Twelve Years Ago

  ***

  Mother loved geese when they landed in the family pond. She was overjoyed to feed them when they arrived each year, and was broken-hearted when each one left. When one of them was injured, she called on the servants to mend the wing. She visited that goose for an entire winter until it was ready to fly again, and she cried when it left.

  It visited her for years, and it received a grave in the family burial grounds.

  Mother loved clothes and fine wines. She loved men and women aplenty, including her husbands and her wife.

  She loved the spring and the fall. She loved watching the summer games, and she loved her work overseeing the distribution of tax money. She even seemed to love educating tax evaders.

  I watched her getting into the carriage on the way to a ball in the courtyard below. There was a charity she wanted to show support for, but I was too young to go. Something that would support another one of her inventions, no doubt, but she gave freely to anyone who cared to contribute to her dreams.

  She was a very loving person.

  ‘So… why doesn’t she love me?’ I thought.

  “Hello there, Snowflake,” Uncle Clestar said as he entered my room. I jumped at his entrance, shocked to see him.

  “Uncle!” I exclaimed, overjoyed. I hopped off my bed and dashed toward him.

  He beamed, kneeling down to wrap his arms around me and hold me close. He was so warm. His furry leather armor seemed like it could cover an entire bear, yet still looked small on his frame.

  “How’s my favorite girl?” He asked softly.

  “I’m okay!” I exclaimed.

  “Come on. Are you being honest?” he asked.

  I giggled.

  “I am okay now! I thought you were at the Rift!” I exclaimed.

  “I was, but thankfully I am back. Back for quite some time, it seems!”

  I smiled, but frowned when I realized the implications. I turned to look out the window and spotted the carriage trundling down the cobblestone path through the gardens. The horses hooves were audible even all the way up at my window. She would reach the gates soon.

  “I… see,” I said. “She’s going to be gone a long time, then?”

  “Well, that hurts. Are you not excited to see me?”

  “Of course I am!” I shouted, horrified. I didn’t mean to offend him. “I just…”

  He sighed.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I get it,” He said softly, before letting out a sigh. “Your mother is… well. She’s something.”

  I scrunched up my face, trying my hardest not to cry. I hated my uncle sometimes. I hated him for knowing me better than Mother did. Hated how he could always see exactly what I was thinking.

  “Will… she love me someday?” I asked.

  “Oh, Snowflake. She does love you!”

  “Then why doesn’t she show it!? It’s my nameday today! She didn’t… she…”

  “Ughh, that fucking bitch…”

  “What?” I asked, not understanding the words. Mother and Uncle Clestar both did that sometimes. The priests said they were talking in tongues, but I always thought it was simpler than that. After all, I’d invented a language of my own when I was nine. Not that I had anyone to share it with. My uncle's kids were all too stupid to understand it. Unlike the priests, I was slowly beginning to unravel the secret language Mom and her brother sometimes used.

  “Ugh, that fucking bitch!” I repeated, with a big grin on my face.

  “No, Freyna, don’t repeat that!”

  “That fucking bitch!” I exclaimed, knowing what buttons I could push with him.

  He sighed. I loved my uncle. He was the only one who tried to relate to me. Tried to care. The servants did the bare minimum. My tutors taught me what Mother dictated her children should know. I’d never known my father. My uncle, though… I thought he was the only one who actually loved me.

  And I loved him dearly for it.

  “Please, please do not repeat that around your mother,” he said, begging.

  He was so easy to wind up.

  I grinned.

  “I won’t if you tell me what it means…”

  “You little sneak,” he said.

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  Despite my little blackmail, he didn’t tell me what it meant. Instead, he just ruffled my blond hair, ruining it. The servants would have a fit if they saw it out of place, especially if Mother spotted it, but Uncle never cared about that.

  He was a huge man, and he lifted me up, shocking me a little, before setting me gently on his shoulder. It was so broad that I could actually sit there comfortably, especially when he was wearing his long leather pauldrons.

  “How do you feel about going into the city today?”

  “Mother says I’m to be in lessons till mid-evening,” I replied, dejectedly.

  “If ‘Mother’ wanted Freyna to stay in classes, perhaps ‘Mother’ should’ve stayed around and ensured she attended them, you think.

  I beamed and nodded.

  “Then, let's go! Your royal steed is ready, my dear!” he exclaimed, rising to his full height as I giggled in glee.

  Mother didn’t love me, but at least I had my uncle.

  It turned out to be one of the best namedays I’d ever had. Uncle brought me to a sweets vendor where I finally tried the Iced Douvlet his children were always bragging about. We met bakers and carpenters, and all sorts of townsfolk, whom I was always too highborn to meet.

  He got me a carved wooden horse that I knew I’d cherish to my dying day.

  When we got back to the chateau, we played games with Clestar’s kids, and for once, they didn’t seem inclined to be angry with me. I did my best not to insult them, and succeeded.

  It was a perfect day, and it ended with a birthday cake, as had been tradition for all of Mother's family, started with her, and adopted by her brother. Everyone cheered when I blew out the small wax candles made specifically for this.

  They were a huge waste of money. Even at twelve, I knew that, but it meant so much seeing Uncle, his wife, and my cousins all excited for me.

  Twelve wasn’t special, not like eighteen… but… If… if only…

  I saw the snow begin to fall out my window, and thought it might be a good sign! It was very cold, and she wouldn’t want to get stuck in the weather.

  I went to sleep, wishing Mother would come back before midnight. Maybe she’d give me a small kiss on the forehead, as my uncle did for all of my cousins? No. That wasn’t her way. Perhaps… perhaps she’d just open the door and wish me a small goodnight…?

  She didn’t.

  Eventually, I slept, wishing I could understand what it was about me that disinterested my mother so. Maybe… eventually, when I finally got my talent, she would care. That was a long way away, but that was okay. All I had to do was make sure my talent was as impressive as hers!

  …

  I hugged myself. Mother was famous for having a Masterful talent. It was how she’d become one of the premier councilors who led all of Eschal. Matching that was a tall order. Maybe as long as I got Elite, that would be enough?

  No.

  No, something assured me that anything less than Masterful wouldn’t hold Mother’s attention for long. Not even elite. Elites stepped through her office every day. She would not be impressed.

  I would get a Masterful Talent if it killed me. To do that, I would need skills. I’d need to spend every spare second gaining as many skill points in as many different areas as I could. Mom was reputed to be an expert in nearly every form of magic, but plants were her passion.

  She had a passive talent that increased the yield of any plants she tried to grow. Each plant she managed to grow by hand had a chance to get her a free point. Slowly but steadily, she had turned herself into a master of magic, engineering, and chemistry, a field she’d invented entirely on her own.

  Uncle spoke often of how grateful he was that Mother had dragged her entire family to the upper echelons of society. She’d been born a peasant in a town near the border with Tacuria.

  I jerked suddenly, a sharp clattering noise somewhere in the chateau interrupting my thoughts. It sounded like it came from the kitchens. Glassware breaking?

  I crept to my door, knowing that it was much closer to morning than night, but unable to stave off my curiosity.

  I made it down the stairs and turned into the kitchen. I heard a loud scraping noise behind the counter and squeaked, frightened. Thinking quickly, I stole away into a small cabinet in the butlers closet, just large enough to fit inside.

  “By the gods, Emmaline,” came Uncle’s sour voice from where I had just been on the stair.

  “Ah! Hah! Clestar! What are you doing awake so late?”

  So it had been Mother making the noise. I was about to reveal myself when Uncle’s next words gave me pause.

  “You forgot Freyna’s nameday,” he accused sharply.

  “So what? She’s young. If she’s lucky she’ll have another eighty of them,” Mother said. Her voice was slurred. “If she’s unlucky she’ll get hit by a truck like me.”

  “What… what’s happened to you, Emma? You used to be… you used to give a damn!”

  “I never stopped giving a damn, Cles! That’s the problem. I… I gave them too much! I… fuck.” Mom shouted. Her voice seemed too loud even for the large kitchen. “I was an idiot. I was an idiot, and it's going to cost me the rest of my goddamn life.”

  “Freyna thinks you don’t love her, you know,” Uncle snapped.

  “Hah. Yeah, throw that in my face. I’m a shit mother too. Damn you, Clestar. Do you have any idea what I am doing right now?”

  “Frankly, no! I haven’t a clue, Emma. Somewhere along the way I became too stupid to understand your grand plans and your fucking schemes! Here I thought having a child meant that they were supposed to be what was important to you now, but–!”

  “Freyna is everything to me! That’s why I’m… God damnit, do you really think I forgot her nameday? I had to go! I had to! Else the fucking council would–!”

  I gasped, but fortunately, they were too loud to hear the slip.

  “The heavens rot the council! It functioned just fine for hundreds of years without you! Why can’t–!”

  “Quiet!”

  The walls suddenly shook. I blanched, but was safe inside my cabinet. Pots and pans clattered to the floor and I thought I heard Clestar shriek. A meaty thump, a body clashing lightly against the stone wall.

  “Emma?” Clestar’s voice was different suddenly. Shaken. Worried.

  Mother didn’t respond, but I heard sharp breathing. Deep, weak gasps.

  “Oh gods…” Uncle said. “Emma, the wall.”

  I could only barely see them through the small slits in the cabinet door. The whole castle would probably wake up at this point. I took the opportunity to peek out of the cabinet and glance at the wall.

  What I saw confused me. Where a wall should be, instead, there was a… field. Daisies and roses, and tall grass. Flowers and mushrooms and every plant I’d ever seen in the gardens, along with some I’d never seen, were all blooming.

  It smelled of a summer garden, filling my nostrils with the scent of wildflowers, strawberries, and spring. It was… beautiful.

  But they were blooming sideways, directly out of the wall, spreading like ripples in a pond from where Mother’s hand touched the stone.

  “H-Histerics…” Uncle breathed.

  I caught my breath.

  “No,” Mother said sharply, glaring at the wall as if willing the deadly sickness to abate. By some miracle, it did. As abruptly as the field formed, it seemed to spool back together, back into Mother’s outstretched hand, like water down a drain. The wall was bare stone once more.

  “N-Not. Not yet,” she breathed.

  So... I know Interludes seem to irritate some people, but I've gotta introduce the antagonists somehow! :D Hope you all enjoyed this soft opener!

  MB