Gifted

I threw myself into the dark gap between the two bookcases. The shadows wrapped around me as my aether channels burned. Standing as still as a statue — my heart thudding in my chest — I tried not to succumb to fear.

Don’t let them see me. Don’t let them see me, I whispered over and over in my mind.

I considered closing my eyes, but decided if I was about to get caught, I wanted to see it coming. Being hunted by something you couldn’t see was a primal fear for most people after all — and if I was about to be grabbed, I needed to see the hand reaching for me.

Lady Yalindra was the first to enter. My breath froze in my chest as I waited for her to look at me. Instead, she moved towards one of the locked chests. I breathed out slowly. She wasn’t wearing the metal plates she had when visiting the outpost, but I could see chainmail beneath her loose, white shirt and another shirt beneath her armour. A long, fur coat covered everything else — warm clothes a necessity in the chilly night air. Her brown hair — normally tied back — was left loose, which surprisingly made her look just a little less like a knife ready to slice through warm bread.

A solid-looking, steel key appeared in her hand from somewhere on her person, and the chest was thrown open in short order.

I couldn’t see what filled the wooden container, but I could see what was in her hand before it went into the chest. Small, silver bars. When she removed her hand from the chest, it was empty. The lid slammed down a moment later, and with another click, the lock was restored.

“My Lady, are you sure this is a good idea?” asked the soldier with her.

I had barely noticed him, so fixated was I on Lady Yalindra. The male companion she had brought in with her was tall, solid, and perhaps a little younger. If I thought Lady Yalindra was in her early thirties, then this soldier couldn’t have been beyond his mid twenties. His head was shaved and, like the lesser noble, he wore chainmail beneath a white shirt. No fur coat for him though. If he was cold, he didn’t show it.

“You think I keep you around for your opinion?” Yalindra asked as she looked up at him. A moment later she was pulling him by his shirt towards her bedroom.

For a moment, I was worried that she would leave the door open, but one of the two closed it behind them. Even so, I didn’t move a muscle. My aether channels were burning but, thankfully, I hadn’t been holding the Skill for too long. I reminded myself that stealth and infiltration was a matter of patience. So, I tried to relax and — though I really didn’t want to hear it — focused on the noises coming from the adjacent room.

A tinkling of metal told me at least one set of chainmail had been removed. The sound repeated shortly after. The moment I heard the first grunt I stepped away from my little nook.

Thank fuck for that, I thought.

My accidental joke wasn’t lost on me. I just didn’t have time to dwell on it. There was a decision to make and that took all my focus. Escaping was the smart thing to do, but then I would be leaving empty-handed.

What’s one more risk? I asked myself, realising the slippery slope I was sliding down with my antics. That didn’t stop me though, and I moved towards Yalindra’s desk to rifle through the papers scattered across its polished surface.

I only read a few lines near the top of each report, trying to determine from that quick scan what it was meant to record. Food stores, for both the soldiers and the horses. I moved on. Estimated prices for a few men to quarry and move stone along with some masons. That was clearly a planned upgrade to the fort. Logistical manifests with furniture and books — Lady Yalindra’s personal effects.

Then I found the first one of interest. It was the daily yield of smelted silver bars. Lady Yalindra had added the split beneath to indicate how many would go to House Landrin.

I left the sheet where it was, continuing my search even as I kept an ear out for what was going on in the bedroom. The pain in my aether channels was growing worse by the second and I would need to leave soon. There was no way I was remaining in this room without my Cloak of Shadows active. I returned to the task at hand.

Two sheets later, I found a letter addressed to Count Firthholm. The letter included a folded sheet detailing the silver output. I frowned reading the numbers then quickly went back to the other report on the silver bars. The two were not the same, with the numbers lower in the letter to Count Firthholm.

I may not be a genius, but I also wasn’t an idiot. I could put one and one together when it was so blatantly placed in front of me. Well, peeks stolen by lantern light in a semi-secured fort. Same, same. Either way, it was clear that Lady Yalindra was stealing from her cousin. I tried to figure out if I could use this against her.

I had two immediately obvious options. The first was reporting this to Ser Joss. I could easily steal the documents and put them into his hands somehow — probably in a sneaky fashion. But that wouldn’t get me what I wanted, which was Yalindra and the shit-heel of a guard removed from the area. After all, Lady Yalindra was not stealing from House Landrin. Based on the little I knew of Ser Joss he would use the leverage to get his Lord a better deal — and a better deal was only good if Yalindra was still here to blackmail.

The second option was stealing them and somehow conveying them to Count Firthholm himself. Maybe Gramps would know how. But Yalindra would notice they were gone by morning and then we were all in danger. She had whipped Brin’s mother for yelling at her and cursing her — no one had told me what Brin’s mother said. What would she do if she thought she had been robbed? Especially when the stolen letters could incriminate her?

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I didn’t have time to work on the problem anymore. My aether channels were moving from singed to inflamed, and I needed to drop my Cloak of Shadows soon. Just knowing that these documents existed was enough for now — she would have to send word to both Count Firthholm and House Landrin regularly, after all.

Rushing quietly to the door, I opened it and slipped outside. It was only after I was standing in the dark that I realised I hadn’t checked for a patrolling guard first. Thankfully, there was none and my exit had been silent.

Running back to the stables, I pulled myself up onto the roof before finally releasing my Cloak of Shadows. I stifled a sigh of relief, the heat beneath my skin already cooling. Lying in the dark, I had nothing to do but work on the problem.

Just like I had thought before starting this escapade, a little intelligence changed everything. With the information I had uncovered, I now had options. I just didn’t like the two that had immediately come to mind. So, I needed to come up with a third.

I was almost ready to leave, my aether channels recovered, when the idea finally came to me. The chest in Yalindra’s home was probably where she kept the silver she was stealing from her cousin. There was too little of it in there for it to be anything else. But, she wasn’t the only one around here stealing silver.

Now, accusing Lady Yalindra of stealing silver when the hidden location was near the Horndale Mining Co. would never stick. However, accusing her of stealing from House Landrin by offering up Kole of the Horndale Mining Co.’s stash might if I was also to provide Ser Joss evidence that she was stealing from her cousin — Lord Firthholm — as well. But, it wasn’t air tight. She still might manage to wriggle out of it, which meant I needed more evidence with which to frame her for the secondary theft. Something to tie her directly to it.

My eyes drifted towards the barracks, and for a few seconds, I seriously considered trying to sneak in there tonight to get the extra ‘evidence’ I would need.

Come on, Bastian, I rebuked myself. Manage the risks. You’re lucky you haven’t been caught already. There are easier ways to get something to tie Yalindra to the crime than breaking into a barracks with at least seven soldiers inside. Besides, it’s not like you can move the stone hiding Kole’s stolen stash on your own.

The calmer, more circumspect, and probably more intelligent part of me won the argument against my impatience. After waiting a little longer for one of the guards to do their patrol, I climbed down under the protection of my Cloak of Shadows and scurried home. No one seemed to hear or notice me as I pulled myself back in the kitchen window, closed it behind myself, scarpered up the stairs, and climbed back into bed.

I brought up my Status to see how the Path of Infiltration had progressed. I’d have helped Mum regardless, but it was nice getting rewarded for helping her, not to mention an efficient use of my time and Skills.

Path of Infiltration II (225/500)

My eyes widened at the number. I had known for a while that my high Shadow affinity made every Shadow Path far easier to progress. Coupled with Gifted, I had expected a solid amount of steps. Seeing the Path go up by one-hundred-and-twenty-five though was beyond wild. Was it because of the people involved? Or the fact that it was meant to be a ‘secure’ location? I didn’t know, but the single infiltration had just netted more steps than my entire night of breaking into the houses in our small community. Even so, I was only a little over a quarter of the way to the next Tier so I had my doubts I would manage it with my plans.

It took me longer than I would have liked for the adrenaline to stop rampaging through my body. The end result was that I woke up far later than usual and had to carry my breakfast into Gramps’ office for my morning lesson. A lesson I was unequivocally late for. Yet, the old codger didn’t say anything about my tardiness — nor had Mum, beyond asking if I was feeling okay and laying her hand against my head to check my temperature. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ

Either they didn’t know, or they were intentionally choosing not to dig into it. For once, I thought it was the former and mentally praised my new Skill. I had no intention of keeping the results of what I was doing a secret from my family — but, in this instance, I thought it better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Mum was already doing all she could to hide from the soldier, and Gramps had made overtures to both Lady Yalindra and Ser Joss. The former didn’t care while the latter’s hands were tied by social rank and his duty to his Lord. Since Mum and Gramps were doing what they could, how could I do any less?

The aethersensing lesson passed in silence, and it would be fair to say it was one of my worst in recent memory. My tired mind struggled to focus on the aether constructs, often making the shapes simpler than the true formations of what Gramps was creating. My Path of Aethersensing agreed and for once I didn’t have to lie to Etta about my performance — which was a shame for my Path of Deception.

I had expected my reading and writing lesson to follow and was already dreading it. My only thoughts were of returning to bed and getting a few more hours of sleep. Instead, as we gathered in the kitchen for an early lunch, just the person I was hoping to see entered in through the backdoor.

Griselda carried a large bag made from leather on her hip. She started placing foodstuffs from her small farm on the table for Mum to put into the larder. I smiled, trying to grab the half-orc’s attention. She clearly noticed, and as soon as her bag was empty, she motioned to the backdoor questioningly.

“We train?”

I nodded, running off to fetch my hatchet from my room.

Standing outside a minute later — alone except for the two of us — I approached Griselda until I had to crane my head back to look up at her.

“Can you keep a secret?” I asked.

Unlike most adults, Griselda always seemed to take me seriously. She paused a moment, as though giving my question due consideration, before she nodded resolutely.

“I need your help with something,” I stated.

“I won’t help you kill the guard that is bothering Penelope,” Griselda said.

My eyebrows had gone up in surprise at the mention of killing but I focused on the last part instead. “You know about that?”

“We all do. Sometimes when I bring food for the miners, I hear their women whisper about it. But I cannot help you, young warrior. My kind are already hated here. Even if we succeeded, I would need to run, or I would die. I told you, the weak must fight smart. This is a bad battle.”

I nodded as though agreeing with her. “It is. Which is why I need you to help me with something else. No killing. I just need your strength. Promise.”

Griselda knelt down till she was eye-level with me. “What do you need?”

“A hammer, and for you to stay the night at the outpost.”