Chapter 17 — Ophesia’s Decision
“At least ‘Celestria’ is a name that doesn’t sound so peasant,” Nielle grumbled while hanging her academy robe on a hook inside her assigned cubby and began untying her cravat.
Ophesia made an amused sound from beside her, robe already hanging in the adjacent storage cubby. “Her professed ‘simple’ origins were clearly ridiculous from the start. One wonders why her backers even bothered.”
Unknotting and unwrapping the length of fine silk from her neck without wrinkling or creasing the fabric was an unwelcome chore, and it was not doing any favors for her mood. The academy’s rules and restrictions on maid staff were annoying and inconvenient. Phaelys had advised her about the matter prior to her attending, and together with her personal maids, she had done what seemed prudent to address the expected attire and hygiene challenges, mundane as they were.
As a result, her attire at the academy was simpler than her usual formal wear for public places, but she still insisted on at least wearing a spring-ribbed soft corset under her blouse for support and posture even if it meant she needed Ophesia’s help to change into her arena armor. Not having her maids around forced them to do what would normally be maid work, but the privacy afforded in exchange wasn’t without merit as it gave her opportunities to gripe with her close cousin as she was currently doing.
Freed of the cravat, Nielle set it into a basket for her clothes atop her frilly bloomers that she always took off first so they would be out of sight at the bottom of the pile and let out an unladylike strangled expression of her too-long-restrained angst, deciding to vent on the matter that was bothering her the most, “I hate how Cousin Phaelys is acting as if he owes a debt to Ria for not keeping her safe. It’s her fault he was attacked in the first place! And he was already repaying a perceived debt just by being there! If he did his best, then there is nothing more that can be asked!”
“While I agree with you in principle, Nielle, we both know Cousin is stubborn about these things. And now that the Astacio have acknowledged her…”
A development that Nielle could not decide if it made the ‘Shadewood’ girl’s presence more tolerable or more exasperating. Because the girl certainly was that: exasperating.
Ophesia preferred an easy-to-remove gemmed jabot for her collar and had already finished removing her blouse, revealing the usual lightly-embroidered soft corset not unlike Nielle’s own, and Nielle dutifully began to help with loosening the lacings so it could be shimmied out of without having to re-lace all the ribbon ties.
“I admit that she might actually be worthy to stand beside him as the elders seem to desire, but that does not mean I should just step aside or have to like it!” The words pained her to voice, but she was aware enough to see the greed for glories of the past stirring the elders to action and mature enough to realize that Ria would be family soon, one way or another.
“You have worked hard, Nielle,” Ophesia comforted once freed of the modesty-protecting fabric and turned to help Nielle with her lacings. “Cousin Phaelys is comfortable with you at his side, and the elders have seen it is so with their own eyes. You have been his shield against the ploys of our peers since we were children. He even dotes on you and indulges your whims. Your effort has not been wasted.”
Ugly emotions bubbled up at her cousin’s gentle words, and Nielle could not stop herself from blurting, “He looked just as ‘comfortable’ with her at his side as well!”
She yanked at the front ties more forcefully than was good for the garment before Ophesia swatted her hands away.
Yes, that was the heart of her aggravation.
How could she not feel the knives of jealousy and bitterness cut deep with how easily she was replaced?!
After working the corset over Nielle’s head and calmly adding it to the basket, Ophesia embraced her from behind and hugged tight. “We should test Celestria. It would be for both her own good and our House’s for her to prove she’s not weak to adversity or incapable of navigating the ever-present dangers of high-society.”
Nielle pushed down the frustration as best she could and locked it away as she had done many times before and far too often these last three weeks. If she was honest with herself, she knew that Ria was not just anyone—that Ria was not the same as the countless girls she had protected Phaelys from over the years. If anything, that made it even more unfair. “And if she fails, and the elders decide to go ahead anyway?”
“We will deal with that then,” Ophesia decided then leaned forward to coyly whisper in her ear, “Worse case, she can be hidden away as Phaelys’ concubine.”
“Sharing is not something I am keen on! Even worse if I have to constantly protect her from stupidity and clean up after her mistakes!” Nielle let out an aggrieved huff and half-heartedly tried to escape from Ophesia’s embrace before giving up.
Being the main wife… could be workable. Or at least better than not being with Phaelys at all. But. If he only had eyes for Ria, could she bear that? After having been the one beside him for so long?
If such a painful existence was her future… pursuing Joren or even Montimer might be better choices. Of course, as a Vesali descendent strongly presenting the traits of the royal amethyst line, she would never be allowed to marry outside the House—like Ophesia, her fate would always be to marry an adequately distant cousin from the current main line or branch families or an unneeded son of a respected House sent to join House Vesali.
“Fine, I get it. If it cannot be helped, then I will simply have to make the best of what will be,” Nielle grudgingly allowed. “So frustrating.”
“I expected nothing less from my best rival.” With an extra squeeze of sisterly support, Ophesia let her go and laid out the under-padding for their respective armors to help protect their modesty while they finished changing. “Still, even if we expected her to be connected to a Hidden House, for her to be of House ad`Drelfgar… They may become more directly involved now that Celestria’s origins have been made public. The other Hidden Houses would likely move otherwise, and their ‘testing’ of her would not be as gentle as ours.”
Nielle paused in straightening the wrinkles from her chemise-like lining garment she had just donned. “The scheming elf drawing Princess Aveneph into Ria’s orbit, that might be in direct anticipation of what is to come... Between everything with Ria, the war, and now the disruption of marine trade routes, I would not put it past the Fateweaver to have us all dancing to some convoluted grand plan designed to shift the global balance of power in Crysellia’s advantage by a meaninglessly tiny degree!”
“Maybe so,” Ophesia chuckled, straightening her own donned lining garment. “The mercurial machinations of the Fateweaver aside, do not forget the fae-blooded Sorrels. I am somewhat concerned that having Celestria dance with Joren and pique House Sorrel’s interest may have been a mistake that will lead to complications for us. With Novidus joining cause with our House at the recent High Council meeting and Celestria’s newly revealed connections to House Astacio, the Sorrel elders are sure to task him and others with creatively disrupting any undertakings that would see Novidus or Astacio gain further influence.”
Nielle didn't disagree, but her intuition was telling her they were still viewing current events too shallowly. Crysellian politics was fraught with plots and advantage-seeking even in the quietest of seasons. Hardly a season went by without a House touched by some scandal or sudden engineered improvement in fortune. And yet… the scale and breadth and number of plots and factions involved felt different this time, weightier. As if prelude to world-changing events to come.
Having tugged on the enchanted tights that would protect her legs from both dirt and the gift of Anasari’s light, Nielle unhooked her formal skirt to fall to the floor unneeded and again straightened the lining garment. Ophesia, content to let Nielle reflect on the consequences, scooped up and placed both their skirts in their respective baskets.
A silence settled in the changing room, intermittently disturbed by the rustling of thick fabric and the delicate clink of buckles and mail as they secured their crystal armor’s layers and contemplated the extent to which factions and forces were being set in motion.
“The Grand Games might be the vehicle—or at least, a nexus—for many of the plots,” Nielle eventually put forward. “There has been much that is unusual surrounding this year’s Games.”
“Hmm. You might be right,” Ophesia considered, hands absently tightening the closures on her crystal-plated boots. “If Ulvari’s surprise gambit is to be successful, House Vesali will need to raise its prestige enough to stand worthy of a council seat before the invasion happens. Publicity for our House’s work with providing the energy storage crystals for the Ravelle airships and the situation with Celestria aside, our performance in upcoming Grand Games may be more consequential than recent past years.”
Armor securely in place and her hair pins all removed, Nielle bundled and tied her long curls to one side using a ribbon Phealys had gifted her enchanted to keep away dust and moisture. “We will need to arrange more arena time and practice matches against tougher teams—military and adventurer teams. We should ask Devien.”
Ophesia gave her an acknowledging nod. “Regarding Celestria, I will think over how best to set in motion what needs to be done. For now, let us not keep the team waiting further.”
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After practicing spatial magic, enjoying dinner with Iselyn and Malleron, and working on the apology gifts, Ria had retired early and slept well, allowing her to spend the early morning squeezing in a needed meditation session in an isolation chamber.
She had a lot to be pleased with about how the prior day had gone. Not only had she extracted from Sofia a simple way to resolve her debt to Tensley and enjoyably bullied the girl, the weapons shopping was a complete success! She couldn’t wait to show off her new daggers at the day’s Grand Games practice. The pair of arena daggers were just so perfect and so sinisterly evil she couldn’t help purchasing them. Her team’s reaction was going to be… no, wait. They were going to tease her again, weren’t they?!
Ria groaned. They definitely were!
Her mood started to fall but she shook it off. Even if the others were sure to tease her, she liked the daggers and the way they looked and was excited to try them out—excited enough she was holding back a squee of anticipation just from the thought.
Besides, she had another reason to be in high spirits. Ana would be arriving! Ria was sure her super cute maid would be impressed.
And with her maid in mind, weapon shopping wasn’t the only shopping she had done.
Having sought Iselyn’s advice about difficulties the moon elf girl’s magicless maid faced working in the tower, Ria purchased a spirit-token-powered tool called a ‘mage hand’ that would help Ana use the elevator platform and other tower devices that required energy to activate. Ana was sure to be thrilled, and it should be good enough for now, but when thinking of the future, Ria was beginning to think she wanted Ana to join Arthur’s research if the mushroom-haired boy could be convinced. Giving Ana the ability to cast magic through items would improve the girl’s usefulness and means to stay safe when Ria was targeted.
Ria also purchased another pair of communication stones, and a second spirit-token-powered tool that would allow Ana to activate and deactivate the stone. The mage-hand could do the same task as the communication stone holder, but the specialized tool for working the communication stone gave Ria an idea that she wanted to explore more in depth when she had some free time. Mainly, the issue was that Ria had too many communication stones!
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How did mages normally manage such things? Her number of stones was getting really out of hand!
The communication stone holder, a small claw-like base with a token slot inset underneath, seemed like something that could be readily redesigned and expanded to hold multiple communication stones and switch between them as needed. If that could be done, she would only need to carry one stone that connected to the switching device and could leave the device with all the rest in her vault.
Depending on how she implemented the solution, the result could even allow for group conversations! The end result might be even something that her workshop could sell.
Something she could think about later, though.
While wandering through the curated paths of the academy’s Elemental Garden toward her destination for the weekly attunement practicum with Ranger happily sniffing the heady scents of the spring flowers they passed, her improved hearing began to catch the voices of her three potential lady-in-waiting candidates.
“What about Celestria?” Ethelle’s voice suggested.
The reply to the tall girl’s suggestion was immediate and forceful. “I can’t bother her with my family's problems!”
Ria was fairly sure that was Cerena, the more socially aware of the trio and the one with the advocate father.
“But if you don’t and…”
The merchant’s daughter started to worry, but she too was shut down by Cerena, “Shhh! Don’t say it where people might hear!”
“What if they come after you too or make it so your family can no longer pay tuition?” Neva further insisted.
“Then I will have to earn my way selling spirit tokens or join the Seekers. I will not give up on my future just because my father is too principled to back down from pursuing fairness for risky clients.”
Whatever was going on with Cerena sure didn’t sound good.
“Ah-! Celestria, you came!” Neva called out as Ria stepped into view through an archway of charred wood covered in brilliantly colored fungus.
“I did,” Ria cheerfully answered. “Thank you for inviting me.”
Ranger followed up with a woof of greeting that was met with awkward and unsure replies. He didn’t mind it, trotting over to assume his meditation pose on a soft patch of luminous blue and violet grass near the reserved trellis with the flaming lantern flowers.
The incredulous looks from the three girls drew a chuckle out of Ria. Reactions to Ranger’s imitation of Luventi’s unified meditation pose never got old.
“Is he really meditating?” Ethelle managed to inquire, whispering for some reason.
Ria nodded and motioned for them all to join Ranger in sitting around the trellis. “He is! He’s used meditation to make significant progress with his fire attunement, soul-strengthening exercises, and his beast arts. He works diligently so he can fight at my side during the Grand Games.”
‘O’ expressions formed on the three girls with Neva managing a “Wow. That’s right. He fought in the arena when you won the Divinesday tournament the first week of the new term!”
“Oh, you are right, Neva!” Ethelle sheepishly echoed.
Cerena rolled her eyes at the other two and addressed Ria, “Are you competing again this Divinesday?”
“I am,” Ria confirmed, directing her senses to the beautiful lantern flowers as she sat, curious about what properties made them special enough to be a ‘sign-up’ spot. The blooms really did look like paper festival lanterns, the translucent petals enclosing a flickering glow as if faintly lit by a hidden candle. Unlike the many oddly colored plants in the fire section of the garden, the vines from which the lantern flowers drooped were a normal, if vibrant, green.
“They are pretty,” Neva admitted upon seeing the lantern flowers quickly catching Ria’s interest.
“Yeah,” Cerena agreed. “The fire energy is gentle and easy to take in here, but even if it weren’t, this wouldn’t be a bad spot to pass the time.”
Ethelle voiced agreement, joining the rest of them around the trellis.
Cerena’s description of the fire energy as ‘gentle’ further piqued Ria’s interest. Maybe it was because the fire was mixed with nature? The energy did feel similar to Zena’s ember magic when used to restore stamina but with an additional sense of vitality: a flame of life. Seeing and feeling the plants aflame with fire energy, Ria wondered if fire-aspected magic could heal more than stamina, maybe even be used to create instead of destroy?
Why the girls would prefer a ‘gentle’ energy was curious as well. Were harsher energies painful or dangerous for normal mages to use for increasing attunement?
Turning her attention from the flowers to the girls, Ria let her senses carefully evaluate the three. Their auras were weak, but her energy sensing was sensitive enough to discern modest attunements in each of the elements introduced and practiced in class. Interestingly, Neva was strongest in air—an element the class had yet to spend much time on. Cerena’s strongest was water. Ethelle’s was earth.
As far as affinities went, Ethelle was the only one Ria thought might have a significant enough affinity to be sensed, and it was… glass? Maybe? Ria couldn’t be certain, but it did feel sort of like Ulren’s salt affinity but not crystal and with some concepts of heat, water, and light. All three of the girls must have worked hard just to have earned admission to the academy. If she was serious about allowing them to become retainers to her House, alchemical enhancement might be necessary…
“So… why fire?” Ria asked the three.
The three exchanged glances before Ethelle admitted, “…we were hoping to win the challenge…”
Ah, Elder Genwald’s Serpentine Fire challenge. The one that Ria had caused to be inflicted upon her fellow students.
Cerena leaned forward and hurriedly added, “Is there any advice you can give us?”
The other two held their breath, waiting for Ria’s answer.
A small smile graced Ria’s face at the three hopeful gazes. So that’s what it was. Whether an excuse or their full reason for befriending her, it was better than if the three girls had more complicated political motives. While it hurt a little that the offer of friendship wasn’t without advantage-seeking, it was still an opening, an opportunity. Turning their current temporary bonds into something more sincere and winning their loyalty was always going to require effort on Ria’s part.
The trio’s expressions were beginning to become a little strained as the silence extended a few heartbeats too long.
“Sure,” Ria cheerfully agreed. “I’m nowhere near Elder Genwald’s expertise, but if you each show me your progress, there should be ways to help you improve.”
The agreement was met with audible sighs of relief soon followed by embarrassed giggles.
“I’ll go first,” Cerena volunteered as the three scooted closer, and with brow-furrowing concentration, a fist-sized flame began to lick the air above her hand. The girl’s silver hairclip reflected the oranges and reds as the unruly flame was roughly forced into a wobbly sphere one side at a time.
By the time Cerena dissipated the magic after managing to turn the ball into a ring of fire, sweat was dripping down the side of the girl’s face more from the intensity of the effort than the heat.
The other two did the same, showing similar struggles.
Having had time to calm her breathing, Cerena spoke up again when Neva and Ethelle were finished, “We can’t figure out how to do the serpent part without burning ourselves…”
Ria nodded. She had the same problem at first as well, even with her natural talent with fire.
“It’s probably not what you want to hear, but as your attunement to fire increases, your body will better be able to endure. Tempering your body with energies from different fire Sources, fire-aspected food, and elixirs made from fire-aspected treasures is the best approach, but…” Ria trailed off at the complicated looks from her new friends.
“But, are expensive,” Neva, the merchant’s daughter, pointed out.
Right, not everyone had access to the resources that Ria did now, and none of the three had access to an Order’s training rooms without paying in spirit tokens. “So… the method I used when I was first learning was to compress my innate energy in and near my body so that it pushes back against the fire magic and its effects.”
Neva and Cerena exchanged looks.
“But wouldn’t that require maintaining two unconstrained magics at the same time?” Ethelle worriedly objected.
“Yes. It is part of the intended increase in complexity for the third stage,” Ria affirmed and slowly demonstrated the exercise using her own fire. “Also, all three of you are handling your fire too directly. Fire is a chaotic element by nature and like a living thing. You have to feed it, lead it into the shape you want, and let it breathe.”
Three different tell-tale glimmers of mage sight intently watched the demonstration. Different elements, Ria noted from the flares across their irises, feeling more confident about her earlier assessments about their favored elements and possible affinities.
“Your control of unconstrained magic is so skilled, Cele-, er, Ria. I can’t even imagine how many hours you have practiced this exercise. Your fire even feels different from ours,” Cerena complemented. “Are you already able to add concepts to your fire magic?”
Concepts? Though she hadn’t been trying to intentionally, Ria was fairly certain she could. She had done just that during the aura practice for Lady Asara. And, wasn’t her innate ‘primordial fire’ heavy with concepts?
“Yeah that! I wanted to ask about that too!” Neva encouraged, pointing at her friend. “I’ve heard that custom glyphs are used to add concepts into the magic.”
Custom glyphs, huh?
“I guess that’s true,” Ria reluctantly agreed. Lady Averlee’s custom glyph for the Heavy Rays spell did add the concept of ‘weight’ to light. To say the ‘weight of judgment’ in Lady Averlee’s magic was from the glyph, though... “But there’s more to it than that. Concepts can be added to magic even when using the basic glyphs.”
Ria formed two balls of light, one above each hand. “Can you tell which one uses a custom glyph?”
The ball on the left was using Lady Averlee’s glyph, and Ria could feel the weight of the light gently pushing against her hand and face. Above her right hand Ria imbued the basic light with her recently discovered concept of ‘radiance’.
The trio leaned closer with increasingly wide eyes, each pair glowing brighter in the dappled morning light like a trio of enraptured garden cats. Their collective reactions turned Ria’s mood pleasantly smug.
“Wow. You know a custom light glyph?”
“Can you teach it to us?”
Ria hesitated. “I’m not sure, actually…” She had learned it together with Keira during one of their lessons taught by Master Harlow, but was Lady Averlee’s spell really okay to share outside the Vorshan family and Keira’s Order? “I’ll have to ask Keira if it’s okay to teach you.”
Their expressions fell but there was still a sense of eagerness, just tempered by the postponement and uncertainty.
“Ria, you said only one of the light spells is using a custom glyph?” Cerena cast her own ball of light and held it toward Ria’s two.
The quality of light from the radiance-concept ball clearly outshone the two others. The ones without the radiance concept seemed lacking and less somehow.
Ria added her understanding of radiance to the ‘heavy light’ ball as well, and the girls gasped.
“You can change your spells without recasting them?” Neva asked, surprise and doubt at what was witnessed in her voice.
With a chuckle of amusement, Ria shook her head. “I can, but that’s not what I did. I applied the same ‘radiance’ concept to the custom glyph spell so you could see the difference.”
Ria let the spells dissipate, and Cerena did the same.
“How do you do that?” Neva’s brows scrunched up. “Don’t you have a shadow bloodline?”
“The concept I showed was a truth I discovered while meditating on the nature of shadow and light. I can do the same with shadow, as well.”
Ria made two balls of shadow, one with ‘void’ and one without.
“Bloodlines and custom glyphs can certainly help with understanding… Natural Truths? I think that’s what Administrator Rente called them. But, achieving understanding makes our magic stronger and improves our attunements. Isn’t that why we’re meditating in this garden each week?” She motioned to the trellis of Flaming Lantern Flowers and the concept-filled plants all around them.
The three looked around them as if looking at the plants in the garden and truly seeing them for the first time.
“Oh…”
“I never realized…”
“Instructor Genwald’s challenge was for fire, though…,” Cerena reminded, staying admirably focused on the day’s mission.
A laugh slipped out from Ria at the responses, particularly Cerena’s. “For fire, I think I can also demonstrate the difference. I’ll need to try something first.”
Ria looked inward, again teasing out the properties and instinctual memories of her ‘body’ gate, feeling for that memory of primordial fire. The fire that cooked a dripping-wet grillot alive, boiled a slime pond, melted a lightning-empowered barbarian chief, and oppressed the flames of a third-year fire mage.
A fire unmatched by any fire existing in the world, calling upon the primordial chaos for its fuel, unconstrained by the fabric of the world.
She tightly gathered her energy a safe distance between them and manifested the concept.
A word that was more meaning than sound came to Ria’s lips and she felt energy gather in her lungs and fangs.
“Burn.”
New gasps sounded from the girls as the magic took shape.
When Ria opened her eyes, she was greeted by a wondrous sight. The flaming lantern flowers were lighting up, affected by the presence, or maybe the truths, contained in her flame.