Some Concerning Information Therein

While I had really found some good, juicy stuff about the past that explained why everyone was so averse to magic back home, I still lacked anything on the modern day. If I want to know what’s going on around me, I’ll have to keep reading until the books run out.

Making my way through each of the following volumes, I pored over the different historical texts, searching for any information about my new present day. The final volume of A Collected History of the Incande Region: From First Steps to the Lumineuse Kingdom, volume 10, began with the ascendancy of my grandfather. But another bombshell lay hidden in those dusty pages.

In one of the first chapters, I found a section about the Deighsel Dukedom.

Looking to the south of the Incande Region, the rise of the Deighsel Dukedom showed an unprecedented, flagrant violation of modern inter-kingdom autonomy. King Charles Lumineuse, dealing with the birth of his successor, Gaspard, and clueless to the machinations thereof (according to chamber records), believed House Deighsel to be a legitimate family. However, letters between the first of the house and the King of the nation of Durssk to the south reveal that the Deighsel family was, in fact, a noble house of the Durssk aristocracy, installed in the south of Incande as a gambit to destabilize the Lumineuse Kingdom over a century prior. For these letters (the full text of which can be found in the appendix, §7), we must thank the altruistic Durssk historian Wyth Klein…

If the knowledge that my father potentially used magic was stunning, then the revelation that the Deighsel Dukedom was founded through a clandestine destabilizing operation was earth-shattering. I leaned back in my seat, staring at the giant skeleton above me.

It’s… illegitimate?

Tracing the bones of the monster above me from limb to limb, I began to connect the dots, putting together the skeleton of an argument of my own.

If my grandfather didn’t know it wasn’t a legitimate family, then that means my father likely doesn’t either. Which means he wouldn’t know that they have no real right to any land in the Kingdom. Which means… I might be able to get out of that arranged marriage!

Frantically, I flipped to the index, looking for more mentions of the word “Deighsel.” There, however, I was stopped. Right below the ‘D’ section, of course, was ‘E.’ And near the top of the E’s: “Elisabeth.”

I had to have a look. If you saw your own name in a history book, you’d look too, right? I flipped to the first page that mentioned me.

It was known to Emperor Caestra III that the Deighsel Dukedom was ultimately fraudulent, as the collected Durssk letters came into Andrastian possession early in his reign. However, with the birth of his twin children, Finley and Diana, he abandoned his dream of rekindling his friendship with King Gaspard Lumineuse, who at the same time was distraught over the birth of his daughter, Elisabeth. With the two already estranged as a result of their disagreements over draodhachd, he left the Kingdom to its own devices and focused inwards, the two never recovering from their falling out. Emperor Caestra never did achieve his goal of convincing his longtime friend, King Gaspard Lumineuse, to permit magic in the Lumineuse Kingdom once more.

A little disappointing that I was barely a footnote in the story of some man’s troubles, but this section also answered another question I had. I now knew why the emperor looked so somber when I mentioned my father, with some further information on those Deighsel rats, to boot.

With a deep breath, I tried to calm my mind. It was a lot to take in. But if accurate, it meant that in my hands was a golden ticket out of that arranged marriage. I leaned back, and a stream of light blinded me.

“Ack!” I looked up. The late evening sun poured in through the tall windows, a single ray finding its way right to my face to flashbang me.

Wait, late evening?

I stood up. It’s time to get back. Now. I scurried to grab all the books around me, but a gentle hand on my shoulder stopped me.

“Evening, Elisabeth.”

I turned around. Finley greeted me, dressed in casual clothes.

“Oh, Finley! Hi.” I paused. “How did you know I was here?”

He thought for a second. “Well, I went to your room when I returned from the festival, and it was empty.” He put a hand up. “Ah, don’t worry, your maids aren’t back yet. They wanted to enjoy the closing ceremony. Anyways, I guessed you might be exploring the palace, and Sorcha told me she directed you to the library earlier today.”

“I see. I was doing some research on… my own kingdom, actually.”

As we cleaned up my messy study space, I told Finley about what I had learned: the eradication of magic in the kingdom, the illegitimacy of the Deighsel family, and the estrangement of our fathers.

He turned one of the volumes over in his hand. “You know, I was always more interested in practical study, the magical arts. Never actually read through any of these. That’s fascinating.”

“What’s more fascinating is how it’ll get me out of that damn arranged marriage, if you ask me.”

Thud. The book hit the floor like a rock. Mouth agape, Finley asked, “The what?”

Huh? I was sure I had already told him about that. Back in Cernnos Woods, right? “Um, yes. I’m to be betrothed to the son of that illegitimate house. I thought I told you?”

“You alluded to that being a custom in the kingdom, but I didn’t realize that was… Heavens.” He put his hand to his chin in thought.

“I’ll tell you more in a bit. For now, let’s finish here and head back. I don’t want Margot breathing down my neck if she finds out I was reading heretical texts against the kingdom,” I joked.

I nabbed the tenth volume of the series, as well as the fourth — the one that I saw that weird bifurcation snippet in — and we made our way over to the front. Finley very kindly carried the rest of the heavy tomes.

Stuart the Archivist was tending to a desk by the entrance. “Ah, Princess Lumineuse. I hope you had an enriching day. Shall I take those off your hands?”

Finley handed him the giant stack, while I explained I wanted to take these two with me. Stuart happily obliged, scribbling down my name and the date on a sheet of parchment at the desk.

“Three, Sixteen! Put these back in foreign history, would you?” Stuart hollered behind him. Two of his birds flew over and began to take the volumes back, one by one, as Finley and I left for the guest wing.

As we made our way back to my temporary room, I told Finley in a series of exasperated tones my frustration with the Deighsel situation — the Duke’s inappropriate attitude, how his son had bored a hole in my chest, how the King’s hands were tied, and how I desperately hoped I’d never see Friedbert’s face again. He was an excellent listener: always giving a “hmm” or a “truly?” at the perfect spots. I lost track of the time as we chatted, simply enjoying being with him.

At the door to my guest room, he handed me the two books I checked out. “You know, the closing ceremony’s still going on for a little while longer. Probably a few hours.”

“Meaning what, Finley?” I was confused.

“Meaning your maids won’t be around for a few hours more. We could continue yesterday’s lesson on the terrace, if you’d like?” He put on a suave smile.

I scrunched my face. “I’m not so sure. What if they came back early?”

Finley waved his hand, and a small fox appeared at his feet, in the same spectral blue as Stuart’s birds. “I’ll have a friend keep watch,” he said with a wink.

After he sent the cute little guard-fox out to the guest wing entrance, we went out to the terrace I’d spent the past two nights crying on.

With the moon shining brilliantly down on the two of us, the distant roar of celebration and mirth from the festival filling the city, Finley taught me more about magic. Sometimes it was called draodhachd — the word I recognized from my reading earlier.

His eyes lit up whenever I asked a question. His smile rarely ever left his face. I became lost in his teaching, absorbing it all in earnest.

It turns out that my conception of ‘affinities’ wasn’t entirely correct. When I asked Finley how I knew what kind of magic I’d be good at, he gave me a puzzled look. He patiently explained to me, contrary to what my years of playing fantasy games had me believe, that there were not different kinds of magic for each element. There was just magic. That’s it.

There were certain ‘schools’ of it that one could study under — fire, enchantment, manifestation, water, et cetera — but each of these, he told me, was more of a means for channeling the ubiquitous magical energy throughout the world in certain ways, rather than harnessing a specific kind. It was a little confusing.

At some point, the little fox popped out behind the corner of the palace wall outside, hopping on the air itself as if it were making its way across a series of stones on a river. How did it get outside? Wait, and how is it… flying?

Finley held his hand out to the fox. “Looks like our time is up, Elisabeth.”

“Aww, okay.” I slumped my shoulders. I do enjoy spending time with him. He’s a good… friend. A good friend.

“Shall we continue tomorrow?” he offered.

I enthusiastically nodded as the door behind us opened. Diana entered the guest room, shouldering a woozy-looking Marie, who hiccuped. Diana gave a bashful grin. “Sorry! Had a bit of closing ceremony fun with your maid, here.”

I looked back at Finley, ready to give a commiserating sigh about his rambunctious sister, but he had already disappeared. To anyone looking, I had been out here alone.