The Lich King Reincarnates as a Baby

Chapter 34: Heart to Heart

++I was always going to live a life of conflict after my rebirth, given what my ambitions were, but even if it were not for my own goals, I think I would have been dragged into conflict not of my own making regardless.++

- From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, ‘The Great Lich’. 1,891 A.E

Agrian waited outside his father’s office and tried not to look nervous.

It wasn’t easy, he was nervous. Somehow more nervous than when he’d gone after Isabel in that basement. This wasn’t something as simple and primitive as pure fear, it was a more creeping and sinister kind of sensation. The sort that snuck its way deep into his thoughts, then slowly grew. Like one of those ‘tumours’ he’d been told about while studying at Winzorth. You couldn’t deal with a tumour like normal wounds, it just didn’t work. They were as much a part of the body as an arm or eye.

And that was the same for his feelings right now. They were all him, he just didn’t like them.

He’s my father, this is ridiculous.

But he could tell himself that all he liked, it didn’t change how he felt.

And it wasn’t even a failure of logic against emotion, either. Agrian was worried because it was his father he meant to meet. They hadn’t met in years, not physically. They’d written to each other of course, but that was such a distant and sterile way of communicating that it didn’t even register on the same level. This was his first, private, face-to-face conversation with the old man in years.

Agrian had grown since they last spoke, become, really, a young man. This was the day he would find out what his father thought of the man he’d become.

He knocked on the door again, nerves winning out. His father hadn’t answered the first one, maybe hadn’t heard it, but this time his voice rang out, booming and strong as ever.

“In, come in!” Agrian obeyed, pushing his way into the study and feeling a stab of familiarity. He’d been in it a few times before, as a boy, and always thought back to those times at Winzorth. In his memory it had been some grand, mysterious place like the horde of a slumbering dragon.

It was just a study of course, funny how things got mythologised by the memory. Funny how he couldn’t get over that even now.

“Port?” Agrian blinked, taking a moment to process that his father was offering him a drink.

“Uh…yes, please, sir?”

“Sir?” The Baron laughed as he poured out two glasses, one clearly made to hold liquid by the pints. He handed the smaller one, more normal sized, to Agrian, and started swigging from his own. Agrian sipped the drink, expecting it to be water-thin, but found it was actually rather strong, and very good.

Of course, father’s a warrior of the third order. He’ll need to drink strong stuff by the pint just for a buzz.

“It’s good to see you again, my boy,” the Baron sighed.

“Good to see you too father,” Agrian took another sip, to give his mouth something to do as they stood there. The Baron turned to his desk, looking like he was thinking of sitting, then thinking otherwise. “How is your sister?” He asked. “I’d ask Isabel herself, you know, but…well, girls, eh? One never quite knows, you know.”

No, I don’t know. But Agrian didn’t think it would do much for the already-thickening awkwardness if he said that.

“She’s fine,” he replied instead. “Taking well to our studies you know.”

The Baron nodded, though his face scrunched up somewhat. “Good,” he sighed. “Good. I…wish I didn’t have to send her off. It’s not right to make a girl study with so many boys, she should be learning to keep a home, dancing, doing something…I don’t know, ladylike. Not locked up there with all those…” his lip curled. “All those damned magicians, all those boys.” he turned sharply to Agrian.“You’re keeping an eye on her?”

Agrian thought about that question. Was he keeping an eye on his sister? Gods no, and not for lack of trying. Isabel was just…unwatchable. So fiercely independent that the very thought of trying to restrict her behaviour into something more easily monitored just seemed impossible. Easier to watch a damned thunderstorm.

“I do what I can,” Agrian said, diplomatically.

“Good,” his father nodded, taking another swig. “...Good. She’s getting to that age, men will be finding their eyes caught by her soon.”

Agrian suddenly found it rather hard to remain interested in his drink, or in putting anything down his gullet. In fact, it was growing difficult to even keep the things already resting in his belly where they were.

“Was that…uh, was that our big talk, father?” he asked awkwardly, deciding that silence would still, if barely, be less comfortable than this chatter.

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The Baron’s eyes lit up as he asked.

“No.” He took another swig, or tried to before realising his glass was empty. The Baron spoke more as he refilled it. “No, what I wanted to talk to you about was coming out with me this evening, to a gentleman’s club in town.”

Agrian felt his face burning, and tried to hide it with another sip of his own drink.

“You know what that is then?” the Baron asked.

“I…Don’t think I do, no, father.” Agrian knew a bit painfully well. He’d heard about a thousand different stories from a hundred different people about what went on in those establishments, and if half of the maddest ones were true then his father was presently discussing nothing short of an orgy.

Then again, he doubted that even a quarter of the mad ones were true. Agrian had spent enough time around his fellow apprentices to know that, on most topics, they were utterly full of shit.

“Good. Then you can enjoy the surprise when you meet me for our outing.” The Baron slapped Agrian on the arm and nearly snapped the damn limb in half, numbing it down to the fingers. His glass slipped from them as they opened, and it broke against the floorboards.

“Maketa’s tits!” the Baron growled. “My fault, I keep doing that. Been socialising with a lot of old army mates, you understand, it’s gotten me into the habit of…well, you use different strength around warriors than everyone else.”

He smiled, but it looked painful suddenly. There was a new question bubbling in him.

Agrian waited, and then relaxed when it wasn’t asked.

***

“We must do something together,” my mother insisted. “Isabel we absolutely must. It’s been years and I’ll not have my eldest daughter leave again until we’ve spent some quality time with each other!”

I smiled at that, because it would upset her and inconvenience me if I did not, and tried to hide the fact that I could genuinely not think of a single thing the both of us were likely to enjoy. She certainly would not like watching me study the tomes on magical theory I had brought with me.

Shortly after her talk with my father, my mother had promptly taken me to the common room and sat down with me, having a drink fetched while she herself enjoyed a glass of wine. I was drinking water. I had observed in my original life that humans who drank alcohol tended to die younger and prove less healthy than those who did not, all else being equal. I would be stuck with this body for a while, and had no intention of weakening it any more.

“I spoke to Victoria,” I told her. My mother’s children seemed to be one of the areas she was most delighted to talk about, and sure enough I saw her eyes light up at their mention of one now.

“I must do something with both of you together!” she exclaimed.

“Yes, very well, but I spoke to her about magic, she seems excited to—” instantly my mother’s expression hardened.

“Is that the only thing you care about?” she snapped.

Even I was shocked by this. “I—”

—”honestly, Isabel, the first time I see you in years and your opening question is about…about what, whether Victoria will be shipped away too, is that it?”

Ah, that explained the anger. I once again had to resist the urge to roll my eyes as my mother’s own suddenly grew wet and wavering.

“I did not mean to upset you,” I said evenly.

She stared for a moment, seeming to gain control over her emotions and bite back the tears. At last her face was still, then slowly broke out into a smile. After a few moments it even looked real.

“Why do you talk like that? You never got it from me, I know that much, you definitely didn’t get it from your father.” She shook her head in wonderment. “Where does it…come from…” I could see my mother’s brow furrowing as she thought harder, and decided to distract her before any of those thoughts could lead to an inconvenient suspicion.

“We could go to a play,” I suggested. “Or just to a park. I think Victoria would like the park.”

My mother’s expression soured again, though this time it seemed more light-hearted than genuinely angry. “Have you caught her climbing? You will, she does it all the time. I can’t stop her, nobody can. It’s bizarre.”

I could not help but smile at that, though it gave me a new question to wonder about.

“Did you never have interests that were not…ladylike?” I asked her.

My mother bristled. “What do you mean?”

“Everything you seem enthusiastic about appears to be…well, what you are expected to enjoy. I do not wish to offend you, but I do not think I have ever seen you care about something other than…something that women are encouraged to.”

What I was getting at, what I was hoping to achieve, was finding out whether she actually minded the way she was expected to behave and think.

“I…enjoyed riding,” she said after a moment. “Not the sort that ladies are expected to do. I mean…I would ride…” she actually looked around before continuing, as if we were sharing some dark secret, “...I would ride like a man, with my legs on either flank of the horse. It was the only way I could remain seated, because I liked to gallop. Try riding sidesaddle while your mount sprints and you’ll fall right off. I always enjoyed that speed, the wind the…” she seemed to remember herself, clearing her throat. “Anyway, I liked that as a girl, but I grew out of it.”

“You grew out of it, or you were told to stop doing it?” I asked. Her face tightened again, but she did not snap at me this time.

“What’s done is done, Isabel, I haven’t ridden for years and I don’t intend to again.”

“...What if you go riding with Victoria and myself?” I suggested. “You could teach us, I have not ridden a horse yet at least, I imagine she has not either.”

I had expected her to answer positively, but whether she would or would not have, I never got to find out. The world rumbled with some distant sound at that moment, far away but strong enough that the whole room shook around us. It repeated, and only then did I realise what it was that I was hearing.

“That was an explosion!” I yelped, finding myself on my feet without even having meant to stand.

“I…Oh Gods, they’re back, they’re coming for you again!” my mother’s eyes were wide, and I prepared myself to comfort her and banish the panic I saw growing. Instead she rose to her own feet and seized me by the arm, moving quickly and forcibly, but also with clear intent. There was not even a hint of frantic worry about her, just direction. “With me,” she ordered. “This way Isabel, come now.”

She seemed to have a plan, and I did not, so I saw no reason to disobey. My mother led me at a brisk pace, one that seemed to be testing her and was close to exhausting me. I had started practicing running and other exercises when I had spare time in-between my magical training, and I liked to think that I was much quicker than most eleven year-olds, but her adult-sized legs were still an advantage I could not yet overcome.

“Hurry!” she urged me onwards with a combination of words and rather sharp tugging at my arm, and I stumbled after her until we came to the main staircase. “There’s a shelter,” my mother began. “Down in—” she was cut off as the front doors to the mansion exploded inwards and men stormed our home.