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As I settled into a small ditch behind thick shrubbery, I found myself glad for the lack of discipline that had been plaguing the guards since my grandfather’s illness turned serious, and my uncle took over the estate for all practical purposes. 

My grandfather had never allowed such a mistake that might allow infiltrators easy access to our compound until he turned completely bedridden. He might be a difficult — impossible — person to deal with, but his effectiveness was never in doubt. 

Watching the alertness and the efficiency of the guards slip further and further while my uncle spent most of his time in the provincial capital had been difficult, but right now, I was happy about that particular slip. 

I took a deep breath, focusing on my chest. To be more exact, I focused on the four little orbs that were rotating around my heart, each representing one type of elemental mana, clamping over them to to prevent detection. Spurius might be a detestable, lazy mage who could barely use a couple of spells of his chosen element that didn’t deserve the rank of Guard Captain…

But, he was still a mage, and it came with some advantages that no skill could cover directly. The inarguably greatest advantage in that small list was to channel his mana outside his body. His chosen element — air — made him particularly good in noticing the presence of the others. 

I had no chance of staying hidden if he noticed my presence. I disappeared into the bush, ignoring the discomfort as the smaller branches dug into my skin. 

They passed near me, unaware of my presence, but some of their words reached my ear. “… find him, or I’m going to teach you all what it means to fail your master at such a critical juncture …” Those words were enough to send my thoughts careening in an unpleasant direction.  

I refused to go in that direction. 

The reasonable thing was to assume that whatever the guards had been talking about had nothing to do with me, reveal myself, and try to enter the compound. A slightly more cautious, but almost as comfortable choice was to go to my cave and stay there until the morning. 

Even as I thought about them, I could hear my grandfather’s voice admonishing me for daring to ignore the importance of proper intelligence on the battlefield. Calling what was supposed to be my home a battlefield hurt — though not as much as the possibility I refused to even consider — but it was the truth. 

I had never been particularly happy or welcome in the Scipio compound, but it was nothing to the treatment I received after my grandfather’s chronic illness took a turn for the worse. Warmth had never been a common part of my childhood, but casual dismissal was still better than outright hostility. 

“Focus,” I muttered softly, imagining what my grandfather would say for daring to speak to me while sneaking around. “I will hear that complaint again,” I spoke even as I carefully approached the compound, thinking that it would be just a bout of pointless paranoia because of my grandfather’s unhinged teachings.  

I was already preparing my complaints about his style of raising me. Complaints that I would be able to use soon. 

Definitely. 

I carefully circled around the compound, far away from the main gate, and started digging. After passing a layer of small dirt, the rest of the tunnel was filled with branches to keep it from collapsing. I removed them as well, and used the tunnel I had prepared three years ago. 

The clear dislike I  had experienced in the compound led me to create a hidden tunnel leading out for emergencies. Though, while I was creating it, I certainly wasn’t planning to use it the other way. 

I ignored the irony of my situation as I snuck inside using the tunnel, doing my best to stay unnoticed. Not a great challenge thanks to the lack of discipline that defined the Scipio compound during the last year, but tonight, it looked even easier. 

Dinner time was never the calmest time of the compound … well, at least whenever my uncle stayed at the compound rather than the house at Londinium. He liked to hold feasts for his friends, ignoring how badly it buckled the already limited coffers of House Scipio. 

I never cared about my uncle’s spendthrift ways. Ultimately, I was a bastard. I stuck around due to a complicated relationship with my grandfather, who was the current Patriarch of the family, but there was nothing between deep dislike between me and my uncle. He claimed that he hated me because I took his precious sister during my birth. Knowing him, the only thing that he had valued about my late mother was a chance to build a marriage alliance. 

Ironically, tonight, I didn’t feel any dislike toward the preparations of the fancy feast. It meant that the worst hadn’t happened. 

Even my cold-blooded uncle wouldn’t have held a feast on the night of his father’s death. 

I looked back to the tunnel, preparing to leave the compound silently. Spending the night in my cave while guards searched me was a good way to take revenge. As for why they had been searching for me,  I didn’t care much. Occasionally, my uncle dragged me to those feasts … but always as the entertainment. 

Often, I had to duel with the sons of his friends or business partners. Those fights, I expected to lose, often in a humiliating fashion, which was a good way to stroke the ego of his business partners. Losing those duels was inevitable. My opponents were often actual mages. Poor and unskilled ones, were raised to that rank through spending a considerable fortune than actual skill, but that didn’t matter. 

An apprentice mage couldn’t win a duel against an actual mage. 

A fight to the death, on the other hand… 

I shrugged dismissively. Ultimately, that was a pointless discussion. I wouldn’t kill someone during a duel, and more importantly, I wouldn’t reveal all my tricks in front of my uncle. It was better for him to underestimate me. 

It would make my eventual departure easier. 

I looked at the tunnel, but then the opposite side, my grandfather resided, away from the commotion.  As in, a full mile away. 

There were a lot of disadvantages to living in Britannia, but there was one big advantage. Land was cheap, which allowed the nobles to build pointlessly large compounds in an effort to show off against their visitors. In the past, my grandfather lived at the house at the center, but he chose to move to a house at the edge of the compound once his sickness got worse. 

Servants stayed away from the there, as even at the best of times, he hadn’t been a jovial person, let alone in his frustrated state. 

I decided to bring Lion’s Bane to his residence before leaving the compound again. I didn’t want to damage it as I dragged it along. Fragile and poisonous was a frustrating combination. 

However, before starting to move forward, I turned inward, testing to see if I could hold on despite the tightness in my chest.  

Suppressing the four elemental cores was a very useful trick to hide my presence, but it came with a big drawback. It caused an uncomfortable strain, not unlike trying to hang onto a rock on the side of a cliff. Easy at first, getting more and more difficult with every minute. I was lucky that I still had a long way to go before they completed their development, as the stronger they got, the harder to keep them suppressed. 

When my grandfather first taught me that trick, I could keep them suppressed for a full day. Now, I was lucky to keep them suppressed for more than an hour before strain turned into pain. 

I decided that I hold without a problem for several minutes, which should be enough to visit my grandfather and leave. I had snuck around the compound enough times to have a route in mind. It would be even easier with the servants busy with the feast. 

One big disadvantage of a large compound. It required a small army of servants and slaves to keep it operating properly … a small army that a near-bankrupt noble family in exile couldn’t afford. Meaning, that while the servants were busy preparing the feast, the other parts of the compound were conveniently empty. 

I moved forward without being accosted, the relative darkness making it even easier to move forward. It would be even easier, I decided as I moved forward.

Then, I noticed something unsettling.  

I couldn’t feel the presence of my grandfather.