Gifted

I could feel something just wasn’t right during dinner. My mother was more quiet than usual, despite the celebratory nature of the meal and dessert, which made me wonder what was going through her mind. So, like any nosey child, after a quick wash with a rag and being put to bed, I got back up.

The moment I was out from under the furs that made up my covers, I experienced instant regret. Winter was truly upon us once more and the chilly evening air was cold enough for my breath to frost. Beneath my furs my feet had not been exposed to the cold wooden floorboards of my room. Now, they were slowly turning to little icicles attached to my ankles.

Even with the weather against me, I didn’t relent in my quest to find out what had been bothering mum. So, I silently crept from my room. Walking down the stairs, I skipped the second from the top, knowing it would creak beneath my weight, and carefully made my way to the second landing.

Laying down at the top of the stairs that led to the ground floor, I was finally close enough to hear my mother’s voice as she spoke to grandpa. Unfortunately, the wood was muffling whatever she was saying and so with some trepidation, I descended the rest of the way to the ground floor.

The pair of them were by the fire, mother with a blanket over her legs to ward off the cold. Grandpa was seated closer to the fire, pipe in his mouth with plumes of wispy white smoke curling upwards from the glowing coal that mirrored the burning logs nearby.

“Dad, how could you make that promise?” asked my mother quietly.

“For Bastian’s Aether Core?”

“Of course. He wants to be a mage like you so badly. Clearly he looks up to you, which is probably why he’s always annoying you.”

Do not, I griped mentally. Who wouldn’t want to be able to do magic? Gramps is alright, but I am in it for the magic, mum! The magic!

“Perhaps, Penny. Perhaps not. Maybe he just knows what he wants. Why is the promise bothering you so much?”

“Because I know you can’t afford it, dad. Maybe you can afford to improve his Aether Core before he gets his Class Path, but then you won’t be able to afford to send him to one of the better schools. Songleaf Academy is out for certain. Maybe we could have afforded that if you spent the next six years saving up for it with aether coins, but then, how are you going to pay for tutors for him? Unless you have made some of your own improvements, it doesn’t add up. I’m afraid you’re going to leave him disappointed.”

You’re not wrong mum, I thought. I would be a bit disappointed. But, Aether Core is definitely the number one priority! Who cares about school? Actually, thinking about it, it’s a school for magic, right? Okay, I do care. Maybe I should’ve taken Path of Thievery after all! Then I could pay my own way…assuming I didn’t get caught. Oh shit, what did I miss?

“...you’re right though. I haven’t improved my own Paths by much and my Class Path has been almost stagnant since I was sent up here. But, there is a way to get enough money to handle everything. Enough to get some tutors up here next spring for Bastian, though they won’t be the best. I still have a couple of friends in the Adventurer’s Society willing to do an old man a favor on the cheap. His Aether Core, since he seems set on it, is my main priority. Which means we won’t have enough for a school, let alone Songleaf Academy. So, I’ll ask Agnes.”

Who the hells is Agnes? I wondered. Mother solved my problem there, as she usually does for most of my issues.

“Aunt Agnes?” Mum ground out. I thought she sounded mildly incredibly furious. “Aunt Agnes abandoned us! She turned her back on us after what happened!”

“Just me, actually,” Cornelius interjected. “She offered to take you into her household when they decided to banish me.”

“What? You never told me that,” said my mum, sounding a little confused. “Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

“Would you have taken her offer?” grandpa asked .

“Of course not, dad.”

“That makes me happier than you know, my little Penny flower,” muttered the old man, a hitch in his voice. “I wasn’t as sure back then, and I was selfish. I didn’t want to lose my daughter.”

I watched as my mother moved over and hugged her dad. She was a grown woman, and yet I could see the way she clung to the old codger was the exact same way I clung to her.

“I’d never have abandoned you, dad.”

I heard the sound of soft choked out crying and realised it was the old man. It was enough to get me tearing up and I wasn’t even involved in the interaction. It also made me feel a little guilty for eavesdropping. I wiped my eyes before they could do more than blur a little. They held each other for another minute before the hug broke apart and my mother moved back to her seat, wiping her own eyes.

“So, Aunt Agnes isn’t all bad,” Mum said, though there was still a bite to the way she said her aunt’s name. My grand aunt, I realised. “Why does that matter?”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Your Aunt is a wealthy woman,” grandpa replied, wiping away his own tears as he took another puff of his pipe. I noted mother didn’t tell him not to. Apparently he could smoke, just not around me. “She has more than enough coin to pay for tuition to Songleaf, assuming he can pass the entrance exams.”

“But? There’s always a ‘but’, dad.”

“But, your Aunt doesn’t do things for free. Not even for family. She would’ve taken you in and taken care of you, but likely just to train you up to be one of the hosts for her auctions. She saw you as an investment. No doubt she would’ve protected you, and maybe it would’ve been a good enough life. I’m getting off topic. The point is, she won’t invest in Bastian’s schooling unless she thinks she’s going to get something out of it.”

“And what will she get out of it?” asked my mum.

Yeah old man, what’s your stingy sister gonna get out of it? I added in my own head.

“If we can help Bastian progress his Paths enough to the point where he can be a contender at Songleaf, not just a run of the mill student, then she will agree to pay his tuition with the hope that he can open doors for her. Her auction house is good enough for the merchants and adventurers, but she’s lucky to get a few barons along to most events. If Bastian can get a count’s son or daughter to come along, then that would be money well spent in Agnes’s eyes. Or better, open up new suppliers for her.”

“You’re suggesting we treat him like what… a ticket salesman for Aunt Agnes’s auctions?”

“Do you think Bastian would complain, if it got him into Songleaf?” grandpa mused.

No, no I would not, I answered silently. I’ll dance for my dinner if it gets me into the premier academy that apparently is all about making numbers go up faster. Sign me up!

“You don’t have to decide tonight, Penny. Hells, you don’t even need to decide this year. But we should start talking with Agnes at least a couple of years before we intend to move back to Helenica. Assuming that is still the plan? She’ll want to come see the ‘goods’ before she invests.”

“She would really come all the way out here for that?” asked my mum.

Grandpa snorted loudly. “Hells no. But she’d send someone she trusted to come do a review and gauge Bastian’s progress. We still have years though. Who knows. Maybe Bastian will change his mind about what he wants. He’s a persistent little bugger, but he’s also only three.”

Almost four, I thought. Now that winter is really starting it won’t be long till I am four!

I saw my mother shuffling and figured she was probably going to be getting up to head for bed soon. The meat of the conversation was over and it was time for me to make a quick exit before I turned into a pumpkin. I turned towards the stairs and noticed a rat’s tail slinking away into a crack in the wooden wall of the second landing.

We have rats now? I wondered in annoyance.

Sneaking back upstairs was even harder than coming down because my legs had absorbed the cold like a dry sponge tossed into water. I crawled back under my fur blankets, shivering a little as I slowly but surely warmed up.

The conversation between my mother and my grandpa hadn’t changed anything for me. Even if I hadn’t known that I was going to be paraded around like a prized horse, I still would’ve put in the same amount of effort. The euphoria I felt seeing the numbers go up and experiencing the physical changes, even in such small increments, was indescribable. If there was a peak in this world, I wanted to find it.

I fell asleep dreaming not about fighting dragons or saving damsels, but about scaling a mountain, one hand hold at a time. The peak was above me and with every strained movement I grew closer to it. Finally, I turned and looked down on the land below through the clouds that were beneath me. The apex.

I woke the following day with a refreshed desire to do my absolute best. The winter that followed was the coldest in my life, either one. Griselda lost one of her sheep to it which brought her small flock down to five. Somehow the goats fared better, according to the half orc woman when she came to visit us, caked in snow and offering to sell the extra sheep to us.

Gramps, as I had started calling him, readily agreed. I was convinced he loved the taste of lamb more than he loved smoking his pipe, and that was saying something.

The Warden and his family made no appearances in the Outpost, nor did Hurin or Magatha. The Kellins across the road from us came by once a week to have dinner, bringing their own food to share with us and Frederick Kellin partaking in a little of Gramps’ drink in exchange. His wife, Jennifer, was looking heavily pregnant and I had to listen to my mother telling her repeatedly that if they needed anything, anything at all, to come by the outpost.

If the Kellins were an infrequent guest, the Millers might as well have been fixtures. Etta and I continued to take lessons together. Since playing outside was not an option for us, as the snow came up to our chests, our lessons grew longer. I wasn’t complaining, even if Etta was prone to getting distracted. My Paths grew by leaps and bounds under the new regime, as my fourth birthday passed unmarked.

As much as I loved the sight of the white blanket out my window that covered everything and made the mountain peaks above nothing but shadows behind the clouds, I was starting to go stir crazy by the time the snows started to melt. It was almost time to get back outside and start exploring. My scars weren’t gone, but where they had once been thin silver lines, now only the worst remained. Another two to three months and they would vanish entirely. Which was good timing as I expected the first traders and adventurers of the season to start showing up soon.

Calling up my Status I looked at the notifications of my improvements over winter.

You have advanced the Tier of your Path! Path of Swordplay I (872/10)

…

You have advanced the Tier of your Path! Path of Swordplay VI (872/500)

Reward: 2 Strength, 2 Coordination, 2 Stamina

You have advanced the Tier of your Path! Path of Aethersensing VI (997/500)

Reward: 1 Aether

While all my Basic Paths had gone up between six hundred and nine hundred steps, it was my Path of Climbing I was truly focused on. With only three hundred or so steps to go, I was preparing to complete another Path and free up a slot, and with the weather turning warmer it was finally time to do a little work on my Path of Infiltration.