Ninka Evertrue's Arc

Chapter 16 of 29

The fire held all night. By morning the frost had burned off the grass, and the children came out of the cabins asking when the training would start. Ninka had told them today. She had promised Ezra a room, a door, a place where a boy could set a curtain on fire without setting a bunk on fire too. She did not have one. Every cabin held two or three children and their few belongings. There was no corner left. She found Ezra by the hearth, feeding a thin line of salt into the flame. He did not look up. "I don't have a room for you," she said. "The cabins are full. I told them today and I can't do today." "Then tell them tomorrow," Ezra said. "A room first. A promise second." "I don't have tomorrow either. One of them sets fires in his sleep. You saw." Ezra brushed salt from his palm. "Outside won't work. Wind pulls focus. They need walls." She sat on the stone beside him. Her gift was gone. She could not raise anything from the ground. She could not call the dragon. She had one tool left, and it belonged to someone else. She went to the cabin where Kaia slept and knocked until Kaia opened the door with the sketchbook already in her hand. The magical pen was tucked behind her ear. "I need a school," Ninka said. "A real one. Big enough for all of them and Ezra and whoever comes next. Classrooms. A door that locks. Windows that open." Kaia rubbed her eyes. "How big?" "Bigger than anything you've drawn. I know what I'm asking." Kaia looked past her at the meadow. She uncapped the pen. "Show me where." They walked to the flat rise east of the hearth. Kaia knelt in the grass and opened to a fresh page. Ninka described what she saw in her head — stone walls, tall windows, rainbow crystal set into the trim like the cabins, a balcony over the front doors, a greenhouse on each side for Luna's plants. Kaia drew. The pen moved without stopping. Ezra came up behind them and watched without speaking. When Kaia lifted the nib, the ground shook once. Stone climbed out of the earth in clean courses. Windows filled with glass. Crystals bloomed along the eaves and caught the morning sun. A carved sign settled above the doors: NINKAS SCHOOL FOR BEAUTIFUL SOULS. Kaia dropped the pen and sat down hard. "That's the last one for a while," she said. "I'm empty." Ninka climbed the steps and pushed the doors open. Cool air, wide floors, a staircase, rooms with doors that closed. She turned to Ezra. "Pick your classroom. Training starts after breakfast." Ezra walked past her into the entry hall and looked up at the ceiling. "Good," he said. And then, quieter: "I've never had a room before."