The transfer of a childstone must occur between two and four months after a child's birth. In the event that the stone is not released at the proper time, its resonance will begin to permanently degrade both itself and its fatherstone until they are both destroyed.

If the child is unable to receive the stone, it is possible to instead surgically remove it, but this usually results in irreparable damage and at the very least a very obvious scar. While this author does not believe such tragic circumstances should be held against the parents, it still carries old stigmas of superstition and misfortune.

-On Heartstones, vol 4: Resonance

And here I'd imagined a simple carriage ride with him to be intimidating.

That was before I knew he could very well be the Eirn Desten. He was, at the very least, an Eirn Desten. And that made the short trip through the halls and down the streets and up some stairs and into another building far, far more terrifying.

I should have been making small talk, try to learn something, anything about him that could help me determine his guilt or innocence, but I couldn’t speak, and he seemed disinclined to start up a conversation.

I covertly examined Eirn Desten’s face as we walked toward what would become my quarters, trying to see if there were any resemblance to the nightmare man in my memory, but he seemed utterly calm and controlled, nothing like the violent maniac I recalled. The angles of his face were vaguely similar to those of Reirn Ushan, and my memory wasn’t clear enough to match them against the murderer. I hadn’t been close enough, and the red light of the dome hadn’t helped with clarity.

He had the right length and style of hair, but shoulder length hair tied up in the back appeared to be the prevailing style. That is, every single one of the guardsmen also had some variation of the same. Even Reirn Ushan had the same length, though not tied up. It might be of use in narrowing the Destens, but if it were as widespread as it seemed, it wouldn’t be much help.

So occupied by my thoughts, I barely even looked around. My first real visit to the upcity and I couldn’t even enjoy it properly.

Desten didn’t speak until we reached the house that would become my new home, a huge mansion set amid sprawling grounds, fronted by a tree-lined walk and bordered on the rear by a magnificent walled garden.

Once we were inside, he turned to me with cold disapproval, his voice low and demanding. “Astesh Varon, who are you?”

“I’m sorry, Eirn Desten, I don’t follow.”

“Who. Are you. You come out of nowhere, claiming to be a lost Varon descendant, and not only does Reirn Ushan entertain your story, he orders you trained and inducted into our family as though you were close line?”

I shrugged. What could I possibly say to an accusation like that?

He exhaled slowly, his glare losing its edge. “Well, Astesh, if you are to be trained as a family member, as your first lesson, I should point out that ‘Eirn’ is only used in great formality, or when a commoner is speaking to a superior. As we are …” he sighed, “family, it could be seen as rude or mocking for you to address me as such in casual conversation. In general, I should be simply Desten, as you are simply Astesh.”

“Yes. Of course, eirn— I mean, simply Desten. Yes. Desten. Good day, Desten, nice to meet you, Desten.” Nervous laughter bubbled out of me before I clamped it down. My stone still hadn’t recovered from whatever strain Reirn Ushan had caused it, and continued to be no help in calming my unease.

Desten sighed once more. “I do have other duties, so we will have to postpone any further instructions until this evening. I will make arrangements so I can better accommodate Reirn Ushan’s command in future. In the meanwhile …” he glanced around the room, as though trying to find something. “Make yourself at home, I suppose. Don’t interfere with my staff. I’ll inform them that you’re to be left alone, but if you make a spectacle of yourself I guarantee you’ll regret it. Those sorts of rumors don’t die easily.” He hesitated. “You can read?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Not everyone can, downcity or outland. This way.” He led me through the halls of what I gradually realized was his own home, and into a well-appointed private library. He selected three books from different places around the room. “You should get started on these while I’m away. It will help begin to correct your hopelessly skewed perspective. I’ll be back before dinnertime.”

He handed me the books, then turned and left me, standing helplessly, alone in an unfamiliar house.

I don’t think my heart had stopped its frantic racing since before my audience with Reirn Ushan, and it was all I could do not to crumple to the floor in a trembling heap. But I set down the books gingerly on a small table, and lowered myself in a more controlled collapse into one of the thick, cushioned chairs, and only then did I force myself to relax.

For a very long time, I stared up at the ceiling, trying to concentrate on the rhythm of my breathing and counting my heartbeats and not thinking not thinking not thinking anything at all.

I pushed aside the teasing hints of panic at living inside Desten’s house. I did not relentlessly imagine murder rooms hidden behind bookshelves and underneath floorboards.

I listened to my heartbeat, and I stared at the excessively ornate chandelier on the ceiling, and I slowly, slowly, slowly brought my hopeless mass of nerves back under control. More or less.

I looked down at my hand. For the first time in months, my blood had stopped glowing. At least until I made a tent with my jacket and hand to examine it in proper darkness, then I could make out the faint lines of light. Forcing it to show its colour seemed to have taxed it severely. If I’d been at home, I would have checked my chest to see how the main stone was doing, but I’d feel incredibly awkward removing my shirt while in someone else’s library.

The stack of books sat waiting untouched. Even my best attempts at calm were insufficient for the proper mindset to read. Instead I crossed to the huge windows and looked out over the city. I’d been too distracted to look properly before, but now it left me breathless.

Roughly half the size of the downcity, the upcity still spread out in all directions, rising toward the peak of the hill and falling on the other side. Beyond, a distant white haze blurred out the downcity entirely, the commoners and their affairs casually erased from sight. It also lent the upcity a surreal feeling, as though we floated among fog or clouds, rather than simply perched on a hillside.

The buildings themselves were not much different from those in the downcity, at least not individually, but there was a different air to them. They were all slightly bigger, for one thing. This house was easily twice the size of my downcity building, and an extra story taller as well. The stone walls seemed more smoothly fitted, and the wooden beams deeper and richer in colour. Like someone took all the nicest pieces of downcity architecture and accentuated them.

Light was everywhere. Even in the middle of the day, and not just because people were glowing in every direction as they flew about their business. Solid light painted doorways, pathways, walls, windows. Not garishly, as a rule, but in discrete accents on everything. Most of it was in House Varon colours, greens, reds, and yellows most prominent, but there was no shortage of other colours either.

Not everyone flew, but nearly everyone at least hovered or glided just above the ground, and a few flew high overhead at incredible speeds. After a few minutes of watching, I realized that the height at which they flew determined their speed; they would slow as they descended and rise as they accelerated.

I couldn't keep my eyes off them. We occasionally saw nobles fly overhead back in the downcity, but never more than one or two, and always too distant to make out clearly. Here, people dove and soared in every direction, on straight direct course, going about their business as though leaping into the sky were as natural as stepping out your front door.

They were beautiful and terrible, so much deadly power in each and every one of them, but so much beauty too. And in me, now, as well. I wondered if I'd have to learn to fly, and realized I preferred to keep my feet firmly on the ground. But one didn't have to desire to emulate a bird to admire its passing, and as I watched the men and women and children soaring past, I couldn't help but admire their flawless control.

I don’t know how long I stood watching, but I gradually forgot that the same power which lifted them through the sky could be used to tear a man apart in seconds. That dark, violent, bloody night was distant memory; this was reality, and it was beautiful and pure and clean.

Then a brilliant streak of yellow fire dove from the sky and dissolved to reveal Desten striding up the steps to his front door. His appearance brought it all rushing back, and for a moment the same paralyzing terror overcame me as when I'd watched the two nobles battle to the death.

I had to get used to this. This was normal. I’d seen hundreds of people with yellow fire go by in every direction all afternoon. It was incredibly common.

However rational the excuses, my terror refused to listen.

“Astesh?”

I jumped, whirling to face Desten, eyes wide, fuchsia power flaring around my hands in instinctive reaction. Something between calm and adrenaline overtook me. I stood entirely prepared to fight or act at an instant’s notice, but with a detached clarity that felt totally foreign.

The sharp-edged pink glow limned my wrists and extended beyond my fists like tiny blades, and then they winked out and my power retreated, gone as unexpectedly as it had appeared.

“Pink?” Desten asked, surprised.

I shrugged. “Got some Teshren in there, I think.”

For a moment I thought he’d comment further, but instead he immediately changed the subject. “How far did you get in the books I assigned you?”

I glanced guiltily at the table with the unopened books. “I didn’t start. I’m still a little out of sorts. This all happened very suddenly.” I gestured vaguely out the window. “I was admiring the view.”

He gave me a look that very clearly conveyed his displeasure. “Then we shall begin now. Sit down, pick a book, and read. If you have any questions or if they’re too advanced for you, I will be here to assist.”

I bristled at the implication that any text could be too difficult for my comprehension. Words were my life! How dare he cast aspersions upon my literacy?

But I crossed to the table, picked up the top book from the stack, and began reading.

The Ten Houses: A Primer.

Its contents were just as boring as its title, but enduring tedious research had never stopped me before.

The vast majority of it was commonplace information I already knew, such as the major exports of the regions controlled by each of the houses and their general status in relation to each other. But in some cases my commoner knowledge was off by just enough to be inaccurate, and in other instances so completely erroneous as to be embarrassing.

And every time I glanced up, Desten sat across from me with a book of his own, watching me without seeming to watch; but closing the book and looking questioning every time our eyes met.

I didn’t ask any questions. I continued to read, hoping that the gaps in my knowledge could be filled with the least possible humiliation.

After all, if he turned out to be one of the eleven innocent Destens, I’d still have to live with his impressions of me for the rest of my life.

I set the book in my lap and leaned back as that hit me.

This wasn’t a quick trip, not an extended research journey from which I could return home upon its completion. I was in this for good. Either I’d be exposed and lose my life and/or freedom, or I’d maintain my cover. Those were the only outcomes. And the binary didn’t end when I found the right Desten; it only gave me a slight bit less chance of being brutally killed and more chance of living a natural life.

But as a noble. Never as myself, never again.

I would live as Astesh, and I would die as Astesh.

I really should have said a better goodbye to my mother. But that, like so much else on my long list of preparations, House Varon had interrupted before its completion.

“Are you done?” Desten’s voice startled me.

Pink light flowed again over my hands into tiny blades, then vanished just as suddenly.

Desten shook his head at me. “You must get that under control. It’s one thing to leave your power on all the time, but to flare it at every interruption? Unacceptable.”

I was immediately on the defensive. “Well, it’s not like I know anything about magic! This was all very sudden and unexpected.”

Desten laughed harshly.

I frowned. “What?”

“Everything since the start of the year has been sudden and unexpected. Not a single week has gone by without some new upheaval. And now I have you dumped in my lap, an ignorant child from nowhere.”

“I’m older than you are!”

“And your power hisses like a frightened cat, without any control on your part.” Desten’s irritation grew with every word. “You’re right, child is too generous a term. Infant is closer to correct.”

“What did I ever do to you?”

“You are one more pointless distraction which I do not need!” Desten snarled. Then he held up a hand before I could respond.

I waited, trying to contain my own irritation. I may be ignorant, but I wasn't stupid. And I wasn't a child, aside from the new to magic thing.

Desten visibly calmed himself, then shook his head. “I should not lash out at you. It is not your fault the Reirn saw fit to inflict you upon me specifically. We must get through this as best we can, and that starts with you becoming less ignorant of the world.”

“Not that I have anything against research, but could I read these on my own, another time? I’m having a hard time focusing right now. With you sitting and watching me.”

“You didn’t make any progress without me sitting and watching.”

I set the books aside and stood. “I’m tired. I haven’t eaten all day. Forgive me if it’s hard to focus on memorizing minutia about trade agreements and the varied intricacies of courting rituals between houses. I’m in an unfamiliar home, with this power I can’t control, and honestly courting is the least of my concerns at the moment!”

The pink light beneath my skin pulsed in time with my heartbeat, warm and calming. I realized I’d been shouting, and sat back down. I needed to learn this. I needed to be able to blend in. I couldn’t stand out. I had to get this right.

“Sorry.” I muttered. “It’s been a long day.”

Desten sighed. “Indeed. Bring the books. I’ll show you to your room and have food sent up to you. We will begin in the morning.”