Prologue: Ambassador (Short)
The boy didn’t know where he was. He had awoken in a forest, surrounded by thick, brown rags, and half-buried in snow. He sat up, and panic set in.
He was cold.
He was hungry.
He was tired.
He would have cried, but he was a brave boy. Mom always doted on him for that. “What a brave boy,” she would have said. “My brave boy,” she would have said. But she wasn’t there.
He was alone.
He clutched the rags around himself and began to walk. He didn’t know where to. But he didn’t want to be cold anymore. He didn’t want to be hungry anymore. He didn’t want to be tired anymore.
He didn’t want to be alone anymore.
And so he chose a random direction, and began to walk. The trees loomed over him, protecting him to the best of their ability from the snow. But the cold still clung to his skin, even under the rags. He didn’t let that bother him, though. He was a brave boy.
Eventually, he saw lights. His shivers changed from fear to excitement as he used what strength he had left to make a run for it. He ran, and ran, and ran, and collapsed at a gate.
Streams of tears turned to frost as he cried out in joy.
He was cold.
He was hungry.
He was tired.
But he was no longer alone.
[break]
The Ambassador clung to its heavy rags as the cold of winter seeped into its skin. It was human again, a child again. Abdiel felt for it, his heart filled with sorrow. How unfortunate that it was a child. How unfortunate that it was winter. How unfortunate that it was so fragile. How unfortunate…
But of course, all was to the Numen’s plans. The Ambassador could only come about in the winter. The Ambassador could only be human. The Ambassador could only be a child. All is as it was. All is as it is. All is as it will be. As it should be.
Abdiel smiled as another human, a young woman, approached the Ambassador. He smiled further when his senses felt a presence within her. Aethermold, he thought. Good. It will grow healthy and strong. We are lucky. This will be… fun.
Chapter 1: Balmung Decimation, of House Decimation
I trembled in excitement as I leaped out of bed. I couldn’t keep in my emotions as I giggled and sighed. I was a mage, and had been for a year – but I wasn’t a licensed mage. I hadn’t had any sort of official schooling, though my parents were both enchanters of great renown, and had both spent time tutoring me.
But that didn’t matter.
Because I would soon be attending Albinus Academy. It was an academy of great renown, home to brilliant professors, and producer of amazing enchanters, battlemages, and more. It was an academy for nobles and, recently, any talented individuals, including commoners. Of course, that wasn’t at all relevant to me. I was Balmung Decimation, of House Decimation, and while I wasn’t of direct lineage, my family was highly regarded.
My mind retreated to the feeling around my heart, of the writhing mass that surrounded it. I would have shuddered, but I had gotten used to the feeling of Aethermold in my body long ago. It coiled around my heart, and as it wriggled, it could command force over mana. Inside it was a small hole, its core, that connected to a spot in another plane of existence – the Aether. The Aether was an ineffably humongous expanse of mana, and in it lay a variety of types of mana. Most of that mana was unattuned mana, which was the "default" form of mana. Some mana had attunements, which allowed it to produce and control certain substances, like fire or air. My core connected to an intersection between a pool of Force mana and a pool of Crystal mana, allowing me to draw from both.
As I drew Force mana out from the Aether through my core, I looked over to my fully-packed suitcase, and began shaping the mana into a rune. The symbol then twisted, before altering into another rune entirely; then again, and again, and again. The suitcase was off the ground and hovering just a step behind me as I raced my way down velvet-laden stairs. Navy blue light continued to shift and contort just off of my shoulder, commanding the forces that moved the suitcase. I could feel the Force mana, emanating a feeling of backbone and vigor that I found reassuring.
As I reached the bottom, I stopped the rune sequence, and the suitcase plopped to the ground. I sat down on the last step, and gleeful shivers ran down my spine as I giggled again. I still couldn’t believe it. Albinus Academy – it had been my dream for years. Every mage’s dream. Every person’s dream. Even most Nobles didn’t get to go – it was for the best of the best. And the richest.
A smug smile reached my lips as I thought, I’m both.
I began to drag my suitcase by the handle – the soulstrain just from that short trip was taxing, I had only had an Aethermold soul for a year after all – and dropped it by the manor’s front door as I made my way to the dining room.
I was the first one to make it, apparently, as all twelve seats lay empty. Not too early, thankfully, as hearty meats and leafy greens sat atop serving plates lining the center of the table, a subtle steam rising.
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As I sat down, my cousin, Linn, entered the room and bolted to her seat, next to mine, so she could grab as many servings as she could before I could react. The food on her plate must have reached several meters high by the time I had a chance at anything. I gave her my least subtle frown as I reached to serve myself.
“Hey, you can’t complain. Last time you hogged all the food,” she remarked, clearly ignoring that last time I hadn’t taken nearly as much food as she had this time. “I say we take turns. It’s only fair,” she added with a grin on her face.
I narrowed my eyes at her as an idea struck my thoughts. I made a thinking look, as though I were one of Yppath’s greatest philosophers, and proclaimed, “Yes! I suppose it is.” I confined myself to as little food as possible, and waited for the rest of our family to make it to the dining room.
“Linn Tilian Decimation. Just what do you think you're doing?” I avoided bursting out in laughter as Elda, Linn’s mother, walked into the room and stared at her daughter in shock. I nearly broke as the terror of hearing her full name visibly settled in on Linn. “You’ve taken half the food on the table and left barely a scrap for the rest of us! Look at how little Bal has got on his plate.”
“Oh, leave her be,” Pleoh, her father, said as he walked in. I mentally scorned the unfortunate timing as all the tension in Linn’s shoulders disappeared. “She’s a growing girl, she needs all the food she can get!”
“Hmm, I dunno, I am two weeks older than Bal. He probably needs more food than I do because he’s younger. And shorter. And weaker. And–”
“Yeah, yeah, we get it, you’re a whole two weeks older than me,” I sighed. Yeah, she was a whole two weeks older than me – and she never let me forget it. And there was hardly an inch’s difference in height, but it was still a hot topic for her whenever I was around. She was definitely a lot stronger than me, though. A smile cracked at my lips. “But that strength one is unfair. How am I supposed to compete with a gorilla?”
The chatter and back-and-forth continued, and expanded to include more people as our family members poured in – my mother, Wilona, and father, Archerd, as well as several of Linn’s and my siblings, and our uncle, Bearn.
Eventually, the meal came to a close. Linn and I said grace as we exited, and our family congratulated us and said their goodbyes. My parents left with me a journal and some small mana crystals, and Linn’s left her with some sheets of magemetal and her mother’s old hammer.
Linn and I made our way to the front door, picked up our suitcases, and began walking towards the Stolther Train Station.
[break]
“Line 67, now stopped in Stolther,” a voice boomed out from the roof of the building. Linn and I stopped our idle chat and jumped up from the bench we were sitting on. We inched our way through the crowd exiting the train that had just stopped. It was beautiful, as any proper train was. Each conductor was a Crystal mage whose train was their own personal project, and each one was different from the last.
This one was made mostly of polished ebony wood, lined with purple mana crystals – probably Crystal-attuned – that accentuated the design and likely served some sort of purpose beyond simple aesthetic. The wheels were ginormous titans of the same dark wood, connected by thick rods of the same purple mana crystals. Crystal mage attendants scampered around the behemoth, making alterations here and there, ensuring that everything worked right and proper before allowing anyone onboard. That was one of the caveats of magical machinery – the foundation of magic was Change, and that meant enchantments could go haywire if they weren’t regularly maintained. Usually, tools could go months, or even years if made by a half-decent enchanter, without needing any sort of maintenance, but huge machines like trains had Change-intensive enchantments, and also had to deal with the stress of travel, which necessitated checkups at the end of each departure.
Finally, the voice boomed once again. “Line 67, ready for passengers.”
Linn beamed and we rushed toward one of the ticketmasters, who gave a short chuckle at our rapid approach. “Heading to Iwirmaene, eh? I heard Albinus Academy is opening its dorms soon.”
“Yes,” I responded, shoving my ticket in his face. “Oh, uh, ‘This ticket is real and I do not plan on sowing any mischief while on this train,’” I added as I noticed him tapping the pink badge on his chest.
The ticketmaster’s eyes clouded for a moment, and my head felt weird for a second before clearing up. “Great, didn’t even have to ask out loud. Glad to know kids these days are so well-mannered,” he remarked with a roll of his eyes, pushing my ticket away from his face. “You can get on.”
I hopped onto the small steps connected to the train and began making my way to the compartment listed on my ticket. It was pretty far from where we had entered, allowing Linn to catch up with me.
“Dream mages always creep me out,” she said with a shudder.
“Yeah, well, can’t blame someone for wanting to be one. They make a lot of money because House Whisper has such a stranglehold over the Dream pool locations,” I responded. “Anyone who finds out their locations in the Aether gets bought out or gets crappy jobs. That guy could probably do a lot better than ticketmaster.”
“Just our luck. Must’ve been twenty ticketmasters, and we bump into the one with a pink badge,” she groaned. “I’m still getting chills,” she shuddered again.
In my opinion, she was overexaggerating, but then everyone had different sensitivities to Dream magic. I silently scorned that there was one more thing she was better than me at, but decided not to comment on it. She didn’t seem to be enjoying it, so I was more than happy to take the win in that department.
After a short walk, we finally made it to our compartment, and opened the door to an unusually pale boy our age sitting across from our seats. “You’re unusually pale,” I let out before clapping my hand to my face. “Sorry.”
“Ha! Don’t worry about it, I get that a lot,” he laughed as he extended his hand. “My name’s Julian Royal-Siegfried.”
“What an odd name. And, Royal-Siegfried? You’re married at your age? To a Royal? And they let you hyphenate?” Linn bombarded, shaking his hand as we sat down. “You must be pretty important.”
“No, no, I’m not married. I’m an adoptee.”
Linn and I sat in stunned silence for what could have been minutes. What probably was minutes. “An adoptee!?” we both gasped after the silence had stretched too long. “Guess he is pretty important,” I muttered.
“Linn Decimation,” Linn giggled, curtsying from her seat. “Of House Decimation.”
“Balmung Decimation, of the same,” I said as I gave a slight bow.
“I’ve great respect for House Decimation. You’re the ones to thank for this very train,” he said, patting his seat.
“Contrary to our name,” I cut in with a chuckle.
“Contrary to our name,” Linn reaffirmed with a nod. It was something of a catchphrase of ours. Despite Decimation mana, our House’s namesake, being a force of pure cutting destruction, our House’s goal was mainly, ironically, to build infrastructure for Yppath. We employed enchanting guilds and construction companies, and it was thanks to our funding and planning that the country could enjoy its lavish lifestyle. Additionally, as with any House, House Decimation occasionally adopted outstanding enchanters – of which Linn’s and my grandparents made the cut. Every House but House Royal, who only adopted once or twice a century. I was still reeling from getting to sit with someone who would probably have folk tales written about him within a few years. House Royal didn’t adopt just anyone.
“So, Royal adoptee,” Linn began, as though she was reading my thoughts, “How’d that happen?”
Julian shrugged. “It all happened pretty fast. They think I’m real interesting, too interesting to let go.”
“Talented?” I asked.
“That too,” he chuckled.
“I suppose it’s safe to assume you’re headed to Albinus Academy like us,” I said. “Y’know, considering,” I continued, gesturing to the train we were in.
“Yup! I would’ve already been in Iwirmaene, but I was on an errand for a close friend,” Julian responded. “I’ll be staying in the Hylli building, room 206.”
My eyes widened just a bit. “We’re roommates.”