Mortalia

“Wait here,” I tell Aeric, feeling my cheeks begin to warm the longer I look at his adorable face. “I’ll get you a towel.”

I scurry out of the room, once again thinking how happy I am. This must be the very best day of my life.

I’m not gone very long in fetching the towel, maybe two minutes. But when I return to the room, I find Aeric curled on the bench, sound asleep.

My heart melts. I approach softly and kneel beside him. With a tender hand, I brush the silver curls away from his forehead. He doesn’t stir.

I guess Papa did mention they’d been up all night. Perhaps it was cruel of me to drag him around for this long. But I’m glad we got to play together. Already I look forward to tomorrow, when we’ll get to do it all over again.

Gently, I wipe the juice from his face. Aeric scrunches up and the daisy crown slips over his eyes. I lift it from him, so he’s not disturbed, and settle in to watch him sleep.

I love him so much, I think, watching his shoulder rise and fall with his soft breathing. I adore him completely. I want to keep him forever.

I watch him sleep a little longer, enjoying this new warm and fuzzy feeling he gives me before I tiptoe out of the room to find Don, the house steward. He is about my father’s age and build, with thin blond hair. I explain the situation to him and he sighs wearily as he gives the order to prepare a room for Aeric.

“Another of Lord Embervane’s strays,” he mutters to himself as he goes to collect the sleeping boy in his arms. “Well, I suppose the master can afford to be generous. Still, I hope we don’t have any trouble from this one.”

“Why should he make trouble?” I ask defensively, following him to Aeric’s room.

“He’s not our kind, young mistress.”

“What does that matter?” I snap. “I won’t have you or the other servants talking bad about him, Don. What if he hears you?”

“My apologies, young mistress. I meant no disrespect to your little friend.”

“His name is Aeric,” I say when Don’s finished laying him in his bed. I look around the dingy room with dissatisfaction. “Don’t we have better quarters?”

“All the servant’s rooms are the same, young mistress.”

“He’s not a servant. He’s mine. I must talk to Papa about moving him to a better room,” I decide, covering Aeric with a light blanket.

“As you like, young mistress. But this will do for now.”

“I suppose…”

“It’s best you go now, and let him be,” Don says, guiding me out of the room. I follow reluctantly, only because I know he’s right. If I had it my way I think I’d stay and watch Aeric sleep forever…

The day passes on into evening. It’s the weekend so I have no tutors, and I spend my free time in the usual way, though my books and dolls suddenly seem very dull after the morning I’ve had.

I eat supper alone, as usual. Mother is attending some party, Father is busy doing…whatever Father does. When he isn’t sleeping the day away after a long night’s work, he’s always busy with something, the family business, or one of his weird hobbies. I’m sure he must be up by now, after sleeping all day. I’m bored so I decide to go see him.

Father’s personal study is a large room on the third floor. It’s where he spends most of his time, when he’s at home, hunched over his desk, studying trade maps or financial reports.

Candelabra in my hand, I walk down the dark hallway to knock boldly on the big black door. There’s no answer. I open it a fraction and peer inside. Finding the room empty, I let myself in.

I’ve always been fascinated by my father’s study. He collects a lot of oddities from his travels, and countless rare books. That’s where my real interest lies.

Though at the age of eight I’m already a multilingual child prodigy capable even of reading ancient texts, Papa never lets me handle his books. He’s too stingy. Especially when I think some of these volumes must be magic books, books on draconic, the Aizer or the elemental currents. If I could get myself alone with even one of these for an afternoon—

“What are you doing, Talia?”

My blood runs cold and I spin hastily at the sound of my father’s voice. I can hear his displeasure, see it etched into the lines of his face, starkly shaded by the light of his candle.

“Papa. I came to see you.”

“You came to snoop,” he accuses, setting his candlestick beside a three tiered Shagra board and striding over to me to replace the volume I’d been about to pull out. Fixing it in its proper place, he glares down at me.

“What have I told you about entering this room without my permission?”

“That I’m not to do it,” I answer in a small voice before challenging him. “But, Papa, why am I not allowed inside? You keep so many wonderful books in here. As one of the Inborn yourself, surely you understand the draw—”

“I keep more in this room than a few harmless volumes of draconic, young lady. If I say you’re not to enter here without my permission, you are not to enter! There are things in here you have no business looking into!” he says angrily, and I’m startled by how harsh he sounds. It is rare for Father to lose his temper with me. Even rarer for him to raise his voice.

Seeing he’s startled me, he tames himself a little. “All I own already belongs to you, my child. Only this have I withheld from you. You must not question my judgment. For your own safety, you must not come in here again without my permission. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Papa,” I say dejectedly. I’m annoyed. I should like to argue with him, but I already know how it will go. In the end, all I can do is wait until I’m old enough for him to trust with all his secrets.

“Tell me,” he changes the subject after a brief sigh, “did you get along with the half elf child I brought for you to play with?”

“Yes, Papa. I like him very much. We’re already great friends.”

“That’s good,” he says, and I sense he’s pleased. His white hand descends to pat the top of my head. “Aeric is very new to our ways in the Noble District. He will need a lot of looking after, someone to show him the ropes. Promise me you’ll stick close to that boy; I’m counting on you to take care of him.”

“Yes, Papa,” I say, thinking I hardly needed him to tell me that. I wouldn’t leave Aeric now even if I were ordered to.

“Good girl. Now, isn’t it past your bedtime?”

“Will you come tuck me in?”

“I’d like to, Talia, but I’m busy tonight. Nurse will do a fine job of it in my absence, hm?” he says, kissing me distractedly. “Now, go on to bed, and don’t make trouble for the servants.”

“Yes, Papa… Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Talia.”

As I turn to go I notice another figure in the doorway, a tall boy of thirteen, with black hair and eyes and a nose that’s a bit knobby and a little too large for his sunken, acne covered face.

Tin Faltry. I bristle at the very sight of him.

“You sent for me, my lord?” His stupid voice squeaks embarrassingly, and I see him redden even in the shadows.

“Ah, Tin, you’re just in time. Come in, and close the door, will you?”

“Yes, my lord.”

I pass my father’s protégé with my nose in the air. If I thought I’d get away with it, I’d kick him.

I hate this boy. Father spends more time with him than with me, and trusts him with all kinds of secrets. Sometimes I imagine he wishes Tin were his heir, and not me, though why he would want a timid, snotty kid like that I cannot imagine.

In the end, it can only be because he’s a boy. Adults care a great deal about that, for some reason. As if simply being a boy meant he could do a better job managing the estate and Father’s trade business than me.

But I am even more clever and talented than Father knows, with powers he has not yet begun to imagine. He thinks I am on the same level as him, but I am ten, no, a hundred times the Inborn mage he is. And I’ll only grow more powerful. He’ll see; they’ll all see.

No one is more worthy to inherit than me. I won’t hand my birthright over to the likes of Tin Faltry, or anyone else.

The Embervane legacy—is mine.

Oscro

“You sent for me, my lord?”

My young apprentice Tin Faltry is a timid sort, the type one would ordinarily dismiss at a glance. But this quiet, unassuming lad has more talent and magical ability in his little finger than any other Inborn I’ve ever met, with the exception of my own daughter, of course. But I’ve long since taken precautions to keep her power in check. Only a compliant tool is suitable for my purpose. And Mortalia Embervane is anything but compliant.

“Come here, lad. Have a look at these spell scrolls.”

I go to my desk; the scrolls I stole from Rogue Arcana headquarters the other night are still in the messenger bag I carried, sitting out in the open for anyone to see. Careless of me. But I feel relatively certain Mortalia didn’t get into them.

“Can you make use of any of these?” I ask Tin, passing the ancient, priceless papers to his nervous hands.

The boy skims over the draconic letters with dark eyes.

“These spells…” he murmurs. “Remarkable. But none of them…” he flips through to the final scroll, “match my affinities…”

“A shame,” I sigh, and accept the papers again only to stash them in the secret drawer of my desk, where my pesky daughter will never find them. And to think I murdered my last apprentice for those spells in cold blood. Not that it matters, since I found another useful boy the very same night I killed the first.

Aeric. That ability of his will serve me well in keeping my headstrong daughter in check. Though he doesn’t know his own power, I feel certain if he ever feels threatened by the elements, or frightened, just as he did the night before when he canceled Audy’s fireball out of midair, the boy’s ability will manifest again.

A playmate, Mortalia thinks I’ve brought her. A friend.

No. A shackle.

And just like Tin, just like Audy, that boy Aeric will think of me as his savior for getting him off the streets of Alderosh, and do whatever I tell him to.

Just one more useful, loyal cog in the machine of my grand design to one day inherit the true legacy of House Embervane.

Unmatched, unlimited power. And—

Immortality…