The months of the summer were consumed by the sword training that father proscribed.

A lot of the training wasn't actually with a sword, or a wooden stick. Father just wanted me to use mana to jump or run or do summersaults and things.

He also insisted on sitting down with him and circulating mana every morning, which seemed to be how he thought of condensing mana and practising how to pool it behind particular muscles. It was a bit counterintuitive to me, I was trying to get rid of mana, not get more. But I didn't say anything, since I wanted to try spells of my own.

I knew I was ready to become an amazing baby knight warrior. I wielded that wooden stick with panache when he let me do the sword swinging drill with Saul, which was usually the fun part of the morning. But that was all, before he told me that was enough and Simila took me off for a bath.

I did notice mother once talking to him at the table at dinner. She seemed to be saying that it was too early for me to be training, and father actually agreed.

Then there was after lunch. It was a perfect opportunity to keep working on my ideas on that wax tablet.

I would settle into the cushion that Ivian had embroidered with a horned rabbit while I was in Gristol and take out the stylus, then...

Aawuwuh

Make a big yawn before I fell asleep.

I blamed it on all the running around in the morning... it seemed I could never focus these days. I would sleep for 3, even 4 hours sometimes and then Ivian would come by and take me downstairs where she and mother would be sitting down to practise flute and sew.

They had both noticed me sketching patterns before, so Ivian thought I should learn to embroider too.

I didn't actually like sewing much. It was laborious to get the threads through and Ivian had been showing me how to make an outline and then frame it in an embroidery circle, but it wasn't coming together and made me frustrated and sleepy again.

Not everyday was the same though. Father and Saul were often busy, so practise got cancelled and other days I got to ride on the pony that Sir Barker brought around to play.

The pony was fun, and I could watch Fafi running around us as we went down the mud road to the orchards.

As the autumn came, Sir Barker and I would pick some apples and eat them out in the sun, waving at the villagers who sometimes passed us on the road.

Other days, instead of training or riding, Simila stood behind me as we watched father and Saul spar.

Both father and Saul were amazing as they lunged and parried and dodged each other. Father seemed to have the upper hand though, his wooden sword striking Saul's padded armour many more times than the reverse.

I wasn't idle either. While I watched father and Saul sparring with the sword, I thought I remembered a spell to sharpen a blade so that even a wooden sword could cut through metal like butter.

It was simple, just an incantation that I could try with a few words.

If only I could remember the exact words, that is, then I could finally use the mana I continued to condense in a more meaningful way than the mana reinforcement that father used.

Piecing fragments of Sam's memories together was tiring, and it always seemed that the ones I needed least were the ones most ready to pop into my mind.

And for that matter, not all of Sam's memories were of a better place. Often, his memories just involved lots of other stuff that I didn't particularly want to know.

It seemed that among other things, Sam had spent a time of his life simply warming up the same meal every day for dinner in a small apartment room.

Food here was one of the things that I was really looking forward to most days.

Sometimes we had soups and sometimes salads, often bread from the bakery in Olwick and birds or game that father and the militia men brought back after doing sweeps through the nearby woods.

As the chilly wind of autumn blew over Olwick, meals were even more welcome, the warm food appreciated after practice in the field.

The only bad thing about meals is that mother and father often argued. They were still trying to decide what to do when we returned to Gristol as well as when they would have to go back.

"We should stay the next two years here. I don't want to put Sasha through the trip to the capital so young. I think Tilly likes it here too."

Sasha was apparently Viscount Phrans's wife's name, and what my parents started calling my yet to be born sibling. Even though mother had a tricky relationship with her father, it was still far better than the distance between father and grandfather.

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"I'm just worried. I need to be back in the capital if I am to find out what happened. Look, we can think about that new residence you wanted. Perhaps if we move out of the Edbrian I can at least bring you with me when Sasha is a year old?"

"No Sivis, why?" mother started shouting and stood up. "Just let us stay here. Sasha is not going to the capital, not when we can't even stop the night in Ibbergreen."

The spoonful of pudding and white meat I was about to put in my mouth dropped down to the plate.

"Cianna, let's talk about this later. Just sit down and eat with us."

Mother looked almost at the point of tears but sat down again careful not to bump her swollen stomach.

"Sorry Sivis."

It seemed that at least they were apologising and making up, but it made the succulent meat and savoury bread pudding lose some of their taste.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Sickle or sword, scalpel or knife, here to ward off issue or strife, hone thine edge to support my pledge to use your might and protect a life. Sharpen!"

I shouted the chant and lifted a knife I had swiped from the kitchen.

I spoke not in the tongue of my mother and father, but in the words of Lucia that only I knew here.

It was about a month since we stopped training outside. Father or Saul no longer supervising my daily training in the stables now that they were out on hunts during the day.

I felt a surge of excitement as the drops of mana I had collected within me over the past couple months seemed to bubble and boil, frost turning to fire in my chest as the mana remembered the incantation's calling.

Something was a bit strange, however, perhaps because the incantation wasn't used often. The mana felt a bit sluggish, or even suppressed. I just focused though, brandished the knife in my hands.

I saw a twinkle of light at the edge of the knife and then-

"AAAAARAAAGH!"

I screamed in torment as the bubbling mana seared through my consciousness and my vision went to darkness.

...

...

...

"Tilly?"

I woke up to see Ivian looking down at me.

"Are you awake? What happened?"

I sat up in panic and turned, looking for some-

"Uurgh, uuf uuf."

A dark green spray hit the carpet that had recently been placed in my room before Ivian was able to bring the chamber pot under my nose.

Then I was coughing from vomit going the wrong way up my nose until it came again from my stomach.

"Ooaurgh!"

"It's okay Tilly. Just try to breathe. I'm right here."

I closed my eyes and motioned weakly for her to bring the chamber pot away from my face. The stink just made things worse.

"Tilvrade, keep your back straight. You control your body, not the other way around."

Father was in the room too, but he didn't sound very sympathetic.

"You're sick," Ivian cooed as she put a hand on my back, "Do you know what happened? You were screaming downstairs before Simila brought you up."

"Yes," I remembered. But how do I even explain that I was trying a spell that I shouldn't even know about. Or that I didn't know about, apparently. Stupid lying memories. "No."

It was supposed-

I quickly brought the chamber pot back under me as stomach acids rose up again.

"Oophlagat!"

Sour, bitter, confused, broken.

Whatever it was supposed to do, the spell did this to me instead: a twisting stomach and the beginnings of a headache that was probably going to get worse.

"Tilvrade, if you know something, then tell us. We can't help you if we don't know. Did you eat something in the training yard?"

"What? Ew." I scrunched my nose. "I'm not Fafi..." I hesitated. Did it matter if they knew? It's not as if it needed to be a secret that I failed. "I was trying to sharpen a blade."

I was surprised as Ivian quickly checked each of my hands and then seemed to want to roll up my shirt.

"Ivian?"

"Where did you cut yourself?"

"No, not that kind of sharpen. I was trying to use a spell."

Ivian tilted her head and then looked at father.

Father looked at me puzzled. "A spell, you mean with mana?"

I nodded and drew his own sword from its sheathe.

"Like this?"

Even though we sparred frequently, it was always with wooden swords. I had seen him with his real sword strapped to his waist, but he never bared the steel in front of me.

It wasn't steel though. The metal was a dark red like the colour of dried blood. But even stranger was how it was misshaped, thinner towards the tip and shorter than the sheathe. Some parts of it seemed to almost curve in a wave.

"Ugh," He shook his head and re-sheathed the sword. "What am I thinking. It's strange you know how to condense mana at such a young age, but there's no way you would know about this."

It was an inscribed weapon, probably with some rune of corrosion.

"What does it do?"

Father smiled wryly as he sat down again.

"Maybe when you are a bit older, I will take you to see Gerard in the capital. I think he would let you inside."

"Is Gerard an inscriber?"

"[Inscriber]? Gerard is a cursewright."

"A cursewright?" I wasn't familiar with that word.

"He creates cursed swords and steel. Like this one," he patted the sheathe. "It is a vampiric blade. As long as I can stick it into flesh, it incapacitates as well as any poison, but more effectively on shriekers."

... and probably men, I added mentally. It seemed... unnecessarily bloodthirsty for magic. Why make something so complicated when you could just make it slice more smoothly or shoot out arcs of cutting wind from range?

I had to admit though, a blood sucking sword did put a kind of morbid wonder in me.

It was strange though. Every time I saw magic it seemed to be a curse.

Whether it was father's sword, the shaman, Nistan, mother. It was always a dark magic, never one of the elements, the light, or just something plain utilitarian. I didn't understand how that could be. Curses were not even really a type of magic, just a classification to denote harmful spells.

Not to mention, it wasn't as if mana could just be changed to only work for some things and not others. The whole world's magic would have to be shackled in chains.

It seemed so unlikely to be a coincidence and yet what kind of power could change the very substance of magic? Magic was a force of nature. It was the greatest force of nature, even.

There must still be some way. Just think of all the things I could do if I just found the key.

I still had hope. Sam was a specialist in runes and arrays. Unfortunately, he didn't know anything about curses or how they worked.

If it just worked though, I would be able to analyse what was causing the shriekers and make life in Olwick more convenient. I'm sure mother and father would also praise my magical talents.

I would have to focus the rest of the winter on my sketches and try the stasis rune soon.

Just as soon as my headache died down...

Gudunk

Something fell or thumped on the ground somewhere else in the house and father got up and left the room to go see.

"Ivian!"

Soon after, I heard him shout and Ivian left the room as well, leaving me alone in the room with Simila.

I would only learn later that this day next year, the 8th of the 5th month would be my little sibling's first birthday.