Lily and her uncle eased into the gathering. Uncle Vath greeted a number of the men with a strong grip to the forearm. Meanwhile Lily followed along close behind him. She could feel the gaze of the few children in the group on her, but nothing would happen out here in front of everyone. She self-consciously tilted her head down to hide the scales on her right cheek.

They were one of the last families to arrive, but none of the Esthers were yet in attendance. The Esther Patriarch, Armond, typically waited until everyone arrived before making an entrance, but his son and daughter should have been here to welcome everyone. Lily was proud of herself for taking note: her Uncle had always stressed observation. To Lily, their absence was obvious, since the Esther heir, Dillon Esther, acted as ringleader for the other children and delighted in leading them against her. Without him around, most of the other children stayed near their own families.

She noted her uncle looking around warily. He greeted the rest of the families warmly and with a smile, but his eyes slipped off a little too soon, lingering on the tables and the over-decorated bandstand.

“Count the chairs, Lily.” He muttered, knowing that she was attentive enough to hear. And so she did. There were five long tables laid out, dragged out from the old barracks. The head table was laid out horizontally in front of the bandstand, with the rest branching out behind like the tines of a fork. The main table was also covered in a neat white cloth, a luxury, and had 8 seats laid out on either side. The other tables only had long benches, so her uncle must have been directing her attention there.

There were eight seats on either side of the main table. Lily quickly counted in her head: Armond Esther and his two wives, son Dillon and daughter Haley, Old Arnold Esther who was patriarch before Armond, Uncle Walter with one wife and daughter, Jen, and old Aunt Dane. Lily was unsure how Aunt Dane fit into the Esther family. Despite her advanced age she was usually sat towards the bottom of the table, probably not a main line member. Ten members of the Esther family, sixteen main table seats. Guests? Armond had never sat any of the other locals at “his” table.

Some of her Uncle’s tension was bleeding off onto Lily. The four other tables were longer than they needed to be as well for the forty or so expected locals. They could have sat twenty people each, easily. Almost one hundred people here? What was going on?

The early afternoon sun beat down on an increasingly restless crowd. Some of the people here had left their homes at first light to make it on time and had been left waiting for hours with no word and no refreshment or hospitality.

Uncle Vath was talking seriously with two tanned men, both slightly stranged as most adults here were: one that Lily had seen before but didn’t know the name of, and Jang Stand whose family compound was also on the edge of the forest, only a mile or so from Lily’s. She had run into him and his son, Lim, in the forest a few times. Much like her and Uncle Vath, they fended for themselves as hunters and scavengers rather than by farming.

Lily glanced briefly at Lim, standing behind his father, and he offered a shy wave in her direction. He was two years younger than her and she towered over him, having come into her growth earlier than most of the other children in the area. They had been friendly the few times they had crossed paths in the forest, and he had never teased and chased her like the other children, but he never approached her at gatherings either. To do so would be to cross Dillon directly, as Dillon was very much a “with me or against me” type of person. Lily didn’t hold it against Lim. She waved back briefly.

Neither of the two men knew much about what was going on, but the unknown man had been on the green since earlier that morning and reported that no one had entered or exited the manse all day.

All three of the men’s eyes fell on Lily at separate times. Jang put his hand lightly on Uncle Vath’s shoulder. “The council has already declared, Lily will get her trial spot. No matter what Armond has planned he can’t take that back. You’ve got the whole council’s support”

Uncle Vath practically growled. “I’d like to see him try. No, this is something different. Maybe an alliance? Or a betrothal for Dillon or Haley. Probably Dillon, he’s trialing this year too.”

The two other men nodded eagerly. It fit too easily. It wasn’t uncommon for families to announce marriages leading into trials, their betrothals contingent upon success. To Lily, the feel of the conversation had changed from that of conspiring rebels to something more like gossiping old women. She lost interest.

Instead of continuing to listen, she plucked up her courage and approached Lim. She stopped short of him, unsure of how to even begin a conversation. He saved her the trouble.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Good luck in your trial this year. I’ll be going too but I’m sure you’ll do great you’re really good in the forest and way bigger than the other kids or me or...” spilled from his mouth in a rush and then he blushed intensely, crashing to a halt. It somehow made Lily feel better.

“Thank you, Lim.” She cupped her hands at him in the way she’d seen the adults do. “I uh… I don’t really fight so I won’t be in the martial trial, but I think I’ll do well in the administrative and fieldcraft trials!” She smiled at him.

“Definitely!” He beamed back. “I’m a bit jealous that you can read and write… father never taught me.” He stumbled a bit there. “But he has taught me a bit about fighting. Maybe I could show you sometime before the trial? It’s still a couple weeks away, right?”

“I’d like-” Lily started to respond, then trailed off distractedly as she looked over Lim’s shoulder, noticing a large procession of people emerging from the Esther manse. She pointed “There they are!” and Lim spun around to look as well, along with the three men behind them. A ripple passed through the crowd as everyone turned to see.

Armond Esther and another man led the rest of the Esther family and what appeared to be a second family, and- Lily’s eyes bulged- behind them, walking in lockstep were twenty men in identical leather armor, each holding a spear with the blade wrapped in alternating red and black cloth. Guards or soldiers. Beside her, Uncle Vath bristled, then relaxed again as he disregarded the formation. His attention returned to the two men walking in front.

To Lily’s eyes, the group walking towards them loomed like the giant clouds that rush in front of an essence storm. The soldiers or guards or whatever they were created a massive collective wake in the natural mana around them. Each of them must have had at least one artifact or more, but it was the man at the front of the procession that drew her eye, much like her Uncle’s. He did not simply disturb the nearby essence, he cut a path through it and none of it landed upon his skin. His effect on the atmosphere was almost as potent as Uncle Vath’s. No one else noticed. All they saw was the man’s obvious wealth, from his clothes and varied jewelry, and of course from the line of armed men behind him. He must have been from a city, or perhaps a baron or other minor landed noble.

To their guest’s credit, he was dressed rather impressively. Or at least strangely. He wore a black robe cut in a style that Lily had never seen before, with a wide crimson belt of some smooth material that Lily was actually familiar with: her Uncle had a string of something similar that he wore to tie his hair back sometimes when they went hunting. Another part of his past that he had not discussed with her.

Lily thought that the unknown man looked rather dashing. His black hair was tied back neatly and his face was clean-shaven. His robes were smooth and appeared soft. He was middle-aged and tall, dwarfing Armond Esther who walked beside him. Compared to him, Armond looked practically shoddy in his well-tailored but comparatively simple shirt, jacket, and pants of lesser material. Probably wool spun from the local stock, made sturdy but rough by the natural essence the sheep were constantly exposed to.

Most notably, the man’s skin was clear and pale, like a child’s with no visible stranging at all. He might have hidden webbed feet or some fur under his robes, but Lily suspected not. She reflected on the contrast between the man’s clear skin and her own deeply affected body.

Lily glanced aside at her uncle, the only other adult she had ever seen without stranging. It wasn’t the first time she had suspected that there was wealth in his past, but Lily had long since outgrown her dreams of secret connections to a royal family. Of princes coming to sweep her away and heal her blight.

Essence corruption starts slow, and children are slightly resistant, but it is additive and pervasive. It’s in the air, in the water, in the plants and animals that people eat. Strong artifacts push back at the natural essence, which is why the trials are administered to the young. Obtaining an artifact before corruption sets in is most children’s only hope to make it into adulthood unmarred. There are rumors that the strongest artifacts can even cleanse existing stranging, but no one around here had any artifacts like that. Lily would know. Finding one was Lily’s dream.

Even wealth was only a temporary measure, however. Lily’s eyes landed on the elderly man walking a pace behind Armond and the well-dressed man: Armond’s father, Arnold Esther. As far as Lily knew, the man only possessed one artifact, but it was a strong one, eclipsing the weaker necklace and ring that Armond bore. The man was ancient by Lily’s understanding, stooped. Easily the oldest person there in the frontier.

Despite his artifact’s protection, decades of eating food raised on this world and drinking its water had finally shown on him. He was nearly blind, the whites of his eyes webbed with bright red blood vessels. It was hard to look at. His hair had almost all fallen out as well, but Lily was unsure if that was related to stranging or simply natural processes.

A young woman walked beside him, holding his elbow and guiding him: Jen Esther, his grand-niece. She was a few years older than Lily.

A mix of the rest of the Esthers, and a few more unknown people followed behind. Finally Jean, the lone soldier who stayed behind with Arnold all those years ago, took up the rear-guard position: marching with his typical stiff formality even at his age. Dillon Esther walked beside a young girl approximately his and Lily’s age. An older woman walked directly behind them: a chaperone. It looked like Uncle Vath’s prediction was spot on.

Dillon was caught up in conversation and did not even look in Lily’s direction, and just for that Lily already felt friendly towards the unknown girl. With an interesting noble family from afar and a friendly distraction for Dillon, this meetup was looking up for Lily. She actually hoped her uncle would change his mind about leaving early.