‘Dad I gotta go.’
Sophia tried to step back but the duke snatched her wrist with surprising agility.
‘Hold on,’ The old man felt a rare moment of hesitation, he thought he had left that emotion behind in his fifties. ‘I’m doing it today Fio, I came to say goodbye.’
Fiona was silent for a while, ‘I’m sad to see you go, but I understand. Thank you for giving me the chance to say goodbye. I loved having you as my dad, and… I love you dad. Vera falina.’
Sophia sat back down, “You were right sir, she has become strong.”
The duke laughed, followed by another coughing fit. Sophia offered him water again and this time he took it graciously.
“I’m starting to realize,” He flipped through his memories of his youngest daughter as he sipped at the water. “She’s been fooling stupid old men since she was four years old.”
“She certainly has talent in that area,” Sophia smiled.
“I’d ask you to look out for her, but we’d be playing bodyguard to a tiger.”
Sophia let out a small laugh, “Regardless, I will keep an eye out for her. Even tigers have blind spots.”
“Thank you.” The duke allowed himself one last moment of hesitation in his life.
Sophia noticed the silence and quickly pulled out her day planner. “If you have a moment sir, I’d like you to look over the production quota for this year.”
“You want to entice a dying man to choose life with taxes and quotas?” The old man reached for the list she held out. “Fine, one last favor for my favorite daughter.”
“Fiona would be devastated to hear that sir.” Sophia did her best to remain stoic.
“That was a joke, it sounded funny in my head.”
“I am devastated to hear that sir.”
“Sorry Fia, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“That was a joke sir.”
Clyde carefully coated his scalpel with a numbing salve on one side and a regenerative salve on the other. He quickly dipped it into a small jar of stabilizer and held his breath. A moment later, he raised it out of the jar and black oil dripped off the razor sharp edge of his instrument.
“Master cleric, please finish your preparations, the patient is arriving soon.” A nurse poked her head into the prep room adjacent to the operating room.
“Almost done,” Clyde stared closely at the faint glow exuding from his scalpel. He heard sounds of a gurney being rushed through the hallway and stuck his head out, driven by curiosity. The cleric wanted to see who had the power to insist on him personally to take on the transplant.
The gurney flew by in a blur and Clyde could only make out the patient’s injuries. Bloody bandages around the man’s eyes confirmed that this was indeed his patient.
“Donor’s coming in now,” The same nurse from before rolled a second gurney into the prep room.
The cleric looked down at the blue cloth covering the large man strapped down to the metal bed. A singular hole was cut above the man’s left eye. Clyde met the man’s gaze and saw the fury and terror swirling within.
“What’s the donor status?”
“Matching blood type, sir.”
“Volunteer?” Clyde glanced down again.
“Yes sir.”
He found it hard to believe, the man on the gurney seemed anything but voluntary. He sensed a binding enchantment on the leather straps, a strong one at that.
“Who is he?”
“A soldier sir,” The nurse scanned through the information provided.
“Do we have a name?”
“No sir.”
“Where’s he from?”
“Ashton village sir.”
“Never heard of it.”
“The patient is ready for operation sir,” The nurse gestured towards the operating room.
“Where is this… Ashton was it?” Clyde slowly applied a ring of coagulant around the soldier’s eye.
“It’s a small village in the north western mountains. Sir, the patient is ready.”
“He’s a long way from home.”
“Yes sir, he is.”
“Could I see his service record?”
“I can request it from our central office, but you need to do this operation now. Sir.”
Clyde could sense nothing wrong with the donor. Just a typical healthy soldier of the empire. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Enough is enough.
“I can’t do this,” Clyde dropped his scalpel and pushed past a surprised nurse.
As the master cleric fled down the hallway, he saw the nurse motion to one of his colleagues. A dark haired man he recognized from his lecture and sermons. Master Erwin watched Clyde without expression, maintaining the usual stoney gaze that showed nothing.
Out of professional courtesy, Master Erwin waited until his fellow clergyman left the house of healing before he entered the operation room in Clyde’s stead.
Sain went inside the arena’s back office and approached the crowd of men gathered around a pay booth. He saw lieutenant Karsh along with the rest of his troop standing guard by the booth and joined them.
“Where’s Captain Raube?” Sain asked.
“Debrief.” Karsh shrugged.
“He left for that hours ago,” Sain looked around the crowd. He recognized some of the other men, various cohorts of migrants that served as the arena’s day laborers.
“We’re out of coin! The rest of you come back tomorrow for your pay!” As soon as the official inside the booth made his announcement he ducked out and left Sain and his troop to handle the commotion that followed.
A particularly well motivated worker got past the first line of defense and threw a rock at the glass booth. It shattered the window and the anti-assault enchantment blasted the glass shards outwards. Sain felt Lieutenant Karsh grab him by the collar and throw him away from the impact, narrowly avoiding the glass shower.
“Fucking migrants,” Karsh drew his sword and shouted at his men. “Draw your weapons!”
The rest of Sain’s troop followed suit and the migrant workers quickly settled down upon seeing the glowing red blade each of the soldiers were holding.
“Go home!” Karsh shouted.
A rock arced through the air from within the crowd, flying towards the soldiers. Before it connected, the Lieutenant swung his sword and the airfoil that his edge created blasted the rock out of the air in a shower of crumbled pebbles and dust. A second swing sent a large gust at the crowd, blowing them all back several steps and pelting them with debris.
Seeing themselves being outmatched in power, the migrants began to trickle out of the building, cursing and spitting at the soldiers. Sain saw the cold anger on their faces give away to defeated hopelessness as they realized that there was no use fighting.
A nurse watched as two men in full body suits carried a body bag onto the back of a carriage.
“Tonight,” She instructed as she handed the older of the pair a sack of coins. “No traces, it needs to be a full disposal. The enchantments are volatile.”
“Yes ma’am.”
The two men rode off towards their next stop. Upon arrival, they quickly tossed the bag onto a workbench. Another voice joined them and they began their usual haggle.
“What can you get out of this?”
“Not much, there’s just some basic numbing enchants on the bag.”
“Bullshit, this came from the central house, them rich pricks always get the good stuff. I could pull out thirty coins worth myself.”
“So go do it.”
“I know you could pull more out of it so I’m cutting you in.”
“I’ll give you twenty for it.”
“Thirty.”
“You want to spend the next three hours unweaving the enchantment yourself? I can rent you a table.”
“Twenty seven.”
“Twenty seven for the bag.”
“The whole thing comes as is.”
“Then I’m charging five silvers for disposal.”
“Fine, no traces and twenty two coins.”
The coins changed hands and the two men sped off leaving the body bag on the weaver’s workbench. The man grumbled to himself as he opened his tool bag and retrieved a siphon stone, a quill pen, an inkwell and a brown leather bound notebook. He then rummaged through the drawers under his work bench and found a small vial of blue filings. He opened the notebook and flipped to the page bookmarked by a thin silk ribbon, a gift from his wife. The weaver checked his timepiece and wrote down the time in a table alongside other similar entries. With careful precision, the old weaver weighed his vial and consulted his notes to confirm his numbers matched reality. Satisfied, he portioned out a small amount of the filings onto the scale and wrote down the weight in another table.
With slow methodical movements, the weaver rubbed the filings on the smooth side of the oval siphon stone. He felt the familiar jolts of power on his fingertips and they went numb shortly after. As he continued to apply the filings to the stone, gray dust fell from it in a small pile on his work bench. The once dormant siphon stone glowed a faint blue that matched the resonance of the black bag he paid for. The weaver then collected the spent filings in a large jar that was already half full of the gray dust
Preparations complete, the old man began to run the siphon stone across the surface of the bag slowly. Small crackles could be heard, bringing a smile to the man’s weathered lips. No matter how long he worked in this field, he never tired of hearing the sound of money. After three fluid swipes from a well practiced arm, the weaver collected the filings that had gathered at the bottom of the stone into his vial. He continued this pattern of three swipes and then collection as he worked his way across the surface of the bag.
Hours later, the black bag that once had a faint blue glow lay dormant on the bench. Shortly after that, the bag was lifted once more by large hands.
“Get rid of it.” The weaver handed over a small sack of coins and that was the last he saw of the black bag.
“These numbers don’t make sense to me either,” The duke shook his head. “Central is squeezing us hard.”
“They’re pushing us to famine.” Sophia sighed.
“I’m sure the official reports will say that the correct allotment of grain was delivered to our province.” The duke scoffed. “There you go again, raising an old man’s temper.”
“My apologies sir,” Sophia put the ledger away. “I will leave to let you rest now.”
“Not so fast girl,” The duke pointed to the nightstand. “Open the drawer.”
Sophia dutifully obeyed and pulled on the ivory knob of the drawer. She saw a familiar vial laying there, it had to be one of her sister’s. “How long have you had this?”
“I asked Fio to brew me a mix during her last visit.”
“You told her then?”
“No, that was just when she agreed to do it. I told her last year.”
“You gave her a year, and I only get a week?”
“Sain got today,” The duke laughed.
“Sain couldn’t-” Sophia stopped herself. She took a breath and exhaled slowly. “Fiona kept this from me for a year.”
“Surprised?”
“Impressed.”
“Me too, I thought you’d find out through her.” The duke reached for the vial. “Give it here.”
“I can’t believe she actually made you this.”
“Me neither,” He shrugged. “Honestly, out of all my children, she consistently surprises me the most.”
Sophia stared at the liquid inside the vial, what are the chances that this is just a syrup mix? After a moment of consideration, she placed the vial in her father’s expectant palm. “I am expressing my disapproval once again.”
“Noted.” The duke popped open the vial and took a whiff. He chuckled at his own silliness as he smelled nothing. He imagined it would be tasteless as well.
“Please reconsider, sir.”
“It’s time.” The duke raised the vial to his lips.
“Father, wait!” Sophia grabbed the duke’s wrist. A large grin slowly spread across his lips.
“I secretly hoped you would call me that one last time,” He gently pried his eldest’s hand from his wrist. “Would you promise me one last thing dear?”
“Anything father,” Sophia nodded, careful to not let the tears spill out of her eyelids with the motion.
“Don’t let your powers consume you,” He held her hand in his. “And don’t sacrifice yourself, you’re too important to the people.”
“I won’t,” She nodded again, this time unable to hold the tears back.
“I know you’ll be great,” The duke raised the vial to his lips again. This time, Sophia held herself back from interfering again. It would not be graceful a second time. “Vera Falina.”
Sophia let her tears flow freely as she watched her father fall into sleep for the final time. “Vera Falina,” She whispered and kissed the Duke’s forehead. Thirty minutes later, she left her father’s study without a trace of tears on her face.
“Good night, young master.” The guard outside greeted her.
“It’s just master now.” She replied.
“I’m sorry for your loss, master.”
ns216.73.216.62da2
and then Add to home screen.