Eagles and Swans

Preface 02: Learning Hate

It was first said by Maril Ocama at the Opening of Gates that flight was the one true expression of Ihir's benevolence. It was from the blood of the Father of Freedom that all birds had taken form; their songs and cries were their exultations.

To the people who had made His nests their home, he gave the Threads, on which His kingdom hung, so that they too may fly as He did. He asked nothing but love in return, though love, in the eyes of all the gods, is synonymous to obligation.

The Threads lifted the people out of drudgery in mud and stone, turning labour and toil into a distant memory. But these Threads shifted in the wind, sturdy on some days and frail on others, and when they snapped, they flung people to their deaths.

The people grew certain the power of the Threads ebbed and flowed with their devotion and servitude, and that death by fall was merely punishment for wavering. So they loved Ihir ever deeper, for He had raised them from the mud, and flight was His to give and take.

They constructed monuments to His name, vast floating chambers where the Threads hummed with power, where one could walk without touching the ground and ornaments could be suspended in the air, gifts to their god. They knelt three hours a day beneath the sky with their eyes cast upward, crying out for His blessing, and they scrubbed grime from the granite once every three days. Those who failed their duties were cast out to walk in the mud, and if ever they were seen flying, they were castigated, or stones were thrown at them.

Years became centuries, and routines became traditions. Traditions were inherited without the knowledge of why they were performed. As the buildings lost their foundations, so did their rituals, and there came doubt. Some lived without prayer. Some sang the praises of other deities instead.

The people remembered that this was sin, though they had begun to forget why, and they cast the doubters out onto the mud, as they always had. The sky continued to be theirs, and they thanked Ihir for it every day.

---

Light glowed through arches of the Central Circle School. The wind could not diffuse the heat, upon which the first scent of plum blossoms floated. The sun set the desks aflame, long shadows falling at their feet.

Ruthenia didn’t hate Mondays the way her classmates did. Today the class sat perfectly still, Ms. Kelde in her shimmering gown appearing as if she might spring like a snake at the slightest provocation. Ruthenia herself was more absorbed in erasing her notebook doodles than in anything she had to say on the subject of Etiquette (or, Pretending To Be An Arcane For Your Personal Benefit).

The classroom still stood divided cleanly down the middle, the Arcane on the left and the ordinary on the right. She intermittently watched her classmates—Vesta shaking herself awake every few minutes, Dariano struggling to keep his back as straight as Ms. Kelde would have liked, and Orrem clenching his fists under his desk, as if he would punch the teacher if that wouldn’t immediately land him an expulsion and ruin his racing career. On the left, His Highness watched the etiquette tutor with his back straight and gaze level from years of practice.

The moment the clock-tower began to chime and Ms. Kelde left the room with a clicking of heels, it was as if a cork had been loosened, and everyone spilled over with suppressed conversation. Ruthenia sprawled herself out on her tabletop, yawning as she stretched. She glared down at Tanio’s beef patty before stuffing it all in her mouth.

Mr. Caldero shuffled in as the three-thirty bell chimed to mark the end of the break. He straightened his coat. “Assignments?” he announced, rapping the board with his knuckles. The air grew thick with rustles as everyone else began pulling ruled sheets of finished essays from their bags. Ruthenia found her own, shrugged, and passed it down the row, along with everyone else’s.

“Good essay,” said Alacero as it entered his hands, and she heard many successive bouts of giggling as the piece of paper made its way down. 

Mr. Caldero riffled through his own copy of The Legend of Helika Laceld while the essay pile grew on his table. He gave the class a minute to finish, before finally picking up a stick of chalk and writing three words on the board: “Chapter Seven symbolism”.

That was exactly what he spent the next twenty minutes describing in grotesque detail. Amid his ramble about butterflies and mayflies, Ruthenia laid her head on her arms and closed her eyes, drifts of his monologue skimming her consciousness every now and then.

“Psst, this could be useful,” whispered Calan from her right.

“Literature isn't useful.” She let her head drop back to the table.

“Now,” concluded the man, beginning to scrub text from the blackboard, “I would like each of you to spend the next ten minutes writing a paragraph about the use of symbolism in this chapter.”

The scribbling of pencils swept all conversation away. Ruthenia sighed, then picked up her own pencil and a scrap of paper. She stared at her sheet, shrugged and began writing.

Ten minutes elapsed. Caldero gestured for them to stop, and there was a clatter of numerous pencils meeting desks.

The professor’s eyes crossed the classroom, pausing on each member of the notorious middle row in turn, until they came upon Ruthenia herself.

“Miss Cendina,” he said. “Would you read your answer to the class?”

Ruthenia glanced down at her sheet, then back at the teacher. “Me?” she said, pointing at herself.

“I am sure we can all learn from your answer, whatever it be.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sure. ‘Insects are mentioned.’”

Mr Caldero raised a wrinkled hand. “Do not state the obvious,” he said, and was answered with laughter. “Carry on.”

“That’s all I have.”

“That’s all you have? ‘Insects are mentioned’? That is not an analysis.”

“Sorry, I wish I cared about some insects in some story.”

The Literature teacher heaved a sigh. “Sit.” He turned, then, to the left side of the classroom. “Mister Luzerno, could you give us a critique of Miss Cendina’s response?”

“I do not know where to begin,” he replied. A gust of giggling crossed the room, and smirks were fired at her. “Her answer lacks depth and substance completely. I'm surprised she got as far as spelling the words right.”

As laughter swept the left side of the room, Ruthenia felt her face blaze. She only barely hung onto the expletives on her tongue, and fumed silently at her desk instead.

Mr. Caldero appeared to be politely suppressing laughter. “Could you read us your answer?” he said.

The Arcane Prince nodded. “‘Several entomological symbols are employed in Chapter Seven, the most pertinent of those being the mayfly and the beetle,’” he read. “‘The mayfly appears wherever death is foreshadowed; one "lands upon Helika's brow" as she receives the envelope containing her death sentence, and yet—’” 

“Very good, very good,” Caldero cut in. “Why don’t you write the paragraph on the board so we may study and critique it? You in particular, Miss Cendina. Take your head off your desk.”

“Gladly.” He cast Ruthenia a glare. At the board, he began his paragraph in the same meticulous cursive that she'd come to recognise, the loops of f's drawn the opposite way from what you'd expect. She grimaced and stuck out her tongue at his back.

As the class drew to its close, the room was consumed by a melange chattering and paper-shuffling and clock-tower-chiming. With the steady trickle of students into the hallway, the classroom grew quieter.

Ruthenia stopped by the door with as foul a grimace as she could manage. She watched, through the bustle of gossip and dinner plans, as Aleigh stacked his books on his desk.

He made no sign of having seen her—but once he had stowed all his books away in his leather briefcase, he looked up, and met her eye in full earnest for the first time since she had accepted his job.

As he passed, she stuck out a hand to halt him.

The Arcane Prince regarded her hand for a while. “Excuse me,” he said, making to circumnavigate it.

“Stop, look here! How could you be like this to me? After I helped you?”

He narrowed her eyes at her. “I must be on my way, goodbye.” Without so much as another glance, he strode out the door.

“Hey—come back!” Flying out the doorway, through the golden light, Ruthenia intercepted Prince Aleigh midway down the corridor. “I just saved your bleeding mother! Will you stop trying to humiliate me?”

“I assure you, if you felt humiliated, it was not because of me.” He shifted his briefcase to his other hand. 

Ruthenia balled her fists. “I reckon you think you’re real intelligent just because you’re good at Literature. But you know what? It’s not because you’re smart. It’s because you’re rich.”

He paused, and sighed. “This was a mistake,” he said. “Having you fix the watch was a mistake.”

She frowned. “You aren’t happy she’s alive?”

“I am, but you are the last person I wanted to be indebted to for it.”

“I don’t care about the debt,” she said. “I care about not being treated like a joke, but I suppose Arcane Prisses just don’t care." She let her lips curl into a grimace. "I’ll bet you don’t have any friends.”

“You are correct; I do not seek friends.”

“Your life must be unbearable.”

Without another word, Aleigh strode right past her, and Ruthenia turned a little too late, mouth open for a retort that never came. She heaved a sigh and took her umbrella in hand, marching off towards the exit on her own.