Despite the glimpse of life the estate had at the end of fall, winter doesn't look any different from previous years. No, now with the dreary gray of winter having settled over the estate, there's no sign of the curse being weakened. If Alaric hadn't seen the flowers blooming with his own eyes, he wouldn't have believed it happened at all. It's been so long.
Well, for the time being, he has other responsibilities to worry about. Running a duchy in the winter is the most demanding part of his role. When something goes wrong in winter, it's much more difficult to mitigate the total damage caused. Storage fires, thefts, infestations, or anything of the sort are the worst to handle. Every year, he hopes to avoid that situation. Somehow, there's always at least one occurrence.
Aside from that, his workload lessens during the winter. Nobles don't want to travel for meetings, and the social season takes a break, which means fewer carriage accidents. Overall, it's peaceful enough this way. He can focus on making sure the manor is ready for Vella's visit. Since she's his sister-in-law, he'd like to make a good impression. He wants Lenore's family to feel comfortable leaving her in his care, not that they were able to protect her from Claude.
No, he understands that it's not fully their fault that Claude took Lenore and made her into his prisoner to use as a political pawn. The power of a viscount is minimal in comparison to a duke. Even if Lenore's father had complained to the emperor, he wouldn't do anything about the situation—which means a lot when considering that the emperor dislikes Claude Rowanhart and the noble faction that follows his lead. But the resources and power of a duke are more useful than those of a viscount, especially when the viscount's position only exists because the duke allows it to keep his younger brother occupied.
It's a complex situation and an example of why Alaric has grown tired of politics and their power plays. If he could, he'd live a simple life worrying only about his own people and territory, but he instead has to deal with the greed of others.
With a sigh, Alaric steps off his carriage and looks at Barrowmere's Tower. This building was once home to the mages who wanted to work in Barrowmere on behalf of the central mages' Tower in the capital. Now, it's rundown and showing its age through the lack of upkeep and general repairs. Still, it doesn't look as bad as Alaric expected.
A few guards enter before him, making sure that there's nothing waiting for them. Although they're more likely to find squatters seeking shelter than they are people who mean them danger.
Jens, a young knight who's coming along for this inspection to get some manner of guarding experience, nods back at Alaric. "All clear, Your Grace."
"Right." Alaric follows them inside. It's dark, but he already knew that lighting had been as neglected as the rest of the building. Well, it's nothing that a few lamps can't fix, and he had the knights prepare them ahead of time.
A lesson in preparation, he called it. Not often necessary in Barrowmere, where there are no lush lands to be coveted these days, but that can always change. It's better to be safe.
"Mages used to live here?" asks another young knight. Faerrah, if he remembers correctly.
"Once," Alaric says. "That was a long time ago. After they studied the curse for a few decades, there was nothing left for them to study. It didn't help that the magic of the curse has a tendency to interfere with other magic and magical items. Since then, nobody has used this Tower, except perhaps for shelter."
"No wonder it's so dusty," Jens says, wrinkling his nose at the sight of dust filling the air when he pats an old tapestry with faded colors and the symbol of the Imperial Mages. There was a time when the best of the best wanted to come to Barrowmere to study its changing lands.
But then its lands stopped changing, and the mages found other objects of study.
"We'll have to clean it up and repair everything." Alaric looks at the cracks in the walls, feeling the drafts that slip through them. "I have a feeling that mages are going to want to use this Tower again soon."
"Really?" Jens asks. "Is something happening?"
"I'm not sure yet, but I think so." Alaric doesn't elaborate as he ascends the Tower. He remembers the bulk of equipment being stored at the top, a measure used to protect it from being taken by petty thieves or ambitious mages with nefarious plans. "Check for anything that looks like a magical tool."
The knights give him their acknowledgements and fan out. Alaric himself joins in the search, picking a direction in the spiraling halls that nobody else looks to be searching and opening the first door he comes across. Each room he finds is as barren as the rest, covered in dust with broken windows in some and what seems to be shattered crystals in others. Possibly the results of failed experiments from the past that were never cleaned. Or it could be evidence of fits of anger that came from the mages being unable to unravel the curse of Barrowmere.
When he meets back with his knights, their dejected expressions are enough to let him know that there's nothing left in the Tower worth using, much less any sort of magical tools. He hoped for a better outcome to lighten the burden being placed on Vella, but at the same time, he understood that the odds of anything valuable being left behind were slim.
"I understand. Let's return to the estate, then." Alaric leads the way this time, boarding the carriage with his mind already racing to figure out how he can make the trip easier on Vella. He wants her to have as much time as possible to spend with Lenore during her time in the duchy, while also fulfilling her duty as a mage of the Tower by fixing the teleportation circle.
But in the end, he wants Vella's trip to be more about Lenore than it is about magic, the curse, or anything else. He wants to see Lenore's face light up when she gets to spend time with her sister again after so long. He wants Lenore to tell him about what she learns about Vella and maybe what she learns about herself as a result.
Alaric fixes his cravat, taking an extra moment to rest his hand over his heart.
The way that Lenore makes it race has become concerning.