Drachinka

What's stronger than a determined woman? A tale set in the land of Irie, where lives a girl, Drachinka, who longs to learn magic and study magic at a school where women are forbidden to enter. At the time of the birth of a girl named Dračinka, the Irian dominion was one of the most beautiful places in the Earthsea, but it was also a place of endless strife and contention. When the people warned the stubborn and angry landowner, the father of Dračinka, that it was time for the thirteen-year-old girl to get her name, he became furious: "Some witch is supposed to give her daughter Irian's real name?" But the dragoness went to the wise witch, who told her of her great inner strength and promised to name her. When she said her name, Irian, the girl shuddered. Will he bear the name of his insufferable father? But everything has its order and purpose. An encounter with the mage Ivory awakens in her a desire to learn magic and, what's more, to study at the school in Roke, a centre of magic where women are forbidden to enter. Like the author's previous books, this short story celebrates the strength and inner beauty of women who dare to measure up to men.