“Why yes!” said Zui. “It’s like this every season.”

“And will everyone be let in?”

Zui put a delicate hand to her chest and laughed. “Not even close! A quarter, if that. Come, it’s this way.”

Yenni followed Zui, all thoughts of the dragon wiped away. She had not expected such competition, and anxiety slowly unfurled in the depths of her belly.

Stop it, she chided herself. I will gain entrance to these Creshens’ academy. I’m top of my class, I speak five languages, and I am a princess of the Yirba. I will not fail. She squeezed her left hand shut, encompassing the rune there. I cannot fail.

The bell tower rang out twice in the time Yenni spent standing, then sitting, then standing in the line that snaked out of Bertrand’s East. The other applicants chattered and whispered around her, though none engaged her directly. Yenni ignored them, letting her thoughts drift back to home. At last it came her turn to show her writ of passage and to answer a few questions. She exchanged her paper for two tokens, one carved with a flame, the other with a sword. They would grant her entrance to the battle aptitude and magical aptitude tests in the following days.

At last Yenni jogged down the wide flight of steps and moved off the path to the grass. Free of the crush and noise, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Her next move was to secure lodging at the guest residences for prospective students.

Yenni’s stomach rumbled, bringing her back to the present. As she rummaged around in her bag for the dried plantain she’d bought in Sainte Ventas, someone called her name. Zui Duval weaved through the sea of students, followed by someone just as colorful. Yenni smiled and returned the blue woman’s frantic waving with a casual flash of her hand.

“Hi, Yenni!” Zui called. Yenni flinched at Zui’s casual address, but met her palm.

“To be honest, my name is Yenni Aja-Nifemi,” she said. “Though Yenni Ajani will do. I know that in Cresh you are used to shorter names, but on the Moonrise Isles those are somewhat informal, reserved for family and close friends.”

“Oh! I apologize, Yenni Ajani. This is my husband, Harth.” Zui gestured to the man beside her.

“Only?” It wouldn’t do to call him by a name with just one sound. One-sound names were reserved for the Sha. “Do you have any other names?”

“Well, my full name is Harth Raynee Duval,” he said, and stuck out a hand. Yenni remembered just in time that men in Cresh greeted each other, and women they weren’t familiar with, by clasping the forearm. She grabbed his arm loosely.

He was tall, and she had to look way up to meet his eye. “I am happy to meet you, Harth Raynee Duval,” she said, emphasizing each name.