Published at 24th of February 2024 10:31 am

Chapter 17

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My parents gave each other uneasy glances, but neither looked over in my direction. I was sure that was what they were thinking though, that my interference had drawn someone’s attention and it had gotten back to the governor himself. It was possible I’d overestimated how much additional mana we needed to pass our Testing, but I didn’t think so.

It was also possible Father’s public lashing had caught Noctra’s attention. Such spectacles didn’t happen often, but the fact that a Collector had shown up to tell us made me think it was mana-related. Then again, Ayaka seemed to be friends with Father outside of any relationship related to her work, and she had a somewhat privileged position.

There wasn’t much point in speculating on it when Ayaka was just going to tell us in a second anyway, so I pushed such thoughts aside and listened to the conversation. Perhaps sensing that something important was happening, even if she didn’t understand what exactly it was, Senica watched silently with me.

“What kind of questions?” Father asked.

“I think it was the public punishment that got his attention,” Ayaka explained. Hah, I knew it. “He started asking what the fight was about, and then he got interested in what happened when we were kids. Then he found out about your… talents, and he got very interested in knowing everything about you.”

“What could he want from you?” Mother asked Father.

“I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Father said, but he didn’t sound happy about it.

“Do you think it has something to do with the incident?” Mother asked.

“He knew about the incident already,” Ayaka said. “He got the details on that when he first arrived to get the barrier working again.”

“Then why now?” Father asked.

“Maybe you brought it back to his mind with your fight,” Mother suggested. “When he first got here, he was busy with so much work. Now it’s been years and everything is under control. It could just be that he has the time to properly investigate it now and is finally getting around to it since you and Cherok reminded everybody what happened.”

I was going to need to sit one of them down and force this story out of them, and soon. The oblique hinting, the fact that someone had died… I was sure it was a hard thing to talk about, but it was starting to feel like something that I shouldn’t just leave alone, especially if it was coming back around to cause problems now. I did not need Noctra looking hard at my family right now, not when I still had months of work to advance my mana core to stage two.

As soon as I got one of them alone, I was going to wring the truth out of them. Until then, my best guess was that Father’s ability to sense mana was considered a rare talent here, one that Noctra was now planning on capitalizing on.

“Well, this is a mess,” Father said. He leaned back in his chair and blew out a long sigh. “I don’t suppose I could get so lucky that it’s a good thing?”

Ayaka shrugged. “They didn’t tell me what their plans are. They just wanted answers to their questions.”

“I kind of have a suspicion that Lord Noctra would be asking me these questions directly if it was a good thing,” Father said.

“I honestly don’t know what his sudden interest is,” the Collector told him. “Did you do something recently, besides punch Cherok in the face I mean?”

“No?” Father said as much as asked. He exchanged a glance with my mother and continued, “Maybe something in our Testing?”

“Oh, that reminds me! The other reason I’m here. Your family passed. If anything, your official measurements were a bit higher than expected.”

“Out of the ordinary?” Father asked. I could practically hear his neck muscles straining to hold themselves back from turning Father’s face in my direction, but Ayaka didn’t seem to notice.

“No, no. Nothing like that. A bit higher than normal, but nothing unusual. Whenever this happens and we have to investigate, we always find out it’s a case of someone skipping work that day to conserve mana. It happens all the time.”

“Ah. Well, you caught me,” Father said. “I couldn’t quite arrange things for the job I wanted with the new Testing date, so I ended up just doing a half day.”

“You… did. Hmm.”

“What does ‘hmm’ mean?” Mother asked sharply.

Ayaka shook her head. “The results were more in line with a full day off, but I don’t think it matters much. The important thing is that you’re good for another year or two. And that means Senica and Gravin have time to grow and generate more mana without having draw stones in your home.”

“Doesn’t seem fair, does it?” Father said. “We never had to deal with this when we were kids.”

The Collector gave Father a flat, unfriendly look. “You know exactly why we have to deal with this now.”

“Yes, but… now we have the Barrier Wardens, and the barrier is still off most of the time anyway. It just seems kind of… I don’t know. What’s the use?”

“Why don’t you bring it up to Lord Noctra? I’m sure he’d be fascinated to hear your opinion on the subject,” Ayaka suggested.

Mother snorted. “Let’s not get ourselves in any more trouble than we already are.”

“I don’t know that you’re necessarily in trouble, but it doesn’t hurt to know you’re being looked into. If you are doing something you shouldn’t, I don’t want to know about it and I never told you that anyone was interested in you. Understand?”

“I understand,” Father said. “Thank you, Ayaka.”

“That’s Collector Ayaka to you,” she said with mock sternness. Then she said, much quieter, “I should get going. Good luck, Sellis. I hope whatever’s going on doesn’t mean trouble.”

“Me too. I appreciate the warning.”

The Collector left then, and Senica rushed for the table as soon as she was gone. “What was she talking about? Did you do something bad? You didn’t have to give your mana away when you were kids? Why not? That’s not fair that we have to and you didn’t!”

“Slow down there, kiddo!” Father told her. “I’ll tell you what. Let’s have dinner, then we’ll go do our tithing for the night, and I’ll tell you all about the worst day of my life when we get home.”

“Promise?”

“I promise,” Father said solemnly.

***

The mood that evening was a unique mix of anticipation and dread, not that I thought Senica picked up on it. Our parents truly did not want to discuss whatever it was that had happened when they were young, but Senica only saw a new story on the horizon. She kept trying to sneak questions into the conversation until Father finally lost his patience and told her she needed to wait until we got back from tithing.

Come dinner time, Father shoveled food into his mouth mechanically without saying a word, and Mother picked at her own plate. I’d never seen anyone not finish their meals, not as hard as they all worked to grow the food in the first place. But that night, Mother gave over half her dinner to Senica, who greedily gobbled it all up. It was only as an afterthought that my sister offered to share with me, and by then she’d already picked out all her favorite parts.

A few months ago, I would have gladly accepted. Food converted to energy in the body and could increase the rate at which mana was generated, but at this point it was such a comparatively minor boost that it meant nothing to me. Maybe if there’d been a slice of midnight mango I would have reconsidered, but there was nothing that mana dense anywhere near the village of Alkerist. The crops grown here were of the mundane variety with no special properties whatsoever. They were good for keeping a human from starving to death and not much else.

That was too bad, but it was also to be expected. With no ambient mana, of course nothing would grow that could do things like boost mana regeneration or increase focus. I supposed I could spend my own mana to cultivate such food, but it seemed rather pointless at this stage. Perhaps when I reached the point where I had more mana than I knew what to do with, I’d reconsider. It might even draw some interest in the mystical arts out of my mother if she learned about the opportunities magical botany could provide.

I wondered if she might excel in the field of alchemy, were she relocated somewhere with abundant resources. I was starting to get the feeling that my parents were not well loved in this little community, and they might be receptive to relocating elsewhere if I could provide the means. Those were plans for a long ways down the road, however.

More immediately, I needed to learn what Noctra wanted with Father and whether I should start preparing countermeasures. For the moment, that meant a choice between hoarding mana in my core or completing my crystal in the garden. It was so close to done that I wanted to rush back out there immediately after dinner to finish it up, but I restrained myself and dutifully joined my family in walking to the village square to do our nightly tithing.

Father was doing better with holding onto his mana, but in the end, the draw stone won. For as little mana as the villagers typically had, it would take less than a second to drain it all away. Having each person touch the draw stone for a full three seconds was massive overkill, but it wasn’t like the mana drain part of the process was actually the bottleneck. Organization and keeping donors moving took far more time and effort than the actual tithing process itself.

Still, he managed to hold onto his mana for a full two of the three seconds. It was only at the end that his control slipped and the draw stone claimed its prize. Mother, on the other hand, kept hers firmly under her control. She might not have Father’s range at sensing it, but once I’d explained how to prevent the draw stone from affecting her, she’d managed to hang onto every last drop. Our garden was already starting to look a bit better, though in truth, the amount of mana she saved was miniscule. Prior to my intervention, she’d only ever given up three or four hours’ worth of mana to begin with.

Senica, of course, lost all of her mana, and I gave away nothing. I affected the same wearied shuffle the other children performed when I ended my tithe, and together we returned to our small little one-room hut. Despite her tithe, Senica fairly skipped along.

Father, on the other hand, looked like a man marching to his death. Mother didn’t look much happier. I expected this was not a story they’d planned to share with their children so soon, and Senica’s attitude was not helping matters. She clearly thought she was getting an exciting new bedtime tale, when in actuality our parents would be picking the scab off of one of their deepest, most traumatic events.

“Story time!” Senica called out in a sing-song voice as soon as we returned home.

“Sweetie… You understand that this isn’t a happy story?” Mother said. “It’s not made up either. This is a true story that ended with a little boy dying and our village being in great danger.”

“Oh. What happened?” Senica asked, not in the least bit daunted by Mother’s warning.

Before we could even get sat down, a voice came from outside our hut. “Sellis? You have a minute? It’s Tsurai and Nianta.”

Father visibly paled, so much so that even Senica caught on to it. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing, sweetness. Let me just go see what’s going on, and I’ll be right back.”

I got a glimpse of the two people, one man and one woman, as Father pulled the curtain back from our entryway. Both were wearing Garrison uniforms. Both were armed with short swords similar to Karad’s.

It looked like events had outpaced me, and I was nowhere near ready for this.

“What can I help you with?” Father said. I was sure he’d noted their grim expressions just as quickly as I had. We were in trouble.

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