Page 22 of Daughter of No Worlds

She opened the door. “Walk with me. And, I didn’t introduce myself. My name is Nura.”

* * *

Nura walked fast,and didn’t appear to notice or care whether I kept up. Still, I matched her pace step-for-step. It felt good to be able to move again, despite the tugs of sharp pain across my back. Whatever Willa had done for me hadworked.

“Zeryth was right. There is no rule against Fragmented Valtain joining the Order of Midnight. It’s not common, but…” Nura shrugged, lazily raising her palms. “I have no objection to that.”

This was actually happening.

I craned my neck as we glided down the halls, taking in the tall ceilings, the white floors, the silver accents doused in sunset light through enormous windows. A few other Valtain passed us, some giving me curious looks. I tried not to gawk back at them. While most wore some kind of moon insignia somewhere on their jacket, none were as large as the one on Nura’s back, and no one else dressed entirely in white like her. I wondered if she held a higher rank.

“We do have one problem, though.” We took a sharp turn, arriving at a circle of cerulean blue carved into the floor, surrounded by a delicate silver gate. Nura stood in the center and motioned for me to join her. When I did, she placed both hands on the rail. The platform shuddered.

I let out a tiny gasp as I felt the floor begin to lower beneath me, resisting the urge to jump away from the edge. Nura shot me an amused glance. “There are many uses for our magic. Imagine how long it would take to climb these stairs.”

Soshewas doing this? Lowering us, and the floor?

I watched floor after floor of the Tower pass as we dropped, smearing glimpses of bustling activity. “You do, however, have a problem,” Nura said. “Apprenticeships were assigned six months ago. There are not as many Valtain as there are Solarie. I don’t believe we have anyone to train you.”

Uh-pren-tish-ips.

I didn’t understand that word. But Ididunderstand her last sentence.

“I do not need training.”

Nura snorted, as if this was a ridiculous thing to say. “Yes, you do. Every Wielder, Valtain or Solarie, must complete an apprenticeship to join the Orders. No exceptions.”

“Apprenti—?”

“Apprenticeship. Young Wielders train with a teacher for six years.”

Six years?!

“I do not have that time,” I blurted out. “People in Threll do not have six years for waiting for help.”

Nura glanced at me, narrowing her eyes thoughtfully. I desperately wished I could sense her thoughts.

“And what kind of help, exactly, do you want us to provide?”

“Send small group of Wielders to Threll, with me.” I didn’t hesitate. I had thought this through many times. “Give me twenty men and Order protection to go to Esmaris Mikov’s city and—” I stumbled for the Aran equivalent of the word “negotiate,” groping through my mind to no avail. “—and discuss for the freedom of the slaves there. Give me money or power for making deals for their release. And if this does well, we can go further in Threll. But for now, I only ask of you twenty.”

The platform came to a stop, touching the ground, but neither of us moved nor spoke. The silence was agonizing.

“You’re ambitious,” Nura said. “I don’t know if that’s a realistic plan. But we will see what we can do, maybe, after you complete some training. Nothing I do can get around that requirement.”

She stepped off the platform, continuing down the hall and waving me along, “Follow me.”

* * *

The ground floorof the tower was more open than the spiraling hallways above, and so blindingly bright that I had to squint. The lobby was bustling with activity, full of people who looked like they all had very important business to attend to — Valtain with their white hair and albino skin, and Solarie, who looked like any other human but wore the sun emblems of the Order of Daybreak.

My gaze ran to the other side of the room and then stopped.

The mural that adorned the back wall was so intimately familiar, and yet so different from the version of it that I knew. The massive painting of Araich and Rosira Shelaene was the same image as the ink drawing in my well-worn book — the two of them framed by the sun and the moon, their palms touching. And right there in the center, where their hands met, the building itself changed, accents turning from Rosira’s silver to Araich’s gold. The Tower of Midnight and the Tower of Daybreak shared the same ground floor, and this was where they converged.

I didn’t realize that I had stopped walking until Nura paused beside me.

“You know the story of our founding?” she asked.

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