Remedial Magic: Step by Aching Step, page 2
“It’s fine, Zee,” Aldric repeated a third time. He didn’t really have anything better to say, but knew that she would give up, eventually. It was the same argument they’d had over and over. Zasia seemed to realize it too, because she just crossed her arms and harrumphed, apparently conceding for now, but clearly not happy about it. She would no doubt bring it up again the moment Aldric got into more trouble. As the silence continued to stretch out, Aldric sighed and finally broke it.
“Thanks for stepping in,” he muttered while scratching at the back of his neck. “That could have been a lot worse. And while I’m at it, thanks for all the other times, too. If I haven’t said that already.”
Zasia eyed him critically for a moment before she smirked, playfully kicking his shin. “You’re welcome. It’s my job to pull you out of your own messes, apparently, and I’ve had lots of practice. If you really want to thank me, you’ll stay out of trouble.” She prodded him between the eyes repeatedly as she emphasized each word to him.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m going straight home,” Aldric groaned as he smacked her hand away. “You might want to come with. They’ll likely try something else now that I embarrassed them. I don’t need my dad yelling at me for getting beaten up in the front yard of our own house.” Aldric adopted a nasally and mocking voice. “What would the neighbors think, you stupid child? Haven’t you embarrassed me enough?”
Zasia didn’t laugh. Her smirk slowly died as she eyed him with concern again. “Will everything be alright? At home, I mean. Do you want to stay with—?”
“Dad won’t do anything over this. He’ll just get cross and then forget about me. It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” Aldric winced inwardly as he inadvertently said his catch phrase for a fourth time. It was never really true, and it never made Zasia feel better.
Zasia opened her mouth to say something, likely to call him out on his lie, but a girl’s voice interrupted them before she could say anything else.
“Excuse me. May I ask you a question?”
Aldric turned to address the new speaker, mildly annoyed that someone was bothering him yet again today. What the hell did they want from him now? Didn’t anybody know it was pointless to take something from someone who had nearly nothing?
Then he stopped and stared as he forgot how to breathe.
She was immaculate. It sounded stupid and cheesy in Aldric’s head, but “pretty” and “beautiful” fell far too short to describe her. Silver hair that hung in long, straight strands past her shoulders framed a perfectly lovely face, with two bright, almost iridescent violet eyes flanking a dainty nose that sat above naturally ruby lips. Her face seemed curiously blank of all emotion, not housing the usual disdain or mocking most nobles directed at Aldric. She was saying... something. Aldric wasn’t really sure what, as his ears also appeared to have stopped working along with his lungs. She was almost too pretty, to the point of being uncanny and intimidating.
Then, all at once, Aldric’s senses reasserted themselves. He took in her extravagant dress, lying underneath the school robes that marked her as a conjurer, and immediately remembered who he was dealing with. If she wasn’t a high-born noblewoman, then Aldric was the next emperor of Rhagia. And nobles were all the same.
“What?” Aldric asked briskly. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with more well-off noble brats. Even the really, really pretty ones. If the girl noticed his rudeness, she didn’t openly show it.
“May I inquire as to how you performed such a feat?” she asked in a polite yet oddly blank voice. She indicated the small patch of torn up grass where Aldric had tossed Gabin like a potato sack. “Your robes mark you as a sorcerer, correct? How is such a thing possible for you? Is it some sort of enchantment?”
Aldric just blinked at her. He half expected something more mocking or scathing to come out of her mouth, but she seemed genuinely curious. His usual witty snark abandoned him in the face of such sincerity as he struggled for a response.
“I, uh... it’s a secret,” Aldric answered lamely. It would take too long to explain. He really just wanted her to get to what she wanted so he could leave.
The girl tilted her head to the side at a forty-five-degree angle, looking like a puzzled animal. Aldric tried not to think about how cute it made her look.
“I see,” she said, though she clearly didn’t. She waited a few more beats, as if expecting Aldric to elaborate, but when he didn’t, she frowned in a way that immediately made Aldric feel bad. “That is quite vexing. I had hoped to learn this secret. I assure you I will not reveal such things easily. Is there no way I can convince you?”
Aldric was certain there were several things a pretty girl could say to him to make him do something stupid, so he decided to escape. Dealing with nobles was always a headache, particularly when they asked for favors. He began backing up slowly, like he was afraid the girl might jump him if he made any sudden movements. “Not really a secret if I just tell anyone who asks, right?” he babbled as he made to grab Zasia’s arm and retreat.
The girl’s frown lessened and eventually vanished as she considered his words. Then she nodded firmly. “This is a test of some sort, then? I suppose we must keep such secrets safe. Very well. Then I will endeavor to prove myself worthy of knowing. I am unaccustomed to sorcery or its practice, but I am confident I will master the concept. Please be patient with me.”
Aldric had no idea what she was talking about, but she at least didn’t seem mad at him, which was more progress than he usually made with nobles. The girl abruptly performed a textbook curtsy and dismissed herself, heading away from the courtyard and presumably to her home. She was gone as suddenly as she had arrived. It left Aldric gawking after her, wondering what the hell had just happened.
Zasia abruptly grabbed him by the collar and yanked him towards her, her face inches from his. Aldric would have felt embarrassed if she didn’t look so stricken with sudden terror. “How do you know her? How did someone like you even meet a girl like her? Please tell me you didn’t make her angry. I swear Aldric, if you insulted her in some way, your academy days really are over!”
“I don’t even know who the hell she is! Why do you always assume I did something wrong, huh?” Aldric shot back. “You think I’d forget someone as gorgeous as that? Not on your life.”
That somehow made Zasia even more upset. “T-That’s not the point, idiot!” she yelled as she shoved him backwards roughly. “I’m not kidding, Aldric. That girl really isn’t someone you should associate with. It could bring you a lot of trouble—”
Zasia quickly stopped talking and looked over Aldric’s shoulder with alarm. Aldric turned in confusion and found the same girl behind him a second time, holding out a piece of paper to him.
“Here you are,” the girl said simply, sticking the piece of paper to Aldric’s left shoulder. When the paper glowed as she imbued it with her mana, Aldric recognized it as spell paper, meant to hold a spell inscription to be activated later. Whatever spell was inscribed on this one immediately eased the persistent ache in his shoulder, flooding his body with a cooling wave of relief.
Written healing spells like that were extremely costly, but this girl had just foisted it upon him, like she was handing out her business card. It was shocking she would even have something like this on her person. Just how well off did she have to be to so casually carry around a fortune like that?
Before Aldric could even say anything, she curtsied again and abruptly left a second time, leaving Aldric to deal with the emotional whiplash caused by this bizarre girl. She was practically a force of nature, like frequent surprise spring showers. Never in his young life had Aldric ever met a noble quite like her. At least she was only weird and not a snob. That alone would have been unique enough to catch Aldric’s attention.
“So... who the hell was that?” Aldric asked Zasia. He was still staring after the girl as he asked, and Zasia pinched his side painfully to get his attention. She looked oddly grumpy as she glared at him, like he’d offended her somehow.
“That,” she answered crossly, “is Miraea Meltisse, of Great House Meltisse. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave her well enough alone.”
ZASIA’S MANOR WAS A few blocks away from Aldric’s, so she gave him one last stern warning to behave himself and a brief hug before she left him. Just as the sun was setting, Aldric trudged up the drive to his family’s estate, wishing once again that he lived anywhere but here.
“Estate” was probably being overly generous. “Shack” would have been closer. The entire place looked almost abandoned, despite still housing three people. It was appropriately gigantic, as all noble manors were, but that only made it harder to maintain. Wood paneling was chipped or coming off altogether. A few shingles were missing from the roof, and some sort of invasive species of vine was snaking its way across almost every inch of the property.
Aldric had to watch his step as he got closer to the house, making sure not to trip over loose cobblestones on the neglected pathway. The front garden looked like someone had tried to start a garden, gotten bored, and then quit halfway. What few shrubs there were had been cut back to proper size, but it only made the other bare half of the garden more obvious. This was clearly a place that should have been given up on ages ago, but some stubborn fool was still trying to clutch onto past glory. That described Aldric’s father perfectly.
Aldric didn’t bother to wait for any servants to open the front doors for him. He simply seized the rusted knocker and heaved on it himself, making sure to lift it slightly so it wouldn’t drag itself across the ground on loose, squealing hinges. What greeted him inside was a spartan entryway. They had sold off most of the furnishings in here to cover debts, and it made the sound of the front door shutting again uncomfortably loud as it echoed off the barren walls.
The only thing of note in here, or rather, the only person, was the maid. Nora was crouched down on the floor, a bucket of soapy water at her side and a rag in hand as she wiped away at the marble floor. That the estate was beyond saving was apparently lost on her. She might have been pretty at one point, but now she looked as tired and worn as the house itself, as if this depressing place had sapped her of any vitality or youth. She was likely in her mid-fifties, though Aldric had never bothered to ask her. It wasn’t like she cared about him, anyway. He was just another piece of furniture to her, except that he was one she couldn’t clean or fix.
“His lordship is in the dining hall,” she said to the floor in front of her, not bothering to acknowledge Aldric beyond that simple statement. Most servants in a noble household would have been severely punished for such rudeness, but Aldric was used to it. The only person this woman respected was his father. For some reason.
“Thanks,” Aldric said just as flippantly. He was unsurprised when she didn’t answer, instead continuing her endless crusade to pull this place out of the grave, one speck of dirt at a time. Leaving her to her delusions, Aldric walked down a side hall and stepped into the dining room.
This room was probably one of the most furnished in the estate, which wasn’t saying much. A massive mahogany table dominated the room. There was space enough for twelve to sit at it comfortably, but only three chairs remained, the others all repurposed elsewhere in the house. A large chandelier hung overhead, but the magical glycite crystals that had once adorned it had all been removed and sold off, leaving it strangely bare.
A marble fireplace sat at one end of the room, a fire already roaring within it. Displayed prominently above that was an enormous portrait of a man in his thirties, dressed resplendently in a luxurious tunic and waistcoat, with carefully coiffed brown hair and a thinly trimmed beard. Aldric snorted a chuckle when he saw it. The irony of such an image never stopped being funny to him.
The man meant to be represented in the painting sat in front of the fireplace at the head of the table. Lord Varon Dengarius had probably once looked like that, but the later years of his life had not been kind to his appearance. The carefully groomed hair from the picture was now a barely contained bed of grey chaos, full of grease to keep it slicked back and out of his face and eyes. More than a few wrinkles dominated his face, none of them laugh lines, and his beard now nearly touched his chest. He still wore the expensive clothing, but its threadbare appearance marked it as a desperate attempt to appear better off than they were.
The man’s steely grey eyes, the only thing Aldric had inherited from his father, snapped to his son as he entered the room. The look Aldric found in them was not warm or welcoming, as expected.
“Did you get into another fight, boy?” his father asked, clearly noting the scrapes and bruises marring Aldric’s features.
“It was after class,” Aldric answered dismissively. He walked past his father and into the kitchen, not bothering with a greeting. “None of the academy staff saw. I won, anyway.”
Aldric began digging through the food crates in the kitchen, all haphazardly stacked on top of each other and opened randomly. Some of it had clearly spoiled, but most were still in the realm of edible. Aldric grabbed a hunk of bread and some cheese, giving them an experimental squeeze to make sure they didn’t have any surprise critters for him inside.
“Fine,” Aldric’s father said from the other room. “But don’t do it again. Your incompetence will not hamper our return to fame, do you hear me? We have enough to worry about without you dragging our name through the mud every time you go outside. Don’t embarrass us any more than you already have.”
“Hard to lose what we never had, dad,” Aldric muttered under his breath.
“What was that?”
“Where’s the wine?” Aldric answered, deliberately changing the subject.
His father growled in irritation but eventually answered, “Top shelf. It’s the last bottle for a while, so don’t guzzle it.”
Aldric grabbed a random glass he found, topped it nearly to the brim with the wine, then carried his bounty of bread and cheese back into the dining room. He made a point of grabbing the chair nearest his father and hauling it all the way to the other end of the table before seating himself on it. Aldric could see the anger seething behind the man’s eyes at his son’s disrespect, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Had this been several years ago, he could have, but Aldric was old enough now that his father couldn’t just hit him anymore. Not unless he wanted Aldric to hit him back.
Both father and son ate in silence for a long while, neither having any interest in the other. Aldric did his best to avoid the moldy bits in his bread. It wasn’t like it would kill him. Maybe he could go over to Zasia’s estate later and mooch off her. She always fed him when he visited, even when her parents looked at Aldric like he was a mutt their daughter had found in the streets.
“Go to your room and finish that.”
Aldric rolled his eyes. “I’m that hard to look at, huh?”
“I have a guest. Leave,” his father commanded.
Aldric blinked in confusion, then looked about the room. They were no longer alone, it seemed. A stranger stood near the entrance to the dining room, looking like they were waiting to be allowed inside. They were tall, extremely so, and wore a heavy brown cloak with the hood drawn down low over their face, hiding it in shadow. Aldric hadn’t even heard the figure enter the room, but the way the space under the cowl looked in Aldric’s direction made him distinctly uncomfortable.
“This again?” Aldric muttered, exasperated. Yet another shady character coming to talk to his father about gods knew what. This was the fourth time in as many days, too. Whatever machinations Aldric’s father had going on in the background to weasel his way back into society, Aldric wanted no part of it. He sighed and got up, taking his wine glass with him, and shouldered past the stranger.
“Try not to sell off the house or my inheritance in the name of ambition, pops,” Aldric called over his shoulder, just before the door was unceremoniously slammed shut behind him. He was half tempted to eavesdrop out of nothing but spite, but if Nora caught him at it, she’d no doubt rat on him to his father.
Aldric retreated upstairs to his room, avoiding the creakiest of the floorboards on his way by habit. On his way to his room, however, he passed by and then stopped in front of another room, one that was never used by anyone except him.
He hadn’t planned on it tonight, but he supposed it had been a while since he’d cleaned up in there. It was probably in a miserable state now, and it wasn’t like Nora or his father would do it. They avoided this room like the plague and hadn’t even cannibalized it to fund his father’s desperate schemes. Making sure Nora wasn’t around, Aldric quickly took out a small piece of metal that carried a rune script he’d prepared himself. He slipped it into the lock of the door, gave the metal a quick imbuing, and then smiled in satisfaction as the lock let out a soft click.
Wincing at the sound of the neglected metal hinges squealing loudly, Aldric slowly opened the door just enough to let himself in before closing it again. The room was pitch black, the night stars the only thing visible through a large window at the far end. Aldric felt around for the vanity he knew would be near the door and quickly located the lamp he’d left there the last time he’d visited. With another brief imbuing, the runes on the lamp lit up brightly and filled the room with light.
It was a large bedroom, clearly meant for a rich noblewoman to live in. The giant four-poster bed that lay just under the far window was decorated with a rose-colored blanket and more frilly pillows than Aldric thought was strictly necessary. Next to Aldric was a vanity with a mirror and a wardrobe. The other walls were a mix of neglected bookshelves and random nature paintings. In the center of the room was a small table with chairs, meant for entertaining close friends or relatives. Even the tea set on top of the table was made of elegant porcelain decorated with roses.
The entire room gave off the feel of a museum. Everything was oddly still and silent, like the room itself had slumbered for many years. A fine patina of dust coated just about everything, and Aldric sighed at the amount of work he would need to do. That’s what he got for slacking, he guessed.
