She put the memories and their questions out of her mind as they came to the courtyard around which the colleges stood. The new heads awaited her there, the boy from Fásach’s school standing at the front of them, the others behind, though Tine’s representative kept well to the side. A de facto leader. In this case, likely chosen for his bluster and overconfidence. They had sent a strong letter insisting that she meet with them in person. Snow fell around the yard, lightly, some of it beginning to stick and pile.
“What serious faces. I do hope you do not intend to annoy me.”
The boy looked back at the three behind and then to Rianaire. “That is not our intention, Treorai. But there are concerns within the college…”
“Say them quickly, I have more to do than explain how you might tend to your own people.”
“There… is resistance to expanding recruitment. From all ages.”
Rianaire rolled her eyes. She felt she had been entirely clear on the state of this discussion, but it seemed she still had words left to give. “Then expel those that complain and let them find the value in their pious learnings in the world outside your sacred walls, I do not care.”
The girl from Spéir’s college spoke. “Is that not too cruel?”
Whatever softness had remained in Rianaire’s expression drained, replaced by cold. “What have you children known of cruelty? You all have soft hands, minds weak from too much praise.” Her words cut and the wind rose at her back. “I will explain it for you then, since your eyes cannot see beyond our walls. Hippocamps come for us. They will kill all they see. Rape what does not die, and kill it then. They will not ask politely, they will not offer sorries.” She took a step toward them. “If you believe cruelty is such a soft thing as being told to find food with your own hands, rather than be handed it, we are ruined.” The wind whipped to a frenzy and she raised her voice, the anger in it rising. “The vicious come to kill us, and you ask me to hear this?! To hear the complaints of children?!”
“Tre—”
Her temper failed her and she stomped the ground. The courtyard split beneath the Fásach boy and he dropped into the hole, his chin catching the edge. She flung the Spéir girl away, her arm snapping against a tree as she clipped it in passing. The snow around the terrified representative of Abhainn’s school came together, melting and refreezing at the girl’s mouth. The last one’s black robes came alight, sending their wearer dancing. Only a second passed from the start to the end. None of them had a chance to move against her.
The wind in the courtyard came dead and Rianaire watched until they all groaned and slowed. They licked their wounds, ignoring her presence as best they could.
“Do not misunderstand what I am. Do not misunderstand my words. I do not ask you for favors or comments. I have given you instructions. Commands.” She turned away from them. “There is no cost I would refuse to see this land through the coming war. Your lives, nor the lives of every soul in the college would so much as budge the scale. Raise the army I need or remove yourself for one who will. It needs be no more complicated than that.”
The pain in the back of her mind soared. She had been thoughtless in her use of the Gifts and paid for it now. It had been too sudden, too much. Spéir’s Gift never seemed to trouble her. The others, though… they raised the strange ache if she was too quick with them or tried too much.
The courtyard was a memory to her already, back among the walls of the Bastion. Inney had been taken from her by Gadaí to assist Eala and Síocháin would not see her. It was lonely. A feeling she avoided as best she could. She hated the feel of it. She had sought the brothel and the alehouse before when the feeling came to her and she had no other recourse. Thin blankets in a snowstorm.
Inney came to her as the sun came down, and she went to dress, stopping at the room Síocháin always slept in when they had such fights. She ignored the apologies and Rianaire’s promises to explain or answer whatever questions were asked. It was not so strange. Time was required, which was fair enough. Síocháin’s door was left and a dinner dress was worn.
A girl came from the dining room to fetch them for pre-dinner drinks as was traditional for such meetings. Rianaire sent her away, telling her that they could wait alone with their drinks. Dinner would be more than enough and she had no intention of suffering them before then. It was the better part of an hour before they were called down. Cnoclean’s representatives could not have been a more awful looking pair. A narrow-eyed man, balding, his mouth sucked into a perpetual frown and a woman, somehow worse. Her jowls hung loose around fat lips and on top of her head was curly red hair, short and thin. Rianaire very briefly considered abandoning them there and flinging herself from some high window in the Bastion. She could see no way to a pleasant meal with these two so close to her. Rather than sit at the head of the large, rectangular table, she sat across from them to increase the distance. Inney stood at her side, insisting she was not hungry.
The first course came and went without much in the way of complaint. It was pleasantries spoken through curled lips and updates about the status of Cnoclean that tread back over
