Reincarnated As An Archmage’s Daughter

Hania walked toward the willow tree.

She stopped at the edge of the tree's shadow. The long green branches hung like a curtain, partially obscuring the person sitting beneath them. He was a boy, she realized. A boy about her age, or a little older. His back was against the trunk, his legs stretched out in front of him, his face tilted up toward the pink sky.

Silver hair. Red eyes.

Dad?

No. This wasn't her father. This was a child. His features were sharp in the way Dravin's were sharp, but softer. His silver hair was shorter, falling just past his ears. His red eyes were the same crimson she knew, but brighter somehow. Less haunted.

He was looking at the sky. Then, slowly, his gaze drifted down to the ground in front of him.

Hania followed his eyes.

There was a grave. A single stone marker, half-hidden in the willow's roots. It was the same kind of marker she had seen on her first visit to this garden, but on that visit, there had been seven of them. Four filled. Three empty.

Now there was only one.

The boy stared at the grave for a long moment. Then he spoke.

"Will you come back to fill the second one?"

Hania didn't understand. Fill the second one? What does that mean? Who is he talking to?

She took a step forward.

The boy's head turned sharply. His red eyes locked onto her.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. Hania stood frozen at the edge of the willow's shadow, her heart pounding. The boy stared at her with confusion and curiosity.

"You're not a spirit," he said slowly. "Spirits don't have mana signatures that bright."

He can sense my mana? Hania's mind raced. But he's just a child. He's—

"I'm not a spirit," she said carefully. "I'm—"

"You're like me." He tilted his head. "Silver hair. Mana density off the scale. But your signature is... strange. It feels familiar, but I've never met you before." His eyes narrowed. "Did I accidentally summon you? I was experimenting with inter-planar resonance theory earlier. The calculations were unstable. If a fragment of my mana crossed into a summoning vector—"

"I don't think you summoned me."

"Then how did you get here? This is a sealed pocket dimension. I'm the only one who can access it." He paused. "Well. I'm supposed to be the only one who can access it."

"I—" Hania started.

She never finished the sentence.

A section of the pink sky directly above the lotus pond rippled. A voice rang out.

"Oh, brother! Stop looking so constipated! It's just us!"

Three figures dropped through the rift in the sky.

The first to land was a girl about the boy's age. She had silver hair that fell past her shoulders, and red eyes that sparkled with mischief. Her dress was expensive silk in deep red and silver, the colors of the Noctis royal house, but it was rumpled and stained with grass. She had clearly been running.

Hania's heart clenched. Sylvara. The one Lusha told me about. The one who ruled Noxbrion as a proxy after father sealed himself away.

Behind her, two more figures tumbled through the rift with considerably less grace.

The second girl was about the same age, with honey-brown curls pinned back by a small tiara. Her dress was pale blue with gold embroidery, and she was laughing so hard she could barely stand.

"Syl," she gasped, clutching her side. "Syl, I think I left my stomach in the transit corridor. Is that possible? Can you leave organs in dimensional rifts?"

"Perfectly possible," the silver-haired girl, Syl, said cheerfully. "I left my dignity in a rift years ago. Haven't missed it."

The third figure was a girl with dark hair pulled back in a braid. She wore the simple but well-made clothes of a lady's companion—not a servant, exactly, but someone whose job was to keep noble girls out of trouble. Based on her expression, she was not succeeding at this job.

"Your Highness," she said, her voice strained, "when you said we were going to the library, I didn't realize you meant 'the Crown Prince's private pocket dimension that we are definitely not supposed to have access to.'"

"Saku, Saku, Saku." Syl draped an arm around the girl's shoulders. "The library is boring. The pocket dimension is fun. And my brother needs company. Look at him! He's been sitting under that tree for hours."

"I was meditating," the boy said flatly.

"You were brooding. Meditation is productive. Brooding is just being sad with your eyes closed."

"I wasn't brooding."

"You were talking to the grave again."

The boy's jaw tightened. "That's none of your business."

"It's absolutely my business." Syl released Saku and bounded over to the willow tree. "Besides, I brought guests. Princess Mirelle, who is technically supposed to be in a trade negotiation right now but decided diplomacy was boring—"

"I didn't decide," Mirelle protested, still catching her breath. "You kidnapped me."

"Semantics. And Saku, who is supposed to be keeping us out of trouble but has tragically failed in her duties."

"I didn't fail," Saku muttered. "I was outvoted. There were two of you and one of me. That's not failure. That's democracy."

"Anyway!" Syl clapped her hands together. "We're here now. We've escaped the tutors. The trade negotiations can wait. And you—" She pointed at her brother. "—are going to stop brooding and participate in something fun for once in your life."

"I don't do fun."

"I know. It's tragic. We're working on it." Syl turned to survey the garden, her red eyes sparkling. "Mirelle, have you seen the koi pond? The fish are enchanted. They sing if you feed them. It's deeply unsettling. I love it."

The boy pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sylvara. How many times have I told you not to use my private dimension as your personal escape route?"

"Seven hundred and forty-three," Syl said promptly. "I've been counting. You've been counting too, don't pretend you haven't."

"I have a tally."

"I know. I found it in your study."

"Syl—"

"Oh, relax." She waved a dismissive hand. "It's the only space in the entire kingdom where we can do unlawful things without getting caught. You want us to practice illegal dimensional magic in the public gardens where anyone could see?"

"I want you to not practice illegal dimensional magic at all."

"Boring. Next suggestion."

The boy opened his mouth, closed it, and made a sound that Hania recognized intimately. It was the exact same sound her father made when he had given up on arguing with her.

"You're impossible," he said.

"I'm delightful," Syl corrected. "Ask anyone. Ask Mirelle. Mirelle, am I delightful?"

"You're a menace," Mirelle said, still trying to straighten her tiara. "But a delightful menace."

"See? Delightful." Syl beamed at her brother. "Now. We're going to stay here for at least two hours. We're going to feed the singing fish and climb the cherry trees and possibly attempt a forbidden summoning ritual that I found in the restricted archives. You can participate or you can get lost. Your choice."

"This is my dimension."

"And you can stay in it! Just... over there." She waved vaguely toward the far end of the garden. "Out of brooding range. We'll be very quiet."

"You're never quiet."

"Quiet-adjacent. We'll be quiet-adjacent."

The boy stared at her for a long moment. Then, unexpectedly, the corner of his mouth twitched. It was the same almost-expression Hania's father made when he was amused and didn't want to admit it.

"Fine," he said. "Two hours. No forbidden summoning rituals."

"No!"

"Syl."

"Fine, fine. No forbidden summoning rituals. We'll stick to the marginally unethical ones."

"That's not better."

"It's slightly better. It's better-adjacent."

She grabbed Mirelle's hand and dragged her toward the koi pond. Saku followed them.

The boy watched them go. His expression was complicated.

Then he turned back to Hania.

"You're still here," he said. "I thought you might have been a side effect of Syl's dimensional breach. But her magic doesn't feel like yours. You're something else."

Hania didn't know what to say. She had just watched her father interact with his sister. His sister, who was warm and funny and full of life. His sister, who was dead now. Had to be dead. Because present-day Dravin never talked about her.

This is a memory, Hania realized. I'm watching something that's already over.

But the boy was looking at her like she was real. Like he could see her.

"I'm... I'm from somewhere else. I didn't mean to come here. I was trying to reach my father."

"Your father?"

"He's..." She hesitated. "He's in trouble. I was trying to find him, and I ended up here instead."

The boy studied her for a long moment. His red eyes were the same as her father's—the same shaded, but they were younger. Less guarded. Still capable of curiosity without immediately calculating the threat.

"Your mana feels like mine," he said slowly. "Exactly like mine. That shouldn't be possible. Mana signatures are unique. Even within the same bloodline, there are variations. But yours is identical."

Hania's heart stopped. He can sense it. He doesn't understand what it means, but he can sense it.

"I don't know why," she lied.

"Yes, you do." He tilted his head. "But you're not going to tell me. That's fine. I'm used to people not telling me things." He looked back at the grave beneath the willow. "The person in that grave never told me things either. They just... left."

"Who are they?"

He didn't answer. Just shook his head slightly. "It doesn't matter. They're gone now."

Hania wanted to ask more, but something in his posture told her the subject was closed. Whoever that grave was for, it wasn't something he would explain to a stranger.

He looked up at the pink sky. "I keep asking. Just in case."

"Your sister," Hania said. "She seems..."

"Annoying?"

"I was going to say 'fun.'"

"That too." The corner of his mouth twitched again. "She's always been like that. Even when... it happened. She cried for days, and then she woke up on the seventh day and said, 'I'm going to be happy enough for both of us now.' And she has been. Ever since." He looked toward the koi pond, where Syl was attempting to teach Mirelle a song that the fish apparently knew. "I don't know how she does it."

"She loves you."

"I know. It's exhausting."

"That's what love is."

He looked at her sharply. "You sound like you know."

"I have a father who's terrible at saying things. He says 'Hmm' instead of 'I love you.' But I know what he means."

"Hmm." The boy made the sound deliberately, then looked faintly embarrassed. "Is that what I sound like?"

"Exactly like that."

"I need to work on that."

"Probably."

At the koi pond, Syl had given up on the song and was now trying to catch one of the fish with her bare hands. Mirelle was doubled over with laughter. Saku was standing at the edge of the pond.

"She's going to fall in," the boy observed.

As if on cue, Syl overbalanced with a shriek and toppled headfirst into the pond. The koi scattered in a flash of scales. Mirelle screamed with laughter. Saku sighed and began removing her shoes.

The boy didn't move to help. But he was smiling now.

"She does this every time," he said. "Every single time. And every single time, Saku has to fish her out."

"Does she ever learn?"

"Never. She says it's part of her charm."

"Is it?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

Hania watched the chaos at the pond—Syl splashing and laughing, Mirelle offering unhelpful suggestions, Saku wading in with the patience of a saint.

The boy turned back to her. "You said you were trying to reach your father. The one who says 'Hmm.' Is he... like me?"

"He's exactly like you."

"That's unfortunate for you."

"No." Hania shook her head. "It's not. He's difficult and cold and he never says what he means." Her voice caught. "And right now, he's out there alone, and I don't know how to help him."

The boy was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "Whoever your father is, if he's anything like me, he probably thinks he has to carry everything alone. That's what I do. I'm starting to think it's a family trait." He looked back at her. "Don't let him."

"I won't."

He nodded once. It was the same nod her father gave when he was satisfied with something but didn't want to say so.

Then he walked toward the pond, toward his sister, toward the chaos and laughter and warmth that would one day be taken from him.

Hania watched him go.

I'll save you, she thought. I don't know how yet, but I will.

Suddenly the garden rippled. A lurch in the fabric of the dimension, like the ground shifting beneath her feet. The pink sky flickered. The cherry blossoms froze mid-fall.

"What—" she started.

Then the world shattered.