Book 3, Chapter 48

Father looked up from the kitchen table in surprise when I opened the door to our house and walked through. “Gravin! I wasn’t expecting you back so soon. Did everything go well?”

“A bit of a stand-still, for the moment,” I told him. “Grandfather wants one more chance to convince the rest of the brakvaw to return to Eyrie Peak now that the rebellion’s leadership has been removed. I told him he could have a few days while I tended to my projects back home.”

“Is Ghalin going to be safe with everyone back here though?” Father asked, frowning. “What if the birds decide to attack again?”

I waved away his concern. “It’s not everyone back. Just me. And don’t worry. I watched them drive off seven attackers without a scrap of help from me. They killed three of them before the other four ran off.”

Father didn’t reply to that, but I still got the sense that he wasn’t thrilled with my decision to leave Ghalin. The problem there was that I just couldn’t be in two places at once—not yet, at least—so I had to pick and choose where I’d devote my efforts. For the moment, there was nothing I could do in Ghalin but stay on standby increase all the brakvaw descended on the village at once. And if that happened, I wasn’t staying to fight anyway. I could probably handle as many as ten at once, but definitely not thirty.

“Where’s Mother?” I asked.

“Laying down. She’s not feeling well.”

“Oh? Perhaps this is a good time to teach Senica some healing magic.”

“You’ll have to pry off away from Juby first,” Father said.

“Ah, well, in that case, it might be best not to disturb them.”

I made a mental note to give Senica the thin volume of spells I’d organized for her teenage years, but had been holding onto until it was time. It looked like that time was coming sooner rather than later, and those were the kind of spells she really needed to know beforehand. For that matter, there were a few spells in there Juby should learn, too, though I wasn’t convinced his skills were up to the task.

“What are you working on?” I asked as I pulled out the chair opposite of Father. He had a number of papers scattered across the table in front of him and had been jotting down notes.

“Food logistics, mostly. I think we’re going to have to expand the east fields, that or clear some trees and plant crops down in the valley floor. We’re barely producing what we need to keep people fed. Well, honestly, we’re not producing enough. Ryla’s been bringing food in from other villages when she takes people on trading runs to offset the deficit.”

“Oh? I had no idea,” I said. “You should have said something earlier. I would have asked Hyago to teach you a few spells to speed up crop growth and keep the soil in good shape.”

“No, you don’t understand. We’re already doing that. There’s just not enough space for how many people we’ve got here. And as more and more people show up, the new homes take up room that used to be fields. Honestly, we’ve just outgrown this place,” Father said. “I don’t see a way to make it work without expanding into the valley floor.”

I was sure I had a few spells that could help alleviate a food shortage problem as long as we weren’t all going to starve in the next few weeks, but Father was probably right about it being a long-term problem. Over the last few years, our little sanctuary had grown ten-fold in size. The ledge I’d picked out that overlooked the valley had worked for us then, mostly in that it provided a measure of safety from anything dangerous living in the forest below, but those monsters had mostly been caught and killed at this point.

My big issue was that I needed that forest intact. Each and every one of those trees was supposed to produce excess mana that would eventually fill the whole valley inside the mana-sealing ward we’d raised around it. Ambient mana was still non-existent here, with what little excess that currently existed being taken by the flora that still wasn’t managing to produce enough on its own, but if we started clearing the trees for new farm plots, I’d ruining my long-term plans.

“Perhaps it’s time to split and form a new village elsewhere,” I said. “With the teleportation platforms, it’s not like distance is a huge factor. Maybe we could find a place down in the lowlands near Derro.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Father said. I could see him turning it over in his head, looking for flaws, trying to figure out who would go and what they’d need. His eyes raked over the papers scattered in front of him, hunting for information. “Yes, I think that might work. The biggest hurdle is going to be convincing people to move away from all the luxuries the homes here have. Unless I could convince you to enchant a few more for us.”

That wasn’t how I’d planned to spend one of my days here, but I supposed it was alright. If I succeeded in my plan to turn the valley into a genius loci, I’d want the people out of here anyway. I could just think of this as getting a head start on that by creating a new village, one that would be more accessible to the rest of the island, but that was fine. We’d only settled here to begin with because it was a convenient hiding spot to keep my family safe from the Wolf Pack. With the cabal dead and gone, secrecy wasn’t nearly as important.

“I guess we can take a day to find a good spot and do some prep work,” I said.

“Prep work for what?” Mother asked. She appeared in the doorway to my parents’ bedroom, wearing a soft robe and looking somewhat worse for the wear.

“New fields,” Father answered. He stood up and walked across the kitchen. “Are you feeling better?”

“I’m fine, Sellis. I told you, I just ate something bad.”

My eyes narrowed. No… It couldn’t be.

Discreetly, I cast a few divination spells on my mother. It took all of five seconds to confirm my suspicions. The real question was whether I should say anything. I wasn’t even sure if they knew yet. Well, it was going to come out sooner or later anyway. It was too bad Senica was out with Juby and was going to miss this.

I definitely needed to get her that spellbook right away.

“So,” I said, dragging the word out and drawing their attention back to me. “You’re pregnant.”

“I… What?” Mother asked. She just stared at me, mouth hanging open, for a moment. Then her eyes lit up and she added, “Oh!”

“Pregnant?” Father whispered. “Did you know?”

“It’s too soon to tell,” Mother said. “I don’t know how Gravin knew. I mean, I know it was some kind of spell, of course, but I’ve never heard of one that could detect a pregnancy this early.”

“You’re sure?” Father asked, turning to me.

“I’m sure.”

“Huh… how about that,” he said. “Just… wow. How about that?”

“How about that,” Mother agreed, a smile plastered on her face.

“We should tell some people,” Father said.

“When the time is right. Gravin, I’d appreciate if you don’t tell anyone just yet. We’ll let Senica know soon.”

It was a testament to their faith in my abilities that neither of them even thought to question that I might be wrong. A bit of morning sickness and my word that Mother was pregnant was all they needed to believe it was true. I’d had a thousand years of people believing something was so simply because I was the one who said it, but somehow, this was different.

“I’ll keep it quiet,” I assured them.

“Thank you,” Mother said. “Looks like you’re going to be a big brother.”

“So it would seem.”

In truth, I suspected I would have little connection to the child. Most of my love for my parents and Senica came from my time as simply Gravin, back before my own memories from my life as Keiran had returned. We’d mixed together, and though Gravin had little to offer to that merger, his fierce love of his family was more than strong enough to carry through.

Gravin had never met this baby. If I were going to form any sort of bond with it, it would be as I was now, and the person I’d become in this life was very much the old archmage who’d had many students, but few friends.

It would be an interesting experience, if nothing else. I’d make sure the child had every advantage I could, of course. He was family, and it was the least I could do. Now that I thought about, I would have to put together another volume of spells tailored to smooth out the rigors of pregnancy for Mother, ones that would ensure the health of both her and my unborn sibling.

The front door opened and Senica walked in. “Hey, bro. Someone told me they saw you on the teleportation platform a bit ago,” she said. With a glance at our parents, she added, “Are you feeling any better?”

“Just fine,” Mother said. “How was your date?”

Senica’s cheeks blazed. “It wasn’t a date, Mom!”

“Yeah, we never ‘dated’ at your age either,” Father said, sharing a look with Mother. “But we all know how that turned out.”

Senica gave them a withering glare before looking back to me and saying, “How’d things go with the monster birds?”

“The situation continues to develop. I’m just back for a few days to take care of some stuff before I return to Ghalin. Hopefully it’ll all be wrapped up soon.”

Our conversation drifted from there, bouncing from topic to topic until Mother decided it was time to start lunch. Senica and I both got drafted into helping while Father stepped out to talk to some people about the possible farm location. By the time he came back, the food was on the table.

I had my own projects to get caught up on, but I delayed that to spend the afternoon with my family. Only after the meal was done did we go our separate ways. Father had to go back to work, and Mother retreated to the garden, leaving Senica and me to clean up.

“Oh, before I forget, I have a book of spells for you,” I told my sister.

“What kind of spells? It better not be more divinations. You know I hate divinations.”

“Hate them or not, they’re important,” I scolded. “A solid grounding in divinations is essential for interacting with anything. Knowledge is your most potent weapon, and the divination discipline is what gives it to you. But no, it’s not a book of divinations.”

“So what is it then?” she asked.

“Spells that everyone should learn,” I told her. I sent a tendril of telekinesis into my room and pulled it off the shelf I’d stored it on. It zipped through the air to my waiting hand, where I confirmed that I’d grabbed the correct book before passing it over to her. “I trust that you’ll know when to use them.”

Curious, Senica flipped the cover open and started skimming through the various spells listed there. Her eyes widened when she realized what she was reading and her face turned red again. “Gravin! What is this? You can’t just-”

“There are a few that Juby should probably study as well,” I interrupted. “And if I were you, I would put that book somewhere our parents won’t find it.”

“I… I’ll do that,” she said faintly. As she started to walk to her room, she stopped, cleared her throat, and, without turning to face me, said, “Thank you for the present, Gravin.”

I snorted. “You’re welcome.”