A road came into focus—pale gray stone blocks laid in neat lines, stretching forward without end. The surface moved beneath their eyes as though they were walking with her, each step rising and falling in rhythm with the pendulum’s slow chime. The chamber’s air shifted too. A faint breeze drifted through, cool but not biting, carrying with it the brittle scent of fallen leaves. Autumn.
Vierna wasn’t looking at the world. She was looking down. The image fixed on the road, block after block passing beneath her shoes, her gaze never daring to lift.
From beyond the edges of sight, shapes moved. Blurred outlines of people passing by, half-formed, indistinct. Their whispers seeped into the room, a hiss of voices overlapping one another. Most of it was incoherent—slivers of phrases, the murmur of conversations she hadn’t dared to listen to. But one word cut through, sharp and cruel.
“Bastard.”
The sound echoed unnaturally, hanging in the sterile chamber longer than it should have, as if the spell itself emphasized the word.
She only walked faster, her eyes pinned to the road. Was it meant for her? Or had it been about someone else entirely? She had never known. The uncertainty gnawed sharper than the insult itself.
Still, she didn’t stop. Each block sliding away under her steps, each whisper trailing her like smoke she couldn’t escape.
The building stood with quiet splendor, its stone walls dressed in pale marble that caught the autumn light with a soft glow. A wrought-iron gate guarded the front, its bars shaped into arcs of a rising moon.
Upon the central plaque gleamed the family crest: a full moon encircled by crossed blades, etched in silver and black enamel. Tall windows lined the facade, their stained glass catching threads of color like moonlight on water.
The heavy oak door bore carvings of shields and crescent arcs, and lanterns of polished brass flanked the steps. Even the garden spoke of dignity and discipline, its hedges trimmed into perfect symmetry, a small fountain at its heart sending water to glitter under the waning day.
The memory swayed as she stepped inside, shoes left neatly at the entry. She moved straight down the narrow hall, her pace unbroken, until she reach a stair.
“Alice…”
The voice floated in from above.
Lina frowned. “Alice?”
Halwen inclined his head. “Apparently this is Vierna’s true given name.”
Lina’s breath caught. She remembered the day Vierna admitted she hadn’t recalled her name at first. To hear it now, spoken so casually in memory, made the moment feel like Vierna lied to her. Still she believed there was a reason for that and so, she looked back at the projected image again.
“How’s school today?”
Vierna’s eyes in the memory lifted for the first time.
Her mother stood: dark hair falling in waves, her figure lush, her beauty striking. She was dressed in finery that outshone even the house around her—silk blouse, embroidered skirt, threads that caught the light with every shift. The home carried dignity and splendor, yet beside her it seemed almost subdued. She belonged to salons and ballrooms, to moonlit halls where nobles gathered, and yet here she was, filling the home with a presence that made even its polished marble and carved oak seem plain.
The room stilled at her words, waiting for the girl—Alice—to answer.
“Hi, Mom. It was fun as usual.”
The words came light, almost cheerful, but the image betrayed her. The colors of the memory dulled—warm autumn tones bleeding into washed gray, as if the lie had drained the day of its hue. Her voice carried a brightness too even, like a song rehearsed too many times.
Her mother paused, eyes narrowing just slightly. The memory sharpened on her face, detail lingering as though even the spell wanted to capture her intuition.
“Alice… you know a mother knows everything, right?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“So tell me what’s going on, actually.”
“It was the same. I tried to do what you told me, keep joining the conversation, try to act normal. But they just ignored me. Hehe… I guess I wasn’t trying hard enough.”
Her laugh rang out light, but the picture betrayed her. The memory’s colors dimmed into a muted blue-gray.
“Alice,” her mother said softly, “you don’t need to protect me from worry. That’s my burden, not yours.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Without warning, her mother pulled her close. The memory shivered, colors warming again, filling with softer light.
“You are my special girl, and if no one can see it, shame on them.”
A tear slipped down Alice’s cheek, sparkling in the projection like glass catching the sun. Her arms tightened until her knuckles blanched, as though holding on could anchor her against the world outside. Her small shoulders, usually drawn tight, loosened at last, trembling with the breath she had been holding in all day. A muffled sob escaped as she buried her face into her mother’s warmth, hiding the quiver of her lips where no one could see.
“Oof, did you work out or something? Haha, I can’t even breathe,” her mother teased.
“Hehe…”
“Now,” her mother said, brushing a stray lock of silver hair behind Alice’s ear, “enough about those ignorant people. Tell me what you learned in school today.”
So Alice did. She pulled out her notes, laying them across the table as though she were the teacher instead. She explained everything—the lessons on mana flow, the first hints of spell theory, even the tedious recitations on Reich history. Her voice dimmed when she confessed how she still couldn’t lift even the smallest enchanted weight, while her classmates were already conjuring sparks and pushing pebbles.
“Don’t worry,” her mother said, smiling as if her certainty could rewrite reality. “You’re just a late bloomer, after all.”
“But… they said that I have Faintborn’s blessing.”
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The change was instant. Her mother’s face darkened, the beauty in her features sharpening into something fierce and terrible. Her eyes blazed like stormlight, mouth drawn tight, and when she spoke the words cracked like a whip.
“WHO SAID THAT?”
The sudden force of it made Alice flinch. Her throat closed, and she stammered, “I-I’m sorry, Mother, maybe I misheard…”
The storm passed as quickly as it came. Her mother’s shoulders eased, her gaze softened, though her hands still trembled faintly as they cupped Alice’s cheeks.
“Oh, Alice… forgive me. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Her mother’s voice softened, the storm already fading from her eyes. She brushed a trembling hand across Alice’s cheek. “I just can’t stand people who judge you only for your silver hair. The test isn’t until next year. Until then, don’t let them steal your hope.”
Alice lowered her gaze, lips pressed thin. She didn’t answer, though in her heart she clung to the hope that her mother was right—that she was simply late to bloom, that the whispers weren’t true. The books all agreed: mana testing before nine was unreliable, since many children only awakened at the threshold of that age. There were always cases of late bloomers. She prayed she would be one of them.
“This stupid backwater of a county is worse than anywhere else. The moment they see your hair, they decide you have Faintborn—what a backward way of thinking. I know this is my hometown, but honestly, I want to get the hell out. If only your father would agree with me.”
“Mom.”
“Yes, Alice?”
Alice hesitated, twisting the hem of her skirt between her fingers. Her voice came small, almost too fragile to leave her lips. “Would you still love me? Even if I had that?”
Her mother froze. For a heartbeat her face was unreadable, caught somewhere between hurt and something harder. Then she leaned down, her hands framing Alice’s cheeks with a forced gentleness.
“Alice,” she said, her voice velvet over steel, “I would always love you. Because you don’t have that. Don’t ever think otherwise.”
Alice searched her mother’s eyes, trying to decipher that strange look—the fierce conviction, the fragile edge beneath it. She didn’t understand it, not fully. But she wanted to. And so she nodded, burying her doubt under hope. For her mother’s sake, she prayed it was true.
“Anyway, Alice,” her mother said suddenly, smoothing her daughter’s hair as if brushing the thought away, “my shoulders are a bit stiff. Can you do your magic?”
Alice giggled, the tension breaking like glass underfoot. “Hehe, it’s not magic, Mother.”
She moved behind her and began to knead the tension from her shoulders with small, careful hands. Her mother sighed, leaning into the touch, letting the moment soften again.
The rest of the day slipped by in quiet togetherness. They read books by the window’s autumn light, shared tea sweetened with honey, and played simple games that made her mother laugh too freely.
Later, when Alice wandered to the kitchens to help the maids with their chores, her mother let her go. She understood why: Alice had no real friends her age, and the maids, smiling and patient, treating her with a quiet kindness, were the closest thing she had. Among them was Lyn, a girl only a few years older, who often guided Alice with small tasks. To Alice, even folding linens or stirring a pot beside them was not just work, but a way to belong.
Lina looked at this girl—Vierna, or rather Alice. The cheerfulness here was soft, unforced, carrying a serenity that settled into the room like sunlight through glass. Vierna was cheerful now too, ever since the siege. She had laughed and joked easily, but looking at this memory made it clear—what she showed now was not the same. The brightness she carried in the present felt sharper, almost built on purpose, while this happiness seemed to grow from somewhere deeper, untouched.
Lina glanced at the real Vierna, bound in the chair, eyes wide open yet empty, her expression sealed in the gray stillness of the Arkmarschall’s spell. She was watching too, but nothing showed on her face—no sorrow, no joy, only the numbness of being locked away.
Lina turned back to the projection.
It was night now.
“Alice, let’s do the usual thing.”
“Okay, Mother.”
The two walked side by side, their steps soft against the dimly lit corridor. Shadows from the lanterns flickered along the stone walls as they ascended the stairwell. When they emerged onto the open terrace, the world above opened wide.
The sky stretched endless and velvet-black, pierced by a scatter of stars so sharp they looked like diamonds pressed into glass. But it was the moon that commanded all—the full moon, vast and luminous, washing the rooftops in silver. Clouds drifted slowly across its face, breaking the light into soft halos that shifted and rejoined like a living crown. The autumn air carried a crispness, and every breath felt clear, almost sacred. The glow touched the crests carved into the balustrades, the emblem of their house—a full moon carved in relief, shining pale against the stone as if answering the sky itself.
Alice tilted her head back, her silver hair catching the moonlight, turning it into threads of living light. For a moment, she seemed to belong to the night as much as to the world beneath it.
“Will Father join us, Mother?”
“No. He is busy. I think he will come home tomorrow morning.”
“Okay, Mother.”
Alice followed her mother to the terrace and sat along the stone balustrade, the silver wash of moonlight falling across her face.
“I learned something new today. Tell me how it looks to you,” her mother said with a smile.
Alice nodded, curious.
A soft glow shimmered in her mother’s palm. Lines of arcane light curved into a perfect circle, runes spinning with practiced elegance. In a breath, her gown shifted, fabric rippling like water until she stood dressed anew—a dancer’s attire, woven of pale silks that caught the moonlight like liquid silver. Hints of pearl-blue trimmed the flowing sleeves and hem, while faint glimmers of embroidery traced crescents and stars across the bodice.
The garments seemed made not merely for dance, but for her. The way the fabric clung at her waist and flowed from her hips only emphasized the fullness of her form, her curvaceous figure giving the silks a noble weight that made every line of her body part of the performance. She was not diminished by the attire—it exalted her, as though the moon itself had chosen to clothe her in its glow.
Then the dance began.
Her mother’s movements flowed with a grace that stole the air. Each step was soft as falling leaves, each turn as fluid as the autumn breeze whispering across the terrace. Her dark brown hair streamed behind her, catching glimmers of light, a cascade of shadow gilded by silver. When she raised her arms, the fabric fanned outward, trailing arcs that shimmered like lunar halos.
She did not seem human then. In the stillness of the night, beneath the towering full moon, she became something more. To Alice’s eyes it was no longer her mother who danced but a divine figure, a goddess of the moon, spinning poetry in motion. Her steps carried a quiet power, her gestures a tenderness that brushed against the heart.
She watched as the dance unfolded, and for a moment the world outside disappeared, leaving only the radiance of moonlight, the autumn air, and the figure who seemed to weave both into a living hymn. The terrace stretched endless, the stars sharp and close, the silver moon hanging vast above them.
At first it seemed no more than the projected vision, painted on the chamber wall by the needles. But as the movements flowed on, the spell deepened. The image thinned into something greater, spilling past the screen until it touched the room itself. A faint chill threaded across their skin, carrying with it the scent of fallen leaves. The sterile wards and whitewashed walls bled away, overlaid by silver light pooling thick as water.
What began as a picture became a place. The chamber was gone, remade into a sanctum not of this world, its vastness pressing in with quiet authority. All present knew without being told—they did not belong here. This was a realm of divinity, and they were intruders at its edge.
And Alice was not within it either. She lingered just outside its threshold, a child watching from the doorway of heaven itself. Beyond her, her mother danced not as a woman of flesh and bone, but as a goddess made manifest. Each turn was radiant, each sweep of silk proclaiming dominion beneath the moon. Alice’s chest tightened as the memory wrapped around her. The words her mother had spoken—I just learned this move—rang false in the face of such perfection. It was too flawless to be new.
The dance ended. The glow faded, pulling her back into her home, into reality.
“So?” her mother asked, a playful spark in her eye.
“You are a liar, Mom,” Alice said.
Her mother blinked. “Huh?”
“You said you just learned it. But it was too good. I don’t believe it.”
“Ha! But it’s true, Alice.”
“Huft.” Alice crossed her arms and turned aside, lips pushing into a pout.
“Hey, don’t pout at me. You know what a pouty face gets.”
Alice froze.
“A pinch,” her mother declared, lunging forward with wicked glee.
“Noooo!”
Alice shrieked and darted away, her laughter trailing behind her as her mother gave chase. Around and around they ran, skirts fluttering, bare feet pattering on the terrace, their laughter ringing brighter than the moonlight above. In that moment, nothing else mattered—no whispers, no fear, no loneliness. Just mother and daughter playing, as if the world itself had stopped for them.
And Alice wished, with all her heart, that it would last forever.
Oh yeah here is a rough picture of the mom~
If her mother was kind, then is it her father? the one who make her like this?
