Chương 16: Ten morgs

The morning Uther first appeared at their breakfast table, he arrived mid-sentence. He was sixteen, with sparse brown hair and the particular energy of someone who had never once been told to be quiet. He sat down between Wod and Terry, accepted the bread Mari handed him without being asked, and immediately began describing, in considerable detail, the exact dimensions of a rabbit hole he had found near the eastern field. Wod stared at his plate. Terry smoked. Uther didn't seem to notice.

Uther's arrival made a certain kind of sense. Zed had left two months earlier to apprentice under Grog, the village blacksmith. He was one of three boys competing for a single spot. He was apparently doing well, which meant he wasn't coming back to the fields, so the work fell to Terry and Wod alone. Wod had grown almost as large as his father, but he could not replace both himself and Zed in the fields. Hence Uther. He came back the next day. And the next.

Within a week, he was simply there every morning, following Terry and Wod to the fields and returning for lunch still talking, apparently undisturbed by the fact that no one was responding. Arien watched him from his corner. He generally approached most things in this world with detached curiosity. After observing Uther for a few days, he concluded that the boy was either very confident or completely unaware of the difference between a conversation and a monologue.

He didn't care much either way, as long as no one dragged him into helping. The war started on an otherwise unremarkable evening, when his mother asked Sari what she thought of Uther. Sari stared at her mother for a moment before realization spread across her face.

"So this is what you and Aunt Nessi came up with." Sari's voice stayed low.

"No. No, you're not doing this to me!"

"Sari, Uther is a good boy, we think—""I don't even like him! He talks instead of working. Father." She turned to Terry.

"Tell her you don't want such a son-in-law." Terry looked from Sari to Mari, then lowered his head.

"These matters are your mother's domain," he muttered. Sari looked around the room. Wod had gone very still. Lisa and Alia were staring at the table. Arien kept his face carefully neutral. She stood up and walked out, closing the door behind her with exactly enough force to make her point without being punished for it. The latch clicked shut. For a moment, no one spoke.

"She'll come around and eventually understand it's a good idea," Mari finally said, almost to herself.

"Nessi will buy Uther ten morgs of land, and they'll have one of the largest farms in the village." Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"Ten morgs," Wod said. His face was red.

"That's what Sari is worth to you? Ten morgs and a boy who can't tell wheat from barley?"

"He'll learn," Mari said quietly.

"He only has two assigned Skills. He still has time to choose something useful for the farm. In a few years—""My sister deserves better! Hardly any girl in the village has Skills as high as hers!"

"Wod." His father cut him off sharply, his hands tightening into fists.

"Enough."

"Father—""Your mother doesn't interfere in the fields. We don't interfere in her decisions. You're only upsetting your sisters and Arien. Go after your sister and make sure she's safe." Wod sat for a moment longer than he should have, his hands clenched on the table. Then he got up and left without another word. Mari closed her eyes briefly. There was no satisfaction in her face, only the weary certainty of someone who believed an unpleasant choice was still the right one.

Nobody said much for the rest of the evening. The meal ended, chores were finished, and one by one everyone went to bed without returning to the subject. That night, Arien couldn't fall asleep. The house was quiet, but it was the strained silence of people pretending nothing had happened. Without thinking, he reached for mana and let it flow through his fingers without trying to shape it. Mana did not judge or care about fields, daughters, or decisions made on someone else's behalf.

For a moment, even the argument receded. The weeks that followed were quieter, but the tension never really left. Sari didn't give up at first. She argued in the mornings before Terry left for the fields, her voice low and careful, as though she'd learned that shouting hadn't worked and was trying a different approach. She enlisted Wod, who tried once more and was shut down with a single look from their father. One evening, she sat close beside Mari and spoke more quietly than Arien had ever heard her speak.

There was no anger left in her voice, only exhaustion. Mari listened. Eventually, she said something soft and final. Sari stared at her for several seconds before slowly nodding. The look on her face reminded Arien of someone who had just been sentenced and knew there was no point in arguing anymore. Arien wanted to say something, but what could he possibly add? Wod had tried. Sari had tried. He was four years old, and no one was going to ask his opinion about his sister's future.

After that, Sari simply did her work and said little. She stopped arguing, stopped asking, and did whatever Mari told her with a quietness that felt far more worrying than her anger had. Wod withdrew almost as completely, while Terry, who had spent years filling their evenings with stories of empires, gods, and enchanted swords, began spending most nights at the tavern and coming home late. Even Uther eventually seemed to notice.

One morning, he arrived at his usual time and sat in his usual spot, but for the first time since he'd begun coming to their house, he didn't immediately start talking. He accepted the bread Mari handed him, glanced once toward Sari's back as she stood at the fire, then looked down and spent the rest of the meal in silence. Nobody commented on that or looked at him directly. What surprised Arien was how much all of it hurt.

He noticed it in small ways: even breakfast had become quiet, the evenings stretched without Terry's stories, and too often he looked for Sari only to find a shadow of the girl who used to laugh at everything. He had spent four years being careful with his words, his magic, and the part of him that still belonged to another life. Somewhere along the way, however, that distance had stopped protecting him. He cared what happened to them now, far more than he had ever intended to. The house had grown quieter.

Arien missed the noise.