Tempered by the Will

15 - Common Practice

 Vica was furious. Not at Bren or even Constantine, but at herself. 

Was she so incompetent that she couldn't even handle basic skills, ones that apparently all young children mastered before ever casting a single spell? How could she be so terrible at it that even emotionless Bren raised his eyebrows at her efforts? He never criticized, but as he watched her struggle to invoke a single minor rune for days, she knew that he hadn't expected her to be so inadequate.

It was over a week and a half before she even began to see magical signatures, then another several days before she could trace her own (just one). It the one she intended, either. Bren hadn't warned her until it was too late that it wasn't as simple as dragging her finger in the shape of whatever she wanted to write, and when she finally managed to summon forth a sputtering trail of magic yesterday, it had twisted into the rune for water instead of light as she'd wanted.

Which had then led to her becoming drenched when an immense cascade of clear, sparkling water suddenly condensed and continuously splashed over her from head to toe for several solid seconds. Bren, too.

They'd stared at each other for a moment, and then she had called it a day.

"I think this is a good sign," he said the instant he saw her coming down the stairs this morning. That was what he was greeting her with? Obviously, he meant the opposite of what he was saying. He wouldn't be so eager to encourage her otherwise.

But at least he was trying. The Duke had left his manor close to a week ago, citing 'Court business,' so Bren had been shouldering the burden of dealing with her alone ever since. It wasn't as if anyone else in the place could help, after all. There were more than a dozen members of the household staff here, all with magical capability - but she'd been told they weren't mages. They had the spark, but not the gift. With their touch, they could operate the magic-powered workings such as the water heating spells as well as inspect the various wards everywhere for damage, but nothing more.

It was something she wanted to ask about when she had the chance, but for now, she was listening to Bren try to console her while they headed toward their usual spot at the back of the estate.

She wouldn't be so reluctant if only Constantine hadn't seen her make a mess of herself yesterday. He hadn't mentioned it, but she knew he'd been keeping watch from the balcony the way he always did. Maybe he ought to go to the roof instead and mind his own business.

"- and the volume of water you were able to summon means you have a strong vitality. That's important as well." Bren was still going at it. It was nice of him, but unnecessary. Soothing her bruised ego wouldn't make her any more skillful.

"It's fine," she said. "Let's just get started -"

"We could try different sigils. It's possible that one just doesn't agree with you."

Right, because a rune for a single glowing light could 'disagree' with someone. It was the first thing mage children learned here in the Capital's magic academies, and she doubted any of them struggled as she did.

A curious thought occurred to her then, and she wondered why she hadn't wondered about it before. Just as they settled down on the grass with Constantine's eyes no doubt glued to them from his perch, she raised her hand in a staying gesture before the half-elf could get into whatever lesson he was about to preface their work with.

"Where did you learn all this?" she asked. "Elves and elf-mixed aren't allowed to do much of anything here, I thought. Everyone in this place hates anything that's not human, so who would have taught you this stuff? This isn't elven magic, right?"

He paused, and with a faint smile that called up a strange sense of unease inside her, he looked up to meet her eyes. There was something dark and coiled at the very bottom of his gaze, something at odds with the serene expression he wore. What was it, she wondered when he remained silent.

"My father is human," he said finally. "I was educated in my youth."

"...They couldn't tell you were part-elf?"

"I didn't attend an academy. I was taught at home."

"Where's that? Home, I mean."

"Somewhere in the Capital. My father is an Order mage, and likely a noble who sits on the Court as well."

Vica's eyes bugged out. What? The Order mage father she could understand - had even expected it, really, since he knew so much about this place. There were probably plenty of hypocrites here who treated elves as second-class unworthy even to be looked at, while exploiting them that way on the side...But a noble?

She had no idea what that meant for him. She hadn't seen a single elf in this city since she'd arrived, and she was acquainted with the region well enough to know that was because no one was proud of owning an elf slave. They were 'useful' and had 'talents,' but they were shoved into dark cellars rather than brought out into public. But Bren was of mixed blood with a noble father. He would have been treated neither as a slave or an authority. And how was it that he had ended up leaving the Capital, then?

"You have many questions."

Her eyebrows were perched high on her forehead. "Yeah, I do."

"Breeding hybrids has a dark history, Vica. I wouldn't recommend dwelling on it overlong. There's nothing for you to learn in it."

She tensed. Breeding hybrids? What was he...

"There were many of us. He was searching for a way to access old magics, and he always kept several elf women to copulate with in order to keep producing halflings. He wanted someone who could resist anti-magic measures, specifically, since the number of people capable of Resistance was starting to grow, but elf-human hybrids lean toward the human strain of magic most of the time. Most of us were disposed of."

In stunned silence, she realized slowly that she'd been utterly wrong. Being the child of a noble meant nothing for Bren. He was still a tool if he was useful, trash if he wasn't. His own father -

"Is this common practice?" she asked. "There's this place called Winding Oaks where I met another Order mage. His name was Killian. He'd been...breeding, or whatever you call it."

"With?"

The question was simple, short. He sounded so casual. "A sylph," she answered. "But...she died, I think. He, um. He was - cannibalizing his chil - I mean, their...the halflings."

Bren nodded. "It's an archaic practice and fell out of popularity because of how difficult it is to capture a sylph, but it's one way to gain temporary power. Not fifty years ago, there used to be special brothel-prisons in the Capital where mages were invited to have relations with captured sprites. Once the halfling was birthed, they would draw its blood to see whose offspring it was, and the father could come to retrieve it if he paid an appropriate price."

"They - invited mages to r**e sprites?" she demanded. "And take the children?"

"Yes. But of course, there were obvious reasons for this falling out of practice. For one, the keepers could simply lie and say that the halfling belonged to such-and-such noble simply because he was willing to pay the highest price. Only the wealthiest and those already powerful and influential benefited from these arrangements. After a while, the obsession died, and the brothel-prisons have mostly been converted to other things by now. Meanwhile, there are other ways to create halflings that are legally acceptable, as you know."

She was going to be sick. This matter of fact way that he spoke of such atrocities...He'd mentioned that his father kept 'several elf women.' A halfling production scheme, and no doubt the women had been taken by force. There were other children too, he'd mentioned. What must it have been like for Bren to grow up surrounded by everyone who had been the product of such horrifying atrocities?

Was that why he seemed so unaffected by everything? Because he had already been through so much worse? And that would explain why he so calmly accepted that such terrible things existed. That had been his entire life. He'd been born and raised in a mire of evil...

"Bren, when I have the chance, I'm going to -"

She'd been about to declare her intentions to toss out every man like his father by the seat of their pants once she had the power. A glance over Bren's shoulder, however, stopped her mid-sentence.

"Constantine is coming this way," she said, and she picked herself up so that she could be on her feet once the man reached them.. He was walking briskly; whatever he wanted to tell them, it was important.

Bren stood up as well, and to her slight chagrin, began walking toward Constantine to meet him halfway. She supposed that gave her little choice but to follow him, even though her pride would have much preferred continuing to wait right here.

At least Constantine didn't make them ask first. Scarcely before he'd come to a stop in front of them, he looked directly at Vica and pointed back at the manor.

"A small army is on its way," he said. "And you need to get inside."