Chapter 2 Growing up in Skyholme

After I was born, I was frustrated. My thoughts were slow and cloudy. I had my past knowledge, but it was hard to grasp and hold onto. It was like remembering the plot of a book you did not like reading from years ago. I also had to work hard at acting as baby-like as possible. Let me just say I was not a fan of soiling my diaper and crying when I was hungry.

When my eyes developed enough, I was able to see my family. My father, Caleb, was a solid man of above-average height and musculature, and I figured out he was a town or city guard by his dark gray uniform. He wore his black hair in a short ponytail, and his blue eyes seemed hard to me. I did not see the liveliness in his eyes that my mother had.

My mother, Alurha, looked average but had amazing blue-green eyes that sparkled. Her dark blonde hair was worn as a long braid, and her brilliant white smile was always there when she looked at me. My mother was a leather engraver. She was an artist and specialized in cutting images into leather pieces. I also had an older brother, Pascal, who was about three years my senior.

I quickly comprehended the language as my older brother was building his vocabulary. I listened to his inquiries with intensity. I grew up soaking in everything I could. I quickly gained movement, crawling, then walking. I learned the language extremely quickly. I started talking around six months, and by six years old, I had a good handle on my new existence, and everyone commented what a bright boy I was.

I was named Storme. Apparently, I was born during a lightning storm while a flight of lightning drakes was attacking the island. I heard the story of my birth every time she introduced me. I learned many things. Skyholme was comprised mainly of eight large floating islands. The largest was the central island, and that is where most of the nobility and high-born lived. The other seven islands each had their regional specialty as well. Our island, Titan's Shield, trained soldiers, supplied armor and arms, and had a minor agricultural development focused on grains that produced bread and beer. Large airships and skyships transported people and goods between the islands.

Our small town was named Hen's Hollow. Our small town was over one mile outside one of the cities and had a single skyship dock where my father worked. My father was a guard for skyship transports but usually spent his day at our tiny local dock checking passengers and goods—not that we saw many skyships.

The history of the Skyholme empire was mostly told through song. Singing was a pastime everyone contributed to. The floating islands were once a single large island about 3000 years ago and were ruled by an arrogant avian race called the Haikarum. The large island had moved in a massive circular orbit over the lowlands, tracing a prominent aether ley line.

An archmage from the Haikarum tried to draw the power of the ley line into the island, which caused the catastrophic shattering of the massive island. The remains of the Haikarum civilization were rocked into disarray, and a group of adventuring humans in an old airship conquered the islands. They killed the Haikarum without mercy. Of course, the songs we sang about their deeds made their genocide sound heroic.

The various islands still followed the same path today, but no magic could pull the islands back together. They were locked in their orbits. The adventurers from the original airship soon started a settlement and that grew into the nation of Skyholme over a few hundred years. The Skyholme of today now controlled the eight largest islands and a few of the smaller fractured islands.

The Triumvirate, the heads of the three prominent noble families, ruled Skyholme. Each of these three families had dozens of members, but a maximum of 23 was recognized in each true line of succession. The internal politics were supposedly brutal based on the adults' conversations in my presence.

Each family of the Triumvirate was in charge of one aspect of life in Skyholme; commerce, military, or citizenship. The commerce faction was involved in all aspects of harvesting, dungeon delving, manufacturing, and trade. But it was the citizenship faction that had the true power. They controlled the people through laws, education, and immigration. The military faction was focused on training the city guard, navy, and battle mages. They were responsible for raiding, defending, and guarding Skyholme.

Even though the Skyholme Empire was apparently xenophobic, they still had an interesting military unit that was surrounded by mystique. They were a werewolf half-breed that looked more human than werewolf. They were sterile, long-lived, and had superior physical skills, but most importantly, they had a high degree of loyalty if raised in a structured system. These warriors were called the Wolfguard.

I once saw a Wolfguard on Titan's Shield when I was four years old and in the city with my father. He looked more human than wolfman but moved like an observant predator, and my blood chilled when he made eye contact with me. I later learned he was guarding a minor noble working for the military faction. They were visiting the local academy to select men and women to train in the naval academy on the capital island.

The academies were where every child went in their 14th year. You first completed a local one-year academy and then entered a seven-year specialized academy. You could also pass on entering the academy and enter an apprenticeship with a master in a trade as my mother had done. After you complete your seven-year academy training, you will be 22 and have completed internships and education to be a contributing member of society; sometimes, you will have some debt to pay off. Not so different than my past life.

Magic also played a significant role in which academy you went to. If you had magic, someone would sponsor you to attend a better academy. Magic would manifest with puberty around age 11 or 12 when your aether core awakened. I was looking forward to my coming of age, where I could start to access the magic and abilities I knew were coming to me.

I began playing regularly with children in my neighborhood at the age of six. My best friend lived two houses down and was named Gareth. He was a few months younger than me but looked two years older. It was easy to tell he would be a very large man. I took advantage of my time with Gareth, forging a lifelong friendship.

Gareth and I delivered food, messages, and items in town to earn a few coins. We made good money for kids and quickly became known in town for our speed and reliability. I also learned the currency. Steel, copper, silver, gold, platinum, mithril, and adamantine coins existed. Each coin was the size of a penny, and 100 steel equaled 1 copper, 100 copper to 1 silver, 100 silver to 1 gold, 100 gold to 1 platinum, 10 platinum to 1 mithril, and 10 mithril to 1 adamantine. Steel coins were only utilized outside the cities as they could not buy much. Each metal also had a large coin called a ten-piece. A ten-piece was also called a 'large coin' for short.

For our delivery work, we started making 30 to 40 steel coins per delivery and, on good days, could pull in a few coppers each. When Gareth and I reached our 10th birthday, we had more freedom, and we sometimes even had a delivery to the city, which was just over a mile away. We earned a few coppers for the extra effort on those treks.

We usually would spend half our income on food and drink to replenish our energy. Our one luxury item was a pair of fishing poles. The wide stream that was outside of town had a fair number of small fish, and on a good afternoon, we could catch enough for our family with extra to sell at the local pub in Hen's Hollow.

Gareth became a loyal companion, and we spent our mornings studying with a few local kids under Gareth's mother, who was a scribe. We learned letters and numbers to prepare us for entering the academy. Most of our day was spent running errands.

It was a happy time for me, reliving my childhood. My older brother had his own crew, and they played at being soldiers, getting ready for the academy. I also now had a younger sister, Freya, three years my junior, who tried to tag along with Gareth and me. We allowed her to follow along on our deliveries and adventures as long as we were not going to the city.

The World Sphere was very different from Earth. The first odd thing was the day-night cycle. Every day was identical; days, as close as I could tell, were 23 hours long. We had 13 hours of daylight, 9 hours of twilight split between morning and dusk, and one hour of semi-darkness. The central sun had some dark zones, accounting for the lighting changes based on its rotation.

There were 23 also planets that rotated the sun as well. When a planet did eclipse the sun, it was usually marking a certain special event. There were 12 months, each with 35 days and a five-day holiday 'week' not included in the months to celebrate the past year and the coming year. My math made the entire year have 9,775 hours. On Earth, a year has 8,760 hours. So one year in the sphere was 42 days longer than on Earth.

The second odd thing was the fog and haze. The mornings almost always had a few hours of mist, like we were stuck in a cloud. I assumed this had something to do with our altitude. The third thing about the World Sphere was the sky itself. It looked like a pastel painting of greens, blues, whites, browns, and yellows. It was definitely pretty amazing to gaze on, and I never got sick of looking at it, wondering about all the life and action happening in that marvelous prismatic sky stretching infinitely.

The only respite I had from my childhood was the city's bookstore. Every sixth or seventh day, I would make it to the city on delivery with Gareth and borrow a book on magic theory for a week for a few hard-earned coppers. Developing a good enough relationship with the bookstore owner, Wigand, took me a while.

Without access to aether, I just read the theory and puzzled out basic spell forms. Magic itself was fairly rare. Only one in nine people had enough aptitude and a large enough aether core to learn and cast multiple spells. Abilities were much more common.

I knew I had a large aether reservoir in my future. In my readings, I found abilities were documented up to tier 3. Tier 4 abilities were considered rare, tier 5 was considered a generational talent in Skyholme. Well, tier 6 had no recorded instances in the Skyholme Empire that I could find in my youth. Personally, I planned to keep all my abilities secret.

Spell books were very expensive, and I had my sights set on three tier 1 spells to purchase after I awakened.

Cleanliness, remove all dirt from clothes, skin and hair

Mend Flesh, repair damaged tissue

Obfuscate Abilities, shield abilities from inspection abilities and spells

The first one was cheap for a spell book at seven gold and was considered a tier 1 spell, but it was extremely complicated. It was a channeled spell, meaning the amount of dirt removed and cleaning determined the total aether cost. A spellbook was the size of a magazine containing 20 thick canvas pages, but fortunately, the pages only had writing on one side.

The second spell, mend flesh, was also a tier 1 healing spell, but the spell book was typically an astonishing 34 gold. I only found references to the final spell in my readings, and I figured I would have to obtain it on the capital island. It was a passive spell that required a constant minor expense of aether. There was no cost listed for the spell in the store catalog, but I guessed it would be over 100 gold. This was more because of government control than the spell being rare.

I also learned from my books that my assess person ability was slightly different for each person. It could give the name, age, sex, race, and relative state of health, or some other similar scope of knowledge of the inspected person. I would have to wait to see what my ability would tell me.

My aether core formed a few days after my 12th birthday, and my magic finally emerged. I awoke sweaty and feverish. It seemed I immediately vomited the contents of my stomach and the previous week's worth of meals. Or at least that is what it felt like to me. I wanted to keep my core secret, so I suffered alone for hours alone in my tiny room. Like a second heart, I could feel the core when my body acclimated. Instead of circulating blood to my body, it circulated aether. I was one step closer to obtaining magic.