Efrain bowed lower, the fluster mentor practically fell to the floor, apologising profusely that he didn’t know that the wonderful, generous, matr-

“Shut up,” said the matriarch, “stop grovelling. I hate grovellers. I’d hope you’d know that by now.”

Efrain could definitely see both Aya and her mother in the lined features of the woman. However her dark eyes and powerful figure spoke of iron will and sharp intellect that the youth lacked. The mark of experience, he thought as he came up from his bow.

“Now that we’re through this little schiff my nephew put you through,” she said, shooting a glare at Azia, “I assume you have something to say to me. Come on.”

Not waiting for any response, she began to lead the way, before stopping and pointing to Avencia.

“Except you,” she said, “you can go.”

“Me? But-”

“The man can speak for himself, that’s for sure,” she said, gesturing to Efrain, “so let him. Go back to the academy.”

The tone made it far more like a command which the mentor promptly obeyed. Azio tried to fall in line, which drew one of the hardest looks Efrain had ever seen. He quickly fell away, murmuring about some other business to attend to. Efrain was led through staircases and hallways in silence, with servants and guards alike bowing their heads to the matriarch.

Finally, they crossed a high bridge, leading to the central pyramid of the Eisen. He recognized the worn but bright white stone, surprised that it’d kept its colour all this time in the waters of the lagoon. On the top, there was a garden, much like the Armsted pyramid that the Academy now claimed as its own. The plants here though were largely withered; circling low vines with browned flowers. They sat down at a table at its centre, and the servants were promptly dismissed after token offers of refreshments, which Efrain politely refused.

“Today’s been a strange day,” said the matriarch, “and not in a good way.”

“How so?”

“First, a message that a church delegation was coming overland. Everyones’ half panicked until they learn it’s just a hundred this time. We have to soothe nerves while at the same time preparing for the Festival.”

She drank deep from an earthenware jar.

“Then one of Azio’s little vipers used my name to call upon the legion. And what’s more, it’s someone claiming to be my own granddaughter, who I’ve not seen hair or hide of. Then…”

She pointed the jar towards Efrain letting loose a scent of warm cloves.

“You. ‘Efrain Belacore’, that's your real name?”

“It is indeed.”

“Funny. That’s one of the names of the oldest friends of my grandfather,” she said, “he used to tell me about him all the time.”

“Only the good things, I hoped,” Efrain said, chuckling.

“Lots of things, young man,” she said, taking another swig.

“I remember lots of things about Nicolo as well,” he said, deciding that it was not the time to keep cards off the table, “like how the narcissist loved skirt-chasing and was the laziest student I’ve ever had the misfortune of knowing.”

The woman blinked, perhaps not being used to such words in her presence.

“And, for all of that,” Efrain said, leaning back and looking at the pyramid, remembering when the surrounding buildings used to be nothing more than fellow stone steps, “he was a good friend. Which is why-”

He gestured to the surrounding flowers, dead and withered for the most part.

“He presumably dug up all the lunar lilies I bred in the academy, and, judging from their condition, probably either forgot to teach or just forgot period how to care for them.”

The woman stared around, then smiled and drank more from the jar.

“Prove it.”

Efrain got up from the table, bent over one of the planters, and with a snap of the fingers conjured a gently flickering silver light.

“The key problem,” he said, “Is that they are remarkably cranky flowers, despite my best efforts.”

The light intensified and spread along the rim of the planter box.

“You might notice that the pool at the academy garden glows at night?”

“What of it?” said the woman, her smile growing wider.

“The bottom is embedded with sun stones, which capture a small amount of the light each day and release it when the night cools them. Lunar lilies, and you won’t believe the work me and Armsted did to figure exactly, require a very specific amount of light. Full sunlight will wither them, which is why the Academy garden used to be covered.”

He sat back down and gestured around the whole garden.

“An intelligent woman like yourself would probably conclude from the name that moonlight is enough, that’s not quite right either.”

The woman nodded for him to continue.

“Lunar Lilies were only found on specifically shaped snow caps, where the snow and ice could reflect and focus the energy of the moonlight onto small areas. I’ve found perhaps twenty places where conditions are proper. Over maybe a century of searching the giant’s spine. This garden of yours… ‘rare’ doesn’t begin to do it justice. Probably ‘singular’ would be more correct.”

“So the pool is designed to mediate the light absorbed from the sun to reach the ideal level?” said the matriarch.

Sharp, Efrain thought as he nodded, he could see where Aya’s intuition came from.

“How’d you figure that out?”

“Decades of selective breeding to preserve the more hardy specimens, trial and error, and much maths,” Efrain said, “I imagine our scribbles are buried in the academy archive somewhere, if it has one.”

He leaned forward, fixing the woman’s face in the impassive gaze of his mask.

“So then, if by the end of the conversation that you actually want to have, there’s no sign of revival, my story has a hole in it.”

She didn’t bother trying to hide the smile behind sips of the spice scented fluid.

“I like you,” she said, “you cut to the chase.”

“Your grandfather gave me enough ‘horseshit’ while he was alive. I think I can claim a reserve from your family on that account.”

“No doubt about it. He loved his little jokes,” she snorted.

“Including naming an entire academy after me, despite not having been in the city for years at that point,” he said, “and using my old notes as a basis for teaching, which, frankly, made me want to dig him up so I could kill him again.”

His bluntness seemed to greatly amuse the woman.

“You are different from that simpering sad sack,” she said, “that mentor has an aversion to doing anything other than prostrating himself before me. Go to the shrine, for fuck’s sake.”

“He tried to pass mentorship onto me the first chance he got,” Efrain said.

“Did he know?” Aysatra said, tapping the lip of the bottle on her chin, “ungrateful wretch. If it wasn’t for our support-”

“The academy would be under the Emyaka, yes, he’s made that clear,” Efrain said, unwilling to linger on the subject.

“Well, then, why are you here, then?” she said, “you said that… Angorrah commander, was it? He sent you.”

Efrain considered for a moment, and seeing how far honesty had got him, decided to push it to the limit.

“To stall for time,” Efrain said, “presumably until he could figure out what exactly had happened. Also to confirm it wasn’t a mistake or some kind of prank.”

“Hm,” she said, “and why are you here?”

Efrain sat there, listening to the thin breeze whistling through the surrounding buildings.

“I have an agreement,” he said, “the commander owes me a favour. I was headed south anyway, so I decided to help him.”

“In exchange for a favour? You wouldn’t make it far here,” she said, throwing back the rest of the jar and draining it dry.

“I did fine for decades, before your house became what it was,” Efrain said, “I am a mage. I have a vested interest in having a somewhat positive relation with the church.”

“And you think that helping them here will contribute to that?”

“At the very least, they’ll be leaving soon enough,” he said.

“Listen here,” she said, pointing a tanned finger at him, “you will get no friends among Karkos if you’re seen helping Angorrah, least of all Angorrah’s soldiers, paladins least of all.”

Efrain watched as a servant scurried forward at her call, grabbed the jar, and disappeared down the stairs.

“I take it Karkos wasn’t left untouched,” Efrain said, quickly putting the pieces together.

“Oh yes,” she said, rolling her eyes, “the empire razed an entire city to prove the point. Then half a legion came here, demanding our children as tribute.”

Now, this was interesting. He’d heard such things before, but never in detail.

“And you gave it to them?”

“It was that, or go the way of Ennen’Alla,” she said, sighing deeply, “we did what we had to, a noble child from each house.”

In that moment, some of her vitality left her, and Efrain could see age settling.

“But not your daughter,” he said.

“No,” she said sharply, “she was too old to be a ward. But other members of our family were taken. Azia was one of them. Assyeria never forgave the city, or me for that decision. She had family, friends as close as family. Little proteges of her own. All taken. Some never came back. I had hoped… when Aya was born, we might make amends.”

“I see,” Efrain said, trying not to think of the likely fate of her daughter.

“Now,” she said, the moment of vulnerability vanishing, “tell me what your part in the story is.”

So Efrain did, leaving out the less morally scrupulous parts. He’d secluded himself in study and travel, spending more and more time in the north. He’d come across a castle, which he would later learn was marked for purging by a church army, and exorcise an evil spirit living within. Coming along, Efrain had encountered her daughter, then tagged after the troop, wondering what an army was doing in the northlands.

“And such, I offered them my services,” he said, “we aren’t enemies, or at least, not in the strict sense. I would prefer to get them out of the northlands with as good an impression as possible. Along the way, they suggested I come to Karkos. I figured I might as well see the city after so many years.”

“So, a string of coincidence?” said the matriarch.

“With some considered choices on the way,” said Efrain.

“And is teaching my granddaughter magic one of them?”

Efrain took a moment to consider that - magic wasn’t exactly frowned upon in Karkos, but, given the state of the academy, it would likely be considered a fringe discipline. It sounded like her grandmother would be more concerned with him occupying the role of a mentor to her daughter than the subject itself.

“Indeed,” Efrain said, “for several reasons.”

“Name them.”

“Firstly, she approached me. As it turns out, many people are naturally curious about magic, especially if you can get them out of the talons of the Church. Second, I don’t like the paladins very much.”

Those were true, but accessories to the real reason.

“Thirdly, your granddaughter is a magical anomaly,” he said, “if I didn’t know better, I would say cursed.”

Her palm slapped down on the table so loud Efrain thought for one absurd moment that she might crack the stone.

“Explain yourself, boy,” she said.

“In all my four hundred years, young lady,” Efrain said, “I’ve never quite seen anything like it. If you want to sit here getting into all the technical ins-and-outs on why a curse on a living human like that would be difficult bordering on impossible, we can.”

The matriarch was clearly displeased, but she withdrew her hand into her folded arms.

“Fine, I’ll take that one on the chin,” she said, “then tell me more old man.”

Efrain chuckled. For all her combativeness, he liked the matriarch quite a bit.

“To make a long story short, curse-craft is among the most technically difficult of all magic disciplines. What delineated a enchantment from other spells is its self-sustaining nature, whether it’s only for a few hours or a hundred years,” he began, “curses are a subset. Two things are required to make a basic enchanted construct: an anchor that connects the magic to an object and powers it, and an attractor which keeps the magic from simply dissipating back into the environment.”

He picked one of his pockets and held up a pebbles he’d retrieved on the road. One was never sure when one needed a projectile to distract or temporarily stun.

“The problem is, you never want the attractor and the anchor to make contact, or it’ll violently implode,” he said, “if there’s enough magical power trapped in the loop, it could even destroy the object.”

The rock began to levitate, spinning faster and faster. Then with a loud crack it split down the middle and fell to the floor.

“Objects that either don’t change, or change predictably? You can adjust the attractor to change with it. Living things? Far too unpredictable, especially if they’re magic users. If your intent was to harm them, it’d be far more practical to kill them by any other means. Which, hence, is why I am hesitant to call Aya’s condition a curse.”

“You’re not like the other academics,” she said, after considering the information, “I’d expect a whole lot of ‘this philosopher said this’, and ‘mayhaps’, or something about the stars and gods.”

If skeletons could blush, Efrain thought, knowing that it was probably his own fault in such a way.

“I had a look at the books they derived from my works,” Efrain said, “I was horrified that any of my old notes were used as the basis to teach students.”

“You mentioned before,” she said, “grandfather spent half the family’s money on ill-founded ventures, the git. Still, he loved that academy, that’s why I keep it around. Despite them not producing anything useful in a century.”

That touched Efrain more than he cared to admit, and he quickly shifted back to the main subject.

“If it is a curse,” Efrain said, “it’s one of the strangest I’ve ever seen. It affects two other youths, from a completely different city. Given that and the fact it’s completely new to you, suggests that it’s not something inherited by blood. Not to mention, all three are precocious, magically speaking.”

“Scouting out talent are we?”

Efrain spread his hands in mock apology.

“Giftedness is something that attracts teachers, particular ones that haven’t had the charm of students for a long time. I think Aya could go far if she decided to pursue it, very far perhaps.”

“Oh, comforting,” she said, “a mage’s endorsement. That’s exactly what I need.”

“All that aside, it seems like you are convinced that she is your granddaughter.”

“If it’s a forgery, I would be more likely to forgive than punish. That’s how sure I am,” she said.

“So, then, what’s your plan with the girl?”

She blinked at him, the stare she gave suggesting she thought less of his intelligence for asking such a stupid question.

“She’s staying with us, of course. She’s my granddaughter,” she said.

Well, I didn't expect anything different, but still worth a try, Efrain thought.

“Is there some kind of problem?” she said, her eyes narrowing, daring him to challenge her.

“Oh, there probably will be, but not from me,” Efrain said, shrugging, “I’ve got few boats in this race. It makes very little difference to me in the end.”

“And which people will this ‘problem’ come from?” she said.

“I’m sure that the commander will explain better than I can,” Efrain said, “he should be on his way here by now.”

The matriarch made a disgruntled sound and sat back.

“Fine,” she said, “I welcome you as a guest, for now at least. You’re free to wait for her for this ‘commander’ of yours, if you require anything, let a servant know.”

She rose and pushed the chair in behind her.

“I have things to do. There’s preparation for the opening of the festival to be attended to, and I won’t have my granddaughter miss duties she should’ve had from birth.”

Efrian wisely thought better of making some remark about seeing why her daughter left. He instead nodded low as the matriarch departed. Efrain turned back, and gazed at the lilies, which, while still mostly brown, were beginning to lighten, splotches of blues and indigos beginning to show against the cream flowers.

Nicolo always had wanted to take some for his pursuits, Efrain recalled, and he’d always protested, saying they were too delicate and would wither in minutes. Once the bastard had gotten rich, he’d dug up the entire garden and moved them halfway across the city. One last posthumous prank, only slightly spoiled by the fact that it’d fallen into disrepair.

Efrain brushed his fingers across the edges of the planters, one by one, leaving a silvery light in their wake. He hoped by the time that discussions were concluded, at least one might possess its former beauty.