Xilanada - Unforsakable Birthright/Part 10

Ava cleared away the bones and did her best to control her disappointment. It wasn't easy teaching teenagers who were terrified of looking foolish in front of the opposite sex. Especially when the subject was summoning, controlling and repelling the dead. No one liked to talk about death. In the years since she'd left Sijan, she had discovered that and come to recognize it as a near-universal fact, her birth city being the notable exception.

This class in particular was her least favorite. It was the Capstone on the Underworld for General Studies. The highest level class most students ever got to, on this subject. If they weren't specializing in dealing with the dead, this was the last class they would need to take from her before being sent out on their own into the world, graduated and capable. That meant there was a number of late teens with a sprinkling of interested younger ones. It also meant that she couldn't pull her punches with the subject matter. Ava always tried to be compassionate, understanding that most people were terrified of dying. She could be, until this class. It was at this level that those who wanted to know more had to find out what they were getting into.

And it was at this level that practitioners of other mortal magic learned the necessary knowledge. How to kill a ghost. How to expel a possessing one. How to ward not only your house, but your body. And even your very soul.

Ava set the bones back in their bindings and placed the whole bundle on a shelf. Today has focused on how to lay a zombie or skeleton to rest if one rose after a family buried one of their members. It was not an easy class, but it was necessary. Ava knew better than most people that the forces of death were not only restless but, in recent years, on the march. It would not be too long before the Deathlords set out from the Shadowlands and began bringing all of Creation under their yoke.

In the years to come, the frightened teenagers she trained today would be an essential part of the defense of the living from the dead.

She closed and locked her workshop, murmuring the activation key to the wards she left in place on the door. Classes were done. It was time for dinner.

As Ava walked down the noisy hallways, filled with laughing students and lurking servants, she spied Xilanada coming out of her own classroom. Given that she could only see the top of her head from here, Xilanada might have looked like just another young student, if not for the pause and indecision in her posture as she looked at the crowd.

Ava moved through the students with practiced ease and came up beside the new teacher.

"Xilanada, how was class? I hope they weren't too rough on you?"

"No, no, class was fine," Xilanada smiled up at her. "Better than fine. The School has bright students here. I just have a lot to work out still, like reading lists and making sure I cover what they will be tested on at the end of the year."

The short woman looked reasonably relaxed, a good sign that Tepet Seya had been right in picking her. That she made it through the day at all was good. Though every teacher had a smattering of Old Realm history, trying to teach it all day was something else.

"I'm glad to hear it," Ava answered. "Come on, take my arm. I'll show you how we professors live life here."

The hand that squeezed her arm was timid and Ava reflected on the unusual new teacher as they navigated through rivers of teachable children. A strange mix of contradictions, this little blonde thing who looked enough like her to be related. Her youthful appearance made her nearly blend in with the student body, but the cast of her features often made Ava think she was much older. Maybe older than herself.

It wasn't that she was serious, for she did smile. And it wasn't that she was unhappy, for even now Xilanada looked pleased with the day. It was a feeling. A presence. As if some melancholy clung to the little woman, some lingering pain in her past that made her seem sad even when she was smiling, as she was now.

Did she really not remember her past? Ava thought the teacher probably did. But she meant what she had said. She had traveled in lands where the Sijanese Funerist robe and silver bracers she had concealed away in her pack would have meant a death sentence, no questions asked. Even though she was no longer a Funerist, plenty of people even in Nexus would be afraid of her.

Including her own students.

Xilanada had secrets, and whether or not they were as big as Ava's had been...well, it didn't really matter did it? They were big enough to her. That's what mattered. And Ava liked her well enough already to respect that.

"Did you give them a ton of reading?" she asked, grinning at the new teacher.

"Not really. I don't think so. Just a book each, to present to the class. I haven't had a chance to really look over the course outlines, or what this library has in stock."

"A book each? Just be sure not to kill them with work. They do have other classes you know."

"Oh, I know. I'm not worried about it. They each have a choice in what they read so hopefully they'll pick something they'll actually want to read. And I expect half will skim the text anyway and just give a cursory presentation. The point isn't for them to give me a dissertation."

"What are you looking for, then?" Ava asked, curious. She reminded herself not to be too critical of the new teacher's methods on the first day. After all, if the Headmistress had a problem with it, she would take care of it. Ava had the utmost respect for Tepet Seya's drive to keep the School the best in all of Nexus.

"Two things, really. First, I want them to realize that the First Age wasn't just a time of myths and legends. Real people lived and died, real governments rose and fell. People lived in towns then, just like now. The second thing is I want them to see that the Old Realm was a real government. Not just some...faceless empire of monsters that devoured people's souls, but an institution with organization, laws and policies. At least, that's what I'd like to see happen this week. We'll see about the rest of the class soon enough."

"Seya picked well," Ava remarked and she was amused to see the pale woman's skin crimson with a blush. The last nagging doubt, that this was a servant cleverly faking knowledge they didn't have, dispelled.

Xilanada could still prove to be more than she seemed. Given what she had already demonstrated knowing, that was almost a fact now. But if problems arose...well, Tepet Sen was keeping an eye on her, she knew. They would have the truth of things soon enough, if the girl made a mistake.