“My mother could ascend at any moment?” Rodrick wondered out loud. “That isn’t true! Is it?”

  “She’s a Justiciar of the church of light,” Carla said. “Honestly, it’s kind of weird that she even got the title while in silver rank at all.”

  “Yeah, but why would she block her own advancement? Her aging would slow down, she would become stronger…”

  Valar looked on as Rodrick continued his tirade, walking through the Lyndale streets. The branch leader’s words on the warrior’s mother’s possible advancement to gold rank had clearly had a profound effect on the man, and Valar suspected that he would be visiting his parents as soon as the team split up for the weekend.

  The decision to split up for the duration of the weekend had been a simple one. It was 5th day, and the expedition would start on the 1st day of the next week. That meant that the team would have the weekend free, save for the evening hours of 6th day. Rodrick wanted to hang out with his parents, Arthur wanted to drink and have fun and Ciel wanted to do a couple solo missions. That left Carla and Valar without anything to do.

  “Any plans for the weekend?” Carla asked as they walked on. She had given up on Rodrick, as the man clearly just needed to talk to his parents instead of a team member. “You’re a native, after all.”

  “Living in the orphanage, I didn’t really get to explore the city,” Valar spoke out his thoughts out loud. “I’d like to mostly just wander around, but I do have a couple of friendly faces in town.”

  “Who? Some kids who left the orphanage before you?”

  “Actually, no,” Valar let out a dry chuckle. “We didn’t get along… but my academy professor and friend should be somewhere here.”

  “Academy professor? Wouldn’t he be in Rhondell then?”

  “She. Elaine left a couple weeks before me to heal some elder of her house, and should be in Lyndale at the moment. Julie is her niece, so she came too.”

  “Elder of her house? Niece? Which house are you talking about?” Carla asked confusedly.

  “Her name is Elaine Livren,” Valar didn’t see. “Do you know the name?”

  “Your professor is Miracle?” Carla squealed, surprising Valar with her tone. “Can we go meet her? I’m a big fan!”

  “Miracle? What are you talking about?”

  Carla beamed with excitement. “She was a famous adventurer when I was a kid!”

  “She never told me that,” Valar muttered.

  “Don’t be too miffed about it,” Carla smiled at Valar. “Lots of ex-adventurers don’t like talking about their careers.”

  The team split up quickly after arriving back at the inn. Rodrick and Ciel left without a word, but at least Arthur didn’t rush off immediately.

  “You can come with us, you know?” Valar asked him for the third time.

  “I need a break,” Arthur laughed. “And that break must contain some drinking and partying. I’m honestly surprised you don’t want to come, Carla.”

  “It’s not good for me,” Carla said dryly. “As a matter of fact, it’s not good for you either.”

  “Oh, really?” Arthur laughed. “And I thought that wine was the elixir of life!”

  “You really won’t come? Didn’t you hear? Valar knows Miracle!”

  “She’s an idol for you mages,” the blonde man motioned dismissively with his hand. “I’d be more interested if you were meeting one of the fallingstar knights, maybe even someone like the Witchhunter, but a healer, really?”

  Valar frowned. “What’s wrong with healers?”

  “Nothing, nothing!” Arthur raised his hands defensively. “But…”

  “But?”

  “It’s just that healing is the most boring role, no matter how important it is! I mean, you life mages can’t even use shield spells!”

  “Elaine has a shield spell,” Valar scoffed. “She used it when… Oh, I can’t talk about that.”

  The two other adventurers looked at him with raised eyebrows, and Valar practically shrank down under their gazes.

  “No, tell us,” Carla said flatly. “Now that you started, you can’t just leave us hanging like this.”

  What do I even say? I can’t exactly tell my new team mates that I accidentally attacked the professor interviewing me with fire that I can call out from a wound in my soul. “But hey guys, keep it a secret for me! The dragons might come and take me or even torch the damn kingdom if they find out!”

  Not preparing a convincing lie beforehand was making Valar’s life hard once again, but luckily, this time wasn’t so bad. He could just tell the truth and say that he had sworn to not speak of the incident. But that would tell them that it was something I did, wouldn’t it?

  Valar let out a frustrated groan and moisture started forming at the edges of his eyes. “How do I even say this? I can’t talk about it, okay?”

  Carla placed a hand on his shoulder. “Relax… You can’t talk about it, but Elaine has some kind of shield spell, we get it. If you can’t talk about the incident itself, can you at least shed some light on the spell she used?”

  Huh… I can, can’t I? I’ll just refrain from talking about what caused her to put up the shield in the first place.

  “I think the name of the spell was Firmament-”

  “Stop right there!” Carla yelled over him. “You can’t talk about that either!”

  “What? Why?” Valar gave voice to his confusion. The spell itself should have been a much less sensitive topic than his fire.

  Carla sucked air through her teeth as she thought about what to say. “Look, I have some information on different spells that I maybe shouldn’t have, and I know that any spell containing the word ‘firmament’ is usually a highly restricted one. Talking about them in public isn’t automatically criminal per say, but revealing details about them often is.”

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  Valar paled a little at Carla’s words. As a former resident of the orphanage, he wasn’t much of a stickler for rules, but kingdom law was different. He certainly didn’t want to end up in another prison for saying something prohibited in public, that was for sure.

  “Oh… Then it’s good that you interrupted me,” he swallowed the lump in his throat. “Thanks.”

  “No problem,” Carla sighed. “Perhaps it would be better to just go and try to find that professor of yours soon. Do you have any idea where she could be?”

  “Is there a Livren residence in Lyndale? That would be my first guess.”

  “We can ask the guards,” Carla said. “Or do you know of the place, Arthur?”

  The young man with golden eyes turned his head as his name was called out, a bewildered expression on his face. “Did somebody say my name? What were you talking about?”

  “The Livren residence. Do you know where it is?”

  “No idea,” Arthur said, his eyes glimmering in the sunlight bleeding through the dirty windows of the inn. “I think I would search west if I were you though.”

  “Maybe we should just ask the guards,” Carla sighed. “Valar, can we go right now? We can grab something to eat while we walk.”

  “That’s fine by me,” Valar nodded. “Have fun, Arthur!”

  “Right back at ya!” Arthur’s shout rang behind the pair as they walked out of the practically empty inn.

  When they had walked a safe distance away from the inn, Carla spoke up with a grin on her face. “He’ll have fun alright. Just don’t try to talk to the guy tomorrow morning.”

  “How so?”

  “He’ll have the hangover to end all hangovers,” the brown-eyed woman cackled. “I’m going to bully him for the whole day!”

  “But I’m not supposed to talk to him at all?”

  “He’s insufferable when hungover,” Carla explained. “The only thing to do then is to try and annoy him as much as you can.”

  “I’ll probably not do that.”

  “Smart man.”

  Valar and Carla decided to walk to the central district before asking anything from the guards, as both of them were ravenous for some street food. They wandered around the cafés, restaurants and food stalls of the district, but neither knew what was any good in the first place.

  “You lived here for ten years,” Carla complained. “What’s good in Lyndale?”

  “I don’t know, I lived in an orphanage!” Valar groaned. “We ate corn slop and boiled vegetables. Maybe some bread if we were lucky, but that wasn’t any good either!”

  “Mother, why can’t I wander around the city freely?” Valar froze as he saw a boy, probably a year older than him, pointing in their direction. “He’s younger than me, and he’s walking around with an older friend!”

  The boy’s mother looked in their direction and motioned for her son to stay silent. “She’s probably his older sister or something. Before you turn sixteen, I’m not letting you on these streets alone!”

  What? Are they pointing at me? I know I’m young for an awakened, but…

  Carla saw his look of confusion and spoke up. “The boy can’t inspect your aura, and the mother hasn’t checked. Your mage's robe is also pretty plain, and they can't see the life magic sigil on your back.”

  “Do you think they will cause a ruckus if they find out?”

  “I don’t know,” Carla shrugged. “Has that happened before?”

  “To every iron ranked student in the academy,” Valar said flatly. “It was not a good day...”

  “Perhaps we should go talk to them then,” Carla. “Wouldn’t want an incident, would we?”

  Carla and Valar walked up to the pair of citizens, the latter dragging his feet like he was walking to the judge. The mother and son stopped their discussion in favor of asking directly.

  “How come you can wander around freely in the city?” the boy asked. “You’re younger than me.”

  “First of all, hello, I’m Valar. Who are you?”

  “I’m Maximilian Livren,” the boy greeted Valar offhandedly. “Why can you wander around the city?”

  Livren, eh? I think we just got lucky here.

  Valar turned his head to Maximilian’s mother and smiled. “Could you check my aura and tell your son what you find out, please?”

  The boy’s mother, likely another member of house Livren, adopted a perplexed expression, but her eyes lit up after only a small wait. “What is happening here? This shouldn’t be possible…”

  The woman was affinityless and only at bronze rank, so she was most likely a less favoured member of her house. In the grand scheme of things, that didn’t really mean anything, as even the lowliest member of a noble house was living a life regular workers could only dream about. With her family’s wealth, the woman and her family were probably living in a house that was bigger than Alistair’s and Erin’s without working a single minute of their lives.

  Although if Erin was still active, they could probably live in a much bigger house. A silver rank Justiciar must make a lot of money, and she’s apparently close to gold rank too. I should say something, shouldn’t I?

  “What’s not possible?” Carla asked. “That he’s at iron rank or that he’s a life mage?”

  The young Livren scion’s head turned back to Valar so fast that he had a reason to worry about the boy’s neck snapping from the movement. Maximilian’s eyes bounced between his mother and Valar for a moment before he gave voice to his confusion.

  “She’s lying, isn’t she? That boy couldn’t have awakened; he’s younger than me!”

  “I… I don’t think that’s the case, dear,” the boy’s mother was clearly trying to look for words and failing miserably. “He’s an iron rank life mage, as hard as that is to believe…”

  The boy’s expression morphed many times during the next five seconds or so. Confusion, jealousy, anger and many other emotions flashed on his face, but none of those ended up as the dominant one. Curiosity won out, and the tirade of questions began.

  “How did you awaken so young? Is there a trick? Can you teach me to awaken early? I really want to start adventuring soon!”

  “Slow down, slow down,” Valar chuckled. “I really don’t want you to go through the same things I have, so you’ll just have to wait for your time.”

  That answer clearly wasn’t enough for the boy, as the jealous frown appeared on his face once more. “Are you keeping things from me? I’m a no-”

  “Maximilian!” his mother snapped. “You’re being rude!”

  “But I could awaken way younger!” the boy whined. “I want to become powerful like the others…”

  Valar felt for the kid, he really did. Just a couple months ago, he hoped for the same exact thing every single night. Even now, he was enjoying life as an iron ranker, but…

  The price had been steep, and he knew he wouldn’t pay it again, even if it meant he had died then and there.

  Valar felt cold sweat start to run along his neck and a burning sensation resurfaced in his very core, as the events of that night played in his mind. The sewers… The rat… The fi-

  “Trust me, kid,” Carla’s voice rang through Valar’s mind, interrupting his train of thought. “It’s not worth it. Valar here spent an entire day in critical care under a silver rank life mage and even then he barely survived. Look at his right arm, would you? Do you want to experience something that caused such scarring?”

  Maximilian visibly cringed as he turned his gaze towards Valar’s arm. Even though it didn’t hurt him much nowadays, the severe scarring left on his arm was a sobering sight.

  “That… came from his awakening?” he asked, almost fearful of the answer.

  “Do you think Valar just awakened randomly?” Carla grinned. “He fought for his life and won. But fighting for your life while you are unawakened is risky business. He only lived because our party found him in the forest half dead. What I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t go and try to do something stupid. It’s stupid for a reason. Listen to your mother and stay safe, please.”

  “But I thought I had a chance,” the boy hung his head in disappointment.

  “And you still do,” Carla said. “You can awaken early or late, but I promise you that won’t matter in the long run. Just prepare as best as you can and enjoy life.”

  Valar was still immersed in his thoughts as the boy and his mother left to continue their trip through the city, but Carla shouted a last question to their backs. “Excuse me, but where is the Livren estate? Valar and I have business with one of your house’s members!”

  The mother turned back, a bewildered expression on her face. “What? It’s in the western district, 6th street. You won’t miss it. I’m fairly sure you can’t get in though, sorry…”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Carla smiled. “We’ll find a way. Have a nice day!”

  Carla wheeled on Valar with a worried expression as soon the pair of nobles walked away. “What happened there? You went all silent once he asked about becoming stronger.”

  “I… I…” Valar choked on his own words. “I got to… remember some things that I’ve been trying to forget. It was not a good day, Carla.”

  “Can you talk about it?” Carla asked, her tone full of worry.

  Valar just shook his head.

  “Can we still continue exploring the city?”

  “I… I think we can,” Valar breathed out an anxious sigh. “I think I just need to sit down for a moment.”

  “Oh, of course. There’s a bench right there,” Carla pointed to an empty bench in the distance. “Take your time, and I’ll go get us something to eat, okay?”

  Valar nodded. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

  As Valar walked to the bench, he turned around with a tired smile on his face. “Thank you, Carla.”

  “No problem,” Carla smiled, the worry still clear in her eyes. “We’re teammates.”

  “That we are… That we are.”