"I’m sorry. I just have a lot on my mind."
"Like what?" she said softly. "Are you thinking about your friend back in the mines?"
He nodded.
"Don’t worry. I’m sure Papa can—"
"He can’t do anything, Anne. I’ve already asked him."
"But why? He’s a count, you know."
"That’s not how it works," he sighed, rembering an evening when he had begged his uncle to help him retrieve Kaila. "Crystellum is in lsian County, and that’s in the Kingdom of Loyarre. You might not know this because you always skip out on your lessons, but that’s in the Baldor Empire. If he caused trouble there, our grandfather would punish him. That’s what he told ."
"I know where that is..." Rather than snap at him, Anice stomped her foot on the pavent. "Stupid Grandpa. Why does he have to be so an?"
"Anyway, I’m the only one that can help her. I need to beco strong enough to break into the mines, so I can’t waste ti playing around."
"Is that why you’ve started taking lessons from Mr. Stason?"
He nodded. "How did you know?"
Just last week, he had asked the stable master to teach him how to ride a horse. According to his uncle, Stason was the fastest, most skilled rider in the county, which was why the man had been hired to oversee Caedmon’s stables. Every other day of the past week, he had spent about an hour in the fields outside of the estate with the young man, and had already learned to stir a horse into a slow walk, as well as to direct it to a halt. If things went smoothly, then it wouldn’t be long before he could manipulate his mount into a trot.
"I saw you guys from my room. Is that why you’ve also been bothering Alder so much these days? To learn sothing from him, too?"
"He helps control my magical awareness."
Anice’s little jaw dropped in disbelief. "You’ve co into your magical awareness? Since when?"
"A little after I arrived here. It’s really annoying, so I’ve asked Mr. Alder to help manage it." Thanks to the chamberlain, he had gained many hints and insights as to how to keep this sixth sense in check. At random tis throughout the day, he practiced expanding and withdrawing the scope of his awareness, and experinted with it in order to strengthen his overall control over the budding ability. It was growing easier to recognize specific signals, and lately he was having less difficulty differentiating between one and another.
"I haven’t even co into mine, and I’m almost eleven..."
"I thought nobles usually ca into their energies a bit earlier than most people."
She hit him, her face turning a shade redder than its usual flush. "Shut up, Alie."
"Why do you always hit ?"
"Hey," she said, ignoring him. "I can get why you’d go to Mr. Stason and Mr. Alder, but why do you spend so much ti with the gardeners? Half the ti I co to fetch you, you’re planting or pruning like so servant."
He blushed, scratching at his cheek with a soil-encrusted finger. "That has nothing to do with the mines. I just enjoy being in the gardens."
The gardeners had taken a liking to Alistar as of late, since he always found ti to drop by and help them with whatever task they were tackling for the day. Usually, his efforts were limited to watering flowers, pruning bushes or planting seeds. He had recently learned that his mother had loved gardening almost as much as she had enjoyed painting, and that a cherished pasti of her youth had been to cultivate and maintain a vast, flowery garden outside of her forr ho in Cedor, the capital of Civus. After growing up in such a bleak and desolate setting, Alistar found solace in the floral scents and the soft, musty soil, and enjoyed helping such pretty plants to thrive. It was comforting to think that his mother used to enjoy the sa activity, a thought which made him feel a bit closer to her whenever he sought out the gardeners to help them with their work.
Anice’s voice woke him from his daydreams, her tone dispirited. "Listen, Alie. I’ll try not to bother you so much anymore. Just don’t forget to co play with sotis, okay?" She turned to leave, deflating a bit with each step. "I’ll see you at dinner."
Alistar felt guilty as he watched her go, though he didn’t have ti to address the fact. Dinner wasn’t for another few hours, and he had promised Zech that they could get so practice in today, since Mr. Herst was busy this afternoon and he had already finished all of his studies for the week. Hearing this, Zech had assured him that he would be practicing at their training spot for the duration of the day.
Wooden sword in hand, Alistar sprinted to the front gates of the estate. He enjoyed the wind on his face as he waved to the guards that stood sentinel on either side of the cobbled pathway. He stopped to bow his head to both n, and to eagerly ask when they would agree to spar with him.
"Spar, he says," laughed the shorter of the two, whose na was Harold. "You know, your uncle would have our asses if you were injured."
"And," said the bearded man on the left, Rayson, "there’s no way we’d ever agree to fight a shrimp like you. We’ve got reputations to uphold, you know."
"I’ll get you to agree one day. You’ll see!"
"Yeah, yeah," said Harold. "Where are you off to, anyhow, Alistar?"
His smile was wider than intended. "To et my friend."
"Again?" Rayson glanced at the manor house, evidently looking around for a house servant. "That’s every day this week. Are none of the ladies going to accompany you?"
He shook his head. "Uncle says I can go off on my own, so long as I’m back before sundown." This wasn’t entirely true, since Caedmon had added the stipulation that he had to be with Anice if he wanted to leave the estate without supervision, but this wasn’t worthy of ntion.
"Be careful, then," said Rayson. "More of them demon folk are arriving in the city these days. You can never be too cautious around them."
Alistar frowned. "Yes, I’ll be careful."
He ran away from the gate and began the long sprint into town. He usually brought Harold and Rayson so snacks from the pantry, though he’d been in too much of a hurry today to do so. He enjoyed talking to them about swordsmanship the most, to the point that he had shown off his defensive technique to them on three separate occasions. They had both been soldiers in Caedmon’s modest military, and often boasted about taking down a danger beast in their younger days. Alistar could tell that they took pride in their positions, so he complinted their armour and equipnt whenever they wore a new piece, which both n tended to show off with pride.
Unfortunately, just like most people that Alistar t, the two guards had a deep hatred for the Drunaeda. Annoyed by the thought, he pushed such contemplations from his mind as he hurried away from the estate.
What was Mr. Herst busy with, Alistar wondered, that saw him enter the city on a weekday? As far as he knew, since he had t the man this was the first ti that his elderly friend had gone into Mayhaven outside of a Sunday.
Perhaps I should sup at his house tomorrow?
Hoping that his elderly friend wouldn’t suffer too much scorn on his outing, he hurried along to the usual place to find Zech sitting against the base of a tree’s trunk while nibbling at so mulberries.
"Good morrow," said the other boy, who sat up as soon as Alistar stepped out from behind one of the many trees in the area. "I had a feeling you’d be coming early today."
"Good morrow, Zech. Why is that?"
"I saw Mr. Herst in the marketplace when I was hanging out with the others. Since you usually have lessons with him around that ti and you weren’t with him, I figured you’d be free."
The marketplace? Likely, he was shopping for groceries.
"How’s your day going?"
"As good as any other." Standing with a stretch, he said, "Woods and Jaden think it’s suspicious that I keep sneaking away, so they ended up following today. I picked up on it quickly, though, and shook them off."
"Anne wanted to play with , but I also told her I was busy."
Regret in his pale blue eyes as he noted the wooden sword in Alistar’s hand, Zech said, "Were we going to spar today? I didn’t bring my practice sword."
"I’ve noticed that sotis your swordsman’s aura is a bit weak during sparring, so I think you should ditate a bit more. As for , I’m going to go through my sword swings."
They didn’t waste any ti in getting to work, Zech resuming the ditations that he had evidently been taking a break from while Alistar began to practice about a dozen paces away from him.
Since they had struck up a friendship, he had instructed the other boy to dedicate himself to a strict schedule of ditation. Unlike Alistar’s disgruntlent at having been forced by his teacher to endure so many weeks of silent exposure to the elents, Zech hadn’t batted an eyelid and had imdiately set about cultivating his swordsman’s aura with zeal. Apparently, it was widely known that the path of a swordsman began with painstaking ditation, which was why Zech hadn’t shown the slightest bit of surprise when he had been instructed to do so. Sotis, it could take more than a year for a practitioner to make the necessary breakthrough, though it wasn’t uncommon for others to achieve this in as little as a few weeks. Alistar was one such example, and surprisingly, his friend was as well.
Distan was the only sort of civilization in the region, so it naturally attracted many of the travellers that journeyed through the Tall Mountains. Many of these people stopped by the tavern that Zech’s family ran, and the boy claid that groups of frontiersn were common sights among the crowd. As a tavern hand, he had seized every opportunity to ask these adventurers for pointers about swordsmanship, and thanks to the few decent souls that had taken him seriously, he’d managed to gain a vague understanding of how to take the first steps in his training.
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