Reign of Shadows - Deborah Chester [3]
“Never mind.” Caelan grinned and beckoned. “You’re in time. Come look.”
Agel shook his head, but Caelan caught him by the front of his robe and pulled him over to the wall.
“Look at them!” Caelan said. “Did you ever see anything like it?”
Agel gave the troops a quick glance and turned away immediately. “They’ll probably loot and burn Meunch on their way through.”
“No, they won’t!” Caelan said, disappointed in his reaction. “They’re heroes. I’ve dreamed of the chance to see a fighting force this large.”
“Well, now you have. Come, let’s go before the proctors catch us.”
Caelan sighed. His cousin used to be fun, always ready for mischief, eager to join in any adventure. But since coming here to study healing, Agel had turned into a dullard. It was as though he’d checked his sense of humor and fun at the gate when he took his matriculation oath. This term, he’d advanced a grade to disciple, and he was more pompous than ever before.
Hooking his elbows over the wall, Caelan turned his back to Agel. “Go on, then. Sit in hall and eat your stew while Master Umal delivers another boring lecture on philosophy. I’m staying out here until it’s too dark to see anything.”
“You’re mad!” Agel said angrily. “It’s too dangerous, especially in winter hours. The wind spirits—”
“Silly old superstitions,” Caelan said, keeping his gaze stubbornly on the troops.
Agel slapped his back, and Caelan flinched and whirled around. “Don’t!”
“You still have bruises from the last beating the proctors gave you,” Agel said, glaring at him. “Why don’t you ever learn?”
“Learn what?” Caelan retorted, angry now. “To fold my hands and practice severance until my eyes cross? To recite passages that are so dull I can’t say them without yawning? What’s the point of it?”
“You know,” Agel said in a low, disapproving voice. “Or maybe you don’t. You’ve acted like a child ever since you came here.”
“I hate it here!” Caelan cried. “Last term you complained as much as I did.”
“But I advanced, and you didn’t. You’re at the bottom of the novice class in ranking. For shame, cousin! You’re already on academic probation. If you fail again, that will be the end of your studies here.”
“Good,” Caelan said stubbornly, hating this lecture. “Then I’ll be free.”
“How can you talk so? Rieschelhold offers the best training in the empire. To be a healer with any kind of reputation, you—”
Caelan scowled. “I don’t want to be a healer.”
“Nonsense. Of course you do.”
“I don’t!”
“You have to be!”
“Why?” Caelan shot back. “Because my father’s one?”
“Of course.”
Caelan spat over the wall in the soldier’s way of insult, and Agel’s eyes narrowed with disapproval.
“You don’t mean any of this,” Agel said. “It’s time you grew up and started acting your age.”
Caelan sighed. He would be seventeen next month, which meant he was one year short of being able to legally defy his father, one year short of residing under a roof of his own choosing, one year short of breaking his apprenticeship, one year short of taking himself out of school, one year short of living as and how he chose.
“I get enough lectures from the masters,” Caelan said angrily. “I don’t need any from you.”
Agel glared back. “I’ve tried to let you walk your own path, but how can I call myself your friend and kinsman if I let you throw this away? This place is so pure, so special. It’s—”
“It’s smothering me!”
Consternation filled Agel’s face. “You’ve known since childhood you would train here as your father trained, following in his footsteps. Why didn’t you protest earlier if you really didn’t want this?”
“I did. You know that.”
Agel shook his head. “If you really want something else, you could have insisted. I did with my father, and he listened to me. Otherwise I’d be working in the counting house instead of studying here.”
Caelan couldn’t believe Agel was saying this. It was like he’d forgotten those summers when he’d visited E’nonhold. “You know Beva. He hears only what he wants to. Nothing