After that night, I threw myself into the lessons that my father and the other mages set me. I took the advice that the Indigo Guard gave me. I stayed up that night and taught myself to braid hair as I had seen my mother do before she died. In a week I had learned to do it while reading a scroll or tablet or reciting something that I was being tested on. I learned how to keep my dress clean as well as myself, without inciting the wrath of my father, who would still have me beaten or whipped if I did not pick things up quickly enough.

Before I knew it, six more years had passed much the same as those first two after my mother had died, and I was being shoved another new dress by a random guard, who told me nothing of why, just that my father wanted to see me and he wanted me presentable.

This dress was different from the now short dress that I had been wearing for the last six years. It resembled the ones my mother used to wear that I had loved so much. There was an actual knock on the door, and the first servant I had seen in years came in with steaming water and another came in with a washtub like I had not had since I was very small.

I didn't understand the sudden care with which I was being handled, but I wasn't about to let a hot bath go to waste! The servants stayed even, and by the time I stepped out of the cool water, it had turned a faint grey, as I still had only been able to partially wash for a long time.

For the very first time, I was sat at the vanity while someone dried my hair and brushed it out for me. In the six years that I had been braiding it, it had grown quite long, nearly to my knees. Now, one of the servant women sheared it off until it rested nicely at my new hips, which seemed to have come out of nowhere. The clothing I had been supplied with was in two parts; a long white cotton skirt that was adorned for the very first time with the gold and the blue that I actually recognized as belonging to my mother. My hair was dried and brushed until it gleamed like fresh blood without a snarl or tangle in sight. I was even given shoes for the very first time, and the sandals that I was not even given the chance to put on myself were of golden threads woven into the straps.

More of my mother's old things were given me, though the earrings I could not wear as my ears were not pierced, but the gold and blue pendant was fastened around my neck and golden armbands were fastens to my now very clean arms and were a stark contrast to the alabaster of my skin, an unhealthy almost transparent look that had been attained by never being allowed outside. Somehow, the scars from my many whippings were not so prominent after the good bath, and when I actually saw myself in the mirror of the vanity I didn't recognize myself. I thought I was looking at my mother.

The two servant women bowed themselves out and after a moment the Indigo Guard knocked and came into the room while I was still twisting and looking at myself from every angle, excited as a twelve year old would be when neglected all one's life only to be treated like royalty without warning. He stood there with an odd sort of expression on his face that I couldn't identify. Why should someone look so displeased? Sad? Angry? Amused?

He said nothing though, I already knew that he was going to be the one to escort me to my father and whatever it was he wanted that was requiring the provision of a bath and my mother's jewelry. Why else would he be here? I hadn't had a whipping in well over a year now, so there were no wounds to clean.

When he saw that I was ready to go rather than wondering and gawking at myself he turned and waited for me to precede him out of the room. Out in the hall I waited until he had shut my door, and I was surprised to find that there were no guards outside my door for the first time in eight years. In the last two years I had ended up in my father's company more often. Daily in fact. I had begun learning the actual magic. Spells and rituals that my father would trust to no one else as he had my written learning.

I followed the Indigo Guard down the halls, being in the sun for the first time since the day my brothers had beaten me and blackened my eye. The bright afternoon rays glinted off the gold around my forearms and my upper arms, and the bright blue of the lapis of my mother's necklace and the gold and lapis around my hips holding the skirt up. I could feel my hair against my back, and the shoes on my feet were uncomfortable because I had never worn them before.

I didn't realize until already entering the room that I had been brought to the court chamber where my cousin, the Pharaoh, would hold court. I suddenly saw why I had been bathed and made presentable. The entire court was present it seemed, my sister, brothers and father included. My brothers were guards of the court now at sixteen, and my sister was more brown than I from days spent in the sun, as were my brothers and father. I was the palest person in the room. My cousin, whose name I didn't even know, was seated on the throne and stood as I was led into the room. I found that I was not dressed as other women of the court. The top of my body was covered in cloth, while the rest of the females, even my sister, wore much heavier jewelry than I did in order to cover the bareness of their bodies.

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I couldn't understand what was going on, and the Indigo Guard stood several feet behind and to the side of me. I knew enough from my lessons that I was not to speak unless spoken to, and so to not incur the wrath of my father, I remained silent, biting the questions on my tongue.

I felt nervous, but didn't fidget, I merely stood with my arms at my sides. My father finally stood, taking my mind off of the vehement stares of my brothers who seemed to know what was going on and hated me even more for it. But my father stood, an indiscernible smile on his face, and spread his arms in an embracing gesture.

'For eight long years my daughter has toiled in the archives to learn the arts to which she is to inherit. And I am proud to say that at long last, she has mastered them. Today my daughter comes of age, and with coming of age, she is a full fledged mage at last. To rival even the mightiest of the court.'

There was that ceremonial pride in my father's voice, but no genuine emotion. And when I glanced to look at my siblings, I saw hatred in my brothers' eyes, and fright and sadness in my sister's. The rest of the court however, lit with cheer and happiness. The women of the court proud that another woman had bested the most powerful men, the men only slightly less cheery but proud nonetheless.

I found that an entire celebration was to be held that night in my honor. The whole city was alight with lanterns and torches as the sun went down. I don't think I had ever seen so much food in my life in one place. People came to speak to me, to congratulate me respectfully, as my cousin was Pharaoh and my father the best mage in the kingdom.

At one point my father came to speak to me as he never had before. His words weren't harsh or demanding. He told me that I would have more freedom now, though I was expected to still read more and keep diligent in his expectation that I surpass him.

'How am I to surpass you? You are the greatest mage in the kingdom.'

My father only smiled a sort of secret smile and said I would find out in time.

* * *

Freedom was an odd thing. For months I waited for someone to rouse me before dawn to bring me to the archives for forced lessons. For food to begin to be lacking once more. For my mothers jewelry to be taken from me while wearing it. But it didn't happen. I was no longer a bad secret it seemed. Hot baths became a daily occurrence. Good, fresh food was more than once a day for the first time in years. Fruits and breads and for the first time I was allowed to drink the beer rather than just being given water.

I was able to spend time in the sun. I didn't even mind that I was still by myself all the time. And now, I could go into the archives on my own and learn whatever I wished to. And I could take it outside if I wanted to. It was in this time I really began to enjoy the ability of reading. I read about math, magic, philosophy, I read records.

I took up learning to make pottery, and painting said pottery. I learned to make jewelry. I also found that I was to be allowed to sit in on meetings of the court and council. Being my father's heir wasn't misery for me anymore. No more was I whipped or beaten, starved or berated. I didn't even mind that the Indigo Guard followed me wherever I went because I no longer had to sneak around to do anything.

The good food and good care had filled me out so that I no longer looked scrawny, and the transparent pallor had gone from my skin, replaced by a healthy milkiness that didn't go away no matter how much time I spent out of doors. New clothes came on a regular, something that I had not had in my entire life.

Once a moon cycle I had a meeting with my father where he would impart some new knowledge on me for me to know, and by now, all he had to do was speak and I could do it, whatever it was. I never saw my siblings, my sister least of all. She, I found, was learning all of the things to which a wife was to learn. Any time I mentioned marrying my father would laugh in my face and say that no man wanted a wife like me. What did I know of being a wife?

I had few memories of my mother, I remembered how I had wanted to be just like her as a small child. But I had turned out very far from it. What I saw of my sister made me jealous as time went by. She was soft spoken and obedient, soft and cared for more than I had ever been. And if I ever saw my brothers, they spat on the floor as I walked by, hatred in their eyes.

* * *

As time passed and years went by, my brother's both married and had children. My sister had a couple of chances to marry, and why she never took them I will never know. Perhaps she was waiting for the person she would love as she does now, but that is much later in this story. I never got a chance to marry. I was by myself most of the time, not counting the Indigo Guard that is, I didn't have any friends. If I got lonely, it wasn't something I noticed anymore. I could barely remember a time when it wasn't so. I just` fell more into the comfort of the archives. Funny that I now thought it a sanctuary where before it had been a living hell.

Eventually I was sitting in for my father as he got older; nearly forty was old in that time, and as his heir it was my responsibility to sit in on meetings if he was not able to be there. My cousin was getting older as well, nearly thirty, and yet in his infinite wisdom he seemed to think highly of my opinion when I gave it, able as I was to speak freely as an equal among the rest of the council.

Nearly every other man there thought I was incapable of doing the job before me. So I had to work harder than even new members who were men, some not even as old as I. But by the time I was seventeen, everything that I had thus suggested that had been taken in hand had proven right. By the time I was eighteen, my father no longer attended meetings at all. Nor did he help the people who once came to him for wisdom or spells of sorts. Now they came to me.

My spells and rituals to the Gods and my prayers were always answered, come to fruition in timely manner. People began to think my father had died. In time, my father had said, when he told me I would surpass him. I found myself wondering if this had been what he meant.

I wanted to marry before I got too old to, but I found that the only person I could really think of was the Indigo Guard. The man had not aged a single day since I had known him. Since the day when I was two when my sister had gotten me tangled in the thorn bush. I would find myself zoning out while reading, wondering about him. I dared ask no questions, I can't say why as I don't rightly know to this day. I knew that my father would not allow me to marry, for reasons I had never dared ask. Fear of my father's wrath was still something I remembered all too clearly, even though it had been years since I had felt the bite of a whip or a cane.