Chapter 27:

  Sela’s study smelled faintly of chalk and parchment. She set aside her work when Eli came in. He stood straight, meeting her eyes as he made his way to her desk. He allowed himself to indulge the child-side of him, and instead of taking a seat across from her he wandered around the table to receive a hug from his mother. He would never take these small acts for granted again.

  “Hello, my little star,” Sela said. “You must have had a long day.” She held her historically recalcitrant son in her arms and wondered just what had happened for him to actively seek out physical comfort from her. He had never rejected her when she was affectionate, but it must have been months since he last initiated a hug.

  Reluctantly Eli pulled away. He made to step back, his body automatically settling into a military rest position as he prepared to give his mother a report of the days activity, but he had barely settled into his stance when his mother began ushering him towards the sitting area in her office.

  In a strange mirror of his morning interaction with his father, Eli settled into one of the plush but sophisticated couches that framed the space.

  “So, Little Star, what brings you to my office this afternoon?” She asked. Eli smiled. His mother had always been perceptive, but his smile quickly faded as he thought about that morning. About the rift, and about the potential disaster he was trying to prevent.

  “I went with papa to the quarry,” he paused and shook his head. “The wards felt wrong, mama. I cannot say how, exactly, but something seemed off.”

  “You were able to feel the wards through the guild protections?” Sela asked. Eli’s gaze briefly met his mother’s.

  Sela had an uncanny way of effortlessly getting under his guard, and he found it nearly impossible to remain hypervigilant around her. It had resulted in a few too many slip ups than he was comfortable with in front of her. However, he was starting to get the feeling she was slowly warming to the idea that her son might be just a smidge more talented than the average genius. It was a persona he would begin to purposefully cultivate as it would make collaborating with his parents much, much easier. They were family first, sure, but they were also a strategic asset he was not willing to ignore on the basis of pure sentimentality. That would have been foolish, not ‘admirable’, or ‘loyal’.

  He could test the waters now, as well as alert the resident enchanting authority to the potential danger. Two beasts, one bolt, as it were.

  “Mother, I have been working on my mana control, and you have seen my rune studies. I am doing well.”

  “Yes, but decoding obscuration enchantments is not the same as enchanting them. Theory is very different from practice,” Sela said, still sceptical but thankfully not suspicious. Just how much truth should he reveal?

  “Mother I have been practicing,” he said. Sela’s gaze sharpened. The question clear in her eyes, and it was not rhetorical. “I have been using the wards around the keep.”

  Sela’s jaw clenched.

  “Elias Aster Rodrigo.” Her voice was a dangerous whisper.

  “I have not been doing anything. Just looking, just studying.” That was not technically true. He had ‘escaped’ the keep that one time, but it had been crude. Not remotely up to the standards he held himself. He had become much better in his more recent outings, and considering he had neither been caught, nor suspected he would say his practice was paying off. Also, just because he hadn’t been purely academic in his recent study of the wards didn’t meant they weren’t also excellent for increasing his proficiency with both for mana control and rune scripting.

  “Elias,” his mother’s voice was exasperated and tired. She steepled her fingertips against the bridge of her nose. “This was not what you came to confess. Was it?” She said, getting them back on track with a statement that had Eli convinced the topic had only been shelved, not forgotten.

  “Well, the keep wards are a lot more difficult to read than the Enchanter’s Guild ones, so it did not take me too long to look inside,” Eli said. Then he shook his head. “I do not know if I am just feeling something that is not there, but the wards felt wrong.” Now his mother was entirely focused on what he was saying.

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  “Wrong. How?” She asked. A wave of gratitude flooded through him again at the knowledge that his mother did not outright dismiss him where many parents might have. He told her what he had seen and felt, describing it in detail until she stood and moved back to her desk. Eli followed her as with a flick of her hand, a large writing slate appeared.

  Eli fought his envy for a moment as he considered just how much mana was constantly reserved by her permanently anchored spatial pocket. She called it her ‘storage’ spell, and it took almost as much mana to maintain as Eli currently had in his entire pool. He missed it. Mana expansion shot to the top of his training list.

  Unaware of her son’s raging jealousy and newfound determination she gestured Eli forward.

  “Show me what you saw. Sketch it out.”

  In his own small display of power, he manifested a set of steps that would allow him easy access to the desk. He was proud of his improvement with earth mana, and it embarrassed him a little how much his mother’s approving nod meant to him as he took the writing stick in hand. His lines were crisp, confident as he recalled the ward from memory, making sure to detail each material that was used, and which enchantments they corresponded to.

  After he was done Sela studied the sketch, tapping the air above it with a finger. “Your artwork is incredible,” sela said, before focusing on the structure he had sketched out, and not her son’s mastery of the arts. She of course didn’t know he was ‘cheating’ subtly by using his spatial mana as a guide to essentially trace the hyper realistic structure. “I cannot say for sure if something is wrong. I would have to see for myself. However, doing that would be...”

  It would get the guild pissy enough to potentially hinder future operations. After all, Sela was a known script smith and enchanter, and was very good at both. However, that was not what Eli focused on.

  “You believe me?” He asked.

  “I believe you saw something, felt something. It is enough. Even if you were wrong, it would be foolish not to be serious about this matter. If it is nothing, it is nothing, but if it is something then we take action.” She smiled at her son, and he smiled back, relief spreading across his chest.

  “I think the problem was where two materials joined for the three-dimensional script.” He pointed to the sketch to indicate where he was talking about. “It felt like something there was causing a stutter. But I do not know for sure.” He shrugged.

  “Complex, multidirectional script work is normally not even seen until your second year in the academy. Even then,” she mirrored her son’s shrug. It wasn’t like the academy was giving out guild secrets. Enchantment there was meant as foundational for potential recruits, not to create independent enchanters.

  Sela reached for some parchment, quick strokes of her pen forming a message.

  “Could you copy this to paper for me? Make two?” She asked, tapping the sketch he’d made. Eli nodded and got to work. Once he was done, Sela collected her letters and the sketches – making a few notes on both before sealing both letter and sketch into two missives. Then she pressed the envelopes to a warded box on her desk and calibrated the device before activating it. A surge of spatial mana flooded the room. Light flared briefly, and the messages vanished from where it had been placed.

  “I will talk to Father,” she said. “But this is already very good, okay? We have sent the noted to the Guild. Now it is with them.”

  Eli nodded. “Okay, mama.”

  Sela’s smile then turned more predatory. “Since you have already been studying multidirectional script work, why don’t we make them part of our formal study. The books you have been using are for amateurs. How far do you think you have gotten?”

  His lips twitched. Inside, he was shouting with glee. Out loud, he said, “I am ready, Mother.”

  Her smile widened.

  ~

  Far away, in a Guild Hall, a sealed message shimmered onto a secretary’s desk. He plucked it up, scanning the sigil.

  “Lady Rodrigo of House Rodrigo.” His eyes widened as he carried the envelope like an unstable elixir into the office of the head enchanter of the Adler Guild branch.

  The woman looked up from her work, spotting the envelope, its seal, and already shaking her head. “I’ve heard already from the foreman. Some spoiled noble brat criticizing master-tier wards he couldn’t even sense?”

  The secretary paused mid step, the envelope held out as though simply being in contact would send the wrath of the house down upon her.

  “My lady, perhaps it would be prudent to look at the document.” As a member of the Enchanter’s Guild, the aide was well aware that missives like these could hold embedded script work that informed the sender when it had been opened.

  This did not seem to be a shared concern. The head enchanter scoffed, waving away the aide and the envelope with him.

  “File it with the inconsequential. No further action needed.”

  The aide’s brows twitched, but he only nodded in acknowledgement. He did his job, however. Filing the unopened envelope exactly where he had been bid.

  ~

  Back in Adler, Eli and Sela had moved to what was now a classroom but would become their shared study. His hands moved smoothly, his mind racing far ahead as his mother walked him through the opening patterns of multidirectional rune theory.

  Sela had promised to inform him when the Guild replied as it would be an excellent learning opportunity. He just hoped they answered soon. He couldn’t remember exactly when disaster would strike, but at least this time he had taken steps to prevent it.

  (noun)

  A practitioner who studies, designs, and refines runeic scripts and sequences; the symbolic language that has been developed to govern how mana behaves.

  (noun)

  A practitioner who applies established rune scripts to objects, structures, or environments to create functional effects.

  TL;DR: A script smith studies/designs the magic while an enchanter builds powers the magic.