A New Star Chapter 4

Of course, as soon as that crisis was resolved, a far greater crisis sprinted into my office in near hysterics. Well, it could be a greater crisis, depending on what had actually happened, I soon understood. Apparently, the fourth daughter had been kidnapped, in broad daylight, out from under everyone’s noses with nobody able to detect even a whisper of it. Zira, the half-elven maid that was one of two of the young girl's attendants, had practically fallen into my office, out of breath and nearly in tears over something. It had taken more than a minute to calm her down enough that she could get something out in a mostly coherent fashion. 

"I-I'm t-telling you, sh-she's gone!" Zira exclaimed as she followed me down the hallway towards the commander's office. 

"And you're sure that another maid or servant doesn't have her?" I asked in a weary voice, sighing as I knocked on the commander's door before walking in. 

"Ah, c-captain Redwind!" Commander Zella exclaimed as she sat up. She had clearly been in deep thought as I walked in, leaned back in her chair with her eyes closed as she contemplated all the work we had to finish by last bell. "What is it?" 

"We have a situation, commander," I said, sighing again as I gestured for Zira to go ahead. 

After the maid explained to the commander what was happening, she immediately snapped into action. She stared off into space for a minute humming to herself before telling the maid to return to the main house and continue the search. She then commanded me to inform the duke and duchess while she mobilized the guard and investigated the young miss's sudden disappearance.  

I sighed quite heavily as I strolled through the halls of the main residence. I always enjoyed walking through this building, as the polished wood floors with the rich carpet runners laid out atop, combined with the dark wood paneling on the walls, lent the place an air of understated but tasteful luxury. There were few paintings on the walls, only small decorations placed at what had to be the perfectly artful distance, but I ignored my calculations on tchotchke placement as I made my way to my lieges' combined office. I knocked and waited, as this was certainly not an office I could simply barge in, like I could to even the commander's workspace. 

"Enter!" I heard a husky female voice call out from within. I easily recognized it as Isabelle, the grand duchess herself, and took that for both the permission and command it was. 

Upon pushing open the double doors, I stepped into a large, well-appointed room that was about forty feet to a side or a little more. It was quite large for a single person, but it was rather unusually split between the duke and duchess. Not that the room was actually split apart, but there were two large desks at the back by the windows that the two worked from almost every day. Each had a second desk in front of them that their assistant worked at and, for the duke, this was the first son. The walls, apart from the windows and doors, were lined with shelves mostly containing books, with a few other small items sprinkled within.  

The center of the room contained a well-furnished seating area that I moved past to stand before my lieges, noticing the plush couches and chairs looked as if they had just been freshly cleaned. I moved in between the two couches a short distance in front of the desks and stopped before and in between my employers and sworn lords. All four others in the room were looking at me rather expectantly and I released a deep sigh before starting my report. 

"We have a developing situation," I started my narration. "Alexandra is missing." 

Before I could get anything else out, everyone in the room was on their feet and ready for action, with Isabelle just barely stopping herself from destroying her desk to get to me. I sighed yet again as she rounded her desk, stopping just before me as she demanded answers, my longtime lord and friend, Charles, stopping just beside his wife. 

"Where is Alex?" she demanded coldly. 

"This is still a developing situation, but we were just informed by Zira that when she went to feed Alexandra, she was not present in her room. The door was shut but not locked, and there was no visible sign of disturbance within the room." Before I could continue any further, Isabelle demanded, "On me!" and strode out of the room, expecting everyone else to follow. It wasn't a problem for the duke, who was fast on his wife's heels, and I shared a look with Thomas and the other secretary before following behind.  

It didn't take more than a minute to travel from the office all the way to the youngest's room, with Isabelle visibly containing herself so as to not burst through the door and start ransacking everything. Charles opened the door to the bedroom before she could get to it and stepped inside, holding the door open for the rest of us. I had barely stepped into the room to observe just how ordinary, for this house at least, it was before I noticed a page from the guard running down the hall towards us. She stopped just inside the room before doubling over while panting, hands clasped to her knees as she tried to get something out. 

"Breathe, girl," Isabelle commanded, as if she could order around someone else's respiratory system. Well, if she were a few ranks higher, she just might be able to. Power at that level was more than I was used to dealing with, so who knew? 

"M-my lady," the page panted. "W-we found…found her." 

"Where?!" snapped Isabelle, giving the poor girl a fright. 

"L-library," she stammered out, just clearing out of the way in a timely manner with a little tug from my telekinetic affinity.  

The duke and duchess wasted no time in storming down the hallway in reverse order, heading back towards the front of the residence section and a floor down. Isabelle threw open the double doors of the library to show us the sight of a semi-circle of guards and servants gathered before one of the three reading tables set by the windows. Atop said table was a two-year-old girl, neither upset nor irate, but instead placid as a still pond before a storm in the face of so many strangers. The fourth daughter had always been quite quiet and not one for antics of any kind, but it was still a little unnerving for me to see her so stoic in such a situation. 

We approached during an argument, the house staff clearly trying to wrest control of the wayward child who had been…reading? Did I see that right? It must have been the leftovers from whoever had used the room the previous night. There was simply no way the young miss had been reading, and certainly not historical treatise, at the age of two. I thought we had the situation largely contained and could just feel the tension easing from my shoulders when absolutely all hell broke loose. 

I even had the privilege of witnessing it happen in almost slow motion, as the two parties involved were so far below me in rank that I could see everything transpire quite clearly. The servant who had been primarily arguing…with a toddler, which should already tell one something about the esteemed gentleman, seemed to decide that it would be best to simply apprehend said child. I would say this would be a mistake, given the presence and temperaments of both the duke and duchess, but even they did not have time to properly act. As the man, appropriately enough named Richard, reached for Alexandra, liquid darkness surrounded her for a moment before forming into the shape of an arm and grabbing Richard's right arm, stalling his progress before twisting him to the side.  

As Richard twisted slightly, the aforementioned toddler that he had been arguing with, and losing to, grabbed the left side of his face with her chubby right hand and slammed his head down into the table with far more force than she should be able to express. If I had not had so much experience and had trod across so many battlefields in service of the duke, I might not have sensed it, but I could clearly tell that this two-year-old was tapping into a second affinity to smash the servant's over-inflated skull against the table. As everybody else acclaimed in startlement and surprise, I just rubbed my temples and sighed. I found myself sighing an awful lot today, even though it was only lunchtime. It was going to be a long day. 

************************************************** 

My reading had been interrupted by a furious clamor, as servants ran this way and that before eventually bursting into the library. This had then immediately snowballed into more and more people bursting into the library in an attempt to confront me. I climbed up on top of the table as the crowd began to grow excessive, unwilling to forgo my studies even though it was time for my nap.  

"Young miss, you must see reason here," said the man in the lead. I believe his name was Richard and he clearly wasn't my parents' best, considering his present course of participating in, and losing, an argument with a toddler. 

"I must do nothing of the sort, in fact," I replied coolly. "And what is to dictate what is reasonable in such circumstances?" 

Considering this was the first thing I had said in the discussion after "No," I could understand the looks of surprise on the surrounding faces. Richard looked like I just hit him in the back of the head with a board. The opportunity was too good to resist. 

"And close your mouth before you start catching flies," I commanded in my cold tone. 

"Now see here, young miss, there's no reason to be impolite," Richard replied. "We were all worried terribly about you. Now come along." 

I remained unconvinced by this…Richard. I frowned at him and simply stood my ground, ruler of the table and all within the domain surrounding it. I saw the double doors burst open, confused at first at who else was intruding on my demesne before recognizing two of the five entrants as my erstwhile parents. Strange; I never saw them, and I was unsure why they were here now.  

As they approached the table, I never took my eyes, or keen senses, off those around me. Such was how I caught when the rather odious man that had been haranguing me stepped forward to seize me. It had been centuries since I had let myself be caught out, and I responded immediately. Instinct and new strength combined, and I intercepted his grasping hand with one made from the dark before grabbing his face, my old martial training kicking in as I slammed Richard's face into the table. I twisted his arm around behind him with the power of the dark as I crushed his face into the table. 

"Try to touch me again," I whispered as I leaned down next to his ear, "and they'll be trying to find what's left of your limbs." 

The room was entirely silent for a moment, apart from a soft gasp from Richard, before my father stepped forward. He seemed a little dazed, likely from my use of mana at just over the age of two, but he seemed to recover himself quite quickly. 

"Alexandra, dear," he began before I interrupted him. 

"Not a good start. I am not your 'dear,'" I replied coolly, giving Richard a slight twist as he flopped lightly, assuming that that had been his attempt at an escape maneuver.  

"Well, then, sweetheart, why don't we let the nice staff member go," he began again in that too sickly-sweet tone one might use with a wild dog. "I'm sure we can talk about this, my dear." 

I narrowed my eyes at his second use of 'dear,' not that I particularly minded that word. It was merely the context and situation I was not a big fan of at that moment. In any event, I released the servant suddenly, placing my foot on his chest just as he started to straighten, before shoving while utilizing my mana to enhance my muscles. The servant flew back and was just saved from going toppling by the man of around my father's age that had entered as part of my parents' group. I felt pain once again rip through my body but managed to contain my reaction to nothing but a wince. My parents clearly saw the reaction, as both had been able to easily track the servant’s tumble and refocus on me in almost an instant, but it appeared no one else had caught it. 

Body Affinity unlocked. 

Unlocked: Body of the Godslayer. 

Grade: A 

Tier: 6 

Well.  

Well.  

That was certainly something. I had hoped for the best and prepared for the worst, but I found myself a little off kilter as the pain faded in seeing just what my body cultivation was. It did make a certain kind of sense and, for a brief moment, I was no longer in the library, but kneeling on the deck of my flag, my lifeblood splashing to the metal beneath me as I stared at the large, immensely powerful corpse in front of me. Then I snapped back to the library as my father, who I noticed didn't quite tower so high over me, spoke. 

"You are still a child, Alexandra," he began. 

"For now," I replied coldly before he could continue. He opened his mouth to respond, but then closed it, seeming to really consider what I had said before speaking again. 

"Even so, you mustn't disappear as such," he eventually continued. "If you would like to get out of your room more often, you may simply…tell us, since it seems you can speak perfectly…" He again lapsed into silence. I slightly regretted speaking in not just full words but perfectly formed sentences, but then again, that ship had already left the star dock a long time ago. 

"I do not mind whether I can leave the room or not," I said in response. Just as he was getting ready to say something else, I continued, "But I must be able to read as I want." 

I then turned and walked back across the table to the chair I was using. There were no chairs in the library for one of my stature, nor had I thought to bring a few cushions in my escapade, so I was forced to stand on one of the ordinary chairs while I read. I resumed my position on the chair and continued from the place I was at in my book. I looked up when I noticed someone had stepped around next to me, seeing it was my mother. 

"You are actually reading?" she asked somewhat incredulously, her thick, pretty brows climbing her forehead. 

I looked at her for a moment, speaking right as she opened her mouth, "Yes." 

She frowned at me before picking up one of the books and flipping it to a random page in the middle. She placed her finger at the start of a paragraph and commanded, "Read." 

I stared at her for a moment longer, just enough to see her twitch slightly before turning my attention to the page. "In the tenth year of King George the IV's reign, the year of five thousand and thirty-two by the standard calendar, he assembled a force of ten thousand conscripts and five hundred senior knights for a taming of the Unsettled Wilds." 

"Enough," she said, having been reading along beside me to see if my skills were true. "When did you learn to read? Who taught you?" 

I looked at her coldly for a few moments before answering, once again seeming to cut off what had likely been a reprimand. It was something I had greatly enjoyed doing in my previous life, hundreds of years of conversations giving me a preternatural knack for when others would be speaking. "I learned this morning. It wasn't difficult." 

"It…wasn't difficult?" asked my mother as several of the guards and servants mouthed something similar. 

"No," I replied calmly. Seeing her going to speak, I yet again cut her off, amused as her beautiful brow furrowed, "I've listened to everyone talk. I understood the words. I just needed to learn the letters. It was easy." 

Even my overbearing mother seemed to have no quick response prepared for that, just goggling at me for a few seconds. I noticed the more senior guardsman that had come in with my parents and eldest brother rubbing his temples with the forefinger and thumb of his left hand while sighing. I'm not sure why he looked so put upon, but he was rather clearly exhausted, for some reason. 

"Can I return to what I was reading?" I asked in a neutral voice, hoping against hope that everyone would simply leave.  

"I think we have much more to discuss," my mother replied before picking me up out of the chair, so I was sitting in the crook of her left arm. "Tidy this," she ordered a servant, not the unfortunate Richard, and carried me from the room. I sighed heavily, my eyes locking for a brief moment with the put upon guard; one of the three estate captains, it appeared, before we swept past. 

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