“Baroness Grenfell will be choosing a location to establish a new port for us, Captain Athearn,” Liv explained, waving her hand to indicate the map spread out across the table. “I asked you here to assist her in making that choice. You’ve brought the nautical charts I requested?”

Coram Athearn nodded and stepped forward, removing the leather cap from the tubular case tucked under his arm. “Every inlet, bay, or cove along both the northwestern and northeastern coasts of Isvara,” he confirmed. “I’ve been to most of them, at one point or another. And I can mark which will be ice-locked during the winter, as well.” With practiced ease, he unrolled two charts, each with depth markings and the same nautical symbols that had driven Liv and her friends to frustration when they’d been at Coral Bay.

“What about rifts?” Bryn asked, leaning over the charts to get a look at them.

Liv could see, from how wide the other woman’s eyes were, that she was feeling a bit overwhelmed. “Every greater rift north of Courland is already guarded,” she answered. “There are a few very minor rifts that have been left alone, but only where they don’t present a threat.”

She tapped one finger out in the ocean, due west of Courland and the peninsula which descended south from Mountain Home. “Captain Athearn tells me this is called the Great Western Bank.”

“Some of the best fishing around,” Athearn confirmed, nodding his head. “But dangerous. The Storm Eels and Deepwater Sharks there can grow nearly as large as a ship.”

“Which Sidonie was able to confirm, using the ring, is due to the presence of a minor rift on the ocean floor,” Liv explained. “It’s so far out that there’s no practical way to cull it. I wouldn’t consider it part of your duties as a baroness - the entire point of this is economic. We need a place for merchants like the good captain here to weigh anchor.”

Bryn nodded. “I understand. How long do I have to make a decision?”

“I’d like you to have a written proposal for me when I return from Freeport,” Liv said. “I want to know how much money you’re going to need to make a beginning, so that I can figure out how we’re going to pay for this.”

“Who can I use for scouts?” Bryn asked. “Is Wren -”

“Still in Varuna,” Liv answered. “Though I expect her and Ghveris back any day now. I’ll be taking them to Freeport when I leave, but you can have the rest of her team, if you’d like.”

“Thank you.” Bryn ducked her head, and then turned to Captain Athearn. “Have you been to the Culler’s Rest yet?”

The seaman shook his head. “Only just arrived,” he admitted. “I didn’t realize there was an inn here, yet.” Athearn gathered up the charts he’d brought, quickly rolling them with deft fingers.

“It was built by a refugee family out of Ashford," Bryn explained. “They’d had a trading inn for generations there, The Fool’s Fording, before Benedict and his people attacked the place. Can we take this?” she asked Liv, reaching out for the map on the table.

“Of course,” Liv said. “That’s what I brought it for.”

She watched the two of them leave with a smile on her face, but waited until the door to the classroom had closed before she spoke. “That’s one of the only things that makes this all work,” Liv observed, to Miina and Thora. “That I can take a problem like that, dump it on people I trust to solve, and then put it out of my mind.”

“He fought at the pass, didn’t he?” Miina asked. “I thought I recalled seeing him there.”

Liv nodded. “He’s been a loyal friend to our family ever since Julianne and Henry financed his ship,” she explained. “If we ever have the funds and the shipbuilders to commission a warship, that’s the man I’m going to put at the helm.”

☙

Liv’s chance to get at the new students didn’t come until the day after, once they’d all been moved into their rooms and given written examinations. Only after the armed combat trials had concluded, and the students had been sent to eat a midday meal, did she arrive at the training grounds.

It was fortunate that facilities like this one didn’t need to be complicated or expensive: getting the two buildings which currently made up the campus constructed had been all they could manage, even with work teams from House Isakki arriving to contribute. A cleared rectangle of packed earth, fenced with simple wood posts, and a series of wooden risers for the audience, was all that anyone needed.

Liv had asked Aura to meet her at the training grounds, and she’d brought both Arjun and Steris kæn Esteri, the Elden healer who’d overseen Triss’s pregnancy on the ring. She was a bit surprised, however, that Keri had chosen to join them.

“Not that I object,” she told him, with a grin, as the five of them stepped out onto the field. “Are you just here to be entertained? Or maybe to keep me company?” Liv deliberately bumped her hip up against his.

Keri laughed. “I’m going to enjoy both of those things,” he admitted. “But no, I’m scouting prospects. If I see anyone promising, I want to make sure they get the training they’re going to need right from the beginning.”

Liv nodded. It made sense: she’d given Keri the task of turning her goal of a single, unified alliance army into a reality. It was a daunting task, and she wouldn't have had the slightest idea where to begin, if she’d had to do it herself. The project wasn’t made any easier by the fact that their funds were stretched perilously thin, and soldiers were expensive - both to equip, and to maintain.

“Here they come,” Aura said, nodding her chin toward the cluster of students walking over from the dormitory hall.

Liv recognized several of the students she’d taught, over the course of the summer and the early autumn, among the unfamiliar new arrivals. Molly, the former scullion, was too young yet, but Semilla was there, as well as Rande and Albert. There were Eld and human alike, though those who’d come from the nine northern houses of the alliance were in the minority. She noted one young man wearing a leather mask which entirely covered his face, and guessed that he would be the student sent by House Kaulris. There was also a man who bore a distinct resemblance to Beatrice’s brothers, and Liv guessed that would be Bhodwin, who’d been kept home from Coral Bay due to the war.

She was amused that the chatter among the new students died, gradually, as each of them looked out onto the training grounds and saw her standing there. Even Eld who were decades older had star-struck looks on their faces, and Liv heard more than a few whispers of ‘Lady of Winter,’ or, ‘Her Majesty.’

“I’m not the best at making myself heard over a crowd,” Liv said, turning to Keri at her side. “Would you mind getting them settled?”

“Gladly.” He smiled, then stepped forward and raised his voice. “Be seated, and be silent!” It wasn’t quite the deep, rumbling shout that Ghveris could put out, but Keri was no stranger to commanding soldiers on the battlefield, and his words cut through the remaining noise easily. There was a brief flurry of motion as the last of the students scrambled into their seats on the benches, and he watched that for just a moment. Then, with a nod of satisfaction, Keri flashed her a smile and stepped back.

Liv walked forward, while her companions retreated to clear the way for what was to come.

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“This is your last examination,” she told them, projecting from her belly like Master Grenfell had taught her so long ago. “And it is optional. Let me repeat that and make it clear: you don’t need to participate in a single duel. And if you don’t already have a word of power, that’s where it ends. You’ll be placed into remedial magical combat, and Journeyman Aura here will teach you how to use Aluth in a fight.”

“If, however, you want to be taught by me,” Liv continued, “You need to show us what you can do. Volunteers will fight in one duel at a time. The victors will be matched, and fight a second round, until we have a ranking. The top three students will join me in Advanced Magical Combat, while all others who have words of power and choose to fight will be placed in the intermediate course.”

She paused, for a moment, struck by the sudden memory of watching Jurian stride across the training grounds at Coral Bay, doing nearly exactly the same thing. A nearly overwhelming feeling of loss struck her, but Liv pushed it aside and blinked away the wetness in her eyes. “Volunteers?” she shouted.

Bhodwin Crosbie was first off the benches, striding out onto the field with a rapier, fencing mask, and fencing doublet. After a moment, a slim Elden girl with sickly, yellow-white hair and sparkling green eyes stepped forward, carrying a longsword at her hip and a helm under one arm. She wore a cuirass of enchanted steel, worked with both Vædic sigils and etchings of coiling wyrms.

“Have you dueled before?” Liv asked Bhodwin, and the young man nodded. She turned to the Elden girl. “Lucanian rules. Are you familiar?” The girl shook her head. “Introduce yourselves first, then,” she instructed.

“I am Bhodwin Crosbie of Valegard, son of Baron Arnold.” He gave a curt nod of his head to his opponent.

“Karina of the Unconquered House of Iravata,” the girl shot back. She was a head shorter than Bhodwin, and half his breadth, but Liv knew that she would have the advantage of decades of training on her opponent, despite the fact that both of them had been considered just slightly too young to go to war by their families.

“Duelists, present any object that is enchanted, or any mana stone, pearl, or other mana storage you are carrying for inspection,” Liv commanded them.

“My armor is enchanted to keep me warm or cool, in spite of the weather,” Karina said, speaking first. “My sword secretes wyrm venom into any wound it opens.”

Bhodwin blinked at that. “I have a mana battery, salvaged from one of the Antrians at the Foundry Rift,” he explained. “And my rapier was carefully re-forged from their blades, to preserve the enchantment to the edge.”

“Those items are acceptable. This duel will proceed to first blood, surrender, unconsciousness, or my count of ten without response. If either party leaves the circle, they will be considered to have surrendered. When I call the duel as ended, you will both cease casting immediately.” The words came to Liv easily, an echo of the voices of the dead who’d trained her: Jurian, Julianne, and even Genevieve.

“Back to back.”

The Elden girl showed a slight hesitation, but Bhodwin moved instantly. Once they were touching, his greater size was even more pronounced, even with her helm on.

“Fifteen paces.”

Liv watched them walk, and when they’d both come to a stop, ordered Karina to take a sixteenth step, to compensate for her shorter stride.

“Aluthet Cvelas,” Liv murmured, conjuring a circle of shining blue mana to encompass both students. She’d double-checked the incantation with Lia Every ahead of time, just to be completely certain she was using the right one, even though it was quite simple.

The moment the duel began, both students spun around and charged forward to close distance, swords flashing. Karina shouted an incantation, slicing the air with her sword before either one had made it halfway, and conjured a floating orb of liquid venom, which shot forward, aimed directly at Bhodwin’s fencing mask.

Triss’s younger brother, for his part, was moving to one side already, as if he’d known the attack was coming. Blue light flashed out from the eye-holes of his leather mask, and then they were on each other, steel blades flashing in the autumn sunlight.

☙

Wren and Ghveris returned that evening, making their way up to the great hall in the half-built keep atop Bald Peak just after great platters of roast boar had been served. Liv had invited the Elden students, as well as the humans, such as Bhodwin, who already had words of power and would be more able to withstand the mana of the rift, to join her soldiers for a celebratory meal.

Liv was just finishing up her visit to the students’ table when she caught sight of Wren, Ghveris, and Eliina come through the door. The other three members of the scouting team would be, she knew, down at the base of the peak, outside the edge of the shoal. She hadn’t been surprised, entirely, when Wren asked to work with the same people who’d gone to Nightfall Peak with her, but she hadn’t expected Emma and Kale Forester to agree. Even the massive, bearded mountain man known as ‘Old Bill’ had jumped at their mission.

She forced her eyes back down to the new students, and smiled. “The college’s kitchens should be up to the task of supporting Elden and half-Elden students, by this point,” Liv explained. “We have regular shipments of supplies coming from Al’Fenthia, nevermind what our local hunters bring in. But if you have any problems, speak up. Mika, may I speak to you for a moment?”

“Of course.” The masked Eld from House Kaulris set down his knife next to his plate, and lifted up a piece of his mask. It clipped easily back into place, once again covering his chin and lips which, Liv had noticed, seemed to have strange formations, almost like patches of tree-bark or roots, growing out of his skin.

Liv caught Arjun’s eyes, as she led the young man off to one side, and her friend took the signal to come over. “I know that I’ve made a commitment to your house,” Liv began.

Mika nodded. “Yes. That is one of the reasons Elder Raija encouraged me to come - she also thought that I could learn quite a bit from you, of course.” His Lucanian was only lightly accented, and Liv suspected that was one of the reasons he’d been chosen: in fact, all of the first wave of Elden students who’d come were fluent in the language.

“I’m going to ask you to allow my friend Arjun to examine you,” Liv said. “He trained in healing in Lendh ka Dakruim before becoming a member of the Mages Guild at Coral Bay.”

“If you are comfortable with it, I’d like to take you up to the ring,” Arjun said. “The Vædic enchantments up there can tell us things that we might never learn otherwise.”

“You aren’t afraid of it?” Mika asked. “We hardly understand what those ancient enchantments can do - and it was Vædic magic that cursed my family in the first place.” Liv could actually see his gloved hand trembling at the thought.

“Arjun and I have both been up there several times now,” Liv explained. “And my sister-in-law stayed for the entirety of her pregnancy. She’s actually taken extensive notes on what she was able to learn up there.” She tried to keep her voice calm and even: though Liv knew that the Kaulris had suffered for twelve hundred years because of the Vædim, she hadn’t quite understood what kind of instinctual fear that might foster. Ironic, given their word of power.

After a moment, the young man nodded. “If you believe it is best.”

“Good. We’ll see what we can learn, and then proceed from there,” Arjun promised.

Once they’d sent Mika back to join the other students, Liv made her way up to the high table, where Wren was digging into a plate of mana-free food that had been brought specifically for her. A space had been cleared for her next to Liv’s seat, with Keri on the other side.

“Did everyone make it back safely?” Liv asked, sliding into her seat. “Did you find anything?” Arjun followed her over, and Keri turned toward them, so that everyone could hear, and the companions had grouped into a sort of impromptu conference.

Wren chewed for a moment, held up one finger, swallowed, and washed her food down with a gulp of wine before answering. “Everyone’s fine,” she confirmed, first of all. “Emma and Kale took horses straight to Whitehill; she missed her family. And we did find something, but not what you wanted.”

“The Magma Vents rift has been ransacked by Ractia’s people,” Ghveris explained, moving to stand just behind their chairs and between the two women. “Much of the ancient machinery is gone. Steam erupts from the vents, but is no longer captured to produce mana.”

“You’ll want to get Sidonie in there to look at it,” Wren added. “I’m no expert, but the whole place seems dangerously unstable to me. I don’t think Ractia really cared what happened to it after she had what she came for.”

“The good news is that it's on the west coast of Varuna,” Keri pointed out. “We’re not aware of any settlement closer than Nightfall Peak, and that’s abandoned now.”

“Still, I don’t want to see what happens when an erupting rift combines with a volcano,” Liv pointed out. “We’ll have to send back a second expedition to study it. I know it's frustrating not to find her, Wren, but it's better we know the state of the place than be caught by surprise.”

“Are you still planning to put the search on hold for the winter?” Wren asked.

Liv nodded. “Now that Henriette’s been born, and Triss has had a bit to recover, I don’t think I can put off Archmagus Loredan’s invitation any more. I want you both to come with me to Freeport.”