Disclaimer: I do not own the Heralds of Valdemar.

Chapter 2

Nalani had been standing outside the door of the room under guard for over an hour while the Herald who had caught her talked with the other Herald inside. She looked around her; the Collegium was very impressive, particularly to someone like her who had never been out of the rural backwoods. Her guard was an older woman, who despite her years, looked fully capable of taking care of herself. Nalani once again tried to calm to racing of her heart and resign herself to this delay. The door opened and the guard gestured to her to proceed inside.

The door swung shut behind her and Nalani was left standing between the Herald who had brought her here and a huge wood desk covered in neat stacks of papers. On a cleared spot on the desk her flute sat in its battered case.

"Have a seat. What is your name Ms…?" The new Herald gestured to the plain straight-backed chair in front on his desk. His tone was neutral, stern, but not mean. Nalani's gaze shifted between the two.

"If you will not answer my questions then I will Truth Spell you and compel you to answer. The decision is yours." The man warned her. Nalani felt a moment of panic, 'If they cast the whole Truth Spell on me they'll find it, then they'll kill me.' She made her decision. She grabbed the back of the chair and pulled it farther away from the desk before perching on the edge of it. The older Herald's face betrayed nothing about his thoughts.

"Your name." He repeated.

"…Nalani."

"And where do you come from Nalani?"

She answered by waving he hand "Here and there." She watched the new Herald to see how he was reacting to her vague answer. She almost missed it when the other Herald cast the Truth Spell on her. She barely had enough to pull her defences in tighter to keep them from interfering with the spell. 'At least its only a partial Truth Spell.'

"How did you get this?" He gestured to the flute.

"It is mine." She answered.

"That is not what I asked and you will address me as Headmaster Thomas or sir. You should show some respect."

"I'm a miscreant. I don't respect anything." Was the defiant retort. The man eyed her coldly. "Where did you get this?"

"It was given to me."

"By whom? Did you trick them into giving it to you?"

"…My father gave it to me." This seemed to satisfy the Headmaster as he closed the case and put it aside.

"The people of this kingdom trust Heralds and rely on them for help and information about the rest of the kingdom. You have defiled the trust the people place in us when you impersonated a Herald. This is a serious crime. So let me explain what is going to happen to you now. You have three choices, which I'm sure Herald Axton has already told you about."

'So that's his name.'

"Your first option is to go back to each of the villages and work off your debt to each of them. Your other choice is to stay here for the duration of one year. During this time you will be taking classes. These classes will be based on what you already know. I will test you later. If you are not in class you will be studying or in the Companion's stables. You will care for five Companions on rotation everyday. The Stable Master will have a more in-depth explanation for you.

"You will live in the student wing with the other students. You will wear a black uniform at all times so you will be easily picked out. You will also wear this." He gestured to a wide, steel bracelet. She could sense the magic in it.

"This will prevent you from leaving the Collegium's grounds and it will prevent you from going into rooms you do not belong in. Once on, you will not be able to remove it. You will be allowed to associate with the other students here. We are not cruel enough to put you in isolation."

'I'll be the judge of that' she silently answered. The man's voice became cold,

"However, if you do attempt to corrupt the students here you will be isolated. Any questions so far?" She shook her head. "After your year is up, you may either remain here caring for the unChosen Companions or you can assist Herald Axton as he travels his circuit until it has been decided that you have worked off your debt. The choice is yours."

Nalani thought for a moment. She did not want to go back to the villages she conned. The villagers would be very unforgiving. She suppressed a shudder at the thought. 'This is a rock and hard place, but I don't want to have to deal with enraged villagers.'

"I will…stay here." She ground out. The Herald nodded and gestured for her arm. With a sigh she stretched it out so he could put the cuff on her. It tingled on her arm and defences hummed in response to it.

"Any questions so far?"

The young woman thought a moment. "Can I keep Buck?" seeing the older man's confusion she add, "the mare." The headmaster raised his eyebrows and was silent for a moment.

"Did you steal her?"

"No!" was the angry reply. The headmaster frowned at her.

"Lying will not help you."

"I did not steal her, I saved her. That man was going to kill her." The headmaster took a moment to consider the request. Nalani leaned forward her hands had a white knuckled grip on the chair.

"You will not take her from me." This got her a warning look.

"Threats will not help you either."

"It is not a threat, it is a fact. I go where she goes." After a moment she added, "Add her to my debt, add her board to my debt, I do not care but you will not take her." The head Herald considered this and then consented to it. The chair's arms creaked when she released them. The Heralds glanced at each other across the room. Herald Thomas raised and eyebrow at his friend and Herald Axton shook his head, bewildered, at the woman's sudden intensity.

"Then yes, you may keep her. Now, onto you're testing. Can you read or write?"

"Yes." She answered. He looked up from the notes he was taking.

"Read these questions and answer them." He told her passing her a quill and a sheet of parchment. Nalani complied.

"Very good, now how about mathematics. Can you…."

Nalani ran a brush over Buck's dusty coat. She was in a foul mood. The testing had gone on and on with two Heralds watching her every move. They had left the Truth Spell on her the entire time too and now she had an aching head from constantly have to keep her protection from consuming the spell and giving her away. Nalani had proven she was far from ignorant. At one point the tester had asked how she had come to know so much without having ever attended a school. Her reply had been that she was a con artist and con artists needed to know a little of everything. He had mulled over that for a few minutes before resuming his testing.

Following the academics test Headmaster Thomas had tested her for any magical ability and Nalani had almost panicked and blown her cover. She knew that her defences could hide her from all but the most vigorous probing, but it still had been nerve-racking.

After all the academic testing the Herald had sent her to see the Weapons Master. The Herald who had caught her had followed along. To the Weapons master Nalani had proven that she was a very deft hand with a bow and that she was a good, but very dirty, knife fighter. After that the Herald had left her in the care of the guardswoman who would be escorting and keeping an eye on her for the first few days. The woman, Lesya, had sternly warned Nalani that she would not be putting up with any foolishness from her and Nalani had believed her. She had quietly followed the woman to the tailor who fitted her for her new uniform and then to the Companions' field.

This was the part that she had dreaded the most. She had no desire to work with these evil creatures, but she would do what she had to. The stable master told her that she was to perform any tasks he needed done. Plus, he had assigned her five stalls. It was her tasks to make sure that they always had water, feed, and were clean. She would also be required to groom the Companions the used them. Some how Nalani didn't think that there would be just five Companions using these stalls.

After that, however, her escort had shown her to where her horse was staying. Nalani had ducked under a fence rail whistling for her mare. She had been greeted by her formerly white horse who was now a brown, muddy mess. She sighed as she worked some mud out of her horse's tail. 'This is nothing. I'll do what I must. Besides, Master always said it was wise to know one's enemy. I think I'll learn a lot more here than these Heralds want me to.'

The guard and the ringing of a bell interrupted her thoughts.

"Come on its time to eat." The woman told her. Nalani was reluctant to leave.

"Don't worry about her. The stable master will take good care of her."

After a second she patted her mare and turned to follow her temporary keeper. "Where is my room?" The woman led to her new room where she would live for the next year. It was small but furnished with a cot; a desk that had a small bookrack built onto it; a chest for clothing; and a small table where a basin sat. Her flute was not there but she was not too concerned. It would come back to her soon enough. There were bars on her windows. They were newly added. The wood around the window frame was a lighter colour than the rest of the wall. After jamming the chair under the doorknob, she dropped to the floor and turned her gaze to the bracelet. It hummed and her protections buzzed at it in reply but did not try to consume it. She concentrated on the bracelet reading the spell on it. She sighed. The bracelet would do just as the headmaster had told her. It would not let her leave the Collegiums grounds or enter rooms she had no business being in. Plus, it had a tracking spell in it. So if she did somehow manage to escape they could find her easily enough. She sighed again and tried to mentally prepare herself for enduring the next year in her new, fancy prison. When the Lesya knocked on the door to remind her it was dinnertime, she ignored her.

A soft clatter woke her later that night and she looked up to see her flute and case on her desk. She went back to sleep with a grin on her face.

Axton leaned back from the table with a sigh. It was nice to finally be able to eat at a table again. His good friend, Herald Thomas, sat across from him, his food was untouched. He leaned over the silver flute examining it with his Sight.

"Well, what do you think?"

"This is amazing. The spell on this is…I have never seen anything like it." Herald Thomas enthused.

"What's so exciting about a theft-prevention spell?"

"There is the spell to keep it from being stolen but under that there is another spell. I'm not sure how it works exactly but it looks like it has something to do with the way the flute sounds."

"What do you mean?"

"Well wind instruments sound different depending on their shape and what they're made of. This spell seems to make this one an all-purpose flute. If you know how to trigger the spell you should be able to make it sound like any wind instrument you want it to."

"Really? The Bards would love to be able to get their hands on a spell like that. Do you know how it works?" Thomas considered a moment.

"I think you do this…" the Herald tweaked the spell. They started when the flute disappeared.

"I guess that wasn't it." Axton chuckled. Thomas looked around the table.

"That's interesting. It took it's case with it too. Hm. Judging from how things went today I doubt she'd let me borrow it for more examinations."

Axton suggested. "You could confiscate it."

"Everyday? After it returns to its proper owner? Besides we're supposed to be the good guys and not lord power over others." His friend lectured. The other Herald held up his hand to stop the lecture.

"It was just a suggestion. And speaking of that. What did you think of her?" Thomas steepled his fingers in thought, "She is…complex. She is very well educated in many areas for some one who has received no formal teaching, her profession notwithstanding. I also think that she only told us just enough to please us. She has no magic abilities and yet she has a flute that requires magic to use properly and she was able to find and gain access to a way station, which is protected, by magic, to prevent this sort of thing from happening. She cares nothing about her own personal welfare, she did not even try to escape you, and yet the though of being separated from a horse received more of a reaction than the idea that she is a prisoner here. What did Geralt say about her fighting?"

"He said 'her fighting is half Valdamarian and half Karasite glued together with lots of dirty tricks.' From what I saw it seems like she had some formal training to start with and has just added whatever she came across to it over the years."

"I would like to know her story in full, but short of Truth Spelling her I don't think we'll get it. But that would be counterproductive." The older Herald yawned, "Unlike you my friend I have classes to teach in the morning, so I will bid you a good night. How long are you going to stay?"

"I'll stay a few days or so, but it depends on Deonn." Axton bid his friend good night and wandered off to his own rooms.

The next morning Nalani took up her tasks and began her classes. She followed her guard through the halls to where she needed to go, carefully mapping the building out in her head as she went. The whispers and stares of the students followed her everywhere. News that a real live criminal was in the midst of the student body had spread quickly. She was concerned that some of the students would try something, but no one did.

'I wonder if they will ignore me the whole time or if they're just waiting for the guard to leave. Would the guard even help me if they did try something?' she wondered.

She had classes all morning, then a lunch break. She sat alone, except for her escort, the icy glare that she directed at all who approached her made sure it stayed that way. Following lunch was weapons practice and as she started towards the exit one of the students walked up to her. The room went silent all eyes on her and the boy. It was a dare judging by the smirks and suppressed giggles of a group of boys nearby. 'What do they think I'm here for? Their entertainment?' She wondered irritably. She cast a glance to the guard nearby. The thought returned unbidden. 'Would she do anything if he attacked me?'

"Welcome to the Collegium!" the lad cried throwing his arms wide. He moved to embrace her in a welcoming hug. Nalani nipped around him and planted her knee firmly into his stomache. After this Lesya marched her to the headmaster. Her actions had earned her a rigorous lecture from Master Thomas and extra laps from the Weapons Master for being late. But, she had gotten her point across: she was not to be messed with.

Following the weapons practice was her work in the Companions' stable. Then dinner and after that the rest of the evening was hers.

No one else approached her. Nalani supposed it was due to the fact that she was very easy to spot. Her black uniform stood out sharply against the gray, blue, and white of everyone else. Her fighting abilities and cold demeanor also contributed greatly to keeping any would be pranksters away. As the year passed she fell into a routine. She enjoyed the classes and weapons training as well as rummaging through the library. Had it not been for the fact that she was a prisoner here she would have enjoyed her stay, that and the Companions. They were what she hated the most. Her stalls were always the dirtiest ones and the Companions she had to brush were as difficult as possible. Everyday she got nipped, squashed against a wall, and had her feet were stepped on too many times to count. The only thing she purely enjoyed has the time she spent with Buck. Every spare moment that was not taken up with her work or her quest for knowledge she had she spent teaching her mare new tricks. The mare could now open gates, carry things, and walk on her hind legs, among other things, with voice and hand commands.

Normally, she would be teaching Buck a new trick right now, instead she was simply sitting with her, thinking. Tomorrow her year would be up. The Herald, Axton, had arrived a fortnight ago.

A bell tolled the hour and Nalani slowly stood up. This would be the last time she cleaned those damned Companions and their nasty stalls. When she finished she was to report to Thomas. He would tell her what she could expect while on circuit with the Herald, but most importantly, he would remove the bracelet. She hated that thing almost as much as she hated the Companions. 'One more day and I get back to work….'