Family

Standing at his own front door, Aaron looked at the gate carved with his family crest, the wooden trellis heavy with grapevines, the rows of flower beds beside it, and the little pool of clear water. For once, he was in no hurry to go inside.

He was eighteen in this life. He could feel the boundless energy in his body, a vitality that made him young not only in flesh but in spirit, returning him to the age when passion and drive came most easily. Still, across two lives, Aaron had lived fifty years.

Fifty years of life, fleeting as a dream.

He understood this feeling. Especially after awakening Slaanesh's powers, he understood it very well.

A person far from home would always remember what was good about it. They would dream of childhood, of the stories their grandparents had never finished telling beneath the big tree at the edge of the village, of themselves as a child beside the adults who had once been young and strong.

They would remember the scenery of home and the warmth of family.

At such times, people often felt strangely nervous about going home. Instinctively, they wanted to repay their family and their hometown. It was tender homesickness, but it was also the vanity of wanting to return in triumph.

That was why some people always said, "I'm working myself to the bone out here. I won't go back until I've made something of myself."

Aaron looked at the door, the thin curl of cooking smoke rising from the chimney, and listened to Aunt Mellie's unmistakably loud voice. A faint smile came to his face.

Aaron and the servants were not the only people living at the Sallyan Residence. After both his parents had died in battle, his aunt's whole family had moved in.

There was Aunt Mellie, Uncle Lothair, his cousin Robert, and his younger cousin Yuta. None of them belonged to the Sallyan family.

Yet whenever Aaron thought of the family living in his house, warmth rose in his chest.

He still remembered how, after both his parents had died at Tifanton during the Time of Troubles, Aunt Mellie had taken him to the royal palace to make a scene.

The king's decree had come down.

Aaron was granted one more generation of the Viscount Sallyan title, allowed to inherit the Sallyan Residence, and named a Purple Dragon recruit!

That sounded good, didn't it?

But Aaron had still been a minor!

No fief! No actual post!

In other words, apart from the bereavement payment, Aaron had no income at all. He had nothing but an empty Viscount title.

Had Cormyr ever had a great noble in such an awkward position?

It was Aunt Mellie who had taken Aaron to the palace in Suzail. The fierce middle-aged woman had thrown herself down in front of the Royal Court, rolled on the ground, and cursed the royal family for its injustice. Half the palace had come to watch.

Aaron still remembered the sight.

Olinick, the kingdom's finance minister, had finally had enough of the madwoman. Pointing at Mellie's nose, he sneered, "If you're short of money, you can serve drinks at a tavern to support your nephew!"

Aunt Mellie had fired right back. "Fine! I'll serve drinks, and you'll come spend money on me? If you don't, I'll tell every person who walks into that tavern what happened! Minister Olinick told me to serve drinks! Minister Olinick told the sister of a Knight who died for his country to serve drinks in a tavern so she could feed that Knight's poor underage son! Come on! Give me your word right now, and I'll find a tavern tomorrow!"

Aaron still remembered how Olinick's face had turned green. His mouth had hung open for ages, but in the end, he could not bring himself to accept Aunt Mellie's terms.

Dozens of nobles and guards were watching in front of the Royal Court, along with townspeople outside!

And so Aaron's fixed stipend of eight hundred Golden Lions a year as Viscount Sallyan had been won by his aunt rolling around on the ground with him in front of the Royal Court!

Besides, Aaron had not thought particularly well of his parents.

His father had been a soldier through and through, a career soldier. Aaron had seemed less like his son than a recruit he could neither dismiss nor bring up to standard. When Aaron remembered his father, almost all he recalled, apart from a scant few words of praise, were arguments, curses, insults, and punishments. His father had been a drill instructor from hell with impossibly high standards, doing everything he could to shape Aaron into the person he wanted.

Unfortunately, the old Aaron had never met those standards.

Naturally, "useless," "disgrace," and "the pigs in the sty are smarter than you" had been among his father's mildest rebukes.

Taking a few hard punches had become routine, too.

Aaron understood his father's state of mind. The family had lost its title and fief, and even its name had nearly been taken away. Manuel had reached the limit of his own potential, and being a Purple Dragon Knight commander was not enough to restore the family's glory. He had been forced to place all his hopes on Aaron.

But understanding did not mean Aaron liked being hit and humiliated.

So he would run away.

Where to? His aunt's house.

His aunt's family had lived in one of the better parts of the lower city. Uncle Lothair was a Horse Master in Suzail, tending horses for noble Knights. The position was lowly and the pay modest, though it afforded them a somewhat respectable life. His aunt took in sewing to help with expenses. In their family, only Lothair and Robert could afford white bread.

Aaron visited often. Whenever he did, they gave him what little white bread they had and ate barley bread themselves.

As a child, Aaron had not understood the difference. Once he grew older, he understood why Robert, three years his senior, had always looked less than pleased to see him.

He felt rather ashamed of it.

But his aunt and uncle never changed. Whenever Aaron appeared, they saved the white bread for him and ate the barley bread that was plainly harder and tougher to chew.

One scene remained vivid in Aaron's memory. He was still small. Snow had blanketed the city in winter, turning the royal capital beside the Dragonmere white. Bruised in several places, he had trudged through the snow to his aunt's door. Steam rose from the roof. His aunt and uncle were outside, drying hides and preparing salted meat for winter. The moment they saw him, they smiled and beckoned him in, telling him to hurry because there was white bread waiting.

The last Sallyan stood with his hands on his hips, remembering. He could just make out his aunt criticizing the baker's bread again.

Either it was not baked through and still tasted doughy, or it was a little burnt and spoiled the texture. She cared about such things.

More than once, the baker had complained to Aaron that his aunt was far too hard to please.

The familiar words, the familiar surroundings—Aaron, standing at the door, could not hold it in.

He laughed.

Aaron took out his key and went inside. The aging golden-wingwood floorboards creaked beneath his feet. The thick carpet had faded in places, but everything was spotless. The entryway was not especially wide, perhaps six or seven people across. Paintings and calligraphy covered the walls, with handicrafts arranged along either side. Porcelain imported from the Far East stood in a glass cabinet nearby. Facing the door was a full suit of standard Knight's plate armor.

It was an extraordinarily rare suit of red dragon-scale adamantium full plate: supernatural armor. Without exceptional martial skill to help them, someone wielding an ordinary weapon could hack at its wearer as he stood still and never hurt him. The armor also gave its wearer strong resistance to a dragon's fearsome aura and to fire damage.

Its wearer could also unleash a dragon's aura once, with a twenty-four-hour cooldown.

It was one of the Sallyan family heirlooms.

"You're not worthy of wearing this armor, you useless boy! Of course, neither am I! I'm useless too!"

His father's words still echoed in Aaron's ears.

The old Aaron might never have dared touch the heirloom in his entire life. The Aaron standing there now cared little about that. I'm the last Sallyan. It's mine, and I'll do what I want with it.

Still, this suit of plate was not something just anyone could wear. Besides demanding great strength, it required its wearer to withstand the dragon's aura within it.

Fail, and the armor would throw them out halfway through putting it on. Getting away with a broken arm or leg would be lucky.

Aaron truly could not wear it yet. If Manuel had been able to, he would not have fallen in battle so easily.

Beyond it lay the hall, bright and tidy. A large accordion hung on the wall. The doors and windows were solid and finely made, while the curtains were fashioned from luxurious fabrics whose vivid colors still gleamed in the afternoon light. Bright tapestries covered the walls, their pale backgrounds filled with flowers and patterns.

At the center of the wall hung an open scroll in a gold frame.

"On this land, I shall stand proud

Until I have lost everything, sir.

For no matter whom I meet or what I face,

While I stand, Cormyr stands!"

—Duar Obarskyr, King of Cormyr

The parchment had grown quite old, and the words written in special ink had faded somewhat over the long years.

This scroll was a treasure money could not buy. It had been written by King Duar's own hand more than nine hundred years ago.

Beside it was another piece in a silver frame.

"Courage! Duty! Honor!"

—Presented by Azoun IV, King of Cormyr

That was the Sallyan family motto. After Aaron's father had died in battle, the former king had written it himself and sent it to them.

As for the house's piles of rare treasures, antiques, paintings, and keepsakes accumulated over centuries, none were worth as much as those three things. There was no need to list them all.

That was also why Aaron had thought he might be able to pay for a Miracle. He had estimated that asking Lady Silverstar to cast it would cost twenty to twenty-five thousand Golden Lions, an astronomical sum for a commoner.

The night watchman outside, for instance, earned thirteen gold coins a month. He would need to work every day for 130 to 160 years, without eating or drinking, to pay for one Miracle.

Or take a skilled blacksmith—not a master, and unable to forge supernatural weapons. At an average income of thirty Golden Lions a month, he would need to work more than fifty-five years without food, drink, Sundays, or holidays to pay such a sum.

But if Aaron sold the mansion, his heirloom ring, the red dragon-scale adamantium full plate, and everything else the family had passed down over the centuries, he reckoned he could raise twelve to fifteen thousand Golden Lions. That ought to cover half up front.

As for the rest?

He would pay it off slowly. What else could he do?

But Lady Silverstar had not charged him.

Even the goddess Selûne had not asked him for money.

Aaron turned his gaze to the little shrine to Selûne in the hall. A second warmth rose in his heart. He had suffered terribly since coming to the Realms, but he had also felt this world's kindness.

The Sallyan family dated back nine hundred years. Their ancestor Lyondolf had begun honoring the Lady of Silver as the family's patron goddess around seven hundred years ago. According to the tale, she had warned him during a battle, saving his forces from being wiped out in an ambush by evil Beastfolk.

The old Aaron had been uncertain about the family's faith.

Now he had only one thought:

Grandpa! Dad! Believing in the Lady of Silver really works!

Aaron went to the shrine and knelt reverently on one knee.

"Oh? Aaron, you're back!" A sharp female voice shattered the Viscount's devout mood.

A woman in her forties hurried out of the kitchen. She wore a plain long dress beneath a kitchen apron and was vigorously wiping grease and vegetable stains from her hands onto it as she approached. At the sight of her nephew, an eager smile spread across her face. "There you are, Aaron's home! Lothair! Where on earth have you got to? Robert, Yuta, come greet your cousin!"

The woman was not tall. Her skin had a faint yellow cast, and deep crow's-feet had formed at the corners of her eyes. She no longer had the slender figure of her youth. Though she had kept herself reasonably well, there was still a little extra flesh beneath her chin and on her arms and belly.

She was Mellie, Aaron's aunt and his mother's younger sister.

Aaron dimly remembered that when he was very small, his aunt had been in her twenties and rather pretty. More than a decade had passed. Now Mellie was over forty and a thoroughly middle-aged woman.

And that was with her taking care of herself.

People of this race mature faster, but they seem to age faster too, Aaron thought. In this life, he had often seen maids not yet twenty-eight with plenty of wrinkles on their faces.

The woman kept wiping her hands haphazardly on her apron before finally getting a proper look at her nephew. The sight of him clearly startled her. Her mouth opened, and she asked in a bewildered voice, "Aaron? Is that you?"

"What, Aunt Mellie? You don't recognize me after just a few days?" Aaron smiled, spread his arms, and greeted her with a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"What happened to you? You look like a different person! Oh, and you should have said you were coming home. The baker didn't make your bread today!" Aunt Mellie quickly stepped back. She was in the middle of cooking and smelled of oil and smoke. She kept rubbing her hands against her apron until the grease was gone. "I'll go buy some fresh rolls from the bakery nearby."

In the Realms, bread was the most common food.

Poor villagers brought wheat and other grains to the mill and communal oven near the manor to make their bread.

Most city residents bought bread from bakeries.

Wealthy households generally had ovens of their own.

Noble families like Aaron's often had a dedicated baker as well. Such a person rose early to bake the family's bread for the day and prepare a few other dishes while they were at it.

Rice was not rare on the market, either. Rice imported from the Flying Dragon Empire on the distant Kara-Tur Continent was sold in Cormyr, though it was expensive. People also preferred to eat it as a "snack" or a side dish.

It was much the same reason people in Aaron's previous homeland did not treat corn as a staple food.

"Oh, Aaron's back. Let's have something extra for dinner, Mellie. I'd like to have a few drinks with him."

Uncle Lothair was a lanky man nearly six foot four, with small eyes, a large nose, a small mouth, deep-set but lively eyes, and a goatee. The moment he saw Aaron, he turned to his wife with a hopeful, ingratiating look.

Lothair was very happy with his life now. He had never dreamed he would get to live in Aaron's mansion.

"Eat, eat, eat. That's all you think about. Darkness must have blinded me when I married a horse keeper like you," Aunt Mellie shrieked. "Fine, I'll see what's left in the cellar."

"Make plenty, Auntie. We have a guest tonight," Aaron said with a natural smile. He had watched the couple bicker for more than ten years.

Poor Uncle Lothair probably never had more than five silver coins on him at once. His aunt checked regularly, too, and was sure to ask if any were missing.

"Who?" Aunt Mellie asked with interest.

"Eleanor."

"Eleanor! Aaron, really? Oh! Then we must get everything ready. Everything!" At the sound of Eleanor's name, his aunt's eyes lit up.

She was a messenger of the Lady of Silver! They had to welcome her properly.

His aunt and uncle went off to prepare dinner, and Aaron saw his cousins Robert and Yuta again.

Robert was twenty-one and nearly six foot six. Apart from his eyes, which resembled his mother's, he took after his father. He was reasonably good-looking and rather proud. He worked as a copyist at the Suzail Adventurers' Guild and thought it made him someone important. When he saw Aaron, he merely nodded a greeting, then pointed at the book on his desk to show he was busy.

Yuta was only ten. Unfortunately, Aaron's young cousin was not pretty. Her features were almost identical to her father's, especially when she smiled. The resemblance was perfect.

There was certainly no need for a paternity test. Aaron often wondered how his cousin had managed it. Her mother had been a fairly pretty young woman in the lower city, so how had Yuta ended up inheriting everything from her father?

His young cousin was clingy, too. She ran up and asked when he had returned, whether his mission had succeeded, and whether he had been hurt.

Faced with Yuta bouncing eagerly in front of him, Aaron fell silent.

It had been only a few days, but he had been through so much.

Yet under his cousin's expectant gaze, the Viscount found he did not want to tell her any of it.

"Cousin?" Seeing Aaron stare into space, Yuta pressed him. "Are you listening?"

"Oh! I am." Aaron lowered his eyes for a moment, then quickly looked up again, wearing the same bright smile he had shown throughout his journey.

"Don't worry. Everything's fine."