“Your Majesty, another one of the Republic’s projects has failed. Now, I know it may just be that their engineers are incompetent but perhaps, if I may be so bold, we could begin investigating why every form of non-magical transit keeps spontaneously failing moments before success? Please?”

  -Burhan ibn Fahim, The Paranoid Vizier

  The entire church was silent as the small crowd came to terms with the girl’s aspect. It’s not as though aspects of this complexity were unheard of, but they were still far from the norm. Add on how every single part of the awakening ceremony demonstrated how Dahlia’s magical aptitude was superb, and it became obvious why the onlookers seemed dumbfounded. The Abbot also had his eyes opened wide, but instead of the shock throughout the room, the man wore an almost childlike grin. He had felt it earlier at the very beginning and this only confirmed it: this girl was special — remarkably so. Ripping his eyes away from Dahlia for a moment, he wanted to check how her parents were handling such an incredible revelation but immediately forced himself to conceal his delight.

  Neither the Baron nor Baroness showed the excitement the man would have expected and, while he couldn’t place his finger on what, something about their response had him temper his own reaction as well. Sabrina seemed shocked at the very least but, although she hid it well, something in her expression belied a hint of intrigue that bordered on hunger. Counter to the Baroness’ growing interest though, Vincent’s expression was so dark that it was almost sickly. Noticing it a moment later, his wife looked at him and took only a moment for understanding to dawn on her. The woman’s lips formed a tight line as she turned on Dahlia.

  “Girl! Your aspect: what do you know? What elements does it contain?”

  The Baroness’ voice was like a whip crack within the otherwise-silent church, but all of the crowd’s eyes snapped to focus back on Dahlia. She was still trembling, shaking on the ground and too confused and seemingly still terrified to process anything, with her lucidity still far from returning. She flinched at her mother’s voice, whimpering incomprehensibly before finally being able to string together a few words.

  “I-it uses, um, n-nature, space, and d-darkness…”

  With each word, her voice progressively shrank until she could hardly be heard; even in her current state, suffering from the aftereffects of the hallucination as she was, Dahlia still knew that what she said was a problem. Sabrina clenched her jaw and looked like she wanted to swear up a storm, but it was Vincent who snapped, breaking out of his torpor and speaking up with a vein throbbing on his temple.

  “You… you really are a worthless piece of trash, aren’t you?” There was no equivocation in his tone. No leniency or room to hear an argument otherwise. The man’s voice was low, controlled, but beneath it there was only a low boiling rage. “I bet you think this is some kind of joke, don’t you? You spend all your fucking life studying, proving you could have the smallest amount of worth and being a little magical savant — it would almost be endearing if you weren’t already such a disappointment, but this? Such strong magic, all for an aspect that mocks our family name? Where’s your shame, girl? Or did you make it your life’s mission to be the greatest disgrace possible?”

  The man spat, uncaring for the onlookers even as the few servants familiar with him flinched, half-prepared to see him begin beating Dahlia then and there. Had it been different, the man almost certainly would have just ignored the results and moved on, but for her to have a darkness-attributed aspect —and a strong one at that— was nothing less than a slap to the face.

  It wasn’t that darkness itself was taboo in the Liontáriou family. In the generations since the family’s founding, multiple ancestors possessed aspects with darkness as an attribute such as ‘day and night,’ ‘starlight,’ and even the famous ‘duality.’ What each of these had, however, was a light attribute to compliment it. To have an aspect void of light was already a blot on the noble house, but to have darkness instead was nothing short of a mockery. Noble families invested in their breeding, selecting partners, purchasing elementally attuned tinctures, and even having mothers carry their children to term in specific locations, all for the sake of passing down their bloodline and producing heirs with aspects that would be respected and represent their family. For Dahlia to not only fail in terms of bloodline, but to also possess an aspect that directly opposed the Liontáriou name was something that could turn the whole family into laughing stocks in high society.

  ‘Weak blood’ is what they would say, and how could he even refute it? Worse still, the girl’s aspect was rare and it made her an even more valuable bargaining chip than she already was, meaning he couldn’t even afford to write her off and leave her dead body in the ditch. Turning to face everyone in the room, the Baron snarled, his eyes burning like embers as they landed on each and every witness.

  “Not a soul hears of what happened today. I don’t want a word of this disgrace known outside of who is here right now. Her potential and aspect are valuable and will be used as decided by our family in the future, but I will be the only one who decides which outsiders get to know. If word gets out, I’ll hunt down the loose lipped bastard and make them regret it. Am. I. Clear?”

  There wasn’t a single sound made in agreement, but their silence answered for them. The Baron would have a list with their names on it and if someone so much as breathed incorrectly, they might all suffer for it; it was clear not a single word of this would get out, and the Baron felt some tension leave his body. Finally, he turned his attention back to his daughter, the girl shaking uncontrollably as he spoke, snarling and spitting with each word.

  “And you. I don’t want to hear your voice. I don’t want to see your face. Until the debutante I want you completely isolated, to the extent that you may as well not exist. Not a word to anyone —not the servants, not the guards, and not to myself— and you’re forbidden from using the slightest amount of magic either. I will only order this kindly once. If you go against me, I will ensure there are no second chances.”

  With that he turned and began talking in hurried whispers to his wife, seeming to intentionally avoid the slightest possibility of catching his daughter in his peripheral vision. And all the while, Dahlia merely remained on the stone floor, shaking like a brittle leaf in the wind as lucidity slowly returned to her and reality began to sink in. The room was full of strangers, almost all of whom watched her through the corners of their eyes, but not a single one approached. She was not only pitiable, but she was also a magical anomaly. It was impossible for people to ignore her but, with the Baron’s words still fresh in mind, no one dared follow up on that interest.

  Seeing that no one —not even the Abbot— was about to look at her, let alone speak to her, Dahlia decided it was time to leave. Ripping off the claustrophobic and sweat soaked robes, she did her best to control her breathing and stop her trembling as best she could. It was a struggle and she suspected that her hallucination being so tightly tied to confusion didn’t help, but she eventually managed to stumble her way out, only to be met with the blinding late-afternoon sun. Before she could even have her eyes adjust though, she was ushered into her enclosed carriage like a blight that needed to be contained. The servants outside with her weren’t even aware of what had happened, but even still they knew well enough that the girl wasn’t to be seen and, if the expression of those leaving the building were anything to go by, they knew well enough to not slack on their duties now of all times.

  It was like that, eyes still struggling with the sunlight, mind still sluggish, confused, and scared, and the entire world endlessly spinning around her —as if her hallucination had never left— that the carriage took off and Dahlia was brought back to the estate.

  ~~~~~

  Nearly two knuckles passed before Vincent had finally calmed down enough to hold a conversation without lashing out, and it took the remainder of the hour before Sabrina managed to actually have the man hold a conversation that was half-way sensible and not just a rambling vitriolic mess. It was only then that the two nobles entered their carriage and Sabrina found herself struggling to find ways to make something of this mess. Even now, the Baron resumed his cursing, the spite and vitriol seeming renewed now that he found himself in the confines of their enclosed and noise protected carriage.

  Sabrina, similarly, had plenty to complain about, mirroring her husband’s sentiment. Had the Baron been just slightly more aware however, he might have noticed that her complaints felt shallow and her focus constantly drifted as he raged as if verging on throwing a full-blown tantrum. There was a newfound glint in the woman’s eyes but, nonetheless, she continued to add her own verbal abuse all the same. The action was far less heartfelt than usual, though it still managed to validate her husband’s anger and keep him occupied as she let her mind wander.

  The Baron’s tirade only fully came to a stop when a knock came at their door and a quick glance showed that a man in plain clothes was riding a horse alongside their carriage. He didn’t look special, but they both recognized him regardless. Olivier, for all his unassuming looks, was a reliable informant and, between himself and the small crew assigned to analysing their daughter’s bloodline and magical capabilities, the hope was to know everything possible about Dahlia before moving forward.

  “You took your sweet time, Olivier. Get in, we can’t decide on anything until we hear your report.”

  Sabrina let the door hang open and, without a moment’s hesitation, the man leapt off his horse and into the carriage without the need for anyone to slow down. Closing the door behind him, he wasted no time as he pulled out a folder from within a side bag and immediately skipped the niceties as he got to business.

  “My Lord. My Lady. Frankly, I don't know where to start. Even with our team’s capabilities, I still lack the ability to track all of the information down. To begin with, I’ll get the simplest part out of the way: her mana compatibility may as well be at the tip of the bell curve and is at the very least comparable to Kallistan geniuses born once or twice a decade. That alone would be a noteworthy figure, but I also realise that it’s nothing groundbreaking. What makes it more alarming, however, is that Dahlia’s bloodline remains remarkably impure.

  “She still has plenty of room to grow and, depending on what her bloodline may be, there is a fair chance that purifying it could improve her magical capacity even further. That being said, even with a poor bloodline or without any further bloodline purification, her current proficiency alone could allow her to be on the leading edge of a generation given the right circumstances. What we’re looking at is the kind of innate magical compatibility that you might find in someone with a pure bloodline. And that’s pure, after years —likely decades or possibly even centuries— of refining and investing resources: meanwhile Dahlia has this as her starting point.”

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  The man furtively glanced at the two. He knew how angry they could be given the current situation, and Vincent especially was still visibly red in the face, but luckily neither of the nobles were taking out their anger on him. Seeing that neither were suddenly excited and singing his praises at the good news however, he simply cleared his throat and pushed forward.

  “Right then, moving on to her aspect… we know that it isn’t unique, that much is clear; at least in the strictest definition of the term. True unique aspects can only occur once in history or —in the case of a deity’s champion— once at a time, and when they awaken there are very specific identifiers, none of which being present in Dahlia’s awakening meaning that she’d only be considered rare. However… there’s no record of this aspect in recorded history and it’s complex enough that, while not unique, if it had existed anywhere on Gitontitán then we would have heard of it, barring perhaps if it was recorded in the annals of some isolationist race or culture.

  “Additionally, although no records exist yet, I believe that it’d be safe to assume that it’s an A-grade aspect by the standardised Dwergazish grading scheme, likely scoring on the upper end of that classification as well. Some similar aspects have existed but few recorded instances have been as complex as this, and fewer still manage to replicate some of the implications.”

  He could see the Baron’s eyes twitch the more he spoke, the man seeming to grow more aggravated with each passing moment as Olivier gave his report. Having such a rare aspect should have been a pleasant surprise and yet instead it only solidified how angry the patriarch was. Just as his frustrations were about to boil over on the poor messenger however, it was the Baroness that spoke up and maintained the peace.

  “Thank you, Olivier. Though this certainly reinforces some of our initial guesses, I can’t say it’s entirely a surprise; it’s not often you hear of an aspect like ‘lost in the dark forest’ and it’s easy enough to make some basic assumptions.” Smiling and trying to put the informant at ease, her gentle tone immediately cracked like a whip as she turned her focus to the still glowering Baron beside her. “Vincent, would you get a hold of yourself? You're acting like a fool. We’ve already accepted that it’ll be a disgrace that this information becomes public and we were already going to keep it out of the public eye, so now we should be looking at the positives. If you keep acting like this then I swear to the gods that I’ll give you a proper reason to scowl.”

  Even as her scolding abated, she continued to keep a sliver of her attention on tempering her husband and cowing him into line. Resisting the urge to click her tongue, she cast a quick glance back to the man waiting patiently across from her.

  “Well Olivier? Continue your report. Don’t bother with the rest of your report on her aspect analysis; something tells me that if we linger on this too long then Vincent is going to have an aneurism. Just summarise roughly what we need to know in the short term and the rest can be included in your written report. Besides, I’d much rather hear what you’ve learned about the girl’s bloodline.”

  For his part, the informant took this all in stride. Due to the Liontáriou’s being a patriarchal house, Vincent was always intended to take the lead but, due to his temper, it was common for the Baroness to take over behind closed doors. The woman had a much better head on her shoulders and, especially now, she seemed to be far more focussed than the Baron. With a nod, he skipped a few pages in the report and just got to the projected summary.

  “From what we can tell, the aspect’s key attribute should be nature and you can expect it to behave nearly the same as a typical ‘forest’ aspect in this regard. It promises to be potent and has huge potential, but is also not particularly special when discussing aspects. Powerful, yes, but moderately common. The ‘dark’ addition is a somewhat frequent modifier of aspects as well. Even ‘dark forest’ has been seen frequently throughout history and it seems to be relatively straightforward. There’s a tendency for these dark attributes to focus on light manipulation as would be expected, but they also typically sub-specialise in modifying sensory perception. In less common instances, but still not unheard of, it’s also shown signs of affecting emotions as well, though that would be to a much lesser degree. Once paired with a word like ‘lost’ however, I suspect you can expect that to change.”

  He took a deep breath, rubbing his forehead as he looked over the last part. ‘Lost’ was not common as an aspect modifier. Not at all. Occasionally it would crop up in aspects as a modifier of a location. ‘Lost city’ was one of the historically and academically more intriguing ones, though others had existed as well. What these location-based modifiers had in common was memory affecting properties as well as spacial distortion: the latter of which was a promising lead even now, though he felt much less confident in the former.

  When it came to finding ‘lost’ aspects used as a state of being as opposed to a locational modifier however, ‘lost at sea’ was the only one that appeared in the records he could access. A fact that proved progressively more irritating once he learned that the owner of that aspect died at thirty five, meaning there was little time for the full extent of the aspect’s capabilities to be seen. With the limited resources at his disposal, Olivier used what little was known and also crossreferenced a handful of maze and labyrinth aspects in hopes of understanding how this might behave.

  “Unfortunately, I need to apologise in advance: I can’t actually say much with regards to her ‘lost’ modifier. I can say with certainty that it is space attributed, but it’s unlikely to be reminiscent of a more common spacial aspect. When people think of space, they tend to gravitate towards the popularised spells for pocket dimensions, teleportation, or spatial fissures. Those might be achievable as well but, from the few resources I have at my disposal, the focus seems to be based on more subtle spacial warping and manipulation. I’m truly sorry I can’t say more. Even with the little information I could find, it seems like a difficult to analyse aspect. Once paired with the other modifiers, who knows how it might mix with ‘forest’ or ‘dark’.”

  He frowned at his own sloppily done research. His own aspect of ‘library’ had enabled him to maintain countless pieces of information at his beck and call, but even considering how it was on such short notice, this was far below the quality he aimed for and, unfortunately, what would follow next would be even more shameful. He glanced up from the page and saw the Baron squeezing an armrest like it personally insulted him, while the Baroness seemed to be watching and listening to him like a predator about to catch its prey. Sighing, he got to the part he dreaded.

  “So. Bloodline. Hmmm… Cutting to the heart of it, I have no idea.”

  The sound of wood splintering filled the carriage as Vincent practically frothed at the mouth.

  “Excuse me? We paid you how much and you don’t have the slightest idea? You know what, I think I ought to—”

  He was cut off by his wife who squeezed the man’s wrist, nails digging into his skin as she gave him a scathing look. Olivier, in all his self preservative wisdom, didn’t make so much as a sound until she finally returned her gaze to him and gave a small nod.

  “I apologise: saying that we have no idea might have been a slight exaggeration, but it isn’t that far from the mark. I've compared Dahlia’s bloodline to all existing records I have access to as well as all recorded monstrous races, but nothing seems to match. All we could confirm is that it appears to be a race not tied to a specific element, but rather could occur in different elemental variations.”

  Although the Baron was still fuming and hardly paying attention, Sabrina seemed particularly absorbed in this information. As he continued to explain, he could almost see her eyes flashing with a dangerous interest. Ultimately though, he couldn’t bring himself to care. Though they paid well, the Baron and his wife were hardly his highest paying clients, nor were they the most enjoyable to work for; he was more than happy to let them keep whatever petty squabbles and schemes they had to themselves. And so, ignoring Sabrina’s growing intensity, Olivier pushed forward and just stuck to doing his job.

  “If I had to draw a parallel to similar bloodlines, the most intuitive would be elemental spirits and dragons. Unlike, say, a phoenix or kirin which have a specific element prescribed to their race, a dragon could be fire attributed, lightning attributed, etcetera. Of course, I use these examples, but we know for certain she doesn’t have a draconic bloodline, or anything else in my databases. Whatever it is would need to be exceedingly rare or incredibly good at hiding itself from human eyes.”

  Sighing, he sat back and shrugged.

  “Also, I ought to note that when we tested it and attempted to resonate different attributes with Dahlia’s bloodline, we found that they all reacted negatively. Despite analysis suggesting that she should resonate with at least one attribute, not a single element we could test managed to resonate which leaves us even more uncertain. Beyond that, it’s as I said before: I don’t know any more and I don’t have a single lead to follow.

  “The one positive thing to note is that, with how her bloodline is estimated to be less than twenty percent purity and is also completely unknown and unrecorded, you can rest assured that Dahlia isn’t some child born from Sabrina having an affair. If that was the case, the father’s own bloodline would have been recorded. Additionally, she didn’t run off and lay with a mysterious monster either as then the purity would be in the range of ninety five percent or higher.”

  He chuckled a bit as he saw Vincent visibly relax at that. His wife hadn’t appreciated the observation in the slightest, but perhaps it had been a hidden sore spot for the Baron and news like this might have helped remove some old insecurities. Feeling like that alone just earned him his paycheque, Olivier finally finished his report.

  “Now, as stated, I can’t tell you how this bloodline entered her system, but chances are it was either highly recessive and in the family for a long time, or it was an entity that contaminated one of your bloodlines. For that later option, think of the typical deal with a devil or angel. Strong enough entities can form contracts or simply release immense amounts of mana where the residual magic leaves a direct imprint on descendants. The actual circumstances that would cause that are a complete unknown though, likely heralding back to something from generations prior.”

  The Baron, though certainly still upset about Dahlia, continued to be temporarily distracted as he now happily held his wife in his arms. What the informant had just said went in one ear and out the other as his attentions were focussed on the woman now cleared of cheating on him as opposed to his failure of a daughter.

  Sabrina, however, was the exact inverse. Vincent's affections seemed to be nothing more than an irritant and a distraction and, instead, all her focus was on Olivier and the information he was delivering. As he kept speaking, the Baroness’ eyes practically shone with hardly contained eagerness and, though nearly imperceptible, a thin, near-crazed, grin had formed on her lips.

  Seeing it, all Olivier could do was thank the gods that this is where his job ended, yet much to his dismay, what he heard next came from that terrifying, smiling mouth.

  “Olivier, be a dear and do everything you can to look into her bloodline further as well as creating a comprehensive report on records of contracts that affect bloodlines. I assure you that you’ll be compensated well. For now you’re dismissed, but I’ll be in touch.”

  Even as she spoke, her smile only widened and a glint flickered in her golden eyes. Not only had she just received the best news in ages, but seeing the man squirm from discomfort made her feel particularly pleasant. Finally, after so many years of just barely getting by, she was once again starting to feel a little more alive.

  Happy New Year and I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

  It has been... shall we say 'brought to my attention' that there are a lot of words in my setting that are an absolute bugger to read and figure out how they're pronounced. Now, eventually I would like to create a full index dedicated to world building as well as creating a complete pronunciation guide but —barring that— I figured I could do a lil bit of pronunciation, worldbuilding, and etymology in my authors notes! I always kinda want to yap in these but because I have a backlog it never feels like I'm writing my thoughts in the moment and this feels like a nice way to go about it.

  Now! For today, we're going to start with the name of the continent the novel is set on: Gitontitán. Pronounced Yee-taan-tee-tan (warning, I'm dreadful with phonetics but I'll do my best). This is the name of the continent, as previously mentioned, inspired by a slightly modified translation of Greek meaning land of the titans. In universe, this would be based on The Old Tongue which is the only Hellenic language in the setting.

  And there ya go! I'll likely keep this up, at least for a while, but if there's a specific name/term you want me to focus on, be it for pronunciation or worldbuilding, please feel free to leave a comment :D

  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

  And if you're interested in talking to me about the novel or if you'd like to join a community of other delightful readers, I'd be happy to see you over at my Discord. You can find the link

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