Manual labor was sothing Irene had never been required to do in her life prior to joining the knighthood.
As she carried boxes or moved furniture for the maids, she felt a strange sense of pride. Even if she was small, she was strong, and no one ever doubted her. At least in the knighthood, where people knew her feistiness made up for her size, she was never doubted.
At least until Leif started to doubt her.
Days after the Duke’s death, Stanley left the barracks in search of Sir Gunnar, but he would only yell at anyone from outside the Duke’s Tower. He refused to set foot in such a tainted space where he felt like his mana was being slowly drained.
Those with less of a mana pool would certainly suffer more than he.
In his refusal to go inside, a few squires had beco his errand boys. They were constantly going into the library and finding things for him. Even worse, whenever they wanted to eat, there were a couple of tables moved outside for their convenience. Because of their importance to the knighthood and Sir Gunnar refusing to lose them, he was bending to their will, and they were certainly taking advantage of this fact.
"We will need a mana pillar in this area if you hope to receive a response from the King," the mage insisted. "It will have to be beyond the barracks because otherwise this dark mana emanating from the tower will block out any possibility of that."
And with that, the apprentices and knights began the days-long effort to build a tower embedded with mana stones that would act as a pillar to receive communications from those wanting to send them. Instead of letters popping up to the strongest mages—which always turned out to be Siverly or Stanley—the letters would be more organized. They would even be able to receive them even when the mages decided to finally leave.
Irene, along with the other apprentices, brought boards from the basent of the Duke’s Tower, where they had been placed for random repairs throughout the various buildings of the property.
However, a few tis as they went along, Leif blocked Irene’s path or took sothing off her stack. Perhaps the most irritating thing he had been doing was taking one of the boards from her and adding it to his equally large stack.
"Don’t worry, I’ve got it," he would say.
It wasn’t until one of the final passes through the basent and storage area to the practice yard that Leif finally got under the stubborn girl’s skin.
"Let help you—"
Irene imdiately threw down the load she was already carrying, and she crossed her arms over her chest. Her eyes narrowed at the taller apprentice, who was only getting taller and taller compared to Irene.
"What is your problem, Leif?" she demanded. "Since when have you ever doubted my abilities so much. You know better than anyone that I can still best you with a sword."
What he was doing wasn’t malicious. In his eyes, it was the natural response to helping a girl because, ever since he found that out, it was all he could see whenever he looked at Irene.
How on Earth did everyone miss the feminine face that only got more feminine the older she beca? If soone could get past her defenses, they would see that the one who was insisting she was tough was actually quite adorable.
That wasn’t to diminish her strengths. He never doubted her one single ti. If there were nobody except for her to protect him against sothing, he would wholeheartedly trust her abilities.
Yet his thoughts didn’t justify why he was trying to lessen her burdens. He had hardly realized he had been doing sothing wrong until she called it out herself.
Unless he told her that he knew everything, there was no justifiable reason for his actions.
"Forgive !" he suddenly shouted. "It wasn’t intentional. I thought the boards were a bit big for you. It had nothing to do with your strength."
"So it’s because I’m small, then?" she asked.
"No, Iro," he groaned and slouched his shoulders. "It wasn’t intentional," he repeated.
With a haughty huff, the girl then picked up the stack of boards she had been carrying and continued on her path forward. It led her across the practice yard and beyond the barracks. She walked for quite a while until she made it to the place where the others were nailing together the structure. Saws had been brought out as well as a lot of nails.
"It would be better if we could use rocks or bricks, but this will have to do for the ti being. It doesn’t need to be that tall anyway," Stanley uttered in constant disapproval as he moved slowly around the small wooden tower being built from the ground up.
So far, they had only been able to build what would be the skeleton of the pillar, which they had dug a couple of feet into the ground in hopes that the occasional strong winds or bad weather wouldn’t knock down their efforts.
It felt like they were working against ti because they were trying to receive a letter from the King after sending theirs in the first place only two days before.
"A mana stone at each corner," Stanley requested. "Be sure to make room for this. Doesn’t matter if it’s inside or outside the wood. Mana is a stronger force that re wood couldn’t block from those who can sense it."
Gunnar had been sawing a board in half, and he paused, looking up at the mage incredulously.
"Mana stones?" he asked. "Where do you imagine we find sothing of that sort?"
"Inside the Duke’s Tower!" Stanley snapped. "Unless there is a mana stone mine around here that I am unaware of."
"By all ans, tell where you found mana stones in the Duke’s Tower, because Duke Arlin was never one to ddle with anything to do with magic," Gunnar responded, handing the saw off to Sir Sven so he could see firsthand what the mage was talking about.
Sure enough, Stanley led a few of them back to the Duke’s Tower.
Even though he had been avoiding setting foot inside for two days, he put his sleeve over his mouth and nose and stord forward.
Only when he was standing at the end of the hallway towards the stairs that led up to the maid’s quarters did the mage start stomping his feet.
"Just below this!" he persisted, only removing his sleeve from his face to shout. "There are mana stones just below this!"
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