“You… she cannot be serious. Surely this is a jest?” Ysta Ssyt looked up from the tiny strip of parchment at Zinniz. She was just a guest at the estate—a low-ranking ussen from a disgraced family!

The red-scaled serpent shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s true. Not only was it sent by her handwriting, but with her magic.”

Ysta felt her hand shaking. The dimly-lit library full of ancient texts seemed to press down against her. She met the servant’s eyes, then uncoiled herself swiftly and fled the room, clutching tightly onto the strip.

In the main hall, she turned and fled for the rear exit, only taking another breath once she felt sun on her scales. All around, the explosive colors of the estate’s garden spun and wavered.

“I don’t… I don’t know any of this. I don’t even really know her.” She coiled around herself tightly, and as Zinniz emerged from the manor behind her, she whipped around to face him. “I can’t do this! I do not mean to spit in the face of her kindness, but there’s absolutely no way I can do this!”

“You must,” Zinniz replied, pulling up beside her and staring off toward the edge of the plaza. “I cannot, nor can the others here. Were the circumstances different, I’m certain a more experienced sigilist would have been chosen.”

“There are plenty!”

“You would no longer be able to stay here, unless they gave permission.”

“I—” Ysta clamped her jaw shut, the rest of the air in her lungs escaping as a whine.

With her personal guards—and best friends—dead, she knew she had no one else she could trust to protect her from her family or their allies. They were watching the estate, and if the barriers failed…

“The succession of ownership can’t be broken…” she whispered. “These sigil arrays—no one else could make them.”

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Zinniz nodded. “Precisely. I’ll admit, I doubted her decision at first as well. But you are an avid learner and an accomplished sigilist, and no one else is here that could manage the estate’s maintenance.”

“Accomplished…” Ysta’s heart fluttered. “But she called me near-worthless and soft-spined!”

“Near worthless,” Zinniz said. “From her, that is a compliment. An acknowledgement that despite her unfortunately deleterious absence in your education, you managed to do at least something right.” He pitched his voice in a familiar way, emphasizing the flowery language, but the accent fell apart at the end.

In just a fraction of a moment, for the barest of glances, Ysta saw pain in Zinniz’s eyes. She dried her own, and tried to pull herself up taller. “If there is no one else… then I must succeed this for the future of both the estate and my own life, yes?”

Zinniz nodded solemnly.

“What would it make me? Surely not a ruler of Uzh?”

The servant shook his head. “She was never a ruler of Uzh. The Temple rules here, albeit distantly. She was a peacekeeper, an arbiter, and a philanthropist. Though she always kept herself too distant from the people for her own good.”

“If I leave, I risk being killed.”

“So you do.”

“Then I won’t do any better.”

“You’ll be vastly inferior in every capacity.” He looked at her, somehow without judgment in his cool eyes.

The bluntness of Zinniz’s words made them more stunning than outright hurtful. Ysta looked back at the manor, then to the garden. “I’ll have much to learn. A hundred dry seasons’ worth.”

“Indeed.”

“Will you and the other servants assist me?”

Zinnia bowed shallowly. “Of course, it is our duty.”

“If this is the only way…” Ysta balled her hands into fists, crushing the missive, and pulled her chin up, staring right at Zinniz.

The red-scaled servant looked back without flinching. “More than that. It is Phaeliisthia’s will.”

“Then… I accept.”

“Good.”

Ysta stared at Zinniz for a long while. There was no flurry of magic. No sign that such an enormous decision had been made. The knowledge in the estate alone could topple empires; its plants could re-seed a barren world. Instead, the birdsong continued uninterrupted, and the faint roar of water didn’t shift in pitch.

Zinniz smiled, a wide, fanged, lamian smile. “Then come. You have much to learn, and precious little time to do so. Perhaps, should you find yourself competent, you may even find yourself capable of realizing your dreams.”

“…my dreams.” Ysta thought about what that would even mean. Beyond surviving her family, and studying sigilcraft, she’d few aspirations. It was safer that way, but now…

“Such an outcome, however—” Zinniz’s smile fell into a smirk. “—is highly unlikely.”