Spring, 4709

Kali had finished packing up her room and was helping her mother with what was left in the study. The wagon that would move these final items to their new home in Magnimar would arrive before noon the next morning, and due to some delays in the deed transfer on the warehouse and office space there Akmal was unable to return to Sandpoint to help them finish. Denea was loath to hire help for crating up what was essentially a collection of sensitive and personal family items—Next time we move, we’re packing these first, she thought—so it was up to her and Kali to finish.

When giants and a dragon attacked Sandpoint the previous year several blocks of the city were damaged or destroyed, and while the family home escaped unscathed the warehouse for Nassim Goods had not. The fire that engulfed the theatre sent hot embers into the air and raining down across the waterfront, and one of those embers landed on the roof of the warehouse and set it ablaze. Fortunately, the roof structure collapsed before the fire could completely engulf the building, and the business suffered only a partial rather than total loss.

Akmal and Denea had less luck with the insurance adjuster, who argued that their policy did not cover “damage in times of war”. Reports from agents of Magnimar, who had been tasked by the Lord Mayor with investigating unrest in eastern and northern Varisia, had turned up evidence of organized giant activity under the command of an upstart leader named Mokmurian. “And that, you see, qualifies as war,” he said, emphasizing the final word by stabbing his finger on the desk where the copy of the policy lay. Denea did not have to look down to know that his finger had landed squarely on the word “war” on the parchment. The man had probably had this exact same conversation a dozen times in the past week. That he was still alive given how emotions were running in town said a great deal about Hemlock and Deverin’s commitment to law, order and security. It was not often that either Akmal or Denea admitted defeat, and even rarer for both of them to do so at the same time, but they knew a losing bureaucratic battle when they saw one. They ate the loss, and Akmal made the decision to move the business to Magnimar as soon as he was able.

The financial impact on the family was significant, far more than either of them was comfortable admitting. Coupled with the move expenses, 4708 and 4709 were very lean years and Kali had to wait until the latter to begin her schooling, but they were alive and on steady footing. A great number of families in Sandpoint were not able to say the same, including even the infamous Scarnettis. (Recognizing how fortunate they were, Akmal and Denea donated generously to the town’s emergency fund over the next year. “I never asked your father, and he never asked me. We just did it. It was the right thing to do,” she recalled while talking to Kali about it a few months later.)

Kali was clearing some papers out of the main desk in the study when she saw one that caught her eye.

“Mom…what is this?”

She was holding a letter addressed to Denea Borellan, from the Aneka University in Korvosa dated in early 4687, offering her a tenured teaching position and describing what that would entail. It went into some detail about salary, a stipend for living expenses, and even support for research and publication. Denea came around the desk to where Kali was sitting while she read. When she finished, Denea spoke in a light voice as she reminisced, half-smiling.

“That was the year your father asked me to marry him. He proposed just a month after they sent me this.”

Kali knew precious little about her parents from before they had met. She had the stories they told her, and what both sets of her grandparents had told her, to draw upon but they seemed to exist in a different place and time. She remembered that her mother had taught for a year—Or was it two?—before she and her father married, but she didn’t remember hearing anything about this. A tenured position? She knew that was significant. And mom would have only been, what, twenty-two? Twenty-three?

“You…you gave this up?”

It was the wrong thing to say and she immediately regretted it. The expression on her mom’s face turned hard in an instant. “That is what your grandparents think, yes,” she said sharply.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Kali.”

Kali stopped and considered her mom. She’d known for years that she had a strained relationship with her own parents. Very strained. It became more obvious as Kali grew older, and that relationship was almost certainly worsening with each passing year. It was part of the reason they did not visit Korvosa very often anymore. If it weren’t for their granddaughter Denea may not have even seen her parents at all since leaving. She’d overheard bits of the arguments they’d held behind closed doors on more than one occasion and some of the things that were said were awful. She had always wondered what had caused their falling out.

I guess now I know, she thought.

Denea’s face softened, as did her voice.

“Even before I met your father, I was happy. I was researching and teaching Thassilonian history, and a little of world history after the fall of Thassilon. I was a socialite in a Varisian city-state. I knew what I wanted from my life. What I wanted was that.

“Then I met your father and I fell in love. And because of your father, I am happier than I ever was or thought I would be, I am discovering the world for myself instead of learning it from books behind a desk, I am a contributor to many of those same books that I used to read, I find and touch relics from history instead of seeing them in museums and sometimes I even put them there myself, my world is much larger than one city of modest influence and an inflated sense of its own significance, and most important of all? I have you.

“Now. Tell me, Kali. What have I given up?”

§