Heidi

Berlin, Germany - the next day

Heidi woke up. Her head was not pounding this time, and she had no dreams, as was the norm.

‘I hope this does not become a habit,’ she thought, opening her eyes. It was dark in the room around her, and she did not understand where she was. Trying to orient herself, she smelled the air and noticed it was not stale anymore and had a distinct smell of freshly cut roses and lavender.

Heidi recognized the smell in a second. She was in the Berlin mansion her family had owned for generations. ‘How did I get here?’ she thought, not remembering a thing after she blacked out. ‘What happened after that weird mana pulse? Did Viktor transfer me back?’

Heidi knew that her family did not trust mundane doctors to do the work her clan’s healers did. On the other hand, one thing she did not know. And that was - why she blacked out in the first place, as it had not happened before. Heidi was sensitive to mana from early childhood. Though, this sensitivity was not so extensive as to make her pass out.

'Too bad,' she thought, 'I would have liked to meet the man who saved me.' Heidi went ahead and got out of bed, feeling rested. Whatever problem caused her to pass out seemed to have been fixed by her clan's healers.

She took her white slippers and went toward the door of her room to try and find her father. She wanted to understand what happened at the hospital and how she got back. And she wanted to know more about her mysterious rescuer.

Going out of her room, she found herself in the familiar carpeted halls of her family’s manor. Heidi never understood why the mansion had to look so posh. It contained so many different paintings on the walls and various rugs on the floor. It was excessive, in her opinion.

She passed multiple rooms and went to the staircase to climb downstairs and find her father somewhere downstairs. She knew that he liked to frequent his study after it got dark, and most likely, she would find him there. No doubt this night would be no different from all the others when he shut himself in with piles of books, doing some mysterious research.

Moving silently on the carpets, Heidi reached the room in question and found its door slightly ajar. She almost knocked on the door before she heard a heated exchange between Viktor and her stepmother.

“Are you mad?” Adele asked in an exasperated voice. Heidi went closer to the door and put her ear against it to hear better. “Have you gone mad, Viktor? Bringing a mud back with us? Risking the authorities to discover that you are smuggling an unconscious fellow over the border like that?”

“Hush! You could wake up the dead with your shouting,” Viktor interrupted her. “You know I would not do something rash without an actual reason. Listen, that man is not a simple mud,” Viktor countered.

“Oh? And why is that so?” Adele asked, her tone mocking.

“You do not understand. After you left, there was a large mana fluctuation in the hospital.”

“So?” she interrupted him again.

Viktor took a step toward her, clearly angered. “If you could not interrupt me for a minute,” he said and waited for her response. He continued, seeing that she understood him, “Usually, it would mean someone was casting a spell. But in our case, it was not so. It just pulsed on its own, or so I thought.

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“I felt it for the first time before I met Heidi. When I came to the hospital, I felt a slight nudge at the back of my head. I believed it was my imagination, so I went to investigate,” Viktor paused and sat down. “Locating the source, I discovered that it was the same room the man who called the ambulance was in.”

“And you went to investigate? What did you find?” Adele asked, curious.

“Yes, I went. At first, nothing. Just a man, Heidi’s age, sleeping peacefully on the hospital bed. But when I went closer to his bed, I felt it. The mana! It was slowly coursing in him. Like a steady river,” Viktor said, sipping the glass of wine.

“You are too dramatic, Viktor. Only some wild animal, mutated by mana, would do that,” Adele commented and took a seat opposite him. She knew wild animals accumulated large amounts of mana before turning into mana beasts, though nowadays, it happened rarely.

“Yes, I know that. Even archmages do not pull in mana at the rate I felt. So I risked it and walked closer to check his mana core,” Viktor took a sip from his glass and continued. “I found no core. Nothing! But the mana inside him was vast as an ocean. It was raging and bubbling, begging to break free.”

Adele just sipped her wine, not taking her eyes off the slightly drunk Viktor.

“Then it happened again. I felt the nudge again, but this time stronger. The next thing I knew, I was flying against the wall. Pushed away by pure force from the boy as his mana erupted to force me away. It felt almost instinctual on his part.”

“Then why bring him here?” Adele finally interrupted. “You should have called the Church and let their Bishops deal with him.”

“Yes. That is what you would do,” Viktor said, his tone darker, words slightly slurring. “The Inpes always call the Church when something is wrong, and they need protection.” Adele just looked at him, not responding.

“No! We, Aer, do not need to cover behind false prophets and madmen,” he yelled, clearly drunk and enraged. “The boy needs help and guidance. He is a danger to himself and those around him. I will not simply turn him over to the Church like some wild animal. You know what they do to every heretic they find,” Viktor waved his hand in spite, spilling his drink.

“Did you know we could not trace him back to any of the clans?” he continued. “It appears that he sprung up out of nowhere. And his condition? It does not make sense, as mana is scarce and polluted….” Viktor exhaled and looked at Adele. He felt slightly sleepy from the wine and lack of sleep. He could not catch a shuteye ever since he discovered the boy.

“You cannot tell anyone about this,” Viktor said seriously. “The healer will keep silent as his vows require him to be. So should you. I am warning you!”

“Viktor,” Adele began slowly. “We cannot harbor a heretic. Boy or not. You do not understand what the Church will do if and when they discover him. You know this - they always find them. Further, you cannot predict what he will do when he wakes up!”

“Ah, I do have a solution. For a time at least,” Viktor said, smiling. He took out a small silver bracelet and waved it before Adele. “This will help to contain the mana he has accumulated already. It will help him manage the situation until we find out what is wrong with him and how to help. As far as I could look into the matter, he can form a proper mana core. The free mages of old could.”

Adele eyed the bracelet, recognizing it from their vaults, knowing it could repress the mana in the wearer. ‘Free mages?’ she thought in shock. ‘Is he mad? The Church will have our heads!’

“Perhaps… If he can? What next?” she calmly asked.

“You will see. I will have Heidi talk with him,” Viktor answered, putting the bracelet back in his pocket. “Give him some semblance of normalcy. Explain things delicately and ask him to wear the bracelet. They are almost the same age, anyway,” Viktor took another sip from his glass and eyed Adele carefully.

“I will talk with her tomorrow, when she wakes up, and explain the situation. The boy needs to start training as soon as possible. I will offer her guidance on how to handle the boy,” he said. “Do not, I repeat, do not tell anyone of the details! Especially your father! No one needs to know what I am planning to do,” Viktor said seriously, putting his glass on the table before them and getting up.

That prompted Heidi to take a step away from the door and walk away silently, as it was unbecoming to spy on her family, and her father surely would reprimand her for doing so. She was not a little girl anymore to get caught in the act, as she always liked to spy on her father's secret conversations from a young age.

‘... a heretic… Who is this man?’ she thought, sneaking back to her room to catch some sleep before tomorrow.