Arthur left his father in Lyra's capable transit hands and went home.
The basement laboratory had been waiting for three weeks while the forest expedition ran its course, and he had been thinking about a specific project since the count's visit. Not for the forest. For the farm. For his parents and Thomas, who used magic rarely and who had no reliable ranged option if something came to the farm that required one.
He worked through the day.
The mechanism was adapted from principles he had read in three separate sources and had been combining in his head since January — the mana stone as a compressed fuel source, the barrel as a direction constraint, the trigger as a controlled release valve. He had to solve the problem of elemental switching, which took most of the morning: a rotating chamber around the mana stone with three configured faces, each aligned to a different elemental output, turned by a second smaller dial near the trigger.
He built two rifles first. Longer barrel, shoulder-mount, designed for his father and Thomas — men who were strong enough to handle the mass and steady enough in their hands to use the precision setting. The dial near the trigger controlled output from low — a single focused projectile, accurate, fast — to high — a compressed charge that released on impact in a way that was not a word he wanted to write down.
Three elemental settings. Fire, lightning, earth. He tested each on the basement range he had built into the north wall and adjusted the stone calibration until the outputs were consistent and the transition between elements was clean.
The handguns were smaller. More carry, less mass, shorter range. He made four — one for each sister, one for his mother. Mira's he spent extra time on: the grip fitted to her hand specifically, the mana stone calibrated to her signature so the output was more efficient for her than for anyone else, a safety that required her specific mana touch to disengage.
He added one enchantment to all six weapons that he had not planned at the start: a return function. If disarmed or dropped, a light mental command brought the weapon back to the owner's hand. He had watched the count's captain reach for a weapon at the beginning of a confrontation and thought: the first thing they try to do is take it.
He laid them out on the workshop bench when they were done.
Six weapons. Clean lines, functional, the mana stones set flush in the housing and the dials smooth and positive in their action. Not what anyone in this world would call a gun. What they were was entirely new.
He picked up the handgun he had made for his mother and held it for a moment.
Then he went upstairs to find her.
◆ ◆ ◆
She was in the kitchen. Maren was beside her and they were working through the preserved herb stores, organizing the winter's accumulation into labeled containers with the systematic efficiency they brought to kitchen work together.
Arthur came in and set the handgun on the table between them.
Mira looked at it. She looked at him. 'What is this.'
'Protection,' he said. 'For the farm. For you specifically.' He showed her the safety — the mana touch disengagement — and the dial and the three elemental settings and what each one did. He showed her the return function. He was thorough.
She picked it up. Turned it in her hands. She had the grip instinctively correct — she had always been physically confident — and the mana stone in the housing lit faintly at her touch, reading her signature.
'It will go in your magic bag,' he said. 'You don't have to use it. But I want you to have it.'
She looked at it for a moment longer. Then she looked at him with the expression she had for situations where she had received something from him and was deciding how to receive it.
'Show me again how the dial works,' she said.
He showed her.
He was in the middle of explaining the elemental outputs when something else registered — a note in her mana signature that was not what he was used to reading from her. He had been running the passive diagnostic so automatically for so long that it was background noise. This was not background noise.
He stopped talking mid-sentence.
Mira noticed. 'What,' she said.
He looked at her. He ran the diagnostic deliberately, with full attention, confirming what the passive reading had suggested.
'Mum,' he said. He was not sure what expression he was wearing. 'When did you last feel unwell.'
'I haven't,' she said, the first edge of worry in her voice now. 'Arthur, what's wrong.'
He reached out and ran the full detection working — careful, complete, the same one he had run on every family member for two years. He read the result.
He looked at his mother.
'You're pregnant,' he said.
Mira went very still.
Maren, who had been standing quietly at the herb jars, set down what she was holding with the careful placement of someone who had decided the moment required her to be out of the way.
'I —' Mira started. She stopped. 'I thought I couldn't. After Arthur it was — we tried for two years and then we stopped trying because —' She stopped again. Her eyes were bright. 'How far.'
'Six weeks,' he said. 'Maybe seven. The signature is strong and clean.' He looked at what he could read. 'Very strong. She's healthy.'
Mira looked at him. 'She,' she said.
He hadn't meant to say that. 'Probably,' he said. 'The signature reads that way. I could be wrong.'
She put her hand over her mouth. Then she laughed, the surprised kind, the kind that came out when something was too large to simply be happy about and needed a sound to release some of the pressure. Then she pulled him into a hug that was several things at once and held him there.
He held her back and thought about the months of dragon meat and black pills and the accumulated effect of life energy feeding a body that had been running low in ways nobody had noticed. He thought about what stronger meant, and younger, and what that meant for things that had stopped being possible and had apparently started again.
He thought: this is something I did.
He thought: I am very glad I did it.
◆ ◆ ◆
The family celebrated that evening around the big table.
His father went quiet when Mira told him — the specific quiet of Edric Voss receiving something large and good, sitting with it before he could speak, his hand covering hers on the table. Then he said her name. That was all, just her name, in the tone he used when a word needed to carry everything.
Clara cried immediately and did not try to stop herself and then was embarrassed about crying and covered it by being very loud about how excited she was, which convinced no one but was very Clara.
Lyra wrote something in her journal and then put it away and sat close to her mother and did not say much but was very present in the way she was present for things that mattered.
Saya, who had transited in for dinner as she did most evenings now, took Mira's hands across the table with the amber eyes very warm and said: 'A sister,' and Mira laughed and said they would see, and Saya said 'a sister' again with the complete confidence of someone who had decided.
They were still at the table, the meal mostly finished and the conversation running through names and futures and what the spare room could be made into, when Thomas stood up.
He did not do it dramatically. Thomas did nothing dramatically. He stood up with the specific quality of someone who had been working toward a moment for a long time and had decided the moment was now.
He looked at Maren.
Maren looked at him. Her expression was doing several things simultaneously and she had not yet had time to sort them out.
'I've been thinking about this for a while,' Thomas said. He was looking at her steadily, the way Thomas looked at things he was certain about. 'You came here with nothing and you built something here. You work hard and you're good and you're kind and I —' he paused, 'I would like it if you stayed. Permanently. If you wanted to.'
The table was very quiet.
Maren looked at him. She looked at her hands. She looked at Mira, who was looking back at her with the warm steady expression of someone who had known this was coming and had been waiting patiently for it to arrive.
'Yes,' Maren said. Simply, completely, in the tone of someone who had also been waiting and was glad the waiting was done.
Thomas sat back down. The table erupted — Clara first, immediately and at volume, and then everyone else in quick succession, and through it all Thomas sat with the expression he had when something had gone the way he had calculated it would go and he was satisfied.
Arthur looked at his brother across the table.
Thomas caught his eye. He looked at Arthur with the look that meant he had a practical observation.
Arthur said: 'I'll build you a house.'
Thomas nodded once. 'Next to the east field,' he said. 'Good morning light.'
'Done,' Arthur said.
Edric looked at Maren. He had been looking at her throughout the exchange with the specific attention he gave to people he was assessing, which he did once and then filed and did not repeat. He reached across the table and put his hand briefly over hers.
'Welcome to the family,' he said. 'Properly, this time.'
Maren looked at him. Her eyes were bright. 'Thank you,' she said quietly. 'For all of it.'
'Thank Mira,' he said. 'I just work the fields.'
Mira, from across the table: 'You do significantly more than that.'
'The fields,' Edric said again, with the slight expression that was the closest he came to the grin he did not usually let out, and the table laughed.
Arthur looked around the table at all of them. His parents. His brother and Maren. His sisters. Saya with her tail wrapped around her feet and the amber eyes happy.
He thought: this is what I have been protecting.
He thought: I would do it all again.
He picked up his cup and let the evening run.