The Certilia Empire, the larger nation that the Velbrun House, and other royal Houses, were bound to, once had a bandit problem, denizens with ill hearts or empty stomachs selling their morals for scraps of food and coin.

Lydia and I, alongside our allies, had cleaned out many of such roaming bandits, but after she became pregnant, we had taken a step back from such responsibilities.

“Did ya fucking hear me or what!?”

Perhaps I should have kept a better eye on such matters.

There were four of them, each of them dressed in heavy, dirt-stained clothing made to withstand the elements, with coarse bits of leather strapped over some of the more vital areas.

Two carried blades, short and sharp, with heavy hilts that one had a harder time carrying than the other. The other two held sickles, more akin to farming tools than weapons of war.

I looked at the lead bandit, his sickle held aloft with hostility, “My children are with me. I don’t want any trouble.”

Perhaps another day I would have attempted to stop them outright, cleanse the land of threats to future families, but my children were sleeping and a struggle could wake them.

The bandit’s teeth were yellow, but straight, “Hey, I get ya, we just want what’s best for our families, yeah? Hand over ya goods and we don’t have to get ugly in front of the kiddies.”

I closed my eyes, sending a quick subtle pulse of Vitae through the area, feeling only seven pings come back. My children and the four bandits.

There were no hidden assailants flanking my wagon, meaning I was still in front of any danger to the triplets. Although Fretz, my ox for this journey, may be in danger.

I looked at the grinning leader, “I can spare five silver sil.”

Most of my riches had gone to making sure I would have all the supplies the month long trip to Gelvert would require.

The bandit’s eyes furrowed, “This ain’t the time for negotiating, duster. All of it.”

Duster, another word for Ruskans. Not a kind word.

The others shifted in their spots, all of them looking tense. They were ready for a fight, but they really weren’t. Not with their unsteady stances and ill-fitting equipment.

“I will give you one more chance to take the money and leave.”

The lead bandit’s face turned sour, “Ya-”

I continued, “The next river is an hour away. That means, if we come to arms, I will have to ride for an hour before I am able to wash your blood off my fists.”

The clearing was quiet, the brigands glancing to one another. The lead bandit’s sickle had dropped to his side at my words, his reckless confidence fading.

Lydia would have been able to handle this better. She had always said that words were meant for peace, a Beyond-given gift to humanity to communicate and compromise.

‘We’re not given tongues to threaten,’ Lydia would often say.

One by one, the bandits withdrew from the wagon, the lead brigand lingering with a fearful, but determined gleam in his eye, “...The silver.”

“Thank you for not causing any trouble.”

I tossed him a single golden sil. Twice as much as I had offered, but perhaps the charity would make amends for the threat. And perhaps, they would not seek out other travelers for coin quite so soon.

The bandit caught the coin, mumbling a quick word of thanks, before leaving to catch up with his allies, perhaps his fellow villagers.

I watched them leave, before looking back to check on my children, all of them still sleeping sans one pair of eyes staring at me.

Dalton’s gaze was even, a glint of interest shining in his eyes. Had he seen what just occurred? Did he understand?

Perhaps I should have been comforted by him being just an infant, still in the fever dream of a youngling’s first few weeks, but the intensity of my son’s gaze gave no such comfort.

I smiled, before returning to the road and pushing Fretz to move again.

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The gazes of my children were not the only thing one might consider odd about them, although I had no other infants to truly compare them to.

Daka would regularly awaken in the middle of the night, with cries that bordered on terror. My sleepless vigils would often be filled with comforting her back to sleep, her body shaking.

Natakia would cry if I tried to feed her as the midwife had instructed me too, even as her stomach growled. Not keen on starving my daughter, I often had to deal with her tantrums after make sure she did not starve.

And Dalton, my son, was counting.

“Dalton, are you playing with my sil?”

I’d just put Natakia and Daka to sleep after feeding, to discover that my coin pouch, which I had left on the wagon while bathing, had been opened up and spilled.

Gold and silver sil were scattered across the wood of the wagon, with Dalton making small buh noises as he pulled and pushed the coins around while on his belly.

I sat beside him, the wagon slightly shifting under my weight, “You are interested in the coins?”

Dalton looked up at me, momentarily, before returning to the coins, pushing and pulling, before repeating his actions, his movements sluggish and uncoordinated.

Perhaps just the play of a youngling, but I knew, to some degree, how inspired my children were. They very rarely mindlessly played.

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I tapped one of the gold sils, getting Dalton’s attention, before counting out ten of the silver sils, “One gold sil is equal to ten silver sils. As decreed by the Donns of Neve.”

I took out a few copper sils from the pouch as Dalton watched on.

“And one silver sil is equal to ten copper sils.”

I tapped out the amount, demonstrating for the baby. With a soft buh noise, Dalton turned back to the coins and began playing again.

And yet, as he began to group the different kinds of coins into rough piles of gold and silver, ignoring the copper, and grouping them into tens, I once again found myself longing for Lydia’s guidance.

Soon, Dalton had exhausted himself playing with the coins and I put him away to sleep alongside his sisters.

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It was a day later that I arrived at my first stop on the way to Gelvurt.

Jonsten was a small town within the Velbrun House’s influence, as denoted by their flags whipping above the garrison and other civil buildings.

Criers on every corner, yelling about some new threat to the empire’s safety or scandal by one of the Houses, and shops on either side of the main road, their large windows filled with product.

Natakia suddenly cried out from the wagon seat, my head snapping to her. Her hand was held aloft to one of the passing stores, her eyes shining with interest.

I followed her gaze to a large establishment, brilliantly white with blue accents around its doors and windows and the words Madame Wyotts emblazoned above the door.

And yet, fanciful script had not caught Natakia’s eye, no. No, it seemed the dresses had. Beautiful, even to my uncultured eye, silken dresses that would have practically smothered the infant if she was given a chance to wear them.

I pulled on Fretz’s reins, “Hold on, girl.”

Letting the wagon come to a stop, I gently pulled Natakia out of the wagon seat, giving Daka and Dalton gentle smiles, before carrying the excited baby over to the window.

Natakia smiled, staring up at the dresses and placed an awkward hand on the glass, cooing at the sights. It was the happiest I’d ever seen my daughter.

And then she started crying.

I ignored the looks I got as I returned to the wagon, gently rocking her in my arms as I grabbed up Fretz’s reins and pushed the ox onward.

“Calm, Natakia, calm. You are ok, my desert flower, you are ok.” It was something my mother used to do for Natakia, a different Natakia, and the words came easily.

Whatever had provoked such a reaction from Natakia, I wasn’t sure. I simply hoped that if she was hungry, she would eat something without fuss.

As the wagon moved onward, I eventually placed the sleeping Natakia back into the wagon seat, my mind and eyes wandering to my goal in Jonsten.

There was a writ of lordship waiting for me.

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“I am very sorry, sir, but the writ you are asking for has already been given. There are no extras.”

I blinked, a little surprised, “The writ has already been given away? To whom?”

The man, a willowly fellow with the garb of a scholar, looked down at his large registrar, “One Rakta Velbrun, the newly adorned Lord of Gelvurt.”

Strange.

I pointed to myself, “I am Rakta Velbrun. I just got into town a few hours ago.”

“Ah, I see. One moment.”

The clerk stepped away from the desk and into the backroom through a door I had not paid particular attention to upon coming in.

I used the moment to look back at the wagon through the window of the office, keeping an ear out for any cries, before turning back as the clerk returned.

And with him, a short girl with doughy cheeks and bright red hair, looking confused.

The clerk pointed at me, “Clarissa, is this man the Rakta Velbrun you gave the writ of lordship to?”

Clarissa gave me a once over, “I…uh, sir, he was dressed differently, but…yes, sir. I believe so, in any case. Did I…?”

The clerk waved her away, “No, nothing. Return to your work.”

The girl nodded, tentatively, before heading off, stumbling over her own legs as she left. He gave a sigh as the girl left, before turning to you, his expression conflicted.

I watched the girl leave, myself, before saying, “I was not given the writ.”

The clerk furrowed his brow, before looking through the registrar, “This fellow came in three days ago, the day we received the writ. I’m sorry, but it’s out of our hands from here. If you want, I can send word…”

I shook my head, “No, I’ll handle this. Thank you.”

Losing the writ of lordship to an imposter would just give the Velbrun House more ammunition. And, no matter how minimal it was, the title of Lord would be important in raising the triplets.

I bid the clerk farewell and returned to the wagon, where my children, my vulnerable young, lay sleeping. What would Lydia do in this situation?

‘Oh, give me some time and I’ll just divine where they are,’ Lydia said, referring to the family of doppelgangers that had taken our forms to cause mayhem in a small farming hamlet and escaped into the forest.

…Unfortunately, I could not scry upon the imposter using magic.

So instead, I pushed Fretz forward and began to stoke my Vitae. Though I may be rusty, I had my own ways of finding people.