’Shit. My head’s pounding. What happened?’
The eyelids came up about halfway and stuck there, and the last thing he had was a field, and rain, and a hole in the ground with a stranger in it.
Not a stranger. Somebody he had known for eighteen years and had never met.
’Did I pass out?’
He got an elbow under himself and started working his way off the bed, because whatever this was, cold water on his face was the first thing he was going to throw at it.
He got about halfway.
Then his body quit on him, and so did his head, and the memories came up all at once like water finding a crack.
Eighteen years of them. A house, a name, a father, a sickroom. The taste of a medicine he had never drunk. The sound of a door being closed quietly by servants who thought he was asleep.
And a phrase that came attached to all of it, worn smooth from use.
’Adrien Clairmont. The coreless one. That’s what they called you. Eighteen years old and still hasn’t woken a mana core.’
He sat on the edge of the bed with both hands on his knees and let it finish arriving.
’So this is one of those. Manhwas. The novels I used to read to fall asleep. Fantastic.’
His knees had gone out from under him once already today, so he took the second attempt slower, and this time they held.
The room was the first thing he had ever seen and he knew every inch of it.
High ceiling, tall shuttered window, a fireplace big enough to stand in. The furniture had been good once and had been repaired more than once. There was a rug on the floor that would have cost a car.
He went to the door and looked out at a corridor that ran further than the light did.
’Thirty rooms. Maybe more.’
Three floors of it. Halls at both ends. Gardens outside, walled, and past the gardens a training ground with the posts still standing, and past that the land went up.
Mountains. The kind that do not politely stop.
Greymoor.
The Clairmonts had built this place to get away from things, which was a joke the family had stopped making about four generations ago, because nobody with a choice takes a holiday in a valley where the things that live in the high ground come down when they get hungry.
And now it was all they had.
’A few days ago they killed your father. For treason.’ He leaned his shoulder against the door frame while the shutters rattled. ’I’d love to know what actually happened there. And if this is the only thing they left us, then honestly, it’s a big enough scrap.’
He knew better while he was thinking it, because the memories came with a map attached.
He knew what House Clairmont used to hold. He could see it. Towns, roads, a river crossing that made money on its own, and a border that the kingdom had trusted to one family for six generations.
All of it signed away in a fortnight by men who had never come here in their lives.
’Right. Enough sightseeing. There’s a problem, and it’s a big one.’
He pushed off the frame.
’Three days. That’s what the man in black said. My father named me head of House Clairmont with the last thing he ever said, and in three days there’s an assessment, and if I fail it the house goes back to the Crown and gets carved up among the same people who carved up the rest.’
He worked that through to the end, and the end was short.
’And a lord with no house and no core is a loose thread. Somebody would tidy me up inside a month.’
He stood there for a second and did not move at all.
’Not a chance. I’m not doing that twice. It wasn’t a pleasant experience the first time and I’ve no interest in the sequel.’
There was a mirror on the wall by the washstand, and he finally went and had a look at what he had been handed.
Grey eyes. Black hair, long enough to be untidy, and when the light from the shutters caught it the black went almost silver at the edges. Good bones. A face somebody would have put on a poster.
And under it, a body that had been fed by people who did not think it was going to need much.
’Huh. I look like a model. A model who hasn’t eaten in a year, but still.’ He turned his chin an inch and considered the effect. ’Fine. I’ll be using this face going forward.’
The door opened behind him.
Three people came in and he knew all three before the first one had finished crossing the threshold.
Evelyne Clairmont came first, and the woman had not slept. She was tall and she carried herself like the walls were watching, and there was a grey streak at her temple that the memories said had not been there last spring. She had the soft voice from the graveside, and she had it under control now, which took work.
"You’re up."
"Apparently."
Behind her came his sister.
Ariane was fifteen and had the same black hair tied back out of the way, and she came into the room in boots that had been outside recently. Her sleeves were pushed up. There was a bruise coming out along one forearm that she had not bothered to cover.
She had woken her core at eleven. Four years ago. The memories were very clear about the day, mostly because of how quiet the house had gone afterward.
She stopped three paces inside the door and folded her arms.
"So he’s alive. Good. Now we only have the other problem."
"Ariane."
"What? He fainted, Mother. At the funeral. In front of Arquenay." She did not look at Adrien while she said it, which he noted. "They were still laughing about it in the yard this morning. One of them asked whether the assessor should bring smelling salts."
"That’s enough."
"It isn’t nearly enough, and everybody in this house knows it."
The third one came in last and shut the door behind him.
Garrick was built like something you would put in a wall to hold the wall up, grey through the beard, and he came across the room on a right leg that he kept out of the way. He stopped at a distance that was exactly correct and inclined his head.
"My lord. You had us worried."
"How long was I out?"
"A day and a night." Evelyne came further into the room and stopped herself from putting a hand on his forehead, which took visible effort. "You went down in the rain and we brought you back on a board. The physician says exhaustion. The physician says a great many things and charges for all of them."
She said the next part with her voice completely level, which was how he knew what it had cost her.
"It’s in two days now, Adrien. Not three."
Ariane made a small noise from over by the door.
"Two days," she said. "For a man who’s failed it twice."
Garrick’s head came round. "Young lady."
"I’m not being cruel, I’m being useful. Somebody in this room has to say the actual number out loud." Her arms came tighter. "Father named him. Fine. Father is dead and he named the son who has never held mana in his life, and in two days a Crown assessor walks into this hall and writes down what we are, and we all get to stand there and watch."
The room did not have an answer for that, because there was not one.
Evelyne turned back to him with her hands folded in front of her.
"Adrien, I don’t want you out of that bed before the assessor comes. I’ll handle the rest of it, whatever the rest of it turns out to be. I only want you to..."
"Don’t worry, Mother."
He said it looking at the mirror, and not at any of the three of them.
"I’ll wake it."
Ariane laughed at him. It came out before she could stop it, and to her credit she looked like she wished it had not.
Adrien watched her do it in the glass, and did not take it personally, because two days ago he would have laughed too.
’Two days. Alright. Let’s find out how this world is put together.’
...
AN: Add the novel to collections and send support if like it ;)