I can see several rock formations with half-shimmering ft tops, here and there, used for charging the crystals. They call it lightbathing. Emptied crystals are pced in bathtub-like vessels which have mirrors of polished bronze on the inside. The light of the pale sun gets focused on the crystals making them charge faster. There are a few dark-blue cd figures at the top of a tower-shaped formation, collecting the fully-charged Cobalts. An equal number of small winged familiars are nearby, awaiting for their riders.

  For a creature with no legs, the nding was surprisingly soft. I unbuckle myself and get the satchel before jumping off the saddle.

  ''You'll sprain your ankle like that.'' Aleera reminds me of my grandfather. He would often make such comments and then wonder why my mom doesn't even bother to rein me in. She adjusts her hair and tunic after gently dismounting.

  ''It was a long ride and I wanted to be off the saddle.'' I smile nicely at her.

  ''It would be much longer on most other Winged. Nibbles is fast.'' She pats the side of the giant snake. I'm not going to bother commenting on that name. ''Long ago future students would take the ground route.'' She looks up at the Academy's facade for a few moments and then exhales. ''Let's go, girl.''

  The ground route would have taken all day. I am thankful for the flight.

  My eyes run northward for a few heartbeats. I was never this far from home. At this level, I cannot see very far and even Sol, which at this distance should appear as a pretty speck of pale red light, is obscured by a craggy ndscape.

  I stop following Aleera for a few moments and look up. Hair-swaying facade of the Academy reaches upwards for close to a third of the cliff's height.

  The facade's width seems to be about half its height.

  Strangely, the first thing that stands out to me is the two long banners almost fnking the carved structure. They are made of bck nanilu cloth—portraying the Academy's emblem: a greatly stylized phoenix about to take flight. The mythical creature has its left side dyed violet and right in iron gray. According to my mother's friend, our neighbor Mistress Imani Aebutius, this fabric is strong, durable, and expensive to make. Imani has a cousin that studied at the Academy and was more than helpful in answering many of my annoying and my mother's anguishing questions. If one threw mud at the banner, if one could throw that far and high, it would simply slide off it; together with the thrower's arm. Not even a drop of rain gets absorbed. I've also read that nanilu is difficult and slow to manufacture. There is a unique artificial—some elderly might say familiar—tree, with pear-shaped fruit that has long fibers at the bottom, resembling strands of fine hair. Since nothing can be wasted, the nasty-tasting fruit is thrown to the pigs. Strands are painstakingly woven together to create nanilu. Supposedly it can stop a steel bde. Only one such tree exists and no other Violet Breaker managed to replicate it. They say it is better guarded than some senators.

  My father would have to work for decades to afford the cloth making just one of those banners, while every Breaker gets their own, custom-tailored, pure nanilu, long-sleeved shirt, and stirrup pants, for free, after graduating. Both garments bcker than Void's butthole.

  I speed up my pace. Above the height of the banners, and occupying a central position of the uppermost reaches in the vast facade, there is a carved triquetra. Near the end of each point of the triquetra there are rge spherical indentations in the stone—each giving away its own fleck of light. The top point houses a crystal that must be rge but it appears a mere dot of pale lic light, at this distance. The bottom left houses a red crystal, with the st interced arc pointing at blue. Being regurly exposed to pale sunlight, the three of them are always charged.

  My father has illuminated manuscripts, bought and more often borrowed, with notations and illustrations of many familiars, art, paces, or structures of note. He says they help inspire him in his work. A decent amount of these was reted to this obscenely rge face of the Academy.