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I arrived at my destination to find powerful defensive mana walls surrounding it, preventing any entry.
This was an impressive installation. It would be normal to expect something like this around the property of a powerful and wealthy mage in Relador, or surrounding the grounds of a royal retreat, but it was beyond anything a reasonable person should expect in Atius.
A seamless magic shield entirely encompassed the vineyards, produce farm, pastures, barns, stables and residential compound of a noble estate, perfectly sealing it in. And since I knew the designer, I wasn’t about to test it.
I also didn’t want to frighten the innocent workers within. When I flew over, I could see work proceeding normally despite the unsettled conditions outside the estate. The blooming period was over in the vineyard, and workers were hard at work among the rows of vine trellises, thinning the grape clusters. The stables hold many draft horses, not only to pull the owner’s carriages, but also for the working vehicles of the estate. Stablehands were putting some of them through their paces in the paddock.
Since I couldn’t enter, I landed on the road outside the entrance, ostensibly an ornate but robust ironwork gate, although, in reality, it would fall to pieces when touched by its fairy owner if it were really constructed of iron. It was actually a dwarven-made imitation crafted from far more durable materials, as was the boundary fence surrounding the grounds. After contemplating it for a bit, I walked up to the right hand brick column of the arch over the entrance to inspect it up close and confirmed that even the summoning bell on the column was inaccessible.
There did not seem to be any other means to request admittance. I sighed and walked to the middle of the gate, then focused my spiritual voice as gently as possible on the main building.
Attention, good caretakers of the Pendor estate. The daughter of this house has returned. She is at the front gate and would like to enter.
Naturally, I heard no reply. Although I had encountered multiple people who could use it in recent weeks, it is not actually a common ability.
Instead, after a short wait, I saw a mass of Dark mana in the shape of a large raven winging its way up the drive. It looked a lot like my [Blood Tracker] spell in its daylight form, but I saw no pneuma within it, so it wasn’t blood magic. Once it landed on the other side of the gate from me, I saw that it was more than double the size of my spell, though. As a living bird, it would probably weigh more than three pounds.
After turning its head sideways to stare at me with an enormous jet-black eye, it let out a loud raven’s cry, fluttered its wings, then dissolved into free mana.
A moment later, the portion of the shield within the entrance archway disappeared and the gate swung open. I took this as a welcome and walked through, then grew my wings. The path from the entrance to the mansion, far in the distance, was an elm-lined parkway that would require quite a hike on foot. Both in my own visits since coming to Huade and in the original Tiana’s memory, this route had always involved riding in a carriage.
I realized as I approached the mansion that the speed at which I was covering that distance was going to catch the staff unprepared. They were in the middle of trooping out the door to array themselves in reception lines. I held up and hovered to give them a chance to finish. Once the last maid made it into position, I came in for my landing.
This was the first time most of the employees were seeing me dressed out as a fairy knight, and very possibly the first time seeing me with my wings grown. I was displaying far more skin than a self-respecting duke’s daughter would show, so I wouldn’t have blamed them for being shocked, but all I noticed were awestruck faces. My fairy knight image seemed to be winning out over my noble daughter identity.
“Welcome Home, Young Mistress!” they greeted me in unison.
Tiana had always wondered how they managed to perfectly coordinate the greeting without any visible or audible cue. I still don’t know.
I pretended not to notice their gazes and walked to the end of the lines, where Carson and Benedetta would have normally waited. Benedetta the Head Maid and Housekeeper was not present, but Carson the Butler was holding court there, as dignified as always.
He bowed, Orestanian-style (sweeping his right hand in front of his abdomen while trailing his left backward), and declared, “Welcome home, Young Mistress.”
“It’s good to be back, Mr. Carson. Please rise.”
He did so, pausing as he was still leaning forward to say in low tones, “Please save any questions about Her Grace until we’re in private, Young Mistress.”
I controlled my expression, but the trouble he had taken to say such a thing worried me.
Glancing around, I noted, “Your wife is not present?”
Benedetta and Carson are a married couple, and neither is human. The pair of Dark elementals served my father for centuries before serving my mother, so I thought of them as more-or-less permanent fixtures in the estate.
“She has gone to fetch your lady’s maid, Young Mistress,” he said with a slight curl to his lips. He was probably anticipating the mystification that I failed to keep off my face.
He then told a maid nearby, “Escort Young Mistress to her suite and help her refresh herself.”
“Hang on,” I said, holding up my hand. “We have something to take care of, first.”
Carson looked a little caught off-guard. He collected himself and said, “What may I help you with, Young Mistress?”
I looked over my shoulder at all the maids, footmen and others still stuck in their receiving lines. “It will take a few minutes, so you should dismiss them.”
“Ah…” he nodded, then turned to them and clapped twice. The lines broke up, then he turned back to me.
I pointed upward at the shield. “I take it this defensive magic is due to rebel attacks?”
He nodded gravely. “While the rebels held the capital, the Provincial Guard attempted to take control of the estate several times. It seems the pretender has declared Her Grace a traitor.”
The Atianus provincial guard had been under Parna’s control before his rebellion. Those that remained loyal to him were still using the name, so troops who went over to Owen had reorganized into something called The King’s Own Atian Guard.
He added. “They could not penetrate Her Grace’s shield. Even though they went so far as to send fairies once.”
I smiled at that. A defense built by Mother wasn’t going to fall so easily, of course. But then I frowned. “So everyone has been stuck inside here since the rebellion began?”
It was a luxurious, large estate, but anywhere you’re stuck inside becomes a prison, eventually.
“Our supplies will last for an extended time, Young Mistress,” he reassured me. “We have our own produce, dairy and poultry, as well. And His Majesty sent an army escort a few weeks ago to allow the employees to make a market trip for personal needs. But the rebels still raid this far north, and they seem to regard this estate as a symbolic target, so we keep the defenses up.”
Given what had happened to Owen, I could understand that. But I said, “Can the defense open to allow an aircraft in?”
He blinked. “An airship, Young Mistress?”‘
Waving my hand in negation, I said, “Not one of those big airliners. It should be small enough to land anywhere with an open field. The front lawn should do.”
He nodded. “With a fairy knight on-hand to take care of any threats, I can certainly open the shield temporarily.”
“Thank you,” I replied with a smile, then turned away from him and touched the stone pendant on my chest. “Lucy, come out, please.”
She popped into view and declared, “Out!”
Carson grew a deeply befuddled frown at the miniaturized pixie in front of me. I suppressed a giggle and told her, “Please call Matthias, Lucy.”
“Yes!” she chirped. After several seconds, the old sage’s voice came through.
“Is this My Lady Tiana calling?”
“It is, Uncle Matthias,” I answered. “I was told that you would reach Atius this evening.”
“We are about two hours out, My Lady,” he reported.
I scowled. That was close to sundown.
“Where are you planning to put down?”
“We’ve been discussing a number of candidates, but we haven’t yet decided,” he admitted.
I nodded. It was as I expected.
“You’ll put down at Mother’s estate,” I declared, as a closed subject, then spent some time discussing the details. Once we were done, I nodded to Carson.
“I’ll have that bath now,” I told him. “With a light snack. Please expect to feed His Highness the Second Prince and his retinue when they arrive. I shall delay my full dinner so I can host His Highness.”
Carson, who had been fondly observing the little girl of the estate acting all grown up, with eyes like a proud grandfather, immediately snapped into a more professional mode.
“The Second Prince?”
“Yes. Along with Sage Matthias and an uncertain number of retainers.”
I realized that I should have asked Matthias exactly how many would show up. Lucy had already begun flying around to investigate this new place, or I would have told her to reconnect with him.
Carson turned and gave orders to two passing maids, sending them to relay those orders to the chef and the housekeeping staff, then gave a sharp nod to the maid who was still standing by, waiting to bring me to my bath.
Bathing and grooming then predictably took over the next hour and a half of my life, as the maid brigade snapped right back into their Young Mistress routine as if I had never been gone.
Before I left for school, I hated this part, where I could not do anything on my own, but for some reason, it did not seem so bad, this time. I could relax and let a squad of dedicated professionals attend to my body, buffing and polishing me to perfection while making sure all the tension and fatigue was massaged out of my body.
I hadn’t thought about it before, but now I found myself remembering my mother on Earth and her one true luxury, a four-times-per-year visit at a luxury spa to have all the trials and tribulations of single motherhood pampered away. I felt like I finally understood why she spent her precious spare dollars on something like this.
My snack, which I took in my solarium while soaking up sunlight and letting the maids dress my hair, became time for a debate over what I would wear. Naturally, having learned that my fiancé would be arriving, they wanted to dress me in the fanciest dinner wear and finest jewels, while I, a knight currently on duty, wanted to wear my duty uniform.
The compromise, if it can be called one, was that I would wear that insufferable Court Formal uniform designed by Mother. But when the maids tried to replace my spirit stone necklace with a beautiful sapphire pendant, I explained the stone by summoning Lucy’s avatar and introducing her.
After Durandal was strapped to my waist, the maid brigade led me in front of the mirror. I shook my head as I viewed the final result, with my half-up hair falling onto one bare shoulder and my gold-braid aiguillette decorating the other, and a distressingly small quantity of cloth covering my upper body. The bodice that only clung to my front via magic still felt more than a little too revealing to me– my back was bare down to below my waist!– but the maids gave the completed outfit a standing ovation.
As I stared at my well-displayed cleavage, I reminded myself that the Victorian styling of the clothing in the capital does not actually conform to Victorian morals. Women at the beach use bikinis and one-pieces in this country, after all. The clothing is similarly more revealing. Imagine Versailles. Now go a bit farther.
And so dressed, I stood with Carson and an array of maids, footmen and house knights on the front drive, observing as Carson’s technicians opened the defensive shield in one section of the perimeter to admit the approaching aircraft.
As it drew closer, I almost lost control of my lower jaw. A very familiar shape was coming into view, accompanied by a squadron of five fairy warriors.
I focused upon the mind of the craft’s only other pilot that I knew about, and sent, Dilorè? Are you piloting my aircraft right now?
I am indeed, Your Highness, she replied immediately. We’ll be landing shortly.
