Liv had had an extensive conversation with Sidonie, Arjun, and Elder Aira about precisely what research to present to the professors at Coral Bay. Between their trips to the ring - which was really more Triss and Matthew’s project than Liv’s, at this point - and her journeys into the Well of Bones, the Tomb of Celris, the Garden of Thorns, and smaller rifts, such as the eagle’s nest in the mountains or the rift with the nightmare crystal in Varuna, she’d seen things that most guild culling teams would never experience.

  There was, in short, a glut of potential options.

  Liv could have chosen any one of a dozen things to write a report on, and she was confident they would all have been accepted by the professors. The number was reduced slightly by the fact that Arjun intended to write about the V?dic healing beds in the ring, while Sidonie would be compiling a formalized procedure for exploring the enchanted panes of glass left behind in rift control rooms, complete with a partial lexicon of new terminology.

  Then, there were things that Liv had agreed, with Aira, were simply not appropriate to share at this time. How to reduce a greater rift to a lesser fell into this category, particularly as there was a near certainty that any fully-human mage who made an attempt was going to kill themselves trying to absorb mana from a V?dic corpse - assuming they could find one in the first place, and didn’t succumb to mana sickness before they reached the depths.

  Tethers were less a matter of safety, and more a question of trust. They had, after all, only just formalized peace terms with Lucania after a war, and the ability to use a word of recall had strategic implications. Caspian Loredan might be the only one who could actually make use of the technique, but that wouldn’t necessarily be true forever. With Jurian and Genevieve both dead, an entire generation of archmages had been lost - but there were new students arriving at Coral Bay every year, and now at Bald Peak, as well. Might Semilla be the next archmage? Or would it be someone Liv hadn’t even met yet, just now struggling with their first year’s courses? She wasn’t certain that she wanted to share that particular piece of information with mages yet unknown, before there’d been a few years for feelings between the north and Lucania to settle.

  So the question became less about what Liv could submit, and more about what she was willing to share, during her tenuous attempt to re-establish trust. An attempt that could still go quite wrong, she had to admit.

  A detailed analysis of Costia’s curse on the Well of Bones would have been fascinating to write, and Pandit Sharma had assured her that Tej Mishra would have welcomed her for a visit to Akela Kila, where she could have spent weeks down in the depths, studying everything that was left. But if that research eventually helped someone to recreate a version of the curse on their own, she shuddered to think of what an eruption of animated corpses could do in the middle of a city like Freeport.

  Liv could have written about the Elden mana circulation techniques which were used to prevent mana sickness, but that was something she’d been taught by her father, not something she’d learned on her own. On top of that, it required real guided practice from a teacher familiar with the techniques to make certain students didn’t get hurt while they were learning. She’d much rather train apprentices at Bald Peak personally, to be certain no one died in an accident.

  The thing she’d studied most extensively, during the creation of her archmage spell, was of course the enchantments at the Tomb of Celris. That was something she’d done herself, without help from Sidonie, her father, Aira, or even Arjun - who’d accompanied her on the trip, but spent his time making notes on V?dic healing techniques.

  Here again, however, Liv didn’t want to give the capability to design defensive enchantments that drained heat, mana, and light to just anyone. Celris’s work was brilliant but cruel, and while she’d find less sadistic uses for what she’d learned, even her spell was meant for war.

  In the end, she decided to write about the consequences of integrating new conditional language into spellwork. Some of those words had already been in use - more among the Eld than among the guild - but ‘while’ was a particular bit of language that Liv wasn’t aware of being functionally preserved anywhere other than in Celris’s halls. There were traces of it in ancient texts, but no detailed examples of how to use it in enchantments or spellwork until now. Having already used the concept in one spell, Liv was brimming with ideas to test in any number of other ways, and she allowed herself to make multiple proposals within the report she finally submitted.

  Could her family’s hibernation spell be adapted to disperse itself automatically once the person within became the target of a healing spell? What about an enchanted lightning rod that activated automatically when a storm entered the area, and then returned to a dormant state once danger had left, waiting until the next time it was needed? Armor, or perhaps clothing to be worn under the armor, with integrated healing enchantments that needed a command word to activate, only take effect while the wearer was bleeding? Could Matthew and Triss use Ters to dehydrate meat while it was stored, with the spell ending and rehydrating food at need?

  Out of the seven professors and one archmage who reviewed her work, only Kazimir Grenfell and Lia Every had any prior warning of what they were delving into - a fact that showed in the smug satisfaction each of the two radiated, while Professors Annora and Norris desperately flipped back and forth between pages.

  Liv had insisted on waiting for the two older mages to arrive from Bald Peak, and even on her old teacher’s detailed instructions on the creation of dream stones to be accepted before taking her own turn. Not that Kazimir Grenfell required anyone’s acknowledgement of his work, at this point - he’d been a master since Liv was a small girl - but she couldn’t deny him the satisfaction of showing off what he’d made.

  With Ghveris’s armor requiring extensive work to repair, she’d had more than enough time to spare - some of which was taken up by rejecting Caspian Loredan’s initial suggestions regarding where, precisely, she would demonstrate her archmage spell. Liv didn’t think he was deliberately doubting her, but he did seem to have difficulty accepting that she wasn’t exaggerating the effect.

  It had been much more fun to teach Rei how to search for clams with his feet at the first sandbar. They’d even found a single - tiny - mana pearl, which had immediately become one of the boy’s greatest treasures.

  Finally, Caspian Loredan sat back in his chair, shuffled his copy of Liv’s work into a neat pile, and set it aside on the long table all of the professors were sharing. Liv was under the impression that most people were made to stand during this presentation, but they’d been kind enough to present her with a chair, possibly out of concern for how it might look to sit while a foreign queen did not.

  “Has everyone had sufficient time to read?” the archmage asked. At his words, Professor Norris cracked his knuckles, while Professor Annora began a very particular series of stretches which placed her fingers, wrists and elbows into rather odd positions.

  “More than sufficient,” Lia Every replied. She’d been bristly as a sea urchin since the moment she arrived in Coral Bay, constantly pushing back against Caspian’s authority. To be honest, Liv couldn’t blame her - she harbored many of the same lingering resentments herself, over what the guild had done, or failed to do, a year ago. “I believe it’s obvious that Guild Mage Livara’s work meets the standard for recognition as Master.”

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Reginald Teck stirred in his seat, and Liv didn’t have to do much in the way of guessing to know what was coming. The man was clearly one of Genevieve’s loyalists, and though he didn’t realistically have anything to gain at this point, he was going to do everything he could to simply spite his enemies.

  “Obvious to you, perhaps,” Teck began. “I see a great deal of speculation without any actual, concrete development of practical use. I know that there is theoretically an archmage spell that employs this new language, but we haven’t actually seen that, now have we?”

  “I believe that demonstration is scheduled,” Master Grenfell pointed out.

  “And in the meantime we’re meant to simply take it on faith that this functions?” Teck complained.

  “I can provide witnesses,” Liv offered. “An entire army of them, in fact, and several are already here for my test. But it seems a waste of time to demonstrate the same spell twice over.”

  “This is a rather unusual situation,” Professor Atwood pointed out. She was Lia Every’s replacement for teaching the guild law and history courses, and Liv hadn’t gotten much of a read on the woman, yet. Supposedly, rather than finding a post as a court mage, she’d spent several decades at Eastgate Court, serving as a consultant on crimes that involved the use of magic.

  “It is nearly unheard of for anyone to rush through our ranks this quickly,” the gray-haired woman continued. “The last time we had an archmage candidate younger than fifty years of age was Destain of Duskvale, back in-”

  “Eleven eighty,” Lia Every interrupted. “He was forty-two before he died.”

  “-yes,” Atwood said, and even Liv could tell she was annoyed. “Regardless, the guild has not historically required a spell as part of research. When Jurian and Genevieve brought Cei, they’d only just imprinted the word and were just experimenting with spells. I think demanding a separate spell on top of Her Majesty’s archmage spell, which she is already going to show us, would be holding her to an unreasonable standard.”

  “All in favor of accepting this research, and recognizing Livara t?r Valtteri with the rank of master mage?” Caspian asked, and then immediately raised his own hand. Master Grenfell and Lia Every were the quickest to follow, but Liv felt a flush of warmth to see Professors Annora, Blackwood, and Norris right behind them. Even Professor Atwood voted in favor, leaving only Reginald Teck. With a scowl, he raised a hand at last, clearly having decided that it wasn’t worth putting up more of a fight.

  “Congratulations, Mistress Livara,” Caspian said, and pushed his chair back to stand. I trust you will be prepared for your tests tomorrow, as scheduled?”

  “Of course.” Liv rose, waited for her moment, and approached Professor Atwood as the professors broke up and began to make their way out of the library. “I wanted to thank you,” she began. “I know that we don’t know each other, but I appreciate your vote.”

  “There is no reason to thank me,” Atwood said, in a hard, even tone. “I acted merely based on previously established precedent. Presentations like this are not the place for overturning established procedure for mere personal grudges.” The older woman’s eyes flicked to Professor Teck, and then, with the barest nod of her head, she made for the door.

  “And now you’ve met Old Ironwood,” Lia Every murmured, only speaking once she was close enough to Liv for a modicum of privacy.

  “She has quite the reputation,” Master Grenfell said, joining them.

  “A reputation, yes. Debatable whether it’s a good one,” Every continued. “The letter of the law, that one. No consideration for what’s moral or ethical, or whether the law might, in fact, be imperfect. She’d hang a child without blinking, Liv, if that’s what she thought precedent demanded. And she’s argued on multiple occasions for the absolute power of the monarch - that even the great council derives its authority from the king, and even then only by the ruler’s consent.”

  Liv thought about that for a moment. “She doesn’t have to be our friend,” she decided. “I do hope that at least she’s a good teacher, but even that isn’t really our concern anymore, is it? We have our own students to look after.”

  “I still don’t feel comfortable with all this,” Every admitted. “Just being back here makes my skin crawl. So many of these people just sat back and allowed Benedict to do what he did, and now they expect us to move on and forget it.”

  Liv turned, and raised one hand to take the acting guildmistress by her shoulder. “I’m angry, too,” she said. “If I could think of a way to punish everyone who deserved it, I would. But for all its flaws, I also believe the guild is needed. And if we let it stay broken in two halves, when we have the chance to put it back together, I think people a century from now are going to look at us and say we failed.”

  “I’m not certain I agree,” Lia Every admitted. “But I’m going to trust you.”

  “Let’s check in on the students,” Master Grenfell suggested, and together, the three of them left the library.

  ?

  There had, quite simply, been no practical way for classes to continue at Bald Peak with Liv and both professors in Coral Bay. Instead, the two professors had brought the students with them through the waystone, and thrown them in with the students here for the duration of the visit.

  Liv had expected a bit of friction between the two groups of students from the beginning, and most of it came out down on the training grounds. Several of the young scions of the Lucania’s aristocracy had sneered at what they considered traitors, while the Bald Peak students had a - well earned, in Liv’s opinion - chip on their shoulders about Lucania’s assault. Several of them, such as Aura or Rande, had either fought at the pass themselves, or had parents who had done so.

  She couldn’t help grin at the sight of Semilla, for instance, a wand in each hand, easily parrying some young fop’s blasts of copper spikes with mana shields, and then returning the attack with shining blue blades. Liv had high standards when it came to her students’ ability to fight, and she gave them as much of her time as she could carve out of any given day.

  But Liv was also aware that her own upcoming test was the subject of heated debate, and that anticipation only fed the arguments between the students. To not a few of the Coral Bay first and second years, she was essentially a stranger, and many of them maintained that Liv would crumple when faced with three professors at once.

  To the Elden students, such as Mika of House Kaulris, the idea was laughable, and they weren’t shy about making that known. Even the human and half-Elden students who’d only come to Bald Peak for the first time that same autumn had heard the stories of what she’d done in Varuna and at the pass.

  As a result, Liv wasn’t even slightly surprised at the crowd which gathered around the training grounds to watch her test her Authority against the professors. She clearly recalled the atmosphere at Jurian’s testing; it had practically been a festival, with townsfolk crowding behind the students to get a look at what was happening.

  For her, however, people had been arriving for nearly a week, with the waystone down on the beach igniting at all hours. Not only were the wooden stands filled, but the culling mages had conjured floating discs of mana using Aluth, onto which their teams had climbed, and those platforms hovered above the crowd. On the roofs of the two inns nearest to the college grounds, Liv could see people pressed elbow to elbow, craning their heads to get a glimpse of her.

  Liv very nearly left her wand with Keri, until she remembered how Genevieve Arundell had charged her old teacher on this very field, and that he’d had to defend himself until Caspian Loredan had stepped in. Instead, she accepted quick embraces from Wren, Miina, Keri and Rei, then took one look over her companions.

  Ghveris had insisted on coming, though the repairs on his armor were not yet complete. To conceal the state of his artificial body, a great flap of canvas had been turned into a sort of cloak for him, with a hole cut for his helm. It draped down from his wide shoulders, and to look at it no one would ever guess that his few remaining original organs were concealed beneath.

  Still, he was enormous, and he sat at the rear of the ground, making a sort of backstop for Wren, who’d taken a place between the war-machine’s wide legs, on a bench one step down from where Ghveris sat. There had been some argument over whether the stands would hold him, until Master Grenfell used Aluth to reinforce them against his weight. Rei had clambered up onto the juggernaut’s back and perched there like some sort of small rodent, perhaps a tamed squirrel or bird.

  The rest filled in the lowest bench, just in front of Ghveris’s feet, while the students of Bald Peak College extended out to either side, eventually mingling at the edges with those from Coral Bay. Keri was the last to be seated.

  “I would ask if you were ready,” he told her, quietly, reaching down to take her hands in his. “But I’ve seen you fight so much worse than any of these people that I can’t do it with a straight face.”

  Liv grinned. “They aren’t gods, is that it? Try to look at least a little concerned for me,” she teased him. Then, she strode out to the center of the training grounds, where the same eight people who’d accepted her research in the library waited. She stopped perhaps ten feet in front of them, and waited for her archmage test to begin.

  here. I am more available there than I am here.

  Misadventures Incorporated releases today!

  Dramatis Personae

  Livara T?r Valtteri Kaen Syv? - Guildmage, former scullery maid at Castle Whitehill, the bastard daughter of Maggie Brodbeck and Valtteri Ka Auris. Mountain Queen, and Lady of Winter. Jumping through hoops. [35 Rings of Mana, not counting mana stored in items.]

  Atwood, Professor - Aka 'Old Ironwood.' New Professor of Guild Law and History. Might be slightly inspired by Javert. [21 Rings of Mana]

  Caspian Loredan, Archmagus - Head of the College of V?dic Grammar, serving on the Council of Regents for Lucania. His circus. His monkeys. [26 Rings of Mana]

  Inkeris "Keri" ka Ilmari k?n B?lris - A young warrior of the Unconquered House of B?lris, father to Rei. As one of my friends used to cheer on her husband: "Go babe, go!" [20 Rings of Mana.]

  Kazimir Grenfell - Master Mage, and Liv's former tutor in magic. Still resentful that no one backed his family when they needed it. [15 Rings of Mana]

  Lia Every - Acting Guildmistress, former Professor of Guild Law & History. Ready to tear people's heads off. [20 Rings of Mana]

  Reginald Teck - Professor of Combat at Coral Bay. Definitely not Jurian. [17 Rings of Mana]