In rare circumstances when a noble mother behaves particularly wantonly during the initial days of her pregnancy, it has happened that multiple individuals develop childstones simultaneously as a result.

Such scandals have split houses and families, and even led to countless deaths. It is therefore considered a societal imperative that one ensure at least three days pass between any change in partner.

-But Why Not? A guide to avoiding common social missteps

I lay trembling in the cold, soaked through, my power too drained and weak to keep up the warmth it usually exuded. The slightest motion sent flickers of agony through the line of heat across my back where the melting railing had burned straight through my clothing.

I knew I had to get to a healer. Find herbs. No one was coming to save me. I had to move before I was too weak to do even that much.

I stumbled to my feet and started walking downhill, flinching at every step. After several minutes, my power had recovered enough that I could lift into the air. My bubble flickered in and out, but the cool wind felt soothing against my back.

I walked sometimes, I floated sometimes. I stumbled through the barrier into the downcity, and wondered why everything looked so unfamiliar. The buildings were so tiny, crammed together so close, with barely room for two or three people to fly between. The roads were muddy and uneven and the whole place smelled off.

Pale light illuminated my way, a faint pinkish glow that lit the ground around me. I needed a healer, an herbalist, someone. Anyone.

I found a sign that seemed promising and knocked on the door, hissing with pain at the movement. It was the middle of the night. No one answered. I knocked again, louder, and this time the upstairs window opened and a young man poked his head out.

“I need healing. Please.”

His eyes widened at the sight of me, but he nodded and disappeared back inside. After two minutes of standing and trying to breathe without screaming in pain, the door opened. The young man was accompanied by another, older man, who already knelt by a fire attempting to coax it back to life.

“It will be some time,” the older man said. “We have little prepared for an injury this extensive.”

The younger man led me to a cot, and I lay on my stomach while he pulled away the melted fabric. I was half delirious by then, the emotional strain coupled with the physical agony to destroy any semblance of sanity. They worked, Pelys never came to finish me off, and I survived.

I couldn’t remember anything specific about the days that followed, they were nothing but a hazy nightmare which made Pelys’s most merciless training seem gentle.

Absently, I wondered if I would ever stop accumulating new awful experiences to haunt me, then the thought slipped away in the murk of pain and regret that formed the entirety of my current existence.

After the first several days had passed, my recovery progressed quickly. My power apparently helped the process along significantly, even if it felt like an eternity to me. I missed all of Wightok week and half of Novarot.

By the time I could walk freely again, Desten 3 would be heading to Utrenad for the next-to-last week of the touring season. I wondered if he would accept my company if I showed up there, or if he was still spooked by my overreaction in Leetan.

Besides Pelys, he was the closest thing to a friend I had in the nobility. Even if Aneeyha vouched for Desten Utrenad, I could go see for myself—

What was the point? Pelys knew everything I knew, now. He could carry on without me. I could no longer offer any benefit to the search for Fylen’s killer. Besides, as Fylen’s death had been a legal duel, the only thing that could be actually done against killer Desten would be unlawful retribution. Pelys could handle that. I would be worse than useless.

I should have gone to the Sarosa authorities in the first place. If I’d told Fylen’s parents then what I knew, they could have— well. Executed me for stealing a childstone, most likely. Self-preservation had been a driving factor in my deception at the time. Now, it no longer seemed that important.

I wasn’t sure where I could go once I left the two healers’ home, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that procrastination was my only reason to stay.

The healers hadn’t broached the subject of payment, and I never brought it up, but I knew I owed them more than I could repay. My meager savings from before leaving the downcity would hardly cover so extensive a recovery. If I weren’t obviously a noble, they might have turned me away long ago, but they didn’t dare.

The irony of it could have been amusing, but it was only sad. After so long trying so hard to pretend to be a noble, once I give up on it entirely is when I’m accepted without question.

I felt awful. Even once the physical pain faded, I’d lost all motivation to go on. I’d been on the verge of giving up as it was, talking to Pel was my last desperate gamble. And it had failed utterly.

The only way it could have gone worse was if I’d ended up dead, and honestly I wasn’t sure. That might have been a better outcome. At least then they could take back Fyless’s stone and try to fix it somehow. The longer it remained inside me, the less compatible it would become with anyone else. It was probably too late by now, but the way I was feeling it seemed a minor enough risk. Worst case, Astesh Myen isn’t a problem any more; best case the Sarosa family isn’t thrown into a potential succession war.

I often wondered darkly if Pelys had some other motive behind letting me live; if he thought simply killing me would let me off too easily. If he wanted me to live and suffer, he’d certainly done a good job of it.

But even I couldn’t wallow in misery forever. I couldn’t in good conscience continue to demand the healers provide me with everything and offer them nothing in return. It may be what they expect from a noble, but I wasn’t a noble. I swore to myself I’d find a way to pay them back, somehow, and I left.

Skimming along the road, I headed south toward Midpeak. If I belonged anywhere, it was there. But when I arrived, as I drifted down the familiar, forgotten streets, everything felt so wrong. I found my tiny shop, any sign of my presence long since expunged, and felt nothing. I stared at the door and counter I’d once been so intimately acquainted with, that now felt like distant strangers.

I wanted to go home, but this wasn’t my home any more. Did I even have a home any longer? Would I ever again?

Weariness pressed in on me and I drifted nearer the ground. People bowed and skittered out of my way, making me feel even more out of place.

I didn’t belong here any more. This had been another life, one I could never reclaim.

I continued down the street, out of Midpeak and across the river until I reached Woodedge, ignoring the flurry of whispers and speculation left in my wake.

I bypassed the town. That wasn’t where I needed to go.

By the edge of the forest that gave Woodedge its name, a small cozy cottage sat nestled by the ancient trees. Smoke rose in faint wisps from its chimney, and I caught the faint scent of a familiar soup recipe that immediately set my stomach to growling in eager anticipation.

I landed just outside the porch, then hesitated. Should I knock? Just walk in like nothing was wrong? I settled for knocking.

The door opened.

“Yes, ho—” she cut off uncertainly.

For a moment, she stood frozen with shock. I tried to smile, but it had been a long time since I felt able to smile.

“Yo—you’re here,” she said, her voice choked. “I thought you were dead.”

And then she stepped forward, and it was like I’d never been gone. I let her fold me into her embrace, and suddenly all the tears I’d held back for so long came pouring out as I sobbed helplessly into her shoulder.

For an endless minute, there was no nobility, no stolen magic, no mysterious deaths, no broken friendships, no lost past. Only my mother, her arms warm and real around me, her body trembling with her own emotion at our reunion.

“I missed you,” I mumbled, once I could speak again.

She drew back and looked me over critically. “Where have you been? And what happened to your clothing?”

“It’s a very, very long story. Mind if we go indoors?”

She scoffed as though the mere idea that I’d ever be unwelcome was ludicrous, and I followed her inside.

I wanted to hold back, to try and protect her from the mess I’d created, but it felt wrong to be more honest with Pel than with my own mother. It took much longer this time to get the story out. I felt awkward and stupid as I described my plan to infiltrate the nobility, what I now realized to be a doomed idea from the beginning.

She listened, asking questions about things I’d long since become familiar with, and refilling my soup bowl every time it ran empty. I was able to relax more and more as the retelling went on. With Pel, he’d hardly said anything, and the tension had been unbearable. This time, it felt almost unreal. As though I were describing distant events that happened to someone else.

“So, that’s what I’ve been doing,” I concluded. “I don’t know what to do next, or how to do it. Whether I should go into hiding, or keep trying to find killer Desten; if I should stay here or— or return to the upcity.” I sighed. “It’s been a long time since I felt this lost.”

Mother snorted. “You’ve had your life overturned and your plans disrupted time and again. Anyone would feel a little unmoored.”

“What should I do now?”

“When have you ever listened to me? Stubborn child.”

“Like you’re any better.”

“Then at least we know we’re related.” She paused for a moment and I leaned forward. “Have you considered dating?”

“Mother! I’ve told you, I’m not interested.”

“Because I think what you really need—”

“No! Lost god, why do you always try to twist it around to that? I’m fine. You don’t need to push me at everyone you see who might be roughly the right age!”

She smirked, and I realized she’d deliberately riled me.

I put my face in my hands. “You know me too well,” I grumbled.

“That’s my job. You’ll never stop being mine, no matter how much magic you steal.”

She said it so casually it caught me off guard, and I laughed despite myself. “Come on, one time. It was an accident.”

“I still can’t believe you smuggled stolen magic into my house. Right under my nose. What kind of a person must have raised you?”

I shook my head and held out my bowl. “The kind who makes amazing soup.”

She ladled more, then we sat in silence as I ate.

“So what should you do now?” she eventually asked, mirroring my own question back at me.

“Pelys kicked me out of the investigation. Desten Oros threatened you to make me back off. It’s obvious no one wants me involved any longer. Maybe I’ll just move to Metako and learn to carve stone.”

“Is that what you want?”

I didn’t have an answer.

“What do you want?”

What did I want? To travel with Desten 3 and find a way to unite nobles and commoners like he hoped to unite the houses? To retire to the mountains and become an artist?

A year ago, I’d have said if I could do anything, if I didn’t have to struggle to get by day to day, I wanted to make things better. I wanted to leave the world a better place than the way I’d found it. But though vague grand sentiments may have been motivation enough to get me through stacks of commissions, it didn’t hold up against the reality of who I’d become. It’s easy to believe ‘doing this thing I’m already doing will help the world be a tiny bit brighter’ and a whole lot harder to decide which thing to do next out of endless options.

I shook my head. “I honestly don’t know any more.”

It’s easy to say ‘I want to help fix things’ when you have no ability to do so. But now that I actually had the power to transcend the limitations of my birth, what could I actually do? Had everything I told myself in the past been anything more than a comforting lie? What should I do? Did I have an obligation to be more than someone simply going about my life, or could I pretend this didn’t change anything?

I knew I couldn’t disappear into the downcities, however much I wanted to. The power within me wouldn’t go away, and if I didn’t somehow gain protection from one of the noble houses, I’d quickly become a target for anyone hunting renegades.

I’d still never found a satisfactory answer to what the nobility did with the rare individuals who ended up with magic outside of their family lines. It was incredibly uncommon, more legend than fact, but I surely couldn’t be the first.

My mother’s voice broke me out of my musing. “If you found out that your power would overpower and kill you in a month, what would you do?”

“Is that what will happen? Lost god, I’m an idiot. Of course there are reasons why adults aren’t turned into nobles willy-nilly—”

“Tesh, relax.”

It sounded so absurd, I burst out laughing. “Tesh? Really?”

“If you’re going to call yourself Astesh now, that’s your decision,” she said mischievously. “But if I want to call you my little Tesh, you can’t stop me.”

“No, ugh, that sounds even worse. Tesh is fine, I suppose, but drop the little.”

“Of course, Tesh darling. Anything you want.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

She refilled my bowl, grinning evilly at me.

“And what if all I want is advice?”

“Then you can have it.”

“Your idea of advice is turning my questions around on me.”

“And your idea of taking advice is to sit in the dark muttering about it for days.”

Well. That may be true.

“You’re looking at this wrong. Yes, this …” she waved a hand, encompassing my faintly-glowing self, “nobility thing was unexpected. Undesired. But even if it is a burden, that’s not all it is. It’s also an opportunity. A gift. You have the chance to elevate yourself beyond simple survival, to actually do what so many others wish they could.”

I sighed. Her words echoed my own musings too closely. She knew me so well. “But what if I don’t really want to do anything grand any longer? What if simplicity and peace are my only desires now?”

“Are they?”

I considered it, then reluctantly shook my head. “No. But …” Tears started gathering in my eyes, and I wanted to turn away, retreat, hide. I wiped them away and took a deep breath. “I don’t want to keep doing this. It’s hard, and it hurts, and I don’t think a day has passed since this all began where I wasn’t afraid. And even with my best effort, even when things go as close to perfectly as I could plan, it’s still all useless and pointless.”

“Is it? Or does it only feel that way to you?”

“I don’t know. But … I didn’t learn anything that really mattered. I only wandered around and made a fool of myself.”

“How many suspects did you have at the beginning?”

“Twelve? I told you—”

“And how many do you have now?”

“Two main ones, but possibly any of … six at most. I still haven’t met Desten Varon 7, so maybe three main ones.”

“What could you do with your magic noble powers at the beginning?”

“Well, nothing, I just glowed uncontrollably—” I broke off, scowling. I saw what she was doing.

“And now?” she prompted.

I sighed. “I can fly between cities almost effortlessly, and cross half the continent overnight if I push myself. And my shield is strong enough to break one strike from even a very angry Sarosa fourth.”

“Now. Answer my question. If you knew you would die in a month, no matter how you tried to prevent it, what would you do with your life?”

It was all too easy to imagine. Honestly, a month was a pretty high estimate for my survival without the protection of a reirn.

“I want to know why.” The answer spilled out easily, as though I’d known a long time ago. “Every Desten has something that I could stretch into a motive, but none of it lines up with what I saw that night. I want to know what happened between killer Desten and Fylen that escalated things so far. I want Fyless to grow up without having to worry about her father’s past causing any more damage than it already has. I want … to make things right.” With Fyless and Aneeyha; with Pelys. With Desten 3. “And maybe, once this is behind us, we can get started on actually fixing things.”

It sounded so small, so insignificant when I said it aloud. Petty, almost meaningless. Solve one conflict, mainly because of the personal trauma it had caused to me and out of an obligatory sense of guilt over my part in it. And even something so small, it would be so hard. Painful emotionally at the very least, and quite probably physically if Pelys got involved. But I knew if I tried to ignore it, it would nag at me the rest of my life.

“I don’t want to go,” I whispered. “Can I just stay here?”

She smiled. “Of course you can. But you won’t. I know you.”

She was right. As much as I wanted to run away, I knew I never could. Maybe for a few days, maybe in the heat of the moment, but not for good. My mother wasn’t the only stubborn one in the family.

Pelys was wrong when he called me a coward. He didn’t know me as well as he thought. He’d only ever seen me at my worst.

“You should find somewhere safer to hide,” I told her. “If I start poking around again, there could be retribution against you.”

“You don’t have to worry about me. I can take care of myself.” She smiled fondly. “I’ll be fine. And if you happen to find anyone nice you want me to meet—”

My cheeks burned in sudden embarrassment. “Mom! No! Drop it.”

She laughed. “Same old— Tesh. That feels weird to say. Are you sure this is what you’re going with? Astesh?”

“Too late to change it now.”

“Then Astesh it is. I’ll try not to be too offended.”

“If there were any other way—”

She shook her head. “The days when I could dictate every part of your life are long, long past. Find your answers. If you need me, you’ll know where to find me.”

I stood and hugged her, tight. “I’ll always need you.”

She laughed and shook her head. “Not always. But I’ll be here when you do.”