“What!?” Zara said in surprise, as she looked around the room and over the complicated script array on my arm. “You’re saying she came up with this? But she can’t even write yet!”

“I can write! Tomar taught me!”

While it was true that he had taught her a few things, saying that she could actually write was a bit of a stretch, since they had only been at it for a couple of days out in the Wildlands so far. I could let that slide for now though. After all, it wasn’t true that she had developed this entire script either, although the core of it was indeed hers. The very first script she had ever written on her own was one where she had let it rain, which was what sparked this idea.

“Like I said, your sister has a remarkable talent for reading, writing, and understanding the sigils. With a script like this, people would not only be able to water a field more quickly and easily, but also much more efficiently. Granted, that hadn’t been her goal,” I said with a chuckle, “but nevertheless.”

She looked around the room once more with unbelieving eyes. “Yes, I can see how that would be useful...”

“And that’s not all. Far from it. We have barely scratched the surface of what we can do with the scripture sigils. Just as a hypothetical, how would you feel about never having to go to a water source ever again, but having the water right at home, at all times?”

“That... would save a lot of time,” she said.

“Those are the kinds of things Sourcerers will work on.”

The most impressive script would presumably be the one that let us decide people’s Callings, and telling her that we had developed it ourselves would also show off what could be done with scripts, but I kept this to myself for the time being, since the ritual was still closely related to the gods in people’s minds, and I was a “divine messenger” after all.

“You’re proposing that Riala keeps studying the sigils to do things like this?”

“I am. I feel like this could be beneficial for all of us.”

Zara looked at me with uncertainty.

“We would still have to discuss the details of course. Our limited time is also an issue.”

“What do you mean?”

“While we were out in the Wildlands, we were able to do lessons whenever we had some time to spare, but our schedule has filled up as of late. Hm... I suppose it might actually be beneficial if Riala could stay with us every now and then... So we can teach her whenever there’s some time, and in the mornings and evenings if need be.”

“You... you would want her to live here?”

“There would be advantages...” I said. “A live-in apprenticeship so to speak.”

“I’m sure you mean well, Lilly, but I can’t imagine giving my sister over to the temple, where she’s never going to see her family again!”

Oops... I forgot about that little detail.

If I told Zara that her sister was supposed to live at the temple, similar to priests, she would naturally assume the same rules applied, and children of priests rarely, if ever, saw their family. At least until they were all reunited at the temple.

“Oh! I’m sorry, that’s a misunderstanding. I didn’t mean to imply that she would live the life of an upcoming priestess. Of course Riala would be free to come and go as she pleases, just like you could visit whenever you like. She would just live closer to us, to optimize her study time.”

‘Why do people make such a big deal out of not being able to see your family? It’s not that bad.’

Shush, you. I know very well that you aren’t happy with the relationship you have with your parents.

“Still...” Zara said. “Not to mention that I wouldn’t be able to afford boarding and lodging for both of us. Especially if she didn’t help at home.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that, she will naturally earn a salary.”

“She will?” Zara asked, surprised.

“I will?” Riala asked happily.

“Yes. She’s going to be an apprentice, and learn from us, but it’s also going to be work, which needs to be compensated. Think of it like this, she would simply start her job a few years early, and she would stay at her work a few nights a week to get more done.”

“Hm...”

I knew that Zara would never agree to this right away, and that she would be hesitant to part with her sister at all, but it was a rather reasonable suggestion in my mind, and the idea of your ward finding work and even leaving your house at some point was natural. She also wouldn’t have to work as much if Riala wasn’t as dependent on her sister any longer, which meant that her life shouldn’t become any more difficult. On the contrary. And she also seemed to respect and trust me to a degree, so leaving her in my care might not be such a stretch. The only issue was that she wouldn’t see her sister as much.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Please take your time to think this proposal over,” I said, before she could think of refusing. “It’s a big decision.”

I stood up and looked at her, signaling that the conversation was over.

“Oh, uhm...” she stammered.

“I apologize, but we need to start our day as well now. Would it be okay if we spoke again soon?”

“... Yes.”

“Riala, please go with your sister, will you?”

“Huh? But—” she started. However, when I looked at her pointedly and gestured towards Zara with my eyes, she understood what was going on. “Hmph... Okay,” she said, acting dejected.

As I gently hurried Zara along, Riala hopped off the bed, took her bag, and left the room with her sister. They were gone as fast as they had come.

“Phew. Now she just needs to soften her sister up a little. What do you think?” I asked Berla.

“Hm... Knowing Riala, she’s not going to let that rest until she has what she wants. I think it might work. And I think you need to get some towels...”

“Oh... Heh, sorry about that, I just needed—”

“Now, please.”

“Alright, alright...”

***

Despite what I had told Zara, we didn’t actually have a lot to do today. It was the last day of the week, “Sunday,” so to speak, and it was the first day since we came back that getting any actual work done would be tricky. Once a week, the town practically came to a standstill, and barely anyone worked anymore, except for a few people in critical positions, like the guards. On one hand, this meant we could only get some office work done at most, but on the other, it opened up our schedule to do something fun instead, which was very welcome. Especially after some manual labor.

“Alright, done,” I said as I finished drying off the floor.

“Thank you,” she said. “Please try not to flood our room...”

It’s not like it got so wet that it would’ve been any kind of problem, and it would’ve certainly dried by itself, but apparently Berla wasn’t a fan.

“I’ll try,” I said with a chuckle. “Are you going to lie down now?”

“Hmhm, what are your plans?”

“I was thinking of doing a little experiment,” I said and kissed her goodbye. “See you later.”

Since we were trying to spend as much time as possible together, Berla had started staying up at night and got some sleep in the morning, when Lilana was awake and I was busy anyway.

As I left the room, I briefly glanced back at her as she turned around on the bed, and then finally closed the door. I hadn’t taken another step yet, when Bren suddenly spoke up. “Lilly, I’m sorry about earlier.”

“Hm? Oh, because of Riala? Don’t worry about it, she’s always welcome. You don’t need to stop her.”

“Understood.”

Our guards, and Bren in particular, were giving it their all to be decent bodyguards, but their inexperience was apparent, and I felt like he was a little too eager to please me, and too worried about potentially making a mistake. Outside of a stuffy speech here and there I had always tried to be casual with them, because I wasn’t a huge fan of these stiff kinds of interactions, where your underlings constantly bellowed “Yes, sir!” and “No, sir!”

“You know you can relax a little around me, right?”

“I’m just trying to do this right,” he said, somewhat uncertain.

It was their first time doing a job like this, and the way he was acting would have certainly been right for the king or the High Priest. Actually, maybe this would have already been too casual for them.

“Of course,” I said with a sigh. “Just know that I’m not going to rip your head off just because of some presumed mistake.”

“Understood.”

So you say...

At some point, we would potentially have to tell a few people some of our secrets, because it would otherwise become difficult to explain what was happening around them. When I left Lilana, she would naturally act a little differently than I had, and instead, Tomar would take on her previous persona and take the leading role. He was always by Lilly’s side, and even led some of our talks with people, so it wouldn’t appear too weird, but our guards in particular would have to be confused once this happened. Not to mention that Berla would naturally come with us, who had been glued to Lilly’s side so far, and the guards would have to at least be suspecting that we were an item, even if we didn’t make a public show of it. If we did reach a point where this discussion had to happen, I wanted to be on friendly terms with them. Good thing making friends is my strong suit! Ugh...

Walking down the hallway and around a corner, I saw a door with another guard in front of it. “Hey, Garn. Is he up?”

“Morning, Lilly. I haven’t heard anything yet.”

Knocking on the door didn’t yield any response, and when I opened it, he was still lying in bed. “Hey, Tomar!” I called.

“Hrgh... Huh? What?” he said sleepily.

“Get up, experiment time.”

“... Isn’t it the eighth...? I thought we wouldn’t be working today.”

“It’s not work, it’s a fun pastime.”

“Right... fun... What time is it?”

“It rang four a little while ago.”

“Ugh. Okay, I’m up,” he said, swinging himself out of bed, half-naked.

‘Uhm, Miles...’ Lilana said.

“Right. I’ll wait outside.”

“Hmhm...”

Tomar had never been an early riser and usually woke up much later than Riala, Berla, Reurig, or Lilana. I had welcomed this when I was with him, because it gave me more time to do experiments at night, but now I had to essentially kick him out of bed every morning. Sleeping past four o’clock in the morning, can you imagine?

The average workday started at four in Alarna, which meant that most people had to get up at three to make it. They would then work seven to eight hours until ten or eleven, and have about four hours left in the day until they needed to get some sleep again. At first I had been somewhat annoyed by this schedule and the world’s sixteen hour days, but I got used to it surprisingly quickly, because if you pictured a round clock from earth, but with sixteen hours instead of twentyfour, the usual times when things happened still lined up. Noon was noon, midnight was midnight, people got up when the hour hand was somewhere around the bottom, they would get off work when it was somewhere around the right, and go to bed somewhere around the left. Really, all that was different was the amount of time that passed in between these events.

After a few minutes, the door to Tomar’s room opened and he stepped out, while rubbing his eyes.

“So... what do you want to do?” he asked.

“I thought we could pay Oryn a visit.”

‘Eh? Why him!?’

“Oryn...?” Tomar asked while yawning.

“Yup. I figure he would be crazy enough to agree to an experiment that could kill him.”

“Wait... what?”