Chapter Text
“In his early adolescence, Maia had dreamed of becoming a maza, of becoming perhaps his father’s nohecharis and earning his love, but he had shown no more aptitude for magic than he showed (Setheris said) for anything else, and that dream, too, had died.” - The Goblin Emperor, Chapter 3 ‘The Alcethmeret’
There had never been a maza Emperor, not in the many sprawling generations of the Ethuveraz. Cstheio Caireizhasan — goddess of the stars, of wisdom, of magic — had never looked upon a child born to be Ethuveraz Zhas and granted him maz, because to be Ethuveraz Zhas at all was to be more powerful than anyone else in the land; the addition of maz would turn any powerful man into a tyrant, and tyrants cause problems that only gods can solve.
When Maia Drazhar was born, Cstheio Caireizhasan bestowed on him the gift of mazeise talents, and did not see this as the breaking of a pattern; for Maia Drazhar was not born to be Ethuveraz Zhas. He was a fourth son, and unwanted, and needed all the help he could get. If he should end up on the ivory throne, then that was merely a coincidence.
The first time Maia Drazhar shows any aptitude at maz, he is five years old. Playing make-believe in the parlour of Isvaroë’s estate, he sends a cushion flying straight up to the ceiling. This is clearly no fluke, nor caused by anything natural, because the cushion hands there, turning slowly in mid-air for a good few moments before dropping harmlessly to the floor once more.
His mother, the only witness to this rare and sudden feat, whispers something in Barizhin under her breath and due to her inattention, drops her teacup off its saucer. The teacup, of course, smashes on the wood panelling of the floor, and Maia, who knows his mother gets tense and frowny whenever he breaks something, immediately bursts into tears, sobbing apologies that are as repentant as a five year-old who didn’t actually do anything wrong can possibly be.
“Oh, no, darling,” his mother sighs, shock fading to vaguely chagrined affection, “'tis alright.”
“The cup,” he stutters out.
“Is just a cup,” she soothes.
“It– it was– thy–” Maia can’t get the words out, but it’s clear she understands by the way she hums at him. She knows he meant to say, It was thy favourite cup.
His mother lifts him up and perches him on her hip, only grimacing slightly at the discomfort this brings. “We have others. No harm done.”
Even that young, he’d known there would be no replacement sent, no acknowledgement of the accident, bar perhaps an icy glare from the maid who would have to clean it up.
“Don’t fuss, my love. Accidents happen.”
She refuses to hear any more about the teacup after that, and she doesn’t mention the maz at all, so neither does Maia.
(She never tells anyone of his ability; she has no reason to believe it would change anything.)
(It changes everything.)
Maia doesn’t forget, though they never speak of it. He knows he holds some power his mother does not, and he knows it could be honed and used for any number of things if he were tutored, but there aren’t even regular tutors at Isvaroë, much less mazei ones.
When his mother falls ill three years after, he sneaks into her rooms in the night and tries to spell her better, despite having no knowledge of how to use his maz, nor knowledge of any actual mazeise incantations for healing. Nothing happens and nothing changes. This isn’t a wonder tale — or if it is, he doesn’t get to win, not yet, not this easy.
When she dies and the maids try to usher him from the room, he tries again; tries to bring her back, to reverse the illness and return her breath, to recall her spirit at the very least — but he doesn’t know how he did any of the maz from before, so how could he know now? She lies still and unchanged, dead in twisted bedclothes, paler than she ought to be.
Gone.
Later, travelling from Isvaroë to the Untheileneise Court for his mother’s funeral, they cross the Istandaärtha. Maia looks down at the water, and cannot feel the disappointment he knows he would were this any other day. (All his other feelings are drowned by grief.)
In his mother’s wonder tale books all the water was blue, like the sky on a deep, hot summer day, or the blue on Drazhadeise livery adorning the guards that never let them leave the estate. This water, lapping at the sides of the barge below his feet, is brown and opaque, obscuring any aquatic and plant life that might dwell below. His heart feels as murky and empty as the river appears, and likewise as violent and tumultuous as the waves.
(If he had tried something then, the maz might have responded to him, but it would likely not have done what he wanted, and it would have caused more harm than good, anyway.)
It is a week on from their arrival at Edonomee that Setheris first strikes him, and he only has the gall to do so because he’s drunk. Maia falls to the floor, knocked over by the force of his new guardian’s backhand, and stares at the wood below him for a long, long time, deaf to whatever hateful words are spewing from Setheris’s mouth.
He thinks of his mother, as blood drips slowly from his split lip, who always treated him gently — how she would hate someone laying hands on her son like this, how she would not stand for it — and the grief and anger seem to swirl together inside him like a water funnel.
Setheris barks, “Are you listening to us, boy?” His hand closes around Maia’s shoulder, as though to lift him off the floor or wrench him around so he will meet Setheris’s eyes. The water funnel of emotion in his chest flies up through his body, as if aiming for Setheris.
Next thing he knows, Setheris drops like a stone to the floor beside him, the decanter of metheglin smashing as it plummets from his grasp.
Maia cuts his hand on one of the shards, scrambling to his feet in fright. Upon closer inspection, he finds that Setheris is not dead as he’d initially feared, merely unconscious, and now sodden with drink. Maia’s lip and palm bleed into the puddle soaking into Setheris’s clothes, and he thinks to himself, thou’rt unwanted in every corner, Maia Drazhar, but dost not have to tolerate it.
So he does the only reasonable thing he can think of, and runs.
When Ulis came to take the boy’s mother’s soul to his realm, he saw that Cstheio Caireizhasan had given a king’s son maz, something she had not done for centuries — for kings with maz often became tyrants, and tyrants did things that became the responsibilities of all the gods.
And indeed, Anmura and Csaivo too were shocked at the news, and the three of them confronted the Lady of Stars about what she had done. Cstheio Caireizhasan explained the boy had many hardships yet to face, and she proclaimed that as protector of the Lost and Broken she would give him the help she could.
The other gods conversed, and eventually it was decided that the boy would face three trials to prove he was worthy of such power. If he failed, Ulis would come and take him early; but if he proved himself, they would let him be. Ulis, Anmura, and Csaivo each planned a task for him, but Orshan declined the opportunity, because she was rather preoccupied just keeping her people fed. She said that as long as the boy only ate what he needed, and never off of someone else’s plate, she would not interfere.
No such trials could take place in isolation, so when the man chosen to look after the boy in his mother’s absence first struck him, Salezheio swooped down and planted in the boys mind the concept of flight, to which he responded quite readily. Noranamaro, a lesser god of luck, followed him through the marshes, unbeknownst to her fellows, to make sure he would not fall into the swamp and drown. She ensured every step he took would be a good one.