Nothing seemed to hurt more than new blisters over callused hands, Dayanik thought to himself, especially when those blisters came paired with the bitter taste of thorough defeat. His head hung low as he sheltered his reddened face and misty eyes from any who might walk past. It was so frustrating that he kept failing like this.

  The central tower shaded him from the early evening sunshine, with orange and red hues painting the stark white walls of the boys’ dormitory a mural of bright pastel colors. Dayanik steeled himself as he looked around, sat cross-legged and leaning his back against the wall. As the shadows ahead of him extended in the courtyard, the wall began to cool dramatically. He sunk his head back into his arms as he soaked in the cool breeze. He remembered the cool evenings back in Lida’s home spent waiting patiently for Alya to finish cooking some roasted lamb legs or a welcoming chowder made with lots of potatoes and goat’s milk. It had been four years since he had left his home and come to the capital, and the scents of Alya’s cooking and the sound of Lida’s laughter still held firmly in his memory.

  A gentle tap on his shoulder pulled him from his reverie.

  “Couldn’t have gone that bad, could it?”

  “You saw the scores, didn’t you? I finished twenty-ninth, Bin. Out of thirty-six.”

  The tap turned into a friendly nudge, though in his one arm Binfey carried twice as much strength as Dayanik had, so he nearly toppled over. Binfey was fifteen, a year older than Dayanik, and a whole head taller than him. He was growing into a strapping young fighting priest, even gaining some meager musculature and a patch of chin hair he seemed far too proud of. Despite his advanced exterior that would make most boys his age insufferably confident, Binfey had a winsome, affable personality that he pulled off naturally.

  “There’s no shame in it, Day. You’ve never been much of a fighter.”

  “Thanks,” Dayanik spat back, though meekly. It was true, regardless of his feelings on the matter. Fighting magic was innately a talent-based test, and Dayanik lacked a strong reserve of magic he could draw upon. He had lasted longer in the combat test than a few boys, but it was far from something he ever wanted to find himself needing to use in real life.

  Binfey shrugged in a manner that seemed to slough any guilt about the harsh words right off of him, grinning. “You’ve heard though, right? They’re serving offal skewers tonight! You’ve got to come, Day,” he nudged him once more.

  Dayanik held back a slight dry heaving…retching feeling in his stomach. Not that he detested the taste of offal. The cooks in the boys’ dormitory far exceeded the ones the girls had; he had heard enough stories about rice gruel without a hint of seasoning that he could taste the tasteless mixture in his mind. He simply hated the idea of joining the others right now. Doubtless, despite his best efforts, someone had likely seen him trying to hide his tears and had spread word of it. Why else would Binfey have found him like this?

  “You’re going to need to eat, healing magic testing comes tomorrow. It always drains you, doesn’t it?”

  Dayanik simply nodded his head in acknowledgement.

  Binfey squatted to meet Dayanik’s eye level, “well, you’ve got me beat in healing testing at least,” he grinned again.

  Dayanik shook his head, “I don’t have the stamina to keep up my healing powers. The words feel like they give my life right to whoever I’m healing.”

  “No way! Don’t worry, it honestly takes it out of all of us,” Binfey reassured him. “Honestly, I might make whatever I try to heal feel worse.”

  “That’s because you’re a terrible healer,” Dayanik said, his mood unshifted.

  “That’s true, otherwise, I would’ve healed this,” he waved his arm, a stump midway through the forearm. “I would’ve done it ages ago, but I’m awful when it comes to healing,” he laughed and put it behind his head, tousling his hair. Binfey always seemed to laugh the hardest when it came to talking about his hand or talking about his past in general, as if to distract from having to talk about himself. All that Dayanik had ever managed to pry from him about his past was that he came to the city even younger than he did, an orphan just like he was. Some of the acolytes and priests came from orphanages, logical, considering that the church sponsored eighty percent of the orphanages in the entire country. But Dayanik could never remember much of his family. Sickness took them when he was so little all he could remember were smells. Red locks of curly hair from his mother and warmth emanating from his father. And Dayanik had Lida, he had a second family, something he considered himself eternally grateful for, considering how he had all but forgotten his first family. But Binfey’s past was something that the boy seemed to remember deeply, something that showed clearly in the smile he curated whenever he wanted to laugh the subject away.

  “What about history and science? Those don’t require any kind of muscles…I think.”

  “I did get fifteenth in history…and thirtieth in science. I try to keep up with my studies but…I don’t know, sometimes it feels like my mind melts whenever an examination happens.”

  Binfey blew air out in exaggerated fashion, “boy, I get that feeling.”

  The two laughed for a moment, though Dayanik quickly returned to a solemn quiet, the agony of his mundane performances cutting through any short-lived moment of happiness in an awkward, anxious silence. “So…what will you do?” Dayanik finally mustered himself to ask.

  “It’ll be the front lines for me. Fighting has always been my strong suit, and we always need more priests to help with border skirmishes,” Binfey responded resolutely. “Plus, I need to see more of this world. It’s gotten too small, and they say I’m growing every day. Soon I’ll outgrow this whole city!” He laughed, but Dayanik could tell he wasn’t saying everything in his heart. He continued quietly, “I don’t really remember much about my life before…well before I became a one-armed warrior priest. You don’t think you could join, do you?”

  Dayanik laughed, though more of an exasperated gasp than a true laugh, “you must be joking. I can’t even hurt an ant with my spells.”

  “And you’ve never won a fight in martial training,” Binfey added, nodding knowingly. “But, what about as a military advisor? We’ve taken leadership courses! Don’t you want to see more of the world?!”

  Dayanik tilted his head, seemingly offended at even the notion. “C’mon Bin, we both know I can’t lead anyone.”

  “Well…why not?”

  Dayanik’s eyes drifted toward the entrance to the boys’ dormitory and dining hall, where shouting and merriment could be heard faintly through the thick wooden doors. “Leaders need to be strong…if I can’t show strength in front of other priests, what soldier would ever follow me?”

  Binfey held his tongue. It was disappointing for them both to acknowledge, but it was true. Asking a soldier, especially the sellswords employed that constituted the large majority of the Dunyasi military, to follow someone who shrank from combat the way that Dayanik did in training would be a silly notion. It was impractical, if not irresponsible, to have someone like Dayanik anywhere near the front lines of combat.

  “But…I will say a prayer for you,” Dayanik said, as much to reassure himself as Binfey, whose demeanor had grown downtrodden after the conversation had turned to the future.

  Binfey smiled at his notion though, a genuine smile that seemed more like a sheepish grin than a reaction to a joke or the precursor to a bout of laughter. “Thanks, Day.”

  “If there’s one thing I can do right, I’ve memorized all the prayers of protection,” Dayanik joked.

  Binfey waved his hand in front of his chest horizontally, prompting a quizzical look from Dayanik. “I’d give you a round of applause for the accomplishment, but…” he shrugged, trailing off, and the two boys laughed together, leaned against the wall as the warmth began to fade from it fully the darker it got.

  The heavy wooden door to the dormitory slowly creaked open as one of the boys popped his head around the door to peak at the two, leaning against the wall. It was Rohyn, the redheaded boy two years their junior with bright curly hair and countless freckles stretching across his nose and cheeks. “C’mon Bin! They’re about to take away the dinner for the night,” he shouted at the taller boy. His head darted back behind the door, not waiting to see Binfey’s response.

  Binfey ducked away from the wall slowly, looking back and giving a sad smile at Dayanik. He paused for a moment as he reached his one hand out to the door handle to open it, giving a slight nod back to Dayanik. Binfey didn’t try to convince him to come join the rest of them; Dayanik commonly skipped meals, especially on days like today where he sulked away from the others. They had only two more years together before their final examinations, but this moment felt like one of the last they’d spend together, talking alone. So, as he was wont to do, Binfey beamed a brighter, more forced smile in a way that masked any hint of sadness and disappeared behind the door as it closed.

  The frustration had lingered quietly, simmering beneath the surface of their conversations, but now that Binfey had joined the dining hall with the other boys, Dayanik’s cheeks flushed, and tears flew down his face. He loved a clear, cloudless evening like this one, but he wished it was raining, so that he wouldn’t have to worry about being seen this way. The visible moons at this point in the early evening grew brighter in the sky as the second sun disappeared beneath the mountains on the horizon to the west. K’tune, Auwen, and Tahnek, the triplet moons, named after the three first children of the creator, Annatta, grew brighter by each moment. On most nights, the three moons roamed the sky at the same time of night, their planetary orbits parallel and at matching speeds. In the scientific lessons taught by the priests, they had mentioned that, although they might seem larger than the suns or the stars, they were actually quite small in comparison but only appeared larger due to how close they were. Dayanik remembered, in the way that his embarrassing intrusive thoughts usually came to him unexpectedly, the laughing fit that his teacher had when this notion of the moons being close to Eil frightened him into asking if they might knock over the towers in the city or run over the mountains he could see from his window. All the boys couldn’t help but laugh that day. I stand by that question though, they really did make it sound like the moons could trample over buildings, especially when they mentioned that the moons sometimes get even closer, depending on the time of year. The thought made him smile to himself, and Dayanik noticed he had not been alone for the last few moments.

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  Brother Ouranil, one of the priests appointed as chaperones for the boys’ dormitory, had been slowly approaching Dayanik, though he didn’t seem to be trying to intentionally sneak up on him. Ouranil was a very quiet man in nature; Dayanik hadn’t heard him say more than two sentences at a time, which seemed strange considering he was always smiling and seemed young with full energy, especially at lessons. Ouranil was one of the chaperones at night, but during the day was the history teacher. He couldn’t have been more than thirty, though it was rude to ask someone you knew was older than you their age, a difficult proposition when conversing with your peers, but easy enough of a custom to follow with one’s teachers. He was also relatively handsome; he had a light brown head of hair, coiffed slightly atop his head but kept relatively close cut. He wore spectacles and his cheeks showed the slightest hint of the scars of acne, but he maintained an air of someone well put-together, as if a few weeks without discipline could lead to him quickly looking disheveled.

  “Dayanik,” Ouranil stated calmingly. He wasn’t there to chide him for his absence.

  “Brother Ouranil,” Dayanik said, wiping his face and standing up from his crouched position. “I’m sorry…f-for my absence.”

  Ouranil shook his head, placing a hand on his shoulder. He had soft hands, free from the callouses that evidenced much of the manual labor that unassigned priests, attendants, and acolytes found themselves burdened with on a daily basis. “I’m not here to chastise you, Dayanik, though I do wish that if you and Binfey were going to miss most of dinner you’d spend the time studying…though I’ll admit I just wish all my students would study fastidiously,” he added cheekily. “Plus, I know you didn’t get the results you wanted in the combat magic training today.”

  “I don’t have the talent for it,” Dayanik shrugged, feigning apathy.

  “Is it truly?” Ouranil seemed to regard Dayanik’s emotionless response with disdain. “I’ll admit, sometimes the way in which it feels as though the person you’re fighting could squish you like a bug with their powers, it’s not only for those with innate talent. It’s nothing like the vitriolic attacks on character that one must suffer in the philosophical debate exercises proctored by Fifth Seat Seklimissian; those seem to be the thing that one might just genuinely need to have a talent for. I never once was able to get him to admit defeat in debate exams growing up, and I studied far harder than he ever did.” Ouranil laughed, but debate was for the final year of an acolyte’s training, so the joke was lost on Dayanik. “Erm, yes, well…what I mean is that…talent is not what you think it is.”

  “What does that mean?” Dayanik questioned, confused, considering that talent was a simple concept to understand.

  “Exactly what I said,” Ouranil responded flatly. He then paused for a minute, then brushed his hand through his hair, something he did often during reading portions of lessons when he thought nobody could watch his eccentric habits. He adjusted his glasses, then continued, “tell me this, Dayanik: when you think someone has talent, do you think that they don’t work for what they’re doing? Do you think a boy or a girl touches the sands of a Dun’khari pit and immediately is good at it?”

  “Well, n-no, but…but that’s not what I’m saying!”

  “Tell me what you mean then, when you say talent.”

  “Just because they’re not good without ever learning about something doesn’t mean that they don’t get better at it faster, or that they might be blessed with athletic abilities that I don’t have,” he bemoaned.

  Ouranil nodded, as if conceding a point, but only continued, “true, some boys will grow taller than others, or perhaps grow bigger muscles than others, even if they do everything the same as another. But a physical capability does not equal talent.”

  “How could it not?”

  “If physical limitations were the true measure of what one could do, do you really think Binfey would have finished first in the combat magic testing today? He’s got one arm, lights above,” Ouranil laughed at this notion, likely remembering that it was Binfey who knocked Dayanik out of the combat magic examination today and knocked him out of the pit the last time they played Dun’khari, banishing him from the game. “Talent is driven by effort, even when it may not seem that way, even when it feels unfair. Men can train twice as hard and twice as thoroughly as someone twice their size, equaling them in strength or speed or ability.”

  Dayanik furrowed his brow, trying to counter the argument. “What about those who are smarter than others?”

  “A sillier argument than what you started with. I’m no smarter than you are Dayanik, but I’ve worked hard and poured my heart and soul into teaching and learning. I may do better than you on a test today, but what about tomorrow?”

  Dayanik pursed his lips, souring; he didn’t like this argument, considering all that he seemed to experience in his own life flew in the face of Ouranil’s support. “Then why is it that no matter what I do to practice, no matter how hard I work, I always lose?” He looked up at Ouranil, flustered by the sudden burst of frustration in his thoughts, fighting back any more tears from flowing. “I’m not like Binfey. Sure, he can’t stay awake during science and history lessons, and I don’t think he knows subtraction from addition in our math lessons, but he puts everything into his fighting, because he knows he’s good at it, and that he has a future with it.” It was true. Combat priests were highly valuable in the military, especially considering how much of the fighting forces for Dunyasik were simply hired hands. Combat priests swung many battles in the Iron Wars, considering a talented combat priest could potentially kill hundreds alone. High Seat Fenal Kotukular had served as a fighting priest in the earliest days of the Iron Wars. It was said that in the Battle of a Thousand Lights, under the rare moonlight of all fourteen moons, he had snuck into an unsuspecting camp of Ginlesi troops and savagely defeated a horde of hundreds by himself, his power lasting him in battle through the entire night all the way until first sunrise. “If I were to try and focus more on combat magic, I wouldn’t get much better, and my scores in math and science would only get even worse. I can’t afford to sacrifice time studying to focus on getting stronger,” he said dejectedly.

  “Let’s not pretend as though your grades in my history lessons have been much better,” Ouranil piled on, laughing as he put his hand back on Dayanik’s shoulder. “I don’t think you understand talent or effort quite yet however.” He paused for a moment, but Dayanik’s look of confusion signaled he could continue. “Do you think I became a history teacher in the capital by happenchance?”

  Dayanik was confused where the point was heading, “erm…weren’t you good at history?”

  Ouranil laughed with his full belly, his hand gently slapping Dayanik’s shoulder. Now Ouranil slouched down to sit against the wall with him. By now the moons had ascended even further, the night growing into a dark, serene indigo sea, pocked by stars. “Not at first, no,” he said, still chuckling. “However, it was someone I thought was more talented than me that inspired me to make the choice.”

  “Fifth Seat Seklimissian?” Dayanik asked.

  Ouranil nodded, continuing, “Invizli was a…well he was like if you took Binfey’s exceptional combat magic and Botti’s test scores and wrapped them into one person,” he put his hand out gesturing, painting a picture for Dayanik to imagine.

  Botti! That boy is…well he’s just the worst! Dayanik thought to himself, feeling frustrated again. Botti was the strongest in academics amongst all the boys and the girls amongst the acolytes. He had tested the highest in math, science, and history. He had even been taken in as a special apprentice by Principal Utera, who was long rumored to be retiring soon, as a potential replacement. Botti was also insufferable. He bullied Dayanik constantly for his shortcomings in the classroom. “If you’re going to be so scrawny, you should at least try harder at studying, Day,” Dayanik recalled him saying just a few weeks earlier, after their quarterly history examination results had come back. Dayanik had been proud of his scores, getting tenth that time, and the mockery had sunk his confidence to a new low, resulting in his scores slipping to fifteenth this week. He’s even scrawnier than I am! Dayanik reassured himself, though he wasn’t completely confident that was true.

  “But he motivated me,” Ouranil said, as Dayanik’s attention lapsed back to their conversation away from his growing frustration. “I found myself motivated to try everything I could to beat him at something…anything really.”

  “So…you focused on your studies?”

  Ouranil nodded, “reading was already a hobby, so I figured I would turn it into my whole life,” he paused, smiling fondly at the thought, “and I haven’t stopped since.”

  Dayanik paused for a moment, considering, “but…what if I can’t beat Botti even if I try even harder to study better.”

  Ouranil shrugged, “you may never beat him. I never beat Invizli.”

  This didn’t have the reassuring effect on Dayanik that he figured his teacher wanted it to have. The notion that he could divert any and all of his focus away from healing magic, combat magic, martial combat, all to fail? He got disheartened even considering that possibility, and his shoulders slumped down. Dayanik was terrible at hiding his emotions, and it was clear that Ouranil noticed, clearing his throat to try again.

  “Plus, you’re not necessarily the worst at any of the examinations, right? Temperance of expectations can be a virtue as well,” Ouranil tried to say sagely, though his tone was as uninspiring as the point itself.

  Dayanik picked up his sagging head, his face marked with annoyance. “That’s a sillier argument than the one you began with. You want me to think it’s okay to not be good at anything because I’m at least better than someone?”

  Ouranil nodded at this point made.

  “I just…it’s just so hard to try, Brother Ouranil, to keep going. I try to cast a spell in a combat session and I get thrown back by a stronger one. I try to heal a wounded limb on a cat and all that happens is I dull some pain for a moment before I end up gasping for breath. I even re-read the books you assign us, and all I can manage is middle of the pack. Why should I even try at all if I don’t have anything grand or glorious to hope for?”

  Ouranil paused for a moment on this. Though he was a renowned academic, he had just admitted that he wasn’t a philosopher by any stretch, so Dayanik gave him a moment to respond. Ouranil was unsure of what to say, and he hated the notion of giving the stubborn boy false hope or an excuse to give up when things were difficult. Maybe he won’t get better, maybe he will, maybe he’ll always be average, he thought to himself, much like he used to think about himself as well. But he also knew in his heart, after hearing similar words as a boy himself, that the uncertainty of tomorrow holds within it the light of a new day, of small battles to be won, and he knew the beauty of those who have somewhere to go. “Keep looking up, Dayanik. Looking up…needing to grow…it’s never a bad thing. It means you can go higher.” He smiled a warm smile, not necessarily meant to comfort Dayanik, rather in response to his own fond memories, and he placed his hand back on the boy’s shoulder. Now Dayanik needed to pause to consider the words, wary of empty platitudes, but then he nodded. He didn’t smile, but he had a newfound look in his eyes and a serious expression on his face, determined to make good on the chance to go higher.