Chapter 3:
Early Years (A Blur)
“Grace, where are you? Your mother said you shouldn’t play alone!”
After placing her book, The Divine Cycle: The Song that Made the World, back onto the shelf in her father's study, Grace answered in a somewhat high, childlike voice.
“Me here! Not playin’. Just lookin’ at pictures…”
She waddled out from behind the heavy desk, her eyes wide and innocent – far too innocent, for anyone paying close attention. But really, who would suspect a two-year-old of doing anything more than playing around? Certainly not her governess.
“There you are!” the governess huffed, as she saw Grace, pressing a hand to her chest. “For Iras sake, child, you nearly gave me a heart attack.” Her voice indicated genuine worry.
“You know you're not supposed to wander off. What if something happened to you?”
She bent down, brushing an invisible speck of dust from Grace’s cheek.
Grace giggled at the gesture. “But nothin’ happened,” she said matter-of-factly, as if that settled everything.
The governess gave her a look, a mixture of affection and exhausted resignation.
“Yes, well, this time nothing happened. Next time, you might end up summoning a spirit by accident, or worse… getting ink on your dress.”
She straightened up with a sigh, adjusting the little red bow in Grace’s hair.
“Come now, little lady. Back to your room, before your mother notices you’ve been near your father’s study again.”
Grace pouted but took her hand.
“Can I come back tomorrow?” she asked, her voice sweet, but her gaze already drifting back toward the bookshelf.
The governess muttered under her breath.
“Iras help me. No more sneaking in here, you hear me?”
It was already late and after the governess– Elyne – brought Grace back to her room and bedded her, she returned silently, with a sigh, to the study to clean up the little girl’s mess.
Elyne was the daughter of a minor noble family, and it had been considered a great honor when she was accepted into the household of the Duke of Ashford. Serving as Grace’s governess was not merely employment, it was a proving ground. Every gesture, every word, every misstep reflected not just on her, but on her entire house.
As the caretaker of the current Duchess’s only child, Elyne was expected not only to tend to Grace’s needs but also to forge a lasting connection with the Duchess herself – a potential patron and powerful ally for House Marren. Accordingly, a great weight of responsibility rested on her slender shoulders, carried with quiet determination and the ever-present awareness that a single misstep could unravel everything her family hoped to gain.
That was why she never quite knew how to deal with Grace.
And yet, Elyne had not been chosen as a governess for political reasons alone. At only sixteen years old, Elyne Marren was a prodigy in her own right. She had received a full noble education, tutored in etiquette, literature, history, and magic theory, but what truly set her apart was her affinity for magic. By sixteen, Elyne had already reached the Third Circle, an exceptional feat in itself. But even more remarkable was the type of magic she wielded: Space Magic, one of the rarest and most enigmatic affinities in all of Nyras. That was the second reason she had been placed in the Duke’s household. She was a trained battle mage and Grace’s guard.
Elyne could only wonder why the Duchess insisted on placing a trained battle mage at her daughter’s side. Grace, for all her oddities, was just a child, barely two years old, cheerful and bright, if a little too clever for her age. But Elyne didn’t ask questions. Not out loud.
For her, the appointment was the perfect opportunity. Serving in the household of one of the realm’s most influential Dukes offered a rare chance to forge meaningful ties – ties her family desperately needed. If she performed her duties well, if she earned the Duchess’s trust, perhaps House Marren might rise again from obscurity. Perhaps she might secure a future not written in footnotes and forgotten titles.
--::--
As Elyne closed the door to her room and her footsteps faded down the corridor, Grace’s eyes slowly opened. The wide-eyed innocence, the soft, childlike sweetness – all of it drained from her expression like melting wax.
What a bother this girl is...
She sat up with perfect posture, her movements sudden and precise. Tilting her head slightly, she waited, listening. One breath. Two. Silence.
Then she snapped her tiny fingers once…
With a faint crackle in the air, a small orb of light flickered into existence and began to hover before her, casting eerie shadows on the walls of her room.
She narrowed her eyes at the glowing sphere, her face unreadable in the shifting light.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Before she could speak, the orb pulsed once – slow and deliberate – then began to whisper in a voice both distant and dark, as though spoken through a veil:
“Ye summoned, little one... and I have answered, as bound. What is it ye seek?”
The orb’s words hung in the air like smoke. Grace exhaled sharply through her nose.
“You’re slow.” Her voice was quiet, clipped, and utterly devoid of childish warmth. “I called three heartbeats ago.”
The ball became a little darker, as if it was afraid of her reaction.
“And I’m not in the mood for games tonight,” she continued, waving one hand with a casual flick that carried the weight of command.
“Report. All of it.”
The orb pulsed once. Then again. Slower.
“...As ye command.”
But there was a pause – slight, but unmistakable. It wavered midair, just enough to betray uncertainty. Not fear, not exactly. Something deeper. An old instinct, buried in the echo of ages. The kind that told predators to bow... or flee.
The voice returned, a fraction quieter.
“No movements from the outer veil. The sigils hold. The Duke’s wards remain unaware. The mage… watches, but does not see.”
Another flicker.
“And... the air bends strangely near you now. Even for one like me.”
Grace narrowed her eyes, her voice low.
“I didn’t ask for commentary.”
The orb dimmed again, like a breath being held.
“Forgive me, little lass...” it murmured. “But... what are ye becoming?”
Grace said nothing.
She simply smiled.
And for the first time since its binding, the orb faltered.
It had been summoned a year ago, an eternity and an instant in its terms, by a human child no older than one. That alone had stirred something within its essence. Curiosity, perhaps. Or the echo of alarm. No mortal that young should have been capable of calling it, let alone shaping the summoning with such flawless precision.
No candles. No incantation. No circle.
Just a name unspoken, and a will that reached through the Veil like a hook through flesh.
The orb had answered, because it was intrigued.
At first, Grace had done little. She had poked at its energy, pulled at its threads. Like a child tapping on glass. Her questions were simple, her voice high and soft. She’d clapped when it glowed. She’d giggled when it whispered.
But then – she changed.
She began learning from it. Not asking, but absorbing. Magic flowed through her like ink through silk. And the orb, bound as it was, could only watch as the innocent shell of a girl became something more. She grew faster than she should have. Not in size, but in depth.
Her mind bloomed like a night flower, quiet, unseen, and slightly wrong.
Soon, she no longer asked how the magic worked. She told it what to do. Gave it commands. Bent its essence with a flick of her hand.
Then came the watching. The mirrors. The scrying. The stillness.
Grace used the orb to observe the halls, the wards, the people around her. To listen when no one else could. And with each day, the orb felt its link to her deepen – taut and strangely... reversed. It was not serving her. It was being drawn into her.
And now, as she smiled in the darkness, saying nothing, doing nothing... the orb knew. She was no longer testing the world. She was preparing for it. The silence between them stretched, thick as oil.
Then her eyes, far too ancient for her face, shifted back to the orb.
“Enough.”
The word cracked through the stillness like a whip. Not loud. Not sharp. But final.
The orb flinched, its light dimming further.
Grace tilted her head.
“You’re drifting again, Corax.”
The orb stilled mid-flicker, as if caught in the act of thinking.
Grace’s eyes glinted, sharp and cold.
“I don’t care what you wonder. I care what you see.”
The way she spoke his name, it shouldn’t have held such power. But it did. Even bound, Corax had once been a sentinel of the higher veils, a watcher among shadows. Now he was reduced to this: trembling before a child.
No… not a child. Something more. Something sinister.
She leaned forward.
“I need more books... like The Divine Cycle: The Song that Made the World.”
Her voice was steady, cold with purpose.
“I need to know more about this world…”
Corax shuddered, not from fear, but from the strange pressure that coiled in her voice like a second will beneath her words.
“As you command, my Lady.”
And with a final flicker, he vanished into the unseen.
As the orb named Corax vanished, Grace sighed.
Ever since she had come into this world, it had been hard for her to hold on to her personality. Her new body, or rather, her new baby form, had taken over, and she clung to her fragile mind with all her mental strength. She knew she had to change in order to preserve her old memories and mindset.
To keep her identity.
To reach her goal: to become more – more than the mortal shell.
But it hadn’t been easy.
The first year in this world had been a battle, a quiet, internal war she waged every waking moment. She struggled to hold onto herself, to keep her mind whole within the fragile shell of her new body. She was no longer Grace Blair, the one who had walked through life untouched, unbound, uncaring. That person had been ruthless, driven, free.
Now, she was Grace of Ashford, daughter of the Duchess, noble-born, pampered, protected... and loved.
And that was the problem.
Because against all odds, she had grown to care in return.
Her mother’s voice, her warmth, the way she smiled when brushing the curls from her daughter’s forehead, all of it stirred something in her she hadn’t expected. Affection. Attachment. It rattled her. These feelings... disturbed her.
They didn’t belong to the old Grace. They weren’t part of the plan.
But even in the confusion, in the shifting tides of identity and emotion, one thing became clear: She was Grace. Only Grace.
Not Blair. Not of Ashford. Not even child or woman or mortal.
She was the will that crossed the threshold between worlds. The soul that refused to fade. The mind that chose to be here.
And that made her more than flesh.
More than blood.
More than human.
She hadn’t been reborn by accident.
She had shifted worlds – because she wanted to.
Because she could.
That was Grace.
After her first year, Grace began to regain control over her body and mind. Her own self-imprinted three pillars of self-improvement Eruditas, Vitalis and Dominatus gave her support to stabilize her mind. Slowly, her clarity returned. She wasn’t the same Grace as before, but she was Grace again. And she was more.
The first thing Grace did after regaining her full mental clarity was dive headfirst into understanding this new world. She absorbed every scrap of knowledge around her with ruthless determination, drinking it in like dry sand soaking up rain. Her photographic memory allowed her to master reading in mere weeks, and when she first witnessed her mother wielding magic, she immediately understood that power was something she needed to grasp.
Yet Grace quickly realized, it was safer to conceal her capabilities – not out of caution or fear – but because of Dominatus, one of her three foundational pillars. Dominatus compelled her to surpass others, to rise above mere mortals, to shape the world according to her own desires and let others underestimate you. She was like one of her fictional role models, a villainess who plans her rise in the shadows…
And as a self-proclaimed villainess, naturally, she needed minions. Thus, her first practical study was in summoning spirits.
So it came to be that Corax, ancient and dreamless, was awakened from his perpetual sleep and drawn into the material world by the irresistible command of a one-year-old girl.