Everie was in the library - as per usual - when Daphne ran into the vast hall, breathless, the skirt of her maid’s uniform lifted at the hem. She trailed two harried guardsmen behind her.
“Lord Vernas is back!” she exclaimed. There was a hint of a blush on her cheeks. Not that usually meant much - Daphne blushed at literally everything. She was vivacious like that. But there was very little doubt in Everie’s mind at that moment that the girl truly was excited.
There was a flurry of activity after that bit of knowledge had been imparted. Soon, Everie found herself in the same position she had been in years ago, when she greeted Haswalth for the first time. She was much taller than she had been then, of course - even taller than she should be at her age, due to her accelerated growth. Whether that was simply a phenotype drawn from her Medean genes, or because of the artifact nestled in her core, was something Everie had yet to receive an answer for.
Soon, the cavalcade arrived. Vernas was at the front, as one would expect, and his soldiers walked in formation behind him.
What Everie had not expected was the young girl at his side. She looked to be about ten, and was dressed in a roughspun dress with an overly large overcoat draped over her shoulders. The way she looked frightened - gazing at the architecture around her with wonder sparkling in her eyes - told her all that she needed to know.
With the greetings out of the way, Everie went straight up to Vernas to greet him.
“Welcome home, uncle,” she said, politely. Then, out of curiosity, she looked towards the girl, who summarily flinched. “And… who is this?”
“A refugee,” Vernas said, tiredly. He hadn’t bothered to return her greeting, but she hardly cared about such trivial things like decorum. When Everie blinked, Vernas explained, “she’s from Alerich - that city in the Haerenoth province. Her entire city was slaughtered by those vile beasts.”
Then he told her about the sights he’d seen. And… Everie would be lying if she said she wasn’t at least disturbed.
Even though she was known throughout the manor as a supernaturally intelligent girl, people still treated her like a child - for a very good reason, of course. After all, she was technically still a child; and that meant most of the news she heard was... censored.
Vernas wasn’t the type of man to hold back his descriptors, though. He trusted her like one would trust an adult, and Everie appreciated him for it. Still, there had been little occasion for her to receive news from the outside world, even despite how often she queried the Guard on such things. It simply wasn’t proper, which had ultimately led to her being utterly unprepared for the scale of the disaster that Vernas now described.
And it was... bad. Really bad. Isolated as she was, no amount of reading and study could have prepared Everie for the sheer immensity of what had occurred. Even in her past life, massacres of this scale had been uncommon - mostly because of how few people there had been.
My deserts hadn’t been especially accommodating to human life, she thought, grimly. Unwelcoming by day, unwelcoming by night. Cults and Cities, both equally guilty of crimes beyond measure. But this...
Perhaps it’s because my new life has thus far been so far removed from true violence of any sort, that I find myself trembling like an initiate acolyte once again.
It turned out that the weeks of peace she’d enjoyed trapped in the manor had been much worse for anyone else outside the Dukedom. Medea was unique that way - it was quite literally one of the safest spaces on the planet. The fact that even close to a dozen Mudwraiths had made it through the sacred barrier and past the Medean Guard was a disturbing thought. It should have been obvious the situation was that much worse for anyone not so fortunate as to live under the beacon of safety provided by her Ancestor’s blessing.
Dozens of villages had been destroyed, their inhabitants devoured in brutalistic fashion. By Vernas’ count, three entire cities had collapsed; or at least, their governing functions. The day’s delay it took for soldiers and various expeditionary peacekeepers to restore order had seen tens of thousands dead.
Tens of thousands of the peasantry, that was. Certainly, quite a few lesser noblemen, magicians, and warriors had perished, but in the eyes of the crown, the attack had not incurred much material loss. The gears of the economy would slow, and banditry may see some increase, but it seemed this Great Surge was nothing compared to some of the other disasters that had befallen the Kallisto in the years prior. The Doza-Nausian disaster, for one, had seen a quarter of the continent killed in a matter of days; this was practically nothing when held to relative comparison.
No, what mattered was pride. The governing body at Canstein was, according to Vernas, apoplectic that the attack had been so… personally devastating to the kingdom’s esteem. Especially in this fragile state, post-civil war, when the country was still locked in tension and disarray.
“It’s like it was back in the days of the Purge,” Vernas sighed, creasing his brow. “Medea is lucky to be considered an independent state - not a vassal. We get to be exempt from much of the political drama Azer Luceras goes through every now and then.”
But this was different. This, at least, ensured the Dukedom needed to get involved. And Vernas, with his men, had already done just that.
“The refugees will be housed in the Garrison district,” Vernas said - not to Everie, but to Haswalth, who had come to stand beside him. “We’ll keep an eye on them there. They’ve already gone through all the necessary border inspections, and all of them were clean.”
Haswalth nodded. “Good,” he said, clenching his fists. “Medea is a place of sanctity. The Ancestor would be proud to see us protecting those in need.”
Everie flinched.
“But... cousin, why the girl?” Haswalth asked, tilting his head. The girl in question twitched, averting her eyes.
She looked harrowed. It was an expression Everie knew well.
Vernas looked embarrassed. “She was the first one I found. And she... she doesn’t have any family to go back to. The other orphans are circulating through the foster system, but she’s been...” He swallowed. “She’s been rather clingy.”
Haswalth laughed - a startlingly high-pitched note, filled with an optimism that seemed to clear away the gloom of depressive thought. “My cousin - the protector of the weak!” he said, chuckling. “You’re a good man, Vernas. Very well. Medea Manor will, for the time being, house...”
He looked questioningly at her. Vernas moved to answer, but the girl - to Everie’s surprise - spoke first.
“Anabellum,” the girl whispered. “You-your lordship can call me Ana, though.”
Haswalth crouched down. He looked warm, if a little discomforted; it was clear he wasn’t exactly used to dealing with children.
Everie would know. It wasn’t exactly a well-kept secret.
“Hello, Ana,” he said, smiling. “I’m Duke Haswalth. This is my daughter, Everie-” he said, gesturing to her.
Everie blinked. Then she curtsied, daintily, saying, “welcome to Medea Manor.”
Ana’s eyes wavered. She looked pale - almost like she wanted to pass out.
Ah. Right, Everie realized. I’m a Ducal heiress. One of the most powerful people in the Kingdom - basically the princess of this semi-independent state.
She’s supposed to bow to me. Not I to her.
But no one seemed to care, and Everie was the opposite of disturbed. Still, she could see why this… Anabellum displayed such hesitation at speaking to her person.
“T-thank you,” she whispered, fearfully. Her brown hair tumbled down her shoulders as she bowed, deeply. “Thank you for having me, my lady.”
This girl looked so lost. Anabellum had lost her parents to the Mudwraith attack - it was obvious she was in shock. And, though the Manor would house her, what would she do? The mansion was too vast a place to nurture a wounded heart. A fledgeling part of her wanted to help her, but...
For a moment, Everie felt distrust cloud her. Yet another stranger, the thing in her heart seemed to whisper.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
Why does she matter? It’s not like helping her will help you. The selfish, vile, self-interested part of her heart cackled.
But then she remembered an outstretched hand. One beckoning her from a life in the dark - to a world so vast and beautiful, one could only long to access it more thoroughly through the oppressive veil of existence.
And besides, she’d done something like this before, years back. The dutiful maid who had been standing loyally by her side this entire time, not speaking a word, was a testament to that.
“I’ll take her,” Everie said. Her voice was mostly flat, but she couldn’t help but let a trickle of warmth into her intonation. “She’ll need somewhere to work, right? Well, I need a new maid. Daphne’s overworked as it is.”
Haswalth blinked, but Vernas simply smiled.
It was almost as if he was thinking that’s what I wanted to hear.
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Anabellum learned quickly.
She learned very quickly.
The girl was talented at almost everything. Though silent in front of her employers, Daphne had burst into a fit of ecstatic fervor once she finally got the chance to be alone with Anabellum. It had taken two days for her to teach her everything: from rudimentary maid arts, to washing, to cooking, to cleaning, to making beds, to learning the fundamentals of magic.
That last one especially hurt. In a single week, Anabellum had progressed the development of her nascent core further than Everie had in four entire years.
Of course, Everie knew she had to be reasonable. Despite being her mental elder, Everie was technically physically five years younger than Anabellum. She knew that her Core worked differently from others. After all, what she had wasn’t just an amalgamation of ether, collected by Will; it was, as far as she could deduce, a pathway towards something different. Foreign.
It would take time for her to discover what that was. Which was why Everie had to be patient. She had to do her research. She had to find a teacher.
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It was a subject Daphne had broached. While the blond-haired maid was immensely talented at what was known as physical magicology, she had much less knowledge on the subject of metaphysical magicology. The latter was usually less important than the former for most magicians, but Everie was a unique case.
As Everie had learned what was now years ago, Chanters and Breakers - colloquially classified as magicians and warriors by the general populace, and collectively called mages - grew through progression. The general concept of will, which seemed to be a recurring term in everything she’d learned about magic thus far, was central to any form of growth.
Mages grew their strength through two ways - knowledge, and power. It was well established that power was more important in the mortal stages, or core-Layers of one, two, and three. Once entering the arch stage, most mages began refining their Paths: mysterious tenets that generally dictated what each mage specialized in. Archmagus Inesorin had called it “a way carved in the person, through the Layers to the Final Wall,” but that description was about as esoteric as Paths themselves were metaphysical.
The demigod stage was when knowledge grew paramount. The power required was massive, but that grew proportional to the strength of one’s will. Instead, what mattered was knowledge - the secondary aspect of the path to Divinity.
The path to fragment and break through what was known amongst the most elite of mages as the Final Wall.
But that was an ambition Everie would have to pursue later. Her training on the path of the Chanter hadn’t seen much progress - probably because even at the earlier stages, it required metaphysical magicology. That was why she wanted to find a teacher.
Someone strong. Powerful.
“But individuals like those are rare, miss,” explained Vernas, casually, as he dodged backwards from Everie’s wild swing. Being so small, her attacks could really only reach up to his abdomen, and maybe his pectorals if she leapt. “Aren’t you plenty powerful already for your age? Everyone at the manor would love to foster your growth, but...”
“I know,” Everie sighed, frustrated. “But I don’t think this has got to do with my age. My magic... isn’t normal,” she squeaked out. It sounded like an excuse. For Everie, it was especially humiliating. As a Sister, she’d been a talented individual, learning the deadly arts with astonishing speed. The fact that her progress in this life was slow was agonizing for one such as her.
Body and Mind. The two pristine pillars that enshrine survival. But this wasn’t a matter of simply trying harder. Everie wasn’t hardheaded enough to think that would be the solution to all of her problems. That hadn’t been the case in her previous life, and it certainly wouldn’t be now.
Besides, there had been plenty of evidence thus far that gaining knowledge could directly develop her strangely shaped core. Learning about the Heroes and the Fragmentation had caused her core to twitch; the naming ceremony, and what she’d learned from it, had completed her core - or at least this initial stage of it. And meeting the Crying Demon again had caused it to swell inexplicably, her presence affecting it.
“Well,” Vernas said, shrugging his shoulders - while parrying Everie’s blows with the tip of his blade. “Your father and I probably aren’t the best people to ask about this. Breakers don’t usually need as much metaphysical knowledge as Chanters traditionally do.”
Everie nodded despairingly. Vernas sighed.
“House Medea doesn’t really have any inherited techniques or soul-carved magicks,” he mused. “Other noble houses do, but the Ancestor never left us anything other than our homeland and the blessing. There’s nothing that distinguishes Haswalth and I from the common folk, aside from our aristocratic background.” He paused. “The variant of spatial magic my cousin possesses is something he discovered entirely on his own.”
Everie huffed. “Well-” she grunted, collapsing to her knees. “-that’s not helpful.”
Vernas shrugged. “I’m sorry, lil’ niece,” he said.
Then his eyes flickered over to the side of the training square, where Anabellum waited, patiently. A used training sword hung on the bench she sat on.
The girl was disturbingly taciturn. She was nervous, but not in the way Daphne had originally been around Everie. She wasn’t being careful - or at least, not in the way Everie had after she first reincarnated.
Perhaps she’s traumatized? Everie wondered, tilting her head. That wouldn’t be a first.
Traumas were common among the Sisterhood, although they were usually implicit. The ones truly traumatized were the ones that usually ended up dead.
After all, hesitation was the first killer in any battle.
Her outward demeanor, at least, was calm. At Vernas’ beckoning, she walked over to the two of them.
Everie took a moment to study her. The girl, at ten years, had a pale face framed with a tangle - now smoothly brushed - of auburn-brown bangs. She was of average height - or at least, average for her world. She’d be below average for the wealthier nations in this world, if her research was at all accurate.
She was thin, but an undercurrent of muscles ran under her skin: probably from her farm work. Everie had heard from Vernas and Daphne that she’d worked in the fringes of a city known as Alerich, in the Haerenoth province to the east of the Medean Dukedom.
“Hello, Ana,” Everie said. She forced a smile. Though she’d been the one to reach out to the girl and take her under her wing, Everie felt slightly uncomfortable around her. She was just an… unnatural presence. Everie just wasn’t used to her.
She definitely wasn’t jealous that a ten year old was progressing faster in the path of the Breaker compared to her.
Totally not jealous.
At least she could be consoled by the fact that Ana was just as bad at metaphysical magicology as her. Neither of them had made any progress on that particular front, at least.
“Ready?” Vernas said, smiling. Though brusque at first, it was well- known by the few that he held dear that the Captain of the Medean Guard was sympathetic towards children - because of something from his own past, he’d said.
“...Yes, sir,” Ana whispered. She had been trembling slightly before, but the moment she raised her blade, her entire body stilled. Her center of gravity shifted, falling lower. Her eyes, previously dull, turned sharp.
If those same fundamentals hadn’t been drilled into her incessantly during her first life, Everie might have felt unnerved.
No. The reason for her current discomfort was because this girl was actually ten. Everie almost couldn’t believe that this was a peasant girl - someone who’d, prior to gaining asylum at Medea Manor, had never held a blade once in her life.
And maybe - just maybe - the sight of a child wielding a weapon reminded her of things that she’d tried to forget these past four years.
Still, Everie watched intently. Everyone at the field did, regardless of their level of power or disposition.
It shouldn’t have been captivating in any way whatsoever. After all, this was a battle between a mortal and a demigod - a difference in power so vast, that regardless of how easy Vernas went on Ana, the disparity should have been off-puttingly jarring. Moreover, it was a spar between a full-grown, battle-hardened warrior against a literal child.
But... despite the lack of force behind her blows, her gangly limbs - characteristic of a teenager - and the way she stumbled around the pitch from her inexperience, there was a depth to her fighting. She was aggressive; always pushing forward, regardless of whatever opposition Vernas put up. Yet at the same time she was careful - measured, tempering her pugnacity whenever she sensed there.
Even Vernas looked enraptured. Maybe that was why he looked so excited to train the girl; refugee; maid-in-training; soon-to-be Breaker. He’d gushed over Everie for being a so-called genius, but Ana had something truly special. Much in the way of her esoteric core, the girl possessed an almost mystifying talent for drawing edge.
At this rate, she’d surpass her soon despite Everie being already awakened, After all, while Everie could sense ether, she couldn’t actively use it. She was technically a Breaker, having begun to press against that ceiling, but until she mastered her inner self, she would not be able to actualize her will onto herself and onto the world.
In their practice sessions together, Everie had, at least thus far, managed to best her every time, despite Ana being more than seven years older. But Everie’s darker thoughts had then sought to remind her that she had within her memory almost seventeen additional years of combat experience - a drop in the pond against someone like Vernas, but significant nonetheless against a beginner combatant.
Totally not jealous.
Everie grimaced. She fidgeted, feeling her heart palpitate erratically.
I’m in danger, she reminded herself. I told myself that I’d grow stronger to become free. To protect myself. To regain my agency.
What do you fight for, Everie?
Everie sighed. She dropped her sword off the side of her bench.
Then she watched, in silence, as the teenage refugee turned maid-warrior twirled around the field with Everie’s uncle, the great Guard-Captain of Medea, blades clashing against the dim backdrop of the setting sun.