"enough!" the abbess's voice cracks across the room like a whip. "she is obedient and accommodating and always has the convent's best interests at heart. she will do as she is told. see to it that matelaine's and sarra's training is increased so they will be ready if we must send them out. for too long we have focused on training the eldest novitiates and have not spent enough time training the others."

my heart pounds so loudly that i can scarce hear the abbess's dismissal of sister thomine, and the sound of the office door closing feels so distant it could have come from the bottom of the sea. i grasp for the solid wall behind me, then slowly lower myself to the ground. what does she mean? how can she possibly-i put my hands over my face and scrub it, trying to restore my wits.

in all my seventeen years at the convent, it has never occurred to me that being seeress was a path open to any of us. although, thinking upon it now, i realize the seeresses must come from somewhere. but i'd always assumed it was a position given to a nun when she was too old to perform other duties. or-well, the truth is, i have not thought about it much at all.

and why would i? i have never shown any skill or affinity for scrying or augury. nor have i ever been taught such things. i look down at my hands, surprised to find that they are still shaking. i clench them into fists.

the abbess cannot be serious. she herself said that i was one of the most skilled novitiates ever to have walked the convent's halls. it cannot possibly be mortain's will, for if so, why would he have given me these talents? these skills?

for the first time in over seven years, i find myself wondering what the dragonette would think of this if she were still alive. no, i do not need to wonder. i know-she would never have considered such a thing. it would be like fashioning a weapon and using it to stir a pot.

i do not even know if the abbess means this to be a great honor or a punishment.

no, not a punishment, but a tempering. that is what the drag