The wind blowing up the hill rustled the dull green wild grass with a silky susurrus. A boy with red hair stood there, his hair tossed by the breeze. He felt for the sword on his belt. When he had resolved himself to living as an adventurer at all costs, he had worked with desperate fervor as a farmhand to save the money to buy the blade from a passing trader. It was cheap, but unlike the machetes he would use for his ventures up the mountain, this was a proper weapon. It had a different weight to it than the bushcraft implements he was used to. It had all the weight of a tool used to wound and kill. That weight overwhelmed the boy with both elation and desolation. The thought that he could finally leave on his journey was the flip side of the realization that he was really leaving this place. He could no longer make any excuses to delay—he had to go to the big city.
From the hilltop, he could see early-morning smoke rising from chimneys all around the village. The plumes gradually dispersed at a certain point and faded into nothingness before long. He could still see signs of the autumn festival that had happened just the day before. He was anxious and wistful about leaving behind life as he’d known it until now. Greater than either feeling was the sense of purpose burning in his heart. He knew this was what he had to do. His father had long since died, soon followed by his mother. The boy had been alone in an empty house that felt so terribly strange without them. The thought of running away from this empty home had overcome him, and he felt an inexplicable conviction that he would need to leave the village altogether to get away from it. His heart yearned for distant lands.
He took in a big puff of air and slowly breathed it out. The sky above was tinged with the hues of fall, as were the yellow and red trees surrounding the village. The boy loved the view from here. He could see the whole village and everything around it. This was where he had lived from the moment he was born, and these were familiar sights to him. He could still vividly recall racing around here with his friends.
Once he set off, he would never see these nostalgic sights again. Many of his elders had attempted to dissuade him from leaving, and he would be pushing past them in a sense to go. He was stubborn after his own fashion. He had sworn that he wouldn’t return until he was at least renowned as a triumphant hero. He couldn’t even fathom how long that would take—the rest of his life, perhaps. Even so, this conviction was all he had. He adjusted the scabbard on his belt once more and took in another deep breath.
The wind was now at his back, almost like it was giving him a push. He chuckled softly before slowly making his way down the hill. From down in the village, he could hear the horses of the merchant caravan neighing even from here.
○
The twins crowded Mit as they slept—Hal’s face was pressed into Mit’s cheek, while Mal, mumbling softly to herself in her sleep, had her arms wrapped around his belly and her legs locked around one of his. Mit, murmuring, tried to turn in his sleep, but he had no way of moving in his predicament. He contorted into a somewhat strange posture, causing the blanket to slide off of the three of them.
It was already summer, but Turnera was the northernmost point of the dukedom, and it wasn’t warm enough to sleep without covers at night. Belgrieve draped the blanket back over them, wary of any of them catching a cold.
“It’s easy to get sick in this season...”
Because of the day’s heat, many children were prone to sleeping in light clothing and would end up catching ill as a result. When Angeline had been young, she would unconsciously kick the covers off when she was asleep, leaving her body exposed and resulting in a sniffly nose in the morning. Even so, she would try to go out and play without any regard to her health. Belgrieve recalled enticing her to stay in and rest by sitting at her bedside to either read her a book or regale her with tales of his adventuring days. It wouldn’t take long before the little girl was soundly asleep.
“They’re sleeping like logs,” Satie observed as she tended the fire.
Belgrieve lowered himself down in front of the hearth. “Yeah... They played a lot today.”
“So you get the feeling that Schwartz is using quite a bit of that old god’s powers?” Kasim asked as he filled a teapot.
“That’s right. Though there’s still things we haven’t heard until now, so I don’t see the full picture yet...”
Satie, frowning, heaved a deep sigh. Turnera had enjoyed a long spell of peaceful days, but it seemed Satie had gathered her courage and finally decided to be forthcoming about what she knew of Schwartz and his experiments. Aside from Belgrieve, Percival, Kasim, and Satie herself, they had been joined by Graham. Charlotte and Byaku, both of whom had once served Schwartz, had stayed up to participate as well.
Satie picked up a cup of tea, eyes hooded. “But they used to be enemies, right? It seems that Solomon’s brand of magic doesn’t mix well with the old gods. At the very least, I wasn’t able to make use of anything aside from teleportation, space construction, and fake persona conjuration magics.”
“Teleportation magic... As I recall, couldn’t you do that, Byaku?” Belgrieve asked.
Byaku, reclining in a chair with his arms folded, let his gaze wander as he mulled over the question. “This is the first I’m hearing about old gods. That spell was just something I borrowed from Schwartz.”
“Borrowing magic... You don’t hear about that too often,” Kasim mused.
“Additionally, the old god’s power wanes if you leave the spot where the fragments of its consciousness remain... The teleportation magic was probably Schwartz’s own power.”
“What is false persona magic, anyways? I haven’t heard of that one,” Percival said.
Satie closed her eyes. “As the name implies, you can create an entirely new persona. The spell constructs both memories and personality, and you can set a trigger to return to normal. By doing so, you can become a completely new person cut off from the memories of the original.”
Kasim twirled his hat on his fingertip as he processed her words. “Oh, I get it. That lets you avoid all suspicion, and the personality is programmed to be none the wiser, so it wouldn’t feel unnatural to the constructed persona either. Sounds like a convenient spell, that... You could work as much mischief as you wanted.”