Kael
A man who had never met me was describing how I had broken a wall.
I stopped behind him in the registration queue.
"With one hand," he said.
The student beside him looked impressed.
"Which hand?"
"The injured one."
An ambitious improvement.
I had needed help moving a water jug that morning.
The queue advanced before I could learn what else I had accomplished.
On the sixth day of the tenth month, the academy had become a collection of people trying to find rooms which had acquired different names overnight.
Banners marked the arrival court. Smaller boards marked the actual routes people needed.
Naturally, everyone followed the banners.
The first main delegations had come through the eastern Spire on booked gate cycles, then taken the four-hour transfer up to the academy. The parties already here for equipment work had known where to put their bags.
The new arrivals did not.
