Isadora Elsie-Willowdale stirred from her sleep.
Whilst peaceful slumber was not a commodity that came to her easily, it was also something she did not allow herself to relinquish without putting up a fight. A profound uneasiness gripped at her heart, for Isadora felt a disquieting incompleteness that was unlike any sensation she had experienced before— as if the very fabric of her existence was being unwoven before her eyes— a whole being rendered incomplete.
Whatever semblance of sleep she had been clinging onto fled as her eyes shot open. For the tender warmth that rested against her bosom, a warmth that she had grown accustomed to over the course of the past two years, was absent. Nocturne liked to seek comfort in her mother’s embrace, clinging onto Isadora with a fervour that almost made her feel like her young daughter was afraid of losing her. Altair, on the other hand, had grown strangely distant in the recent weeks, having insisted on sleeping at his sister’s side instead of Isadora’s.
The uneasiness in Isadora’s heart was replaced by a deluge of swirling emotions, one that threatened to overwhelm her. Words alone could not describe the maelstrom she was enduring, for the Eldrheman language did not possess any words capable of encapsulating her experience. Pain bled into anger, a rage that echoed from her very depths of her soul. The rage she felt made her question its source, leading her to confront it. In her confrontation, she found fear. Her children were no longer at her side. Where would her two year old children go, in the depths of the night? Her bedroom door was ajar, yet her senses, refined from years of adventuring, had not picked up on an intruder. The fear she felt, fed into her anxieties— the anxieties of one who had known loss.
She was trapped in a thought-prison of her own making, a cycle where one emotion fed into the next and left her trapped, wallowing in her own indecision.
Had she had been an ordinary, no-name adventurer, her reaction would not have been so extreme.
Isadora was her name.
Elsie had been the name of her late mother.
Willowdale, the name of her deceased father.
But that did not tell the entire story.
The realm of Alecdoria did have a different naming tradition from Earth, but it was not divorced from the concepts of bloodlines.
Bloodlines were a closely guarded secret in Alecdoria, revealed to only those that had earned great trust.
For revealing one’s bloodline to another was the same thing as disclosing one’s own magical lineage.
If that had been the extent of it, perhaps bloodline names would not have become such a closely guarded secret.
The Vortera Veilands was a domain where history had been written in the blood of the defeated, a woven tapestry of bright colours violently clashing against each other, depicting the rise and fall of regional powers— of bloodline clans, of small kingdoms, of mage circles and academies and of diadem sects— a phenomenon that had gripped the rulerless lands so tightly that the foreign powers trying to meddle in the affairs of the Veilands unilaterally decided to withdraw, lest they give them what they truly needed; a common cause.
But there were naturally exceptions to the rule.
Some individuals had no need to conceal their bloodline name.
Isadora Elsie-Willowdale was one of them.
Isadora Elsie-Willowdale of Clan Enferi, one of the five Elder Clans of the Voltera Veilands, also known as the Bloodline Coalition— the ones who had brought order to the frenzied madness that had consumed the Veilands, had no reason to hide her bloodline name.
Others hid their name out of fear for the sins of their ancestors. Out of fear of reprisal from the Bloodline Coalition. Out of fear for being sought for their bloodline’s potential.
But Enferi Isadora had no need to hide.
Even though she hated the Clan with all her being.
Even though she was considered exiled from Clan Enferi.
Even though every unique technique, every unique skill along with every clan secret she had ever learned had been obfuscated by a cloud of mist— a spell so powerful that she had no hope of ever undoing it.
Even despite all that, Isadora had no reason to fear those who came for her.
For as much as she hated the Clan, the blood that flowed in her veins was still of Clan Enferi.
That was enough.
The emerald ring that she wore upon her ring finger was not one that represented marriage or religious belief.
It was an artifact.
An artifact likely worth as much as the Dungeon Town she was currently residing in and also responsible for overseeing.
A linked spatial artifact.
The gem enshrined upon the ring’s fractal-inscribed metal body began to glow and before any Tier 1 Mage, had one been in Isadora’s vicinity, even be able to react, a longsword materialized in her right hand.
Forged from the tailbone of an Elder Wyrm, the hollow, translucent sword was a marvel to behold. It’s elongated blade sparkled in the dim glow of the candlelight, luminescence bouncing off its surface and casting shimmering reflections upon Isadora’s immediate surroundings, as if it was a blade forged entirely out of crystal. Yet, there was a subtle fragility to the construct, the thinness of the hollowed out bone as it was reshaped and fused into the shape of a blade echoing the brittleness of glass.
The sword, Scindere, was the second of the two artifacts Clan Enferi had allowed her to take with her. It also served as proof that the Clan still valued her, and still hoped that she would one day return— for while the Aura Masters of Clan Enferi could kill an Elder Wyrm, it’s tailbone was something they had no hope of piercing, let alone shattering. Widely acknowledged as one of the hardest materials in the entire Veilands, the cost involved in reshaping it into a functional sword had been nothing short of astronomical.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
In the blink of an eye, Isadora was back on two feet.
Enferi Isadora Elsie-Willowdale was a Tier 2 Aura Master of Clan Enferi.
She took a deep breath in and closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, her eyes shimmered with an azure glow.
An Aura Master was one who drew Aether from the atmosphere and utilized it to refine the self. Strengthening one’s bones until common blades and axes could no longer hack through them, their muscles until they resembled tightly corded metal wires instead of mutable flesh and their reflexes until arrows and thrown daggers were not something that could easily catch them off-guard.
But that only scratched the surface of what a true Aura Master was capable of.
Mana Sight was a basic technique that allowed Isadora to perceive both the traces and concentrations of Mana in a wide radius around her.
A moment later, a soft azure glow embraced Isadora’s silhouette. Aura Cloaking was another basic technique every Aura Master knew how to utilize— it served to dampen one’s Mana Signature, muffle the sound of movement and provide a layer of protection against magical attacks.
Isadora’s expression darkened when she found herself unable to scan any abnormalities in the surrounding Mana. Although her children had yet to awaken their Inner Spark, with every breath they took, the mana of the world reinforced their being, allowing Isadora to detect them.
‘Had she been overthinking matters?’
The air resonated with the sound of an infant’s sobbing, followed by a distinctly feminine crying.
Altair and Nocturne were crying.
Yet, even now, she could detect no intruder.
That meant that her adversary far surpassed her, likely in both strength and skill.
Rage consumed her heart.
Her Inner Spark nestled in the center of her Mana Lake began to quake. One side was dominated by the soft azure energy that served as the foundation for her basic techniques, while the other side of the Lake barely contained a roiling sea of flames— A balance had been attained, between the Unattuned Mana of the world, namely Aether and her Fire Mana.
To be classified as a Tier One mage, one was required to convert 15% of their Mana Pool into the element of their Inner Spark. To qualify as a Tier 1 Aura Master, the standard was set a little higher at twenty percent.
Although the requirements for higher tiers were no longer limited to their Mana Lake alone, Isadora had managed to convert 50% of her soul lake into Fire Mana.
But she was of Clan Enferi.
With her rage serving as the catalyst, her Inner Spark flared to life.
In the blink of an eye, 80% of her Mana Lake was dominated by piercingly bright orange flames.
There was no hesitation as Isadora channeled it all into her sword, Scindere.
The ethereal translucence of the blade was replaced by an incandescent orange glow. The first of three runes, the Rune of Heat Containment, flared to life as it prevented the sheer intensity of Isadora’s flames from reducing her surroundings to ash by sealing the heat of the blade within the confines of the sword.
The tailbone of an Elder Wyrm was nigh indestructible for one at Isadora’s level, but that did not mean that it was impervious to heat. Elder Wyrms possessed a high degree of resistance to all forms of magic, but that was only due to the sheer amount of Mana they consistently expended to reinforce their internal organs. A protection that did not extend after their demise.
The second rune etched upon the surface of her sword, the Focus Rune activated after the flames had been fully sealed within the blade. The edges of her blade began to glow in a fluorescent blue as the bulk of her trapped flames were now focused upon superheating the edges.
It did not matter who her enemy was.
Her sword could cut through anything.
With that in mind, Isadora slipped past the ajar door and stepped into the drawing room.
She could not charge forth blindly, in lieu of her children’s safety.
Her first hope was negotiation. Her second was a hope that the enemy would try to ambush her, letting her counter without worrying about her children being taken hostage. The third… well she could just hope the situation didn’t progress past the second.
Even now, no enemy revealed themselves.
Isadora slowly inched towards her study, while her senses and Mana Sight was stretched to the limit as she tried to catch a glimpse, a hint that the foe she feared so, even existed.
A minute of nerve-wracking concentration later, Isadora had finally bridged the gap between her and the sound of her children’s cries.
At the end of the corridor, past the ajar door of her study, Isadora spotted the little ones that she had been willing to lay down her life for mere seconds ago.
She blinked.
The Rune of Mana Dampening, the third and final runic enchantment etched upon her sword, activated.
There was no enemy.
There never had been one.
Under the light of her crystal lantern, Isadora spotted Altair and Nocturne. The brother and sister were locked in a tight embrace, trails of tears dripping down their rotund cheeks. Altair was more muted in his grief, stuttering with light sobs as he tried to choke back the emotions welling up from the depths of his heart. Nocturne was unabashed in her crying, snot dripping down her nose as she wailed at the top of her lungs.
As Isadora sat down upon the ground in a cross-legged posture, she maintained a close eye on her children, confusion written all over her visage.
Even after the Mana Dampening Rune had been activated, Isadora still needed to re-absorb the vast reserves of Fire Mana contained within her sword.
So she could do nothing but watch as her children cried, consumed by such emotion that they failed to notice her presence.
Watching them like that filled her with an inexplicable grief, but her relief far outweighed it. It was not an enemy of the clan that had come after her.
It took Isadora an hour to finish absorbing the torrent of flames, only after which could she approach her children.
Altair and Nocturne had cried and sobbed, sobbed and cried, until their tiny bodies were overwhelmed by the exertion.
Then they slept, intertwined in each other’s embrace.
The anxiety Isadora carried in her heart was swept away when she realized that her two children had light smiles on their face as they slept contentedly, providing a warmth to her heart that far superseded any flame that her Inner Spark could offer.
Returning the sword to her spatial ring, she wrapped the twins in her embrace, before retreating to the bedroom.
As Isadora lay awake in her bed, her children nestled on her either side, she couldn’t help but think back on how bizarre the night had been.
But what she found even stranger was that… she didn’t dislike it.
She didn’t dislike being woken in the depths of the night.
She didn’t dislike seeing a new side of her children.
Perhaps that was what it meant… to be a mother.