“What?” Raisa said, making no effort to hide her surprise. “I had no idea, sir, that Commander Byrne had taken this degree of interest in planning my education.” She turned and stared at Amon, who did not meet her eyes. Seeing the spots of color on his cheeks, she realized what it had taken for him to spend his influence with Askell in trying to secure special treatment for her. It was not the way he operated.

She turned back to Askell. “However, hearing it, sir, I think it sounds perfect for me.”

“You are coming late to the academy,” Askell said. “The other cadets your age have been here for three years already. It would be a challenge for you to master the usual curriculum, let alone one so…demanding.”

“I am used to hard work, sir,” Raisa said, lifting her chin. “I’m not totally untutored. I fostered with the Spirit clans for three years in the Fells.”

“Did you, now?” the master said, his face displaying a flatlander’s disdain for the clans. “I fail to see how that applies to your admission to a military academy.”

Edon Byrne says I ride like a Demonai warrior, Raisa was tempted to say.

“If I may, that is the reason I proposed a somewhat different curriculum for Morley, sir,” Amon said. “As you know, much of the first three years here at the academy is physical training—horsemanship, wayfinding, tracking, survival skills. There is considerable overlap with what Morley learned in the upland camps. Morley has also been training hard for the past month in flatland weaponry. I think you’ll find that—”

“If it could be done in a month, we would be that much more efficient, now wouldn’t we, Commander Byrne?” Askell said, emptying a paper of tea into the teapot. Using a rag to protect his hand, he carried it over to his desk and set it on a battered trivet.

Finally, he sat down in his high-backed chair and looked at Raisa as one might a child who overreaches. Raisa had seen that look often, and it never failed to annoy her.

“Is it really your intention to be a soldier, Morley?” Askell asked. “Wouldn’t it make more sense for you to study the softer sciences? Healing, art, and philosophy are all important topics. That’s a more typical course of study for those of your station.”

“My station or my gender, sir?” Raisa said. “You’ve said Wien House is full of thanelings and dukes. I can think of only one way in which they are different from me.”

“There are women in Wien House,” Askell said stiffly. “Surely, Commander Byrne has told you as much.”

“There are women, aye,” Raisa said, her voice quivering with anger. “And they’re all from the north, and likely the daughters of soldiers, right? No gently raised ladies?”