Starday had arrived. She had used the five days to prepare. In that time, she familiarized herself with the frontier city, inspected her equipment, and gathered general information on the state of things outside the walls.
It had been reasonably safe for a while now. Three Domain creatures only appeared once every few years, usually just as brief sightings and not in attacks. Two Domain creatures were more common, having to be hunted down monthly. The odds of running into one were miniscule, though.
As always, one Domain creatures were prevalent, but not too dangerous to the wary traveler. Harper actually hoped to run into one. Now that she had a Domain, they were significantly less threatening. The destitute noble needed their cores. The faster she got a core with the Aquatic Domain, the better. She guessed that, if she was frugal, she could afford one with the salary from her next couple months. Perhaps that was part of why the Governor had set her trial period until then.
Not fast enough. I need those benefits now. She’d go hunting soon. For now, she had a job to do.
Harper walked in dressed in her uniform. The garment was a practical dress that reached from above her collarbone, down to her lower thighs. It was all in the Governor’s colors, forest green and earthy brown. She wore leggings and knee-high boots beneath her dress; a pair of riding gloves were stuffed under her belt. The day was chilly enough that she had chosen to wear the jacket she had been given to complement her uniform, but it wasn’t cold enough or likely enough to rain to wear the accompanying cloak.
She had her rapier attached to her left hip, and her borrowed flintlock attached to her right. She carried the gunpower horn on a strap of her uniform meant for the purpose. The balls and wrappings sat in a closed pouch next to her sword. A knife sat strapped below the gun, on her thigh.
To complete the ensemble, she had a large pouch strapped to her chest with a band that ran diagonally across her torso and back. It could be switched around to the other side at need; the satchel was the only piece of her equipment that was an artifact. It would reject any water, so long as she infused her Domain into it, keeping the contents safe and the bag in good condition. It was hardly the most glamorous enchantment, but she’d take it.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t infuse it yet with Sea. She needed to integrate the Domain first. Another reason to obtain a core as soon as possible. It was little better than a mundane bag at the moment. The only advantages being that she was able to put it into her aetherspace and infuse it with aether for the slight bit of durability it would add.
Which reminded her, she should be infusing it along with her clothes and equipment, she had stopped at some point. It would take a while to get to the point where she was always subconsciously infusing the materials, but she’d get there. Most people with aether-imbued items did.
Harper examined the room as she walked in. It was occupied by four other people, all humans wearing an outfit similar to hers. There was a map and board on the wall, listing various deliveries that needed to be taken. Several packages sat on a bar on the side of the room, each labeled in neat and concise writing.
All four turned in her direction. Harper felt surprisingly nervous, moreso than when she had met with the Governor. These were her co-workers; she’d be working with them in the coming months, one of them extensively.
A man stepped forward, the oldest of the bunch. He held out his hand and Harper took it, shaking it. “Hello, you must be Miss Waspen. My name is Vermon Woodster. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Harper noted that he didn’t call her Lady Waspen. The Governor must have seen fit to not relay my noble status. It might be easier this way. Gavin reacted negatively upon finding out, best not to stir the pot. She responded with the other half of the pleasantry. “The pleasure is mine.”
He introduced her to each of the others. They were another man and two women. After introducing the first two he moved to the last. “And this is Amelia Cavill, she will be your main instructor. You will be assisting her for the better part of the next couple months.” Harper shook her hand and gave her a nervous smile. The woman smiled back reassuringly.
She had warm brown eyes, chestnut hair, and beige skin. The uniform matched her perfectly. She stood only slightly shorter than Harper. Unlike Harper, she had no sword, instead having a dagger to complement her pistol, with a bow and small quiver slung over her shoulder.
“I’ll be showing you the ropes. I’ve already got a job picked out for the day. We’re making a delivery to a nearby town; we should be back by tonight.” She walked over to the counter and grabbed a stack of letters and documents, and a package. The package she put in her personal bag; the papers she handed to Harper.
She set off and Harper followed behind. She led her to a building behind the armory, a stable. She looked behind her to Harper. “You know how to ride, right?”
“Yes, I am well familiar with riding. Will we be taking mundane or single Domain horses?”Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
The woman looked back at her with amusement. “Do you think tamed Domain horses grow on trees? We have one in there to be used with urgent messages only.”
Harper reddened in embarrassment. Of course they wouldn’t have Domain horses for everyday use. That her family had a handful of them was a rare luxury. Creatures were notoriously harder to tame the more Domains they had. Even breeding domesticated ones and raising their foals from birth was an expensive and difficult process. They needed to either be fed cores or spend a lot of time near an aether nexus to properly grow.
“How long have you been working as a courier?” Harper asked, mostly to move past her embarrassment.
“Five years now. Delivering outside the walls anyway. I had worked as a courier exclusively in the city for a few years before that. Once I got my second Domain, I requested this job and have been here ever since.”
“You have the Sea Domain, right? If the Governor hired you for this, either you’ve got special training or you’re close to your second. Am I right?” She questioned.
Harper responded. “I don’t think I’m too far from the Aerial Domain, but it’s more the former.”
They reached a pair of horses. The left stall had a chestnut that immediately moved to Amelia. She pulled a carrot from somewhere and rubbed the horse''s nose. “This is Reggie. I take him most of the time. We try to take the same horse as much as possible, but we aren’t the only ones to use them. Also, every once in a great while, one of us pulls a back-to-back delivery and swaps for a fresh horse.”
She gestured to the horse in the right stall. It was dappled light grey. This is Nimbus; she just came from the trainers a few months ago. No one has really bonded with her yet. She’ll be your main horse. She handed Harper another carrot.
Harper went up to the mare, feeding her the carrot and scratching her behind her ear. Amelia took Reggie out and saddled him up. Embarrassingly, Harper needed help saddling her own horse; she had never actually done so, relying on her family’s handlers to have done it. Amelia raised an eyebrow but helped her wordlessly.
They rode to the city gate. Amelia handed the attending guard documentation; he looked it over and nodded them forward. They started to trot along the trail towards the tree line. She spoke up. “I’ll begin teaching you on our way back. For now, let’s focus on covering ground. I want to make sure we’ll get there and back before it gets dark.” Harper nodded her understanding.
Once they reached the tree line, they picked up the pace. They rode at a canter, not enough to tire the horses, but fast enough to make decent time. They were riding fast enough, and the wind blew strongly enough, to make conversation more trouble than it was worth.
Harper spent the time meditating on the Aerial Domain and trying to enlarge her aetherspace. Manifesting Sky was further than she hoped, but not as far as she feared. Each successive Domain was harder to earn than the previous. This was because she needed the necessary understanding of how that Domain fit in with what she already possessed, in addition to understanding the Domain itself.
Pondering on the connection between Sea and Sky was not too difficult for her. She had an excellent mental image. When Sky had proved to be the easiest of the Domains she wanted to manifest, she had spent an excessive amount of time on a seaside cliff near her family’s estate. The wind was almost always blowing there in some capacity. The soothing presence of the ocean was just a bonus.
She realized now that in her mental wandering, she had likely spent just as much time thinking about Sea as she had Sky. Her trip to Vanax over the sea had just solidified it, priming it to be manifested whenever she accepted it. Better than no Domain, I suppose. She wondered what she lacked in Sky that she had in Sea. Or the other Domains she wanted, for that matter.
When she grew restless, it being difficult to focus on the back of a horse, she turned to her aetherspace. She needed to grow it. Not only was it useful to hold equipment and materials imbued with the aether, but it was also the key to holding an Alius and practicing an aethercraft. It could only be manually grown once someone attained their first Domain.
She pictured the recommended technique with Sea. A ball of water swelled in her aetherspace. It grew, straining against the sides, before swelling back down and compressing. She repeated this as much as she could, eventually stopping due to a burgeoning headache.
That was one good thing about Sea over Sky, it was much better for expanding one’s aetherspace. As a singular Domain anyway. There were later Domain combinations that drastically increased the speed at which one could work.
After around five hours, they stopped to let the horses graze and take a quick lunch. Harper had come prepared. She pulled out a small mountain of travel rations and began wolfing it down. She didn’t have to eat as much as she did in the first few days, but still a decent bit more than her usual fare.
“So, either you just manifested that Domain recently, or you’re pregnant.”
Harper choked on her food and the other woman chuckled.
“I should know; those were the only times I’ve eaten like that,” she added after she was done laughing. She got out her own travel meal.
They ate their meal on a fallen log, chattering idly and learning a bit more about each other. Harper learned that Amelia, which she insisted she call her, grew up in a smaller town in Yornel. She got married and moved to Arboren, where she began working for the Governor. She had several kids, and her job earned enough for her to get them a good education. She seemed content.
Harper wondered if she could be content with such a life. For as long as she could remember, she was supposed to be her house''s heir. If she wasn’t going to take the mantle of the Countess of House Waspen, what would she be? Her brother was a prodigy; he was well on his way to Sky when she left, already having Sun, and he was nearly two years younger than her. Unless she started tripping over Domain cores to consume, her chances of reclaiming her position were nil.
Even earning a two Domain core so that her parents would accept her back was going to take a long time. A few years at the least. Did she want to sacrifice all her free time and live off the bare minimum, so that she could do what? Get to start working on her family’s accounts earlier? Be married off to strengthen some alliance of their house? She wanted more than that.
These and similar thoughts ran through her head as they mounted the horses and continued the trip. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. Hopefully, she’d have a better idea once she manifested Sky. Maybe another option would appear. Maybe her brother would slow down and turn out not to be as impressive as he first seemed, and her parents would ask her back. Harper could hope, anyways.