Chapter 4 – Wheels moving

“Father, I am so happy see you back from the trip!” Sainna exclaimed as she entered her fathers lavishly decorated office. She wore hers brightest and cutest smile.

Her father Jonathan Reki looked like a good natured uncle, with his grizzled hair and clean shaven face. And when in public he always wore a disarming smile. Sainna had no doubts, that her acting talent came from this father of hers.

As she made her way to her father she cautiously prepared a small syringe she was holding in her hand. It was quite lucky that Jonathan didn't keep any company while he was working and the only , it made Sainna's work much easier.

“My angel! How have I missed you!” Jonathan happily embraced his daughter. “I have brought to you the most beautiful dress for the ball next week” he continued “You will love it!”

“Oh, thank you father! I can not wait to try it on!” Sainna thanked, her still smiling expression didn't betray her thoughts and before they separated she made a slight stab into back of her fathers neck.

And Jonathan didn't even flinch and a moment later he rubbed the place she had pierced with the needle, taking no special notice of it. That moment Sianna's smile grew even wider as the syringe disappeared in folds of her dress.

“I cant wait to see you in it and show you off to all my friends!” Jonathan continued.

Sainna had no doubts, that the dress was indeed beautiful and expensive, but that only made it worse. She knew that he didn't think of her as his daughter really. She was considered a great merchandise to show off.

The only thing stopping her from getting engaged with some creep now was that those said creeps were still bidding on her. Be it with money or no doubt lucrative deals that would further push her “beloved” father further up the social ladder. Or whatever those scums and criminals counted as a social ladder.

She also idly wondered why he had not found another wife, as Sainna's mother happened to have a car “accident” and she died in hospital 9 years ago. Fathers speech at funeral had really been heartbreaking, later that evening he went to a whore house he owned. She supposed that being a 48 years old bachelor had its perks that kept him from leaping into another marriage.

As they both made their way to chairs and sat across each other with an office desk between them Sainna finally let her smile fade away.

“Is something wrong my angel?” inquired Jonathan

“Well, yes, I wont be able to attend the ball after all” Sainna sighed

“And why would that be?” Jonathan really disliked when something interfered with his plans.

“After all, my father died and his funeral is surely of more importance. I will have to attend, I wonder if I have a fitting dress.” Sainna sadly shook her head.

“What do you...” but Jonathan's sentence was cut short by a stabbing pain in his heart. “Arhg, what have you done Sainna?”

“Ah, how truly tragic, the young and innocent me had to witness my owns fathers death!” Sainna miserably continued to monologue.

“You, you...” but before Jonathan was cut short again, this time by the sudden lack of breath.

As Sainna watched her father slowly dying she didn't feel even a ounce of regret. The man she had called her father for all these years was a vile men who was not deserving a pity from anyone.

“About the time for someone put an end to your ruinous life you old fart” Sainna said the final goodbye to her father. After few more seconds the last light left his eyes.

“Well then, time for the greatest performance of my life!” After another moment passed Sainna let out an ear deafening scream.

–

“What are we going to do now?” asked Melita.

They were sitting a car that was returning form Jonathan's funeral. Hall was again acting as a driver while Melita sat next to Sainna.

Fitting for the occasion all three of them were dressed in black, and wore glum faces. Sainna's face was stained with tears. Even Melita who know better felt that maybe somewhere inside her, Sainna was sad of her father dying.

“What do you mean, now we celebrate!” Sainna immediately answered. Any emotions wiped from her face.

“Guess not” Melita concluded, “I meant now that your father is not shackling you to this place. You already inherited everything he legally had. Will that be enough to go trough your plan? Maybe even share the Plan with us?”

Ignoring the slight barb at the end from Melita a thoughtful expression appeared on Sainna's face. “Its hard to tell. We can certainly put them in motion though.”

“And those plans are?” with little impatience Melita inquired.

“I guess they do deserve some answers” Sainna weighted “We will contact some... people...”

“People like you?” Melita really felt that Sainna should speak more of her designs, She and Hall would go any lengths to help this girl but she rarely asked for it.

“No, not like me.” Sainna looked trough cars window up to the sky. The Ring was still hanging there just as it were yesterday and days before. “But they will have power. And they will bring change if allowed to.”

“And she is back to being cryptic, great!” Melita grumbled to herself.

“Can you not be so obscure miss?” this time it was Hall who spoke up and Melita could not help but to shoot a surprised look at him.

“Its difficult to tell more” Sainna frowned. “As I already mentioned before, the more monumental are the events I have seen the more restricted I am when speaking of them.” She recalled the night she had seen the world in ruins for the first time. She truly didn't want for that to come true.

Despite her callous exterior she did care for people lives. Sainna just found it difficult to care for particular ones when almost every time she had a vision it would be full with death and suffering.

“We need to find those who can wield power... and inform them about gathering, it will happen in a year, we have to get ready. When the... Ring... beckons... there HAS to be those who can answer...” by now Sainna was visibly gasping for breath and big drops of sweat were rolling down her face.

Both Melita and Hall frowned. This was more than Sainna had told them in a while, and it took a visible toll of her every time she did. They didn't want to put their young miss trough it, but even if they would do anything for her, they still were not her slaves.

After Sainna had spoken silence resumed in car. All three left with their own thoughts.

***

Theodore was exhausted. Three years he had no direct contact for himself with other people had left him ill-prepared for school. Right now he was laying down in his bed and taking a brake of studying Others works.

Almost a year had passed since he had taken control back form the Other, but he still felt immensely uncomfortable when he spoke with other people. What didn't help was that they once again were avoiding him.

“What am I doing wrong, I literally did everything the same way as the Other did!” The next most prominent emotion he felt right now was confusion.Confusion of how it was, that the very next day he had returned and went to school he was avoided as a plague. Again. This time there were no whispers behind his back, it was like everyone in his class just decided to ignore him. On the same day.

How was it that in the whole year he had less than handful meaningful conversations with people.

“There must be something about me...” Theodore thought as he tried to stare a hole in ceiling.

The unfortunate thing was, he had no idea where to start with this problem so he did what he had done for so many times before. He returned to the books laying on the ground.

The apartment Theodore lived in had not changed in any meaningful way. The only difference was that now on Theodore's work table sat a cheap computer he had scraped money for. Nothing great, but necessary for school work and those occasional times when he took a brake.

He now understood why Other had not used computers. Something about the knowledge that was written on paper didn't translate well to digital format. It was as if the text lost its meaning.

The past year had been been barren of social interaction, but he was quite happy with his progress in magic. He was nowhere an arch-mage, and he knew for sure he was quite a lot worse than the Other had been, but he was getting somewhere.

He had learned to do some minor improvements to his mind and consciousness. While minor, and shoddier than the ones Other had made from himself they still allowed him to cruise trough lessons at school and allowed much smoother work with stacks of books at his apartment. He also had made a good progress in translating earlier works of Other. Though, what was written in them was quite a bit more difficult that newer written works and Theodore didn't understand them one bit.

That didn't discourage Theodore, he only felt more confident in the path he had chosen as it seemed like and endless one and promised great many of rewards and mysteries to solve.

“I will become the greatest mage of all time!” Theodore thought to himself while theatrically shaking his hand at imaginary opponent.

But what he truly had invested his time in was something else. He still lived in constant fear that something else would come and try take over his body, as unlikely as it was it had happened once already. So most of Theodore's time went into bulking up his defenses. He had found something other called “Shadow Mind” in one of the books. It was a construct meant to hide user from detection, but it also had a wonderful side effect.

When in use Theodore could vaguely sense other people around him. In the book it was described that as a result of submerging ones mind within domain of shadows user could use the nothingness left behind to search for those who walked shadows surface.

It was an exiting skill for Theodore to play around with. It didn't let to precisely judge where exactly or how many people there were, but it did allow him to know if there was anyone at all. And with some training and honing he was sure that he would soon improve in this spells usage. The only downside was the immense mana cost the spell had and Theodore had to recharge it regularly.

By now Theodore walked to Mana Well every night. It wasn't that it had to at night, but he just found it to be easier to ignore that huge Ring in the sky when it was dark outside.

That night when he finally arrived at the usual spot he, to his surprise, found three people in his “Shadow Minds” range already standing there, he was sure that they hadn't seen him yet. It was too dark to make out for sure who they were as there was no sources of light nearby, all he could tell that there was one men and two women. But, whoever they were there was no reason for them to hang around this place all night, he could return later.

Before he could turn around and leave the women in the middle of the three already spoke “We have been waiting for you Theodore!”

“How did she find me” was the only thought on Theodore's mind as he froze.