Days passed. With each passing hour spent in the Manor, Ana felt her self-imposed reticence chip and fall away like an overused mask.

She wasn’t okay. Anabellum - the quiet, expressionless girl that dawdled in the background of the portrait that depicted her more vibrant brothers and energetic father - would have told everyone she was fine. Ana, this... new version of her, could not.

Would not.

It certainly didn’t stop her from brooding. Ana was very good at brooding. As comfortable as the Manor’s facilities were, they couldn’t stop her from agonizing over her thoughts, which she found was fast becoming her new favorite pastime. The darkness of the dorm room she’d been assigned - with the three other maids-in-training only a few years older than her, who were usually asleep by this time - reminded her that she was small. Insignificant.

Weak.

But more than anything, it reminded her of what she’d lost.

Her parents. Ana had never really cared for them, had she? Neither had they spoken to Ana very often. After all, she had been the unseen child of the family. Quiet Anabellum, who had no ambitions in life beyond staring out at the Alfish Verdant, just barely visible past the horizon from her vantage in Alerich. Emotionless Anabellum, who listened to what her parents said and watched, listlessly, as her brothers caused a ruckus around the house.

But they had still been her family. Mother had been a quiet soul, but she had cared for Anabellum. ‘Mr. Andreas’ had always been busy working in the fields and reining in her boisterous brothers, but never once had he lost the opportunity to be Father for Anabellum when she needed him most: those rare moments when even her lack of ambition couldn’t drain her slight form of that universal need for love and guidance.

And she missed them.

But the clamor of her new life was, almost serendipitously, just enough to edge the pain out.

A week into her new calling - that being serving her Lady, or Everie, as she had been demanded - the three of them visited the city. It was the first time Ana saw the heiress visibly excited; dreading drudgery, it seemed, was naturally present in every child. Even for one as exalted as Medea’s princess.

With a contingent of guards surrounding them, they made their way into the city. It was only then that Ana realized just how beloved the ruling family of Medea was; people seemed to genuinely genuflect in their presence, paying their obeisances regardless of creed or conviction. From old to young, they clamored to see Ana's lady. It was almost uncanny how physically drawn they were to the ruling family of Medea.

But soon, even Ana felt she could understand. Everie was different from the piggish nobles of Alerich, who feasted on the carrion that was the city they had long since slaughtered. She was stern, but kind. More than that, she was understanding.

Ana almost felt ridiculous for adulating someone who, by all accounts, was still a toddler, but she was a noble. A real noble - not like those fakes from her hometown. Someone who was truly descended from the Heroes that had founded this kingdom, not just in blood, but in spirit.

The city itself was breathtaking. There was an order to it that made it seem painfully obvious how Medea and Canstein were reputedly the only two cities in Azer Luceras to have survived the past thousand years. Their machinations were eternal because their foundations were strong, and therefore unchanging; yet they left room for growth in their exterior fringes, where new buildings and ten-story edifices popped up in neat intervals.

Surprisingly, Lady Everie was the one that gave her a personal rundown. Medea consisted of nine zones: the Agricultural sector, the Meatpacking district, the Artificer’s avenue, the Garrison complex, the Academia, the Merchant’s street, the Financial district, the Reveration, and, at Medea’s very fringes, the Export-center. Each part of the city had been painstakingly laid out millennia prior in a neat, grid-like pattern, with massive spaces allotted for parks and other common-resource amenities all throughout.

The development of real estate in Medea was largely controlled by the Duke’s cabinet, which had the sole power to issue zoning rights. It was in stark contrast to Alerich, where tight-knit streets and poorly constructed buildings composed nearly ninety-percent of the city. The sole exception being the upper district, which had - to Ana’s guilty, visceral glee - had been the first to be targeted by the wraiths during the Great Surge.

It was irrational, she knew. Intelligent as they were, the beasts had likely targeted the upper-districts to rid the city of potentially troublesome mages while they were still asleep in their pretty towers. But it was fun to imagine that the Surge had at least been somewhat a form of comeuppance for those propped up by unworthy wealth.

It was also then that Ana learned firsthand that the Blessing was indeed more than just a folkstale but a physical reality. Though she could not yet sense it, Lady Everie whispered of how the ambient ether in the area practically stained the air, powering the great Medean gearworks in a permanent cycle of use and reuse.

Reverently, Daphne had then explained that the Blessing was also what allowed high-value crops to grow so easily in Medea: Yauzenflower produce being the primary beneficiary. The Great Gearworks, supposedly built by the Artisan himself, controlled everything throughout this section of Medea. Even the climate was supposedly within the Gearworks’ automated control, save for truly immense meteorological phenomena such as the Permafrost.

They were also one of a kind. The only other known artifact even remotely similar to the Medean Gearworks was situated in the Great Dwarven city of Bherevia. And even that was a mere imitation of the genuine article.

Ana seethed with envy within. Why couldn’t she have had access to all this earlier? Why was it that she had to scrabble in the dirt, while these people - decent as they were - could dwell in this Blessing-kissed land? What magic-

Ana paused.

Magic.

If she had really concentrated then, Ana might have been able to feel something spark within her.

But that was a mere spark, quickly fading in the wind. To make it a raging bonfire, Ana would have to find it again.

And this time, she would trap it. Enclose it so that it would never be able to get out.

Only then would she be able to burn a path to her victory.

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When Ana first posed, tremulously - she hadn’t wanted to seem like she was trying to overstep from her station - to her mistress the question of where she could learn magic…

...Lady Everie’s answer to her had been Daphne.

One week was enough for Ana to curse herself for her lack of foresight.

“No, no, no!” Daphne groaned. “X is the input! How else- ugh. Think-” Ana closed her eyes, sighing. She kept her composure - something Ana had always been good at doing - but it was hard not to feel at least a little irascible.

Failing what felt like a good thousand times at something would make anyone feel that way. And failure - at least, of this sort - was not something neither Ana nor Anabellum had experienced often, being the sort of child that adults called ‘precocious’, and the other kids ‘weird.’

Magical theory, Ana grumbled, is stupid.

Complex mathematics, with variables and parameters she couldn’t even hope to understand; physical metrics that Ana had never even once heard of; reactants, crystals, and mo-le-cu-lar frameworks that she had no idea even existed prior to her lessons with Daphne, let alone could interpret. For a peasant-girl with no real schooling aside from the barebones tutoring she’d received from her mother - even now, Ana could barely even read, which was common for most of the ‘lesser’ citizenry but an expected skill for noble children by the age of five - the principles of Chanting were beyond her.

Beside her, Lady Everie suspired, visibly drooping. She was doing Magical Practicals, which was in some ways better and other ways worse than theory. Daphne had proudly proclaimed that it had been her tutelage that had allowed her mistress to master Theoretical Magicology in a scant few years. Or at least the fundamentals of such. There was no end to the quest for knowledge.

Or so Daphne says, Ana thought, sourly.

Ana had to admire her Lady’s intelligence, but what impressed her most of all was the sheer diligence she put into her studies. There was none of the petulant hand-wringing Ana had come to expect from adult nobles, let alone children. Lady Everie studied like a wildfire heart, pursuing every subject and every doctrine in every field. Ana would even daresay she was more an adult than Daphne, who, for all her kindness, was sometimes a little... eccentric.

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It was almost frightening just how focused she was. Children her age should be playing. Laughing. Being petulant. Not studying the principles of how ether was both physical and non-physical, and exhibited different qualities in differing circumstances.

Sometimes, Ana wondered for what reason Lady Everie was so driven.

She supposed it wasn’t her place to inquire. House Medea had been so welcoming, so accepting of a commoner like her, that it was easy to forget; but Ana wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. She wasn’t about to take gratitude for granted.

A small blush formed on her cheeks as she remembered how galant Lord Vernas had looked, back when he and his men had saved the surviving citizens of Alerich from their predicament. His pauldrons gleaming, not a speck of blood on them despite the utter carnage he had wrought. His magic so palpable, even an unawakened peasant such as she had been able to physically sense it. Lord Vernas was a demigod - someone akin to a lesser hero of legend.

Ana clenched her fists, bunching up the folds of her blouse.

I won’t disappoint them, she thought, fiercely. I’ll make him proud. Make my lady proud.

Her lessons with Daphne, as short as they had been, were enough to tell Ana that academia was perhaps not the best pursuit for her. That meant ruling out the Path of the Chanter, as Lady Everie had called it.

Some people were inclined for both. But most, if even capable of using magic, were capable of using only one or the other. And the respective tenets of each artform substituted for one another somewhat - there were spells to raise physical strength, and high-level Breakers could project their magic - so people often usually chose to focus on one Path over the other anyhow.

It still hurt Ana to do so, though, but it was time she admitted defeat. She would still work on her studies, of course - one could not be a maid of high society without some degree of general knowledge. But she decided that it would probably be best if she narrowed her focus to what she was really good at.

Luckily, Ana had already found it. Her passion. Her calling.

Her path.

----------------------------------------

Ana stood by her mistress, shoulders broad and stance widened, before swinging her training sword down with a whoosh.

One time. Two times. Three times.

The fibers of her muscles tightened like tension cords snapping into position. Every stroke displaced only the barest gust of wind, but whistled like an arrow rocketing through the troposphere.

There was no magic here. No strange powers, no mystical bloodlines. Only raw talent and the effort that had cultivated it.

Transcendent, Lord Vernas had called it. Ana had blushed, turning her head at the praise - which felt so wrong coming from someone as great as the guard-captain - but the man had soldiered on, eyes wide with a strange drive. A comforting drive.

He’d called her a once-in-a-generation talent, similar to Lady Everie herself. But unlike her mistress, Ana was of the correct age to start cultivating her magic.

Lady Everie was just too young. That had been the common consensus of both her tutors, Lady Daphne and Lord Vernas. No matter how talented one was, there were certain parameters the body had to meet to be further refined - at least, for the Path of the Breaker - although that still didn’t explain why Ana’s lady was having trouble with the Path of the Chanter.

Daphne speculated that perhaps it was due to Lady Everie’s youth - and thereby lack of maturity - that was affecting her mental psyche, and therefore her progression. But that didn’t make much sense either: the young mistress was the most precocious, talented child Ana had ever seen. Her drive was practically the stuff of legend. It was heartbreaking that her growth didn’t match the effort she put in.

It pained Ana to see her mistress so despondent. These past few days had been especially troubling for her, which Ana, despite only having been promoted to Lady Everie’s personal attendant-in-training a few days ago, was now fully cognizant of. She wanted to help her, but didn’t know how - the four-year-old was kicking Ana’s ass in training everyday, although the gap in their skills was slowly closing, which she was proud of.

“Alright, that’s enough!”

Ana stopped her sword mid-swing, freezing her entire body. To her side, her much shorter mistress did the same. Her movements were even more controlled than Ana’s. There was an... experience to her motions. They were almost as practiced as Lord Vernas’ when he demonstrated. For the life of her, Ana just couldn’t understand how that was the case.

Lady Everie really is beyond her years.

Lord Vernas jogged over, to which Ana averted her eyes. The sun was high in the sky; light refracted off of the polished steel of his light armor, creating a halo of iridescence around him.

He looked heroic. Strong. Brave. Like he could bear the weight of the entire world crashing down on his shoulders.

Ana wanted to be like him. To be strong. There was the seed of desire in her heart, already; but although it was taking form, it had yet to coalesce fully.

“Excellent work,” he gushed. Ana smiled. Lord Vernas, she had discovered, was just as nerdy as Daphne - only for the sword instead of books. He loved his men and his men loved him; they respected him for not only his strength, but also his diligence, stoutheartedness, and talent for education.

Unlike lady Daphne, who was clearly a recluse, Lord Vernas had been trained in leadership from birth; as a branch-family member of the House of Medea, he had been born in the fringes of the Dukedom to Duke Haswalth’s uncle - an unimportant man that had found his calling in life as a painter.

But the child lord had loved reading stories of the Medean guardsmen, who protected the Dukedom from powerful monsters not even the Ward of the Blessing could deter: Mud-Drakes, Yetherian Bog-striders, Flatfaced Nephilim... monsters that could create minor ravines with their footsteps, destroy small towns and bring life to shadow. Then there were the rare beasts actually drawn to the magic of the blessing, all creatures on par with demigods: trueblooded Dragons, Crimson Skywhales, and Malevorian Steelworms. Foul, yet intelligent creatures that killed with malice and desired nothing more than to bring ruin to Medea.

Unlike the other aristocrats of the kingdom, Vernas had, together with Haswalth, fought such beasts with the guardsmen from early adolescence, then joined the Azer Luceran military as a token of trust to the kingdom Medea was technically part of.

With his sword, he protected. With his heart, he gained the trust of all those around him. It was... admirable.

“Anabellum...” he said, squinting. She twitched; though she couldn’t sense etherlike her mistress, Ana’s senses had grown more heightened to basic fluctuations of worldly energy.

Then, a smile broke out on Vernas’ face. “You’re close to awakening,” he said, quietly.

Ana’s breath hitched in her throat. To her side, she felt Lady Everie freeze, looking at her in... Ana couldn’t really tell. But it wasn’t anything good.

But for now, she was far too preoccupied ruminating over the implications of what the guard-captain had just said.

“This is... unprecedented,” Vernas said. He was quiet. Solemn, almost. But Ana could still sense the excitement lingering just beneath his voice. It was merely because of the fact that awakening, the event that allowed an individual to rouse their Inner Eye and begin perceiving the things that really made up the world, was a sacred time for every individual. Someone of Lord Vernas’ stature fully understood the significance of the event.

That was part of the reason why people had made such a fuss about Lady Everie’s awakening, which had supposedly happened when she was the age of one. Such a thing had almost never been seen before, rivaling legend. If the Main Family of the House of Medea was not so exclusive in their private affairs, dissimilar to the noble families of Azer Luceras, then Ana suspected the news would have been trumpeted all around the kingdom.

“I-” Ana croaked. Her voice was raspy from hours of disuse, muscular strength instead devoted to contorting and flexing her muscles as she swung her sword. “-I’m honored.”

Lord Vernas shook his head. “No, Ana,” he said. He kneeled in front of her, which caused her to reel back in shock - a small blush forming on her cheeks.

Vernas patted her on the shoulder. “I’m just impressed. I’ve never seen anyone like you - well, except for that absolute monster over on your left-” he laughed, glancing at Everie, who, for the first time that evening, offered both the Lord and Ana herself a weak smile. “-but nevertheless, it’s impressive. Stuff of legend, almost.”

Ana stood, trembling with adrenaline, as Lord Vernas rose to his full height, dwarfing her. There was a strange emotion in her that she’d never felt before. An... energy. One that was effervescent; constantly shifting and fluctuating.

The antithesis of her placid, wasteful days from before.

Ana decided she liked it. But before she could ruminate on it any further, Lord Vernas broke her train of thought.

“I daresay I’d want to recruit you for the Guard right this instant, but my cousin-in-law would kill me if I drafted a child - and a refugee, at that.” Vernas shook his head, grinning.

Ana’s eyes widened. “I- I would be honored!” she spluttered. “The Medean Guard-! I mean, my Lord, if you think I’m worthy, I would be honored to serve. I would-!”

Vernas held up his palm, cutting her off. “No, Ana,” he said, softly. “You heard what I just said, didn’t you? You’re a child. You don’t deserve a life of bloodshed. When Haswalth and I joined the army, the political environment was... different. My uncle was stricter with his tenets - guarding Medea - and... perhaps that was what made him a good leader. But sacrificing children...” Vernas shuddered, clenching his fists. “That would defeat the purpose of the Guard. As an adherent to the doctrine of the Ember Witch, I could never do such a thing.”

Ana looked down at her feet. Vernas patted her on the shoulder.

“Besides,” he said, “Don’t you have someone you have to protect already? You did pledge yourself to her. And she’s standing right next to you.”

Both Ana and Everie blinked. The first girl turned to her mistress, who was staring at her blankly, sword gripped lightly in her soft, delicate hands. She was so… short, yet she looked so mature. But that was merely pretense; Ana’s lady, for all her looks and purposes, was still four. She had difficulty moving save for short distances. She could swing her training sword a thousand times but had not possessed the motor skills - her fingers having been too small - to even write properly even the year prior.

No, Ana realized. Flashes of horrible things wafted in and out of her cognizance. Noxious fields of blood. The Noisome scent of excrement and split bowels.

Her family’s ravaged forms, huddled beneath the belly of the beast.

I... What am I saying? She cursed herself. I’m being ungrateful. Lord Vernas saved me. But Lady Everie was the one that took me in.

She took a step forward. Then another one. Soon, she was in front of her lady, who looked up at her with a bemused twinkle in her otherwise deadened eyes.

“I... even if I awaken, I will serve you, miss,” Ana said, quietly. “I know that you may not need me. That you took me in out of the goodness of your heart, and for that, I thank your ladyship to eternity and back. But should you need me, and my sword... I will always be there for you.”

For a summer evening, the temperature was quite cold that day. But the burning of her heart - for her master, for Medea, and for her new life - was enough to quench the thirst wrought by the chill.