The gentle embankment was blanketed with long green grass. I could hear it rustle as it moved, smell it as I drew in a breath.
I, Leon Fou Bartfort, was sprawled out across said embankment with a hand raised up toward the sun. My heart thundered furiously in my chest, and I was covered in a cold sweat. My chest ached; I felt sick.
“Wh-what the hell was that?”
I sat up so fast I ripped blades of grass right out of the ground. The wind was strong, blowing leaves and grass all around, and then a shadow crept over me, blocking out the sun.
It was an airship. A square wooden box flying high above me. Normally, I would have viewed it with disinterest—they periodically visited our territory—but today I couldn’t contain my shock as my eyes widened in disbelief. It was like I was seeing one for the very first time.
I slapped a hand over my chest as my heart continued to pound. My breath was still coming in gasps. I stood, my eyes following the airship as it zipped across the open ocean.
Something about the ocean seemed…off.
“What the…? What is…?”
I tried to move forward but my legs tangled beneath me and sent me back to the ground. Glancing over myself, I had the odd idea that my legs and hands were strangely…small. I had no doubt this was my body, but it seemed to have…shrunk?
Some things are too much to think about. Instead, I decided to investigate what I’d noticed a moment ago. I stood and walked slowly toward the ocean with my child-sized legs, my heart humming with unease.
A fence prevented anyone from falling over the edge, but the sight from there was the same as always. I was standing on a mass of land that drifted over a salty body of water.
“That’s right,” I reminded myself. “Our island is floating.”
I wasn’t sure whether to be happy or sad once I remembered that this was “normal.” Were islands supposed to float?
Had I somehow forgotten? Was that why I felt… I didn’t know. Something had felt strange since the moment I caught myself lifting my hand up toward the sun. In that split second, it had felt like my whole life—or rather, another person’s life—had flashed before my eyes. There was nothing particularly special about it, but he had seemed happy. And it had felt too vivid, too raw for it to just be a dream. Yet I couldn’t even remember his name.
I cradled my head in my hands. The memories were still so pristine. …Except for the name.
I was only five years old, yet I knew I had experienced something far beyond my years.
I sank down onto my butt as the memories from my current life and the memories I had just recalled seemed to merge together in my head. I pressed my back against the fence and gazed up at the sky.
“What…happened to me?”
I didn’t even know who I was asking.
✦ ✦ ✦
The sun was beginning to set, so I headed back to my house. I remembered disliking the place, which was why I’d run off to the embankment in the first place. Still, I wanted to return before dark. I steeled myself before walking into the entrance hall. My dad was waiting just inside the entrance, his arms crossed and his legs spread out wide beneath him.
“Idiot boy!” He smacked me over the head with his enormous fist.
Tears sprang to my eyes and I slapped my hands over my head. Behind me, the front door swung open. I looked back to see my mom walk inside behind me.
“So you’ve finally come back,” she said. “Why must you run away like this on a day when the mistress is set to return?”
My dad, Balcus, was a liege lord—a baron. When I thought of nobles, my mind summoned the image of extravagant clothing on a slender form. Or maybe someone more…rotund? But my dad was neither; he was all muscle with a bearded jawline. His clothing consisted of a simple shirt, brown trousers, and boots. He didn’t look the part at all.
My mom, his lover, was named Luce. She was a daughter of one of the knight families that owed allegiance to Bartfort House. Like my father, she wore the type of working attire you might expect of a villager, rather than the dress of a lady.
The mistress she spoke of was my father’s official wife.
“I-I’m…sorry.”
My parents eyed me, as if realizing something had changed in their son. But before they could say anything—or drag me off where I belonged—the door to the front door swung open again, and a woman wearing a dress adorned with jewels entered the manor.
The mistress, Zola Fia Bartfort.
At the sight of me, her gaze turned chilly. Her two children, Rutart (the oldest son of the house) and Merce (the oldest daughter) were close behind her. They also wore expensive outfits, unlike me. Last to follow was a tall, beautiful man in a suit. He had long, pointed ears and seemed to sneer at us.
“Honestly,” the mistress said. “Children with no proper education are little better than beasts.” With her narrowed eyes and her hair pulled back in a tight bun, she perfectly fit my archetypal image of a noblewoman.
My mom apologized, and my dad hauled me outside immediately. As he manhandled me toward the storage shed out back, his lips drew taut, but he didn’t say more until we reached it. “Think about what you’ve done,” he told me at last. “I’ll see that your food is brought by later.”
I could only nod.
Someone else was already inside the shed: the second oldest brother of the family, Nicks. He was two years my senior and wore the same kind of outfit as I did. He was reading by lantern light.
When my dad and I came inside, Nicks regarded me with exasperation. “You really are an idiot. Just bear with it a few days and they’ll be gone.” His eyes turned back to his book.
My dad pressed a hand to his head. “Nicks, help Leon study.”
Nicks gave him a perturbed look but cleared off space at the desk and carried another chair over. Once I took my seat, he warned me, “If you doze off, I’ll smack you.”
My dad waited until I nodded in agreement, then he left.
Once it was just the two of us, Nicks sat across from me, picked out a book he thought I could read, and passed it over. Its pages had seen so much use it was nearly falling apart, but I opened it anyway. Scribbles decorated the interior.
It was a strange feeling to be trying to read in a storage shed, swatting away bugs that gathered around the lantern.
As I tried to study, some language I didn’t know flitted through my head, its writing system completely different from what was on the page in front of me. In fact, that other tongue seemed somehow easier to parse.
I puzzled over this, until my brother seemed to decide I was stuck on an unfamiliar word. “Try thinking about it by yourself first,” he said. “If you can’t figure it out on your own, then I’ll help you.”
Silence lapsed between us. The insects buzzing around the lantern were a distracting annoyance.
“Hey, bro?”
He seemed startled. “Did you just say ‘bro’? You were calling me Nicks just this morning.”
Flustered, I tried to correct myself, but he beat me to the punch. “Trying to act more grown up now, huh? Eh, it’s fine. What did you need help with?”
I shook my head and tried to figure out how to say what was on my mind. I was beginning to have doubts about all the things that had seemed so normal to me before: like how Nicks and I were being treated. I understood why the heir to our family was given special regard, but why were we being shooed off to the storage shed? We had other siblings—older and younger sisters. Why weren’t any of them out here with us? They weren’t legitimate children, either.
“Why are we the only ones out here in this damn shed?” I asked finally.
My brother mumbled to himself, something about how I usually spoke with more reserve. But he put his book down on the table and stared up at the ceiling. “Because the mistress hates us, that’s why,” he said at last.
“Because we’re Mom’s—uh, Mother’s kids?”
Nicks folded his hands behind his head, leaning back in his chair. “You think there’s any other reason? Even though our sisters are illegitimate, she still hesitated to force them out here. But for boys like us? This is just how it is.”
Even at seven years old, my brother apparently had a lot to be dissatisfied with. He proceeded to explain—really, complain about—our house’s circumstances.