novelraw Chapter 28 : A House Without Hands
Chapter 28 : A House Without Hands
The “estate” waiting for us on the borderlands was nothing like our home in the capital.
A stone house stood at the center of the land, two stories tall but cracked from years of neglect.
The roof sagged in places, moss clung to the walls, and the wooden shutters rattled whenever the wind blew. Around it stretched empty fields—untamed, scarred soil barely fit for crops.
It wasn’t a manor. It was a skeleton of one.
When the wagons stopped, Selene carried the baby inside while Elara and I followed, our footsteps echoing in dusty halls.
It was quiet. Too quiet.
No maids rushed forward to take coats. No cooks appeared to prepare supper. No gardeners tended the yard.
Because there were no servants.
Only a handful had stayed with us, loyal beyond reason—but even they were too few to fill the roles we had once taken for granted.
Unpacking turned into chaos.
Boxes cluttered the entryway. Elara tried to drag a chest upstairs but lost her grip halfway, yelping as it nearly toppled onto her. Selene darted forward, saving it with a quick burst of gravity magic.
“Careful!” she scolded. “You’ll crush yourself.”
Elara huffed, cheeks red. “I’m fine!”
Meanwhile, I sat on the floor surrounded by books, trying to stack them into neat piles. My tiny arms couldn’t lift more than two at once, but I puffed my cheeks and grunted like I was carrying boulders.
Father leaned against the doorway, watching silently. His once-commanding presence was softened by exhaustion, but when he saw me struggling with the books, the corner of his lips twitched upward.
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“…You remind me of myself,” he murmured.
Selene shot him a look. “Don’t you dare encourage him. He’s three.”
That night, supper was nothing more than bread and dried meat from the supplies we’d brought. Selene sat at the head of the table, Elara slumped in her chair, and Father dozed lightly in his seat, still worn from the duel.
The emptiness of the house loomed around us, the absence of bustling servants and endless luxuries undeniable.
But for the first time in days, we were together at a table again.
And somehow, even in exile, that made the bread taste a little less dry.
The HUD flickered faintly as I looked around the table:
[Bond Strengthened: Valemont Family]
[Status: Beginning anew]
he next morning, the house was still a mess of crates and dust. Elara had run outside to train,
Father sat quietly sharpening his blade on the porch, and Selene found me in the study—legs crossed, clutching the beginner’s magic book I couldn’t read.
She smiled faintly, brushing my hair back. “You’re determined, aren’t you?”
I nodded fiercely. “Want… learn.”
Her eyes softened. She pulled a small slate board and a piece of chalk from one of the crates, setting them before me. “Then we’ll start simple. Before spells, before circles, before mana theories… you must know the letters.”
She wrote the first symbol, a looping curve that twisted into a sharp line. “This is ‘Ael.’ Say it.”
I frowned, squinting at the strange shape. “…Ale?”
Her lips twitched with amusement. “Close. Try again.”
We went through the first few letters that morning.
My tongue stumbled over sounds that didn’t exist in Japanese or English. Some curled like songs, others cracked like breaking wood.
By the third letter, my hand was covered in chalk dust, and my brow was furrowed so hard it hurt.
Selene chuckled, watching me press the chalk too hard against the board. “Easy, Rooga. Letters don’t need force. They need patience.”
I puffed my cheeks. “Patience… dumb.”
Her laugh rang like bells. She leaned down and kissed my forehead. “You sound exactly like your father when I first taught him. He said the same thing.”
That startled me. “Papa… learn too?”
“Of course,” she said, eyes shimmering with memory. “He’s a swordsman, not a scholar. When we met, he could barely spell his own name. But he tried. For me.”
Her hand lingered on my cheek, warm and gentle. “And now, you try. For yourself.”
The HUD flickered faintly as I traced another symbol, crooked and uneven but recognizable:
[Literacy – Valis Script: Beginner, 2%]
I grinned, holding up the slate proudly. “Look! ‘Ael’!”
Selene’s eyes widened slightly—then softened into a smile that was half pride, half sorrow. She pulled me into her lap, hugging me close.
“Yes, my little Rooga,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “Ael. You’ll be greater than either of us one day.”
I didn’t understand the weight of her words then. All I knew was that, for the first time, the strange letters didn’t feel so impossible.
Because Mama was there to guide my hand.