After breakfast Tercius sequestered himself into a dark room of the basement, where he attempted to push his need for sleep by surging his Energy all over his body. But from the way that sleep continued to creep on him, it would seem that even Energy had its limits… His body had endured a few days of sleeplessness and while he was worried that prolonged sleep deprivation could lead to some physical and psychological problems, he had important things on his to-do list.

First and foremost, he had to talk to the old man about this recordkeeping business and learn what it was that Ciron intended to do.

But life threw a small bump his way.

“Neophyte,” Mistress Kalina called for him, indicating that she wanted a private conversation away from others.

Tercius caught the way Petra’s eyes narrowed at the orange-haired Mistress at that moment and he realized that Acting was still enhancing him. Was this what bothered Petra about the Mistress? When Mistress Kalina talked with him about most things, she always wanted privacy. A one-on-one conversation. Was that it?

Tercius nodded and followed after the mage.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the Spirit is behaving… oddly,” Mistress Kalina said tentatively.

Immediately Tercius' gaze sharpened. He had noticed that and now that Mistress Kalina found it necessary to talk about, his worry spiked. The previous night had been one of the major religious dates of Rona's religion and the next morning his mother—who had been the worshipper for the mentioned religious date—suddenly had a very clingy Spirit on her shoulders, quite literally.

On the short list he compiled for the reasons for that strange behavior, one possibility was the most probable one.

“I did, Mistress. It’s not bothering you anymore, although I noticed that it still has some apprehension of you. And it seems to have… bonded to my mother.”

Mistress Kalina nodded. "Quite so. During my stay at your home, the aggression it has displayed towards me has been going down at a rather constant rate. I believe that your feedings of it and my continued presence around your family members have conditioned the Spirit to consider me a sort of inductee. Just from that, I can tentatively tell you that there's a good chance that your baby sister is most likely a full member of the circle it would protect."

“That’s good.” Tercius exhaled. “But we should still test it, Mistress,”

“I agree, Neophyte. A test to confirm that will clear all doubt. Now for the second part of your observation. The reason the Spirit bonded, as you say, to your mother is… Well, I think that your mother became a believer.”

That took him aback. “Oh…”

He had thought that his mother somehow became an overnight priestess… Mistress Kalina’s explanation made much more sense.

Mistress Kalina sighed. "This morning she seemed unwell to me so I cast a few diagnostic spells to check her health and what I've found concerns me. Compared to her last examination her mana channels are narrower and… dry. Not by a lot, mind you, but it is still a cause for concern… At first, I considered that it could be a side effect of my potion—people who react to it poorly do exist, after all—but then I saw the Spirit and… I'm not sure that the Spirit is to blame, but considering the timing, it's hard for me to pinpoint the source for the current state of her channels… I've tried talking to your mother about it, but she was not willing to speak of it with me."

“I see…”

“If you can do anything… Talk to her about it, at the very least…”

“I will try, Mistress. Thank you for telling me this.”

It seems that he had more than one household bird to make sense of. A small pang for a bed caught him as he went on his way, but he resisted.

***

***

***

He found Ciron and Petra and then he took them to the basement for a talk. He started with Petra since he was more concerned about her health.

His mother was reluctant to speak of it, but after Tercius shared of the Spirit’s strange behavior as well as her declining mana channels Ciron came to Tercius’ aid and added pressure to his daughter. Being the father’s girl that she was, Petra caved in soon.

“So it was a dream. A very long, life-like dream.” Tercius summarised, after his mother’s lengthy explanation of the previous night.

“Yes!” Petra exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air in frustration, as she failed to find the right words. “Also… Don’t look at me like that, Tercius. I’m sure of it. As sure that I’m looking at you right now. I saw my mother. I flew to her and I saw her. Please, believe me. I looked through her eyes… I felt her pain. So, so much pain and… and I think I heard her shout at someone in anger even as she uttered prayer after prayer with fear in her heart for someone else. There was more, but it's all blurry now…”

As Petra spoke tears welled up in her eyes, but they refused to spill.

“I see…” Tercius muttered.

Was something like that possible? The things Petra was describing reminded Tercius of the way his and Amber’s bond worked. He was able to feel what she felt, see through her eyes… Possibly he would soon be able to hear what she heard, or maybe even share her sense of smell?

He had to wonder… Did Petra somehow hijack the bond between the Spirit and its sole Priestess? Was that even possible? A tentative yes would have to be his answer. He also added another memo for himself to further explore these kinds of bonds… If he could use his Familiar Bond on another animal in Nurium, he would have a means of returning home in mind if not in body… Maybe even leave Amber behind…

“You… believe me?” Petra asked tentatively, her eyes wide and tone imploring.

“I do.” Tercius nodded without a shred of a doubt. “What you are describing is possible, I know that much.”

Petra’s breath came in fast shudders. “So… mother…”

"You've been with her. You've been for a visit, so to speak. You saw what she saw and you heard what she spoke. You've even felt her pain."

“Can I… Can I visit her again—”

"No," Tercius said firmly and his mother looked ready to protest. Even Ciron seemed surprised at the tone Tercius had used. To be honest, so was he but he had to pull this insidious weed from the roots. "And let me tell you why the answer is a no. The price that you've paid to do what you did is considerable. Just from this one time of doing whatever you did your mana channels have regressed. Your body will struggle to process mana. If you push it too far you will become crippled. No mana, no skills. You might even fall infirm and while we can look after Aurelia and Leo, your little girl needs you to be healthy and present for at least a cycle more.”

Petra’s mouth opened and closed at his steel-like words.

“Do you think that grandmother would allow you to neglect the daughter you’ve named after her for her sake? Even I know that answer with complete certainty and you’ve known her for far longer than I.”

“The boy is right,” Ciron’s deep voice rumbled. “You have a life dependent on you, daughter. Leave this Spirit business be.”

“Father…”

Ciron looked at Tercius. "Do you think… is there any way that I can see her?"

Tercius blinked at the old man’s question in disbelief. He had just explained it to Petra…

“If either of you even tries to repeat this, I will do it myself," he stated, startling both of them.

“Tercy!”

“Grandson…”

He didn't know how, but Petra and Ciron did not need to know that little detail. For all he knew, it was something only made possible by the event itself. It was called Reunion, after all. Still, even if he didn't know how, he had a few ideas just off the top of his head. Hopefully, becoming a believer was not a requirement…

“Look… There is no need for either of you to do it because I have a plan to get grandmother back, possibly healthy and pain-free, within the next few weeks. Father too.”

If he was the one in disbelief before, it was now the time for both of them to look as they struggled for air.

“You're serious?” Ciron asked.

“What— How?” Petra finally voiced her disbelief.

“They are in the mountains above Spheros, grandson, not in an inn in Zuros,”

Tercius raised his palms to calm them. "I can't speak freely to the details so don't ask me as that would touch upon many Pyramid secrets, which I'm not at liberty to speak of. But... know that I'm quite confident in my travel speed and my chance of success," he explained to his crowd of two before he dropped the bomb. "Mistress Kalina and I will be on our way for them soon."

Father and daughter duo jumped to their feet with haste. ““What?!””

“And since I’m at Mistress Kalina, I would appreciate it if you treat her more courteously in the future,” he said, looking at Petra. “She’s my teacher.”

“I’ve been nothing but courteous—”

“Mistress,” Tercius mimed. “That’s how you hissed it during breakfast. You’ve all but called her a snake. And I won’t even describe the way you glare at her when you think she isn’t looking. What’s going on there?”

“I did not glare at her—”

Ciron cleared his throat next to her. “I did notice something that might have been a glare, daughter.”

Petra inhaled sharply and threw a look at Ciron, seemingly betrayed.

Ciron had to look away as he murmured, “Repeatedly.”

Petra looked back at Tercius and found one dark eyebrow raised.

Tercius tried to keep his mirth away as he said, “You were saying?”

Petra gave up the pretense. “She is a snake, Tercius, and you can’t go with her anywhere. I won’t let you. She isn’t who she seems to be. Let me tell you what happened yesterday morning—”

In a low voice, Petra explained that when she had found his sibling-in-craft, Neiran, prone on the grass and bleeding. It would appear that while Tercius was tinkering with his new skill, Neiran had caught himself into the Web of Paralysis that Mistress Kalina left around the house and had a rather nasty fall as a result of the momentum and the suddenly locked muscles. As Petra came to help Neiran, Mistress Kalina appeared out of nowhere, levitated the boy, then healed his injuries and cleaned all trances of the fall within a few moments. In his mother's wide-eyed tale, the worst part was that no one heard or saw anything. Mistress Kalina had likely used spells to make sure of that.

It was as if the whole thing had never even occurred.

His mother didn’t look at Tercius when she told her tale, but rather over her shoulder at the door. Did she expect Mistress Kalina to pop up? He knew the answer to that question. The more Tercius heard the more he saw that his mother was mentally exactly where he had been for the past few months.

Petra had seen a part of the capability of a mage of Mistress Kalina’s caliber and she found it contrary to everything she thought possible. It was a forceful expansion of the known, a difficult process crammed into a single fast injection.

His mother’s reaction to that injection was as severe as his own and he knew of only one way for her to move past it. The same one it took him months to see and then slowly embrace.

"You're right. Mistress Kalina's prowess with skills and spells is… beyond anything I could have imagined. There are things that I saw and that I learned that I have no frame of mind to understand. I'm still coming to terms if I'm honest. Look… The reason that Neiran fell in the first place is because there's a spell to paralyze intruders who try to break in. A spell that she placed there."

“What?!” his mother exploded.

“Yes…” he nodded slowly, ashamed. “But, I can explain…”

He had kept quiet because he didn't think that Mistress Kalina would appreciate any kind of attention coming her way. He sighed. He should have asked her. "Mistress Kalina placed it because of the il'Drusus people. She thought that they would try to break in and take us when she was away. It was her way of keeping us safe. And before you ask, yes she can wipe the floor with them, if she's inclined to do so. Ten, twenty, fifty… I don't think that the number of people who came our way would matter. She would handle them the same way grandmother handles the weeds in her garden. The only reason she didn't is that I asked her not to."

Saying that he found his mouth dry. But… There was something cathartic about admitting that out loud. It was as if an open wound had been cauterized by a heated blade. It was an admittance of the current state of things, for himself and hopefully for the silent Ciron and Petra. Things are as they are and that's a fact. They are so far out of your hands that you can't hope to have control over them as you are.

In the wake of his words, no one spoke for a while. They just sat, occasionally looking at each other but mostly their gaze was on the stone floor below their feet.

“Does she know that you have… that?” his mother asked quietly, inclining her head to the side and covering her mouth with a hand.

Ciron's head rose to hear the answer.

Tercius nodded and the two of them took a sharp breath.

“And…” Ciron prodded.

“And… I am not unique in that regard.”

Ciron’s eyes drifted to Petra’s and both of them had that glint of realization as their eyes met.

“That explains a few things…” his mother admitted slowly.

“It certainly does…” Ciron nodded.

“So… are we in agreement that you need to use a little bit more courtesy when dealing with Mistress Kalina?” Tercius asked abruptly, remembering what started this conversation in the first place.

Petra nodded slowly. “I will try. I still don’t like that she hogs you all to herself all day long, but… I will try.”

"Try your best then," Ciron added.

“Grandfather, you stole the words from my mouth.”

The grandfather and the grandson smiled at each other with a knowing look in their eyes, while Petra looked at the interaction helplessly.

“It's almost as if you two are in some kind of an agreement against me…”

Tercius was aching for a bed and some dark oblivion in ways that not even Energy had a way to solve, but he had to make a little more effort here and now.

“Grandfather, now I have a question for you.”

Ciron grunted the permission to proceed.

“Why did you call for a recordkeeper and a peacekeeper?”

Petra turned to her father with narrow eyes that expected an answer. She had been the one roasted so far, now it was time for someone else to take a few turns over the fire.

Ciron eyed Tercius critically from under an overgrown grey eyebrow. “You learned that, did you?”

“I did.”

“What else did you learn?”

“Nothing. That’s why I’m asking you. Both of us—” he said, pointing a finger between Petra and himself. “—have suspected something was going on for the past few days. You’ve been acting strange… you’ve even been talking to a neighbor… Will you tell us what’s your plan with these people?”

Ciron eyed Tercius some more.

"It's a simple plan, so listen carefully," Ciron said as he leaned in. Tercius and Petra followed suit and the three of them came close enough to see the pores of their faces.

"I plan to tell you to mind your own business," Ciron whispered.

His mother snorted.

"That's very funny, old man," Tercius said dryly.

Ciron shrugged with a slight movement of his broad shoulders and Tercius’ upper lip twitched. The old man was in a mode that Tercius called interaction lockdown. The discussion for the old man was over, decision made and sealed, and nothing said from this point on will move him.

But that was not true, was it? There were a few buttons that Tercius could push to make him come back to the talking table…

“I wonder how grandmother will react when she finds out that you’ve been visiting Maya these past few months. Eating her tasty food… hmm? How angry do you think she’ll be? Constipation Tea angry or the Blazing Shits Tea angry? Or that powder that makes your skin itch angry?”

The old man frowned deeply. “I did no such thing and you know it.”

Ciron's preference of Maya's cuisine over Rona's was a spark that had lit fights between his grandparents in the past. There had been one bonfire that Tercius knew of and many small simmers that sparked any time Maya came to visit with a pot of her secret recipe stew…

In the privacy of his thoughts, even Tercius would admit that Maya's meals were vastly superior to anything he, Rona, or Petra ever made, but he wisely kept that little detail for his mind only.

"I don't know anything. I just got home." Tercius smiled like a shark. Ciron was back at the table. "Mother, you've been with our esteemed elder here since Rona and Septimus left on their journey. Did he leave the house on his own since then?"

Petra smiled with schadenfreude in her eyes. “Oh yes.”

“Just because I went out by myself doesn’t mean that I went to Maya’s inn.” Ciron pointed out.

“It doesn’t mean that you didn’t either, old man. For how long did he stay out, mother?”

“I don’t know… Two, three hours maybe? I remember one time that he was gone for the whole midday…”

"I see… So we have multiple occasions when grandfather went out by himself and on these occasions, there was enough time for him to go on foot to Maya's inn, have a meal there, and then return home." Tercius painted the picture. "Interesting…"

Tercius did not need to prove to Rona that Ciron had gone to Maya's inn to dine while she was absent. It was Ciron that needed to prove that he didn't. Tercius just needed a spark and from the deepening frown on his face, Ciron was slowly becoming aware of that.

And yet despite realizing that, the old man didn't say another word.

Tercius shook his head. Enough silly games. "Grandfather… you are as stubborn as a rock in pursuing some kind of a secret plan whose details you won't share with us—even after we found out about it. That could mean a few things. Maybe you either don't trust us with this, which I don't think is the case. Or— and this is my top guess—that you think that we won't approve of

whatever you plan on doing. So…

"Which is it?"

Ciron kept his silence.

"Father… Do we really need to pull words out of your mouth like teeth?" Petra asked quietly. "You can't leave us guessing on something like this."

The old man persisted and Petra's hand clenched into fists.

"For the past cycle, I've guessed every moment of every day what is going on with Tercius. Now I take guesses as to what is happening with my husband and my mother and I can't do the same for you. You have to tell me now."

The old man's mouth was closed, but there was a movement to the jaw, almost as if he was chewing his tongue. Suddenly, he sighed at both of them.

"When those people come, I will pledge myself and my skill into the service of the Emperor. I will go work at whatever he points me to, wherever that may be, and for as long as I'm able to work you will have a guarantee for the safety of our home and everyone in it, from anyone who might come after you."

“Ah…” his mother released a breath, taken aback by Ciron’s declaration.

As his mother tried to persuade the old man to let this go, Tercius observed the stoic Ciron. The old man was firm in his intention, that much was obvious to him. But Ciron was basing his decision on an incomplete picture. Some issues of yesterday were non-issues of today, and he would have to share those with them.

But something else bothered Tercius more and as soon as his mother started getting frustrated with Ciron's non-responsive attitude, he stepped in.

"You doing this protect us only from those who do as the Emperor says, grandfather. But it won't protect us from his enemies inside the Empire nor any aggressive forces from outside the Empire. Hells, does the word of the Emperor protect us from his Imperial self? Can he go back on his word? What of the Imperial family? Are they bound by his word? What if a new Emperor or Empress ascends to the throne? Are they under obligation to follow the word given by their predecessor? What if the Empire were to fall apart tomorrow? You would be stuck out there somewhere. How would we come to get you?" Tercius calmly pointed out just a few questions that he prepared while his mother argued with the old man.

Ciron's eyes widened slightly at Tercius' questions. Did his grandfather not think of these things before he opted to go down this road?

"You once told me that there are always many ways to create a foundation, remember that? And yet most of those foundations will have to be remade promptly, simply because people who are making it are not making them with the future in mind. They are only covering the immediate need. Do you remember saying that, old man?"

Ciron nodded slightly.

"Then why are you, of all people, making a foundation out of mud and straw to do just that?"

Ciron sighed and then inhaled a loud breath. "People aren't foundations, Tercius. Things can't go on as they are now. We have spent almost the entirety of the month inside the house, leaving only to get more food and supplies. I won't have my grandchildren grow up in four walls, seeped into the muck of this–this—fear. It's already lingering around them like some vile shadow...

"If I can make my grandchildren free from it then whatever happens with me is of little consequence. I've had over six decades to walk this earth and I will see to it that they have that too."

Petra and Tercius looked at each other and he saw fear in her eyes. There was nothing she could say to that, but there was something that he could say.

"You're right. This can't go on. But... you don't have to do this now, grandfather. When these people come, say that you've changed your mind or something. When grandmother and father come back, there will be more of us and... Oh, Hells... Actually... There's something else that you need to take into account."

Tercius cleared his throat. "I... I might have done... uhh... I have done something about our problem last night..."

Speaking of what he had done turned out to be far more difficult than it had been to actually do it.