“This is Royersford Healers’ College?” I asked, reaching back to grab my bag.
I wanted to discover for myself by jumping down from the wagon and rushing through the gates to announce my presence, but Horacio beat me to it by saying, “Yes, sir, Master Conrad. That’s it.”
I laughed out loud, stunned by the grandeur of the place where I would be living for the next year as I completed the healer’s course. Nobody, not even Peter or Jace, would have imagined how lofty my surroundings would be. If the other Sons could see this, they would go green with envy.
I scrambled down from the wagon, hefting my pack over my shoulders once I hit the ground. I walked around the back of the wagon, bidding the three maids goodbye, then moved up to stand between the wagon and the gate.
I smiled up at Horacio. “Thank you, my friend, for bringing me here safely. You have no idea how much I appreciate this.”
“Oh, I think you gave me an idea of it that first night,” Horacio replied, his face turning red. “Not that I’ll do anything like that again, but at least I can say I did once.”
I laughed and moved closer to slap Horacio’s thigh. “We part as friends then.”
“We do, Master Conrad,” Horacio said with a nod. “And if you ever need anything, I’m out this way about twice a month. It’s not much, but when I’m here, I stay at the Stag and Dragon.”
I assumed that was the name of an inn—and Royersford was so huge I imagined it had hundreds of inns—and I was glad he’d told me.
“Until we meet again, then,” I said, patting his thigh one last time.
“Best of luck to you, Master Conrad,” Horacio called after me as I turned and faced the massive college and its impressive gate.
I drew in a deep breath as Horacio urged his ox on. This was it. This was the adventure I’d longed for since the idea to be a healer had first entered my brain. This was the reason Dushka had let me leave him and travel as far from the frontier as it was possible to get.
This was the next chapter of my life, just waiting to happen.
ChapterFour
Itried not to feel like the rube most people around me probably assumed I was as I marched through the front gates and into the college. I don’t know if it was my imagination or a trick of the architecture, but as soon as I was beyond the walls, striding toward the tall main building of what looked to be a larger complex, the sounds of the city on the other side of the walls were blocked out.
The fountain right in the middle of the path between the gate and the building was more than what it had seemed at first. It was constructed with a dozen or more spigots, and silver cups hung from hooks at various points around the outside. An older woman who was dressed shabbily and seemed to be missing some teeth had wandered through the gates at the same time as I had, and took a cup from its hook to hold under one of the spigots. When it was half filled, she drank the water, then nodded a few times, as if saying a prayer of thanks, replaced the cup, then left.
My brow flew up at that, then stayed up as I surveyed the gardens I walked past. I knew enough about healing at that point to recognize they were planted entirely with medicinal herbs. Several gardeners were at work in the rows and arrangements, weeding or harvesting plants. At the far end of one garden, an older man seemed to be giving a lecture to a group of about a dozen students, using the plants as examples, I assumed, of what he was teaching. Behind that was a large, glass building where I assumed herbs were grown year-round. I could just make out an older man giving another lecture to students with the use of a chalkboard.
It really was a college. My heart beat faster in my chest and I rushed on through the open doorway of the main building. I couldn’t wait to get started with my own healer’s journey.
If ever I needed a reminder that I wasn’t in the frontier anymore, the world that I found on the other side of that doorway was it. The doorway led to a wide foyer that looked as grand as the central hall of the palace in Yacovissi. It was all white marble, with staircases that climbed up two floors on either side of the room. The foyer itself was three stories tall, and it echoed with the sound of footsteps and voices. Long balconies ran around the outer edge of the room, giving glimpses of the halls on the upper floors and the people rushing about.
I fought hard not to look too amazed or overwhelmed as I headed to the very center of the room, to a circular desk that was like a ring someone had dropped into the exact middle of the building.
“Can I help you?” the bored young man behind the desk asked me.
I was too busy marveling at the room around me to answer until I was right up against the desk. By that point, I figured the young man had already decided I was a waste of his time.
“I’m here for the healer’s course,” I said, not knowing how else to proceed.
The man looked at me and sighed as if I’d ruined his day. “You can’t just walk in off the street and demand to be admitted to the healer’s course,” he said. He would have been handsome, with his golden blond hair, full lips, and sharp, blue eyes, if not for his sour attitude.
“But I—”
“There is an extensive application process. It takes months for the committee to look at your submission and your references and to decide whether you belong here.”
“I’ve already—”
“Places are reserved for only the brightest and most promising students, which I am quite certain you are not. So stop wasting my time and go back to whichever hovel you crawled out of in whatever backward farm town you came from.”
I just stood where I was for a moment, gaping at the ass. Alright, perhaps I wasn’t the freshest I’d ever been after traveling for more than a week. I’d let my beard grow in a little, not that it grew particularly fast of thick, and I could have done with a change of clothes. But as the young man turned back to his work, I stood taller and put on every bit of noble demeanor I’d been raised to have.
“My name is Lord Conrad Kettering of Yacovissi,” I told him the name I’d put on my application in the most imperious tones I could manage. “I have already applied to the program and been accepted. I have just traveled for more than a week across the frontier and through the mountains, then across the kingdom to get here. I. Am. Expected.”