My travel bag sat in the corner, staring at me from the corner of my eye, I knew I had a choice to make and I had been stalling with the decision. There were a lot of potential outcomes to weigh and risks to balance and consider, but the fact still stood that every day I took longer to decide on my options, the less time the House would have to make other arrangements and prepare. Begrudging as it was to admit, Toria had been pretty lenient in letting me have time to try to chase down my contacts and try to paint a better picture of what exactly was bubbling into fruition in the Great Church. Also, I knew she was taking pity on me, my glamour was holding up, but the physical limitations were becoming much harder to hide. In recent years it had been noticeably harder to keep my back straight, tall, and regal, and now I found myself slumping forward without thinking or needing to use a hand on a steady surface to rise from my seat. At least the girl was aware enough to not even begin to insist that I stop or do something as silly as to retire all together, the longer I kept moving and active, the longer I would last.

I read through the letter in front of me again, it was not good news, spurring the desire to figure out the best plan of action and quickly. One of my oldest contacts in the Church had sent word that they were stepping up training regimes and opening their doors to new alliances. In itself, the news wasn’t something too far out of the ordinary, periodically they would posture some show of force to demand compliance from a rogue kingdom or to get a more favorable deal, but the timing was suspicious. She had also said there were hints of a new, powerful acquisition that would allow them to house and feed many more people directly under the control of the Church. The extent of how much they were planning to expand was vague and she had no exact figures, but the fact it was a hushed rumor and not just general news led me to believe it might be the beginnings of their own army. There were several kingdoms who would be made uncomfortable by the idea of the Church having their own military might, so it would be better to keep that kind of news under wraps for as long as they could. There was a missing piece somewhere that I couldn’t quite figure out. The Church had to have suddenly come into a pretty big chunk of wealth and land to be able to expand in earnest and while kingdoms generally tried to give generously to seem pious, if they were planning on an army, that would take forfeiting more power than any monarch would ever want to.

A frown formed on my lips as I recalled Toria’s suggestion that I train someone to help me with my contact network. It felt so insulting for it to have been brought up, but I also couldn’t stop wondering if a fresh, young pair of eyes and a quick wit might make shorter work putting all the pieces together. It did not escape me that in my prime I would not have backed down from Aela’s warning and instead probably should have pretended to leave, but instead re-hid and did some snooping about why she wanted me to leave. It was a bitter pill to swallow that I was not as cunning as I used to be. Perhaps the idea of being off the road in the comfort of the castle with a warm bed was becoming too much for me to ignore and it was time to start passing the proverbial baton. In my mind the House Yser had always been Evonia and myself, but the reality that the House Yser had gone on after Evonia’s passing and would go on after my own was trickling in, all reigns eventually end. If I truly cared about the House lasting and achieving glory, perhaps it was time to put aside my pride.

A knock on my chamber door awoke me from my thoughts. It was a timid knock, without having honed senses specifically to hear what wasn’t meant for me to hear I doubt it would have been noticed over the general footfalls and taps heard normally in the castle.

“Enter,” I commanded.

For a long moment I wondered if I had mistaken a different noise as knock as there was absolutely no movement, but eventually the door pushed open slowly and a girl that I would place no more than ten peaked her head inside. Unruly dark brown, curly locks fell down her back and swept into her face as her cheeks reddened out of trepidation for having disturbed me in my private quarters.

“Speak, child,” I commanded. She was not one of the recruits, I was certain I would have remembered, but I could not place her among the servants. She was young enough to likely have just been allowed to start training to become a proper servant in the kitchen or as a maid.

“Mistress Mari,” she whispered, “Mistress Mistra requests you meet her in the Queen’s private study.”

“Does she?” I said with a huff. I did not like Mistra thinking she could command me around one bit. It didn’t matter that Toria seemed to place a lot of faith, in my opinion, potentially blind faith in her, it didn’t feel right to have a consort hold so much sway.

The girl did not answer my question, instead looked to the floor and shrugged her shoulders, waiting for me to dismiss her.

“Fine,” I grumbled and rose to my feet, “you may go, I do not need escorted around my own castle.”

In the short time it took for me to leave my room, the girl had scurried herself out of the hallway and was no where to be seen. Her being so fearful of me put a dose of much needed confidence in my step and I held my head high as I went to the impromptu meeting. It was good to know that even though I might not be up keeping my regal and timeless demeanor all the time that the servants were still wisely ignorant.

“Hello, Mari.” Mistra rose to her feet and extended a hand in greeting when I entered the study.

I paused and looked around the room, leaving her hand outstretched for a moment while I surveyed the room. I swept both my observational skills and magic around the room, but my eyes and ears found nothing out of place and my aura felt nothing but the pull of Mistra’s own magical aura against mine. Once I was reasonably certain this was not a trapped meeting of some sort, I graciously extended my hand and accepted her greeting.

“It is not often you request a private audience of me,” I commented and took a seat across from where she would be sitting.

“That is unfortunate,” she began, “I feel that if we were to meet more often we could not only have much to discuss, but much to learn from each other.”

I raised an eyebrow and inclined my head to signal for her to continue, despite not fully trusting her, I couldn’t argue that having at least a surface friendship with someone tied to another realm could be beneficial.

“I know that we do not have the best relationship, which is a shame considering how very close we are to the same person.” She paused a moment and gave what I assumed was mean to be a disarming smile, though I am not so easily swayed. “There is something that bothers you about that and I understand you do not really trust me, but I think it’s a misunderstanding.”

“Do you?” I scoffed. “A demon wants me to trust them. My dear, I am pleasant enough to you, but I can not even trust Rafe fully and he wears his motives on his sleeve.”

Her lips curled into a smile and she nodded her head. “You should not trust a demon, I won’t fault you there. My family legacy is not exactly built on truth and transparency, but I do want you to consider the effect of me being not only human but being deeply tied to your niece and having vested interest in her succeeding.”

“Out with it,” I commanded. “I know you have an ultimate goal here and you’re beating around the bush trying to appeal to my sense of family or whatever. I just want to know what you’re trying to get out of me or what deal you’re trying to strike.”

She leaned back in her seat and let out a low laugh. “Even when I’m trying to be open and sincere, you cannot accept that maybe I’m not your enemy.”

“I don’t think you’re my enemy necessarily,” I corrected, “but are you seriously going to tell me you didn’t have a motive behind this meeting beyond trying to make nice with me?”

“Your magic is fading,” she said suddenly with a shake of her head.

I wrinkled my forehead into a frown and narrowed my eyes at her.

“Your gut instinct is to deny and act like I’m trying to instigate instead, but deep down you know I’m right.”

She was right, I did want to immediately go into a tirade about how I couldn’t believe she would say something like this to me. Against my normal judgment, I instead sat quiet for a long moment, exploring if she could be right. I couldn’t deny that it seemed like magic was harder these days, but I hadn’t let myself equate that to it becoming weaker, I had thought that it was just harder for me to wield.

“If you leave this world without a successor to your contacts you leave Toria at a great disadvantage,” she continued. “You will leave her essentially blind and fumbling around to get some sort of system into place. We both know that system wouldn’t hold a candle to what you’ve been cultivating for decades now. Therefore, I believe it is in this kingdom’s best interests that you accept me as your apprentice.”

There is was, that was what she had been working up to. She knew that had she opened with that I would have stormed off and not listened, I had to admit that she was at least skilled at the manipulation tactics that would be necessary to fulfill the role.

“How convenient, that would let you have all sorts of control over this kingdom and it’s direction,” I stated tersely.

“If not me, it will be someone else, someone not as closely connected to Toria and that would be worse,” she countered. “I know you will likely never come to fully trust me, but even so, you know that there is no one else. None of the girls you have brought so far are anywhere ready to take on such a task. Most of them haven’t even scraped the basics yet. It could be over a year or more before one of them advances enough for you to begin just the basics with them.”

I absolutely hated that she was right. The girls were advancing painfully slow, to be expected from people of low birth with mutt pedigrees. I wasn’t even certain that any one of them would eventually be powerful enough for me to trust taking on the whole task themselves and if my time was growing short, I didn’t have the luxury of waiting around and hoping that one of them would prove me wrong. There wasn’t anyone else that I knew of that I would trust any more than the half demon before me, which wasn’t saying much, but it was better than handing it over to the few others that came to mind as powerful enough.

“Fine,” I muttered out, “you can be my apprentice, but one whiff of some sort of underhanded trickery and I will be the first to show you the wrath of the Yser.”

Her face turned up into a grin and she extended her hand for a handshake to seal the deal.