"When did you first notice this? Did anyone bump into you since we came back? Did you see a spider on you while we were travelling through the woods?"

Simila started firing off questions, but before even giving me time to respond, she shouted out, "someone get a basin of hot water and soap right now!"

I heard the manor suddenly get busy as someone shouted in response and footsteps joined Ivian's running around the creaky halls.

"No, I don't think so, I thought..." I still wasn't sure about whether I should talk about the nightmares. Particularly to Simila.

I thought they might be something to do with condensing mana. I really don't know what or why, but I started getting the nightmares after condensing mana regularly. The first spire with its cloud of energy hurt me, but it also felt like mana, the cloud of black fog surrounding it cold and painful to the touch.

"Talk kid, if this is venom of some sort, I need to try to get it out right now, but if this is some kind of curse or disease, then we need to find other help fast."

Of course, could I say for sure that this black spot on my wrist was from the nightmare? Was I actually poisoned as Simila seemed to think?

The spires were weird, alien even, the first with its cloud of energy, the second with its ominous humming. The third spire that showed up just recently didn't do anything though. It just had the same oily sensation as the second one and was slowly growing.

Could each of the spires have a different effect? Was this black splotch caused by the third?

"Uh, there wasn't any spider... I don't remember anyone touching my wrist other than mother and Ivian and you, when you brought me down from the carriage, but..."

"But...?"

I hesitated, but decided to talk about the nightmares after all.

"... I've been getting nightmares, spires, red sky. They're scary."

"Wait, you've been getting mana dreams?" I blinked at her familiarity. It seems mana dreams was a thing. Should I have just been more insistent with father before?

"Uh huh."

She sighed as she shook her head.

The door opened and mother and Ivian came running into the room.

"Is Tilly alright? What happened?" She asked, coming to kneel down beside me too.

"He says he's been getting mana dreams and he was even able to describe them. He's far too young for that, but if it's true, then he just needs to exhaust his mana." Simila explained to mother, and turned over my wrist to show her. "I thought it might be venom or some kind of disease, but this could also be a mana stigma."

My head was a bit dizzy from Simila's explanation. She spoke of mana as if it were some kind of poison, taking root in me.

It was one thing to suspect something was wrong with the mana condensation, but quite another to hear mana vilified.

Mana was a natural energy that could be exhausting to condense, and felt cold, but was a source of power and rejuvenation, not a poison or danger.

"Oh Tilly, why did you not say anything?" She hugged me and patted my hair at the back of my head. "It must have hurt so much. How long have you had this?"

"Mmh, sorry." I mumbled, thinking ruefully about when I did try to tell them. "I thought it was just a bad dream... I didn't know mana could hurt me." I didn't want to be selfish like father said I was...

"Tilly..."

"I only saw the spot after we left the capital. The bad dreams... I've been getting them since we left Olwick."

"A whole year..." Mother whispered, "Ivian, please get my husband."

Just as Ivian stood up though, father came through the door.

"Did something happen? What is all the commotion about?" His beard was half shaved. I lowered my eyes wondering if he would get mad again...

"Sivis, Tilly has been getting mana dreams for a full year and now has a stigma."

"Mana dreams? Don't be- A stigma?" he looked at each person in the room. "How...? That should not be possible..."

"I do not know either, he never said anything about it until Ivian saw the stigma just now."

"Where is the stigma?" He asked and Ivian turned over my wrist again.

"Hmm. Is it possible he got bitten by a recluse?"

Ivian left the bedroom to get another chair for father to sit on. Mother just sat by the wall in worry, Simila standing beside her.

"It wouldn't be black like that," Simila responded, "There are few creatures north of Keiran that cause a spot like that. And Tilly described the spikes of the mana dreams."

Father shook his head but looked at me. "Alright. Well, it's hard to believe, but if he has started accumulating mana, then I need some time with him."

Father was still looking at the stigma and frowning when Ivian came back with a chair for him. He sat in front of me and started explaining what it was.

"Tilvrade, mana is both a curse and a power." He said seriously, though I could feel Sam's disagreement in my gut, "knights train to absorb mana and use it as a source of strength. By focusing on how it spreads, you can create tension in your arms and legs, creating the strength or flexibility to do things you would not ordinarily be able to do."

I blinked as I tried to catch up. Father started talking about knights and some kind of mana application.

Mana, the white haired ghosts had whispered to me many a time, was a form of energy, the fabric of this dimension that could be harnessed and then syphoned to runic designs or arrays to power simple machines and apparatus.

"Once you use it, the mana will deplete and you will have to gather it again," father continued.

Unlike the runes and arrays, spells were from a personal accumulation of mana. That was exactly why you gathered mana in your core, slowly expanding the reserves you could carry to create stronger spells.

"... but holding mana within you can cause pain," father overturned everything I knew about mana. "The more you gather, the larger your capacity and accumulation rate, but that is when the spikes will start appearing. The spikes... change people..."

He let a chilling thought hang between us. Did they become a monster? Were the vampires actually mages?

Father didn't continue on that thought though, instead, he started giving me instructions, "so please make sure to do what I'm going to tell you every day."

"How does it change people...?" I asked tentatively.

"Don't get distracted, Tilvrade. You have a stigma, we need to get rid of that. Focusing mana isn't so easy to do. Even if we focus on this all day, it will take a while before you can draw on your strangely large mana pool."

He held up his hands. "Focus on pooling mana in your hands."

It seemed he was concerned for me, and I didn't really need to know what he meant. Better to do what he says.

"The idea is simple, just focus on how your muscles feel when they tense, all the way from your stomach to your hands. It will take a few tries, and a lot of practise to-"

Sam had even been on the duel team, a group at the military academy that represented the nation in competitions. The duel teams faced off in matches of unstructured magic, showing off the kingdom's magical prowess by replicating spells without their incantations or creating originals in fast-paced duels. Even the most junior members of the team could create elemental projectiles from their environment or cast a quick shield.

Moving mana around the body was not a simple thing. It required a familiarity with the stretches and movements requiring to move mana around the body.

But with Sam's familiarity, it was second nature, really not as hard to do as father would have thought. I felt the hint of soreness in my muscles as I created a path and then a chill that followed those lines as I pushed out towards my hands.

His eyes widened as his head jerked up.

"You already..."

I wonder if he would believe me if I told him I had even cast a pain transfer spell, much more complicated than this to get away from Nistan more than a year ago.

"Ahem," father wiped his chin with his wrist, collecting himself, "then, just focus on your breathing. If you keep the mana pooled where you need it, your breathing and movements will start to burn the mana and strengthen you."

Once I knew what he wanted me to do, it wasn't hard. Mana strengthening was, in principle, very easy. It simply involved opening the core and letting the mana stream out to the rest of the body.

It's just that unstructured mana strengthening was not very popular, even if it was a technique used in the duel ring. Not only was it inefficient but it performed very poorly in duels where range would decide the outcome. Even in ancient times, strengthening was always better done with runic enhancements, spells or alchemy than with unstructured magic.

It wasn't very hard once the mana was there. I simply squeezed, but kept the image of the mana clamping down within, creating an invisible outline overlapping my real hand.

"You..." father started, "How did you do that so quickly?"

I just smiled up at him innocently. "I just did what you told me to?"

Father was many things, but never indecisive. But today, he was blinking and scratching his head as if something incomprehensible had occured.

"That's... incredible. Do you feel any better? That should have released some of the mana..."

"Mmh," I mumbled. I did feel different. I felt like I had no more mana in my core.

It had taken months of effort just to gather that mana, only to be used up in an instant. Not to mention, it made me feel sick from weird nightmares all the while.

Why would anyone use unstructured mana strengthening?

"You are feeling better, Tilly?" Mother asked, walking over. When I nodded she then asked father, "is it really that quick?"

"It is not supposed- no matter, Tilvrade managed to use the mana, so he should feel better after he has a good night's sleep."

"That is a great relief," Mother said, looking very tired herself. It had been a long day. "Your father and I are going to have dinner, but let's put you to bed first Tilly. Simila can get you something if you need it during the night."

Then she looked at the two maids, "And Ivian, you'll have to let Simila sleep in your chambers starting tonight. Could you lay out a bed for yourself in the quarters downstairs?"

"Of course, lady Cianna," Ivian said somewhat sullenly.

I did feel tired. So tired I hardly registered Ivian being moved out from my maid's room.

It wasn't the effort just now or even the long journey. When they said I wouldn't have to endure the pain anymore in that strange world of my nightmares, I realised I had been shouldering a kind of unconscious tiredness from fear of sleep that suddenly came over me.

Perhaps tonight, for the first time in two years, I would finally have a deep sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I didn't wake up later that night looking for food. I slept until the sun had risen and Simila had to wake me from a peaceful slumber.

It felt like the first time I slept properly in such a long time.

"Good morning Tilvrade," she said in her usual uninterested tone. "Your father wants you to eat and then join him in the yard."

That was unusual. Why would father want me in the yard?

I sat up, ironically yawning widely, trying to get out of the kind of groggy sleepiness that could only be caused by too much sleep.

Oh right, we were in Olwick now.

I looked at my wrist. There was still a grey patch on my wrist, but it was faint, unlike yesterday.

"The stigma will take a few more days to fully fade away." Simila offered, in a rare display of helpfulness.

"Could you turn around a moment? I need to go..." I said. With a long sleep also came a full bladder.

I had tried in the past to have mother or Simila leave the room, but they seemed to think it wholly unnecessary to leave the room when I pissed in the chamber pot.

I pulled it out from under the bed and turned so my back was facing the maid as I relieved myself.

"Do you know what father wants me to wear outside?" I asked, and Simila pointed to a stack of clothes she had placed on the bed at some point without my noticing.

"He'll probably be teaching you to hold a sword, so something like that should do."

I went downstairs with Simila and sat in the high chair. The loaf of baked bread at the table made me think of the baker.

I wonder how Ivian's family had been these past two years. Eve would be 4 or 5 now. I wondered if she was as tall as Pricel now.

I wanted to see them all again. I was a bit of an ass when I last met Eve, but she was always innocently happy to see me, like her mother and aunt and the other people here.

Even Vis, the stableboy who was now tending to the table seemed to have a nice guy feeling to him.

But before all that, I was excited to be going out to the yard. Learning how to hold one of father or Saul's swords sounded like tons of fun. Who didn't dream of becoming a sword wielding warrior like in the stories of before the Treaty of Azar?

Ah, I think it might have been Sam coming through... He always was a bit of a jock, preferring to duel or train than to spend time in the library, though he was still at home in the lab.

I'd train with father and find a better way to use my mana too. Now that I knew simply using it would prevent those strange dreams and pain, I would just find better spells and incantations than the inefficient mana strengthening that father used.

"Tilvrade!" My father seemed amused to see me in the oversized leather cuirass when I stepped outside. "That looks awful. Take it off."

Saul was laughing beside him as I tried really hard to untie the thing behind my back. Stupid leather armour. I told Ivian I wouldn't need it.

Even though Simila was technically my maid, I was glad that Ivian decided she'd hover around me. Man, it was nice being back.

"Now that you have started gathering mana, you will regenerate it even without consciously trying to. I talked with your mother and with Jom yesterday. You will be training with Saul and me now. Think you can keep up?"

Father actually seemed pretty happy about that.

It seemed he was like Sam, only really alive when he was moving his body.

I jumped when he said jump and swung the wooden sword when he said to swing.

But I didn't last very long. I was done, panting on the grass after just 15 minutes had passed.

"Mmh, well, we will have to work on that." Father said, obviously not sure what to think, "That's more than I ever saw a 2 year old do. Ivian, Simila, take him inside, will you?"

And that's how my first sword training session ended.

The next few days I got much better. I was able to swing more times and lunge more times.

It was usually Saul who looked at my training, often doing his own drills and flourishes beside me.

Unfortunately, father insisted every so often that I show him a mana empowered swing. He was very firm on that, perhaps worried that I would get sick otherwise.

It also meant I had no mana left to do my own experiments.

The only reward was seeing father's approval.

"Good," He said one morning, as Saul watched in amusement.

"I think he's even better than you were." Father continued saying and Saul shook his head in indignation.

I was feeling pretty confident in myself. It wasn't often that I was better at something than Sam, and I was definitely a greater swordsman than Sam was. I figured that meant I was good, and I was prepared to take on a knight in armour or a shrieker running out of the woods!

Fortunately, no shriekers ran out of the wood, and no knights came to kidnap me.