As soon as I leave the building it hits me.

  I’m a member of the STK.  I actually have a high magical capacity.  I’ll be earning a steady income just by being alive.  And Lillia, I’ll be able to buy medicine for her!

  Maybe I’ll even have extra, and buy some new clothes, or those little cakes Mother and I used to love to eat.

  My mouth waters at the thought.

  Mother used to be a noble.  Women take the social status of their husbands, so when she married father, she was demoted to ‘commoner’.  She wasn’t used to it, but she loved Father, so she made do.  I was born into the commoner lifestyle, but back then we were much more well off then we are now.

  I had my clothes made out of expensive fabrics, I didn’t need to make my own food, and we even owned a few books, and expensive purchase usually only owned by nobility.

  Certainly we were rich by commoner standards.

  Still, Mother and I were spenders.  We loved to shop in expensive stores, and eat exotic foods.  Of course, I haven’t done any of that for years.  For four years to be exact.

  The royal family, (curse their name and all they stand for,) requested all men aged sixteen to forty-five eathcycles, must join the Raphilian Imperial Army in the war against an opposing country, Briallè.  So Father was drafted into the army, front lines.  He still managed to make money for us, but just before he was supposed to be dismissed and sent back home, his camp was attacked by the Briallien army.  He was taken as a hostage along with his fellow soldiers, but Raphilia refused to surrender.

  He was killed, because the royal family didn’t care enough about their people, about their subjects, to surrender or even just make a deal with Briallè.

  And then Lillia fell sick and I quit school, instead going around and begging for work.  We bought medicine, and she got better, but every year it’s something else.  The pox, influenza, coughing and shivering and sweat.

  Lillia is so small and weak.

    This year, it is the worst yet.  She has caught the plague, the dreaded sickness for all of my status.  The cost of the medicine is so high that Mother has barely slept all week, working, and we still have not even earned a quarter of the full cost of the cure.

Father had always warned me to avoid the STK committee.  He’d say, “Do you want to become a dog for those nobles?”

  I don’t know why he was so against it, because it had always seemed like such an easy way to earn money, but after his death I thought it best to honor his memory and wishes.

  However there is nothing I can do now.  Magic is the only thing I’m really good at.

  Sorry, Father.

  I’ve let you down.