A Sham?

I found nothing.

After the break I had taken that day, 4 months had passed like a blur.

There were about 4 weeks left and I was standing in my chair — my gaze empty.

I had by now long finished reading everyone's journal and had even finished skimming a few bookshelves.

While I had at first resisted it, Mom's order to come eat dinner had boosted my reading rate; allowing me to always restart refreshed.

Putting my mind off it for an hour a day made the remaining time more productive.

Still, despite that, after reading books on botany, books on magic circuits, books on sword training (to see how swordsmen used magic circuits), books on other possible martial arts (for identical reasons), and much more.

Despite all that, I had found NOTHING.

NOTHING to even serve as a hint of a hint.

I was now just sitting there, gazing at nothing in particular.

My eyes unfocused.

This was depressing.

I had gathered lots of knowledge, and the dinner gave me some time to think about it and even try to see how I could apply it.

Take my mind off it? You believed that?.

Even dinner time was just another opportunity to look for answers, always asking at the table for dad's and mom's opinions on what I had read.

They were shocked at first, but after a while, it had just become part of the dinner routine.

My gaze was empty, but this single thought made laps in my mind.

'What do I do? What do I do?'

Time was running out, and the more I researched, the less likely it seemed I would find something.

The premises of despair.

[...]

'It's not over yet.'

'I still have 4 weeks!'

I had read a lot.

And if this had been the way, I would have found something already.

I had exhausted every single book available here that had even the slightest chance of containing information about mana.

The rest being books about manners, politics, and strategy. Things that, while important, were irrelevant to the problem I was trying to solve.

So I'd rack my brain, and reflect.

I had to have missed something!

I closed the book I had in front of me. This was the 47th book I had read these past 5 months.

"Gregoire," I said with a sigh.

"Yes, son of the hound," he replied, he had stopped for a while before coming back to his old habits.

I had gotten used to it by now. It didn't even register anymore.

"Bring me stationery, lots and lots of it.. also from now on, stand outside. Only get in when I call you."

"It shall be done as you've ordered," Gregoire said, before leaving the room to go fetch what I had asked. As he did, I closed my eyes.

Trying to recollect and parse everything I had read these past few months, the different ways mana circuits could form themselves, the theory of why they existed, the elementary theory of core, the way knights used them, the way mages used them, the more complex differences between mages and knights, the botany, the elixirs.. and much more.

Everything that seemed like it might be relevant.

How were they linked? Was there a way to get new insight?

Maybe, just maybe, I'd find something.

I didn't even realize it, but my confidence was shot, everything I now did felt like a stab in the dark.

A few minutes later, Gregoire was there with paper and stationery.

In front of me stood a tower of pristine white paper, and a crow feather with ink, lots and lots of ink.

I smiled as I looked at how he had accomplished his task; always doing everything, I asked with exactitude, following my words to the letter. I could understand why father would like such a man — still, he disgusted me.

After I had excused him, he left me to my own devices.

I drew a piece of paper, rolled my sleeves, and then sat at the table.

"Phew" I sighed "here goes..." hesitating to say the "nothing".

I knew that what would happen to me hinged on whether I succeeded with this last-ditch effort.

#

2 weeks passed like that with no results to show for it, except a pile of torn or scrunched-up pieces of paper scattered all over the floor of the archives. I had kept my promise to mom, still dining at the familiar table, but now I was silent.

It was now night. I was in my makeshift bed, in one corner of the archive, but despite my head being heavy and my eyes weighty, that night I couldn't sleep...

The anxiety at the nearing deadline keeping me awake.

I had to find something, but I didn't want to go seat at that desk; my brain still boiling from today's day of fruitless work.

Not afraid of what would happen to me if I failed, but of the failure itself; that sitting there would be a waste of time.

So I stood and left the room to wander in the manor's hallways.

It was a starless night.

The hallway's light being turned off meant they were also pitch black; I walked through them as effortlessly as I breathed.

It seemed this was a Balmung trait, a natural ability to see in darkness.

I took the time to admire the manor's splendor; its red velvety walls and floor and its intricate ceiling frescoes.

As I walked in contemplation, the despair inside me I had been trying to contain started swelling out.. rearing its ugly head.

'What will happen to me if I can't find it..'

My eyes became blurry, but I reined in my tears.

I was scared.. no terrified; I had spent 4 months and 2 weeks single-mindedly looking for a solution, and I had found nothing to resolve the problem. Mom, dad, the family archives, Gregoire... no one and nothing seemed to have an answer.

I had little hope that the remaining 2 weeks would be any different.

Still, I wouldn't cry. I wouldn't allow myself to cry. The moment I cried meant the moment I admitted defeat. It'd mean it was over.

Before I realized it, I was standing in front of my parents' room.

I overheard Father speaking, ".... I am thinking about making this one, my heir."

Mom listened quietly, before saying, "If this is your decision, then I shall support it, but I'd like you to stop putting that kind of pressure on our first child."

I couldn't see my dad's face as the door was closed, but his mood seemed to sour as even from outside, I could see his energy moving.

"What do you mean pressure?" he said, playing coy, "Cynthia, you know well how hard I tried"

"Why should I waste any more time nurturing this, brok-"

"Nathanael Balmung!" my mom growled in anger

"Don't dare call him that and don't play dumb. You know exactly what I am talking about," she added, seething.

"Urgh.. what a pain, alright? Why should I waste any more time with him? You know he will never amount to anything as a mage... right?" He spoke, enunciating each word with an irritating, nonchalant tone, both seeming as if he was trying to convince her and as if he couldn't care less what she thought.

He had already decided.

And Mom, as if stumped, stopped.

The silence was loud.

Then after a while, she said,

"It pains me to hear such words from his father"

"Yes, I am his father, so what? I am not obligated to waste my time on him, especially since he proved himself to be a disappointment. I am already overwhelmed dealing with all the problems he brought us."

Father then added, with a sigh, "Hear me out. He is not a bad kid. He got a good brain between his ears. No, it wouldn't be farfetched to call him a genius; but what need does a family like us have for the scholars-type, he would be.."

"Nathanael, don't you dare do that," she said, in a threat.

"Argh," he groaned again. "Why are you so damned unreasonable!"

[...]

'Ah,' I thought as I powerlessly approached the door, and touched it as if this act would change reality somehow.

'He had already given up.'

I thought as I tried again to choke the tears in my throat.

'I will be thrown away...'

'I am a bother'

All the emotions I had tried to keep in check for the sake of focus were surging, and my vision kept getting blurrier and blurrier. I wiped my eyes and forced a smile.

'N-n-no this has to be a dream... yes that's it, dad wouldn't say that.'

'this is a nightmare! Yes,'

I closed my eyes and opened them again.

Nothing had changed.

I closed my eyes and opened them again.

Nothing

'Why!'

'Why aren't I waking up?' As I tried desperately to prove I was dreaming, mom started talking again.

"Then if not as a father, as my husband and lover, this is the first request I ever made to you, and this shall be the last. Please don't send him to them."

She seemed extremely confident that he would yield to her wish if her request was formulated this way.

'Them? who is them?'

The aura exuding from Father increased twofold.

Making me buckle against the door; causing a slight shriek of the door.

They thankfully ignored this, as I wasn't the only thing to flounder and make noise.

"What you are forcing him to go through at such a young age is unacceptable. You know there's no way he'd find something in that sham archive of yours!" she said, before composing herself.

At these words, dad's aura increased again, but I didn't care in the slightest, my brain too rattled to realize I was slowly crumbling.

I froze as I tried to compute what she had just said.

'...'

'sham?'

'what?'

The aura he was exuding seemed paltry compared to the impact of this sudden news. I fell to my knees. My legs losing any semblance of strength.

Before I could recover, she continued.

"I have little care for your politics, but how can you be so merciless to your own son?"

She added, not backing down in front of the silent threat.

"Leave it to a woman to be emotional about the future of our family," He said with a voice full of mockery and a tinge of frustration, conveniently avoiding the subject of the archives.

"YOU!" she answered, aggravated.

"Aaargh, what do you even want me to do with this child?" He said, obviously not expecting such a violent reaction from his wife.

"You fool..." she said voice showing hints of anger subsiding, replaced with disappointment.

"I am a mother. I will do whatever is in my power to protect him, and this one in my womb"

"Still, it pains me that since that day you stopped seeing yourself as his father," she said.

My dad didn't seem to expect such an asinine answer as he chuckled for a while before attempting to string together a coherent response.

She didn't let him do so, as she soon added with words as sharp as a razor's edge under a neck's throat.

"I begrudgingly accepted this marriage of ours as even though I knew there was no love involved, I cared little for my clan's survival despising their ways, however, that day as I saw you talk and banter with your men, you seemed to differ from all these senseless dark mages that see everyone, including their children as only pawns"

Father's aura deflated but still stayed strong.

"I thought you were a man of virtue. You even treated me quite well, and I thought I was right about you. It was quite well known that you were and still are a warmonger... so I was satisfied with just that."

Father's aura deflated further as he stammered to defend himself.

"I wasn't foolish enough to think you kind, but I thought that you'd still take care of your own blood."

With these words, I could hear her stand up from the bed and walk towards the door.

"It seems I was wrong"

The pressure evaporated. as if it had never been there in the first place.

My legs still too limp to stand, say nothing of running, I crawled in a hurry out of the way, my thoughts in disarray... as the door of their room opened, mother stepped out in a gown carrying a light ball, her appearance as proper as ever, but her usual gentle and smiling face contorted in a terrifying scowl.

She didn't see me, she couldn't see me. With the omnipresent darkness only slightly illuminated by the object in her hands, as well as the door of their room serving as cover, there was no way she could see me.

Dad from inside the room asked the now gone Cynthia, suddenly growing a spine and appearing for the first time ever pathetic, "Then what's your bright idea!? Uh!"

This whole time, I laid there trying my best to hide my breathing.

I stood there as if dead.

##

I didn't sleep that night.

I didn't want to accept it. There was no way it was true, right?

There was no way dad would talk so casually about shipping me to god-knows-where.

There was no way... right?

Still, a part of me believed it. Knew it was entirely possible. Knew it was the fate that was waiting for me if I didn't find an answer.

I had now not even 2 weeks to go. And after probably hundreds of scratched hypotheses, trying my best to make sense of what I had read, and to think of what could be done. I had finally exhausted everything.

That day, I stared at the blank page for the whole day.

My hand paralyzed.

Unable to draw or write.

I realized I didn't know enough that despite having read day in and day out for the past 4 months to fix this core of mine; I hadn't even begun scratching the surface.

This dire fate... the upcoming shipment...

It was looking more and more unavoidable.

I didn't know when it would happen; I didn't even know what it would entail, but I knew that once it happened I'd stop being a Balmung.

I silently cried as I held my head. Tears flowing out uncontrollably while I tried desperately to keep it straight.

"He had asked Gregoire to lead me to the archives"

"I had toiled here, reporting to him my results and discussing almost every day.."

"And you're telling me these archives were a sham all along?"

"Hahahahahahaha," I started laughing uncontrollably as tears streamed from my eyes. I wasn't sad.

No, that was a lie. I was oh so miserable, but more than that, I felt anger.

"Hahahahaha," I laughed as the tears surging from my eyes flowed down my lips, finally adding something to the blank piece of paper.

"Hahahahaha.." I finally laid my head on the desk, staring emptily at the bookshelves. These bookshelves were a sham, a pretense. In the best-case scenario, real archives existed somewhere, but in the worst, this whole idea of family archives had been a lie.

"YOU DAMNED LIAR!" I said, swiping the innocent paper and stationery off the desk, sending ink splashing around the place and paper flying.

I contemplated.

I'd bet everything on the second option. After all, it was the only option I had left.

"Yes, yes yes! That's it! There's no way dad would lie to me.. yes it was a test!"

I stood up, trying my best to cover the unease still strong in my heart.

"Yes, they knew I would come that night, HE knew… it's Father after all if it's that everything makes sense. Yes, he was trying to help me. I will find the secret archives!" I said.

"Yes, I will do it," I said, knowing full well this was merely wishful thinking.

After that, there was no more reading and no more writing.

Every day was a desperate search for some kind of hint towards a secret room. Ringing the walls everywhere my tiny body could reach, and then asking for Gregoire's help for widening the range of exploration. Rechecking attentively every bookshelf one by one, displacing books and looking for buttons or some kind of mechanism that could be activated. At some point, I even asked Gregoire to throw me atop the tallest one, which he did, to his greatest displeasure.

From there, I could see the rest of the shelves from the top. I verified if there wasn't there something I could activate. Something, anything!

Quickly, the remaining time I had came to an end.

"Hahaha... I failed." I said, finally defeated.

I had tried everything; I had searched everywhere; I had moved everything, even the shelves themselves... Nothing was amiss. Nothing of note. Nothing, except an odd moon-shaped symbol.

A symbol that I had never seen, and that, while intriguing, solved nothing.

Now.

It was really over.

I had truly exhausted everything, and even if I hadn't, I didn't have time anymore.

'I am un-fixable.'