I woke up late the next morning, figuring I could laze a bit before I was to leave. I lollygagged around my room for a while, before leaving to get a breath of fresh air in the garden. As I left my space, I was silently greeted by the sight of my father carrying some extremely heavy looking bags, flanked by my stepmother who was gabbing about something probably irrelevant. I watched in a slight daze as they simply ignored my presence, casually strolling out the front doors without a care in the world. Curious, I rolled myself to a window to look out at the manor’s courtyard, finding a sight I hadn’t expected for some reason. Happily chatting to some of the Reinhart knights beside a carriage, obviously not that distraught by my approaching adoption, was Elias. I didn’t recognize the two knights that he had seemingly latched onto, but I did recognize the man that was being greeted by my father and step-mother. Liander Reinhart, the heir to the main Reinhart branch, had seemingly come to escort the family to, well, I didn’t know exactly to be honest.

Liander was a fairly large man, being a decent bit taller than my father, and was probably the face of the current Reinhart clan, as well as the perfect embodiment of their signature traits. I had only spoken to him once, but his personality left a distinctly negative impact on my image of him despite our limited interaction. He had visited once with a few of my other cousins, who had been invited for my father’s remarriage. Help had actually been brought in to assist us with the major event and the aftermath, but the amount we had hired seemingly hadn’t been enough for the heir to the Reinhart family. The brat, as I came to think of him after this event, brought more servants with him than the help we had hired, the majority of which were suspiciously unskilled women. When I saw the fleet of carriages that had arrived for one man, I made the decision to avoid him to the best of my ability as much as I could.

Of course, that plan failed spectacularly and even came to bite me in the ass in the worst possible way.

The night of the wedding, I barely managed to escape the whims of my cousins in the reception, fleeing to the safety of the garden. I had still been caring for it at this point, and it was even more of a safe place to me than my bedroom. The flowers I had planted with my mother just weeks previously were some of the only solace that I had, and I truly loved them. So of course I got extremely furious when I rolled into the garden to find Liander rolling around in my flowerbed with four different girls. I probably wouldn’t have minded as much if they were to do it on the garden furniture, but the man and his partners had inexplicably decided to set their bare asses in the dirt, carelessly plucking my flowers and putting them into their hair.

Absolutely shocked and livid, I made a major error of judgment that I regret to this day. Figuring they hadn’t noticed me yet, I took a deep breath before rolling back into the hall outside the still ongoing wedding reception. I cleared my throat and mentally prepared myself, tightly gripping my chair’s handles.

“A-Assassin in the garden! The heir is in danger!”

The scream of fabricated terror was easily the loudest I had ever been despite me intentionally pitching my voice up, and the response was immediate, as probably fifteen men rushed out of the room and rushed towards the garden. I got incredibly nervous that I had done something wrong, and quietly rolled myself into my bedroom to attempt to watch the aftermath through my window while hoping no one would recognize that I was the one who had yelled.

I couldn’t see or hear the events in the garden unfortunately, but I quickly learned that quite a few things had happened because of me. Liander was publicly humiliated to the frustration of probably everyone but me in the Reinhart clan. Liander was incredibly pissed at the situation, ordering an investigation to find out who exactly had exposed his idiocy, and I became incredibly nervous. I could barely sleep even after the guests left, and one day the exhaustion was simply too much to handle. I was working in the garden, still quite devastated at the sheer amount of damage that the brat had caused, but too scared to admit to being the one who had yelled. One second I was working on the flowers, and the next I had apparently been in a two week long coma. To my horror and dismay, I was from then forth banned from tending the garden for my safety. I did my best to negotiate with my father over the years for the right to work on it again but he never relented, to my continued frustration.

Seven years having passed and seeing Liander in person left an uncomfortably bitter taste in my mouth. I didn’t like that I still seemed to hold a grudge against him, but even at this point I don’t think I can just outright forgive him. Even if not directly, his foolish actions still caused me to lose the thing I had cherished the most. He would remain as “brat” in my mind until the time I deemed him worthy, though I doubted that would ever happen.

I quickly realized that I was quickly growing a bit uncomfortable with the brat’s presence, even through a window. I should probably consider my separate from direct relations to him another boon of the adoption. Shaking my head, I turned away from the window and made my way to the kitchen, peeking inside and finding our chef grinning to himself as he mixed some kind of dough in a bowl. Hesitating, I slowly rolled inside, which seemingly caught the man’s attention, who turned his body to face me.

“Oh, Illa, good morning. Would you like something to eat?”

Shaking my head, I nervously looked away, the chef’s energy a bit too much for this early in the morning. I took a deep breath, a few different things on my mind stopping me from eating right away.

“I’m fine, but could I ask you a few questions, uh, s-sir?”

Raising an eyebrow, the chef stopped his mixing and pulled a tall stool over to sit on.

“Go ahead, I’m all ears milady.”

“You um, wouldn’t happen to know why the heir is here and where my father is going?”

The chef froze, looking at me in confusion, then grinned after realizing what my question meant and began to stir the dough once more.

“They didn’t tell you, did they? The heir is to be married in two weeks, and the rest of the family is leaving a bit early to spend a bit of extra time getting to know the bride. I was invited, but since you and I are leaving in a few days I figured I should take the time to polish my skills a little bit.”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“E-Eh? You were invited? Wait, you’re leaving too?”

“Pfft.”

I felt heat rush to my cheeks from his simple response to my blurted out thoughts, and covered my burning face with my hands. The chef ran a hand through his hair, a smile on his face.

“Now that I think about it, we haven’t ever actually talked have we? Let me introduce myself, I am Keith Ebony, soon to be duke.”

I froze as the chef said his name, my brain working overtime to remember who he was. The name was extremely familiar, though my brain didn’t seem to want to connect the dots immediately. I knew that there were four duchies, specifically Reinhart, Glaive, Stele, and Polimas. Ebony simply wasn’t one of them, though if the Great Ebony Thicket was a province, its lord would most likely be called Ebony. I blinked as that thought ran through my head, and my mind ran back to the letter from last night.

“W-wait, eh? Are you serious?”

With a nod, the chef dropped to one knee, offering me a hand.

“It’s a pleasure to finally get to talk to you, my niece.”

I blanked for an embarrassingly long time, staring at the man in front of me. Keith looked absolutely nothing like my mother did. He had nothing of the refined, polished beauty of my mother, looking remarkably average in comparison. Her breathtakingly beautiful platinum blonde hair and sparkling sapphire eyes were simply nowhere close to the brown hair and eyes that Keith wore. His skin was far darker too, though my mother did usually have a decent tan. I would never have connected the two of them as siblings, and I even doubted it at that moment.

“I know, I know, we don’t look alike at all. We aren’t actually blood related after all.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

“Ha, straight and to the point huh? Your mother would be proud.”

I couldn’t help but smile at the minor compliment, and Keith sighed as he noticed, and proceeded to stand up, picking up his mixing bowl to continue the dough he had started.

“Feel free to ask me questions as I finish this sweet loaf, and once I’m done I’ll whip us up a nice brunch to chat over.”

I raised my hand in protest, far more curious about him and my mother than food at this point.

“Ah, it’s fine, I’m not-”

“I’m gonna stop you there, Illa. There is a lot for us to talk about, and you’re gonna end up hungry, trust me.”

A bit flabbergasted, I lowered my hand and awkwardly fidgeted with my chair.

“A-Ah, okay. Then, may I ask how you ended up as our family cook?”

Keith flipped the dough out onto the table, beginning to knead it with obviously well trained movements. Without looking away from his work, he responded to my question with a slightly jovial tone.

“Ah, I’ve been here since you were just a baby. I originally just worked here without pay since my sister was here, but you might not remember that I actually left for a while when your mother passed. I just wanted to escape her memory, but I was dragged back by your father to cook for his wedding since I owed him a favor for something. I wasn’t going to stay for long, but when I saw how you were being treated I managed to negotiate a deal with him to stay and cook for the family.”

I lowered my head, waves of guilt washing through my chest. He had been here the entire time, yet I didn’t even recognize his presence until he had returned after the wedding. I hadn’t realized until now, but my memories before that point were foggy to say the least.

A bit of silence passed as Keith focused on kneading, probably letting me process the knowledge that I was a terrible person, before he stopped and wiped some sweat from his forehead with a visibly filthy towel. After throwing the towel into a bucket and quickly washing his hands, Keith carefully set the dough back into the bowl it had been mixed in, placing a damp towel over top of it.

I had so many questions to ask my uncle, but it all seemed to mix in my head as I watched him work. Before I knew it, he had quickly crafted two delicious looking omelets and gestured at me to follow him into the dining room. Sitting at the opposite side of the table then we usually sat for dinner, Keith reached over the table to pour me a cup of tea with a grin. Hesitatingly, I took a sip, the pleasant taste of camomile quickly spreading across my tongue. Placing my cup down, I took a deep breath before looking directly at my uncle’s face.

“Sir Ebony, please tell me how you managed to get permission to run the academy.”

A twinge of surprise appeared on Keith’s face in response, and after taking a bite of omelet, a grin of pleasure from the taste shooting from ear to ear, he responded.

“That wasn’t the first thing I expected you to ask, to be honest. To explain an extremely long and drawn out plan very short, this is my side job. I return at mealtimes to see you and cook, but most of my time is spent as a mercenary-adventurer.”

I couldn’t help but tilt my head, since the area around the capital was more than tamed. Maybe he could find work as a guard or something, but I had my doubts. Seeing my confusion, Keith chuckled.

“Hah, I understand how confusing that statement would be for someone who didn’t know. Here, take a look at this.”

Keith placed two fingers upon his forehead, then traced a line with them towards me. Immediately as his fingers began to point at me, information burst into my head.

Null Stride Spirit Beast: Opha

Opens a door into the Nulldom. As long as the Spirit beast has been somewhere, it can use the Nulldom to navigate there in seconds.

I couldn’t help but shiver at the idea that I was this close to a spirit beast. They were pretty common in the empire, especially among nobles, but I was so isolated that I rarely interacted with anything to do with them.

To be honest, I was avoiding them. The last one I had interacted with was my mothers, an emerald hawk that cared immensely about me and her. Despite having studied a lot of different subjects over the years, I intentionally avoided learning many things about spirit beasts. I didn’t want to know what had happened to the hawk upon my mother’s death, but I was going to have to eventually, and that time was coming fast.

The most important event for my life coming in a week isn’t being adopted by Keith or leaving my childhood home, but gaining the ability to create a bond with a spirit beast. Upon doing so, I would gain access to the blessing I was given when I was born, and all the potential power it contained. Gumming up a bit of courage with a deep breath, I did my best to fiercely look at the man enjoying an omelet across from me. If I didn’t ask at this moment, I felt I wouldn’t ever be able to.

“Uncle, tell me everything. About you, about mom. I’m ready to know.”

My uncle closed his eyes, obviously contemplating something. When he opened his eyes, the most sincere, emotion filled smile I had ever seen met me.

“It’s a long story, so you better be ready.”