Free The Spirit Gate by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

had rejected and been rejected by the
other, she had much to be thankful for.
    Not the least of which, she thought, glancing aside at the
baker woman as they walked beneath the lacework of cedar boughs, was finding
out how true a friend Devora was. So, though it was not required of her, she
had brought along an offering. It was a book her mother had given her—a volume of
meditations Jasia Antavas had received from a saffron-draped monk. It was
something rare in Dalibor, where most books resided at Lorant. Those villagers
who could read (and there were few of those of Kassia’s age), had never held in their hands anything more
than the occasional rough-pressed scroll and crude, twine-bound booklets.
    The people of Old Dalibor read the kites of Lorant, the
clouds, the wind and the currents of the Pavla Yeva. They studied the autumn
fogs that lay in the long river valley and the texture and content of the earth
in their fields. They read deer spoor and cat dropping. Those things made them
wise in ways the Tabori immigrants were not. But the newcomers had books, and
the books contained a new kind of wisdom.
    A balance, thought Kassia, hugging her mother’s book to her breast.
Wisdom must be a balance of earth and sky. As with most things.
    oOo
    Matek arrived without fanfare. So excited was Beyla at the
prospect of going up to Lorant, he didn’t
close his eyes in sleep until near midnight. He was still dreaming deeply when
his mother rose to make ready for her first day as an Initiate.
    Devora interceded before she could wake him. “Let him rest,” she chided. “He’s had hardly any sleep—though more than you’ve gotten. I’d hate to disturb him.” When Kassia opened her mouth to protest that she couldn’t impose, Devora put a
finger to her lips. “None
of that. I’ve my
own motives for letting sleepy heads lie. I’ll put him to work this morning, you see, and at
mid-day he can bring you up some dinner.”
    Dinner. Kassia’s
mouth twisted. She hadn’t
even thought about what she would eat for dinner. That, like the amount of her
Initiate’s
stipend had lain forgotten beneath her amazement that Master Lukasha had
accepted her without quarrel.
    If she had any thought that her first day at Lorant was to
be as easy as Lukasha’s
acceptance of her, Kassia was rudely disappointed. The Master Sorcerer was not
even there when she arrived. Instead, she was greeted (if one could call it
that) by Damek, and taken without ceremony to the first year studio.
    Stepping into the high-ceilinged room, heart hammering and
palms sweating, Kassia found herself pinned by the gazes of students and
teacher alike. But it was not the intense regard that made her blush to the
roots of her snowy hair, it was merely that the average age of the Initiates
she faced was closer to Beyla’s
than to her own. Except for the class master—a young Mateu Damek introduced as Tamukin—she was the only adult
in the class.
    She turned to Damek, mouth open to protest, but the little
man only smiled. “Here
are your classmates, Kassia. I hope you will be comfortable here.”
    “But
they’re children!” she whispered.
    Damek’s
smile didn’t
waver. “They’re first year
Initiates, Kassia. Just as you are. I assure you, they’ve all been tested and found to be of superlative
quality.” Which you have not, said the glittering eyes. “They can all read, they—”
    “I
know,” Kassia interrupted him, cheeks burning, “I taught some of them, myself.”
    Damek’s
lashes fluttered in momentary surprise, then he shrugged. “Yes, well . . .”
    “I
want to speak to Master Lukasha. Surely he can’t mean for me to sit in a class full of children.”
    The smug smile slipped back into place. “Master Lukasha isn’t here just now. He
was called away to Tabor yesterday morning. He said he’d try to be back in time for Induction next Celek.”
    “Induction?”
    “Of
course, you wouldn’t
have known since your admission was . . . well,