Date: September 25, 540, from the Fall of Zanra the Dishonored
The door to room No. 17 of the "Carved Scroll" dormitory was old, made of dark, worn oak, with an iron bracket instead of a handle. Gil stood before it, clutching a scrap of parchment with the number and three names. The last few days had blurred into a kaleidoscope of impressions: the noisy city, the imposing but somewhat gloomy walls of the Institute, endless corridors smelling of dust, floor wax, and old parchment. But all of this was merely scenery. The main trial was beginning now, behind this very door. Her new life, her new "home," measuring three by four meters.
She took a deep breath, remembering Kaedan's resolve and Ulvia's quiet support, pushed the heavy door, and entered.
The room turned out to be as ascetic as at the "Old Pine," but with a touch of academic austerity. Three narrow, monk-like beds stood along the walls, covered with gray woolen blankets. Each had a small bedside table and a candlestick. Under the single high window overlooking the Institute's inner courtyard stood a long, roughly made table, littered with scrolls and bathed in the last rays of the autumn sun. The air was thick with smells Gil was beginning to associate with Nest: wood, ink, and something else foreign, perfumed.
Two girls were in the room. One, rosy-cheeked, with lush chestnut hair arranged in an elaborate but slightly disheveled hairstyle, sat on the edge of her bed enthusiastically telling a story. She wore a dress of simple cut but made of good quality, bright blue wool, which immediately marked her as not from a poor family. Her fingers with short-clipped nails gesticulated vividly in the air, painting invisible pictures.
The second girl sat at the table, bent over an open scroll covered in complex geometric drawings. She was thin, almost fragile, with a face pale as parchment and straight, mouse-colored hair pulled back in a simple, careless ponytail. She seemed completely absorbed in her calculations, only a slight movement of her lips and a barely perceptible tapping of her finger on the table betraying her intense inner work.
The storyteller cut off mid-sentence when she saw Gil. Her wide-open, brown eyes curiously examined the newcomer from head to toe, lingering on her worn traveling clothes and simple canvas sack.
"Ah, here's our mysterious third!" she exclaimed, her voice too loud for the small room. "We thought you'd changed your mind and run back to your... where were you from, anyway?"
Gil felt goosebumps run down her spine. She hated being stared at like that. "Be a gray mouse," she remembered Miss Elira's instructions. "Observe, but don't stand out."
"My name is Gil," she said as neutrally as possible, placing her sack on the only free bed by the far wall. "From the 'Old Pine' orphanage. My enrollment... was delayed."
"Orphanage?" the speaking girl's eyebrow shot up. Her curiosity seemed bottomless. "Oh, forgive my tactlessness. I'm Lia, daughter of wool merchant Martin from the Merchant Row. And this," she nodded towards the pale girl at the table, "is Sigrid. She's from a family of scribes, I think. Or surveyors? Honestly, she talks so little I haven't figured it out yet."
Sigrid didn't react to the name, only furrowed her brow slightly deeper, peering at her drawings.
"Nice to meet you," Gil said, feeling out of place. She sat on her bed, feeling the hardness of the straw mattress. The room, despite the presence of two other people, seemed incredibly lonely to her. There was no Kaedan to take the initiative, no Ulvia to lighten the mood with her directness, and no silent but reliable support from Dur.
"Well, since we're all together, we need to establish rules," Lia continued, clearly in her element. "For example, I get up with the first bell and start getting ready immediately. I can't think when there's mess around. Also, I can't stand it when they burn cheap oil in the lamps, it gives me a headache. I have good incense oil; we'll burn that, I'm not stingy."
Gil silently nodded, mentally noting: "Lia – merchant's daughter, values order and comfort, used to taking charge. Potential source of conflict – domestic trifles. Potential ally – sociable, may provide useful information about Institute life."
"Sigrid," the pale girl suddenly said quietly but distinctly, not taking her eyes off the scroll.
Lia and Gil turned to her.
"My parents are surveyors," Sigrid continued in her monotonous, emotionless voice. "But I am here to study astronomy and pure mathematics. And I prefer to work at night. Candlelight doesn't bother me."
Having said that, she immersed herself in her calculations again, as if having exhausted her daily limit for social interaction.
"Sigrid – intellectual, asocial, focused on studies. Poses no direct threat. Potential source of knowledge, but making contact will require effort," Gil analyzed lightning-fast.
"Well, that's wonderful!" Lia interjected again, clapping her hands. "So, at night—silence for Sigrid, in the morning—order for me. And you, Gil, what rules do you set?"
Gil looked at her. She could have said she was used to hiding food for a rainy day, or that she could go weeks without talking if she was busy analyzing, or that her best friends were three orphans with whom she had sworn to change the world.
"I have no problem with rules," she said instead. "And I won't create any rules."
Lia thought for a second, studying her with renewed interest. "I won't create any rules" – it was a statement of fact. In this simple declaration, a steely will was felt.
"Well," Lia smiled, and this time her smile seemed a little more sincere to Gil. "Then, I think we'll get along. The city, the Institute, the dormitory... it's all so complicated at first. But we'll manage, right? After all, we're roommates now."
She offered Gil a flatbread baked with honey and nuts. "Here. From my mother. She always makes too much of everything."
Gil slowly took the treat. It was a gesture of goodwill, a small bridge thrown across the chasm of their differences. She nodded in thanks.
In the evening, when Lia lit her incense lamp, filling the room with a tart scent unfamiliar to Gil, and Sigrid settled at the table with a new stack of scrolls, Gil lay down on her bed. She stared at the ceiling, listening to the scratch of Sigrid's pen and the steady breathing of the already sleeping Lia.
She was alone. Absolutely alone, for the first time in her life. Not in a field, not in a forest, but in a room with two strangers. But it was at this moment of solitude that she felt not fear, but a strange, cold calm. This was her path. The path of knowledge. And she would make this room, this Institute, and this city her tools. She looked around, and her gaze fell on the thick folio she had been given upon moving in—"Principal Chronicles of the Lands after Zana." She had work to do. And from this second on, no Lia with her rules and no Sigrid with her silence could stop her. She mentally caught the gaze of a non-existent interlocutor and, as once in the orphanage, quietly whispered:
"Observation has begun."