Heart in her throat and walking stick in her hand, Bru stepped through the Mirkyri education deck's bronze archway.

Not Sejun, she pleaded as she waited in the gyratory for the chamber--and door--to rotate from facing Irt to facing the Four Sisters. Scrawled in calligraphy bordering the room's ceiling, the words "learning comes from Home and takes us to Journey's End" shimmered in gold paint. Cushions lined the floor alongside the walls, ready for any student who might need a moment of quiet reflection.

The gyratory's door slid into alignment with the school's entryway, and she stepped out, chanting "not Sejun" under her breath as she crossed the domed courtyard. Four galleries--one each for the Basic, Rotation, Apprentice, and Journey schools--faced it.

Pedagogue Ismus stood in the Apprentice Gallery, leaning against a walnut pillar carved with geometric star patterns. A gilt scroll shimmered in the air before her, and beyond her, eight students sat on the rug with the other members of their Shells.

Butterflies danced in Bru's belly as she eyed the two study groups. Not with Sejun. Please.

"Good morning, Bru," the sparrowlike young woman said. "Welcome to my Advanced Ethics Circle, and congratulations on your Walk."

"Thank you, Pedagogue." Not Sejun. Please not Sejun. She tried not to look at the rainbow-haired boy sitting on the rug with three other brand-new apprentices clustered around him. The Shell study group was short one Grain, but so was the other one, and Bru squeezed her eyes shut. Not Sejun's Shell. Put me in the other one. Please don't put me with the smartest kid in our year.

"Now that you're an apprentice, you'll meet with a Shell twice a day until you graduate. I'm sure you'll all do well together."

"Uh-huh." She opened her eyes and forced herself to meet the teacher's warm-brown gaze. "Who am I with?"

Pedagogue Ismus checked her scroll, and Bru tried her best not to peek over the woman's shoulder. "I've placed you with Tundir Jansun, Veli Mitsul-Wilyems, Kapirnikus Visir--" Bru found herself nodding. A Shell should be diverse, with kids from every sect working together produce a Pearl of Wisdom by graduation. "--and Sejun Tartir."

Her heart plummeted. "Oh," she said weakly. "Great."

Half of the students wilted, and the other half relaxed. Sejun just offered a polite smile before turning his attention back to a gilt scroll flickering before him. Complex mathematical equations glittered in the air, and Bru swallowed. She'd never been any good at math.

"Please go sit down," Pedagogue Ismus said.

Bru offered a shaky nod and minced her way through the other Shell to take her place with her own.

Veli, a platinum blond girl with pale hazel eyes and prominent cheekbone ridges, leaned over as Bru sat beside her. "Do you know your Legacy of Mind yet? I do. It showed up last week. Twice."

Bru opened her mouth to answer, but the other girl plowed on, eyes gazing straight through her like Bru wasn't there. "I have a Wilyems judge Legacy and a Mitsul psychiatrist Legacy. I'm sure you know what that means." She quirked a wry smile. "It's not so bad, though. I'll just focus on the Mitsul one. I'm going to understand the Great Crime and what made people do something like that so it'll never happen again. I'm our Shell's Penitant, see? My name comes from an old book. It means 'valley,' like the "Valley of the Shadow of Death.' My parents say a great dark shadow hangs over our heads, and--"

"I'm Bru." She blushed at herself for cutting in like that, but she doubted Veli would let her get a word in otherwise. People with more than one Legacy suffered the Savant Sickness, which tore their minds in two directions. Veli couldn't help it if all kinds of knowledge poured out of her mouth. The blond didn't seem bothered by the interruption, though. "I don't know my Legacy of Mind yet. I hoped I'd wake up with it, but--"

"It doesn't work that way," Tundir said, flicking her a superior glance out of the corner of one bloodred eye.

Bru studied the girl nervously. Ombre blue locks cascaded around the Legacist's shoulders rather than being bound back in her usual severe braid. Bru had been tossed to the floor too many times to count by the girl in Defense Circle even before Tundir's martial artist Legacy of Mind had manifested five months ago.

Tundir turned up her nose. "Usually you have to see or feel or think something that triggers it."

"That's right," Kapirnikus said, grinning at Bru. Exaggerated canines peeked from under his lips. "Mine showed up because I threw a paper airplane. I'm not kidding. I turned fourteen, but nothing manifested. Three weeks went by, and still no Legacy. Then I tossed a paper airplane during Craftsmanship Circle last month, and BAM! I suddenly knew all about lander maintenance."

"Mine was different," Sejun said, his voice soft as he solved an equation and flicked it off his scroll. "I woke up with it on my birthday."

Bru wilted. Of course he did.

"Young people," Pedagogue Jelileo said, gilt carrying his voice to four hundred students and teachers. "Welcome to our new school year. With Journey's End upon us, we have many changes in store. But let's begin in our traditional way, shall we?" He stepped back, bowing his head politely. "Patron?"

Silence fell over the galleries overlooking the courtyard as the cloak-swathed man strode beneath the dome.

Bru scrunched her nose in confusion. Patron usually taught the older kids' Intergalactic Relations and Diplomacy Circle, not the schoolwide Wisdom Talk.

Dark-violet eyes regarded the galleries from behind a filigreed brown mask, and chalk-white ears fanned sideways, curving to delicate points. The Galactian folded his long hands before him, all fourteen fingers lacing. "This morning," he said in his crisp modulated tenor, "it is my task to prepare you and your elders for the vital task before you. As is your custom, I will begin with a story. A true story."

Bru swallowed hard and drew her legs to her chest. As she wrapped her arms around her knees, other kids squirmed around her. Even the Pedagogues shifted in discomfort or fell still and rigid in their chairs.

Everyone knew this tale. No one ever let them forget it.

"A long time ago," Patron began, "long before the cosmos birthed your homeworld's star, there were two great empires. One arose from star-forged worlds, not unlike your own, and grew to maturity beneath the light of those fiery orbs. The other emerged from planets that formed in the nourishing accretion disks of black holes and the fertile dusty gas clouds of nebulae. What were they called?"

Bru jerked her hand into the air, ignoring the frowns from several little kids as Patron turned and nodded to her. The question was easy, so she knew with confidence her answer would be right. "The Sunborn and the Starless."

"Indeed." His too-large eyes slid away from her as he turned to face the other galleries surrounding the courtyard. "The Sunborn and my ancestors, the Starless, each ventured forth into the universe and sought to stake their claim. They met in the vastness of space, and each tried to lay waste to the other. How long did they battle?"

Bru raised her hand, earning an eye-roll from Tundir, but Patron called on a little kid instead. The child, a boy with the mismatched brown and blue eyes of the Hirsil Family, beamed. "One hundred fifty thousand years."

"Yes, very good," Patron said. "For one hundred fifty thousand years, as you count time, they warred, until one day they grew tired of destruction and strife. Then they pledged to cease the violence against one another and formed the Galactic Accord, which has one Great Law." He lifted his head to peer at the upper floor of the Journey Gallery, where the Law Circle students sat. "What is it?"

"No planet may attack an Accord world," a young man said, tone tense.

"Go on."

Bru swallowed hard as the law student continued. "On... on pain of death."

Patron stood unmoved as a hush once more swept over the galleries and Pedagogues Ismus and Jelileo exchanged a frown. He let the silence fester for a few moments, then inclined his head. "Yes." Tension filled his voice with every word as he continued, and his hands clenched where they remained clasped before his brown robe. "For over nine billion years, the Accord lived in relative peace. New worlds joined us, pledging to keep that peace. And for the most part, that peace was indeed kept. Attacks upon us were few and far between. And then what happened?"

"We attacked you," Tundir said, glaring down at him. Her fingers grew white-knuckled as she clutched the walking staff draped across her lap. "We know. You never let us forget."

Dark violet eyes narrowed at her. "No, Tundir Jansun. If you attacked us, you would not be here." He turned to the Rotation Gallery where the preteen kids sat. "What happened?"

"A ship left Irt after us," a girl with a cascade of black hair with a faint green gloss said softly. "The Golden Enemy. It brought the Ruinous Glow."

"That's right," Patron said. Tension filled his voice like he was clenching his teeth beneath his mask. "The Golden Enemy attacked us. It carried the Ruinous Glow to three planets, and everything and everyone touched by that evil light became more of the same."

"Three whole worlds?" one of Tundir's kinswomen, a little blue-haired girl in the Basic Gallery, asked with wide blood-red eyes. Behind her, tears streamed down the face of a small Renunciate boy, and his Pedagogue pulled him into her lap with a comforting murmur.

"Not just the worlds," Veli said next to Bru. She continued in a rush. "After the Golden Enemy crashed, the Ruinous Glow spread. It traveled on stellar winds and comets to other planets and clung to fleeing refugees who teleported to safety on distant worlds. Nine planets fell in the aftermath, and soon nine solar systems. Now, even those stars have been consumed, and the damage may one day reach other systems as the corruption spreads. Then Irt was punished. Destroyed for the Great Crime. But we left the homeworld before the attacks, so we've been given a second chance."

Patron waited patiently for her to finish, then turned to another student. "A chance to do what?"

"Right our ancestors' wrongs," the boy said. Like Sejun, he had a gilt scroll open in the air next to his head, though his showed Patron's face, enlarged to assist the boy's vision.

"And?"

The boy gulped. "And live."

"That's right," Patron said, pacing to face each of the galleries one by one as he went on. "The Accord is merciful. Your ancestors left before the attacks and were not part of the decision to wage war against us. Now your Journey's End is upon you. Your generation will be the first to grow up to adulthood off of the ship. Hopefully, you won't be the last. If you find a solution to the devastation your homeworld unleashed, you will not be punished."

He spread his hands, long sleeves draping elegantly to the tile beneath his slippers. "If your Chroniclers' records are correct about the interstellar missions that were in development when your ship departed, some of your kind may live here among the Four Sisters. They left after the attack and may possess knowledge of the technology used to create the weapon. They may even know a solution. If you succeed, you will be free to go your way, and the Accord will find you an uninhabited world to call your own or a host world to shelter you if the Four Sisters reject you."

"And if we fail?" Tundir challenged. Her hands tightened around her walking staff again, and Bru frowned. Maybe she should go relax in the gyratory until she calmed down.

"I'm here to ensure you succeed."

"If we stay here or go to another world, will our Legacy of Soul still come?" a young boy asked. He frowned. "This isn't Harbor."

Bru gulped. Maybe it was selfish of her, but the boy's question hit harder than any concern about the Mission. The Accord was giving them one hundred years to find a way to reverse the Ruinous Light. She'd be dead of natural causes by then anyway. But what if her Legacy of Soul never appeared? It was hard enough to worry about her still-missing Legacy of Mind and when it would show up.

She pressed her hand to her chest and wasn't the only one. Even some of the adults rested a hand over their heart. Heat thrummed within her, radiating from the sleeping Soul she carried. Bru was only the Eighty-Eighth generation. She should have been born and died on the way to Harbor. No one alive today should ever have had the chance to curl their toes into a planet's soil, think "I'm home," and feel their Legacy of Soul expand within them to let the sleeping Soul wake and open his or her eyes to a new world.

I'm no Legacist, but still, it seems wrong. I'm not meant for a planet. None of us are. She nibbled her lip and dropped her hand to her lap. We're just vessels to carry Irt's Legacies to the stars, but Irt messed everything up. What are we now?

Patron's voice drew her out of her thoughts. "I don't know what will happen to your Legacy of Soul. The intricacies of your genetic memories are of no concern to me," he said with brisk impatience. "But, there are greater things to think about than your so-called Legacies. Like survival."

"Patron, please," Pedagogue Ismus said, peering across at the weeping little boy in the Basic Gallery with a frown. "These are just children. It's cruel to say things like this to them."

His eyes narrowed. "You dare speak to me of cruelty, Human?"

The sparrow-like woman lifted her chin. "I'm an Irtlij, Patron. Not a Human. You have said many times that we're different."

Bru glanced from the Galactian to the Pedagogue curiously as Patron shook his head. "I said that I hope you're different. We'll see." He flicked his fingers at his feet. "Look at the floor here. Do you know what it is? What it represents?"

Bru craned her head to peer at the black, jade, cobalt, and amber mosaic tilework. What's he going on about now?

Sejun cleared his throat, lowering his gilt scroll enough to meet dark-violet eyes. "It's an overlapping star-honeycomb tessellation. A decorative pattern. It serves as a sort of mathematical nod to the principles exploited by our gilt and, I suppose, the Ruinous Light." He frowned. "If the Ruinous Light was really developed from advancements in gilt technology. Just because both use gravitons to interact with hyperspace dimensions doesn't necessarily mean they're related."

"You say all of that like you understand, Sejun Tartir," Patron said coolly. "You're very intelligent, but you're a child, as is your species. Your kind plays with forces you scarcely comprehend. You imagine you have harnessed one of your ancient horses, but it is a wild stallion, and you barely know how to ride."

"I know we must seem like childish fools to your nine-billion-year-old civilization," Sejun said dryly, "but I seem to recall that your kind can't figure out a solution on your own. Maybe we should be lecturing you."

Patron's eyes glittered like the nebulae that had birthed his distant ancestors. "I hope that you're right and your species is not as dangerously foolish as I fear. But thus far, your history points to the contrary." He shook his head. "If you survive and decide to try to join the Accord, I pity any Patron who volunteers to guide your kind into membership."

"Why can't you stay our Patron forever?" a little boy asked.

Bru huffed. "Please, anyone but him," she muttered under her breath.

The Galactian's glinting eyes found her and she froze, heat flooding her face. "I agreed to bring you here and see you through your mission. After that, I want nothing to do with you, either. Be grateful I offer even this much. My fellow Patrons preferred to destroy you."

For the third and final time, silence descended over the school as he stalked out of the courtyard, shoulders stiff, and swept out through the gyratory.

Pedagogue Ismus snorted. "Seven thousand years old, and he spars verbally with children." She shook her head. "He should be ashamed of himself."

The sniffling Penitant boy in the Basic Gallery tucked his lip between his teeth. "Why is Patron still so mad at us? It's been a long time since Teardrop of Ternion died."

Pedagogue Enjir sighed. "He's not angry but sad, little one." The older Penitant lifted him from her lap and brushed the hair back from his damp cheeks. "We grieve over what happened to Irt and regret her crimes even after so much time has passed, don't we?" He nodded, and she reached up to gently brush the tears from his face. "Irt was like our many-times-great grandmother, and we never knew her. But the Teardrop of Ternion was like Patron's child. He knew her. He spent over a thousand years with her and watched her grow up. She was almost ready to join the Accord, and he was so proud of her."

"And then Teardrop died?" the little boy asked.

She swallowed. "And then he watched her die and couldn't save her."