Chapter 62 — Restitution Plans and Ruminations

Ria glanced over at Arthur and Keira as they waited outside their usual gate. Keira wasn’t looking particularly talkative, and Arthur was making use of a tree-shaded stone bench to sit and read, seeming content to leave matters that didn’t concern him alone.

That suspicious crow from before was perched in the tree, watching them again. Not that it mattered whether Ophesia and Nielle’s followers or the Daily Shadow or some House were spying on them, Ria had too much to think about from the day’s events to care.

Her gaze fell onto a proud Ranger whose fur seemed to glint a bit differently from just a few hours earlier. She thought she noticed a flicker of flame in the quartz of his eyes and teeth when he looked up at her questioningly before turning his attention back to the crow.

Ria patted Ranger and used the bond to praise him for getting stronger again.

“Is he different from this morning?” Keira asked, disbelief tinting her voice and her eyes glowing slightly in the late-afternoon light.

“Just a bit,” Ria admitted.

“Woof!” Ranger objected, striking a pose to give Keira a better view.

The meeting with Researcher Shadwich had brought good news and bad news. The good news was that Shadwich had successfully contained the elemental spirituality of the fruit gifted by the High Priestess into treats for Ranger so that it wouldn’t degrade as quickly. Which meant there was no rush for Ranger to absorb the fruit’s essence all at once, and they could instead use the treats to more gradually improve the quality of his elemental nature, something that would be important for both his spirit-beast and divine-beast ascensions.

After witnessing the difference in power between magic beasts and elemental spirits, Ria was eager to see Ranger progress, but the normally over-enthusiastic researcher explained that a more gradual approach had the advantage of allowing Ranger leeway to broaden his elemental attunements and, if they were lucky, his affinities. Hearing the monocled mage advocate for a gradual anything made Ria narrow her eyes in suspicion. If he started advising caution next… that would be a warning as serious as a dragon’s roar.

Fortunately, Ranger seemed fine, but she wasn’t privy to the difficulties that her farmdog familiar—now a magic beast—had suffered while Shadwich was teaching him how to properly absorb and incorporate the energies from the ridiculously powerful treats. She did find out that the painful process of improving his fire attunement involved a fire-attuned regeneration potion being added to the liquid along with an essence derived from lava salamanders… ugh.

The ideal goal would be to balance his fire and earth attunements similar to hers as part of the process toward orichalcum, but with Ranger having a natural earth affinity, Shadwich wasn’t sure such results were realistically achievable. He did stress the importance of completing Ranger’s affinity transformations before the ascension to spirit beast, because altering an elemental spirit’s elemental nature was exceedingly difficult and brought a different sort of risk. A gem spirit was fundamentally different from a magma spirit or a gold spirit, after all.

Ria certainly wasn’t against taking some risk in broadening Ranger’s affinities; she would directly benefit through the bond just as when he gained his earth affinity. But, the lack of undesirable side-effects thus far and their current degree of success was surprising. If adding and improving affinities was as easy or safe as Ranger and Researcher Shadwich made it seem, all mages with familiars would surely do similar.

Maybe there was something unique to her, Ranger, or their bond that made the transformations more successful than usual, or maybe the ingredients used were ridiculously rare and expensive and Shadwich’s methods were highly specialized, experimental, or secret?

The idea that she was incurring such a debt to the easily excitable man and what that might mean was something she didn’t want to think about too deeply—definitely a complication to set aside for later. Hopefully, Researcher Shadwich was excited enough by the opportunity that he didn’t view it as a debt at all. Even so, expeditions to dangerous uncharted corners of the world to make use of rare environments or retrieve rare materials surely lay in her future either way.

The bad news from the meeting was the assessment that her soul-strengthening efforts still weren’t keeping up with the strengthening of Ranger’s bond—which made sense since she had other priorities the last several days.

And with how busy her week was looking, would she even have time to work on her soul strengthening until after the debut?

She had an idea about what to give as a ‘token of sincerity’ for the damage to the grounds but still needed to acquire apology gifts for Leriah and the Golden Dawn, which almost certainly meant an outing while exhausted from her Grand Games training or an outing on Goldday while with Phaelys or afterward. Waiting until Goldday would mean she couldn’t special order anything in time for lunch with Leriah on Divinesday, but having Phaelys along for advice might not be a bad idea…

Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a carriage outfitted with the Vorshan colors and crest. Thankfully, it wasn’t Jarrel who had come, but Rallensi and Ana’s brother. There was no doubt that Jarrel would pick up on both Ria’s nervous avoidance and Keira’s odd mood and ask troublesome questions.

“Young Mistress,” Rallensi greeted Keira while young Kylen hopped down from the carriage to assist them into the carriage.

“How’d it go with your Order?” Ria asked Keira once they were settled and the carriage was pulling away, not really wanting to but feeling obligated.

“They decided I needed a lesson in humility,” Keira exhaustedly sighed out, as if her soul was leaving her body. “I was assigned a week of assisting the Hallkeeper with menial tasks and performing chores and errands for all the other Order members after classes every day until my term of discipline ends.”

The pang of guilt at causing Keira to undergo further bullying brought a grimace to Ria’s face.

“Are they making you buy things for them as part of the errands?” Ria worriedly asked.

Keira shook her head. “Worse. Some gave me extra coin for a good job as if I were a servant. And now the servants are all annoyed with me because I’m taking away their work…”

Ugh… Keira’s Order sure knew how to hit a noble where it hurt—their pride and honor.

“Um, Keira. Administrator Rente suggested I should present your Order an apology gift… but I have no idea where to begin. I can’t imagine what an Order would even want that I could buy or make?”

Kiera glanced at her sideways with an ‘are you kidding me?’ eyebrow raise and scrunch of her face. “If I had to guess from cleaning the displays along the hallways, it’s usually things like an enchanted statue or personal artifact of a famous order member…”

An artifact… Ah-! That strange shop that Hulle took her to! Maybe Martina could acquire what she needed!

Ria’s excitement tempered when she remembered that she still owed the woman two orichalcum tokens… and a favor.

Maybe she could send Ana to deliver an update and make the request instead of going in person?

“I’m not liking that you’ve-just-thought-of-something-that-might-work look you’re making, Ria,” Keira groaned. “You’re not really thinking to donate a statue are you?”

“Hmm?” Ria couldn’t help a slightly mischievous smile slipping out at Keira’s incredulous expression. Orlisi would never let such an opportunity to tease her friends slip. Maybe she should tease them a bit to lighten the mood? Seeing Keira so down was depressing enough that even an angry Keira would be preferable.

“Tell me you’re not,” Keira demanded with hooded eyes. “If I had to dust a statue with your name on the donor plaque… or have to walk by it every day…”

“Well, if I did go the statue route, I could get Arthur to help, so there is that…” Ria considered, half-joking just to see if Arthur was only pretending to ignore them.

“Wha-?” Arthur looked up from his book, eyes wide at suddenly having been dragged into the apology mess. “I’m at a critical point with my own project…”

Holding back a smirk at the boy’s dismay, Ria challenged him, “You couldn’t use the extra coin?”

Rigure’s grandson squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. “It’s not that I couldn’t…”

“Great!” Ria decided. “Keira, I’ll be counting on you to decide who we should honor.”

Keira gaped at her, and Ria gave her friends an innocent grin.

Maybe she should make one after all? It could be a fun back-up plan in case Martina couldn’t come through for her—particularly if she could get everyone to help, like with the fancy enchanted paper.

By the time Miela dragged a thoroughly horrified Keira off for a well-needed bath, the noble girl was fully convinced Ria and Arthur were well on their way to creating a multi-story monstrosity depicting Keira’s grandmother on her mother’s side, sparkling with excessive gaudiness and flamboyance while shooting rays of light from her fingertips.

Ria had to admit she underestimated Arthur. The boy had picked up on her intentions fairly quickly and managed to one-up the increasingly ridiculous suggestions, masterfully maintaining a straight face as he huffed and pretended to argue about proper methods and materials.

Ana quietly chided her about teasing the young mistress of the house while guiding Ria to her suite of rooms as had become their daily routine. It was cute, and Ria gave the young maid-in-training a promise to make it up to Keira later.

When Ana closed the room’s door behind Ranger, he trotted out onto the balcony and plopped down in the sun and breeze, head on his paws as he looked out into the garden.

“Do you have a preference for what you want to wear?” Ana asked, slipping off Ria’s magic cloak and hanging it on a garment stand.

“I’ll let you pick, Ana,” Ria said and sat on the storage chest near the entry to let Ana pull her shoes off.

{Jarrel,} Ranger informed her.

Apparently, Jarrel was in the back garden doing something, meditating it looked like. Which made her wonder: why hadn’t he come to pick her up? A question for later, she guessed.

Ana paused. “Maybe a bath would be good?”

A long soak in a hot bath did sound like a great idea. “Yes, let’s do that,” Ria agreed, unbuttoning her robe and gingerly standing back up so Ana could remove it one sleeve at a time.

While the tub was filling, Ana started on Ria’s shirt.

“Ah, Miss Ria!” The girl gasped out as she unbuttoned enough of a shirt-sleeve to catch sight of the extensive bruising hidden beneath. “This is terrible! Should I send for a healer?”

After a few minutes spent convincing a dubious and concerned Ana that she was fine and would heal it while bathing, Ria slipped into the steaming water with an appreciative sigh and started lazily circulating her energy, guiding it through her sore muscles and bruised skin.

Orlisi had healed the bruises on Ria’s hands and face when cleaning her up after the incident but left the rest for Ria to deal with later, saying that there were benefits to letting the body heal naturally.

Still eyeing the bruises and frowning, Ana pulled over a stool and small table, placing jars, sponges, and a comb in easy reach. Ria briefly ducked her head under water, so the girl could gather the wet hair and start to lather in the pleasantly scented soap and oils. Now that her hair was so much longer, having someone to help with the washing and drying was convenient.

She let her mind wander as Ana worked, finally having time to think about what Zoe had said. Her first inclination was to dismiss the contention that Jarrel, Jeni’s family, and her own parents were all possibly spies working for the Inquisitors as silliness—a fantasy born to explain away her unbelievable circumstances and magic ability. But…

Was it really more believable that a random peasant girl would happen into an orichalcum bloodline? That such a peasant girl would have the gods directly take interest and meddle in her life—even sending an Oracle?

Her eyes went to the holy amulet sitting atop the carefully folded clothes selected by Ana. If Hemse had chosen her to be a Saintess as a kindness when she performed the Harvest Festival ceremony all alone in her village, then she could see the events making sense. But why a metal affinity? It didn’t seem like something Hemse would bestow his champion with.

Ana prompted Ria to duck down again and helped rinse out the soap from the ends when Ria surfaced, before combing in a different oil with a smell of freshly chopped mint leaf and clove.

Even if Hemse did make her a Saintess, Ria had to admit that Jeni’s family was still suspicious.

Jarrel conveniently being an elite swordsman was even more suspicious.

Lord Vorshan had called Jarrel a ‘scout’ but knew him by name even after at least sixteen years living in another country and treated him with a surprising amount of deference for a commoner. Then with the missing children and the farmstead murders, Jarrel was the one Lord Vorshan sent to investigate when the guardsmen failed to solve the mystery. And when Lord Vorshan asked, an Inquisitor from one of the Greater Houses came to the frontier to intervene in a minor noble’s trial. And there was the odd tension with Captain Bastach…

The thought that Jarrel might be protecting her, taking care of her, because someone told him to… it sucked the air from her lungs and twisted her stomach in knots.

Could it really be true?

Family. That’s what he called her. Could that have really been a useful lie?

After all they had been through together, she found it hard to believe everything was just an act.

When her hair was finished, Ria leaned forward to make it easier for Ana to wash her back.

Resuming her brooding, Ria turned her efforts toward Zoe's contention regarding Iselyn: a branded outcast conveniently placed for Ria to meet and befriend. The mysterious Moon Elf girl was not only oddly strong but oddly good at going unnoticed and escaping and had that weird habit of always trying to hide her face.

But Iselyn seemed to be earnestly researching about Moon Elves. If she was from a ‘hidden’ Moon Elf House, wouldn’t she already know about them? Rather, Iselyn’s efforts matched better with Presius’ assertion that her father was a ‘vagabond minstrel’ whose identity and details were unknown.

On the other hand, if the Inquisitors were still looking for a way into the Moon Elf gardens… what better way than to have a Moon Elf bloodline student pretend to research her lost heritage? And if the Moon Elves had been forced to become a ‘Hidden House’ as was rumored, wouldn’t Iselyn’s father likely be an Inquisitor agent?

“I’m done with the wash… would you like to soak for a while longer?” Ana asked, still showing concern.

“I would,” Ria answered and gave the girl a smile. “Thanks.”

“Okay… I’ll go see if my mom needs help with something for a bit.” Ana got up and started to leave but hesitated at the bathroom’s entrance, blurting out, “Miss Ria, are…? Are you being bullied by the nobles at your school?”

Ria made a wry smile. “I am. But.” Ria emphasized the word and held up a forestalling hand at the girl’s gasp. “I think that is possibly resolved for now, and the injuries were mostly self-inflicted. Besides, I’m training for the Grand Games, you know. Isn’t this much to be expected?”

Ana’s eyes grew wide, and the girl vigorously shook her head. “There’s no way that’s true!”

“That I’m training for the Grand Games?” Ria asked with a bit of mischief and a raised eyebrow.

“Ah… er, if Miss Ria says it’s so…,” Ana tried before dipping a flustered maid’s bow. “I’ll leave you to your soak.”

When the sound of the door closing behind the fleeing girl came, Ria chuckled, but her thoughts soon returned to her worries.

She cupped a length of dark hair in her hand and observed as it caught the light oddly with glinting hints of shadowed metal even as the water drained past her fingers. The sight brought to mind her conversation with the High Priestess while choosing the fruit for Ranger.

The way the High Priestess’ hair seemed to breathe in the dense energy of the garden had caught Ria’s curiosity. Asking about it resulted in teasing that Ria was already yearning for ways to preserve one’s youthful looks, but the priestess did eventually give her an explanation—an explanation that influenced her choice in an ambitious and risky direction.

Ria knew that living beings were comprised of a multitude of very tiny living entities similar to slimes from when she first learned healing magic via Luventi’s beginner tome. The idea was still something she had a hard time wrapping her mind around but, through practice, understood to be true. What she didn’t know at the time was that hair, horns, and the outer layers of skin were dead in most non-magical creatures!

And more importantly, for magical creatures, they didn’t have to be dead! Fire energy in particular, the priestess explained, tended to encourage processes that gave normally dead body structures functional purpose—and thus making them alive.

And so, Ria had gambled on the solitary fruit of an odd plant formed of bulges of black rock and encrusted with rings of crystal, a fruit with ember-like veins spiderwebbed over its surface, veins that glowed and faded in shades of red as if it were breathing. The treats Shadwich made somehow still showed that glow, stoking hot and fading almost to black before drawing in energy to stoke hot again.

And now, as she had dared hope, hints of that flame were showing in Ranger’s fur.

Ria let her hair fall back into the water. In a way, she was undergoing a similar transformation herself.

Orlisi said that what happened when she unlocked her ‘body’ gate meant that her bloodline was inheritable. And if she could pass through a noble-only ward… there was no way her parents could have been the simple peasants they pretended to be.

But if her bloodline didn’t come from a blessing, did that mean, when she was a baby, someone made her go through a process like what Shadwich was doing with Ranger? Or was it done to her mother? Or her father?

She’d never seen either of her parents or her brothers show glints of metallic hair or do anything that looked like magic…

Ranger woofed to get her attention, and Ria shifted her perception to make use of Ranger’s eyes.

Jarrel was standing with his eyes closed and was moving his sword oddly slow.

Was he learning a new sword form?

As she watched, a leaf just past the reach of his sword separated from a nearby tree and, with a second wave of his sword, split perfectly in half.

Wha-? What was that?!