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Zorian was busy. That wasn’t anything new. In the first month she’d spent in Cyoria, Kirielle had noticed that while he did make time for her, not infrequently, his attention was never fully on her. There were other things on his mind; more important than her, clearly.
She’d been a bit put-out about that, and honestly still was, but she had the sneaking suspicion that whatever his focus had been on had had something to do with the failed invasion of the city, so she couldn’t begrudge him too much for that. Especially since he seemed to have calmed down somewhat now.
It was weird. He wasn’t like he’d been all summer; he was different. Kirielle didn’t know what had changed, but… he knew her too well to be an impostor, she was fairly certain, and she wasn’t going to look a gift brother in the mouth when she was pretty sure he was actually her brother. If nothing else, he had all the Academy teachers coming by; surely they had methods of detecting impostors.
But impostor or not, Zorian was busy. Normally this didn’t bother Kirielle too much—she wasn’t a baby, she could get along without his constant attention. Today, though, she actually wanted to talk to him. With that in mind, she wandered upstairs and into their room—it had been just hers, the first month, but with how crowded Imaya’s place had gotten Zorian had moved back in with her.
She might not have any idea where Zorian was right now, but he was all but certain to at least drop by their room before dinner, and there were some interesting books in there she’d been wanting to look at besides.
Kirielle frowned down at the pages of the book she was idly browsing through. She was a good enough reader, ordinarily, but this book was stretching her to her limits; maybe that was just the subject matter, though. It was particularly annoying, she thought, to read a sentence wherein she knew all the words, and knew she knew all the words, and somehow still come out the other side no more enlightened for it.
Fortunately for her, it was at that point that Zorian returned, saving her the decision of whether she should keep trying or just shelve the book for now—she was learning magic now! She’d be able to read it some day, she was sure. Just… maybe not today. So she closed the book and set it beside her on the bed.
“Hey, Kiri,” said Zorian. He looked over at her book, and raised an eyebrow. “So you’re willing to read advanced manuals in your spare time, but not the assignments I give you,” he said dryly. “I see how it is.”
“Hey!” she said indignantly. “I do too read the assignments. And I wasn’t really reading that. More… skimming. Anyway it didn’t make much sense to me, I know all the words they were using but that didn’t really help.”
Zorian snorted. “I’ll bet,” he said. “This is a professional warding manual for a proper mage, not a beginner’s text.”
Kirielle shrugged. “The beginner books don’t really talk much about wards.”
Her brother frowned at her. “I didn’t know you were interested in wards.”
She raised a hand and wiggled it from side to side. “Sort of,” she said. “They seem useful, if nothing else.”
After a moment’s hesitation, he sighed. “You would know that, wouldn’t you,” he said softly.
“Kosjenka wasn’t ever a real doll, was she,” said Kirielle. Maybe not the most graceful segue she could’ve made, but it wasn’t like Zorian cared about things like that.
“No,” said Zorian, frowning thoughtfully again. “Or maybe she was—but she wasn’t ever just a doll, no.” He sat on the bed next to her. “What’s this about, then?”
That was another thing about new-Zorian: he was oddly good at reading her. Oh, she knew about his empathy, but it was still weird to her that he was so good at knowing when there was something on her mind.
“What was she, then?” asked Kirielle. “If not a doll, that is.”
“She was a golem,” he said. “A miniature one, in her case, and a much subtler one than normal too.”
“Right,” she said. She’d heard of golems before, of course—before the invasion, yes, but she’d also heard that there had been some damn good ones fighting for the city, too. “You must be good with golems, then,” she said. “To have made Kosjenka like you did, I mean.”
“I am,” said Zorian. It wasn’t a slow, measured response, or something arrogant; he stated it as a simple fact. The sun rose in the east, Kirielle was his sister, and he was very good with golem-making.
Kirielle might have been nine, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew Zorian had been far more involved in things than he wanted anyone to know; she also knew that her saying that to anyone would only make trouble for him, and that was if they didn’t laugh her out of the room for being a little girl telling tall tales about her teenage big brother.
“Can you teach me about them?” she asked. He blinked at her, surprise evident on his face. Good. It was nice to know that she wasn’t a completely open book to him, at least.
“You want to learn about golems?” he said.
“Yeah,” she said. “They seem—useful.” And if she could make golems like Kosjenka, then maybe she could worry a little bit less about what the coming war would bring for her and for everyone she knew. No one liked to talk about it too much in front of her, but again—she was nine, not stupid, and she knew as well as anyone else did that war was coming. It might be sooner, or later, but it was coming, and when it did Kirielle didn’t want to be a helpless little girl anymore.
“All right, then,” said Zorian. “You won’t be able to do much directly with golems, or spell formulae—spell formulae are what makes most magic items work, and golems make heavy use of them—right now, since you can’t cast anything yet, and I’m not sure if you know enough mathematics yet either. But I can definitely start teaching you the theory.”
“Thanks,” she said, and leaned into his side. He draped an arm around her shoulders.
“If you want,” he said, “I could give you a brief overview now.”
“I’d like that.”
“All right, then. You already know how mana flow works in the abstract,” he said, and though she couldn’t see his face she could tell he was smiling, “even if you can’t feel yours very well yet. Structured spells take that mana and force it into a particular shape, which is what causes the effect of the spell. Spell formulae, now, they’re not too different than structured spells in principle. Properly constructed, they do what a structured spell does: they shape the mana into a particular pattern, only they do it with far more precision, control, and rigidity than a spell…”
Kirielle listened, fascinated almost in spite of herself. There was nothing directly pretty about spell formulae, nothing flashy or really artistic, but Zorian managed to conjure a sense of beauty and wonder about them nevertheless.
She was going to learn to make spell formulae and then golems, she decided then and there. And once she got good enough, once she could make the things, she was going to be the best damn golem maker in the city. So she smiled, and kept listening as Zorian explained the subject in broad strokes.
Kosjenka’s sacrifice, after all, couldn’t be in vain.