It had been two days since Esra Veyne had gone off to Indri Manor.

  “Darn it.”

  Damian Everstand panted, stooped down, and channeled his mana into the earth around him. The ground rumbled faintly, before two pillars as tall as he was shot up in front of him. Small walls of earth, several inches thick.

  By his count, it had taken three seconds, and at a guess, had taken five percent of his mana. Both too slow, and too draining to be useful.

  “This isn’t working.” He growled and slammed his fist into the dirt beneath him. He had been making progress, and yet now he had hit a wall. His mana usage wasn’t going down. His speed with his Gift wasn’t getting any better.

  “Fuck.” Damian let himself say a word no Lord should say. He paused, took a deep breath, and rose. Damian had broken more than one wall in his life; this wouldn’t be any different.

  Estovan had given him his instruction and gone off. The man’s advice was no doubt wise, but it was also…hard to understand. It was hard for a Gift user to teach another easily, unless their Gifts were somewhat similar.

  “I’m not going to get left behind.” He muttered. He still had half his reserves left, after which he’d need to rest for an hour. At least his mana refilled quickly. That was something, right? Damian channeled again, raising pillar after pillar. His speed might not improve right away, but exhausting one’s mana core over and over again was one of the few ways to increase one’s amount of mana, even if it was a very slow process.

  Estovan had also hinted that this was only the path to understanding his -the outward expression of his Gift. As to what that actually meant? Damian didn’t have a clue. It wasn't as simple as just making pillars. It was how his Gift interacted with the world. What did that actually mean? Who knows.

  Damian raised a circular barrier all around him, closing it off above him. This was one of the mental images he had been practicing. A literal barrier from anything outside might be useful, eventually.

  Damian heard a sharp intake of breath from just behind him. He spun, already channeling mana into his hand. He hadn't heard footsteps. He hadn't even felt a shift in the air. It was as if his brain had simply refused to register someone standing right there until they made a sound.

  He froze almost immediately when he saw the short blonde girl staring at the earthen walls around her in surprise and awe.

  Sere wore a slate-gray tunic with a collar that buttoned high up her neck.. The tunic was sleeveless, and her waist was tied with a simple dark sash. It was the kind of clothing Sere had started wearing for the last two days. Damian…wasn’t entirely sure where she got the idea from, but the maid assigned to her did seem to listen. Somehow, he couldn’t help but think this wasn’t what Esra meant when she asked for Sere to get ‘proper’ clothes.

  “I don’t know how the hell you keep doing that.” Damian sighed. This wasn’t the first time Sere had snuck up right behind him. The girl was a ghost. By now, he wasn’t even that surprised anymore.

  “So, did you do it?”

  Sere nodded furiously, flexed her right bicep as hard as she could. There was a very tiny bump. Damian smirked.

  “Now that’s a good start.” Damian clapped. Apparently, he was in charge of having to train Sere while Esra was gone. He had decided the most effective method would be some body training, just like he liked to do. So, he’d shown Sere some exercises, given her some weights, and had her practice.

  The girl had looked very disappointed at the start, but then she’d set herself to it. Damian couldn’t help but wonder how long she would keep this up, or why she was doing it in the first place.

  “Okay. In that case, there are more exercises.” Damian took a deep breath and dispelled the mana around them. The barrier of stone fell, leaving them in bright daylight all over again. “How about you do a few laps around-”

  He paused. Sere was puffing out her cheeks, pointedly shaking her head.

  “What?” He stared at her, confused.

  Sere threw some awkward punches in the air, almost tripping over herself as she did. Even Damian could figure out what the girl meant and wanted, though all that did was confuse him even more.

  “You want to fight?!” He said incredulously.

  Sere nodded hurriedly, stepping towards him.

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  “Hey, hey!” Damian raised his own hands. “I don’t think you’re ready for this.”

  Sere huffed, raised her hands in the air again. Damian sighed. In his House, you were supposed to treat men and women equally enough, but people still complained when he actually ended up doing it. “Alright, fine.”

  Damian held his arms out. “Try punching me.” This was probably safe. Damian only channeled the barest of mana around his chest; the last thing he wanted was for Sere to hurt herself punching him. All Esra had told him was that the girl had a lot of mana and showed promise. Sere was certainly diligent enough.

  Sere nodded, took a deep breath. The air grew cold, a choking pressure that reached out, grabbed his heart in a mighty hand, and squeezed. His eyes went wide.

  Damian didn't manage to condense more mana around his chest in time before the girl punched him. The blow made him stumble back. That one punch was enough to almost force him out of the ring entirely. His entire world spun, his chest ached, and he was pretty sure he heard sounds now that weren’t even there. Even his vision was spinning. He gasped in place, hands on his knees. It was definitely a good thing he hadn't eaten anything in a while.

  A shadow fell over him. He looked up and saw Sere staring down, wide-eyed.

  “That…that was some punch,” Damian muttered. The only other time he had been that terrified of someone’s mana had been by Esra herself.

  Damian slowly rose. Someone else in his position might have felt at least a bit of envy. Damian did not. The girl was…a monster! It had barely even been a month. She’d punched through Damian’s flimsy mana reinforcement like it hadn’t even been there. Damian didn’t even want to imagine what would have happened if he hadn’t been using mana at all.

  As the pain started to fade away, he couldn’t help but grin.

  “Alright. I guess it’s time to really teach you some things then.”

  There wasn’t just one way to be useful, at least, Damian sure as hell hoped there wasn’t.

  The words in front of Damian slowly but surely blurred until they lost all the meaning they might have had. Actually, even before this, Damian was fairly sure he hadn’t understood much. He was in the Veyne Library, a part of the manor he had only ever come to once before.

  He was currently reading a book called . To call it dry and boring reading would be an understatement.

  It detailed the formation of Aelheim's "District System" following the Second Great Demon War one hundred years ago, and codified the duties and jurisdictions of each Ducal House. It was never meant to be a permanent arrangement, and yet one hundred years later, the Western Provinces were still a blighted land. Damian had known most of this already, but he hadn't understood the extent of things before now.

  This was the kind of thing Damian would have caught his father reading back home, but apparently, this was the last thing Esra had read before she had gone off into danger.

  Damian barely had any interest in the material at all, but he wanted to try at least to see what his Lady found so interesting about all of this. After a solid hour of slamming his head against the wall, he thought he had at least started to understand some of it.

  Esra had used some of this in those Council Meetings. Would doubtless use it again. All Damian had been able to do was stand behind her and deliver the lines she had had him rehearse. You could have replaced him with an inanimate puppet, and nothing would have changed at all.

  “This sucks,” Damian murmured.

  He was under no delusion that he was stronger than Esra. Their few fights aside, Damian was sure the only reason Esra didn’t clobber him was simply that she had too many things on her plate to practice. That would soon change.

  And…well, she was smarter than him. His father had always said Damian was ‘thickheaded’ and ‘a little slow’, so he didn’t mind that part too much.

  How was he supposed to protect someone who thought they had to protect you instead? Just thinking about it made Damian’s fists clench uncomfortably tight.

  There was a tapping on the table. Damian picked his head off the book, looked at Sere who sat opposite him. Sere had a lot of energy to come right here after she trained. Maybe she was just following him. Damian still had aches from their fight. He needed to get stronger, and fast, or he was going to get left behind by her too.

  The girl was showing him a notebook, pointing at it incessantly. She had been tracing her letters for some time now. Damian had left her to it.

  Damian read over the letters, paused. This…wasn’t just her showing him the alphabet. He squinted, made out the messy hand writing. He froze. This…was an actual message.

  ESRA WHERE?

  It didn’t take much to figure out what the girl was actually asking. Damian found himself grinning, reaching over to try and pat her head. Sere pointedly backed away.

  Right, he always forgot about that.

  “Good job!” Damian grinned, pulling his hand away.

  How long had it been since she’d even learned to write? Apparently, this house now had not one, but two geniuses, and Damian was neither of the two. He was fine with that.

  Sere grinned back.

  “She’ll be back soon.” Damian told her. Even Damian only knew that Esra had gone to Indri Manor to ‘collect evidence’. Anias had assured him that she was safe, that Esra was giving reports every few hours. That didn’t make Damian feel any less queasy, or any more useful.

  “She is just doing…something.” He said finally. No point in giving his own anxiety to someone else. That wasn’t the Everstand way.

  Sere paused, pulled the notebook back and began to write again. It took fifteen seconds before she flipped it around again.

  WHEN BACK?

  Damian stared at the message, looked up at Sere.

  “Yeah,” Damian said reluctantly. “She should be back soon.”

  Sere looked distinctly displeased as she pulled the notebook back. Began to write again. This time, Damian hunched over so he could read as she wrote.

  He grinned, though there was some pain behind the expression. “Can’t say I like it either, Sere.”

  Sere nodded, puffed out her cheeks.

  “You wanna annoy her when she gets back?”

  Sere nodded quickly, something close to a smile on her face.

  Yes, Damian supposed this wasn’t that bad at all. Next time…next time he was going to make sure she needed him.