Chương 43: Chapter 42: Conflict of Interests

++The culture into which I was reborn did not affect me, obviously, because I was already a fully formed adult—rather, something far more ancient than that—by the time of the rebirth itself. The same cannot be said for my siblings, as inconvenient as that was. ++ - From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, 'The Great Lich'. 1, 891 A. E"Focus," I told Victoria.

"You need to concentrate or it will not work."

"You don't conconkate!" she snapped, mispronouncing the word. She tended to do that when her emotions were heightened.

"I do concentrate, I have simply become so good at it that it is easy for me. If you want to be that good, you need to practice doing it." The girl said something that our mother would have slapped her for, then continued focusing. Her little face pinched up tight and her features twisted inwards, effort making her whole body tremble. There was no actual physical struggle in using mana, but the mental effort needed is so great that it often causes magicians to shiver and shake with phantom sensations.

Victoria was a prime example of that. And it was a good sign, since it showed she was taking this seriously. Victoria was not as talented as me, of course. She also was not as talented as Agrian. In fact, if a person were to gather up all the talents in humanity's history and found only ten to match Agrian himself, they would probably end up with close to a hundred capable of matching Victoria. Which meant that she was still one of the most impossibly gifted arcane geniuses currently alive.

It was simply her bad luck to be a generational talent born into a family that already boasted two era-defining ones. Most of the apprentices I had taught in my own age had been less gifted than her, and my own teaching skills were now much improved. Apparently hitting children actually made them learn worse. I had discovered that fact only in my second life, because it had simply never occurred to me not to beat my apprentices until I was forced to avoid it when learning with Agrian.

Victoria was benefitting greatly from this newfound skill on my part.

"I can't do it!" she snapped.

"Be quiet," I snapped back.

"Yes you can, you are doing it now." I would have said that, even if she had not been, but I could actually see little strands of mana starting to wisp and sputter from her fingertips.

"Really?!" she squeaked, and the mana fizzled out instantly.

"You did," I told her.

"But you lost concentration, what did I tell you about that?"

"Uh, don't?"

"Correct. Now try again." Victoria glared at me.

"I can't do it!"

"Yes you can, I just saw you do it."

"No I can't," she folded her arms in what was probably meant to be an impressive display of defiance. It was not, mostly for reasons beyond her control. She was still six.

"Isabel, I'm not like you, I'm too stupid for this." Something about that irritated me in a way I struggled to articulate.

"And what makes you think that?" I growled. She looked up at me, furious.

"I'm a girl, girl's can't—" she was cut off as I held her by the jaw quite firmly and drew her face close to mine, staring her right in the eye." Nobody can tell you what you can and cannot do," I hissed.

"Understand that. Nobody, except you. Your limits are whatever you make them. If the Gods themselves tell you to know your place, spit on them and take theirs." She looked frightened suddenly, squirming in my grip. I released her and Victoria took a step back, swallowing shakily.

"Mother says we're to honour the Gods and obey our elders." The girl said it mechanically, repeating the mantra long drilled into her.

"Mother is an idiot," I told her.

"So is father. So is everyone. Except for me. Remember that." She looked as if she were committing my words to memory. Good.

"Now try again," I told her.

"And if you do not believe you can do it, then believe me when I tell you, for a fact, that you almost did before." Victoria looked as though she was going to argue for a moment, but quickly focused upon the task as she soaked up my latest, stern stare. I was getting rather good at that, having based my technique on that of my mother and Professor Varylani. Another thing I was forced to relearn; facial expressions. Thousands of years without a face had left my skills in that area somewhat reduced.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. But they had not, apparently, reduced my skills in teaching. Victoria exerted herself all over again, and this time I saw a glow of mana emerge as her power finally came to the forefront.

"Yes!" I laughed, almost as satisfied by the triumph as it seemed my sister was.

"Now maintain it, keep it going for as long as you can!" Victoria did, and I watched as her mana slowly waned with the effort. The girl slumped once it was finally finished.

"I told you I couldn't do it," she groaned.

"You did do it," I countered.

"And we are going to wait for your mana to recover, then you will do it again. Then again, and then again. If you train often, and are careful not to push yourself too hard too fast, your powers will keep growing stronger. One day you will be one of the most powerful magicians in the world." She did not seem to believe me right away, but I noticed Victoria looked hopeful suddenly.

"Is that true?"

"Yes," I told her honestly.

"Everything I say is always true, I am right about everything." She grinned, then started shuffling towards me with a familiar gait.

"Back!" I hissed, leaping a step away and raising both hands defensively. Victoria giggled, as usual, but did not draw any closer. For now.

"Isabel?" I whipped around at the sound of my name being called, expecting the worst. It was not mother, though, who would put an end to my training of Victoria, nor father, who would likely do the same and possibly throw in a beating for good measure, but Agrian. He looked exhausted.

"What do you want?" I asked him, not in the mood to continue dancing around a conversation. Negotiating with Victoria had wrung all the patience right out of me.

"Can we talk in private?" he asked, glancing at Victoria, then frowning.

"Wait you…you're not teaching her…" he did not need to finish the sentence.

"That is none of your concern," I told him. It actually was, but I have found that most people will accept a declaration like that surprisingly often, if it is made confidently enough. Agrian was fortunately one of them.

"Let's…talk, please?"

"Lead the way," I gestured him on. We stepped outside, and Agrian launched into the events of that night. I listened to him complain of how magicians were treated by the mundane nobility of Garamon—which was not surprising, but certainly inconvenient for my own future prospects—before having my interest fully captured by what happened at the end of his evening.

"Father wishes to teach you about the family business," I echoed, liking the sound of that a lot.

"He does, yes."

"And you will teach me?" Agrian looked uncomfortable suddenly.

"I don't think he'd want me to." Irritation flashed through me like a bolt of lightning.

"I do not care what he would want, I want to learn this." My brother's face hardened at that, and I could tell at a glance that this conversation was about to turn into a very long-running and inconvenient argument.

"Maybe you should care what he thinks, have you considered that?"

"No," I told him. What sort of question was that? Of course I had not considered it, just as I had not considered whether to cut off all four of my own limbs tomorrow.

"Father is an idiot and he wants to keep me from enjoying all the opportunities I could for no reason. Why do you care what he thinks at all?" Agrian got angrier than I would have expected, then.

"Because he's our father!" I waited for him to say more, and he only seemed to grow angrier as the pause dragged on.

"Is that it?" I asked after a moment.

"Yes!"

"Oh, okay. That is a stupid reason to listen to him, and you are stupid for believing it." Agrian took a step closer to me, which made me suddenly and viscerally aware of the size difference between us. So easy to think of him as just a child, but he was still several times my strength.

"You told me you cared about family, that you'd take care of us."

"I do. That does not mean I will allow my family to control and exploit me. Why would I do that? It is idiotic. You should not do that either."

"They're family."

"Yes, I understand the concept. Nothing I said was wrong however." Agrian looked to be getting more upset by the moment, but I noticed now that it did not seem to entirely be anger flooding his features. Was he in conflict? I could only hope so, if his mind was completely made up then I would probably not be getting any information about my father's teachings to him.

"You need to learn loyalty," Agrian said after a moment.

"I'm father's heir, not you, and you need to learn that blood matters." I was utterly baffled at this of course, and had no idea where it came from.

"Are you having some sort of fit?" I asked him. Apparently it was the wrong thing to say, because my brother only scoffed and stormed out. I buried my irritation at that. If he would not help me learn what I could from father, then he would not help me. Perhaps I could have persuaded him better than I did, but the time for that mistake to be fixed was now passed. Victoria was awaiting me as I entered, looking uncertain and scared.

"Are we in trouble?" she asked.

"No, as long as you do not tell anyone about what we are doing." I hesitated, seeing that she was not convinced.

"It will be our secret," I suggested. That won the girl over almost instantly, and her face split into a grin.

"Okay!" she rushed off to do six-year-old things that I did not care to find out about, leaving me with more time to myself. I spent it as best I could, first training my magical power, then technique, and finally getting back to reading. By now, I was almost finished with the books I had brought with me.

I had known this was coming of course, I simply had not had room for enough reading to keep me occupied across the entirety of this stay, but it still irritated me to know that I would be wasting the remainder of my summer without extra things to learn. For now, at least, I could still scrape a few more dregs of knowledge from the handful of tomes I had not yet finished. The one I read currently was among the least promising, at first, but I soon realised how flawed that assessment was.

This book spoke of other realms that ran parallel to our own, of entire worlds just as big as the one I inhabited, touching without touch. It spoke of the source of magic, the place where mana flowed from and through, and it speculated about the ways it might be accessed. It spoke, I realised, about the Depths. And I continued to read, now captured fully by the account.

There were whispers telling of this scattered across history, all from madmen or heretics, disgraced and mocked even by the book I now read them in. No specifics were given, and I recognised the Gods' censorship once again. I read, soaked up more. Memorised the location and names of the people whose accounts and claims I was hearing, wherever those details were included at least. And then, abruptly, I ran out of pages. Fury was my first reaction, but it soon gave way to triumph.

This was a clue, and even if I had been delayed in following it through to the truth, I still knew, now, that there was a truth to be found. Another thing to investigate and learn, and with at least a lifetime ahead of me to do that learning before suspicion and conflict arose. My day was looking like it would come after all.