I was fast asleep when the blow came, so hard to the stomach that I shot awake, the air knocked out of me.

  “OOF!” I grunted as I was thrust into consciousness.

  “Wake up daddy!” came the call from my stomach, high pitched and pleading.

  “Adia, daddy needs to sleep,” I grumbled, trying to rub my eyes.

  “NOOOO, the sun's up!” she pried, squirming up beside me in the bed.

  “All right, if the sun's up,” I chuckled.

  I'd only gone to bed a couple hours ago, but it was clear that my daughter had other ideas about me sleeping, and I was weak to her. So I leaned up, pulling her beside me.

  “I brought you breakfast,” she said, pointing to a single small fruit beside the bed. It was nowhere near enough for such a meal, but she was four, so what could I really expect.

  “Why thank you,” I said, taking up the snack and munching on it. “Where's your mother?”

  She shrugged, putting on the most innocent face she could, and I wasn't buying it one bit. For all that I loved Adia, I knew she was seldom alone. That may have been frowned on by some, but I was now a major player in the city, and I didn't want anyone targeting my child. Mostly I didn't like violence and would hate to have to explain to the other members of the council why I'd turned someone into a pink stain.

  “Her mother,” came a response from the hallway. “Is looking for her wandering child.”

  Isha appeared in the door, looking none to thrilled.

  “Come join us dear, we're having breakfast,” I said, offering the remains of the fruit.

  “I'll pass, didn't I tell you to let your father sleep?” she asked, turning to Adia.

  “He's been sleeping all morning,” Adia whined.

  “It's fine love, I needed to get up anyway.”

  “Still,” Isha joined us, coming to sit on the bed. “Justin, what's that?”

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  She carefully lifted her hand to my scalp, taking a few hairs in hand, eyes focused on one of them in particular. As the strands moved through her fingers I saw what she was saying. Standing out in the light against the other hairs was one in particular, pale, shining white.

  “Has it really been that long?” I asked, looking at it.

  “You'll have to make an announcement,” she said, releasing the hair. “And yes, it has.”

  I gave each of the two most important women in my life a quick kiss, one on the forehead and the other the lips before rising in earnest.

  “Looks like I actually do need to get up. Daddy's got to work now, but I'll be back for lunch okay?” I said.

  “Okay,” Adia said with a small pout.

  This was unexpected, odd, because I was just a bit too young. At only eighty I'd be one of the youngest elders in history, but with the turning of my hair there was no denying it had come. Among family and friends there would be celebrations, among detractors grumbling, for now the final objection to my place on the city's ruling council was gone.

  My bedroom faded behind me as I began to move through the house, more like a mini-fortress or complex now. It wasn't modern, not as such, but it wasn't what I'd grown up in either. I'd had time, time and the mind to practice, to build, to hone skills and teach them to others. Fabrics had replaced much of the furs, spring beds the piles of rushes we'd slept on for so long. There was even proper furniture, and lighting, almost all the modern amenities I knew were now at my fingertips, but through magic not just technology.

  Not everyone had these things yet, many villages remained almost completely unchanged from where they had been when I'd been born, but the city was changing rapidly. New streets, plumbing, drainage, materials, all moved outwards from my home, all bringing society upwards. Not everyone liked it, with old folks complaining about this and that, but enough did, enough loved it.

  As I made my way down a staircase into the work areas of the complex a girl at a shining desk stood and turned. “Good morning sir,” she intoned.

  “Good morning, please summon Chien to my workshop. I've need to talk to him urgently.”

  She nodded and turned to a series of speaking tubes and levers mounted in the wall. I'd not managed to remake something like telephones yet, at least not on a level I would share, but these were more manageable, signals to people all over the sprawling estate to communicate as needed. It was slow, but he'd get the message before too long.

  Leaving her I headed to my own space. No longer was it blocked by large slabs of stone, but proper doors, with complex locks powered by magic and codes. Making something that could store magic as a usable energy was still beyond me, but I was getting closer. A small jolt into it and a few punched numbers on a little keypad and it clicked open, letting me through.

  Inside I went to my desk and sat, waiting. I hadn't been this nervous in some time, not since Adia's birth. That alone had been something that had nearly killed me.

  Isha and I had tried for a child for so long, and to so many issues. I didn't know if it was something about my being from another world, or something about one of us, but it hadn't been easy. We'd consulted experts, tried again and again. She'd had miscarriages, a pair of stillborns, and failure after failure. She'd blamed herself, but I was fairly sure it was me, something wrong about me.

  Healers hadn't been able to tell us anything. Many seemed unconcerned, saying that sometimes it was like that, some people just had a hard time having children, that it would come with time. Others tried herbs and poultices. I bemoaned the fact that I'd never gotten proper medial training, trying to dig through my memories and failing repeatedly. We'd both suffered, until finally Adia had been born, a light for both of us, a sign of hope for our family.

  Adia wasn't, so far as I could tell, like me and from another world. No, instead she was a normal, happy child. The girl was a bit of a handful some days, but others she was practically an angel. Naming her after my mother had been fortunate too, because though they were slight, there were signs that she had magic too. Her aura flared sometimes when she got bumps and bruises, and when it did, they healed. Perhaps it hadn't manifested fully yet, but soon it would, and she'd need training then.

  “Hey boss, you there?” Chien asked, waving a hand in front of my face.

  “Oh, sorry, didn't even see you come in.” I flushed as I turned towards one of my oldest friends.

  “You really need to get more sleep,” he chided, getting me to laugh.

  “Soon, but first.” I pulled the lock of hair forward showing him the pale strand.

  “Finally, took you long enough.”

  “I'm quite early to it,” I scoffed.

  “Nah, you were born old boss, old and childish all at once.”