*** Kiara ***

  A dim light engulfed her bleeding, broken body. Slowly, it started to rise. His vision was slowly fading, and yet he reached out with his bloody hands and grasped for her. Holding onto her. His grip was weak and yet unyielding. He did not let go. He could not let go. Never.

  Kiara awoke in her crib. Tears in her eyes. She was still gone, and only the memory of her old life remained, but slowly the weight of depression was lifting off her chest little by little, and she was starting to see light again. “Who was to say they were both in the same situation? And if she is, I will find her.” The idea to regain at least something from her old life was comforting.

  Did she have any clue whatsoever how to do that? No. At least not yet!

  “But let’s be honest, what can you expect from a baby?” she snickered to herself. “And as a cherry on top of it, a baby imprisoned in her crib. Ok then, let’s get back to work. It’s time to make an escape plan.”

  Her grandmother had carved some lines into the wood of her crib and embedded a small crystal at its head. Her mother and grandmother had heatedly discussed it. However, she still did not understand enough of the new language to understand what they were talking about. What she was sure about was that her mother was angry with her grandmother, and yet the carvings still stayed in place even after a few days.

  Her first escape attempt, mainly motivated by boredom, had come to a sudden and quite painful stop when she had crawled headfirst into something. Pain shot through her head, and she had to suppress a surprised cry. Her head throbbed, and she slowly felt her way forward. Her hands found an invisible barrier.

  She felt embarrassed, and the memory of a neighbor’s cat came to her mind. It had been unwilling to acknowledge the existence of glass doors and used to run into them.

  She had planned to get to the bars of her little prison and use them as a support structure to get into a standing position, use one of her pathetically weak legs to place one epic heel hook on top of the edge, and pull herself up.

  Maybe, just maybe, her plan was destined to fail from the very beginning.

  It was very unnerving to see, or better not to see, something truly invisible before her. Her hands touched the barrier. It did not react at all. It did not light up, or hum, or shake underneath her touch. It was just there. Invisible, unmoving, and silent. And of course refused to let her pass.

  It felt very slippery underneath her hands, and neither cold nor warm.

  Clumsily, she moved into a sitting position.

  “Damn that evil witch! I will get her back for it.” She had cursed, still embarrassed as she had gently caressed her hurting head. Some premature and frankly unrealistic revenge plans rushed through her head. Visions of her grandmother cursing as she stepped onto invisible Lego pieces or her pooping as she was sitting in her lap. She smiled wickedly. Revenge would be hers!

  “But first, I have to get out of here. Ok, think! We have a magic barrier and need to overcome it. Most likely, the carvings and crystal caused the barrier, but I know little else about it. What are my options?” she mumbled to herself.

  “Option 1 and 2: Trying to overload or exhaust the system. My current assumption is that the crystal is either an energy reserve or some kind of control center. Assuming there is no infinite energy source in this universe, I can try to slowly exhaust the reserves and disable the force barrier this way, or I can try to generate a big enough impact to overload it and simply push through?” In her inner mind, she saw a memory of the cat again, as it took progressively longer and longer run-ups before crashing headfirst into the glass door time and time again.

  “I think my pride would take too much of a hit for the overloading option. Let’s shelve this one for now. Exhausting the force barrier seemed like a real possibility. Of course, it might be the case that the energy stored would be enough for several years of her banging her little legs and feet against, but I can’t know that without trying.”

  “Option 3: Overcoming the spell with one of my own and tearing down the walls of magical tyranny. Difficult, yeah. Impossible, maybe! However, again I can’t rule it out before at least trying it.”

  She couldn’t reach the carvings themselves, so messing with them was out of the question.

  “I can not believe this universe is playing around with truly invisible barriers without there being a way to sense them. Maybe there was a secret skill like Mana sight? Maybe there were specialized glasses that allowed one to see another spectrum of light or something, and they made force barriers visible? Wait, neither her mother nor her grandmother had ever worn fancy super glasses – maybe they were more like contact lenses? Stop, no, I don’t have access to super fancy contact lenses or glasses, so if she needed any kind of tool, it was irrelevant for her right now. So, let’s assume for now it is possible to sense Mana…,” her line of thought stuttered to a halt when she came up empty on how exactly that helped her. She had no clue how to start learning Mana sight, sense, or whatever it was called – if it even existed.

  For now, she decided to bang her feet against the barrier to exhaust it. It was all she could do for now. After a short while, her little legs started to burn from the strain. Her body was not used to any exercise at all. Definitely something she would need to work on.

  Taking a break, she crawled as close to the carvings as she could and began to study them. Her respect for archaeologists who had deciphered ancient languages rose drastically. She was utterly lost on where to even begin.

  And so, her tedious nights of silently kicking an invisible barrier continued.

  ---[Several nights later]---

  “Something was wrong,” Magdalena thought. Her weave was consuming way more Mana than it should. “What is that little devil doing?”

  During the day, the child had started to behave suspiciously normal. If one did not pay close attention, it was easy to miss the close attention it was paying to everything around it. Several times, she had noticed her silently mouthing words which were recently said, as if to repeat them without being noticed.

  This was not a normal child. Of that she was certain, but what exactly it was she couldn’t tell, and neither if it posed a risk to her family. Further study was necessary, but Maya was already angry with her for carving the protection ward into the crib without her asking. The little monster would not leave her crib without someone else helping it.

  “I mean, I could try to ask for her permission first… Hey, Maya, can I run some tests on your lovely little girl? Why do you ask? Well, I fear love has blinded you, and I am still not convinced your little angel is in truth a little demon and might be out for our blood. Yeah, that would go splendidly.” She thought sarcastically.

  Another iteration of don’t ask for permission, ask for forgiveness was out of the question. She was already in hot water as it is. In the best case, whatever she did would look like a gift, like an apology – that would be perfect. Slowly, a plan was forming in her mind, while a slight smile was forming on her face. She reloaded the crib’s crystal and got to work. She would keep an eye on that monster.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  ---[The next day]---

  “I know you aren’t a huge fan of weaving, and I know I overstepped by simply applying the ward to Kiaras crib without asking first.” Magdalena started her apology.

  Maya’s hands held a knife as it made fast work out of an onion before adding it to a large pot. The small pieces immediately started sizzling.

  “I know you don’t like to leave little Kiara alone. But I also know you are aching to get back out into the forest and go on your little adventures,” Maya shot her a pointed look. ”So I crafted something for you. A little apology of sorts. And I also wanted to show you that weaving can be a powerful tool to help you. To be honest, it was a lot of work, quite complicated and expensive, I have to admit. It is probably one of my finer works.” She continued her apology while at the same time starting to boast about her skills.

  Maya’s focus was still entirely on the dish she was cooking. A carrot was quickly peeled and cut into small pieces. Only slightly turning her head to take a quick look at the object her mother was holding. It was a small sphere.

  “What is it?” she grumbled. She added the carrots and gave the pot a quick stir with a big wooden spoon. On the one hand, she was interested; on the other hand, she was not willing to forgive her mother quite yet. She had told her time and time again not to meddle with her children. It had been the same with Petro. Only once Petro had shown neither interest nor any skill in weaving had she finally relented.

  She had promised – Promised! – that there would be no interference from her this time, and yet. Little Kiara was not even one year old, and her mother visited her home more frequently than ever, and most of her time was spent with Kiara.

  “It allows you to keep an eye on little Kiara while you are cooking or even when you are out gathering herbs or hunting… Well, at least as long as you stay within a few miles of Northwing. Do you want to try it out?”

  “Mum! I told you to stay away from Kiara. I know you mean well, but I don’t want any experimental weaves close to her. You taught me yourself what can happen if you make a mistake.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s not anywhere near her at the moment. The corresponding sender is sitting on the mantlepiece in the living room – nowhere near Kiara. So can I show you what it can do?” Maya saw the look on her mother’s face. Even after the years she had spent in politics of the highest circle, she could not suppress the anticipation of trying out a new toy and showing it off.

  She gave her a curt nod.

  Her mother fed her Mana into the crystalline orb, and soon the image of her chimney appeared before her. Slowly, her mother turned the orb in her hand, and the view of the room next door changed, showing another perspective of the room.

  It was both fascinating as well as a little bit nauseating, but she had to admit to herself it would be useful. She often worried about Kiara. Kiara nearly never screamed and had at first only reluctantly been breastfed. She hated diapers, and all around was a little bit strange at times. It would be a great relief for her worries if she could keep a closer eye on her when she was otherwise busy.

  “What else can the orb do?” she said, mistrust entered her voice, as she remembered the fact that it was her mother’s invention.

  “Nothing. I swear. Do you know how difficult it was to even create this orb? It can do nothing except receive the images of the sender orb. That’s all. If you don’t believe me, examine the weave yourself.”

  “Ok, I will think about it,” Maya said. The sound of the sizzling onions and carrots had slightly shifted, and she hurriedly stirred once more and added a little bit of water to cool it down.

  “Are you staying for dinner?”

  “Yes, my dear,” Magdalena said, suppressing a smile. She had known her daughter would cave in, and she hadn’t even lied; this orb could only receive visual feedback. The other one she kept for herself could also receive acoustic feedback and read Mana levels. If her granddaughter developed any unnatural magical skills, she would know, and then it would be time to act. Until then, it might be a strange child, but most likely harmless.

  If luck would have it, Maya would see Kiara do something strange herself and make it easier to convince her that her daughter was a risk. She would also finally find out what the little devil was doing at night to exhaust so much Mana.

  *** Kiara ***

  Kiara was frustrated. Her kicks had had little effect. The only thing she achieved was that her grandmother was slightly irritated after she had touched the crystal in her crib. Which was a success, and it proved that her efforts had not been entirely wasted, but on the other hand, it felt unlikely that the barrier would simply break in the coming days.

  She had otherwise gotten nowhere with the carvings, and no amount of concentration or meditation had led to any breakthroughs. The damn barrier was still invisible to her. Worse, she had bumped her head into it again when she had misjudged where exactly the barrier was located.

  Her days were boring. She tried to spend as much time as possible with her family. It helped her to get a grasp on the language. She started to understand some easy words and sentences. The progress helped to keep her spirit up and distract her from her failures in the domain of magic.

  Her father, Sarok, had thrown her into a loop when he had spent a lot of time repeating a single word, leading to her initially believing it meant “Daddy” before she realized that her older brother used it to address her mother. So yeah, her father was probably a good-hearted oaf. How did normal babies ever make sense of anything going on around them?

  After a few days, something interesting happened for once. Her mother carried in a small black orb, which she hung over her crib. It was completely black as if it was absorbing all the light around it. A little round hole of complete nothingness. It was somewhat unnerving and most definitely magical in nature. Her mother gave her a quick, loving kiss on her forehead and mumbled something about her always being protected or something.

  For whatever reason, the orb utterly fascinated her, and she looked at it again and again, sometimes for several minutes on end, trying to figure out what exactly it did. Not that it was giving up any of its secrets easily. However, in sharp contrast to the force barriers keeping her inside her crib, she thought she felt something when looking at the nothing orb, as she had started to call it.

  Just beyond her grasp, a small sensation, the illusion of a tingling.

  *** Magdalena ***

  Magdalena was slowly going mad. She had spent countless hours awake watching a baby kick her protective ward. It mumbled words over and over. “Mum, dad, no, yes, sleep, Hot, cup, spoon…” After each word, Kiara made a short pause and said some gibberish. Night by night, the list of words grew longer and more complex.

  By contrast, during the day, it didn’t utter a single word—only smiled, laughed, and played the part of a normal child. Her mother was utterly enchanted by the performance, loving her little angel with complete devotion, oblivious to the eerie behaviors she sometimes showed.

  She was playing with her family and pretending to be normal. Worse, she played with me!

  And that wasn’t even the strangest of her behaviors. Since she started using the orb, she could swear that little devil was watching her. Far too often, when she used the orb to—no, not spy, just to check in on her family—sweet little Kiara would be staring straight at her. Not a passing glance. A steady, unblinking gaze that locked onto her, as if peering directly into her soul.

  *** Maya ***

  “Little Kiara was such a good child,” Maya thought lovingly, watching both her children play together. Somehow, Kiara had convinced her older brother to take her up on his shoulders and carry her around. She gently pulled on his hair, indicating where she wanted to go.

  At first, she had been a little bit worried, but seeing Petro paying close attention to his little sister and taking his role of the older brother and protector very seriously had eased her worries. She had asked Petro not to leave the house and to stay out of the kitchen when she was cooking. The rest of the house was quickly becoming their playing field.

  Currently, he loves to read and tell adventure stories to Kiara. They sometimes sat in front of a thick scroll for hours. Petro was still a very slow reader and often needed to use his finger to point to the different letters. Then he pronounced each one out loud, slowly forming the words. But he was proud as hell, and Kiara always smiled at him and laughed to encourage him.

  Sometimes Petro even played a part in the story becoming the daring adventurer slaying the ancient beast or protecting the innocent village from a horde of Arachnids, sometimes becoming wealthy and famous and marrying a beautiful princess, at other times taking a heroic last stand, and finally after the day was won succumbing to his wounds. The heroic last stand was one of his favorites. Waving an imaginary sword around, fighting one imaginary foe after the other, slaying them heroically, before in the end grasping his chest and slowly falling on his knees before tumbling over and uttering one last heroic line of speech. Little Kiara sat there every time laughing and clapping her little, adorable hands.

  In the evening, Sarok often read another story to both of them. The choice of scroll was almost every evening decided by Kiara, pointing at a scroll and starting to cry if another one was selected.

  It became really strange when one night, Kiara pointed to a cooking scroll. She fell asleep in record time. Afterwards, every time her husband had had a long day of work and was exhausted, he selected a cooking scroll no matter how Kiara cried, and surprisingly, it worked. Petro didn’t really care what their father read—he just liked being with his family and hearing his voice. Life was good.