ellinor
Explorer
1x01
SIXTEEN YEARS LATER…
On the anniversary of her birth, Signora Roseanna di Raprezzi sat in a parlor of her family’s estate in Pol Henna, gently stroking the neck of a small dragon on her lap. Her seven guests waited for her to begin speaking. The few who did not know her stared: at the pseudodragon, at her silver-gray hair.
Accustomed to ignoring such stares, Rose began describing her mother’s sacrifice. The newcomers, like most of Pol Hennan society, had never heard this story. Rose’s family had kept the secret close.
Rose’s older brother, eighteen-year-old Tavi, listened quietly to the tale, though he knew it as well as he knew every vulnerable point where his sword might enter a living body. From his sister’s birth, he had been raised as her guardian, forsaking all the other duties and pleasures a young Hennan boy of noble blood might have enjoyed. Now, belying his apparent calm, a hummingbird was zipping and diving around his head: his familiar, Phoebe. Her voice buzzed in his mind: She’s really going to do it! It’s really tonight! Finally finally finally finally! Tavi allowed himself a slight smile, but kept his attention on his sister.
Rose reached the end of her story and took a deep breath, looking around the room. “I’ve spent my whole life being told that I’m the Sacrifice of Death, and yet, in my whole life, nothing strange has ever happened to me . . . apart, perhaps, from my hair color,” she added, with a wry twitch of a grin. “I’m a normal sorcerer, just like everyone else in my family. I have no special talents, but people treat me differently, cautiously, as if I am dangerous. Perhaps they are right to. Perhaps not. But I’m tired of waiting to find out." She paused, determined. "Today is my sixteenth birthday. I have reached my age of majority. My family is hosting a ball in my honor, and afterwards, while everyone is sleeping off the wine, I intend to sneak away. And I am asking all of you to go on that journey with me, to help me find out what it means to be what I am . . . whatever that may ultimately entail.”
Tavi knew that he wasn’t the only person in the room feeling pride as he listened to his sister’s words. He could tell that the slight yet intimidating woman in her late twenties standing next to him was radiating approval, though to anyone else she probably just looked fierce. Her dark hair tumbled down over her armor, which was adorned with a symbol of the Defiers of the Wind, an obscure sect of Sedellus. Her flail hung at her side. Her hands were covered in burn scars. When Rose finished speaking, she broke the ensuing silence. “I go where you go.”
Rose nodded to the woman and turned to the rest of the group. “This is Dame Filomena. She has tutored my brother and me since we were children.”
Mena scanned the room. “Just ‘Mena’ is fine.”
Rose continued, signaling to Tavi. “My brother, of course, is Signor Octavian di Raprezzi.”
Tavi gave a well-practiced regal nod as the eyes in the room turned to him. The hummingbird made a dizzying swoop past his head. Why is she still talking? Why can’t we go?
We have to get through the introductions first, Phoebe, he thought, tamping down on his own impatience.
Everyone knows you – done and done. Come on, come on!
Tavi cleared his throat. “I’m honored to be accompanying my sister,” he said. He turned to a strikingly nondescript man in the livery of the di Raprezzi family standing behind him. “I have chosen Marcus, of our household guard, to accompany us as well.” Marcus nodded silently. Phoebe began flitting from one of Marcus’s ears to the other, buzzing in each of them in turn. He refused to flinch.
Rose motioned toward a young, half-elven woman standing next to her. “This is Lady Chelesta Little Branch Rossi, one of my ladies in waiting. Lady Chelesta?”
Chelesta, who had been Rose’s playmate since they were small children, breezed past Rose’s formality. “Everyone calls me Twiggy,” she said cheerfully. She was barely older than her mistress, and well-described by her nickname. She wore her auburn hair down, with two narrow braids framing her face. A pair of wire-rimmed glasses encircled her eager eyes. “I’m looking forward to—this is exciting—I think.” Suddenly a little shy, Twiggy made a curtsy to the group and then dropped her hand into her pocket, which wriggled as if it were alive.
Rose next turned her attention to the three strangers, those from outside the di Raprezzi household. She gestured first toward the youngest person in the room, a fifteen-year-old girl wearing finely made blue religious robes. “Blessed Daughter Savina di Infusino – “
A man in his mid-twenties wearing two war hammers interrupted her. He had spent her recital making notes in a small leather notepad. “Perhaps I violate the etiquette of your beautiful city,” he said, his confident, foreign-accented voice seeming loud in the parlor, “but I would like to clarify immediately one or two smallish points. You are telling me that a goddess is out to get you?”
Rose looked startled, but maintained her gracious tone. “This is our guide -- “
The man interrupted again with genial impatience. “Yes, yes, Jan Kormick of Dar Und, a pleasure to meet you all. I would like to return to my question about the goddess of evil, if you would be so kind.”
Tavi smirked. Jan Kormick, legend of the Academy. Every year the stories about his expulsion get grander. I bet they’re still naming pranks after him today. Guess he’s gotten all grown-up and respectable.
Respectable? Bo-ring.
Mena spoke up. “We are not precisely certain what the Twilight Lurker wants with Rose.”
“Ah.” Kormick tapped his pen on his pad as he squinted at Mena. “So, in sum, you have retained me to guide these upstanding young noblepeople on a delightful vacation that involves the goddess of death, evil, and deceit in some as-yet unspecified way?”
“Indeed.”
Kormick nodded sagely, glanced back over his writing, and closed the book. “Very well. There is a reasonable chance that you charmingly naive youths will venture forth from this place and meet unnatural, bloody deaths.”
The girl in the fine blue robes gasped. “Is that true?” she whispered.
“I never lie,” Kormick declared cheerfully. “But take heart, take heart,” he continued. “There is also a reasonable chance that I may be wrong. “ He leaned to Marcus, muttering, “I usually am not wrong.”
Rose turned back to the young woman, who still looked pale. “As I was saying: this is the Blessed Daughter Savina di Infusino, daughter of one of Pol Henna’s oldest families and also an acolyte healer at the Temple of the Givers.”
Savina glanced around the room, her eyes skipping off Kormick to linger on Tavi, her fingers shyly touching the Alirrian holy symbol on her necklace. “I – I don’t really know why I’m here,” she stammered. “I mean – what help could I possibly be?”
Rose gave her a strange, considering look. “I asked the Givers to send the most innocent among them. I thought her input might be useful.” Silence fell. Savina stared at Rose, wide-eyed. Another note found its way into Kormick’s pad. Tavi was amused to see them disconcerted: It’s just smart planning, people, he thought. Who better to repel Sedellus than the sweetest Alirrian kid we can find?
Rose glanced past Savina to the red-haired, plainly dressed woman in her late twenties standing silently behind her. “I assume your slave can be trusted?”
“Yes, of course. Her name is – um – Arden.” Savina was still preoccupied by Rose’s pronouncement.
Kormick studied the slave closely. “How long have you owned her?”
“She’s not one of my family’s – she belongs to the Temple. The Honored Mother sent her to help take care of me . . . I hope that’s all right.”
Kormick grunted skeptically, his eyes on the dull glint of a metal cuff that circled the slave’s left wrist, half-hidden by her cloak. Arden’s gaze remained downcast, just as it had been through the entire conference: keeping her place, not presuming to listen to the conversation of her betters. Tavi put her out of his mind. So did his sister.
“Thank you for accompanying me, Blessed Daughter,” Rose said. “Thank you all.”
That’s everybody, there’s no one else, that’s it, race you to the door!
No, now we need to come up with a plan, Pheebs..
Phoebe came to a screeching halt two inches from Tavi’s right eye.
WHAT?!
SIXTEEN YEARS LATER…
On the anniversary of her birth, Signora Roseanna di Raprezzi sat in a parlor of her family’s estate in Pol Henna, gently stroking the neck of a small dragon on her lap. Her seven guests waited for her to begin speaking. The few who did not know her stared: at the pseudodragon, at her silver-gray hair.
Accustomed to ignoring such stares, Rose began describing her mother’s sacrifice. The newcomers, like most of Pol Hennan society, had never heard this story. Rose’s family had kept the secret close.
Rose’s older brother, eighteen-year-old Tavi, listened quietly to the tale, though he knew it as well as he knew every vulnerable point where his sword might enter a living body. From his sister’s birth, he had been raised as her guardian, forsaking all the other duties and pleasures a young Hennan boy of noble blood might have enjoyed. Now, belying his apparent calm, a hummingbird was zipping and diving around his head: his familiar, Phoebe. Her voice buzzed in his mind: She’s really going to do it! It’s really tonight! Finally finally finally finally! Tavi allowed himself a slight smile, but kept his attention on his sister.
Rose reached the end of her story and took a deep breath, looking around the room. “I’ve spent my whole life being told that I’m the Sacrifice of Death, and yet, in my whole life, nothing strange has ever happened to me . . . apart, perhaps, from my hair color,” she added, with a wry twitch of a grin. “I’m a normal sorcerer, just like everyone else in my family. I have no special talents, but people treat me differently, cautiously, as if I am dangerous. Perhaps they are right to. Perhaps not. But I’m tired of waiting to find out." She paused, determined. "Today is my sixteenth birthday. I have reached my age of majority. My family is hosting a ball in my honor, and afterwards, while everyone is sleeping off the wine, I intend to sneak away. And I am asking all of you to go on that journey with me, to help me find out what it means to be what I am . . . whatever that may ultimately entail.”
Tavi knew that he wasn’t the only person in the room feeling pride as he listened to his sister’s words. He could tell that the slight yet intimidating woman in her late twenties standing next to him was radiating approval, though to anyone else she probably just looked fierce. Her dark hair tumbled down over her armor, which was adorned with a symbol of the Defiers of the Wind, an obscure sect of Sedellus. Her flail hung at her side. Her hands were covered in burn scars. When Rose finished speaking, she broke the ensuing silence. “I go where you go.”
Rose nodded to the woman and turned to the rest of the group. “This is Dame Filomena. She has tutored my brother and me since we were children.”
Mena scanned the room. “Just ‘Mena’ is fine.”
Rose continued, signaling to Tavi. “My brother, of course, is Signor Octavian di Raprezzi.”
Tavi gave a well-practiced regal nod as the eyes in the room turned to him. The hummingbird made a dizzying swoop past his head. Why is she still talking? Why can’t we go?
We have to get through the introductions first, Phoebe, he thought, tamping down on his own impatience.
Everyone knows you – done and done. Come on, come on!
Tavi cleared his throat. “I’m honored to be accompanying my sister,” he said. He turned to a strikingly nondescript man in the livery of the di Raprezzi family standing behind him. “I have chosen Marcus, of our household guard, to accompany us as well.” Marcus nodded silently. Phoebe began flitting from one of Marcus’s ears to the other, buzzing in each of them in turn. He refused to flinch.
Rose motioned toward a young, half-elven woman standing next to her. “This is Lady Chelesta Little Branch Rossi, one of my ladies in waiting. Lady Chelesta?”
Chelesta, who had been Rose’s playmate since they were small children, breezed past Rose’s formality. “Everyone calls me Twiggy,” she said cheerfully. She was barely older than her mistress, and well-described by her nickname. She wore her auburn hair down, with two narrow braids framing her face. A pair of wire-rimmed glasses encircled her eager eyes. “I’m looking forward to—this is exciting—I think.” Suddenly a little shy, Twiggy made a curtsy to the group and then dropped her hand into her pocket, which wriggled as if it were alive.
Rose next turned her attention to the three strangers, those from outside the di Raprezzi household. She gestured first toward the youngest person in the room, a fifteen-year-old girl wearing finely made blue religious robes. “Blessed Daughter Savina di Infusino – “
A man in his mid-twenties wearing two war hammers interrupted her. He had spent her recital making notes in a small leather notepad. “Perhaps I violate the etiquette of your beautiful city,” he said, his confident, foreign-accented voice seeming loud in the parlor, “but I would like to clarify immediately one or two smallish points. You are telling me that a goddess is out to get you?”
Rose looked startled, but maintained her gracious tone. “This is our guide -- “
The man interrupted again with genial impatience. “Yes, yes, Jan Kormick of Dar Und, a pleasure to meet you all. I would like to return to my question about the goddess of evil, if you would be so kind.”
Tavi smirked. Jan Kormick, legend of the Academy. Every year the stories about his expulsion get grander. I bet they’re still naming pranks after him today. Guess he’s gotten all grown-up and respectable.
Respectable? Bo-ring.
Mena spoke up. “We are not precisely certain what the Twilight Lurker wants with Rose.”
“Ah.” Kormick tapped his pen on his pad as he squinted at Mena. “So, in sum, you have retained me to guide these upstanding young noblepeople on a delightful vacation that involves the goddess of death, evil, and deceit in some as-yet unspecified way?”
“Indeed.”
Kormick nodded sagely, glanced back over his writing, and closed the book. “Very well. There is a reasonable chance that you charmingly naive youths will venture forth from this place and meet unnatural, bloody deaths.”
The girl in the fine blue robes gasped. “Is that true?” she whispered.
“I never lie,” Kormick declared cheerfully. “But take heart, take heart,” he continued. “There is also a reasonable chance that I may be wrong. “ He leaned to Marcus, muttering, “I usually am not wrong.”
Rose turned back to the young woman, who still looked pale. “As I was saying: this is the Blessed Daughter Savina di Infusino, daughter of one of Pol Henna’s oldest families and also an acolyte healer at the Temple of the Givers.”
Savina glanced around the room, her eyes skipping off Kormick to linger on Tavi, her fingers shyly touching the Alirrian holy symbol on her necklace. “I – I don’t really know why I’m here,” she stammered. “I mean – what help could I possibly be?”
Rose gave her a strange, considering look. “I asked the Givers to send the most innocent among them. I thought her input might be useful.” Silence fell. Savina stared at Rose, wide-eyed. Another note found its way into Kormick’s pad. Tavi was amused to see them disconcerted: It’s just smart planning, people, he thought. Who better to repel Sedellus than the sweetest Alirrian kid we can find?
Rose glanced past Savina to the red-haired, plainly dressed woman in her late twenties standing silently behind her. “I assume your slave can be trusted?”
“Yes, of course. Her name is – um – Arden.” Savina was still preoccupied by Rose’s pronouncement.
Kormick studied the slave closely. “How long have you owned her?”
“She’s not one of my family’s – she belongs to the Temple. The Honored Mother sent her to help take care of me . . . I hope that’s all right.”
Kormick grunted skeptically, his eyes on the dull glint of a metal cuff that circled the slave’s left wrist, half-hidden by her cloak. Arden’s gaze remained downcast, just as it had been through the entire conference: keeping her place, not presuming to listen to the conversation of her betters. Tavi put her out of his mind. So did his sister.
“Thank you for accompanying me, Blessed Daughter,” Rose said. “Thank you all.”
That’s everybody, there’s no one else, that’s it, race you to the door!
No, now we need to come up with a plan, Pheebs..
Phoebe came to a screeching halt two inches from Tavi’s right eye.
WHAT?!
Last edited:
