Beyond the Dreams We Know: A Collection by Rachel Neumeier

Author:Rachel Neumeier [Neumeier, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Anara Publishing
Published: 2018-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Audition

This novella takes place shortly after the events in The Floating Islands.

Someday I’ll go on with the story that starts in Islands, and this novella will take place between the first book and the second.

_______________________

-1-

There was to be a special audition for the kajuraihi. Nescana’s youngest brother, Eonii, was the first one to tell her about it.

Normally the kajuraihi only held one audition every three or four or five years, but even though there’d been an audition just this past spring, there was going to be another one now. In just ten days.

For ordinary auditions, the kajuraihi gave notice at least ten senneri in advance so people could make arrangements and put forward petitions. Boys from twelve to eighteen came forward—normally their male relatives petitioned for them, swearing to their good character and intelligence and general fitness to join the ranks of the kajuraihi. Only on rare occasions would a boy petition on his own behalf because he had no one to do it for him. Such a boy was generally regarded as over-proud, but Nescana knew of one boy who’d done it and not only been accepted for the audition but actually succeeded. Nescana’s oldest brother, Genrai, had become a kajurai just this past spring, and she had been so proud of him, but then she knew Genrai was anything but over-proud.

Genrai had worried for the whole ten senneri, knowing how hard it would be for his brothers and sisters once he left them for the kajuraihi. Nescana herself had made him put forward the petition...in fact, she’d dictated most of it herself, and paid the scribe with her own coins, and bought a proper wax seal for the parchment. She’d argued and reassured and laid out their finances down to the last quarter-copper, showing Genrai that while the next year might be hard, it wouldn’t be too hard.

He’d done it. He’d worked himself nearly to death during those last few senneri, building up a small store of coin so his brothers and sister would be secure for a little while. In the end he’d brought forward his own petition and gone into the kajurai tower for his own audition, and he’d made it. He hadn’t come back.

Nescana had never seen him fly, not for sure—not yet. Kajurai novices weren’t allowed out of the novitiate for their whole first year, like a very intense apprenticeship with no half days off. But someday. Someday, her big brother’s shadow would fall across their doorway, huge wings and all, and he would tell her all about it. All about the sky and the wind and the dragons and the joy of flight.

He wouldn’t have to tell her. She was certain she’d captured it all in her own imagination. Or she had been certain, until now, when she finally knew she almost, maybe, had a chance to live that dream herself, for real.

Because the truly special thing about this audition wasn’t the timing, or the way you didn’t need to petition for a place.

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