“Arlet, you need to get ready, or you’ll be late,” Feli calls from behind one of the stone desks.She’s the tall, lithe enduar woman with dark blue hair who has been helping me establish the school.
“Maestra Feli, you are distracting the children!” I tut.
She makes a clicking sound with her purple tongue, shakes her head, and goes back to organizing charcoal writing rods on the other side of the large classroom. The space is filled with stone desks, spell lights, and drawings of fungi, historical figures, and common words in both the enduar and human tongues.
I take a deep breath, and go back to reading a scroll on the second dynasty of the troll bronze age. The spot between my shoulder blades itches as my mind wanders to review the mental list of things I have to get done before leaving.
Add two scrolls to my reading roster, check.
Help Feli correct the sentences the first years wrote, half check.
Visit Fira in the weaving cavern to help her with a banner for the Mating Journey, not check.
I let out a soft groan into my hands. I have too muchto do.
My ascension ceremony is tonight, and I am actively trying to ignore it. After a year of dedicated service in the face of rapid population growth, Queen Estela and King Teo had chosen me to receive an official title in their court.
Not for weaving, as Fira still held that title, but for teaching. I’m meant to oversee the development of a project I’d taken to calling The Lorepath—or a structured system for teaching a robust mix of culture, basic skills, language, and practical knowledge between the humans and enduares.
The project is exciting. The work is agonizingly frustrating at times, and brilliantly fulfilling at others. But did I feel that I had earned a title for simply doing what was necessary?Eh.
There is to be another festival in a few days anyway, the Mating Journey—which would help even more couples find their other half. We’d all been working on that, in between the tempest of every day life.
Wasn’t enoughenough? Why did we need to do this for me?
Around me, the children scoop up fingerfuls of glittering paint, smearing it over their canvases in a chaotic, joyful mess. The sight makes my heart swell with pride. Enough that I drop my scroll yet again, letting it fall into the chaos of my already overburdened desk, and brace my forearms against the stone.
The last year of my life has felt like a decade. First, I arrived in this city and threw myself into the complicated task of assimilating into a new culture just as war broke out between the enduares and giants. I took up a position as a weaver, and spent three months making enough fabric to cover the ruins of Zlosa, the old giant capital.
And then, nearly six months later, after two devastating battles, the Giant Kingdom fell, and thousands of humans were finally free. Most of them chose to relocate here, under the mountain, rather than have to build up a new life from nothing.
It was pure chaos for a while, but we have managed well.
Through it all, I clung to my work and let it provide order in a time of turmoil. I split my time between weaving and teaching. Each day, that decision is put to the test.
But it is better to be busy than in pain.
Especially because the outside world remains a dangerous place. One foe defeated tended to make three more rear their ugly heads, and most of our days are spent preparing for an inevitable conflict with the elves.
But war belongs to the soldiers. To the sovereigns. I belong here, either in the schoolhouse halls and behind my loom, shaping beauty where I am needed. I’d only accepted Teo and Estela’s request because they assured me that my new position on the council would not suddenly make me a cog in a political machine.
My dreams of the humans changing the world would not only come because of bloodshed. I needed to speak a new language, one learned in peace, if my work was going to have the impact I hoped for.
And my one harrowing night with the elf king had shown me that my favorite place to be was not squabbling with foreign officials, but among friends, and with children. They need me as much as I need them.
“Maestra Arlet,” one of the girls calls up to me.
I crouch beside her desk. “Yes,mi amor?”
She beams. “My mamá said there’s going to be a party for you tonight. Is that true?”
Feli calls out from the back. “That’s right, Sarita! And Arlet should leave soon to get ready.”
I glance at Feli and correct her. “Soon.”
“Now!” the head teacher insists with a laugh.“Ilkari!”she calls, using the enduar word for children. “Help me encourage Maestra Arlet!”
She starts tapping a beat against the desk, and the others eagerly join in. I smile at her simple song. She works with the crystal singers when she isn’t here, teaching reading, writing, and numbers.