Chương 41: Chapter 40: Opportunities and Openings

++Agrian and my early relationship with him would prove vital in my later rise, as would the Vornholt family itself. The institution of that family, and its members, provided me with the opportunity to control great assets without being seen to step outside of my role as a woman. I just needed to be careful about how I did so. ++ - From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, 'The Great Lich'. 1, 891 A. E I mastered the anti-barrier spell faster than Agrian, but not by much. He seemed oddly skilled at this form of magic.

Unfortunately, due to its nature, we could hardly test it on each other, even with the heavy protective wear we used to use. In fact, that same protection would do very little to stop our ordinary magic missiles even now. We had grown too strong to train safely. This meant that most of my training at the estate was mundane, and that there were few opportunities to learn much new of substance. This gave me a lot of free time.

Unfortunately, my family knew I had this free time, and took it upon themselves to insert tasks and events into that free time until it stopped existing. The most common of all these things by far was spending that time with my younger siblings. Agrian and I had seen each other so often at the Winzorth Institute that we did not feel the urge to socialise much here. On his part, this was probably down to over-exposure. On mine, it was because I do not generally enjoy socialising anyway.

We ended up in the same rooms quite often all the same, because our mother insisted on having both of us present with our younger siblings so that she could fulfil some pathological need to gather up all four of her children at once like some sort of trophy case. This was at least interesting for me in that it was a chance to observe what the differences were between a 'normal' pair of children with different genders, something I had not been able to do yet for obvious reasons.

It considered that it may prove useful to me in perfecting my disguise, too. Most notable was that I soon learned Victoria had not been exaggerating when she told me how Qaigor seemed to like nothing more than terrorising her. It was obviously targeted, but not very intelligently.

Qaigor had all the mental ability of a moderately quick-witted five year-old, and used it to perform such cognitive feats as 'snatching Victoria's doll while she was not looking' and 'exhaling very hard on her out of both his nostrils to spray her with snot'. These methods proved effective, however, due to their victim being a six year-old. This was not acceptable.

"Why do you allow Qaigor to do that?" I asked my mother. She looked over to see the boy currently reaching for another of Victoria's toys, while Victoria herself fended him off. She was older than him by a year and, currently, bigger. That would not remain true forever.

"He's just playing," the Baroness smiled.

"He's a boy, Isabel, they play differently than girls. It's natural."

"I see." And I did. I called Victoria over during a lull in the torment, and saw that the girl was already trembling.

"What is wrong?" I asked her. She glared up at me, like her problems were somehow my fault.

"Qaigor!" she snapped.

"Do you remember what I told you?" I asked her calmly.

"No."

"Then think," I said sternly.

"Think very carefully." She paused at that, which surprised me. Victoria seemed oddly in control of herself at times, more than Qaigor was now, or Agrian had been years ago.

"When you told me—" —"remember the other thing," I hissed.

"About keeping a secret." My voice was low, and a quick glance around confirmed that nobody but Victoria had heard me. When I took a longer look at her face, I saw it already melted out into a grin.

"Yes. I remember." She turned around, waddled across the room and punched Qaigar very hard in his face. Things became interesting after that. My mother shrieked and leapt to her feet, eyes bulging like she had just witnessed a crime. For a moment she just stared as Qaigar fell back, while the boy himself just looked stunned and disbelieving.

Victoria was the most expressive of all; the girl looked as though she was utterly terrified, staring at her own hand as if not comprehending what it was she had just done with it. Finally, my mother found her voice.

"Victoria no!" she squawked, storming across the room to grab her by the wrist and yank the arm up. I saw my sister wince in pain at the treatment, and found myself stepping forwards without meaning to.

"You do not hit your brother, understand?" the Baroness continued, glaring down at her daughter and, I noticed, entirely ignoring the still-baffled son sitting at her feet. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Victoria stared up at our mother, held her eyes for a second, and broke down into tears. The girl was inconsolable, she tried to talk and managed only gibberish.

I could not understand what she was saying, and the Baroness did not seem to even care enough to try. She was sent to bed with no dinner. That night, I snuck myself around the estate's upper floor and made my way into her room, smuggling her a few snacks. We sat and talked, as she ate, and I studied her.

"How do you feel?" I asked her. I did not really care of course, but this information was important. I needed to get an idea of how she reacted to things if I was to make use of her in the future.

"I hate Qaigor," she spat.

"And mother. I hate father too. He wasn't even there, he didn't even ask what happened. I hate them all." This was at least more information, and therefore useful, but I was not yet sure what to do with it. I stayed with her to talk, and found that her anger was lasting a long while. That was certainly promising, I could always find tasks for someone capable of holding a grudge. My only surprise came when I tried to leave.

Victoria hugged me again, and I had to try very hard to keep myself from recoiling and shouting like I usually did—I was not supposed to be here and certainly did not want my ability to climb walls and undo locks to be found out. I left the bedroom and retired to my own. The next few weeks were interesting. Victoria's punishment continued for several more days, however the girl did not seem to mind this because Qaigor stopped his ongoing harassment outright.

My mother did not even notice, of course, but I kept an eye on the children and noticed how he had suddenly become less enthusiastic about terrorising his sister. Mostly, he now just interacted with Agrian in much the same way that Victoria did with me. Victoria herself was obviously thrilled by this, but to my surprise I appeared to be getting much of the credit for it.

The girl had taken to resting against me and cradling herself up to my body when I sat still, which, despite being one of the most vile things I have ever experienced in my long existence, was actually tolerable, as it was at these periods that she would whisper to me. The girl had an understanding of how to keep secrets, at the very least. That would serve her well in later life. Things progressed around the house at a lazy rate, after that.

The guards continued making themselves known every so often, as paranoid and danger-hungry as ever, but there were no more attacks. Agrian and I continued our training with Doctor Brown, but there were no more giant leaps for us to make. It felt somehow as if the world itself were giving us some sort of break from all the excitement. I did not like this, because the excitement had usually brought new opportunities for me to amass power. Now I had to find my own.

Fortunately, Agrian the Younger had already provided me with an opportunity for just such a thing.

"I am not asking to be taken with you," I assured him.

"I just want to know what is said."

"I can't do that," he scowled as he tried to walk away from me. I did not let him, springing after with the use of carefully-made aether shoe coatings that added a level of elasticity to each step which allowed me to compete with his longer legs.

"It's a gentleman's club, you aren't even a lady yet!"

"Do you know who cares about gender? Mouth-breathing dogs, I was not aware you were one of them." My temper was admittedly flaring up by that stage, but to tell the truth there has never been something to irritate me half as much as stupidity. Particularly stupidity in the hands of one with power over me. Why, the last time I was confronted with that, I made it my life's mission to overthrow the idiots responsible. Then they had me sealed in the Depths as punishment.

"Well those mouth-breathing dogs include our father, our father's business associates, several of the men providing guards for our house and countless others. You can't just flaunt social rules you don't like, Isabel, people won't allow it, they might not arrest you but they can make your life impossibly hard." It was actually one of the most adult things I had ever heard from him, and I surprised myself by feeling a stab of pride in the boy. It was quickly buried by more irritation of course.

"Then keep me from being subjected to all of that by feeding me what you hear," I snapped. Agrian looked on the brink of arguing, but just sighed and surrendered.

"Okay, fine."

"Start with this business about a war," I demanded. He froze.

"How did you hear about that?" I had, of course, eavesdropped on our parents talking about it, but he did not need to know that. If the Baron squeezed him he would almost certainly betray the secret.

"It does not matter," I replied.

"What matters is that I know, and you have more details, so share them." I had found that Agrian was somehow more likely to do as I demanded if I worded things like a real child, something about that infantile mewling urged him to obey. I had not yet discovered why. He thought about my demand for a few moments before finally, inevitably, caving into it with a long and tortured sigh.

"Okay," he said at last.

"Damn it, fine, okay. Here's what I know." I listened intently, making sure to commit all the details to memory while, at the same time, comparing them for any inconsistencies. I kept Agrian talking fast so that he would have less time to plan any lies he intended to tell, but I need not have bothered. As far as I could tell, everything I heard was pure truth. By the time he finished, I felt as though my grasp of the situation was strong enough to at least go about considering how I would act next.

It was quite underwhelming, all I could do was continue living life as I had been. I was too young to actually become a registered battle magician, if I had wanted to, and was free from being drafted for that same reason. That and my noble blood. Likewise, as a girl, I would not be heaped with credit and rewards for performing well in a conflict anyway. The people of Garamon did not admire violence in women the way they admired it in men.

All I could do was continue honing my magic and accumulating power, but that did not mean there were no new chances for that at all.

"And you are hearing a lot of news about this?" I asked Agrian abruptly.

"At this…gentleman's club?"

"... Yes?" he sounded uncertain and guarded, as if he suspected I was working an angle here. He would have been completely correct in that suspicion, of course, because I had now realised I was staring at the key to my family's wealth.

"Can you pass on more of what you hear to me?" I asked him.

"You know my advice will be good, and I do not mind if you pass it off as your own in fact." Agrian's face was a war of emotion, but as always the self-interest won out. Maybe one day a person would actually surprise me in that regard.

"Alright," he said at last.

"What do you want to know?"