Sylvie and Loren were arguing in his private study. She was finally well enough to walk around and get back into condition from her long battle with Nettle fever. Loren had asked her to meet with him today and forgo using her mage senses. She'd complied, and was ensconced in one of the more comfortable chairs he had. She could tell it was velvet, and would normally wiggle with pleasure at the amount of padding. 

However, at the moment her jaw was clenched, and she was nearly spitting out her words. "The answer is still no, Loren. I won't let the med mage Restore my eyes. I get around and live just fine using my mage senses."

"Do you think I don't see the pain on your face when you try to look at something and realize you can't actually see it? Or the frustration when you have to use a Vision spell just to tell the differences in the colors of chalk or thread or whatever for your spells? Or even just to know what people look like?"

"Loren, I am blind. I have been blind for over ten years. I know how to deal with it, and have been." Her voice was overly patient. 

"You shouldn't have to deal with it. Let the med mages Restore your eyes."

"They can't!" Sylvie shouted.

Loren stared at her. "What? Of course they can."

"No, not for me." Her tone was resigned and factual.

"Sylvie, it's a simple spell."

Sylvie sighed. "I know that I told you I'd been mage-blasted by a dragon."

"Yes, and any half-decent med mage should have been able to Restore you."

"I was in the Golden Guard. I had access to Lord Durant, the best med mage in the country." 

"Then there's no reason for you to be blind now. He should have taken care of it ten years ago." Loren's voice reached a new pitch of frustration.

"Loren..." Sylvie trailed off, hesitating. "I don't like to talking about this, but since you won't stop badgering, I'll tell you."

"Good, and it'd better be a good reason."

"I'd been with the Golden Guard four years at that point, I think. A dragon went rogue and we were sent into the Honeycomb. It was as nasty a bit of caves as could be. There was no way to sneak up on the creature, and it had the blood madness."

"Good Gods." Loren breathed. Blood madness was something that could happen to any magical creature as it got overly aged. If it tasted blood, it would go on a magical and physical rampage. Loren had once had to deal with a blood mad magic fox. He'd come out of it with a healthy respect for magic creatures of any sort. He hated to think what blood madness would do to a dragon.

Sylvie swallowed hard. "Well, it also had either still had some intelligence left or the cursed luck to choose to nest in the central keystone arches of the Honeycomb. If a large enough mage-blast were allowed to happen, the whole thing would have collapsed."

"You couldn't ground it? You were in caves."

"It called the Honeycomb for a reason, Loren. It's a pile of rock that's very precariously balanced. That dragon's mage blast would have destroyed everything in the cave system and killed everybody with me. A full contingent of the Golden Guard would have died that day if I hadn't acted. So I..."

Loren waited while Sylvie took a couple deep breaths.

"I grounded the mage-blast in myself."

Loren's mouth opened and closed. He didn't know what to say. Grounding a spell in yourself required either insanity or a lot of knowledge or maybe both.

Sylvie shook her head. "It completely blinded me, but I'd been using my mage senses as well, so I wasn't helpless. In that moment, the dragon let down its guard just long enough. I put my swords in its brain. I don't remember much beyond that until I woke in the med mage's healing quarters in the castle."

"And with you being as powerful as you are, and the addition of the dragon magic..."

"Yes. You gain the power of the spell permanently entwined with your magic. Unfortunately that means that any spell I make, no matter how small is..."

"Enhanced by dragon magic. You'd end up blasting your eyes with every single spell anyway."

"Right, and breaking the Darkening spell five years ago didn't help matters any." Sylvie's tone was wry.

"You did what?" Loren's voice cracked. Unfortunately, his wasn't the only voice that echoed in the room.

Sylvie froze. She'd been too focused on the argument with Loren to pay attention to her surroundings without her mage senses in play. She took a breath, and with it came the scent of leather and metal. She let her breath out slowly, then sat back in her chair. Here was an opportunity to lead the conversation away from the Darkening curse.  She took it. “So that's why you asked me not to use my mage senses. You could have said you wanted me to meet with someone. You didn't have to trick me into it.”

“Hah. You quiz me every single time I want you to meet with someone. 'It's too dangerous,' is your favorite saying, I swear.”

“Does Traitor Hill ring a bell? You can't have everybody and their neighbor knowing I'm in the Capital city, no less than 20 yards away from the castle if I hop a wall or two.”

“This is one person you don't have to worry about.”

She thunked her head against the back of the chair. “Loren...”

“He's right. I never believed you actually created that curse in the first place, Sylvie.” Lord Hillyard's voice rumbled like the man had gargled with gravel.

She gasped in surprise, and opened her mage senses to sense the area around her again. The man sat on the other side of the table, where he'd been silent until now. “I never pegged you as one for leather armor, I'm used to you in mage robes.”

“Who do you think that indoor practice arena was set up for in the first place? The one you used as a child, that is.”

“What?” Sylvie was confused. “As a child, I...” She trailed off.

“You were introduced the sword at age four. At six, when you should have been tested for your mage gift, all of us were at the front line of that idiotic piece of nonsense that's still going on.”

Sylvie coughed in surprise.

“Of course, since you were and are a powerful mage, even without the dragon magic added in, you wanted to figure out your own magic and how to use it. So you started exploring my research library.”

“Yes, yes, and by ten I'd met the Spider Witch.”

Lord Hillyard chuckled. “Yes. She kept her word, and didn't say a thing about it to me until yesterday, when she stopped me and asked if I was going to stop being an idiot about my daughter.”

Sylvie groaned and put her face in her hands. “Hana Menin is a terror.”

“Did you think she wouldn't be?  She got rid of her very last betrothal by dumping live spiders on him in court.”

Sylvie lifted her face up, grinning. “Is that how she got the name of the Spider Witch? She never told me.”

“Just like you never told me you'd joined the Golden Guard.”

With that, Sylvie's face shuttered. “Yes. I preferred that to the letter I got from you when I turned sixteen stating that I was betrothed and that a med mage would be there in two days to lock my powers.”

There was an uncomfortable silence that Sylvie let stretch on. Both Loren and Lord Hillyard shifted in their seats. Finally Sylvie stood up. “I'm not feeling too well, Loren. I'm headed back to rest.”

“Sylvie...” Lord Hillyard's voice was hesitant.

Sylvie turned toward him. “If you had bothered to look for your daughter at all, you would have found me with relative ease. Yes, Sylvie Goldenbough is my mage name, but I started using it when I finally learned how to use my Powers properly from Hana. But, you didn't search for me, Hillyard. When I left, I kept tabs with people, and you didn't even send another letter. The med mage came, and left when he realized I was nowhere around, and I know he had to have told you I was gone.”

“You don't understand. I couldn't let all and sundry know that my daughter was missing.”

Sylvie snorted. “You're right, I don't understand. You're a King's Adviser, connected to the Golden Guard. You know that the Golden Guard isn't some do-good-er outfit determined to provide justice and hope for all. You know the Golden Guard is the go to for some projects that will never be spoken of or known by the public. So, no, I don't understand why you couldn't send somebody to search for me. I'm 30 years old, and this is the first time you figured out I'm your daughter. Not only that, but somebody else had to tell you.”

“You can't just send the Golden Guard out on a personal mission.”

“Oh, really? All you had to tell them was that you were worried that I'd been kidnapped, and that the kidnappers might hold me as leverage to use you against the King. When I was in the Golden Guard, we got plenty of missions like that and went out on them all the time. When you come up with the real reason, I might be willing to listen to you. Good night.” The door slammed behind her.

The two men looked at each other. Loren sighed and sank back into the blue velvet of his office chair. “She has a point, Hillyard.”

Hillyard groaned and scrubbed his fingers through his gray-tipped hair. “That went the exact opposite of the way I wanted it to go.”

“So what is the real reason?” Loren pushed a tray of mints towards Hillyard.

Hillyard absentminded grabbed some and popped them in his mouth. “That year Vanihan made a real push into Gamriel. Her betrothed died on the front lines the day after I sent the letter. Then med mage told me she was gone, but that the Spider Witch had assured him that she was well and could be found again at need. He also said that the Spider Witch made it very clear that Tr...Sylvie's powers would not be locked.”

“So you didn't search for her for fourteen years?” Loren's voice was disbelieving. “Hillyard, there's more to it than that!”

“Of course there is. I just can't tell you, or her, or anyone. Ever.” Hillyard's voice was thick with frustration.

Loren sighed. “Magic is both a blessing and a curse when it keeps the truth from your friend and daughter.”

Hillyard's eyes closed. “Yes, you understand.”

“I am a mage too, you know.”

Hillyard snorted. “Your little project here could hardly be called a mage school, and you could hardly be called a mage.”

After some more banter back and forth, Hillyard left the Timeos order's main temple. He walked along the road aimlessly, considering his options. Now that he knew where his daughter was, it was a relief. However, she'd been declared a Traitor. If he didn't tell the King, he could be next to her on Traitor Hill when she was executed. Also, if anyone found out that Sylvie was actually his daughter, things would get even more dangerous than they already were. 

He stared at the stars blindly for a moment before blinking in surprise and grinning.  She really was his daughter.  She'd managed to completely make him and Loren ignore that little tidbit about her being the one to break the Darkening curse five years ago.  His eyes narrowed.  It was time to look at the alter involved in the incident again.  It wouldn't be good if the wrong information was retrieved from it.