Traitor Savant (Second Seal of the Duelists) Read Online Free Page A

white-haired, sideburn-wearing Hexmagic Duelist who ran the Academy. The other was none other than his old friend Kipri, still dressed in the simple cream tunic and pants denoting a member of the eunuch class, though now Kipri also wore a dashing brown pompadour. As Bayan slid into an empty bench, he shook his head and grinned. Philo’s extravagant style seemed to have finally worn down Kipri’s resistance to fashionable wigs.
    “Ah, Bayan. There you are .” Langlaren invited him to the dais with a wave.
    Bayan shuffled his way down the aisle , keeping his eyes on the tiles under his feet.
    “In case any of you are not aware, this new implementation of the emperor’ s can be credited to our own Bayan Lualhati, who brought the issue of equal provincial representation to the emperor’s attention. Emperor Jaap has seen the wisdom in Bayan’s suggestion, and so we here at the Academy must prepare for the coming influx. Liaison Kipri will be assisting all of the newcomers as they adjust to life on our campus. I expect you and your hexes to make him, and all our new recruits, welcome. Their presence here is mandated by the emperor. Thank you.”
    As Langlaren stepped off the dais amid polite app lause, Kipri turned to Bayan. “You didn’t know I was coming?”
    Bayan looked up at the willowy Raqtaaq. “No. It’s good to see you.”
    “Thank you. This whole process has been pushed through official channels. I’m not surprised the campus was the last to learn of it.”
    “What process, exactly? I think I missed all the good parts.”
    Kipri led Bayan down off the dais, smiling and nodding to offers of welcome as the students and teachers filed out of the hall. Bayan, having plenty of experience with Academy students, noted that not all of them were sincere. But Kipri breezed right by as if they had been. Bayan felt a momentary pang of jealousy for Kipri’s hard-earned social skills. Growing up the son of an executed rebel, the eunuch had been trained by his father’s enemies to serve them and suffer their insults.
    Kipri spoke. “You recall what you said to the emperor after the battle at the Kheerzaal? About certain cultures being under-represented here at the Academy?”
    Bayan nodded. He’d been half exhausted and half angry at the time and hadn’t expected the emperor to take him seriously.
    Apparently he had. Kipri continued, “Emperor Jaap has embraced your idea with such fervor that some of his more conservative council members wonder if he knows more than he’s saying about the security of the empire.”
    Bayan thought of the impossible battle he’d fought against a foreign magic that shouldn’t have been able to exist in the empire’s heart. Could that happen again? Was the empire truly vulnerable to a Tuathi attack at any time? Surely the emperor felt the same concern. “How has he embraced my idea?”
    “In the next score of days, a dozen Raqtaaq students, a dozen Bantayan students, and another dozen mainstream imperial students will arrive on campus. Duelist scouts have been combing every city in the Bantayan and Raqtaaq lands for the last season, gathering together everyone who possesses elemental magic. They’ve found so many, they’re holding them in temporary barracks in the cities and assigning them to different waves, which are scheduled to arrive here on campus every threescore days until no new students can be located. Bayan, this campus is about to be awash in new duelists.”
    Bayan frowned. “Every threescore days? But it takes at least two seasons to pass the basic prep forms! If you try to cram four different classes of newniks into the same dormitories, they’ll burst the walls!”
    “I’m sure Headmaster Langlaren will find somewhere to put them. But the emperor insists on a tight training schedule. He’s hoping that the rush of so many culturally diverse students at once will not only give them all a natural support group, but that the mainstream imperials will accept their