A younger son of a thane, Tourant had apparently decided that an academic post provided opportunities he wouldn’t have at home—opportunities to bully and humiliate students during the day and pursue other pleasures at night.

Tourant was a tyrant, and he had a typical Ardenine attitude toward women—arrogant and condescending. He made his opinion clear early on—women should be enrolled elsewhere, not wasting the time of the faculty in Wien House and the other, more manly academies. A thousand years since the Breaking, and Arden still couldn’t seem to get over the fact that they had once been ruled by a woman.

Tourant was a small man—in stature and in every other way. He had thin, cruel lips and curling brown hair that he wore long. It was already thinning on top, though he was only a few years older than Raisa. His face was rather reptilian, with a receding chin and a pointed nose.

He was also something of a dandy, and often removed his scholar’s robes to display his finery.

Tourant strutted back and forth at the front of the classroom, doing most of the talking during what was supposed to be a discussion. He rarely stayed on topic and seemed to have only a nodding acquaintance with the facts. A real discussion would have been helpful, but Tourant’s recitation was a waste of time.

Raisa mostly sat in the back row and did homework. But today the topic was magic in warfare, and she had trouble keeping her mind occupied elsewhere and her mouth shut when Tourant rattled on, spewing misinformation like a broken waste pipe.

I’m learning self-restraint, Raisa thought, keeping her clenched fists hidden in her lap. A valuable skill.

It got worse. A rather wild-eyed temple dedicate from Arden proclaimed that the Demonai warriors went into battle naked. “Though they are fabulously rich, the northern savages wear all of their wealth as jewelry,” the dedicate went on. “They fight in the nude save for massive gold collars and bracelets that proclaim their status. And quivers for their arrows.”

“Now that is something I would like to see,” Tourant said, grinning. His gaze slid over Raisa, cold and nasty as a demon’s kiss. “You’re a half-blood, Morley, right? Ever go into battle naked? Is the idea—to distract the enemy?”

Raisa pushed away an image of Reid Nightwalker galloping through the trees in the buff. “If you think about it, sir, you’ll realize that can’t be true,” she said, choosing each word before she spit it out. “Anyone who goes naked in the mountains would be cold and uncomfortable even in summer. In a northern winter, he would freeze to death.”

“They are accustomed to the cold,” the dedicate said. “They don’t even feel it.”