Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

There was no trace of the grey hunter anywhere in the city, and Zorian had pretty much total coverage of everything on the surface at the moment. He had a sinking feeling the spider had fled into the local underground.

Which meant he had just let an immensely powerful magical predator – one that had recently gorged upon a great amount of primordial essence, no less – escape into the one place where there was absolutely no hope of tracking it down.

He sighed. There was no use in worrying about this now. The deadline had come and passed. Zach’s contract with the angels had harmlessly dissolved, and Jornak’s death pact claimed his life in a gruesome fashion, his own flesh turning against itself like a country in the throes of a civil war. Observing with his more magical senses, Zorian noticed that even the man’s mind and soul were seemingly tearing themselves apart. After a few seconds of disgusting writhing and convulsing, Jornak simply collapsed in a pile of unsightly goo.

Zorian opened his eyes, letting the spell finally collapse. He breathed a sigh of relief. He was beyond exhausted. He and his simulacrums had maintained a… fake illusionary world… two of them, actually… and had done that for more than a day, without rest or sleep.

He was no longer alone, however. He had moved to a secluded, secure space with Zach and Jornak in tow, but it wasn’t really secret to Daimen, Xvim, and Alanic. All three were currently watching him with grave, vaguely unfriendly expressions. Xvim was sitting on a nearby chair, a small book in his hand. Alanic was standing in the center of the room, his hand folded over his chest. And Daimen was leaning against the nearby doorway, blocking the exit and juggling the imperial dagger that Zorian had removed from Jornak’s possessions.

All three were also clutching memory crystals in one of their hands. Zorian doubted they had absorbed more than a small fraction of the memories stored in them, but they probably knew enough to understand the general situation.

"We need to talk," Alanic said blandly.

Rather than answering, Zorian ripped out a paper from a nearby notebook and started furiously writing on it while explaining the situation to all three of them. A whole bunch of Jornak’s contingencies were about to activate relatively soon, and they had to be dealt with as soon as possible. His rushed scribblings were meant to be a reminder if they forgot some of the details he was telling them.

The three people in front of him seemed to be part annoyed and part curious about his rushed explanation, but they were polite enough to stay silent and listed while he was talking. It didn’t take long, anyway – only a handful of Jornak’s plans were so very time critical. His list of instructions done, Zorian stumbled to his feet, his limbs not working properly due to the long period of disuse and thrust the written list straight into Alanic’s confused hands before falling to the floor, unconscious.

He was Zorian Kazinski, third son of a minor merchant family from Cirin, accidental time traveler, and quite possibly the most powerful human mind mage in all of Altazia…

…and he had won.

And now it was time to finally get some rest.

Zorian’s eyes abruptly shot open as a sharp pain erupted from his stomach. His whole body convulsed, buckling against the object that fell on him, and suddenly he was wide awake, not a trace of drowsiness in his mind.

"Good morning, brother!" an annoyingly cheerful voice sounded right on top of him. "Morning, morning, MORNING !"

Panic. Zorian’s awakened mind felt nothing but pure, all-consuming terror. After all of his efforts, all the sacrifices he and people around him had made, it was all for naught. He was back where it all began, in his room in Cirin, about to start his third year at the academy…

…then the moment passed, and the nightmare dissolved.

The room around him was wrong. This wasn’t his room back in Cirin. He was in Cyoria, in the room he shared with Kirielle, at Imaya’s place.

And the little devil was currently still sprawled across his stomach, kicking her legs up in the air and giving him a mischievous, expectant look. His panicked reaction didn’t seem to worry her. If anything, she seemed quite pleased with herself for managing to scare him so thoroughly.

"Kirielle… why?" Zorian asked, resisting the urge to sigh.

"What do you mean?" she asked innocently. "I always wake you up like this?"

"Not with those exact words you don’t," Zorian groused. "He put you up to this, didn’t he?"

"Zach said it was going to be funnier this way," Kirielle admitted, propping her chin with her hands. She gave him a toothy smile.

Zorian flipped her over the edge of the bed in response, causing her to fall to the floor with a silent thud.

The little imp had expected the reaction, and made no sound in response, simply scrambling to her feet immediately afterwards.

"It’s been a month already," Zorian grumbled. "Just when is he planning to stop with this petty revenge crap?"

It wasn’t like Zorian had wanted to deceive him like that. He’d done that to save Zach’s life, for heaven’s sake!

Well. At least he hadn’t gotten another punch in the face for that…

He chased Kirielle out of the room and got dressed, idly listening to the sounds of the house and its tenants as he did. Imaya’s place was very busy these days, nothing like the quiet household Zorian had gotten used to during the time loop. The academy dorms had suffered heavy damage during the invasion, both in the initial artillery bombardment and the fighting that had followed afterwards, which meant that a lot of students were suddenly homeless and in dire need of alternate accommodations. Since Imaya’s house had survived the invasion mostly intact, it was soon filled to capacity and even slightly beyond. Zorian didn’t really like it, but the situation was what it was, and there was nothing he could do to change it.

At least Kirielle had plenty of people to talk to these days.

After composing himself a little, he left the room and entered the kitchen, where a dozen or so people had already gathered, some of them still eating breakfast, and some of them pondering a stack of textbooks and papers arranged around them.

Most of the people gathered here were his classmates. Akoja, Raynie, Kiana, Kopriva, Kael, Naim, Edwin, and Estin were all gathered around the small table that was far too small to really accommodate them all. They immediately stopped what they were doing and turned to look at him as he entered, calling out greetings. Ilsa, who was sitting at a relatively prominent place at the table, was flipping through a stack of papers on her clipboard, and simply gave him a curt nod, before returning to her task. Nochka, Kirielle, and Kana were on the floor, playing with dolls and getting into everyone’s way from time to time. Zorian had no idea why they felt the need to play their games here, instead of somewhere more private, but nobody else was shooing them away, so he wouldn’t do it either.

As for Imaya, the landlord of this place, she was working around the kitchen while humming a happy tune to herself, looking like she was having the time of her life, despite the current overcrowded state of her home. Zorian knew she was getting paid for this, but he still couldn’t quite understand her good mood. Some people were just weird.

After a few seconds of looking around, Zorian suddenly realized there were no free chairs left anymore.

"This is what happens when you wake up late," Kopriva helpfully explained to him.

"There should be some free chairs in the next room," Imaya added, stirring the contents of some giant pot, not even bothering to turn around look at him.