What We Do to Survive

I was angry. Very angry. Not just at whatever fools had decided to mess with my Lea, but also with myself. I could have done something about this, should have done something. I could have been more proactive, more insistent that Lea train in combat magic. I could have covered her home in wards and alarms spells, given my dearest friend something even half as effective as my slave’s emergency beacon. I could have done something. Anything. Just a little bit more and maybe it would have been enough.

But I hadn’t. I hadn’t been careful enough, insistent enough, paranoid enough. I’d started investigating her earlier attackers, the five nobles who had ambushed my Lea in the streets, who had made her bleed and put fear and hopelessness into her eyes, but only that. I thought I had more time. I’d found their identities, where they lived, and some other basic information, but that was it. I had been waiting for things to die down a little more, for my schedule to free up enough that I could take care of them silently and subtly. This wasn’t Avalon, I’d told myself. I could be slow and methodical about this, there was no need to rush. I’d been a fool.

They were going to pay for this. I didn’t care if it was all of them or just one lone actor. They would suffer like Lea had suffered. I would tear down their names, burn their homes to ashes, and teach them the true meaning of pain. The streets would run red with their blood and–

Miranda’s hand gently brushed against my elbow and I felt her step up behind me, pressing her chest gently into my back and her cheek against my shoulder. I exhaled sharply through clenched teeth. With an almost agonizing effort of will, I brutally crushed my seething mana back down into the dense sun at the center of my chest. Almost instantly I felt the difference, my frayed circulations snapping back into place and the mental enhancements I kept running at all times returning to their usual gentle cycles.

I inhaled slowly, then exhaled again. Right. No. That wasn’t who I was. Reckless anger had once served me well, rage giving me the strength to forget and energy to move and run and live, but not anymore. I was not that scared child anymore. I was Orion, of Avalon. A trained and disciplined mage. Father’s voice whispered in my ears and I closed my eyes as I forced myself to calm down and think. ‘A raging bonfire will burn hot and fast, consuming all the fuel you feed it in a single night. A good hunter will only feed the fire what it needs, to save fuel for the cold nights ahead.’

I couldn’t be stupid about this. A reckless mage was a dead mage, Professor Zim had made that point abundantly clear during my first year. The image of the unflappable professor calmly wiping blood off his papers after the first student in our class blew her arms trying to cast her very first spell was etched into my mind. ‘The foolish arrogance of youth,’ he had said, sadly shaking his head even as she slowly bled out on the floor, ‘One cannot rush progress. Calm mages live, tense fools leave stains on my desk.’

I fell back on the very basics that I had ground into my head back in my first year. What did I want and how could I get there?

First, what did I need to do? I needed to find who had ordered my Lea to be attacked. I highly doubted that the person behind things had been involved directly. That would be a rather silly decision, and the brief descriptions I’d heard from Lea’s uncles didn’t match anyone I knew who might have a motive. No, if this was done by nobles, they would have delegated. It was entirely possible the men who had done the deed where three or more layers removed from whatever slime was behind this.

Next, how could I accomplish my goal? I could see a few routes in front of me, though each came with its own potential issues. The simplest was probably to go after Lea’s five original attackers. It wouldn’t be too difficult to kidnap at least half of them, though I would have to move quickly. If the current attack had been ordered by one of them, I was certain I could get a confession out of them with torture and compulsions.

However, that came with its own risks. Despite what they’d done, they were still nobles and students of Lightcastle. I would have to be rather careful and even then, it was still a rather risky proposition. My homeland might be a backwater, but I already knew that the rich and powerful did have competent people working under them. I might be better than their children, but I couldn’t fight even just a competent sixth circle mage. If one of them happened to have a seventh circle retainer or grandparent… Well, Avalon didn’t protect its students from their own stupidity.

Additionally, unlike before this, there was now a clear link connecting me with any potential disappearances. I didn’t think Adonia was going to say something, but that was still a serious risk. Unfortunately, I was currently in no position to get rid of that link. I imagined Adonia was going to be rather careful in the near future, I certainly would be if my girlfriend was violently attacked in her own home, and even beyond that, her help could be rather useful in this situation. Perhaps I would be able to deal with her later, but Avalon was only going to stay here for so long. Irritating.

The second option was to work backwards. If I could find the attackers themselves, I could hopefully interrogate them into spilling the beans on who had hired them. I did want to find them at some point anyway, they were equally deserving of pain for what they had dared to do. They likely wouldn’t be a particularly hard target either. I doubted any of the trio the uncles had described were particularly impressive. Skilled mages had enough options that only the stupid and talentless had to turn to petty crime.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t entirely sure how to do that. I didn’t really know anything about the criminal underworld in this area, and the lead I had been hoping for had already proven to be a dead end. Xethis wasn’t exactly a big country, but finding three criminal mages with nothing but physical descriptions to go off of was still a daunting task.

As my burst of rage faded, I started to realize that this was going to take a while. I couldn’t just leap into things like I wanted to. I hated being passive, but that might be the right choice to make right now. The issue was, being passive had gotten me into this mess in the first place. If something else happened… I had already come to terms with being a monster. My morals were a small price to pay for my life and safety. Lea’s life though? I didn’t know if I could forgive myself.

In the privacy of her finely decorated study, Adonia finally let the control that tutors had drilled into her head for her entire life slip. She knew the study was warded heavily, runes hidden behind tapestries and paintings ensuring that no sound could enter or leave the room, along with too many other functions that she didn’t really understand. She didn’t particularly care to understand. That sort of work was best left to servants and craftsmen. What she did know was that with the door closed, even the two guards standing right outside the door couldn’t hear so much as a whisper of what was said inside.

She certainly had no intention of whispering. “Those stinking rats!” she shrieked, “I’ll kill them, I’ll kill them, I’ll kill them!”

Grabbing an inkwell off her desk, she threw it as hard as she could against the wall. She was almost disappointed when the glass container deflected harmlessly away from the painting it was flying towards, landing gently on the ground without ever spilling a drop of ink.

“How dare they touch her! How… dare they!” She stalked back and forth behind her desk, the tall heels of her sandals leaving deep indentations in the plush carpet. She didn’t know which of her classmates had organized this, but it had to have been one of them. Leana was just a merchant girl, without even the semblance of a noble name. This was a cowardly, underhanded attack on the name of Earthshadow, there was no other explanation.

Well, whoever it was, she would make sure they rued the day they moved against her house. Her honor would allow no other response. After the first cowardly attack against her beautiful flower, she had made it very clear that the girl was still under the aegis of Earthshadow. No matter what sort of tantrum Leana was throwing, it changed nothing. The poor girl just didn’t know any better, it wasn’t her fault she was born under such a lackluster Name.

It was her responsibility, both as Leana’s friend and as a noble Name, to educate and care for the lesser girl. Her tutors had made that very clear when she’d raised her concerns during lessons. The lesser named were not always suitably educated, not taught how to care and act as was proper. Leana, as smart and beautiful as she was, had just been lashing out in ignorance.

She screamed again, wordlessly throwing her head back and shrieking towards the ceiling. They were ruining things, ruining everything! Leana was getting better, she had seen it! A few more weeks and they would have been together again like nothing had ever happened. Then, Adonia could finally teach– show her that everything was alright. Leana’s place was with her, loving her, touching her, moaning her name.

Now, she was afraid that her wonderful, kind, loving, beautiful darling would be broken and hidden away again. Leana was a delicate flower, not meant for the rigors of a cruel world. It was Adonia’s job to protect her, to tend to her and ensure she could blossom into the full beauty Adonia could see inside her.

No. That wouldn’t happen. Couldn’t happen. Adonia would marry that ugly brute Shatterstorm, but at night beautiful, soft Leana would warm her bed and touch her like only another woman could. She would break whatever Name had dared impunge the honor of Earthshadow, crush their family and grind them down until they were nothing more than commoner worms. Let them tend fields and catch fish like their ilk deserved. Whoever had ordered this was no true Noble. Not like she was. Not like her flower could be.

Eventually, when her throat was sore from screaming obscenities and her feet ached from long hours wearing the same fancy shoes she’d worn to Lightcastle, she dropped down heavily into the padded armchair behind her heavy wooden desk. She took a moment to compose herself, an enchanted brush quickly bringing her hair back in order and her clothes straightening out with just a touch of magic. Once she was presentable, she picked up the small crystal bell at the edge of her desk and rang it three times.

The door opened almost immediately and a man dressed in dark leather stepped into the room. “My lady,” he whispered, falling to one knee and bowing his head respectfully.

She didn’t bother with any sort of formalities. He was just a servant of her Name, a capable underling, but nothing more. “Leana Sweetglass, a merchant under the protection of our Name, was attacked earlier today. Find who was responsible and report back to me. Start with my classmates, I suspect it may have been one of the Firewalker brothers, or perhaps the Shieldlights.”

The man waited for a moment after she finished speaking, then clapped a hand against his chest. “It shall be done, my lady. For the honor of Earthshadow.”

“For the honor of Earthshadow,” she echoed, “Dismissed.”

He left as suddenly as he had appeared, and only once the door was closed again did Adonia let herself slump down, resting her forehead against the cool surface of her desk. She was so very tired, and she hadn’t even figured out what she was going to do about Leana’s enigmatic friend. Of all the things she had considered, it hadn’t even crossed her mind that he might be a member of Avalon. She didn’t know much about the mysterious organization, little more than what the Headmaster had told them, but it was enough to be concerned.

If nothing else, he seemed to care deeply about her sweetheart. For his sake, she hoped that it was a purely platonic friendship that the two shared. Even if the boy seemed confident in his strength, she had no doubt that a mere merchant, no matter how well educated, would fall under the weight of Earthshadow.

Still, as long as he behaved and did not interfere, he could prove to be a valuable tool. Perhaps she could offer him a position with the other servants? A well-trained, merchant-name mage was always a useful commodity. He was clearly no noble, else he would have introduced himself as such, and no commoner could wield magic with such expertise.

Maybe he would make a good bodyguard for Leana someday. It would be unsightly to task a fellow noble with taking care of a mere merchant, but he already seemed both combat-capable and motivated to protect Leana. It may be illegal to teach the merchant-names combat magic, but there were no rules about using those already skilled in it. She smiled. Despite the tribulations, Earthshadow would always rise.