Corryn sat carefully at the marble table. Stoically, she placed a thin book entitled “The First 200 Years After the Gate Was Opened” in front of her, and another copy neatly facing the seat across from her. She tucked a loose strand of brown hair behind her ear and swallowed nervously. Her student was due to arrive in moments. She stared straight ahead. “So it is a girl, then?” an elven boy of about eleven remarked. “I couldn’t be sure, with a name like Corryn. Allow me to introduce myself. I’m V’kass Valyn.”
He stuck out his hand, and she shook it awkwardly. “And I, Corryn Gerona,” she responded.
Valyn took his seat. “Now, tell me how accurate I am,” he said, looking her over. “You learned to read because … your father was a teacher, and he taught you. You became a concubine, but you did something silly to follow a fad, like dye your hair blond or red, which must have looked awful on you. You never got past ‘little swan’ status and you were given as a breeder to … It must have been Solamis, actually. He died before you got to meet him, and my Lord Father’s organizers came to the realization that you could read and write, and recommended you to take Solamis’ place as my fourth year history teacher.”
Corryn’s jaw dropped. She was completely confused. She had planned on a quick, easy lesson, but now, as her student recounted the semi-accurate story of her life, she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say. She decided to just ignore it. “I commend your punctuality, V’kass Valyn. Please turn to page two and read aloud.”
To her relief, he did so immediately. His reading was perfect; he didn’t stumble once, and the way he spoke had a sort of ebb and flow that made the bleak, boring writing seem like poetry. Valyn finished, and looked up at her.
“Do you have any personal commentary?” Corryn asked, reading from a list of comprehension questions she had prepared.
“Yes, actually,” he replied. “You are very lucky, and not just because of Solamis’ death. My father didn’t observe you very well. If he had looked more closely, he would have realized that you’d make an excellent concubine.”
Corryn she struggled to hide her anger. Something about Valyn was very like Lord Dyran. “Do you have any personal commentary pertaining to what you just read?” she grated.
"Yes, that also,” he admitted. “It leaves out rather a lot. It’s supposed to be telling how society generally operated in Evelon, but it doesn’t mention who it is that cleans, cooks, teaches, fights, runs shops, delivers messages, and generally all the other important things in society. Obviously there weren’t any humans. Did they enslave some other race? The weaker of themselves? Or perhaps they decided to not be lazy and do their own work,” Valyn said thoughtfully.
Corryn’s eyes widened. She put down the paper in her hand. “I imagine,” she said shyly, “They learned to do work for themselves.”
“They would have sent their children to get an education and learn crafts,” Valyn pondered.
“While at home, their parents would have taught them to sustain themselves by cooking and cleaning and such,” Corryn added.
“They say the lazier you are, the uglier you are,” Valyn interjected. “Perhaps the men did enough word that they could develop relationships with free, willing women on days that pigs didn’t fly.”
Corryn clapped a hand her mouth to stifle a laugh, delighted that he could mock Lord Dyran’s use of concubines.
“I could ask my father whether they had slaves in Evelon,” Valyn supposed glumly.
“What would he tell you?” She was curious to know what sort of relationship they had.
“He’d ask who planted such silly questions in my head, and replace you,” he said with nonchalance. “Don’t worry,” he added hastily, seeing her face turn pale. “I’d rather you stayed. And I wouldn’t go out of my way for one of his lectures, ever.”
Corryn continued the lesson, asking him the other questions, which were more specific. She smiled encouragingly when he answered correctly. Hardly five minutes had passed when she ran out of questions.
“Hmm,” Corryn mused. “What shall we do for the rest of the lesson? Do you want to go on to the next passage?”
Valyn wrinkled his nose as he turned the page and found more of the same. “I’ll read the next three lessons tonight, and you can quiz me on them tomorrow,” he suggested. “We’ll be through this horrid book in under a month that way.”
Corryn nodded. “That sounds reasonable.”
“What kind of a teacher was your father?” Valyn wondered. “What did he teach you besides reading and writing?”
“Actually, my mother taught me. I’ve no idea where she learned,” Corryn said with a shrug. “My father was an assassin, and for some reason she liked to keep records of whom he assassinated.”
Valyn lifted an eyebrow. “Why are you using past tense?”
“Oh,” Corryn said with a dry laugh, “He had to assassinate her when she tried to get Lord Dyran’s former wife to kill him using magic. Or so they told me.”
Valyn realized that the “former wife” was his own mother. He saw the pain in her eyes, and didn’t pursue the subject. “Do you still have the records? Could I borrow them?”
Corryn nodded. “I’ll go get them, if you like.” She stood and walked away.
As she walked she wondered ho w the boy had done it. The only emotion he had shown was a sort of cocky arrogance, which was exactly what she had feared, knowing his father. And yet she was already thinking of him as a friend, trusting him easily. Perhaps it was because of his apparent dislike of his father.
She recalled a phrase he father had told her once: “An enemy of an enemy is a friend.” He had said that while he and her mother were describing to her a war, and showing the importance of making allies. Her parents had gotten along quite well for an assassin and his breeder. That is, until her mother had made the gradual tumble into insanity. She would develop frightening, half-formed plans to annihilate the elven lords, then go into quiet trances, only coming out of them to blurt something senseless like “Lead, follow, or get out of my flight path!”
Corryn gave Valyn the papers, and sat down. He looked at them with interest. Each entry included a name, a profession, parents’ names, children (if any), and the reason for assassination. “Thank you,” Valyn said.
“What do you plan on doing with this?” she prodded quizzically.
“I’ll learn what crimes merit death,” he said simply.
Corryn was befuddled, but said nothing. “It was a pleasure to meet you, V’kass Valyn. We will continue tomorrow at the same time. Agreed?”
Valyn nodded without looking up.
