Fifteen years later, Kallah has all but forgotten about the young man who discovered her that night in the orphanage. He is a permanent resident of the Guild house, but he is also one of the busiest members, and whenever he is at the house he is busy with a student. This has made is so that Kallah has not seen him once since that day when he passed her into Osar's care.

Kallah has grown to be quite a beautiful young woman. Eighteen years old, she is still the only female student in the Guild, and so she is seen as something of an oddity by the other students. She is short, standing only five feet tall, and very slender. She keeps her long curly red hair long, and so it falls halfway down her back. Despite being seen as an oddity, she has still managed to capture the hearts of most of her fellow students.

Just as Dukal predicted, she is an extraordinary student. Her talents are quite strong, as is her intelligence. Said intelligence has made it so that she has passed through the Guild's training as fast as she could, and thus has left the boys of her age behind a long time ago. Now she is eighteen, and she is about to be apprenticed to a full Guild member.

The Guild is organized in a way so that it takes twenty-one years to pass through all of the training. Those twenty-one years are split into three-year groupings, the last of such being three years of apprenticeship to a full Guild member. Kallah however, has passed through all but the apprenticeship in just thirteen years, taking two years where others would take three for all but the last sections. She would have been placed with a Guild member at age sixteen, but for a request by a certain Guild member to wait until he could finish with his current apprentice.

And so, Kallah has spent the last two years of her life as a novice Guildmember learning on her own. She had already learned everything that the normal sequences taught, so she had turned to independent study. She found herself drawn to the history of the Guild, and so that is what she has been studying, for two years. Now the man who requested that she wait for her master is done with his apprentice, having watched him graduate just a month before. The Search for the year is done, and the Guild is ready to assign the apprentices for the next three years.

"Hey Kallah!" a young man, three years Kallah's senior, who is also to be apprenticed whispers to Kallah as they are waiting to be called to the ceremony. "Did you hear?"

"Hear what?" she asks, also whispering.

"I heard that the weirdo Searcher is taking an apprentice again," he replies. "They say that usually he never takes two apprentices in a row, but that for some reason he's doing it this time."

"What weirdo Searcher?" she asks. She has never been in on all of the gossip among the novices, and so she has no idea who the young man is talking about.

"I don't know his name," he says. "But no one knows what his past is like. I've heard that no one is sure just when he entered the Guild, but that everyone you talk to will say that he's been there since they can remember. But he still looks young, even younger than his apprentices sometimes. He's the head Searcher, and he trained all the other Searchers too. I've heard he's really powerful too, more powerful than you."

"All this about one man?" she asks, not quite believing him. "Don't you think that's a little far-fetched?"

"I guess so," he says. He looks like he is about to say more, but before he can, one of the recently graduated new Guild members steps into the room, calling for everyone's attention. With that, he leads them into the Council Hall to be apprenticed.

The Guild members who are to be taking in the apprentices are nowhere to be seen in the Hall as the novices enter. They nervously line up in front of the Council, wondering where their soon to be masters are. Then, the youngest Council member, still Drev, though older now, calls for attention.

"As you all know, you are to be apprenticed today," he says, his voice carrying all over the Hall. "Remember that this is the final step of your training as Guild members, and that at the end of the next three years you will become full members. And now, we will start assigning you to your masters."

With that, another Council member takes up a scroll and begins to read off pairs of names. As the Guild member of each pair is called, a man steps into the Hall from a previously unnoticed door to greet his new apprentice. Each pair then retreats to the side to wait for the ending ceremony.

Kallah waits nervously as the young men surrounding her one by one are called to their new masters. The list goes on and on, and she is not called. Finally, the Council member calls the last pair of names on the list, and the young man that she was talking to earlier steps forward to meet his new master. The Council member starts to roll up the scroll when a voice that is strangely familiar to Kallah calls from the door for him to wait.

"Aren't you forgetting someone?" the man calls, stepping out into the Hall. It is Dukal, appearing the same as that day fifteen years ago when he plucked Kallah out from the orphanage. He appears quite angry as he storms forward to face the Council.

"Guildmember Dukal," the eldest Council member says, his voice betraying his annoyance even though his face is still. "We have called off all the names on the list. Are you saying that we have overlooked someone?" He stares forward, seeming to not even see Kallah standing there in front of him.

"Sir," Dukal says, his voice betraying his barely suppressed anger. "Didn't I make it clear fifteen years ago that I would see that this girl as a full Guild member? And now you're trying to deny her again? After seeing just how much she can do?"

"Member Dukal, I think you are out of line," Drev says nastily. "Do remember who you are talking to."

"Oh I remember, Councilmember Drev," Dukal says, his voice smooth but hard. "But, if you do not call this girl's master, I will have to do so myself. I have not paid for her education for the last fifteen years to see her denied what she deserves."

Dukal stands defiantly in front of the Council bench, staring straight at Drev. The youngest Council member finds this gaze to be quite unnerving, and he shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Dukal does not relent, and finally Drev sighs, and he calls out the last pairing, the one that was not written on the scroll.

"Novice Kallah, step forward to meet your master, Guildmember Dukal," he says, his voice full of defeat.

Kallah steps forward, staring at Dukal, the man that she dimly remembers from that day when he picked her out of the orphanage. Despite that memory, what her eyes see is a man who cannot be too much older than her, and a rather handsome one at that. As she thinks such a thought, she feels her cheeks getting hot, and she knows that she is blushing.

"He's almost old enough to be your father!" she thinks to herself. "Remember that Kallah! Even if he looks young, he looked like that when he found you too!"

Dukal notices his new apprentice blushing furiously, and he guesses what must be going on inside of her head. Of course, his empathy, no matter how well she might try to shield herself, confirms his suspicions. Grinning, he laughs softly.

"It's nice to know I still have it," he thinks to himself as she blushes more when she hears him laughing.

"Don't mind me," he tells her silently, in the way the Guild teaches their students. "I'm not laughing at you, so you don't need to be embarrassed."

"Embarrassed?" she thinks back, her embarrassment coloring her mind tone a rosy pink. "Who said I'm embarrassed. It's just hot in here." With that lie, her face turns even more red, coming close to matching the fiery color of her hair.

"You don't have to make excuses," he thinks casually. "After I made such a fuss over you it's natural that you'd be embarrassed."

"I said I'm not embarrassed!" she snaps, her mind tone turning an angry red, much like her face and hair. Seeing how upset she is, he just laughs to himself and reassures her.

"Okay, okay," he thinks. "I believe you."

Then, out loud, he says, as a closure to the formalities, "Thank you Councilmember, and now, I believe my new apprentice and I will be going. You have already made it evident that you don't approve of her, so we'll just stay out of your way for the ceremony."

Before he can realize that Dukal is probably doing this just to get out of the long and boring ceremony, which he has always hated, the eldest of the Council members nods. Dukal grabs Kallah's hand and practically drags her out of the Hall, in a hurry to be gone before anyone from the Council can realize his true intentions. Just after they leave the Hall, Drev sees Dukal's real reason for wanting to leave, and he calls out for them to wait, only to find that he is too late.

Dukal drags Kallah down the hall quite a ways before he stops, letting go of her arm. He then turns to face her, laughing at how lucky he is to have gotten out of the ceremony. The look on his face falls when he sees that Kallah is quite angry with him. Her face is still red, but now not from embarrassment, but from anger.

"I cannot believe this!" she exclaims angrily. "If I didn't know any better I would say that you're just as young as you look! First you were teasing me during the middle of what is most likely the most important part of my whole training, except for when I graduate in three years, and now you went and ran away from the ceremony. The Council's probably going to think I had something to do with this now too, and they make it hard enough for me!"

"Whoa, whoa, calm down!" Dukal exclaims, putting his hands out in placating gesture. "Believe me, you don't really want to be there. The ceremony is boring, and really just a waste of time. You're better off not having to go through it."

"Hmph!" she exclaims, turning her back on him. She is clearly quite angry with him, and she looks to have forgotten all respect that she should have for him, even though he is supposed to be her teacher.

"Just great, this is going horribly!" Dukal thinks to himself. "I certainly never thought she'd be like this when I picked her up back then…"

"It will be fine," Dukal says out loud, trying to calm her down a little. "They've all seen how powerful you are, and I don't think they can just ignore that because of my own personal way of doing things. Anyway, they know me, and they know that I dislike the ceremony. I'm pretty sure they'll assume it was all me. After all, have you ever done anything like that?"

"No," she says icily.

"See?" he says. "Now come on. I have stuff to start teaching you. As angry as you are with skipping out on the ceremony, you'll be glad you got assigned to me. I can teach you things none of the others would even dream about."

"You certainly don't look like some wise teacher," she says. "You don't even look all that much older than I am." He laughs.

"Looks can be deceiving," he says. "You should have learned that by now. And I'm hurt… Don't you remember who it was who brought you here?"

"It's been fifteen years," she says. "And for all I know you could just be some look alike of him."

"Believe me," he says. "I'm the same man who found you at that orphanage fifteen years ago and brought you here. I'm also the same man who's been paying for your education for the last fifteen years. And now I'm the one who's going to teach you how to blow away this whole Guild with your ability. They won't know what hit them."

"I'll believe it when I see it," she says, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Give it time," he says. "And you'll see. Now come on, it's time for your first lesson."

With that comment, he starts walking down the hallway, not even looking back to see if she is following. For a moment she debates staying where she is and not following him. That indecision doesn't last long though, and before she knows it she's hurrying to catch up with Dukal as he strides down the hallway.