“Lori! Dinner’s ready!” my mother called from the other room, her voice carrying easily through the house.

  I lingered before the bronze mirror, taking my time. I was braiding my leaves carefully, fingers practiced, weaving them so they fell just right along my shoulders. I adjusted the apples after, polishing them with a soft cloth until they caught the light the way I liked. I remember that moment fondly now. At the time, it felt ordinary. In truth, it was anything but.

  It was the day I was given the family heirloom.

  In Aeterna, I won’t pretend otherwise, we were wealthy.

  My mother was an ore merchant, respected and well-connected, her caravans traveling safely where others needed guards. My father crafted incense for the local temple of the Divines, blends precise enough to please gods and priests alike. Between the two of them, our household wanted for nothing.

  Our home was larger than most. The walls were hung with paintings commissioned rather than inherited. The furniture was solid and relatively new, carved from living woods that had consented to their shaping. Fabrics draped every surface, soft beneath the fingers, dyed in deep, patient colors. Shelves bowed slightly under the weight of enchanted books, scrolls sealed with wax and sigils, and fine brushes used for ritual calligraphy.

  In many ways, I was spoiled by that wealth, even if I didn’t recognize it as such back then.

  The dress I wore that evening had been sewn specifically for me. Golden thread ran through it, embroidered in the motif of a swan, wings spread along the hem and bodice. It wasn’t ostentatious, but it was unmistakably expensive. Made to last. Made to matter.

  When I finally took my seat at the table, the room felt quieter than it once had.

  Father sat at his usual place at the head, posture straight, hands folded. Mother sat opposite him, calm and observant as ever. I took the seat between them, as I always had. Across from me were three empty chairs.

  My two older brothers had already taken root elsewhere, their lives branching outward beyond the house. My elder sister… she had vanished into the wider world, answering the call of monsters, danger, and adventure with a grin and a blade. Letters came rarely from her, and when they did, they smelled faintly of blood and pine sap.

  Dinner was served.

  It wasn’t a mushroom risotto, but that would be the closest equivalent I could offer in the terms of this world. A rice-like grain formed the base, soft and fragrant, coated in layers of mushrooms sautéed until rich and dark. Mixed through it was a reddish-orange cabbage, slightly sweet, slightly bitter, cooked down until it melted into the dish.

  It was warm. Familiar. Comforting.

  I remember thinking, as I lifted my spoon, that nothing about that night felt particularly special.

  I was wrong.

  It was the last evening before my life quietly began preparing to split in two.

  Father was the one to break the silence, his voice measured, the tone he used when he meant to instruct rather than argue.

  “Loretta,” he began, folding his hands on the table, “your brothers, Aster and Yoshi, have both found lives beyond this house. Different paths, different aims, but lives nonetheless. Your sister Tallia chose her own road without our blessing. That decision pained us, but we respect it all the same.”

  He looked at me steadily, not unkindly, but with the weight of expectation pressing behind his eyes.

  “You, Lori, have not yet chosen anything. You have not claimed a direction. You refuse to apprentice under your mother, despite her offering. I already have three apprentices and cannot take on another. And while you have grown in the most basic sense,” he continued, lips thinning, “you have failed to improve your standing in any meaningful way beyond leveling walking, eating, sleeping, and breathing.”

  My mother sighed and rolled her eyes, setting her spoon down with deliberate care.

  “Don’t insult her intelligence by pretending we’re blind,” she said, cutting in. “Lori, we know about your promiscuous activities. Yes, all of them. We are aware of your…illicit relationships with certain local lords.” Her gaze sharpened. “That may feel like leverage now, but it does not constitute a future. Favor is not the same thing as security.”

  Father inclined his head slightly, acknowledging her point, then continued.

  “We intended to give this to Yoshi. Truly. But he refused it on two principles. First, he did not wish to burden his children with the inheritance. Second, he could not conceal it well enough to feel safe.” He paused, then added more firmly, “You, however, do not have the luxury of refusal.”

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  He gestured to my mother.

  She took up the explanation smoothly, as if reciting a lesson she had prepared years ago. “Your great-great-grandfather, Willow the Silent Vigil, earned distinction during the Second Symphonic War. For his service, he was awarded a Gem. Not a trinket, not a jewel for display. A Gem. A stone of true mystical power.”

  She tapped her finger lightly against the table. “That Gem grants its bearer a unique ability, one that echoes through the bloodline. Those who wield such stones are called Bearers.”

  Between bites of her own cooking, she continued, voice calm but unyielding. “Because of Willow’s deeds, our family carries both privilege and obligation. Each bearer learns everything they can from the Gem, then passes it to their spouse, allowing its influence to take root two generations back, before it is finally presented to the chosen child.”

  Father exhaled, rubbing his temples. “Lori, understand this clearly. You are not our first choice. You are not even our second.” His voice softened slightly, though the words did not. “Aster was deemed incompatible, and frankly irresponsible, given his criminal inclinations. We considered you unsuitable for years as well.”

  Mother glanced at me. “Despite our disapproval of your nightly habits, we can at least recognize that you know how to cultivate relationships, even among the noble houses.”

  Father nodded. “Yoshi was next. He refused. Tallia has not been home in years, and cannot be reached. Which leaves only one viable candidate.”

  I felt the weight of it settle fully then, heavy and unavoidable.

  “Me,” I said, nodding once.

  Mother’s composure finally cracked.

  “Once you acquire the Gem,” she said sharply, too quickly, as if speed might outrun fear, “in this case the fire opal known as the Dia-Dron, you must leave, Lori. Not just this house. Not just this street. The village itself.”

  Her hands tightened around the edge of the table. “You must go, and you must never allow anyone to know you carry it.”

  She leaned forward, eyes intent, voice lowering but no less urgent. “Under no circumstances do you reveal its existence until the love you make manifest is mutual. Real. Chosen. Not a moment of heat, not a passing hunger, not a transaction of bodies. The Gem responds to devotion, not indulgence. Confuse the two, and you will doom yourself and whoever stands beside you.”

  Father waited until she finished, then spoke gently, deliberately, the way one did when offering structure after a storm.

  “We are not casting you out without a path,” he said. “The Temple of the Eternal Raiment is currently seeking new Saints to train. While you are older than most who first take up a Road, it is not unheard of for someone in your situation to do so. Life does not always begin when it is expected to.”

  A faint smile touched his face. “Adventurers are born from disruption. From necessity. From inheritance they never asked for.”

  He looked at me, warmth and hope folded together. “And who knows. Roads have a way of crossing when they must. You might even find Tallia along the way.”

  ***

  “For your sake, Morgan, I’m going to skip ahead,” I said gently. “You don’t want to hear how miserable those first few months were. Believe me. They don’t matter to the story that actually shaped me.”

  ***

  “Lord Rai, hear my plea. Sunder cloud and sky, tear heaven asunder, and smite my enemy!”

  The talisman slipped from my fingers, the chant snapping shut like a lock finding its key. A heartbeat later the sky obeyed. Lightning screamed downward, a white-hot spear that erased the goblin in front of me. The meadow vanished behind a curtain of red mist and shattered bone, gore raining down like obscene confetti.

  There were advantages to being a talisman caster. Many of them.

  For one, there was no mana cost in the moment of battle. No drain, no faltering breath, no trembling hands from exhaustion. The price had already been paid days, weeks, sometimes months before. For some talisman casters, years. Preparation replaced desperation. Ink and foresight stood where raw power usually demanded its toll.

  Which was why panic hit me a second too late.

  The caravan.

  I spun, heart lurching, eyes snapping to the line of wagons I had been hired to protect. Three goblins were already breaking from the treeline, sprinting low and fast toward the merchants.

  “Lady Tulga,” I intoned, voice steady despite the spike of fear, “grant mercy to those who follow the call, and shelter your lost songbirds.”

  The paper left my hand and dissolved midair, unfolding into light. A dome of radiant blue glass slammed into place over the caravan, thick as a man’s forearm. Goblins struck it with bone clubs and crude blades, only to be flung backward as if the world itself rejected them.

  No time to savor it.

  “Lord Thorn,” I called, casting the final talisman into the grass before me, “grow your meadow of death.”

  The earth answered.

  Flowers erupted from the soil in a violent bloom, hundreds at once, petals unfurling in impossible speed. Then the stems thickened, hardened, twisted. Thorns burst forth, barbed and cruel, lashing out with purpose. Goblins screamed as vines coiled around limbs and throats, dragging them down.

  Blood fell. The ground drank.

  And where it did, more flowers bloomed.

  Each wound birthed another vine. Each vine carved another wound. The spell fed upon itself, a self-sustaining hymn of violence. Soon the meadow was unrecognizable, transformed into a vast field of lilies stained deep crimson, their scent heavy in the air. Iron. Sap. Death.

  It was there, amid the crimson flowers, where blood pooled like a fallen sea and the wreckage of the damned lay scattered across the meadow, that my life quietly turned. The battle was over, the chants fading, the field still breathing with magic and death. From between ruined wagons and trampled lilies, he approached not as a hero carved from legend, but as a man steady enough to stand where others fled. In that stained silence, with the air heavy and the earth ruined, I met him. I met your father, Matthew Barlow.