“She left! The bitch handed me all the work and then ran off, and she didn’t even have the courtesy to tell me to my face! I mean, what the hell even is this note? Where is her pride? Where is her sense of duty? This is supposed to be an official imperial notice and there’s a gods damned doodle on it!”

  -Géraldine Kallisto, Second Empress of the Empire, moments after receiving the official resignation of her forebearer

  Dahlia had continued to linger long after the Archduchess had disappeared. A part of her wanted to say she was reeling from witnessing the use of such powerful magic in such a casual manner —something that certainly did leave her shocked, let there be no doubt— but deep down Dahlia knew that what she was feeling was a separate issue entirely.

  “Young love is gross. I can’t believe I was once like this.”

  She had been too lost in her own thoughts to hear her mother approaching, but the sound of Sabrina’s voice quickly snapped her back to attention.

  “Sorry, what?”

  The Baroness cocked a brow at the girl and immediately the rosy flush and wine bottles in her hands became obvious.

  “I said young love. It’s gross.” Pausing for a moment to properly take in her daughter's expression, Sabrina scrunched her nose. “Fuck you, don’t look at me like that. This night has been a ride and it’s far from over. A lady’s got to enjoy life where she can. Besides, there’s no wine on the continent better than a Carphopoulan and I don’t know the next time I’ll get my hands on one, now move over.”

  She lazily waved her daughter aside and collapsed on the stone bench beside her, though not without Dahlia wincing at the thought of who had been sitting there previously. Deciding not to let those thoughts stew she instead pushed forward, uncertain what her mother wanted but eager enough to keep her mind occupied with a distraction.

  “You’ve got it wrong by the way. It’s not love; we just met.”

  “Uh huh…” The Baroness levelled an unimpressed look at her daughter before shrugging, “Well I guess you’re not wrong; you can’t really fall in love in a single night but you couldn’t have been less subtle in how interested the two of you were in each other. Really girl, you stared at her like a crow at the bone: all confusion and want. Witnessing it in person rather than by scrying was a treat.”

  Dahlia glared at her mother and very seriously considered stealing one of the wine bottles before thinking better of it. Catching her eyeing the bottle though, the Baroness was quick to pull it tighter to herself and move past the topic.

  “Look at you, separated from her for less than a knuckle and already an absolute grouch. My teasing aside, your plans certainly went well, didn’t they?”

  Dahlia hesitated for a moment, but nodded. “It went… fine. Maybe even good, I don’t know. Frankly, I think things went well but my plans? Oh, those are in absolute shambles. I very intentionally avoided the whole seduction angle; I have no clue what I’m doing.”

  A particularly taunting grin split the Baroness’ face, “I told you, young love—”

  “Drop it.” Dahlia’s patience was already running low and it was only growing worse by the moment. Seeing her mother’s taunting smile only grow, she cut her off as fast as she could. “Aren’t you supposed to be politicking with the other nobles, Mother? You could have scried on me regardless; why are you even here?”

  “Oo, someone's a snarky brat right now, huh?” The woman’s smile didn’t waver, even as she took a long swig from a bottle. “You know… the moment I saw your notes, I figured something like this would happen. Maybe not that she would actually show an interest in you, but I figured that someone like her would chew you up and spit you out. The fact she put a claim on you though was…”

  “Mother.” Dahlia’s tone was sharp but Sabrina only laughed when she saw the girl’s blush. Without losing her grin, she shrugged and got to the point.

  “Beyond taunting you, I’m reconsidering some of my plans going forward. It’s not a particularly big deal for me, but some things need to be adjusted. And don’t give me that look, no, I’m not going to interfere or get involved. I do plan to benefit from this, but I have no intention of drawing the Archduchess’ ire. That would just be a great way to make my life a whole lot more complicated. Instead I’ll just sit back for now and watch how things fall. The one you actually need to worry about is your father.”

  Dahlia tried not to grimace but she knew her mother was right. Of the three in the family, it turned out Vincent was the only one that even cared about her engagement but, unfortunately, the man was particularly invested.

  Chewing her lip, Dahlia tried to shrug the nagging concern away, “It won’t be that bad… He really wanted to officialise a connection with the Duke but he still has two other suitors lined up for me; surely that should diffuse some of his anger… I can’t imagine he’ll be pleased but I think the Archduchess will be back before anything goes south too fast. A couple weeks spent with a particularly irate Father isn’t something I’m looking forward to, but if I’ve lasted this long then I’m sure I’ll manage somehow.”

  Even after the girl finished speaking, Sabrina continued to remain silent as her eyes flickered about and stared into the distance. When the woman finally did speak, she sounded far more wary than Dahlia would have liked.

  “‘Manage’ is something of an operative word there. I trust you can make it through but what’s coming is…” Her eyes finally stopped looking to the horizon and instead held her daughter’s gaze. “You didn’t see him, girl. I can’t remember a time I’ve seen him this irate, not even after we learned you lacked the family’s bloodline. Right now he’s just a raging drunk that’s taking it out on everyone around him but once we leave… It’s not going to be easy.”

  Slowly, Dahlia nodded. She didn’t quite know what to do with her mother’s warning, but knew she couldn’t avoid the confrontation to come. Instead she just huffed out a sigh. “It’s like I said. Even if it seems naive, I trust the Archduchess. I can make it a couple more weeks.”

  Hearing her mention the Archduchess, some of the tension in Sabrina’s shoulders left and, after a moment’s hesitation, she cocked an eyebrow.

  “Speaking of… what exactly happened out here? I was able to see most of it but something interfered with my magic towards the end. My eye was well hidden so no one should have noticed, but out of nowhere my mana was just wicked away like nothing.”

  Dahlia was surprised that she was being so candid about her surveillance but, by this point, it made some sense. Ever since that morning, there was an air of openness to their interactions that hadn’t been there previously. They knew each other's secrets and, while they could hardly be considered on the best terms, there was something freeing that came from removing the mask and acting more as herself. Frankly, given the woman’s behaviour, she wouldn’t be shocked if her mother felt similarly.

  Returning to the original line of thought though, Dahlia focussed back to the question at hand and could only come to one answer: “It was probably the knight girl that showed up who was —if I’m being completely honest— absolutely terrifying. She had this schema that condensed so much mana that her entire body looked like a powder keg with a lit fuse. Do you have any idea who she is? She looked young, but I got the impression that she was probably an elite knight from the capital or something.”

  The Baroness’ body had gone rigid early on in that description, but she remained silent, not wanting to jump to conclusions.

  “Girl… could you describe her a bit more? If it’s who I’m thinking of, she should be easy to distinguish.”

  Seeing what she meant, Dahlia nodded and quickly filled her in. “Pink skin, blond hair, long pointy ears, tons of piercings, and crazy blue and gold eyes. Oh uhh, I think her name was Esmé?”

  Sabrina let out a slightly nervous, almost crazed laugh, and took another —much longer— drink from her bottle. Gradually though, her expression transitioned to something between fearful and anticipatory.

  “Gods, I don’t know how you do it but apparently you have a knack for forming connections with those in positions of power.” She ran a hand through her hair, uncaring as elaborate hairstyling was ruined, and smiled wide and manic at her daughter. “You just met the Grand Dowager Empress Esmé Kallisto. The founder of the Empire.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. Oh. Fucking hell, no wonder I couldn’t scry, that woman is a monster even when compared to the ducal houses.”

  As the revelation hit her like a crashing wave, Dahlia could already feel questions building up. “Wouldn’t she be over a millenia old— no, wait, isn’t she dead? We’re on the seventh empress and you’re telling me the first one is some vibrant, pink, twig of a girl that’s still wandering around? She didn’t even look like the pictures in the history textbooks!”

  “It’s a slightly more recent development so we wouldn’t have taught you about it. Besides, quite honestly, updating you on the Dowager Empress was never something I thought would be a concern. But if we’re going off of the earlier portraits you’d have seen… yeah, she’s changed. Used to look a lot more human but, back during the Unity War and the Empire’s founding, Empress Kallisto supposedly had only ninety percent bloodline purity.

  She cocked a brow at Dahlia, “You should understand the rest. Physical expression of bloodline is exponential so that last ten percent matters. The fact that the Dowager Empress is unrecognizable isn’t particularly surprising considering she fully purified into a maenad a ways back.”

  It was something for Dahlia to mull over at least. Conceptually, she was aware that higher purities caused significant changes, but she wasn’t aware that they would be quite so extreme, especially considering how maenads were one of the more humanoid bloodlines. There was something notably different that came from witnessing it first hand rather than just reading it in texts, but it also had the girl reflect on the other guests in the debutante. Most had only minor monstrous alterations and even the few with more defined traits were entirely humanoid; it left her with dozens of questions but they could wait for later. Instead she focussed on the one other part that was nagging at her:

  “But the First Empress died, no? Esmé abdicated to her daughter Géraldine only nineteen years into her reign — there was a whole thing about it! You forced me to read about it! And then she went off and died seventy years later or something and you forced me to read about that too!”

  Sabrina did the absolute worst impression of looking contrite before breaking back into the grin Dahlia was already becoming far too acquainted with.

  “Calm down, it’s all accurate to history other than the dying part. The old bitch went into hiding after she felt the Empire was in good hands. She faked her own death with her daughter corroborating it, and then went soul searching or whatever as she purified the rest of her bloodline and rebuilt her schema from scratch.”

  Dahlia felt her eye twitch. “You’re saying she founded the Empire and then just dropped it in her daughter's lap and ran?”

  The grin widened, “Yup, that about sums it up! Wherever she was, she completely avoided the Cleanse as well as the turn of the age. People only rediscovered she was alive about three centuries ago; that’s when she claimed her new title as well. She doesn’t technically govern the Empire anymore, but she’s involved in nearly everything: I imagine it’s a bureaucratic nightmare for those involved.”

  It was a lot to take in. The woman who seemed to casually shatter the air and space itself —the same monster that brought eleven separate countries to heel— was the same flippant girl that ordered the Archduchess around without a care in the world. It was terrifying, to have been so close to a walking natural disaster. It was reassuring as well, knowing that Valentina truly did leave due to someone she couldn’t refuse. But there was something else too. Something about the thought of the Archduchess taking orders from anyone that twisted Dahlia’s gut and left her fidgeting and trying not to think too hard on why. She was, she remarked, making something of a habit of that.

  “Right… Well?”

  Sabrina drank again, giving the girl a curious look: “Yes?”

  “You came out just for that, didn’t you? Your magic was interfered with due to the Dowager Empress’ mana and you became paranoid because you didn’t know every single thing that happened. Am I wrong?”

  The small frown on her mother was, at that moment, one of the greatest victories Dahlia could have asked for.

  “No, you’re not— Fucking hell, you’re not wrong but you didn’t need to get all aggressive about it. I’ve been enjoying myself out here and I can tell that you’re already wanting to shoo me away back to the debutante. But listen closely: I’m not going to go back and rub shoulders with them for another second. Dealing with the nobility is a special kind of torture and I’m done putting up with it.”

  Sabrina looked at her daughter, properly taking her in and felt a small twitch in her lip. The girl was excited of all things; it was obvious even if she tried to hide it. The woman found it endlessly entertaining to see Dahlia’s expressions shift and develop, especially when the girl believed she was much better at hiding it than she actually was. Even if the Baroness enjoyed the girl’s distress more, seeing her fidgeting and trying to suppress her simmering excitement was, she had to admit, enjoyable in its own way. A part of her filed the thought away, planning to more closely examine it later on when the girl’s expression was guaranteed to worsen, but for now she just sighed and waved her daughter away.

  “I’m not going back inside and there’s nothing you can say to change my mind. You’re right that you’ve answered my curiosity though, so feel free to make yourself scarce.” Dahlia went to grumble a protest but Sabrina cut her off. “You’re about as subtle as a herd of cattle. You practically have it written on your face that you want to do something with your magic and I don’t care in the slightest. Just go hide in a bush or something and get it out of your system before Vincent drags you off.”

  Dahlia didn’t need any more convincing. The girl didn’t even bother looking back to her mother as she bolted deeper into the garden, desperately looking for a secluded place to hide and begin testing. She just couldn’t bring herself to care about other concerns at the moment; her most pressing worry —the Archduchess being dragged away by a stranger— was proven to be justified considering who was giving the order, and the next most pressing worry —her father— could wait until they left in the same carriage later that night. That left at least half a candle to enjoy doing something by herself and that was something Dahlia had craved for a fortnight.

  Already she could feel her lips pulling back, widening into an unrestrained grin as she dove deep into a grove of trees and underbrush. Magic! In all of its beautiful and unrefined glory, she would finally get to channel her mana and bring her aspect to life! Even now, her body ached from the mass of mana built up within her and she yearned to use it like an addict. There was something deeply fundamental in her that screamed to finally cast. There was no rationalising —not anymore— that could force the girl to stop now that she was so close and that manic energy only grew as she pushed deeper into the small coniferous grove she found.

  It was dark, isolated, and smelled of fir and loam. Even with the dampened sound of music and the faint flickering of lights still reaching her from the debutante, Dahlia could almost force herself to believe she was somewhere else: somewhere far away, alone, in the dark, and surrounded by ancient uncaring woods. The realisation that she instinctively found a spot that emulated her aspect wasn’t lost on her but, while it was tempting, she refused to let herself get lost as well.

  She had no schema to work with at the moment — not one that could be used at least. She would have loved to finally turn her years of work into a reality, but would need to prepare and collect resources before she ever got to enjoy the fruits of her labour. Fortunately, a schema wasn’t exactly necessary.

  Spells cast without a schema to reinforce them were traditionally called cantrips; they were fragile, inflexible, and unoptimised things, but they allowed for a small amount of casting all the same. In fact, for those born into poor conditions with no proper education, cantrips were often the only spells a commoner might ever be able to cast, so it wasn’t as though there was no precedent. There was more to unpack there: social and political reasons that commoners remained powerless and why no nations other than the Southern Isles ever provided a means for the common man to learn their own schemas. That was a whole knotted mess to untangle however and Dahlia just couldn’t bring herself to linger on it, at least not now. Already she was far too aware of time slipping by as she lost moments that could have been dedicated to experimenting with her magic instead. So no, the more political side of things could wait for a less pressing time; for now, there would be magic!

  Taking only a moment to centre herself, Dahlia turned her focus away from everything else and toward the mana that so eagerly roiled beneath her skin. Not all of this was new to her: after her awakening she had already made it routine to cycle her mana as best she could, even if it was only to observe the mana around her. What differed so much this time though was, when she cycled, it wasn’t just manipulating shallow and surface level currents. This time, she went deep, avoiding the flavourless mana that lay stagnant in skin-deep channels and instead reaching further in. It saturated all the way to her core, roiling like an angry spring, and swirling like a turbulent river at the faintest prod.

  There was a… synesthesia to it, for lack of a better term. As she focussed on those currents and eddies within, there was so much more than just the motion and flow of it all. There was a viscosity to it, simultaneously flowing like near-evaporated alcohol and rich, syruppy, honey. It was murky, like algae in a riverbed, yet tasted and smelled of licorice, mint, and a third thing that had no taste but reminded her of rainstorms at night.

  It was strange, and foreign, and so overwhelming that at first she feared she might pass out from the sheer intensity of it all. It also felt so perfectly right that the girl wondered how she had lived her whole life without it.

  The process of becoming familiar with it all was more than Dahlia had expected, but gradually her body began to adjust. Her mana organs, something she always had even before they fully developed, had gone from being a passive organ to one that she could now feel pulsing in time to a rhythm all its own, more akin to a heavily beating heart or heaving lungs than anything else. She felt those organs awaken —tired, stiff, and atrophied— and, even with them struggling, it was the most freeing sensation she’d ever experienced and she knew it would only get better as time went on. For now though, all she could do was gently ease out the tension that remained.

  All she had to do now was let her mana naturally take form and flow.

  all over the place. We use this bastardization of American English and British English. We keep the "ou" in words like colour but, as I just discovered, we spell licorice like licorice as opposed to liquorice. I have attempted to do my best to lean more into British English for consistency sake but occasionally that Canadian upbringing makes it so words I had no idea have alternative spellings slip through the cracks. For a couple I just discovered, I don't plan to correct them because I know I've already made the mistake elsewhere or will almost certainly make it again and so I'd rather be inconsistent in my inconsistency and for those of you who notice, you have my sincerest of apologies. Alas, I am just one gal so I hope you can find it in yourself to forgive me.

  For this chapter, there isn't much to say as there weren't any crazy words used. I'll just explain the languages of the Kallisto Empire 'cause why not. The Empire tends to have three key languages and etymological roots. The empire (and continent as a whole) is built off of The Old Tongue (alternatively called Gíganta) which uses Greek influences, the southern Empire uses Desrois, inspired by French, and the north (and kinda the eastern mountains but there's a whole Slavic thing involved there) uses Limp?d inspired by Romanian. And now ya know!

  If you're enjoying what you see and want to read ahead, I do have a Patreon that will maintain eight chapters in advance of what is public. If that interests you, you can find a link to it

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  And as always, I hope you're having a wonderful day!