When she broke her arm falling from the roof of her parents’ two-story, they’d given her the good drugs in order to reset the messy break. She felt a bit like that memory: distant and hazy, surrounded by a fluffy sensation of downy comforters. Her body, somewhere far below, still ached and throbbed but she couldn’t really feel it.
In the absence of pain, she drifted in and out of sleep.
Her joints were the first things to really hurt, letting her know her body was not happy with her previous activities. Now that she was calmer, she could feel the ragged edges where her spirit— her mana-self— had grown beyond the confines of its physical roots, spilling into her body like a weed tumbling through a garden. Where mana surged uncontrolled, it lingered like scar tissue between her bones and tissues. Lines like Lichtenberg figures traced the new mana paths that had been forcibly inscribed.
It would hurt for a long while, she thought, until her spirit built up protections again. There was nothing she could do about it, not without help. She wished her mother were there.
That confused her enough to bring her to a full stop.
Duchess Lycrarose was hardly the mothering type. Lisbette had been fed by a wet nurse and raised by nannies as far back as she could remember. The few occasions in which the ducal couple visited with their offspring were stilted, awkward affairs in which the child tried very hard to maintain decorum while the adults pretended politely not to notice its faults. Perhaps when she was younger, they had been warmer to her, but she couldn’t remember that far back.
What were these memories of being tucked into bed by a loving mother? She remembered being cradled and crooned to softly when she was sick. These were the memories of the other one—that woman in the crashing plane. She had a mother who loved her very much and a friend who wanted to see the world together with her.
Their world. It wasn’t her world. It had no knights or dragons (however long dead), no mythic creatures, and certainly no magic. Whatever it was (or had been?), it was not Jor.
Jor. The name resounded like a bell in her skull.
Blades of Jor.
That had been the name of the game the woman loved so dearly! She remembered it, remembered playing it for hours and hours. She had loved that game.
But the Jor in that game was not the one Lisbette knew. It had been a land full of dangers, with a few human bastions clinging to existence between gods and monsters. It was a ruined land, a land torn asunder by some great calamity. Had the setting of the game been back in the Dark era, before the Lady of Light swept the monsters above the Horizon and locked them there?
There hadn’t been anything in the original game that referenced the Empire of Light, where Lisbette was born.
Wait, that wasn’t entirely true. It hadn’t been in the original game, the one to which she was attached, but it had been referenced in the spin-offs that emerged decades after the original game’s debut. The company for which the woman worked had been the one who made the original game. When Blades of Jor experienced a resurgence in popularity, the company sought to capitalize on the opportunity and released a new set of games depicting the world of Jor, along with a remastered copy of the original.
The Empire of Light had been the setting of Young Blades of the Rose. It had been in this game that the character of Lisbette Drakuhl had appeared. It was a romance-focused roleplaying game featuring a very generic heroine battling against the antagonist and a supporting cast of obstacles in order to achieve her happy ending. Lisbette was the rival character who challenged her in academics and in love. As the heroine steadily beat the villainess in each contest, she spiraled ever farther into darkness until the penultimate battle.
In that scene, enraged and broken in defeat, the villainess sacrifices her life and soul to a demon at the request of her mysterious backer, who turns out to be the Grand Duke, the brother of the current empress. The heroine and her love interest, along with assorted people whose affection levels were sufficiently high, then battle the Grand Duke in an epic confrontation.
The story ends, of course, with the heroine marrying whatever boy she romanced.
She had hated it. It hadn’t been horrible, but it had been cliché, with little in the way of the lore and clever writing that the woman had loved so much. It was an obvious money-grab that barely acknowledged its predecessor—it hadn’t even had the same combat or magic system as the original! Slapping “a Tale of Jor” on the cover didn’t make it a sequel game!
Bette was impressed with how much frustration and raw anger filtered through those memories, even through the threshold of distinction that lay between herself and the woman she remembered. It had been really important to her. Consequently, she hadn’t spent much time on Young Blades. She played it because she had to be able to market it, and because she was fiercely loyal to the franchise.
She hadn’t even played all of the routes, just the main storyline with the easiest love target.
That’s my life, though! She wanted to scream. Why hadn’t she played it more thoroughly!?
When had the Grand Duke gotten to the villainess? Had she been tricked or coerced? Was there any route in which the villainess didn’t die horribly at the climax, robbed of her wit and agency by some stupid school-age rivalry? Most importantly: was there anything Bette herself could do to avoid the same fate? Would it be enough to just not compete with the heroine? Or was the Grand Duke’s interference guaranteed? Could she escape from the Grand Duke’s influence at all?
Though they were nominally on the same level (both being dukes, or ducal heirs in her case), the Grand Duke had the distinction of being a member of the imperial family, under the same rights and protections granted to all of the Lady of Light’s line. Assault and slander were two crimes that, if directed at the imperial family, would get anyone the death penalty, even sovereign dukes like the Drakuhl line. If worst came to worst, it could even erupt into a war between Drakuhl and Centre Lux!
She would have to tread carefully. She needed to protect herself. She needed to arm herself. Vague foreknowledge wouldn’t be much use in the years to come, especially not if she was fighting for her life in the background of a silly love story.
Footsteps in the hallway brought her back to her body entirely. The sharp smell of antiseptic pinched her nose. Was she in a hospital? Had she been so badly hurt they needed to take her to one? Hurt… in the plane crash? No, no, that had been a dream. Maybe? Ugh, she didn’t want to think about it. She just wanted to lay here and feel miserable. She didn’t open her eyes, for fear it would trigger the headache again.
The steps were heading towards her.
Someone was coming to her room.
A few someones, it sounded like, and she could barely make out a conversation muffled by the heavy oak door to the chambers.
The door opened.
“…but what caused this, Simun?”
The voice made Lisbette freeze like a startled rabbit. Play dead, something in her whispered. She forced herself to breath normally, deep and slow, as if she were still asleep.
“Typically, people will produce mana throughout their lifetimes, and usually individuals expel a small amount of what they ‘make’ within themselves. There are some individuals who put out more mana than normal—these so-called mana-springs are somewhat well-known. But there’s an opposite condition that is much more rare: your daughter is what is known as a mana-well.”
“From what you’ve said,” the woman’s smooth voice interceded again, “I assume this means she takes in mana rather than expelling excess.”
“Precisely, your Grace.”
The Duchess—her mother, Lycrarose Drakuhl. What was she doing in the children’s wing? Was Lisbette even still in the children’s wing? What had happened after the physician put her to sleep?
“What effect does this have on her? Why has it lead to this?” A deeper, rougher voice asked.
That had to be the Duke, a comfortable step behind his wife as usual, her steady support and guard in all things. There was a swish of fabric, and Lisbette imagined him sweeping his massive arm out to indicate the stick of a girl buried in plush blankets.
What were her parents doing here? The ducal couple were not the sort of people she wanted to meet in sick clothes, and especially not from her bed. Maybe they would just ignore her. Maybe they would let her ‘sleep’ and she could escape this situation with her dignity intact.
“Because she naturally does not allow mana to leave her spirit, her pool of available mana is larger than that of most children her age. Children are normally safe in exploring their spiritual mana, but the young Lady’s spirit is rich in mana that she has been absorbing, likely since infancy,” the doctor explained. “Mana-wells have a superior capacity to convert, purify, and of course, store mana but their capacity for mana control is not similarly bolstered.”
“So, despite being purified mana made native to her spirit, her own mana exceeds her capacity for control and thus has the same effect as a foreign magic surge,” her mother deduced.
“What can we do to correct this?” The Duke asked.
She flinched. ‘Correct’. Fix. How do we fix her, he meant.
I’m not broken, she wanted to say. Except, clearly she was.
“I recommend beginning her magic training early. Normally, the cons of training children outweigh the pros, but in this case, the young Lady will benefit from exercises to enhance her control. Being a mana-well also mitigates many of the risks of starting too early.”
How much mana was hiding somewhere inside her that her internal mana had overwhelmed her body’s capacity for control? Why did her magic feel so jagged and sharp when it rose within her, like it wanted to slice her to ribbons?
“We will see to accelerating her studies, then. You will be on hand for any further incidents of this nature.”
“… yes, your Grace.”
She could almost see the dejected look on his face. It hadn’t been a question; it was an order from the Duchess of Drakuhl. None could defy Lycrarose, not when she spoke in that tone. So still and even, but with danger hidden beneath, like a frozen lake waiting to drag the unsuspecting into icy waters.
Sorry, Physician Simun, she thought with sympathy, babysitting duty for you.
The physician made his bows after being dismissed and slipped out the door, closing it behind him. The quiet click felt far too loud in the room.
“Stop pretending, child, I know you’re awake.”
Lisbette reluctantly opened her eyes. She hadn’t thought she’d be able to feign sleep until her parents left, but she had hoped.
Lycrarose and Durand Drakuhl were startlingly similar—both tall, dark-haired, and sturdy, common traits in those of Northern stock. They wore similar navy uniforms trimmed in black fur with burgundy sashes and belts that held their swords (a rapier in her mother’s case, a claymore in her father’s). Had they just come from the Horizon line?
She swallowed, feeling guiltier by the moment. If they had been called away from their duties by news of their fool daughter’s exploits… she didn’t want to know what her punishment would be like.
The starkest difference between the ducal pair was Lycrarose’s brilliant crimson eyes. They were the defining feature of the Drakuhl lineage, and they marked Lisbette as her true daughter and heir. Her father’s eyes were no less startling in their icy blue hue. Where Lycrarose was haunting and indomitable, Durand was sharp and daunting.
They seemed to be waiting on her to speak, so Lisbette gathered her courage and lowered her head as much as she could. The motion reminded her of the state she was in. Lingering mana pricked her with every twitch.
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“I apologize for not greeting my royal parents. Please forgive this foolish daughter her faults. My actions have reflected poorly on my noble family and drawn you away from your duties. I will correct my behavior.”
That sounded okay, right? She hadn’t stuttered at least.
Her parents always made cold sweat break out on her back.
“Don’t wallow in self-pity, Daughter. We were already departing from the border when the messenger crossed paths with us. You have not disrupted the function of the dukedom too much.” Ouch.
In other words, it was disrupted, but not too badly, so you get let off the hook this time.
“You will begin your lessons immediately. My brother will be your instructor,” the Duchess declared. “He is the highest caliber mage at our disposal. Listen to him, and use him well.”
Uncle Lysander was going to teach her? That… wasn’t so bad. He was a decade younger than his sister, captain of the royal guard, and was as fond of her as any distracted uncle could be. He’d always given her sweets and presents whenever he saw her, which was admittedly not too often.
She bowed her head again, submitting to this decree as she must.
“Do not attempt to practice on your own. Heed your physician and your instructor,” Lycrarose commanded. She had a single streak of white hair that she pushed behind her left ear, seemingly her only concession to the process of aging.
She turned to leave, but Lisbette had one more question, one that burned to be spoken no matter how tense it made her to speak out of turn.
“Where’s Tibitha, Lady Mother? Have you... had her punished?” Lisbette fought to keep her nerves out of her voice. No matter how well she controlled herself, she could never match Lycrarose Drakuhl for sheer unbothered placidity.
The woman glanced back over her shoulder and blinked slowly down at her child, a cat deciding what it wanted to do with the mouse it had found.
“She is your servant,” her mother said finally. “It is your responsibility to punish her as you see fit.”
A bit of the tension in Bette’s shoulders loosened without her say so.
Tibitha was more than someone who played with and waited on Bette. She had been a gift and a test from her parents—her first servant, all to herself and subject wholly to her will. She was the first member of Bette’s retinue, a potential confidante and right hand to mold into the servant she needed.
But she was also a test of Bette’s capacity for and style of leadership. The way she treated her first servant would represent how she would treat the whole of the kingdom. It would determine if she could be allowed more power, or if she she had to be curtailed. It was the difference between learning to fly the way she wanted and being hobbled and leashed to a stone.
Somewhere inside, Bette had been sure she would lose her only friend. She would lose any credibility with the Duke and Duchess.
Instead, it seemed that she was being given the chance to correct her mistakes and to grow her authority. Lycrarose had said ‘your physician’ and ‘your instructor’. ‘Your servant’. It was the same, wasn’t it? Had her mother really given the lead physician and her own younger brother to her daughter’s care? Was this another test? Something harder, something with bigger consequences for failure, but higher rewards all the same?
Lisbette had people assigned to care for her, like the maids who did the washing or the ones who cleaned and dusted the wing she lived in. Those personnel were ultimately her mother’s people, though. They cared for Lisbette in the same way they cared for the castle and the horses in the stables; they maintained the ducal properties for their master.
Tibitha, and now the doctor and the captain of the royal guard, were part of Lisbette’s people. They were her responsibility. Her hands, her confidantes, hers to better or break at her own expense.
‘You might not be ready for it,’ her mother was saying, ‘but you are entering a new world. You must be willing to face it. You must learn to make use of your tools. I will open the door, but you must walk through it.’ And of course, she was correct. This was not the time to coddle her child and save her from herself; it was time for her to learn to save herself.
Bette bowed her head, clenching her hands together as if in prayer.
I understand, she thought. I won’t let you down. I will face this, and I will rise above.
Her emergence into the world of education, of magic manipulation, and her leaking soul with its impossible imprints from another world—though obstacles of different magnitudes, they were the same in the end. They were tests to be bested, trials to be survived, and battles to be won.
She would make steel from iron. She was Drakuhl, after all.
----------------------------------------
Alone for the first time in a while, Lisbette took the opportunity to organize her thoughts.
Reincarnation was not unknown in Jor—it was believed that souls circulated much like mana did through the veins of the world. They were cleansed and returned to earthly forms after death. It was not unheard of, even, for some people to remember bits and pieces of their previous lives in Jor.
However, Bette had never heard of a soul migrating from an entirely different world. She would have to look farther into it when she had the time…
…which meant it was necessary for her to attend Temple lessons again, along with all the other things she now had to do.
There were so many things she would have to do: the best way to prepare for whatever lie ahead was to polish her combat and magic skills, to become self-sufficient in every way possible. She didn’t know how or why she was to be targeted by the Archduke, but she wouldn’t just take it lying down. Education at the Royal Rose Academy for Magicians began at age eighteen for most magic users. As she was six years old, she had twelve years and the first semester of school to prepare.
It sounded like a long time, but skill took time to develop. Did she have enough of it to become well-rounded? What kind of assets could she accumulate and how did she insulate them from whatever nasty tricks the Empress’s younger brother had in store? Could she avoid being the sacrifice for his plans, or was there some reason it had to be her?
Her clasped hands trembled above her chest. Bette chewed her lip as she turned that thought over in her mind, examining it from every angle. Could she afford to let someone else take her place? Or did she have to avert the crisis entirely?
What can I do? What can I afford not to do?
A knock at the door interrupted.
“Your Highness, may I enter? I must finish examining you now that you have awakened.”
The physician, Simun (as her mother had called him), had returned following her parent’s departure. She wondered if he’d had some last words with them before they left the children’s wing.
She steeled herself. He was part of her retinue now.
“Enter,” she called, forcing herself to straighten her spine.
The physician slipped through the door and closed it quietly behind him. He was a short, reedy old man with small spectacles perched on the tip of his nose. The white robes of a healer swallowed his thin arms and calloused, wrinkled palms as he bowed low before her.
“Your Highness, if I may be permitted to do so, I will approach and touch you so I might examine your health.”
To his credit, he made no grumbles about his new posting. Surely a man talented enough to be in the direct employ of the Duchess Drakuhl didn’t have to waste his skills nursemaiding a six year old, but he bore it with the same quiet dignity he’d exhibited since the first time she saw him at her annual physical.
Why ask again when he’d already touched and used magic on her before, she didn’t know, but he held his bow until she granted her assent. He gestured to a chair and, when she nodded, he brought it over to the side of her bed. He tucked his robes neatly beneath himself as he sat, and his eyes when they found her own were a curiously intense gray.
“My young Lady, you have suffered what we know as a ‘magic surge’,” he began. “Yours is unusual because of its origin from your own spirit, but much of the effects remain the same. Channelling a large amount of mana without preparation can quickly overwhelm the body’s natural capacity. This can cause dire consequences, especially when unrefined mana is introduced to still budding channels. Raw, unfiltered mana like that which exists naturally is especially dangerous to the physical body. Do you know why this is?”
She thought for a moment. “A person’s native mana is produced in the soul… so it carries the same form and feels”— she paused, searching for a word, “—more natural?”
Was it like blood types? The body didn’t recognize blood of a different type and so violently rejected it? That conjured the image of mana as a sphere of light with little sticky bits all over it.
She looked to Simun expectantly.
“Yes. Mana that has been taken into your soul becomes your own—it assumes the same principles of form your spirit has before it reaches the soul. Because your spirit is the connective tissue between body and soul, this allows mana to flow from the soul into the body with ease, and vice versa,” he confirmed. “Filtered or purified mana is, essentially, ‘smooth’. It flows well through the channels carved in your body by your spirit. As one grows, those channels change and adapt, but they do so slowly.”
“Unrefined mana is rough, in comparison. The delicate mana channels in our bodies cannot handle a large amount of it in short time. This ‘rough’ mana has a tendency to clump and catch.”
“Like a blood clot!” She realized, eyes shining with victory.
Simun blinked, pushing his small spectacles back up his nose.
“Y- yes my Lady, quite like a blood clot! How impressive that you know of such things!”
Bette frowned. Was that not common knowledge? Or was it simply that knowing about it as a six year old was unexpected? She tried to remember where she’d learned of blood clots. Was it something from her past life?
She affected a haughty demeanor. “Of course I know about this. I am the first daughter of the North.”
When in doubt, bluster.
“Quite,” Simun agreed, blinking rapidly. Was that a flash of respect in his eyes?
“R-right, well then, one of the effects of this clotting is a dangerous build-up. Mana is forced to divert along new paths, and like a river, it can carve through the new land it is offered.”
The image of a knife carving bits of her flesh made her shudder.
“Should my native mana not be ‘smooth’, though, as you say?”
“If it has been purified normally, through the filter of the spirit to the soul and vice versa, it will acquire a different form that the body is used to. But that doesn’t completely smooth out its roughness. Mana must be further purified through great effort, or with magical tools, to become fully refined.”
“Your Highness has not the training nor the tools to complete this stage, so the mana you pull from your spirit is native, but not completely pure. Even such small rough edges, when combined with overwhelming pressure, will cause clotting and tributaries to form.”
Ah, she got it, now! So her body was a spigot and the soul was a pipe, but because the source behind was so big and heavy, pulling mana from it put so much pressure on the pipe that the spigot basically got blown off.
“So the lingering pain is actually mana-clots,” she mused, absently touching her wrist.
Simun looked alarmed. “Your Highness, are you still in pain? Where does it still hurt!?”
His sudden ferocity startled her. He reached out to grab her face, tilting her head this way and that, asking her to open her mouth or breathe deeply while he listened to her back.
When he prodded a spot of muscle near her spine, a sharp stab of magic made her yelp. He pulled his hands away, startled, but immediately focused in on the issue.
“Your Highness, where does it hurt the worst?”
How did she say “everywhere” without sounding like she was whining?
Bette half-shrugged her shoulders, then winced. He misinterpreted the movement.
“That shoulder?” He asked for confirmation, already reaching for the joint.
His hands were cold but professional as they rotated her little arm, feeling along the skin for who knows what indication. After a moment, he made a small “mm” or discovery.
“There are still clots– that’s very, well. This means the expansion was near double what I thought,” he muttered. “But why did it close in this manner…?”
“What? What does that mean?” Bette asked from her position under the physician’s arm. She was sure he was working with all due diligence but this was becoming too much to bear.
“Your Highness!” He began, sounding far too excited about her injuries. “This mana shard is stranded!”
“What!” What the hell does that mean!?
“This clot, as you called it, is the result of a tributary overflowing, but at some point the tributary itself closed up around it! It’s a remarkable display of adaptation from a mana system!”
Bette’s nose scrunched and her eyebrows twitched. She was fighting back irritation. Something in her, the remnant of a normal six year old that somehow survived both noble training and the recollection of an entire lifetime, wanted to smack the physician in his bald head and scream until he left.
He’s part of my circle now, she reminded herself. We don’t throw tantrums at retainers.
No matter how much they were asking for it.
“Physician, do your job,” she hissed, “or unhand me!”
Simun seemed to realize where he was and precisely who he was contorting into a pretzel. He tripped over the chair in his haste to scramble backwards, sending both himself and the chair tumbling to the ground.
She slapped a hand over her mouth, determined not to laugh at someone else’s misfortune.
While the physician touched his head to the floor and babbled apologies, the door to her room flew open and in tumbled a pair of guards.
“Your Highness! Are you alright?”
“Your Highness, what was that noise?”
They took in the young mistress, ruffled and red-faced with suppressed emotion, and the cowering old man on the ground, and came to the entirely wrong conclusion.
“Your Highness, has this man wronged you?”
The other guard seized the physician by the collar of his robe and hoisted him off the ground. The man yelped indignantly, but the guard shook him like a ragdoll.
“Has he displeased you, Princess? Shall we throw him in the dungeon?”
Bette threw herself off the bed, ignoring her protesting limbs, and snarled, “Unhand my physician! You do not enter my room without my permission! Get out! Get out, get out right now!”
She kicked the one holding her doctor in the shin, for all other good that did. He was wearing shin guards. Still, perhaps startled, the man dropped the physician and backed away, bowing over his waist to her. The other knight had his hands up as though warding off a wild beast.
“F- forgive us, your Highness. We only wanted to ensure your safety.”
“It has been assured!” She pointed to the door.
“Your Highness– !”
She pointed with greater fury, limbs trembling with exhaustion and rage.
The guards didn’t argue again. They practically fled her room, shutting the door behind them.
Bette stamped her foot. Then she fell to her knee, felled by the shock of pain that hit her knee. She felt tears well up in her eyes. She closed them, biting her lip.
“Your Highness!”
The man scrambled to her side, not bothering to fully stand.
“Your Highness, forgive me,” he begged, hands finding the offending joint and massaging the pain from her leg with a warm glow of magic. “I’ve shown you a disgraceful countenance. I allowed my emotions to overwhelm my reason.”
Bette sniffed, hoping she didn’t sound too much like she was fighting tears.
“You are forgiven,” she allowed. Then, after a moment: “We’re both a little overwrought.”
The physician chuckled.
“Yes, I suppose so. You have more cause than I, your Highness. I’m sorry that I missed these shards on my first examination. Your body has a remarkable capacity for self-regeneration—it appears to have dissolved most of the underdeveloped pathways forged by runaway mana.”
But it still left behind the clots that caused the breaks in the first place? That was remarkable, all right. Remarkably useless.
“I’m glad I was here to help,” the man said, almost to himself. “This kind of damage isn’t typical in young ones. Another physician might not have noticed in time. Your Highness might have suffered longterm impairment.”
Bette shuddered. She was now glad he was here as well. The physician Simun was going to be an integral part of her circle. Bette did not want to suffer her whole life because of stupidity.
The process of finding and breaking all the mana shards that formed within her took hours. Bette, for her part, merely lay down and allowed the man to poke and prod at her. It hurt a little, but once he had settled into the routine, the work went quickly. It was soothing, in a way, almost like a massage. She fought to keep her eyes open, but the siren call of sleep was too strong after such a taxing day.
She closed her eyes and slept.