Touch of Fate

Chapter 286: Pursuing Passion

William had spent the vast majority of his life as a servant for the Dornovo household in one capacity or another. Raised in an orphanage, he'd been fortunate to find work in the Duke's stables as a groom at the tender age of eight. From there, he eventually succeeded in working his way up to footman and finally butler through a combination of hard work, discipline, and a good amount of luck. Though many might look down on him for taking pride in it, he'd always believed that a life dedicated to the service of others was worthwhile, and he'd lived with that principle in his heart.

However, that belief was tested when he was told that he would be the personal butler of the Duke's daughter. Such a thing should have been an honor, but the girl in question, though only a few months old at that point, had already been labeled as a cursed child, an inheritor of the royal family's madness.

Thanks to his position, William was privy to some of the household's darker secrets, so he knew all about the Duke's brother, who publicly was respected as a war hero, but privately had a habit of flying into homicidal rages, that would be directed at any servant who happened to be in the vicinity. Being sent to his compound was widely considered to be a death sentence, and William had made sure to steer clear of any such assignment like the plague.

If this new girl had inherited even a fraction of that murderousness, then he was essentially being sacrificed, which made a horrible sort of sense when he thought about it.

Ordinarily, a maid or governess would be in charge of raising a young lady of the Duke's household, but the majority of the servants of that rank were the daughters of other nobility. In order to avoid causing a political incident, it had likely been decided to dump the responsibility off on William who was a commoner.

At first he'd been filled with anger at the unfairness of the situation. After all, he'd already spent more than a decade and a half in service to the Duke. Yet, the reward for his dedication was to be treated as a disposable pawn. It was enough to make him consider resigning in disgust, save that doing so would have ended any hope of a career he might have had in his home country, as it would have essentially blacklisted him among the noble families of Dovistan.

Deciding that he would put aside such concerns until after he'd at least seen the child in question, he visited her nursery in a far-off abandoned section of the Duke's mansion. Here, in the care of a single commoner wet nurse, who'd gladly handed off her duties once he showed up, he met Lily for the first time.

As soon as he laid eyes on that innocent face and felt her little fingers curl around his, he knew he couldn't leave her on her own. Something about her spoke to a half-forgotten protective instinct he'd long ago left behind. So, despite having no real idea how to raise a child on his own, nor any family who he could depend on, William decided to do everything in his power to bring her up to the best of his ability.

However, it quickly became apparent that he was in over his head.

She was a strange child, right from the beginning. Even as an infant, she never cried nor fussed, instead spending every waking moment gazing at the world listlessly. No toy or song or picture would get any kind of response out of her, and in spite of his best efforts, she continued to be disturbingly quiet. While she did not appear to have her uncle's lethal temper, she was still far from normal. Thankfully, she would eat without prompting, and had no trouble guzzling down the cow's milk he'd given her until she could manage solid foods.

As she grew older, Lily's unusual traits softened slightly, and she became capable of interacting with the world around her to a limited extent. She even learned to speak, although she was nearly ten before she managed to say a complete sentence. Through it all, William tried everything he could to help her expand her perspective, even begging the Duke for money to acquire tutors and training resources in the desperate hope of finding something that would break her out of her shell. Alas, it seemed to all be in vain, until one fateful day when the two of them were walking through the market in Medun.

Lily had just turned twelve, and they were out looking for her present. William had learned that his best bet in finding something she would show even a modicum of interest in, was to simply wander around the shops and stalls until she started staring at something for longer than a few seconds.

They were out by themselves, since none of the guards would have voluntarily accompanied a cursed child, and the Duke surely didn't care enough to order them to do so. Not that such protection was necessary, since Lily had long ago awoken her bloodline's terrifying strength, and had already put it to use in defending herself on a few occasions. Any potential kidnapper or mugger would be in for quite the surprise if they thought the quiet girl was an easy target.

Nevertheless, the world was full of individuals who would think nothing of harming innocents for profit, so William was on high alert for any possible threats. In fact, he was so keen on keeping a lookout for dangerous strangers, he didn't even notice when Lily wandered away until several seconds after the fact.

Thankfully, she hadn't gone far, and he was able to track her down with a few minutes of panicked searching. The girl had wandered into a nearby alchemist's shop and was watching the owner with rapt attention.

For his part, the alchemist, who was in the midst of mixing together several substances over a boiling cauldron, took the strange girl in stride, offering her a welcoming smile before returning to his task. Not wanting to interrupt the moment, William waited near the doorway.

Over the next hour, Lily remained focused on the man as he distilled the contents of the cauldron into a single vial of a clear liquid, which he then stirred into a thick, mud-like substance. Finally, he pulled out a handful of small, white stones that had somehow formed in the process. While examining them closely, he selected one and casually smacked it with a mallet. Surprisingly, the impact didn't damage the stone, but rather caused it to start glowing with a brilliant light.

Nodding in satisfaction, he handed the glowing stone to Lily, who stared at it wide-eyed for a few moments before looking up at him in confusion. The man replied with a shrug, saying it was a gift for his dedicated audience. Then, for the first time in her life, she asked a question out of personal motivation.

"How did you make this?"

The man smiled. "Alchemy. Are you interested in it?"

She nodded emphatically.

That earned a laugh. "I can teach you if you like."

And so Lily found her first passion and first real teacher, and for the next six years she was a dedicated, if problematic student. Thanks to her single-mindedness, she acquired extensive knowledge of alchemical processes and techniques to the point that her instructor was frequently left scrambling for things to teach her.

Unfortunately, despite her genius, she was handicapped by something beyond and of their control. For an unknown reason, any time she tried to make something with Alchemy, there was an unusual high chance of something going wrong.

Even when practicing with a basic recipe that should have the same results ten times out of ten, Lily's crafting was fraught with strange deviations and unlikely circumstances. This had the unusual side effect of creating explosives out of seemingly inert materials, which made the whole situation much more alarming.

Despite his best efforts, her teacher was at a loss to explain the oddity. Finally, after much trial and error, he concluded that she was simply touched by some divine influence, which meant there was nothing that could be done to correct it.

Rather than discourage the girl, these explosive failures only seemed to push her further in her alchemical research. When she turned 18, often considered the age when the daughters of the high nobility should be searching for potential marriage partners, Lily asked for her first big favor. She wanted to study alchemy at a university.

At first, William was sure that the Duke would refuse any such request. After all, the girl had proven to be much more pliable and much less murderous than her uncle, which meant that she represented a major wartime asset. However, her father had given his consent almost immediately, with the sole condition that the school in question be somewhere outside Dovistan.

In hindsight, it was clear that the Duke was already engaged in his questionable behavior at this point. He probably was concerned that denying her request would have led to some kind of outburst, which could have then drawn unwanted attention to his household. Yet, William also thought that it was possible the man had chosen to give his estranged daughter a chance to escape the dark fate that awaited him and the rest of the family. The truth of the matter would remain a mystery for the foreseeable future.

Whatever the case, with a few quick letters, the two of them were on their way to the University of Almir, where Lily eventually succeeded in enrolling in the Martial Arts department, after failing to get into her first two choices, the Science and Magic departments respectfully. She adapted to her new life quite well, quickly falling into a routine of skipping her martial classes to attend whatever subjects were being taught in Alchemy. Much to her instructors' annoyance.

Yet, Willam could tell that she was grappling with some kind of internal crisis. One that was pushing her to take greater and greater risks with her practice. Pretty soon, the explosive accidents, which historically only happened once every few weeks, were starting to occur every day. On top of that, they were beginning to get increasingly dangerous and destructive.

Although Lily was fairly tough thanks to her bloodline, there were times that she was injured by her experiments, and William was afraid that one of these days her luck would run out and she'd seriously hurt herself.

He tried reasoning with her, even though he knew it would be fruitless in the face of her all-consuming passion. While this did get her to take a few safety measures, the accidents nevertheless continued.

Finally, at wits' end, he was considering getting the school to expel her in the hopes of stopping her self-destructive spiral, when a certain individual entered their lives and changed everything.

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"So you're saying that you just casually put together a spell involving four disparate elements, including the semi-legendary Life Element, and cast it successfully on the first try?" Reber was asking, ""Whew, man. You're lucky I'm not the kind of guy to feel jealous. I'm mean, being a genius spellcaster on top of your romantic successes? I bet most folks would be wishing for you to explode right about now."

Mike rubbed the back of his head, seemingly a little embarrassed. "Well, I'm a Tier 4, right? This is the kind of thing we do. Also, I'll say it again. You have the wrong idea. I'm not currently in any kind of romantic relationship. Stop bringing it up."

"Right, right. Sorry. Forgot about keeping it quiet." The tree man replied with a wink.

"It's not a matter of keeping it quiet! It's simply not true!"

William felt a tug at his elbow and glanced over to see Lily staring at the ground in fascination. "What happened?" She asked, clearly more concerned about the change in the dirt than the conversation.

"Sir Mike has solved the issue with the soil in his usual manner. I believe him and Sir Reber are currently discussing the details."

She looked up at the arguing pair and smiled, something she'd been doing a lot more of lately. "Interesting."

William felt a bittersweet warmth in his chest. It was a familiar sensation to him now, since it had been occurring with greater frequency in recent months. He wondered idly if this might be what it was like to watch a daughter grow up.

As Lily walked over to begin questioning Mike about his methods, the butler took a moment to recall the little girl who wouldn't do anything under her own initiative. Who simply stared into space like some kind of doll unless prompted into action. When compared to the woman who was badgering the young mage with a bunch of technical questions, one would be hard pressed to recognize them as the same person.

[Much better.] He thought, unconscious of the grin that was forming on his face.

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