped around his chair, heading for a door behind his desk, before turning back to his guest. “Please take a seat.”

Ranvir nodded, looking around at all the chairs. There was no upholstery, but none of them were made of rough wood either, all of them looked stable and strong. He picked one at random, sitting down. Immediately, his leg started bouncing. He leaned forwards causing the movement to shake his entire body, feeling the necklace bob underneath his shirt.

When Pashar entered the reception, followed closely by Himir, Ranvir was already on his feet pacing the room.

“Please relax student.” Her deep voice was slow and calming. Ranvir made an effort to slow down, take in a deep breath. “You’re not in trouble, as such.”

As such? His breath hitched, as red alarm blared through him.

“If you will follow me, then I will explain.” Pashar said, as Himir dodged around her and returned to his seat behind the desk. She strode through the open doorway, turning the corner and heading deeper into the building.

Ranvir lurched forwards, catching up to her quickly.

“During the active periods of the trimesters, there are a lot of students at the academy, Ranvir.” Pashar began. She had a brisk pace and didn’t slow down enough for him to try to memorize their route, through the building.

“At our most busy there lives almost ten-thousand students at the academy.” Ranvir stumbled, catching himself on one of the weird metal torches. He hadn’t seen one lit up, but they sat where torches would normally be, so he could only assume.

“Please try not get hurt, before the trimester begins.” Pashar remarked, though the slight smile on her lips took the edge off. “Like I was saying, we have many, many students at our academy.

“The vast majority of those are either obsidian or ice tethered, with light coming in as third.” She pushed open the door at the end of their current hallway. “Miss Kirs, good day.”

Ranvir didn’t look to follow her motion, his attention having been caught by the huge library they’d just entered. “Kirs, this is Ranvir, one of the first year students. Ranvir, this is Kirs one of our newer librarians and scholars.”

He blinked, turning his attention to the girl sitting behind the desk. He nodded briefly to her, before returning to staring at the books on display. The library was stocked wall-to-wall with bookcases, each of them filled to the brim.

“After the recent refining of the starjute process, we’ve managed to greatly increase the size of our library, even offering multiple copies of the same books, so students don’t have to fight over them.” Something in Pashar’s voice made Ranvir turn his attention to her.

“It’s impressive. Incredibly impressive.”

Pashar simply nodded.

“After light, we have a distant smoke, then warp coming at almost exactly the same amount of tethered each year, with only a few classes.” They walked down hallway between shelves, where they joined a much larger walkway. One end led to a much larger set of doors, which had also been opened, and the other end led to bookcases.

“This is where you will find all the books the academy has on tethered.” Pashar said, pointing all the way to the doors, where another desk and librarian sat. They shared a simple nod, before she continued. “There you’ll find all the obsidian books, then ice, light.” She let her finger travel across the bookcases, until she stopped at the ones next to them. “smoke.” She started walking further into the library, towards the end of the walkway. “warp.” Ranvir noticed trim lines on the shelves changing color, going from a gray to white.

They only walked through a few more shelves, before she stopped. The trim had switched from white to purple. “Finally, we have space.” She tapped the bookshelf next to her. The purple ones only ran three deep.

“Now we get to the part important to you.” Pashar said. “Training manipulation and generation has some overlap, but there’s an equal, if not larger, area where it doesn’t.”

She walked all the way to the last purple row. “In general we tend to see more generators than manipulators, but space takes that ratio and stretches it.”

She walked down one of the leftmost aisle. Ranvir noted how sparsely populated it was. While there were enough books to fill up most of the shelves, there was one particularly barren one. The one she stopped in front of.

“Space manipulation.” She said, tapping the two words that had been etched into the wood. “We don’t get a lot of you, unfortunately.”

“When you say that, do you mean there’ll only be a few kids in my class? That’s good right, more time with the teacher, no?”

Pashar smiled at him, but it wasn’t comforting in the least. “There won’t be a lot of students in your class, no. In fact, there’s only going to be one.” Ranvir didn’t know how to feel. On the one hand, he would basically be getting personal lessons with the teacher. Which was great, on the other hand it could generate a lot of frustration towards him, something he very much wanted to avoid.

“So how will classes work, if I’m the only one?” He asked tentatively, not daring to hope.

“Since you’re the only manipulator of your element, you will likely just be thrown in with whatever teacher you think fits you best.”

Electric blue white shock ran through Ranvir, he wouldn’t be getting a teacher? At all.

“But-“

“If we could find you a spatial manipulator, we would.” Pashar said. “But you’re likely the only one with any measure of talent in all of Elusria. If the statistics hold up, there won’t be another until at least fifteen years after your death. If you live to die at the age of eighty, that is.”

“So we’re- I’m not just rare, I’m unique?”

“Yeah.” Pashar let out an annoyed breath. “I hate to say this, but it might serve you better to join employ of a noble family. They won’t be able to teach you any better than the academy, but you’ll live in luxury.”

Ranvir frowned. “Why?”

“You’re a once in a lifetime tethered. Any noble house would pay outrageous sums to own you.”

“Own me?”

“There’s a lot detail to it. Suffice it to say, they will probably pay generational wealth, to have sole rights to your ‘services’. Such as they might be.”

Ranvir scrunched up his face. “Maybe not.”

Pashar seemed to relax a little. “At least you’re not docile.”

“What’s the fastest a space manipulator has mastered their ability?” A lot about tethered wasn’t common knowledge, but the Masters of the Royal Academy and School, were well-known if not in name, then in status. An idea was starting to percolate in Ranvir’s mind, little sparks of white light on a black background, shimmering with excitement.

“It hasn’t been done in recorded history.”

Ranvir nodded seriously. “Who got the closest, then?” He was wholly unable to stop the growing light-show inside himself, as he stepped closer to the shelf of manipulator books.

“That would be Figir.” Pashar said, pulling out two books, from the small row. “She wrote two books on the subject, some forty years ago.”

“I’ll take those then.” Ranvir replied, grabbing the books. He paused for a moment. He’d never been to a library, but the mayor had a few books and she never let them leave her house, no matter who asked. “Can I take them?”

“It’s fine, we have the originals and copies of them at the Royal School.” Pashar waved a hand off. “But only because you’re the only one who’s gonna use them.”

Ranvir nodded in thanks. “I’ll go study, then.” He still hadn’t heard the bell ring for the thirteenth hour, so he should have plenty of time to get some reading done.

“I’ll follow you out.” Pashar said. She led him back the way they’d come instead of through the big entrance at what he thought must be the front of the library. “So have you made any progress on your uniforms?” Pashar asked casually.

Ranvir frowned, he’d left them at the bottom of the drawer he’d been given. He’d seen how they’d fit the other students, but he hadn’t figured the trick out yet.

“Not much.” He decided to be honest, instead of trying to sneak around the subject.

She was silent for a long time, before speaking up. “I’ll give you a hint. It’s related to a hollow room in your chest.” She stopped moving, and Ranvir realized, they’d reached the doorway to the reception. “I’ll leave you to it.” Then she walked off, into one of the rooms. Ranvir distinctly heard the low chatter of multiple people, but didn’t catch more than a glimpse of any one of them.

He touched his chest, feeling the rings underneath his shirt. His thoughts went back to the smoke students. They’d stopped to rest, then touched their chest.

He briefly tried to see if he could sense anything, before giving up and turning towards the dorms. He had some reading to catch up on.

Making his way through the dorm was a nightmare. There were a few other students, but they weren’t the problem. In fact, most of them were just as lost as he was. Finally he opened the right door, proven so by Sansir and Esmund sitting on one of the couches.

Sansir was messing with a chessboard and Esmund was sitting in his uniform periodically touching his chest, while trying to look comfortable in the way too tight clothes. Sansir was wearing his too, Ranvir realized, he was just far better at seeming casual than Esmund was.

“How did it go?” Esmund asked, sitting up a little straight, pulling the uniform tight in a way that looked distinctly uncomfortable around the neck.

“Pretty good, I got these books.” Ranvir replied, showing the two books written by Figir.

“Oh…” Esmund replied, instantly bored falling back into the upholstered seat of the couch.

Ranvir headed for their shared sleeping quarters. He studied better when he was alone.

Picking between the books, Ranvir decided on ‘Primer for Spatial Manipulators - by Figir’. He was a little surprised to see her name in the title. It was also on the spine, and on the back.

“At least, I’ll know who wrote it.” He muttered, cracking it open.