The Vacant Manasil
While Julia was meeting with Karman, Gadrian paid a visit to the 3rd Prince's Palace.
He smiled as he gazed down at the two children staring up at him with unblinking eyes.
Clever and adorable as ever. Both of them were surely bursting with things they wanted to ask him, yet they held themselves back, waiting for him to speak first.
Time and again they managed feats that ordinary children could scarcely pull off, and it only deepened his interest in them.
"If you have questions, ask away."
"What will I be learning from now on?"
"What is Prince Cassion's illness?"
The two children spoke at once. Gadrian noticed at once that they expected different things from him.
He was still pondering whom to answer first when the two of them began to squabble.
"Learn? Learn what? You have to treat your body first."
"I know my own body. An instant cure is impossible. We should treat it and learn. How long am I supposed to live as an incompetent fool?"
"How are you incompetent, Your Highness? Being born a prince is a talent in itself."
"Are you an idiot? That's something you're born with, not something you earn."
"They say luck is a skill these days. If you don't like that, then say meeting me was your talent."
"Hey!"
Cassion flared up. Diana's logic was subtly, infuriatingly flawed, and yet he could never win against her.
Gadrian found their relationship utterly delightful. It was ridiculous for an adult to mediate a squabble between children, but at this point, an intervention was warranted.
After all, both of them had questions for him.
"Then we'll do both."
Cassion's and Diana's gazes snapped to Gadrian. The children's faces brightened visibly.
"You can treat it?"
Diana abandoned her grown-up airs, craning her neck forward as she asked.
"Must we continue standing while we talk?"
Gadrian glanced at the sitting room sofa.
"Oh, forgive me. Please sit here, Master."
Cassion offered him a seat. The moment Gadrian sat down, the two children settled in side by side in front of him.
They were at each other's throats a moment ago, yet they sit shoulder to shoulder. And quite close together, at that.
They looked like siblings, and like the closest of friends. However much they growled at each other on the surface, the tender way they quietly cherished one another was plain to see.
"Ask your questions one at a time. Lady Diana first."
"What is the name of Prince Cassion's illness?"
"There is no fixed name for it. In truth, it can hardly be called an illness at all."
Diana's lips twitched, her brow furrowing. Gadrian could sense the curses she was swallowing back.
That's the face of someone telling me not to spout nonsense.
But what he said was true.
"Vacant Manasil. It is a condition that needs no name, though we call the phenomenon Prince Cassion suffers from the Vacant Manasil."
A mage is born with a vessel for mana inside the body, and fills it with mana drawn from both within and without. The Vacant Manasil means, quite literally, that the mana vessel—the manasil—remains empty.
Mages born with an empty manasil did appear from time to time. They were not common, but they occurred often enough that magical researchers could not simply dismiss them.
The Vacant Manasil itself causes no symptoms. The trouble arises from the fundamental law that governs all things: the compulsion to fill what is empty.
Because the body instinctively tried to pour mana into the vacant vessel, Cassion's health broke down.
If the manasil itself were merely small, it wouldn't be a problem at all.
But Cassion's manasil was far too large.
"What's the treatment?"
He had expected her to demand a more detailed explanation, but Diana grasped it at once and asked only about the cure.
Remarkably, neither child was even particularly startled to learn that Cassion was a mage.
I suppose they sought me out half-expecting all this, but they're so calm it takes the fun out of it.
He had wanted a more dramatic reaction. He was tempted to tease them and declare there was no cure, but then he thought better of it.
He decided to explain as kindly as he could.
Tears had welled up in Diana's eyes as she asked about the treatment. She looked so desperately anxious that all the mischief drained out of Gadrian at once.
"All we need to do is fill the empty manasil."
"Then fill it. I'll give you anything you want."
Cassion cut in. He had gleaned the rough shape of the treatment during his encounter with Gadrian at the festival.
Receiving mana from another person—until his own manasil filled to a certain point.
"I would gladly do it if I could. But there is nothing an old man like me can do to help."
It was jarring to hear a man who looked barely past his early thirties call himself old. Still, anyone who knew anything knew that he was older than Karman himself. That hardly made the word "old man" any better a fit, of course.
"Why? Why can't you?"
Cassion's face fell in utter disappointment.
"Because your manasil is far too large, Your Highness. Even if I, an 8th Circle mage, poured my entire reservoir of mana into it, I would struggle to fill even half."
"What?"
The eyes of both children went round.
Satisfying. That's exactly the reaction I was hoping for.
"I... am more powerful than you, Master?"
Cassion studied Gadrian's face carefully. He had asked because he desperately wanted to know, but he was also checking whether the question breached etiquette, whether it might sour the man's mood.
Contrary to Cassion's worries, Gadrian took no offense. It was not the truth, after all.
Besides, anyone who had heard what he just said would wonder the same thing.
"Capacity alone does not make a great mage. Just as talent alone does not make a great painter or a great writer."
One had to learn to wield mana properly. How precisely and how accurately a mage could give form to their magic—that was the true yardstick of a mage's caliber.
"Then what do we do?"
This time it was Diana's turn to ask.
"I will help fill the manasil as far as my own reserves allow. And I'll research ways to keep the vessel from draining Your Highness's stamina unilaterally."
It meant the root cause could not be cured. Diana's shoulders slumped visibly.
"But as we go on, the symptoms will ease considerably."
Gadrian had taken Cassion on precisely because he hoped for—and anticipated—more than that, but he was reluctant to voice an outcome he could not guarantee.
He feared that if his theory proved wrong, he would only wound the two children with disappointment.
Though he had met them only twice, Gadrian's heart had already gone out to the two children who had no family to call their own.
His Majesty technically exists for Your Highness, but he might as well not.
Gadrian clicked his tongue inwardly as he thought of Karman, who could never see Cassion for what he truly was.
"Once a week, I will replenish your mana. That said, it will amount to no more than a single drop of water falling into the ocean of your manasil. Still, it beats having nothing at all. And Your Highness—you must build up your stamina first. Train your body, build your strength. Only then can you do anything you set your mind to."
Hope blossomed in Diana and Cassion. Watching the two children clasp hands tightly atop the sofa, Gadrian smiled a gentle, fatherly smile.
A date was finally set for the family council. Coordinating the schedules of vassals scattered across the whole country had delayed things day after day, but at last the date was fixed.
One week from now.
"Diana, what are you thinking about so hard?"
I looked up at the voice calling me as I spun my pen in a daze.
Loomdrax strolled into the study, tossing an apple high into the air and catching it.
"I was thinking about what might be said at the vassal council."
"What's there to wonder about? It's obvious. 'We must appoint a guardian.' 'Who shall it be?' 'Count Kolkos would be best.' Isn't that exactly how it'll go?"
He knew perfectly well I hadn't asked because I didn't know, and yet he listed it out point by point, the insufferable man. I rolled my eyes at him, and he sauntered closer, leaning his face in near mine.
"Are you crying from worry?"
I was brooding, yes, but I wasn't crying. I hadn't even been worried, strictly speaking.
What I was actually pondering was how to get the guardianship demand withdrawn without inflicting serious damage on House Ehrenberg.
Count Kolkos must have spent ages scheming and bribing for this.
In my heart of hearts, I wanted to drive out every single vassal who sided with him. But I had resolved to understand the hearts of the vassals who had grown anxious during the long vacancy at the head of House Ehrenberg.
If they backed Count Kolkos out of greed, I'll cast them out. But if it was a choice forced by circumstance, they deserve a chance.
If they insisted on supporting Count Kolkos even after I made my case, there'd be nothing I could do about it.
I have to prepare for the gap, whatever happens.
Any vacancy in the family business or the management of the territory meant scouting replacements and allowing time for them to adjust—and inevitably, losses would follow.
Wherever possible, it pays to let people mend their ways.
"Oh dear! I think I see a tear about to fall!"
Loomdrax made an enormous fuss, cupping his palm beneath my eye as though to catch my tears. I smacked his hand away.
"Who's crying?"
Did he take me for some weepy little child, tucked away in a corner because things were too hard for me?
When I glared up at him, Loomdrax raised both hands high in surrender and backed off.
"Fine, fine. You just looked so grave, I had to say something."
All his theatrics were for my sake—he was worried about me. Knowing that, something in my chest loosened.
"About the council," I said.
I laid the whole situation out for him.
The reason I could open up to Loomdrax, a swindler, was the second contract I had signed with him not long ago. In exchange for delegating sweeping authority over the operation of Phoenix Bank, he had signed a paper vowing never to carelessly divulge my personal affairs.
Should he ever speak of them without my leave, his tongue would freeze solid.
A frozen tongue, as punishment for a conman. That's almost too cruel.
Loomdrax had gone white with terror when I wrote that clause into the contract. The memory of it made me burst out laughing.
"Laugh like that and you'll choke on something strange."
"Good heavens! You crack jokes even a five-year-old wouldn't buy."
Loomdrax shrugged and bit into his apple. A crisp crunch, followed by the wet sound of him smacking away at it.
"Kolkos? Capable? Really?"
He dragged a chair over and sat down in front of me, apparently meaning to offer counsel on my troubles.
"No. He's closer to incompetent. But he does carry the Ehrenberg blood, and he received a proper education."
Count Kolkos would protest that if people nitpicked his incompetence, he'd never be given a chance at all.
"By pure ability, you outrank him. So why the unease?"