A New Star Chapter 10

I was surprised on entering my living room to find my sister within, sitting on a chair next to the fireplace. She stood with some haste on my entry, but I waved for her to resume her seat before moving into the bath, leaving the door open. 

"To what do I owe the pleasure, sister?" I asked into the room as I got ready for my bath. 

"It can wait until you're done," she replied, resuming her seat.  

I washed quickly, not able to relax in a long bath all that often…more habits and thoughts from my previous life dictating my actions. I dried in rather a hurry, noting I would need my hair trimmed a bit, before throwing on a small bathrobe. I knew my family were obscenely wealthy when even I had bathrobes, and those bathrobes were all monogrammed with my initials. I returned to the living room and sat across from my sister, who was fidgeting in her chair. I threw several logs in the hearth and lit them unconsciously, turning to see Marianne's shocked expression. 

"Yes?" I asked her after a minute, seeing that she didn't recover. 

"You…you can control fire?" Marianne asked breathlessly. 

"Yes. It's not hard," I said calmly, making sure the fire was lit before settling back in my chair.  

"Just…just how many affinities do you have?" she exclaimed. 

"Not enough," I replied calmly, giving her a pointed look. 

"Right, ah, sorry," Marianne said, rather too demurely, in my opinion.  

"It's fine," I said with a small wave of my hand. "Now, what, sister dearest, can I do for you?" 

"Well, it's, uh, about your training," Marianne replied hesitantly. 

"And what about my training?" I asked, raising a brow slightly skeptically. 

"Well, uh, you see, it's about what could happen," she said, fidgeting in her chair. 

"Marianne," I said sternly. She stopped moving and looked at me nervously. "Relax." 

It might seem a little counter-intuitive to command someone to relax, but sometimes, there were just some people that wanted someone else to take some initiative with them. I could see the effect of my command immediately, with Marianne settling down and not shifting so much. She looked calmer and more focused already, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. 

"If you keep going with your training, the way you are now, you'll suffer immensely," she said all in a burst.  

"Okay," I replied calmly, continuing to look at her with a staid expression. 

"Doesn’t that concern you? And don't you want to know how I know?" Marianne asked in a rush. 

"It doesn't concern me," I said calmly. "I set out on the path to conquer. I expect nothing but blood, pain, and sacrifice." 

"Alex, you're four!" she replied. 

"Thank you for reminding me. I find I had forgotten since the last person reminded me this morning," I said sarcastically. "As to how you know, it is likely you can sense a thread of fate." 

"Wait! You know I have a divination affinity?!" she cried out in shock. 

"Sister, please," I said a bit coldly. "We don't need all the screaming." 

"Oh, uh, sorry," she said, putting her head down. 

"Mari," I sighed out, standing and walking over to her. I didn't give her a chance to protest, immediately lifting her from the seat and hugging her. She did not, in fact, try to protest, but buried her head in my shoulder. Despite being six years my senior, she was no bigger than I; a bit smaller, in fact. I carried her over to the couch and sat with her in my lap, stroking her hair while she curled up against me. 

"Sorry," she whispered. 

"Relax," I commanded, continuing to stroke her hair. Again, my command proved effective, though I think the hugging had more to do with it. "Now, tell me, what are you talking about?" 

"My power that awakened early…that was supposed to be the earliest…" she said quietly. 

"Well, there's always a first, but that first often becomes second," I said calmly. 

"R-Right…" she said, a bit unsure of my meaning. Of course, my bountiful wisdom wasn't something that a child could understand, but she spent some time processing it. 

"Anyway, continue," I said. 

"My affinity, my power that has made me…different, is the power of divination," she said quietly, looking at me. 

"…And?" I asked after she didn't continue for a moment. 

"Well, it allows me to get a sense of things that are yet to come," she said. 

I blinked and looked at her for a minute. Being able to have some idea of what was happening in the future sounded interesting, but I also understood how unpredictable life was. Marianne was rather hesitant with explaining all this, so I sighed very slightly and settled down to pull it out of her, one piece at a time. 

"Alright, so you can see the future, and that inspired you to come to me. Is there anything else you want to tell me?" I asked patiently. 

"I've had a strong feeling from you recently," she explained. "I get feelings about people; feelings that let me see things. I feel that if you keep trying to fight, you will be in for a terrible time." 

"Will it kill me?" I asked calmly, a small smirk curling the corner of my mouth. 

"Well, no, I don't…I don't think so?" she replied quietly. "But still-" 

"But nothing," I replied firmly. "If my life has a promise of pain, then I will accept. I welcome it gladly. And if my life brings death, well, we all die someday. Some of us more than once." 

Marianne didn't focus on my last line, which I had muttered quietly, but was insistent that I needed to take it seriously. I wasn't bothered; my life had been a war against fate itself for a thousand years. What was a little pain to me? 

"You want to sleep here tonight?" I finally interrupted her worries, redirecting her. 

"Y-yes. Please?" she replied quietly, burying her face in my shoulder. 

"Do you need a bath?" I asked with some amusement in my voice. 

"No, no, I had one," she said quietly.  

I sighed and stood up with her in my arms, getting a surprised squeak from her. I carried her back to the bedroom, where I pulled the covers down with one hand before dumping her in bed to another squeak before climbing in after her. I pulled her in close to me, Marianne having no problem snuggling tight, before pulling the covers over the both of us. I wrapped both my arms around her, gently rubbing her back until she started breathing much lighter before I fell asleep myself, many long years of military campaigns teaching me that famous soldier’s ability to fall asleep anywhere at any time. 

The next morning, I was awake well before my sister, but I allowed her to continue sleeping until the maids came in and woke us up. They were all a-titter when they found Marianne slumbering peacefully in my arms, and I had to shoe them away like so many gadflies. I eventually managed to make it to the bathroom to take care of my morning routine, not including a bath today, before escorting Marianne to her room.  

Today was a rather big day for me, but I couldn't let go of my routines. It was what kept me grounded, and also led to me being the fiercest and strongest fighter in an entire galaxy. I trained the entire morning before taking a slightly early lunch; well, early for me, at least. As I was finishing eating, there was some bustle in the kitchen, as a delivery had arrived. I didn't need anybody to tell me anything, and I was on-hand, so I simply walked out the rear doors to check if it was what I thought. 

"Little girlie, help with this," somebody I didn't know commanded me. I gave him a flat stare as I moved over to one of the two magitek wagons and looked at the crates inside. "Did you not hear me, girl?" 

"Who exactly do you think you are? And do you have any idea who I am?" I snapped, turning to the man and glaring at him hard enough that he took a step back. 

"Well, uh, of course, you are one of the, uh, young workers here…" he stammered in response. 

"You need to be more aware of who you are and where you are," I snapped, turning back to the car and hopping into the bed in the back. These magitek wagons really weren't much; they had taken what were essentially basic wagons and rebuilt the wheels before adding a magitek engine that they hooked up, rather sloppily, to those stronger wheels. Wheels that were just thick metal rims and metal dowels supporting them. The ride couldn't be anything short of back-breaking. 

The wagon bed was full of boxes, nearly a dozen large boxes, and I opened one to check, verifying my assumptions. Inside was a collection of glassware pieces, all of them useful for my future endeavors. I resealed the box, moving it to the back of the wagon before checking the next box. Workers grabbed each box and took them into the house as I checked them, and I moved onto the second wagon once the first was empty. The others had had enough sense to wait for me to check before emptying the second wagon, and someone had told the delivery man who I was, based on the look on his face.  

I went through the goods on the second wagon, passing them back to be carried inside as I checked them. When I hopped off the cart, the man tried to apologize, but I waved him off. It wasn't a big deal to me, and I was more interested in the equipment that was just delivered than I was in idle chatter. I entered the kitchen to find one of the staff waiting for me, and he led me to a room just two doors down from the kitchen in the eastern hall, where they had stacked the boxes. 

"Do you need any more help with this, young lady?" he asked. 

"No, no, that's fine. I can well handle it from here," I replied, dismissing him with a simple gesture. He half bowed before seeming to think better of it and scurried off; it was a bit odd, but the fact I ate and worked with the servants as if I was one of their children had left an impression, one I was plenty happy to continue to inculcate.  

I inspected all the boxes that had been set in the storage room, making sure that nothing was obviously damaged. My next task was to go to the alchemy room and make sure that it was cleaned out, a task I had asked for servants to handle, but it looked like it had been neglected. I did understand, however, as there were many things in the room it would take an expert to identify. Not that I was claiming to be an expert; not yet, at least, but I could identify what was good and what was bad.  

What was bad turned out to be pretty much everything. There were a small handful of ingredients, or what I hoped were ingredients, that I saved, but the rest went out into the compost. I couldn't quite do the same with the old glassware, and I didn't need to toss the two mortars and pestles, but I crated up the glassware and carried it to the storage room. Luckily, the room was quite large, and I set the old glass in the opposite corner as the new glass.  

Once all that backbreaking labor was done, I then had to clean the whole room. I drew two buckets of water and got to work, scouring the whole place with a caustic soap that made my damn eyes sting. That was one of the first things I was going to be brewing up; soaps and cleansers and other cleaning agents, both for the things around me as well as my body. But that still had to wait.  

I finished the cleaning and dried the three large tables in the room that were there as workbenches. The room was on the outer edge of the basement and had three small windows along the far wall to help with the ventilation, as well as something like an oven's venting chimney. Another place where the advanced magics of this world were amazing; that venting chimney had runes engraved into it that, when activated, created a force of wind that blew air out of the room.  

I was merely getting everything prepped and ready, so I finished by bringing all the glassware and setting it up on the three tables and the shelves. I looked around, satisfied with my work, but frowned as I noticed it was growing rather dark. The damn room didn't have any lamps, but it was equipped with a number of fixtures where lamps or lights could be set. That started me on another task, and I rubbed my temples as I made my way through the house, thinking about how I could never get a job done without a half-dozen sub-jobs popping up in the middle. Stupid side projects. 

I found two guards outside my parents' office, letting me know they were, in fact, still there at this hour. I waved to the pair as I entered, both of them exchanging a slightly stunned glance over my head, but I ignored them. Pushing the door open, I found my parents, as well as my mother's secretary and eldest sister, all in the room. While Thomas was down in the capital, cavorting and carrying on, Tiff was handling all of his responsibilities with father, and clearly not happy about it. Eldest sister was something of an inveterate tinkerer, a true Enchanter through and through, and handling a bunch of paperwork for the duchy was not something she wanted any part of on the best day.  

"Yes, youngest?" mother asked in a weary tone on seeing me enter.  

"Do we have any lamps?" I asked, getting several sets of raised eyebrows from various parties in the room.  

"Lamps…well, yes, we do," she replied, getting up and walking around her desk. "How about telling me what you need them for, dear?" 

I paused, just long enough for mother to shift and go to speak again before I said, "I require them for my alchemy laboratory. There are fixtures for lamps in the room, but there are no lamps. I need light by which to work." 

"Come. We'll find you some lamps," she said, picking me up and carrying me out of the room.  

I would have protested, but it wasn't worth the effort, and mother was very tall and quite quick. She moved down into the basement and to the exact room where lights and various similar pieces of equipment were stored. She easily picked out four lamps that would fit on the wall fixtures, all of them powered by beast cores. She also grabbed a bag of A- and B-grade beast cores to power the lamps, walking with me to my lab. It was rather clear my mother had an excellent memory, and she found the room immediately, setting me down to mount the four lamps around the room. 

"I've put a B grade core in each," she said. "That'll last for a few weeks before running out, and I'll leave the spares here. You're tall enough already…well, you can easily change them just using the small stool in here." 

"Thank you, mother," I said politely. 

"You really did well with the place," she said then, putting her hands on her hips as she surveyed the room.  

"I merely tidied up," I replied demurely. 

"And, when are you getting started?" she asked, casting a critical eye over me. 

"Well, mother, it would be quite difficult to perform alchemy with just a bit of air, so I will need to gather some ingredients first," I said with a bit of sarcasm in my voice.  

"No need for that tone," she replied with some exasperation, picking me up off the floor and carrying me out. "Come. Eat with us tonight." 

"Ah, if you insist," I replied with a sigh, getting a certain look from her in response. 

Previous

Next