It took nearly two weeks for reality to settle back in.
Ever since I, Sacrificed? The man, everything had been strange even if I hadn't noticed. Like I'd looked too deep into a pool of water and my eyes refused to refocus on anything in a shallower depth.
It made thing's hard, in several ways really.
For example, in my room the wood posts on my bed were carved with intricate flowers, and inlaid with wondrous silver rain drops. It had been in the family for centuries, since it was given as a gift by the reigning monarch.
Every time I looked at it I could taste the sweet and blood the carver shed as he toiled countless months finishing every detail with a meticulous eye that made my mouth water.
I could hear the countless lullabies my mother sang, as well my grandmother, her grandmother mother and so on and so forth.
In every hall I could see the thousands of people who had once walked the halls over nine centuries. I could hear them laugh, I could hear them cry, I could hear their blood drip as they died to assassins, I could hear the cool edge of a knife as women screamed.
There was also a strange asian girl who kept showing up in the corner of my eye, and disappearing with a giggle as soon as I tried to look at her.
It made operating like a functioning human incredibly difficult.
Something that wasn't helped as by my own PTSD, and consistent flashbacks to my cell, or the pain room as my smoke flooded in through my eyes, prodding my brain, nipping and tearing at everything that made up me with greasy worm like tendrils-
Breath in, Breath out.
As I was saying, it took nearly two weeks for reality to thicken? For the transparent glass of reality to grow cloudy once more.
Disregarding puzzling metaphors, I finally managed to refocus on the here and now. I know that wasn't a normal result of Sacrificial magic, sacrifice magic was exactly what it said on the tin, Give up something, in return for something else.
I don't know why I was so lost in the folds of reality, but I think it had something to do with how my sacrifice didn't have a goal.
In the single day since I stopped functioning on autopilot so to speak I've found several things that might have been results of my accidental spell.
For one I'm way too strong for a malnourished slip of a girl only ten years old. Heck I think I might be stronger than I was in my last life.
For another, My Wind magic is far stronger and so is my control of it. Before the Kidnapping I was above average in magic capacity, but nothing really special.
Now I'm in the top percentile of magical strength, at least for as much as I could tell in about ten minutes of quick testing, before I got distracted making leaves move around with my magic.
That's another change, before the incident, I hadn't exactly been very energetic, in fact I'm ninety percent sure I was on the verge of being suicidally depressed, as well as stuck in a perpetual haze of lethargy.
Now I have seemingly gained enough energy to power the entirety of the USA overnight. Something that has apparently stolen my ability to focus on anything for longer than about five minutes before I get distracted, by for example, a really shiny tea tray.
In my defense it was in fact, really shiny.
Otherwise, outside of the last two hours I've been awake since I apparently wake up at the crack of dawn by default, I have done nothing other than spazz about my room like a hyper chipmunk on redbull.
Well I opened the window in order to test my wind magic, accidentally let in a pile of leaves, got distracted floating them around my room on invisible aircurrents, broke one of my drawers when I pulled too hard and snapped something.
That drawer no longer works, in the sense that while I could move it around at first, when I tried to shove it closed I used too much strength and shoved it through the dresser.
I panicked about that for about five seconds before I was distracted by the shiny tray left on an end table.
Based on the position of the sun, the wind speed of the birds flying outside, and my unequivocal knowledge of the universe I judged it would be another hour before the staff would wake up.
Otherwise, I checked the clock and realized I'd woken up at four in the morning and the servants only got to work on their duties at six.
I contemplated that and, as a result of my musings, stared at the shiny tray harder.
Dan Ascart was a mess.
For the last week he'd been dealing with the fallout of his daughter's kidnapping. No that was incorrect, he'd been dealing with daughter's kidnapping for six months. Spending each day doing whatever he could think of to try and find his missing child. The entire household had been scoured for clues.
He'd found no less than ten maids, who had been on another nobles payroll. Another five had been hired to sabotage small noticeable things in his home that would have eventually led to it being condemned.
Six butlers had been discovered trying to discredit his household, making false rumors of ill treatment, most of them aimed specifically at Sophia. Saying she was a horrid spoiled girl who did nothing but complain, to saying she was physically abusive.
Complete nonsense, his daughter had been nothing but a quiet well behaved child, with a spine of steel, ever since. Ever since her first Maids betrayal. Regardless they had all been quite easy to disprove.
By the end of it he had fired sixty servants, and nearly forty of them would be getting anything from a harsh sentence, to execution for trying to incite rebellion.
Even then they hadn't found anything on Sophia's location, the servant responsible had actually been a gardener of all things. However the man had been supremely unhelpful, his account of things full of holes and contradictory at times. Despite this the man had been very firm that he had been the one to do it.
It was only by chance that the man's exposure had been discovered, the gardener was an older man and had hurt his leg trying to run. It was deemed necessary for the man to see a light mage as the wound was likely to be infected otherwise.
The Light mage in question had practically stormed out of the man's cell only seconds afterwards, explaining with great urgency that the man had been afflicted with dark magic.
That had been more than enough grounds to involve the crown with his search.
Sadly it hadn't amounted to much, in the six months they had been searching they had found- rather easily at that -ten nobles of various rank experimenting with the forbidden magic.
None of them had been related to his daughter's kidnapping, most of them completely ignorant that it had happened at all. Strangely conciliatory about it as well.
At least at first, then he just realized that while they apparently didn't view commoners as real beings deserving compassion. A noble being in harm's way, on the other hand, was worthy of empathy in their minds.
A fairly backwards way of thinking, that had been worryingly common during the previous King's reign, at least before he was deposed.
However in the end they had not found even a figment of her, his dearest daughter gone like nothing more than a wisp under the sky.
At least until the map he'd had in his office had glowed with the characteristic light of magic. It was the map linked to Sophia's bracelet, or more specifically her knife.
He'd kept it close at all times, ever since she had disappeared he'd ensured it was always nearby, just in case. The hope it would glow fading every day it remained nothing more than a normal map.
After the fifth month he'd kept it on him in more a sense of solidarity, of belief in his daughter, than the cinderous hope he'd held on to.
The instant his mind had processed exactly what was going on he;d practically tore the glowing parchment from it's resting place on his desk, under several other documents.
The soft greenish glow was the only sign that his daughter was alive, he'd received in more than half of a year.
The green was the same soft color as Sophia's magic and as he unrolled the map he'd practically run out of his office to demand a march.
It hadn't taken more than four hours to arrive at where Sophia was being held, it was a small mansion. supposedly abandoned more than a decade ago when the last owner had died without any relations to inherit.
It was also very, very close to his own home.
I nearly sent him in a rage to learn she had been held so very close, and yet he hadn't even thought to look.
The rest had nearly been a blur, he'd stomped into the building his magic a tempest around him as it through the doors open hard enough to send them flying. His men coming in right after him with anything from swords to pikes at the ready.
The whole mansion had only held twenty people, thirteen of which had been servants, the rest had seemed to be guards.
He hadn't paid much attention to be honest, he'd killed any who tried to attack but otherwise he'd been far too focused on finding his daughter.
Only when he had that only resulted in more questions to be asked. Resulting in his current situation. His face buried in his hands as he sat in silence, his study only just starting to lighten as the sun made it's way overhead.
For the last week his daughter had been nothing but an empty doll, her eyes holding nothing but an abyss as though every bit of light within her ruby eyes had been scraped clean.
Something he was more than justified to be worried about.
After all that had been the kidnappers' plan, they wanted to hollow his daughter out and put in her place a spineless, shy, scared, puppet of a girl with no will of her own. One whose strings would be tied to their will.
Most of their notes had indicated Sophia had been far harder to break then they had anticipated, even daily sessions of Dark magic in the midst of a ritual had been unable to do more than the bare minimum. Even most meager progress had only resulted after having her for almost three weeks.
The first thing they had taken from her, was her own name. After that the accounts only became bleaker if far more cryptic. By the time Dan had finished reading through everything they had found, Dan had only the Barest hope anything was left of his daughter at all.
When she finally woke up?
She was nothing more than a shell, every morning she would wake up without a sound and crawl off the bed, before slumping to the ground as she twirled the fiber of the carpet between her fingers.
That was her only voluntary act, everything else from eating to drinking was only done at her maid request. Otherwise she just sat still, her eyes completely blank as they latched at random onto something in the room.
Light mages had been unable to help, completely baffled as they could find no sign of dark magic lingering to find what they needed to fix. The girl they had found resting in her lap hadn't been much help, seemingly thinking the whole kidnapping was nothing more than a dead nightmare.
They had sent her home when it became apparent that everything she remembered had likely been distorted by dark magic.
Dan Ascart was losing hope.
That however didn't stop him from holding onto the barest, flickering cinder of hope, that maybe just maybe, everything that made up his daughter hadn't been scrapped clean. That just maybe, as he stood up from his desk and walked out. His feet following a path he'd made at least once every day since his daughter had woken.
That, Maybe when he opened the door he'd find his wonderful, beautiful girl full of life once again.
He took a deep breath, trying to hold onto the momentary thought that when he opened the door everything would once more be back to normal. That his daughter would giggle, and laugh, and be truly alive once more.
Before pushing the door open just a crack, just enough to see if his daughter was laying on the floor like a still breathing corpse.
At first glance he did in fact, not see his daughter at all.
In fact at first glance all his saw was a cloud of leaves drifting around in order to make seemingly rude gestures. A broken dresser, ripped bed linens, a broken mirror, a ball that had seemingly broken said mirror, and the mattress of said bed set alongside the bed frame with several blankets draped over it to make what seemed to be a half finished fort of some kind.
He blinked, and only on the second glance did he see his daughter sitting on the floor in front of said fort, seemingly admiring a rather shiny tea tray.
A strange sound escaped his mouth as he looked in disbelief at what he was seeing.A sound that apparently drew his daughters attention, and then he couldn't breathe.
Because as she turned to look at him, her eyes drifting towards his face as they met his own eyes. He didn't find a blank abyss, he didn't find a girl scraped hollow of all that she was.
No he found a pair of red eyes gleaming like blood on snow, with a fire inside that could burn down an empire.