"Where is your home?" Deanyr asked Rega. He put down the half-eaten morsel of bread and looked into the bowl of soup that was his dinner.
"I don't have one," he said.
"Oh? Why is that?"
"Parents long dead, my lady. I lived on the streets of Cerathia before I, uh, came here."
"You're a rather long way from the city."
"I got into some trouble," he said, fearing she would be able to detect any lies and hoping she would never find the truth. Deanyr said nothing.
"Thank you for your hospitality. I shall leave at first light tomorrow."
"And go where?"
"I'm not sure. But not to the city."
The firelight slowly grew dim and Rega laid on the mat that Deanyr had given him. The wooden floor gently creaked underneath him with every shift he made in his bed. His eyes grew heavy the moment his head had touched the fabric and he very soon drifted off, dreaming of nothing. It was a deep sleep.
***
The light of the sun hit his eyes, drawing Rega from his slumber. Deanyr was standing over him. "Good morning my lady," said Rega, still dazed.
"You're going to get up and stop calling me that," she said.
Rega obeyed and wondered if she was going to kick him out.
"I'll give you a choice. Stay here, and obey whatever I tell you to do. Or drift like a vagabond in the streets of whatever city you end up in, without any purpose," she said.
"Alright, my lad- I mean...Deanyr..."
"Well?"
Rega rubbed his eyes and began processing what she just said. Was she offering a place for him to stay?
"I...I guess if it's okay with you...I will stay here."
"Good. Get undressed and have a bath. I can't stand your stench anymore."
Behind Deanyr's house was a small stone pool. Rega brushed his hands against the intricate carvings on its sides, wondering how old it was. Whoever made it put a lot of thought into it. The water was not as cold as he thought. He scrubbed his body, and realized that he was indeed filthy. Baths in the city were hard to come by.
"Um, Deanyr?" Rega called out to her, still in the pool.
She came out of the door, holding a plain tunic. She threw it to the side of the pool.
"Wear this," she said.
"Thank you miss...um...will you be standing there?"
Deanyr let out a sound of exasperation and went back into the door. Rega got out, dried himself and put on the tunic. It seemed the right size, although like Deanyr's own dress seemed embarrassingly short at bottom. He went back into the house, feeling refreshed.
She was sitting by the table, topless. Rega paused to take in the sight of her almost perfect breasts, the kind he saw in the statues of goddesses. "Sit down," she commanded. Rega sat in a chair next to her. He glanced at the scrolls and books that littered the table.
"How long have you known you had magic?" she asked him.
"Magic? I don't have any magic..."
"I see. Do you have any abilities that seemed out of the ordinary?"
"Well...my friends have always wondered how I was so good at finding my way around the city."
"That would be your Sight, the most basic of gifts."
"But, but, I don't have any magic..."
"I sense it in you. It is there."
"What should I do?"
"Whatever I tell you to do."
And with that Rega's training began. He was tasked with poring through enormous piles of books. Rega could read, but never took much pleasure in it. Deanyr seemed to have an almost perverse pleasure in forcing Rega to examine thick tomes and long scrolls.
"Without knowledge you are but an empty vessel," she would simply say whenever he protested. Rega continued, if only to appease her.
He found her distant at times, passionate at others. Did she care for him? He didn't know. Deanyr would keep silent and change the subject whenever he tried to ask about her, to learn more of her. Rega himself would share his stories, always careful to leave the unsavory ones out, and Deanyr would listen silently.
"Israfel," Rega said one day while studying a book, "who is he?"
"The Cursed Wizard. As the book notes, he was responsible for the Great War nearly seventy years ago."
"He was imprisoned but escaped."
"He did, with the help of a goddess."
"What happened?"
"He was defeated by Haylen just before the disappearance of the Divines."
"The King of the Capital? Was he a wizard too?"
"Yes. And it seems you have much more to learn."
"What happened to the Divines?" Rega asked. He had always wanted to know, and the people who he had asked always gave him different answers.
"Nobody knows. Some say they were all killed in a great war among themselves. Or perhaps they simply got tired of us and left."
Rega turned back to his books, but asked her another question while he was flipping a page.
"Were you with the High Council?"
Deanyr kept silent but shot him a cold stare.
"I saw some of the markings on your...armor. They had the imprints of the High Council."
"Very clever of you, to pry into my belongings."
"N-no Deanyr! I was only cleaning the wardrobe."
"Do not bring this subject up again."
"Why do you not want to talk about it?"
