Despite the various griefs that the morning had revealed to her, the rest was delightful. Aya’s grandmother led her to a stall in a backstreet that had just barely opened. The woman operating it was all too pleased to gift them with selections of seafood stew and freshly baked bread. Her grandmother, on the other hand, was all too unhappy to not pay for it. Apparently, having gifts foisted on her was another thing she didn’t appreciate.

Eventually, the matriarch made a compromise. The woman would be paid for the meals of their guards, boatman, and the matriarch herself, but she allowed the vendor to give Aya her food as a welcoming present. Aya sipped at the piping concoction, kept in a hollow, tube like stalk.

“She really has mastered her father’s recipe,” her grandmother sighed after taking her own sip, “he was a school friend. Don’t let that small shop fool you. They’ve got half the great houses wrapped around their fingers.”

Aya, now three sips in, had to agree. The broth managed to be amazingly light and yet expansive in flavour. A precarious balance that was all too easy to mismanage. The bread, on the other hand, was mediocre, as far as her limited exposure would allow her to judge. Her grandmother chuckled at her hesitant observation when she spoke it aloud.

“The man’s got it in his head that his true calling is baking,” she said, inhaling another gulp of soup, “he’s come a long way since he started. You do not want to know what it tasted like five years ago.”

Aya grimaced, but continued to eat the bread. The guards offered no comments.

They’d clambered upon their boat, one of the guards handing the boatman his portion to effusive thanks. Soon they were back off down the canal, turning this way and that as the first peoples began to spin their way across the sidewalks and bridges.

“So, Aya,” her grandmother said, draining the last of her breakfast, “how do you feel about your home so far?”

Aya silently considered the rapidly warming streets, and took a thoughtful sip at her own cup.

“Well,” she started, “It’s… a lot. More than I even imagined. Mama’s stories only prepared me for so much.”

Her grandmother nodded appreciatively.

“That’s the standard reaction, though you’ve settled in well, I think,” she said, “we’ll have time to discuss what will happen with you once we finish this thrice-damned festival. I think we should start by sending someone up north to find your mother.”

Aya sat up at the mention, a small ember of homesickness kindling at the words.

“Yes, yes,” said the older woman, eyes distant for a moment, “I’ve been remiss. I should be the one patching up the old wounds. Maybe we can come to a new understanding now that we’ve had time.”

“I’d like that,” Aya said, nodding.

There was an awkward silence that lasted until they passed through the red gates of the Historic district.

“So, why do you want to learn magic?”

“What?”

“You said you wanted to see the mage,” her grandmother said, “only one reason I can think of to do that. I can’t imagine being too fond of his company.”

“Grandmother!” Aya protested.

“I jest,” she said, waving a hand, “in truth, I like the man. He’s straightforward, intelligent, and not a coward. A quality possessed by my best teachers. But the question still remains, why?”

Aya tried not to stare too heavily at her arms as she reached for an explanation.

“He knows things,” she said, “a lot more than anyone I’ve met. I think. And I think he can help me. With this.”

She half-raised an arm quickly, lowering it when she noticed the flicker of confusion behind the guard’s eyes. Her grandmother, however, seemed satisfied enough as they drew ever closer to the Eisen house. Her house. It was still hard to believe that anything that big could be one person’s.

She walked up the steps after her grandmother, looking at the shifting forms behind the windows. The servants had already risen that much was clear, but there must have been some of the early members of the household who were just up. Upon entering, one of the household staff whispered something to the matriarch, who turned to look back at Aya.

“Well, looks as if we don’t have to go to the Academy after all,” she said, “your master’s here, waiting for us.”

Aya tried to quell what she thought was unreasonable excitement. They were led into a room where Efrain was waiting, though after a mere momentary exchange about some young man who’d apparently died, she was asked to leave the room. She wondered at it as she exited into the hall, watching a servant nod to her as they silently hurried past. Aya wanted to listen in, to see what had necessitated her leaving, but that would be rude and her grandmother had sharp ears.

Maybe she was magical herself, Aya mused as she set off towards the central pyramid, leaving a servant with instructions to tell her grandmother. The pyramid was still mostly empty at this early hour, save for a handful of cooks and their apprentices firing up ovens in the sub kitchen. One of them jumped at the opportunity to grab a tea set, and a cook helpfully supplied her grandmother’s preferred blend.

Aya walked up to one of the various tables littered around the pyramid, and, with a flame extending from one finger, lit in one of the built in stoves. Placing the kettle on top, she wandered back up to the central pool, where light was just beginning to drift down from the large opening some ten or twenty metres above her.

She lingered at the edge for a moment, still feeling the need for permission to walk into something so sacred to her family and by extension, the city. Finally marshalling the courage, she carefully placed a foot past the lip of the central pool and felt her body sink into the cool water. Her feet tingled as she took her steps towards the large racks of cooking tools and gingerly took her mother’s setback to the table.

She had no real intention of preparing anything, it just helped to have something to remind her of this. As she did so, she recalled what the matriarch had said about ‘figuring out what to do’ with her. What kind of life should she lead in the city? Back in Visaya it had been relatively simple - find a husband perhaps a trade, have children, live out life. Her mother had told her that she should seek out Karkos, perhaps finding the paltry experience insulting to their family name. To Aya, it just seemed what people did.

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But now, she had options - what exactly they were she wasn’t sure, but they were there. She certainly wanted to cook, there was no doubt about that, and there seemed no short supply of opportunity. There was also a growing hunger to learn, not just about magic and her own abilities, but about the world in general.

It was a revelation of her own, how much she didn’t know about the world and its workings. Of course, all that was hung underneath the shadow of Angorrah’s designs. She’d need to ask Lillian about it, see if she could get any useful information for her grandmother.

Such was the strangeness of the thought that Aya blinked hard. Had she so readily turned against her nominal protector? She’d hardly known her family, but then again, she’d hardly known Lillian either. Her head was spinning with all the thoughts that she’d conjured up, and she laid it against the stone table. The cold surface felt good, felt almost purifying, washing all the dizzying thoughts away.

When she next looked up, the water was boiling. She had no idea if it was the right temperature for the leaves, but it would have to do. One of the strangest things that was included in the set was a mesh ball, made of some kind of silvery metal, with a spring backing. It took her a good few minutes to figure out the snapping mechanism, cautiously putting the leaves inside it and pushing it closed. Did every device in this city use springs?

She soon found the utility of such an item when she poured the water into the pot, with the tea inside. It was all those little things that were really growing on her about the city, if family, wealth, and power didn’t. Soon the air was alive with several pungent aromas, many of which she didn’t know. Before she could bring the cup to her lips, something happened.

She furrowed her brows - something was wrong but she couldn’t tell what. She felt fine, there were no mysterious voices or visions, but something… it was like everything had been subtly moved, just a tiny bit, enough to get the inkling of a change, but not so much that she couldn’t doubt it.

Then all of a sudden, there was someone else in the room. A cloaked, masked figure standing at the other end of the hall in silence. They wore one of those smooth masks, one of those called the ‘Occluded’ or so her grandfather had told her in the preparations for the previous night. She had no idea why they were in their central pyramid, or what kind of person was underneath it.

“Hm,” they said, a male’s voice as far as she could tell, “that was… unlikely. You noticed quicker than most.”

“Who are you?” she said, feeling oddly… calm at the presence of the stranger.

“Of little import,” the stranger quickly dismissed, “who are you?”

“I’m Aya,” she said, shrugging, “what are you doing in my family’s pyramid? My pyramid?”

The figure said nothing, cocking its head, looking to be listening to something she couldn’t hear.

“Hm…” he began, before trailing off, “now that does change things. You were correct.”

“What was I correct about?” she said, frowning.

Aya sipped her tea. She should be alarmed, she should call for guards perhaps, but there was no sense of threat. She glanced over to the sub-kitchens, and found the cooks working, seemingly inattentive. But there was something… wrong about them, again that sense of displacement, but more obvious. It was like looking at them through a slightly angled pane of glass, a subtle distortion, but definitely there. There was something going on here, something magical, if she was any judge. Silently, she began rehearsing her lessons with Efrain, memory, emotion, intent.

“Hm,” said the figure, striding forward to take a closer look at her, “so you’re the reason. That’s the only explanation.”

Once more, she said nothing, focusing on that distorted-pane effect, wondering if she could…

Memory of the cook's politie attention from that morning. The feeling and sound of grass cracking under her weight. For emotion, the trepidation and excitement about her future.

Nothing happened, but the figure’s steps faltered.

Aya pushed.

There was no great crack or even a tinkle, just a sudden, short realignment.

The cooks looked… normal. A moment later, one of them looked up, eyes going wide with surprise. A shout went up, servants scrambled to get back to the house. The cloaked man stopped dead in his tracks, and turned to stare at the fleeing servants.

“What?” he said, “you…”

Then he raised his hand, pointing in the direction of the fleeing servants. Immediately, any sense of calm seized within Aya’s breast, and a sheer horror of whatever was about to happen bloomed.

“Stop!” she screamed as she rocketed to her feet, hot tea spilled everywhere.

The man did stop, turning to look at her as the feeling of oncoming doom faded. Then his gaze drifted down.

“Oh,” he said.

Aya wondered at what he was looking at, first taking a look at her arms, and finding them normal, then at her attire, and then at the…

The tea.

When she spilled it the flow was just falling over the edge of the table, slowly. Too slowly. Aya could see the individual droplets forming at the edge and falling as slow as feathers. When the first drop hit the bench, she could see it spreading slowly over the wood. They both stood there for a moment, staring at the slow-motion fluid.

The man cocked his head once more, turning his outstretched hand towards the tea and Aya. With a sudden speed, he snatched at the air, Aya feeling a ripple of power washing over her. The tea resumed its normal speed, the man stood with his arm outstretched, hand closed into a fist.

“Oh,” he said, both voice and hand trembling.

Without a further word, he turned, and strode with far greater speed out of the pyramid, leaving Aya alone. She was still standing, staring at where the stranger had vanished beyond her visions as a troop of guards filed into the pyramid, swords and spears drawn. The captain of the guard asked her about the reports of an intruder.

“Oh,” she said, still staring distantly, “I wouldn’t worry about him. He’s harmless.”

She had no idea why she’d said that, especially when she’d seen him attempt to hurt the fleeing servants using unknown magic. But she felt it, in the core of her being, that he would be harmless, at least for now. Her grandmother, when she came, was less convinced, assigning her a personal guard.

“I would’ve done it anyway,” she said as servants scurried to clean up the spilled tea, “but all these foreigners around who have an interest in our affairs…”

Aya did not care to ask why her expression was so dark after her conversation with Efrain. They brought up a new tea set and sat, drinking in silence. Not long after, the hall began to fill, and her grandmother suggested a bath before she would go to see her ‘teacher’. Aya took her up on that, and within the hour she was guided, escorted of course, to the Academy where Efrain had apparently taken up residence.

The lesson was a practical one, and Aya mulled over the terms as she stepped out onto the family boat. ‘Flooding’, ‘Venting’, and the various principles that had been taught to her definitely helped to explain some of the things she’d experienced. She recalled the pain as her scars first opened on that day that felt so long ago and shuddered at it. Then another thought occurred to her - the other times had not hurt as much, sometimes not at all. Had that simply been her flesh adapting to the change?

She almost wanted to run back into the Academy and share the idea with her teacher.

But they’d already pushed off, and there was no way she was going to go through the awkward procedure of telling the boatman to re-tie off. The rest of the day was relatively unremarkable, or at least as unremarkable as a ‘merchant princess’ day could be, using the term Efrain had devined.

It was the evening where things promised to be truly interesting. A ceremony of dance was to be held as the second night of the Festival, and Aya could actually sit back and watch this time. It was certainly a relief to have the burden of performance to be taken off her. As she was dressed in an elaborate gown and corset of green and gold, she began to imagine all the delicious morsels that would be available. Her delight was only compounded when her grandfather entered to present her with a gorgeous mask.

“Your mother’s,” he explained as she thumbed the lines of dark-stained ceramic between the squares of jade inscribed with gold letters of the Karkos script, “we believe she would approve.”

She hugged him, eliciting a pat on the head and warm smile, before he led her to the waiting parade boat of their family. The cacophony of green and gold set off towards the Grand Square and the evening’s performance.

And what a performance it was! The only thing more dazzling than the feats of athleticism, flexibility, and coordination were the costumes. Some of the men and women went topless or near naked for some of the dances, Aya trying to control both her stares and blush at the immodest displays. But for the rest, there was a sea of greens, oranges, purples, golds, reds, blues, and practically every other colour she could think of. Sometimes they worked in monochromatic blocks, sometimes they mixed and merged together.

There were also incredibly elaborate recreations of various gods, spirits and legendary figures, who came to the foreground while the ‘plainer’ dancers, if they could be called that, assumed the role of various scenery. The effect was something like a moving painting, blocks of dancers as lush fields or open sea with gods and kings playing out dramas in front of them. Her grandfather frequently leaned over to whisper explanations for the more literary aspects of the dances to her. She was grateful, having only the vaguest inkling of them from her mother’s stories.

They were almost halfway through one of the founding epics of the city when there was a disturbance. An older man dressed in deepest blue, pushed through the outer edge of the dancers, sending them sprawling. One of the actors, whose brilliantly detailed armour, spear, and bearded face mask proved useless to stop the man.

The music died in the patter of one last drum and a strangled strings cord. The crowd turned to look, conversations falling silent and bowls clattering to tables. It was one of the most eerie things she’d ever experienced, the almost total silence of thousands of people in close proximity. Already guards around the high table had hands on their hilts, eyes narrowing as they began to stride forward.

They practically leaped in front of Aya and her family when the man drew a black dagger and pointed it at the matriarch. He screamed something in an older, more formal dialect of Karkosian. Aya managed to pick out the proper noun ‘Death’, something about a son, and some kind of challenge. Guards were approaching cautiously from the side, the dancers shrinking back behind them as the man continued, before raising the dagger high with both hands.

“Ysad, mi fasika! Umtau! Umtau!” he called into the silent night.

Then he drove the knife below his breastbone angled up to hit the heart, ripping it out just as quickly. There were shocked gasps and screams as the man swayed and fell to the ground, gouts of crimson spilling across the woven dancer mats. Aya felt her stomach churning as she looked over to see her grandmother’s face, go from white to a surging red.