Chapter 21: Officially a slave

The next time Kira got up, Aura was still in bed, and he headed down to eat breakfast alone. However, by the time he had finished, he still hadn't seen her come down to eat herself and it seemed that the kitchen staff were preparing to clear up and end their service. Hoping that he wasn't going to embarrass himself, he approached them for a second time to try and get something for Aura off them.

"You've already eaten," said one of the kitchen staff with a grubby apron that Kira was certain hadn't been washed in years.

"I know, but the person that I'm living with is still sleeping, so I wanted to take them something." He replied, realizing how suspicious he sounded as he talked. This conversation had now attracted the attention of the other cooks who eyed him warily whilst they wiped at mugs and started packing up.

"A likely story," said the cook before turning away, "They'll have to come down themselves if they want to eat as that's just how it works."

But, before they could get far, another voice cut in, "He's telling the truth, Aura hasn't come down yet." and Kira thought he remembered the woman that appeared beside him as the one that had been talking with Aura when he had first gone up to see his room.

"Fine," exclaimed the chef, turning back to them and muttering under his breath, "I've nothing to lose anyway," whilst dishing up a small plate. The cook handed it over to Kira and, with a final wary look, turned back to his comrades.

"Thanks," Kira said to the woman standing beside him, who smiled kindly back, and he headed back up to his room leaving the plate in his and Aura's shared room. He hoped that this would be seen as a friendly gesture rather than anything weird before heading back down to find out what jobs awaited him on this particular day.

Unfortunately, when he arrived at the office, he was there alone. This was somewhat disconcerting as he was certain that he wouldn't have been the first person there but, even so, he got to organizing and stacking a bundle of the scrolls that had been left overnight on his desk. Without the others being present, the office seemed to be a tranquil and lonely space, but he enjoyed the feeling of finally being given some privacy and having it all to himself.

By now, he was becoming more familiar with how things were organized, and he started to recognize how the randomly placed towering stacks of scrolls actually all followed a pattern of their own. Using this knowledge to his advantage, working to sort the many new scrolls was a relaxing process that he was happy to do independently as it didn't take much concentration. This meant that he could think more about manipulations and how they might be used in combat, as simply pushing his aura at people to kill them was ridiculously inefficient.

He was alone for a few hours, and it was nearing lunchtime when James and the other scribes returned, pushing their way into the office through the old door that resisted the concept of opening in earnest. When they arrived, Kira asked them, "Where have you been?"

Apologizing, James told him that they had left to attend a meeting without him as he had been a little late. Apparently, it hadn't been very important for them, but the same Lord Schaed that had opposed Lady Meera on her approach for dealing with banditry had been found guilty of receiving a large amount of money from the bandits in return for turning a blind eye to some of their less desirable operations. James had been carrying the meeting transcript scrolls that Lady Meera had been carrying with her, and he handed them over to Kira for sorting.

Curiously, when he was doing this, Kira noticed that the scroll that he had written had been slightly altered to subtly change some of the vocabulary that Lord Schaed had allegedly used. Kira assumed that this sort of tampering had also happened to the other transcripts with certain words being changed to more forceful versions of themselves so that it could be inferred, using them, that Lord Schaed had been a little too vigorous in defending the bandits' activities.

Seeing this, Kira asked James if these scrolls had been part of Lord Schaed's trial, and they had. This confirmed two things in Kira's mind: firstly, they had been changed to fit a certain narrative and secondly that Lady Meera was more dangerous than she seemed. He guessed that this sort of discrete tampering was how she had got up to such a high position of power in the first place. In fact, the whole reason for their being a group of scribes recording all of the meetings in the palace, which was something unusual in itself, could have been so that she could manipulate all of what was said to fit her own versions of events.

Lunchtime and the afternoon came and went much like the morning as the other scribes often left the office to go off on small tasks of their own but Kira, who was still regarded as a newcomer, was left to the simpler jobs. For the scribes, dinner that night was taken to them, right in their own office, and it was a lot richer than what would normally be served to them in the dining hall, including pieces of roast chicken. This expenditure on their behalf, however, was not recorded in this palace of record-keeping. Still, Kira knew better than to question it, and he simply accepted the food as a suitable reward for his work of the past few days.

Back in his room, he settled down for the night and remembered that the next day would be his first off from work. It was quite unusual for a slave to be afforded even one day off each week, and he wanted to find a way to enjoy the day to its fullest, but he was worried about what he would be able to find to do out in Ostermark. Fortunately for him, his worries were all alleviated when Aura returned because she told him, "My day off is tomorrow, and Lady Meera asked me to show you around Ostermark because she seems to have taken a liking to you - for some odd reason."

"A liking to me?" Kira wondered.

"Yeah," Aura replied, "It probably doesn't mean anything."

"I only met her once briefly; I didn't even say anything to her." he told her, and after a few moments of no replies, he added, "So you work with Lady Meera?"

"Barely, I just have to clean up after her," said Aura to end the conversation.

This was another night where Kira slept well, as much as he didn't want to, and he received no particular dream of interest. However, he still maintained a vague feeling that perhaps he didn't belong here even though he was being fed and managed to find time in the day to practise manipulations. In the morning, eager to go out and explore the city, he saw that Aura looked like she was still sleeping – sleeping in seemed to be a habit of hers- and so he quickly got changed into the least conspicuous palace uniform that he had. When he went to put his shirt on Aura, who clearly was awake, murmured, "You don't have a mark…."

"A mark?" he asked, having forced his shirt down over his head, worried by how much she may have seen. In response, and still lying in bed, she pushed down her shirt to reveal a falcon shaped brand on her lower neck.

"All slaves need one," she explained, "It shows who your master is so that you can be identified if you try and run once you're out of the compound."

"I don't see how this would stop someone from running…."

"It's put on by a manipulator who lives with Lady Meera," Aura told him whilst finally sitting up in her bed, "It's so that they always know where you are; you can't be free until they remove it."

Upon hearing this, Kira concentrated his aura before his eyes and, sure enough, there was a small, orange aura hanging over the mark that distinguished itself from Aura's own that surrounded it. With Kira not making any particular reply and seeming to be wrapped up in his own thoughts, Aura continued, "You should go get breakfast and then go get the mark – I'll meet you back here." as she began leaving the room herself.

"Where are you going?" questioned Kira, as he had only been half-listening to her and thought that he may have missed something.

"Breakfast," she replied with a look that made him realize how obvious that was.

They then headed down to the dining hall together and, when they got there, it was already packed full of people and loaded with voices that hit them like a wave as they entered it. Sitting down with their respective groups, they were split up again and Kira rushed to get through his meal – just some simple bread and honey – to go and see this manipulator so as to not keep Aura waiting.

He was also excited to meet them himself, but he did worry that they may be able to tell, from his aura, that he was a manipulator and about what type of person they would turn out to be. This was because, to the best extent of his knowledge, he thought that a manipulator's ability was centred around something personal to them. This meant that, if controlling and keeping other people as slaves was something that this manipulator felt was personal to them, Kira was fairly certain that they would not get on.

Shoving the last piece of bread into his mouth, practically whole, he made several rushed excuses to his fellow scribes and hurried off to deposit his plate and cutlery back with the rest of the used items leaving many bemused faces behind him as he hurried to do so. Kira then walked quickly out of the hall past where Aura was sitting and, as he did, one of her friends said something that he didn't hear but made everyone else at the table laugh whilst Aura squirmed in her seat. The friend in question then slapped her back, causing her to partially choke on her drink, but no one at the table seemed to mind.

Once outside, he assumed that he would need to go and find Eric for information on where to meet this elusive manipulator, and he asked for directions from several passing slaves, themselves in a hurry not to miss the breakfast that they were already late for. Finding Eric sat on a stone step eating a lonely dish by himself, Kira received directions from him and followed them to the letter, knowing only too well how labyrinth-like this old palace could be. Repeating them in his head, he took the third door on the left and then the corridor leading on from the right with its entrance nestled right between that bookshelf over there and a rack for holding brooms.

This led him into a much quieter part of the palace that he quickly understood was not simply for servants but was instead a place where servants and nobles may mix. Noting this, he slowed his pace and tried to walk as calmly and inconspicuously as possible past a group of well-dressed gentlemen, who continued their conversation as though he wasn't there or was invisible. This was entirely to be expected, though, he thought as he was a slave now.

He soon arrived outside of a door labelled as 'Slave Management'. Taking a moment to straighten his top out and catch his breath, he drew himself up to his full height and knocked on the door once, twice and then a third time before standing back to wait for a response. He did not have to wait for long because a voice soon called from the other side, "Come on in, it's open."

Pushing the door open, Kira stepped inside and pulled it shut behind him, "Ah, I've not seen you around here before," continued the voice, and he identified its source as a fifty-something looking man. He was sitting behind a broad wooden desk across the room from Kira with a beam of coloured light from a stained-glass window behind him falling onto and illuminating several papers laid out on the table.

Walking over to stand before the table, he humbly asked, "I'm a new slave here. I was looking for the manipulator who could give me the mark that the others have. Could you point me to them?" assuming that the man sat here was far too pleasant to be a manipulator who had an ability associated with the entrapment of slaves. The way this man sat, leaning slightly forwards with greying hairs around his ears, contributed to an air of wisdom and kindness surrounding him.

However, when the man next spoke and leant back slightly in his seat, Kira was in for a bit of a surprise because he replied, "That would be me!" before jumping to his feet in a manner that betrayed an eagerness from him. The manipulator then walked around his desk to stand beside Kira and held up a hand before reaching out to touch Kira's neck. Seeing, or perhaps feeling, something different from the man now that he was close, Kira took an involuntary step backwards, prompting the manipulator to say, "Don't be shy." And after that, the feeling of unease vanished in a second and Kira found himself looking into the man's eyes as his hand rested on Kira's neck, seeing a brightness in them where they ought to have been dimmed by age.

"All done!" the manipulator declared without any warning, startling Kira as he withdrew his warm hand. Now Kira was well and truly a slave, and escape would not be so simple anymore. Not just that, but he still wavered on whether or not he truly needed to escape, at least for a short while into the future.

With these thoughts fixed in his mind, Kira bid farewell and left without learning his name. Outside of the oddly named office, 'Slave Management', and walking back down the corridor towards where he knew that Aura would be patiently waiting, he concentrated his own aura before his eyes and tried to twist his head around to look at the mark. Unfortunately, it was in a place that made it impossible to see, but he could still feel it and the aura that it possessed like he was constantly in the presence of the man that had given it to him.

Being by himself in the narrow passageway that he was edging through and sometimes finding himself being forced to move sideways when the walls pushed in, he thought about trying to push against the mark with his aura, just to see what happened. However, this idea was swiftly cast aside as, if he did succeed in shifting it, how could he possibly explain the mark disappearing to the manipulator?

A short while later, he rounded the corner to head down the corridor to where his shared room was and abruptly stopped seeing Aura ready and waiting for him, leaning against the wall over to his left side. "Ready to go?" she asked.

"Yes."