That night, a week before her father’s scheduled arrival, Everie flipped through the storybook Daphne had read to her. She’d been able to lug it into her bedroom without the help of the nanny from the library, who’d followed her slow progress from behind with obvious bemusement.
Everie glanced at Daphne. The girl was reading through a stack of newspapers and missives that had arrived in the manor mail earlier, specifically for her. She had changed into her nightgown - a simple gown similar to her own, embroidered with the Canstein crest - and was borrowing the coffee table that Briar had installed in Everie’s room.
I don’t really mind, either, Everie thought, shaking her head. It’s not like any of this feels real to me anyway, even now.
Everie fisted the velvet covers she sat on. They felt so soft - she was glad to be sleeping in an actual bed now, instead of that abomination Daphne had called a bassinet.
Her attention, though, was mostly on the book spread before her. It was that same thick storybook of legend Daphne had read to her a month before; the volume opened to the first page. Daphne had been correct in that Everie wouldn’t be able to understand much of it - she’d gotten the general gist, but there had still been aspects of the vernacular used she couldn’t quite grasp.
Now, though, Everie’d had over a month to learn. The presence of visual aid made learning so much easier, to the point where Everie was confident she could read all but the most obscure of texts, so long as they were written in Common.
...It’s not like I have much else to do right now than read, anyhow, she thought.
The Well pulsed, and Everie winced. And I’m still not going to touch that thing anytime soon.
She flipped past the first page. Everie frowned; it was that same image - a fractal orb, constructed of fragment and lattice, crossed with two feathers.
Unlike the cover, though, this page listed the table of contents for the book. She vaguely remembered Daphne flipping past this part.
Her eyes flickered to the name of the first chapter listed.
The Battle of Heaven and Earth: Fragmentation
And so, she read.
----------------------------------------
There was once an age where gods and demons walked the land. With their superior physical might and capability for brute force, they dominated the mortal races across all known planes.
They were untouchable. Unshakeable. Innumerable. Ether was theirs and theirs alone; not even the greatest mortal could pierce even their barest skin.
Then, from the peak of the cosmos, the first Hero stole an ember of the first magic and seeded it into the world. From her gift and sacrifice the mortal races began to scratch for freedom.
The Divine feared this. They attempted every measure of control, but once the tide came to pass only uprooted sand remained; every instance of manipulation was rebuffed by Hero after Hero, throughout eternal history. And in every instance, the Hero sacrificed their life in the pursuit of freedom.
Until, one day, the hundredth and final Hero was born as a perfect being, the first able to shake even heaven. With her handmaiden, the ninety-ninth, the Aerith summoned the spirits of the Hundred, and drove the Divine out of the mortal realms in a mighty battle that lasted a hundred days and hundred nights.
The battle was brutal, and fragmented much of the cosmos. But when the sun rose on the hundredth day, the Aerith drove the final God back into the rift from wherein they had first appeared in the world, and sealed herself within. Now, she wages eternal battle with the root of all evil, keeping the Divine from ever reaching into this world.
Though the root of evil may have been banished, the wounds they wrought remained. So, in the spirit of camaraderie between all races and species, the Ninety-Nine remaining heroes traveled the world to reconstruct the realm, now closed off from interlopers. As the Aerith’s magic faded, so did they, until only one remained.
The Ninety-Ninth, Medea, was the final Hero to depart. With the last of her prodigious powers, she left a blessing on the land that interred her; birthing a land that now shares her name.
—
Everie frowned, flipping the page. That was the end of the introduction.
She nibbled her upper lip. The next chapter was an account of the first Hero - someone called the Ember Witch, or the mother of magic. It seemed after the introduction, the next hundred chapters were collectively an anthology of poems, legends, and epics about the Hundred Heroes.
But the important things are already apparent, Everie thought. There are no gods - or demons, for that matter - in this world as of the present day.
She couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief when she came across that fact. The war of heaven and earth - the Fragmentation - had occurred nearly a thousand years prior to her birth. In that time, any mention of the divine had become little more than myth and legend, unable to penetrate the barrier into Everie’s newfound home realm.
So I am safe, after all, she murmured, internally. That’s good. That’s good...
She frowned.
War, huh? That... Everie closed her eyes. Where have I heard-
The fragment pulsated in her abdomen. Everie’s eyes bulged, and she coughed furiously, doubling over. It felt just like that time, when she tried to-
No!
She fell over backwards, chest heaving. A conveniently placed pillow absorbed most of the momentum from Everie’s fall, and she lay there, gasping.
Everie immediately cast her vision inwards. To her relief, there was no blood or internal bleeding - it seemed that, due to her growth, her current body was able to at least contain the fluctuations of whatever this thing in her abdomen was.
The Well, however, was much the same. Everie thought the aperture might have grown a little larger since the last time she’d checked it, but it was largely similar to before; a black-hole in her senses, with energy roiling, trapped within.
The fragment, though, had grown.
Though only by a tiny amount, the tiny speck in her soul that had been the Crying Demon’s final gift had now expanded. No longer was it a simple chunk of fractal glass; now, it looked like it had grown roots. Like it was branching throughout the nonphysical space that etherand her Well existed in. It wasn’t quite a spiderweb, but Everie suspected the fragment that had been gifted to her was now a node - a point of propagation.
I have no fucking clue what’s going on, she groaned to herself. What’s next? Is another demon going to crawl out of the floorboards and give me a mysterious gift that seems to want to kill me whenever I touch it?
The sheets rustled as Everie buried her head in her blankets. This was all so infuriating, but-
But, she thought, a smile creeping up on her face. This is all good news. I can’t let my guard down, sure, but at least that… thing that I saw in the void won’t be coming to get me anytime soon. I just need to figure out how to use magic, and how to...
She frowned. What did she want to do? This was a new world - full of new life, and mystery, and possibility. Everie wasn’t naive enough to think the people of this realm would be selfless saints.
But she also had a hard time believing any land could emanate that same aura of hopelessness that her homeland had. Everie’s birth-world was a realm that had been long deceased, abandoned by the powers that once imbued it with life and vigor and a thousand wonders.
And - though still a concept Everie still found herself struggling to internalize - she was heiress to a genuinely ‘blessed land. A prosperous kingdom.
There was an opportunity here. And it could be the first of many more.
Everie held out her hand in front of her, clenching it. I want to learn magic, she thought. And I want to live. Those are the two goals that I’ve been pursuing since my rebirth here. But that can’t be all. There has to be something more. Something...
She groaned, hugging a pillow - or part of it, due to her still-small size - to her chest. Whatever! I’ll figure it out later. I have-
Everie blinked. Right. I have time. I have time.
She swallowed. Then a genuine smile spread itself across her face.
“Daphne!” she exclaimed, tinnily. Everie was - curse this infant body! - feeling that familiar sense of tiredness. “I wanna go to bed. Can-”
Everie frowned, glancing across the room. It was odd that Daphne hadn’t come rushing to her when she began gasping for air - the girl was oddly overprotective for someone she’d merely been assigned to take care of. Everie couldn’t really understand it, or her, for that matter.
“Daphne?” she asked, frowning. At least her pronunciation had improved over the past two months. “Is something wrong?”
No answer? she thought. Everie sat up, something - was this worry? - proliferating in her heart. Everything should be normal - there was no disturbance in the air, or in the surrounding ether, although Everie wasn’t foolish enough to think her senses couldn’t be fooled. In this world, anything was possible.
“Daphne!” she barked. “What-”
Everie froze. Daphne was still seated at the coffee table, newspaper in hand. But much unlike her usually cheerful - if exhausted - self, her hands were trembling, and the pallor of her already pale face had deepened into an even brighter shade of white.
Laboriously, Everie slipped out of her covers. It still took more effort than Everie liked, but she soon plopped onto the floor, feeling the carpet between her toes.
“Daphne?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
Everie was too short to see over the back of her chair, but it was enough that she could still read the headlines of the article Daphne had been reading. Her eyes flickering across the text, and Everie felt her heart sink from the realization.
LORD AND LADY ROSENSON PURGED UNDER DECREE OF CANSTEIN ROYAL CREST
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
ROSENSON BARONY SUCCEEDED BY HOUSE GLADWITZ
Everie blinked.
Huh, she thought. So that’s what’s this is all about.
She’d known something had happened to Daphne’s family. Everie had seen the maid looking frantically at newspapers every night, looking for news about the Purge - which Everie had only just begun discovering the specifics of. The general gist of it was that the new King, Luceras the Eighteenth, was an ass. Beyond that, Everie knew little.
Everie was also fairly certain Briar had been caught up in it too, but she never talked about it - at least, not in front of her.
Still. This was worse than she’d thought.
I’m surmising from this that Daphne’s from the Rosenson family, Everie thought. Therellian’s is an aristocrat-only academy. She has to have been at least a baronial scion to attend.
And she is. Or at least, she was.
Everie swallowed. In retrospect, none of this should logically have mattered to her. Like she’d thought with Briar, she didn’t know Daphne. She was just another girl in this strange new land. In her previous life, Everie had seen suffering beyond measure - and she’d had a good share in that misery, too.
But at that moment, the only thought apparent to her cognizance was that she had to do something to help.
And maybe she felt just a little empathy, too.
“Daphne,” Everie said. She tried to keep her voice as cool as possible. “Look at me.”
Daphne didn’t respond. Her eyes were still fixed on the newspaper; presumably, she was too shellshocked to give an appropriate rejoinder.
“Daphne!” Everie barked. “Look at me, for Hell’s sake!”
Common flowed off her tongue in fluid rivulets - the most proficient she’d ever been at the language. Everie mustered every bit of skill in acting and eloquence from her previous life for this, and even then she felt uncertain; sure, she’d tricked people before, but seldom had she actually tried to comfort someone because of a loss.
“Daphne, I-”
She stilled. The newspaper slipped out of Daphne’s hands, fluttering to the floor. Everie let it.
Daphne’s shoulders trembled. Her chair tumbled backwards, and she collapsed to the floor. Everie had to stumble awkwardly to the left to not get crushed.
“Agh!” Daphne choked. “Ah-”
Everie shifted, looking down at the floor.
Well. This is awkward, she thought.
The maid shivered, tears trickling down her cheeks. She was gasping for air, clutching at her chest-
Shit! Everie thought, dashing forward as fast as her infant body could allow her to. She’s having a panic attack!
“Agh,” Daphne wheezed. “I- I-”
Everie bumped into the maid’s side. She grabbed fistfuls of her dress as best she could, and clung as close to the girl as possible.
“I’m here, Daphne,” she whispered.
Shit, shit, what do I do? Everie thought, panicking. She was doing her best to layer a veneer of calmness over her, but there was only so much she could do. She’d been an assassin in her past life, not a psychologist!
“They’re dead,” Daphne whispered. “They’re dead! The Duke- the Duke said- he promised-”
“Hey, hey,” Everie snapped. She grabbed Daphne’s ear and tugged her so that they were face-to-face. “Listen to me, alright?”
Daphne stilled. She looked stunned.
“You are my handmaiden,” Everie said. She stared Daphne straight in the eyes. “I know you’re hurt. But you won’t be abandoned any longer. Understand? By order of your master and heiress to the Dukedom of Medea, I forbid it. You’re like a sis-”
No.
Everie swallowed. “You are like a cousin to me. I refuse to let you be seen like this.”
Daphne exhaled. “But-”
“No,” Everie said, shaking her head. “Don’t think about them. Just think about yourself. It’s the only way. It’s the only way to...”
She paused. What am I doing?
Everie clenched her fists. “...I’m sorry,” she whispered, withdrawing herself from Daphne’s embrace. “I should’ve been softer. But this is the only way I know.”
A beat. Daphne stared at her, tears still glistening on her snow-white cheeks - but only now, Everie thought she saw a hint of rose in the maid’s icy flesh.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
What have you done, Everie moaned. Why would you of all people try to help someone like her? Emotionally, no less?
Then Daphne’s hand slipped into hers. Everie looked up at her in surprise.
“When’d you get so good at Common?” Daphne whispered. “Honestly, miss. I don’t understand you.”
But she was smiling.
Through her palm, Everie felt her heartbeat resound in tandem with Daphne’s.
“...you’re not offended?” Everie asked. “I just told you to get over the deaths of your parents.”
Daphne winced. “Well, that part was a little brusque,” she conceded. With her other hand, she wiped the residual teardrops from her eyes, before clasping them over Everie’s much smaller, delicate hands; “But thank you for that.”
“I... I don’t understand,” Everie said.
In response, the maid smiled bitterly. “I knew it was going to happen anyway. But I hoped- I hoped-”
“It’s okay to hope,” whispered Everie. It was more to herself than anything. “No matter what, you can’t lose hope.”
They both stilled, enjoying each other's embrace. Everie closed her eyes.
“In my time here,” began Daphne, “you’ve all been so kind to me. Your father saved me, Everie. When my family was... when my House fell, the Duke rescued me and brought me here.”
Everie blinked. “I see,” she murmured.
“I was alone,” she whispered. “But now I’m not. I- I need time. To recover. But I’ll get past this. I have to. Thank you for this, miss.”
Then she scoffed. “Honestly,” she muttered. “Gettin’ therapy from my half-year-old employer. You’re pathetic, Daphne.”
Everie laughed. There was something in her chest that felt like relief. “Well, I’m not exactly a normal child, am I?”
Daphne glared at her. “Yeah, I figured that, miss.”
She rose, carrying Everie in her arms. There was still a tremble in her step, and a quiver in the sway of her arms, but she seemed at calm. Dry tears stained her cheeks, having percolated into her skin.
Her eyes, though, had undergone the most profound change. Daphne wasn’t okay - that was for certain. Everie was sure of it; even if they were expecting it, one didn’t get over a loss like that without a scar.
But now? While her irises still betrayed sorrow, they weren’t full of misery.
You’re stronger than I ever was in my previous life, Daphne, Everie thought. In the end, I gave up and accepted death. You overcame that.
She felt a hint of respect well up for the girl. This privileged, exiled noble, whose parent’s death was perhaps one of the first true tribulations she’d ever overcome. But unlike Everie, loss hadn’t broken her. She refused to sit still and accept the portent of suffering.
Instead, she had overcome it.
And now, Everie had to play her part in completing her act.
“By tomorrow,” Everie began, “When my father arrives, nothing will have changed in this household. You are loved here. Mother loves you. I love you. You deserve better than the hand you were dealt by fate, and that you shall have.”
Daphne laid her to sleep, and - after a moment’s urging from Everie - slipped in with her. The blonde sat up, reaching for the night lamp; but before she let the lights finally go out, Daphne turned to her one last time, her signature beam on her face. It was marred by internal turmoil, and Everie expected it to stay that way for some time.
But it was still recognizable, and that was the most important thing.
“You’ll be quite the bombshell in noble society at your Sociale if you keep talkin’ like that, miss,” she grinned.
Everie smiled. “Just trying to help a friend, Daphne,” she said. “Good night.”
“Good night, miss.” The lights went out.
As Daphne fell asleep, though, the rise and fall of her shoulders untouched by sobs, a morose thought flashed through Everie’s mind.
I couldn’t say it, she thought. I couldn’t call her a sister. Couldn’t call her family.
Perhaps I’m the one that's stuck in the past.
----------------------------------------
A week later, as the Ducal carriage drifted over the paved stoneways of Medea, Haswalth reexamined his life.
Haswalth… was a busy man.
As the Duke of Medea, bearer of the blessing, and congressman at the House of Lords, there was no shortage of happenings that he was responsible for. Finish auditing his Dukedom’s annual taxes to the Canstein Crest? He’d be called, instantly, back to the Eastern Front, because some marauding elven troop or monster so-and-so was threatening the Garrison, and the new King’s pathetic forces couldn’t stop them by their lonesome.
Well. At least Briar was helping with the taxes, now. The woman was a wizard with anything related to the economy.
Briar, he thought, and Haswalth winced. Right. Coming home meant coming back to her, and...
Haswalth swallowed. It was his fault, what he had done to her. Though it may have been understandable for her to want to avoid him, he had no right to dodge his responsibilities in the Dukedom in response. He was Duke, Ancestor damn it: and that title was only more important in Medea than anywhere else.
It was cowardice, plain and simple.
Yet as Medea Manor rolled into his peripheral vision, Haswalth felt his abdomen roil in excitement. Not just because of the blessing; that, too, had grown more and more volatile these past few weeks, as if sensing that its transferral was fast approaching. But also because there was a new resident in the ancestral Manor Haswalth had called home his entire life - another flower to adorn the garden that was the Medean legacy.
That flower being, of course, his infant daughter.
Haswalth subconsciously tuned out the fanfare of the Guardskeeper’s procession and the long line of maidservants the Knight-Captains and the Maidstaff had carefully prepared for his arrival. The townspeople’s cheers had already been more than enough - Haswalth was grateful for their presence, but he didn’t do his job to gain their praise. He might be a selfish man, but his father’s teachings had ensured that had never grown into hedonistic narcissism.
At last, they rolled into the Manor square: a massive diamond of runic stone, centered with a blackstone fountain topped with a miniature sculpture of the Ancestor. His adjutant waited for the carriage to descend from its levitated state, and exited first. Only after the procession’s complete halt did Haswalth descend from the vehicle.
Ah, he thought, breathing in the midsummer air with a smile. Medea, my love. I’ve missed you.
Then, his gaze settled upon the welcoming staff and... his family. Haswalth’s eyes widened.
From the center of the procession, trailed by a harried-looking maid - who he recognized as the Rosenson girl Haswalth had negotiated the asylum of months ago - pattered down a diminutive, angelic figure. She was clad in a variant of Medean dress - that is, swathes of black-purple lace and filigree, usually reserved for toddlers and above - that had obviously been resized to fit her, and was appraising him curiously. There was a sign of familiarity in her eyes, but otherwise her gaze was cold.
Haswalth’s heart panged with guilt. He hadn’t been exactly the most attentive father, after all; a sin only compounded by the fact that his running off had cost him the chance to see the first six months of his daughter’s growth.
His eyes flickered across the line of bowing servant-staff. Almost everyone was present; the groundskeepers, the maidstaff, the chef. His daughter stood at the very center, flanked by both the Rosenson girl and Briar’s old wet nurse.
His wife, it seemed, was absent from this welcoming retinue. Haswalth grimaced.
“Father,” his daughter said, quirking her head. Haswalth’s heart almost stopped. His daughter was adorable - not that he hadn’t known that already, but it had been months since he’d last seen her. She’d grown so tall already; in fact, she looked oddly grown for a half-year old, though Haswalth supposed he wasn’t one to judge anything on matters of infanthood.
She’d already grown a mop of shoulder-length violet-black hair. Her porcelain features were a mirror-image of Briar’s; sharp, but splashed with a rubicund complexion on her cheeks that gave her otherwise delicate appearance life; features dotted with contours that marked her with both a childish innocence and a mature intelligence; her eyes intrigued most of all, glowing with both his Medean starburst and wife’s molten spark.
With a few, unconscious steps, Haswalth stepped towards Everie, who waited for him patiently. Vernas twitched at his breach of the classic ceremonial rite of entrance, but Haswalth at this point didn’t give two shits about decorum; he’d had to deal with that for the past month, both on the battlefield and in the House of Lords. Surely he could ignore this particular facet of etiquette when he was entering his own goddamn house.
He kneeled down, waiting expectantly. A flare of understanding leapt into Everie’s eyes, and she raised his arm, thin as a twig in comparison to Haswalth’s, revealing a dainty hand shrouded in silk. Haswalth took it, and brushed it lightly with his lips.
Traditionally, this part would be performed between husband and spouse, but that wouldn’t work for obvious reasons.
“I’m home,” Haswalth whispered to her.
His daughter’s eyes gleamed with a wary, predatory instinct - as if she was analyzing his posture, sizing him up. Haswalth would have been cowed, had he been an ordinary man and not already been familiar with the expression; it was a killer’s countenance.
Immediately, he tensed, and he felt Vernas do the same. A wave of unease rippled over the guard, and Haswalth frowned.
He must have been imagining it, though, because a half-second later his daughter had somehow readopted a cutesy posture. Her eyes and expression still betrayed an inconcealable intelligence, but it was muted. Haswalth’s instincts told him something was off, but before he could act on his senses, his daughter had already moved to finish the ceremony.
“Welcome home, father,” she said, smiling. “I’m glad to see you too.”