Elise had never left the surroundings of the small town where she had spent almost eight years. Therefore she had vowed to try and see everything. After bugging her mother long enough, her mother had opened the red curtains that covered the carriage windows. What Elise had seen was beautiful. All the books she had read had told her enough about the landscape. But what were words compared to reality?

She had seen at least three farms, a few smaller villages that were even smaller than Wolfsteyn, and many fields in different colours. Everything was so beautiful. All she really wanted to do was get out of the carriage and walk through the fields.

But her mother had forbidden her to do that, much to Elise's chagrin. So she had no choice but to look at the serene landscape and imprint it on her memory, where it would hopefully stay for a long time.

But one thing was missing. Monsters.

In all the books she had read, monsters roamed the countryside and attacked villages. Even in the history books she had read, there had been at least three major incidents involving monsters and villages and several minor ones in the last twenty years.

Most of them had happened during the Chaotic Winter. This onset of calamity had started in December 1819, right in the middle of the Season of Cold. Temperatures had reached record lows and, according to the history books, at least a metre of snow covered the landscape. Several neighbouring countries had been hit by famine and many people had fled Euros to find a better life in Novus Mundus, especially in the United Northern States.

But the cold winter had not only affected the people. It also had affected animals and monsters. Unfortunately, these could not leave the continent. According to a rough estimate, at least sixty per cent of all large wild animals had died, which in turn had meant that all the monsters that fed on them had run out of food. Thus, in a desperate attempt to ensure their survival, these monsters had chosen to attack settlements and livestock. Several smaller villages vanished completely and several dozen people died here in Aschen.

The Empire had been looking for a solution. A standing military was expensive, Elise knew that much, and all the other wiser people surely knew more. It was impossible even for the mayor of Wolfsteyn to buy armour for the entire militia. Augustus had told her that his father only forged swords and shields and sometimes made a set of simple chainmail. Plate armour was too expensive and took too long to forge.

The nobles had come together for the first time in many years and had decided to form an organisation independent of the military. An order that was not an order, but rather something like a militia that only hunted monsters. That was how the Mercenary Association had been created.

Heinz had told her that this had not been the nobles' idea. No, they had simply copied an already existing system, but designed it in such a way that they could largely control it. In other countries, the associations had a strict hierarchy, a kind of ranking, and were independent of the state. Heinz came from the Greater Anglian Commonwealth, a nation quite far away. In his homeland, the Mercenary Association was as powerful as the Church itself.

But in the Empire there was no hierarchy. There was only a headmaster, a person chosen by the nobility who ruled the surrounding lands and rarely accepted by the mercenaries. According to Heinz, the Association in the Empire was so weak that it could not exist without the approval of the nobles.

Unfortunately, Heinz had never told her why he had left his home. According to all his stories, his home had been very powerful. He had often told her that life there had been boring. But Elise knew enough about his homeland to know that this was not the real reason. He could have gone to any of his homeland's colonies in Lafrik or Asis, but he didn't. Elise didn't know why. He had never told her much about the time before he had lived in the Empire.

"Mum, why did Heinz come to the Empire?" asked Elise, perhaps her mother would answer. Elise noticed that her mother seemed to have almost fallen asleep. Her mother yawned before looking at her. It seemed that the journey was not that interesting for her.

"I don't know," her mother said, "he's not from here. The Empire and the Commonwealth are quite similar. But the Commonwealth is ruled by an Empress, while the Emperor has not yet been elected ... But I doubt he came to the Empire for that reason."

Her mother added, "He always seemed like the type of person who wouldn't keep quiet. Maybe that and the fact that he loved justice had something to do with why he went to the Empire."

"What do you mean by justice?" Elise asked, "Is the Commonwealth a land of thieves?"

"No," Fiona shook her head, "it is a land of many people. But the people of the Commonwealth have enslaved people all over the world. Maybe even some of our race, but I don't know."

She yawned again and murmured, "But that's nothing to worry about. Slavery has long been banned in the Empire."

Elise frowned, she had read about slavery, but that had only been in passing. Slavery had been one of the many reasons why the United Northern States existed. They had been former colonies but for many reasons, the books hadn't been that clear, they had become an independent state with a deep hatred for the Commonwealth. Unfortunately, all her history books had rarely talked about these events, focusing instead on the history of the Empire.

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Elise stared out of the window and looked at a knight. She turned around and pulled her mother by the sleeve.

"Is their armour expensive?" she asked, "And how much does a horse eat? How much money does a knight earn in a year? And ..."

"Elise, please calm down," her mother said, smiling, "why do you ask?"

"Curiosity. I want to know more! I want to become a knight!"

She saw her mother's smile falter before she said, "There are indeed some women who are knights.... But as your mother, I must tell you that it will be difficult for you to become a knight."

"Why?" asked Elise, slightly perplexed. After all, all she had to do was slay a dragon, rescue a princess or do something heroic. Elise frowned. A dragon was hard to slay and saving a princess wasn't so easy either ... there weren't that many princesses. So the exam was her best chance.

"We are not nobles and we are not rich," her mother replied after a few seconds.

Elise furrowed her brows, “But Heinz and Heidi also aren’t rich and their son is a knight… no, a member of the royal guard!”

“How can I explain that to you?” her mother loudly wondered, “You know that Heinz was a mercenary, don’t you?”

Elise eagerly nodded. She already knew that.

“He made quite a bit of money and while that was not enough, his name and the fact that Heidi helped many rich people to bring their children into this world was enough for his son to become a knight.”

Elise felt her smile crumble, "Then ... I can't become a knight?"

“I think that it would be very hard,” her mother said, “But not impossible.”

“I see. Was father a knight or mage?”

Fiona took a deep breath.... Elise was almost eight, so maybe it was time to tell her little darling more about the things that mattered.

"I never talked about your father, did I?" she said, then, after a long hesitation.

"I ... never really asked you anything about him either," Elise murmured. "Although that's not really the case ... you never answered my questions."

Fiona moved closer to Elise and patted her on the back.

"I'm terribly sorry ... but I wasn't ready to talk about him," she felt a few tears run down her cheeks, "I'm a terrible mother."

Elise hugged her before whispering, "You're not. You are the best mother! There is no better mother than you! And don't cry. Heinz always told me that crying is not something an adult should do. Crying is something children should do!"

Fiona wiped away her tears before saying, "I loved Christopher. I am not from Wolfsteyn, as you may know. I'm not even from the Empire."

She took a deep breath, "He and I met after I crossed the border. When we met, he was on a mission to kill a beast that had been plaguing the villages near the border. Time passed and we met again, he had become a knight and was on another mission. I had decided to stay in a small town to learn the language of these strange lands and to find some work. He was there too, waiting for someone to come. A month or so went by and we became friends. Love is a strange thing really, because after another month we both realised we could be more than that. After a year or so, he got a promotion, we got married and lived a happy life. But that changed quickly. He was a nobleman's son in name only, but that was enough for the king to claim that he had a duty to perform. He was forced to join the army, and only five years later he had been promoted to lieutenant. His promotion could not have come at a worse time for the Empire was at war. The nobles had decided to reclaim a piece of land that the empire had lost to Scandinavya a hundred years ago."

Elise had read about this country. It was part of Euros, but separated from the Empire and the continent by a rather large sea. A handful of sea snakes and other monsters lived in the sea. It was rare, but sometimes they attacked ships. Trade was only possible through the Czardom, a slightly larger nation to the east of Euros.

"You've read about the war with Skandinavya, haven't you?" her mother asked. Elise nodded.

"Then perhaps you have also read about the only defeat the imperial army suffered," Fiona continued. She wanted to stop, but something told her that perhaps it was better to tell Elise more about her father. It was probably too soon, or maybe even too late. She didn't know. Elise was her first child, and she couldn't remember when her parents had taught her what death was. But keeping her problems to herself had almost killed her once.

"The Battle of Vyburg?" asked Elise. She had read everything she could find about it. It hadn't been much; the Battle of Vyburg was something the Empire wanted to forget. But all the soldiers who had fought in the battle had been heroes, and those who had stayed behind were real heroes. They had made it possible for the Empire not to suffer total defeat, and their sacrifice had meant that almost all the soldiers had managed to retreat.

"Yes," Fina said, "I don't know why, but Christopher had decided to be the one to stay behind. I don't know why, and I tried everything to find out why. I found only one person from the unit he had fought with, a healer from the church. But the healer is mute."

Fiona stopped speaking. It felt like a heavy burden had been lifted from her shoulders. But that burden was now shared with Elise, a child too young to even understand the cruelty of war.

"I ... I ..." Elise started to say, but all her energy seemed to have disappeared. It was as if the energetic child was no longer there.

"I'm sorry," Elise finally said, "I tried to force you to tell me the truth when I was what, four years old? I ... don't know what to say?"

She took a deep breath, "But even then, father was... a hero and, from what you've told me, a loving and caring.... Husband? A partner? I don't know. I didn't really read all those romance novels. They were boring."

Elise tried her best to inject a bit of humour into the depressing atmosphere.

Fiona sighed. "Should we visit his grave? They never found a body, but everyone agreed that a grave would be the only way to honour him even after death."

Elise hesitated before nodding slowly. Visiting his grave wouldn't really bring her father back, but she supposed it was the only way to send him her best wishes and give him hope in the afterlife.

She clenched her fists. The angry voice seemed agitated. It told her to find whatever had killed her father and kill it or him or her or whatever. She didn't care. If its killer lived, the killer would die by her blade, her spell, or whatever it was she had mastered first. The angry voice agreed and silence returned to her mind.

Either way, she would not join the army. She would not become a knight. Not because it was impossible for her, no, that was not the reason. She would live a different life than her father, so as not to hurt her mother. Elise wanted to become a mage, the strongest mage this world had ever seen.