Date: November 15, 540, from the Fall of Zanra the Dishonored
A gray dawn found Gil at the same table in the far corner of the Institute of the Carved Scroll library, where she had sat long past midnight. Before her, laid out in strict order, lay three books that threatened to become the stumbling block on her rapid path: "Fundamentals of Ancient Eltaran Cuneiform," "Grammar of Ritual Tablets," and the reader "Texts of the Era of Fragmentation."
The Eltaran language. Those dry, angular symbols, scratched onto clay tablets millennia ago, were the nightmare of every first-year student. For Gil, they became a personal war of attrition. While other students, with years of home schooling behind them, managed, albeit with difficulty, to decipher simple phrases, she struggled with every single sign, lacking even a basic understanding. She had not just to learn the language, but first to build its foundation from scratch, and time was mercilessly slipping through her fingers.
She reached for her cup of cold herbal tea, her fingers trembling with fatigue and nervous strain. Her head was heavy, as if filled with lead. Black squiggles danced before her eyes, merging into a single, meaningless pattern. She closed her eyes, trying to force away the encroaching despair by sheer will.
"Focus," she commanded herself sternly. "Kaedan, Ulvia, and Dur are somewhere in the wild world, and you can't handle dusty books. This is your weapon. Make it sharp."
She immersed herself in study again. An hour passed unnoticed. Gil copied signs onto parchment, again and again, trying to force her hand to remember their form, and her mind to grasp the logic. But it was the logic of another world, another time. The ritual texts she had to translate for the exam were filled with incomprehensible metaphors and references to mythology she knew only from scattered rumors.
"...And the Lord of the Silent Stones gazed upon the River of Time, and the waters flowed backward..." read one phrase. What did it mean? A metaphor? A statement of some magical event? Or just a poetic turn? Without context, without knowledge of Eltaran culture, it was just a string of words.
Exhaustion was taking over. Her eyelids grew heavy. Her head slowly sank lower and lower until her forehead rested on the cool, rough surface of the table. A deafening hum of fatigue filled her ears. Her iron will was beginning to falter. Thoughts that she wouldn't succeed, that she would be thrown out of the Institute, that she would let Rod and herself down, washed over her in a heavy, hot wave. The lump in her throat made breathing difficult.
At that moment, a restrained chuckle broke the library's silence. Gil jerked her head up, caught off guard. Nearby stood two girls from wealthy families. They were looking at Gil with poorly concealed contempt.
"Look, our recluse has decided to take a nap cuddling with the ancients," Arva whispered, but deliberately loudly.
Nulaia snorted, playing with an expensive amulet on her neck.
"Leave her alone. What can you expect? From some backwoods orphanage, probably couldn't even write before she got here. It's a wonder they accepted her at all. Do you think she understands any of this scribbling?"
"I doubt it. She's probably just copying them to look busy."
The sharp, needle-like words pierced Gil more painfully than any open insult. A hot wave of shame and anger flooded her cheeks. She swallowed, feeling her fists clench under the table. Retaliate? She had neither the barbed retorts nor the social standing to parry. Her weapon had always been her mind, and now it was treacherously failing her.
She gathered her books with trembling hands, trying not to look towards the mockers, and almost ran from the library, leaving her unfinished cup and a scrap of parchment covered in hopeless attempts to understand the incomprehensible on the table.
On the way to her room, she felt completely shattered. Tears burned her eyes, but she fiercely squeezed her eyelids shut, not letting them fall. "Tears are a luxury I cannot afford," she whispered, climbing the stairs.
Entering the room, she found Sigrid, comfortably settled on her bed, rapidly calculating something on a slate board, her fingers smudged with chalk. Lia, fortunately, was not there.
Sigrid raised her calm, attentive gaze to Gil and understood everything immediately. She didn't ask questions. She just put down the board.
"Eltaran?" she asked quietly.
Gil nodded, unable to utter a word. She sat on her bed, placing the books beside her, and stared at the floor.
"It... it defies logic," she finally breathed out. "There's no system here. The same signs are read differently in different contexts. It's not a language, it's a puzzle designed to break whoever tries to solve it."
"Most ancient languages are like that," Sigrid observed imperturbably. "They reflect not grammar, but a worldview. You're trying to read an equation without knowing the values of the variables."
She got up, went to her table, and took several sheets covered in her neat handwriting.
"I have something. Old notes from my tutor. Not grammar, but... keys. Lists of set phrases most commonly found in ritual texts. 'Gaze upon the River of Time'—it's not about someone looking at water. It's an idiom. It means 'to make a fateful decision.' 'Lord of the Silent Stones'—it's not a title, but an epithet for one of the ancient patron spirits of craftsmen."
Sigrid handed the sheets to Gil. She took them with the feeling of having a lifeline thrown to her in a stormy sea.
"I... I can't accept this," Gil mumbled, though her fingers were already clutching the precious papers. "It's not fair. You worked on this..."
"Nonsense," Sigrid cut her off, returning to her board. "The Institute isn't a competition where everyone has the same starting conditions. It's survival. Here, you use all available resources. I use mine—money and connections. You use yours—persistence and the mind that made me respect you. Consider it an exchange. Someday, perhaps, you'll help me with something that comes easier to you."
She said it so simply and pragmatically that Gil had no arguments left. Gratitude, hot and all-consuming, filled her, driving away the former despair.
Left alone, Gil laid out Sigrid's notes next to her textbooks. And the world of Ancient Eltara began slowly but surely to reveal its secrets to her. These weren't just translations, but the very keys that helped build a solid framework into a crumbling wall. She worked until late into the night, and this time the fatigue was pleasant, creative. She wasn't just memorizing; she was beginning to understand.
Before going to sleep, extinguishing her candle, Gil looked at Sigrid's sleeping back. She realized she had gained something within the walls of the Institute that was perhaps more valuable than knowledge—her first ally. And with this thought, her sleep was peaceful and full of new, strengthened resolve. The battle was far from lost.