Ether Pulse

Julien Vélain

The air in the Hall of Ancestors was thick and heavy, laden with the smell of rancid beeswax, centuries-old dust, and suffocating social correctness. Shadows gathered in the high corners, beyond the reach of the grayish light that filtered through the stained-glass windows, making the painted eyes of my Vélain ancestors seem to follow my every move from their gilded frames. They watched, they judged, as always.

We were gathered for afternoon tea, a ritual as immutable as the tide, though far less interesting. My great-aunt Eleonora presided from her high-backed armchair, her jeweled fingers fidgeting with the jet brooch at her stiff collar. Her thin lips curved into a grimace of disapproval as she spoke.

"…unthinkable that they allow that… industrial corrosion to come so close. The soot clings even to the curtains in the south-facing rooms. And the noise… a vulgar cacophony. The purity of our bloodlines is the only thing that protects us from that external miasma, but it requires constant vigilance. That is why young Phineas's engagement to Lady Isolde is so… appropriate. It reinforces the strongest lines."

I nodded at the right moment, murmuring a generic agreement. The facade. Always the facade. My cousin Phineas, sitting across from me, smiled smugly, adjusting the resonant amber cufflink on his immaculate wrist.

The amber gleamed and vibrated almost imperceptibly as a liveried servant leaned in to refill his cup, a movement too close for Phineas's paranoid comfort. The small piece of noble technology, a constant reminder that trust was a devalued currency even within these velvet walls.

I observed the scene with a carefully cultivated detachment. The talk of purity, alliances, and the decay of the outside world was the same as always, a broken record of arrogance and fear disguised as tradition.

I felt like an actor in a play repeated to infinity, reciting lines I no longer believed. My thoughts were elsewhere, in the east wing of the mansion, in a silent room where the sunlight probably fell too brightly upon a figure far too frail.

Elie.

She hadn't come down for tea. Again. The official excuse was a slight indisposition, but I knew the truth. I felt a cold pang of worry in my chest, a feeling that was becoming too familiar, too persistent to be ignored under layers of Vélain etiquette.

My great-aunt continued, now detailing the disasters of the last social season. I took advantage of a pause in her monologue.

"Great-aunt, cousins," I said, my voice cutting through the murmur with a studied calm. "I beg you to excuse me. I must check on Elie. Her indisposition worries me."

There was a momentary silence. Eleonora's eyes narrowed slightly, perhaps searching for some weakness or deviation in my tone. Phineas seemed vaguely amused by my display of "sentimental" concern. But no one objected directly. The care of the family line, even its weakest members, was an unquestionable duty, at least in appearance.

I rose, bowed my head respectfully, and headed for the door, leaving behind the resumed chatter about who would wear what jewel to the next ball. The air outside the salon seemed slightly more breathable, but the feeling of being trapped did not leave me. My footsteps echoed on the cold marble of the hallway as I made my way toward the east wing, toward Elie's room, toward the uncomfortable truth that the rituals and pressure-jewels fought in vain to conceal.

The hallway to the east wing was quieter, the thick carpets muffling the sound of my steps. The light coming through the tall windows here seemed paler, less sure of itself. I gently pushed open the door to Elie's room. It was ajar, as if awaiting my arrival.

The interior was bright, almost painfully so, a forced attempt at cheerfulness that clashed with the prevailing stillness. Elie was sitting in an armchair near the window, a light shawl over her shoulders despite the artificial heat maintained by the mansion's etheric radiators. She wore a high-necked lace dress that reached her chin and long, ivory-colored silk gloves that completely covered her hands and forearms. A mask of normality woven from fine fabric. But it couldn't hide the almost translucent pallor of her skin or the fragility that emanated from her posture.

Beside her, standing with a studied solemnity, was Maese Theron, one of the family's oldest Vélain Healers. He held a pair of faceted crystals that emitted a very faint bluish glow, moving them slowly over Elie's shoulder and neck as he murmured words in the ancestral tongue, phrases about the "inherent strength of the blood" and the "rejection of external weakness." Ritualistic smoke. Empty words.

"Ah, Lord Julien," Theron said without interrupting his movements. "Your presence strengthens Lady Elie's spirit. We are containing the flow, restoring the balance."

Containing. That was the key word. Never curing. Never truly restoring. I watched in silence as Theron, with precise though slightly trembling hands due to his age, carefully removed the jet brooch Elie wore at her collarbone.

Beneath, visible even through the fine fabric of the dress, the mark persisted: a purplish stain, like a bruise that refused to fade, its edges slightly raised, the surrounding skin unnaturally taut and shiny. It was an open wound that the body refused to close, a window into the fragility that everyone in our lineage feared and concealed.

Theron took a new brooch from a velvet-lined box—this one of polished jet with fine platinum inlays, designed to exert constant pressure and, supposedly, to be "sensitive" to energy fluctuations—and placed it with utmost care over the mark.

"This will help to calm the… reactivity," Theron explained, his tone filled with a confidence that no longer convinced me.

I drew closer, leaning in as if to adjust Elie's shawl. My gaze focused on the newly placed brooch. Despite the pressure and the supposed calming energy of the jet, the skin beneath the edges of the brooch still had that sickly transparency. And on the back of Elie's hand, where the glove had slipped a centimeter, I could see the delicate network of fine blue veins, more prominent than ever, like slow rivers under thin ice. The "flow" was not being contained. It was overflowing.

Elie looked up at me, forcing a smile that did not reach her tired eyes. "You see, Julien? Maese Theron says I'll soon be strong enough to attend Lady Carmichael's ball."

"Of course you will, Elie," I replied, my voice soft, trying to instill a conviction I did not feel. "You just need to rest." I squeezed her shoulder gently, feeling how thin she was beneath the layers of clothing.

Theron nodded gravely. "Rest and a strong will are essential. The Gift responds to discipline."

Discipline. Willpower. More damned hollow words. Elie had more willpower than most of these bloody, stubborn Vélains, and it did her little good against this… this thing that was consuming us from within. Frustration tightened into a knot in my stomach. These rituals, these jewels, this denial… they were useless. An elaborate farce to maintain appearances while the very foundation of our power crumbled.

I thanked Maese Theron with the required courtesy, assured Elie I would be back later, and left the room, trying to control my emotions and thoughts. The door closed behind me with a soft click, sealing the scene of false hope.

I needed to think. I needed answers that weren't found in ancestral chants or the pressure of a polished stone. My study, with its books and its silences, was calling to me. Perhaps the past, if forced to speak, would have something more useful to say.

*

I closed the door of my study behind me, the heavy oak muffling the distant murmurs of family life. Here, between the bookshelf-lined walls filled with leather-bound tomes and the rolled scrolls of celestial and terrestrial maps, the silence was a welcome balm, though tonight it felt tense, pregnant with unanswered questions. I poured myself a glass of fortified wine, the dark, thick liquid barely a comfort against the chill that had settled inside me since I saw Elie.

I sank into the worn leather armchair by the extinguished fireplace, contemplating the dead embers. Maese Theron and his rituals… a poultice on a festering wound. Containing the flow. For how long? The image of the blue veins under Elie's translucent skin was a dagger plunged into my conscience. Was this all we could do? We, the Vélain, masters of control, of mind over matter, reduced to tightening brooches over incurable marks and whispering ancient words while our own blood betrayed us?

My restless mind leaped beyond the Alps, beyond the known seas. The Jīn. Always so irritatingly… precise. Gliding through the world like needles through silk, their transport and messaging networks a mystery that not even our Inner Circles, with all their telepathic surveillance, could fully unravel. They controlled the flow of goods and secrets with an efficiency that bordered on the supernatural. Would they have an answer to the stagnation, the decay that seemed to seep from the Anemia? Probably not. Their power was over space, not life essence.

And then there were the Nyoka, in the sands and savannas of Africa. Their power was… visceral. Control over the dead, over the very cycle of corruption. A concept so alien to our philosophy of mental control and subtle force. Vulgar, yes, we considered it vulgar. But it would be foolish to deny… it was effective. A power that inspired a primal terror, something the Vélain publicly despised but perhaps, in the darkest corners of our history, had secretly envied for its undeniable rawness. But death… no, the answer to the Anemia could not be there.

My gaze wandered to a faded map of the great southern ocean islands. The Ora Union. Legendary navigators, yes, but it was the whispers of their mastery of healing that returned to my mind now. Island propaganda, exaggerations of drunken sailors? Or did they truly possess an understanding of vitality, a connection with life, that we had lost or never had? Could they look at Elie and see something more than a mark to be hidden with silk and jewels? The idea was almost heretical, a betrayal of centuries of Vélain pride, but the image of my sister…

Even the Wayra, the shapeshifters of the Americas. Wild, unpredictable, merging with their environment in ways that defied our orderly understanding of power. Their almost unnatural adaptability… was it only physical? Or was there within it an understanding of resilience, of overcoming limits, that escaped us?

I shook my head, pushing aside those useless thoughts. Comparing ourselves to the other lineages offered no solutions, it only highlighted our own limitations in the face of this insidious disease. If the answer wasn't in the current methods of the Vélain, and the foreign powers were irrelevant or inaccessible… where to look?

The answer, if it existed, had to be here. Within our own history. In the secrets we kept even from ourselves. Perhaps some ancestor, before orthodoxy had solidified, had seen something, had understood something that was now forgotten or deliberately buried.

I rose from the armchair, the decision taking shape. The archives. The dusty, forgotten wing of the mansion, where the records of generations accumulated, the official histories and, perhaps, the not-so-official ones. If there was a clue, a deviation, an "eccentric" theory about the true nature of the Gift and its cost... it had to be there, waiting silently in the dust and shadows.

I left the unfinished glass of wine on the polished mahogany table, its dark contents a murky reflection of my own thoughts. The decision, once made, propelled me with an urgency I rarely felt outside of tense negotiations or duels of etiquette. The archives. I had to search there, and I went with haste.

The west wing of the mansion housed the family records, a library that was more a mausoleum of the past than a center of living knowledge. Few ventured here, beyond the official archivists who maintained the superficial order.

The air felt colder upon crossing the threshold, heavy with the unmistakable smell of dust accumulated over generations, of brittle paper and the parched leather of countless bindings. The silence was deep, almost reverent, broken only by the occasional creak of the floorboards beneath my boots.

Towering dark wood shelves were lost in the shadows of the vaulted ceiling, filled with files, ledgers, and sealed tomes. The history of the Vélain, meticulously documented, classified, and, I increasingly suspected, carefully edited.

I walked through the narrow aisles, my fingers brushing against the dusty spines, reading the almost illegible golden titles: Pure Genealogies, Treatises on the Discipline of the Gift, Records of Property and Alliances. The official history, neat and orderly. That wasn't what I was looking for.

I needed deviations, margin notes, the forgotten whispers. My eyes sought the less-frequented sections, the upper shelves where documents considered secondary or irrelevant were amassed. I came to a section dedicated to "Minor Philosophical and Metaphysical Studies," a euphemism, I knew, for ideas that didn't quite fit the established narrative.

One particular file, housed high on an almost inaccessible shelf, caught my attention. It had no clear label, just an old date and some initials barely visible under a thick layer of dust. Too high to reach comfortably. Without thinking, I extended a hand, concentrating briefly. I felt the familiar pull behind my eyes, the invisible connection forming between my will and the object.

The heavy file slid smoothly from its place, floating down with precise control to land soundlessly in my outstretched hands. A practical and silent use of the Gift that had become as natural as breathing.

I took it to one of the few reading tables, its surface covered in a fine layer of dust that traced the book's outline as I set it down. It contained scattered notes, theories on harmonic resonance, speculations on the "ley lines" of the earth... interesting, but not what I needed.

My search continued, methodical, frustrating. I reviewed records of forgotten family disputes, personal correspondence sealed for centuries, treatises on arcane etiquette. Nothing. Desperation was beginning to gnaw again when my hand brushed against something small and solid hidden behind an imposing row of volumes on Vélain genealogical purity.

I pulled it out carefully. It was a small diary, bound in dark leather, very worn from use, with no title or mark on the spine. It wasn't listed in any catalog I knew of. I felt a shiver run down my spine, an intuition that told me this was different. I flipped through the first few pages.

The handwriting was tight, nervous, almost illegible in some places. I vaguely recognized the name signed on the inside cover: Great-uncle Theronius. A name associated in family whispers with "eccentricity," "unorthodox ideas," and a tendency to ask uncomfortable questions about the very nature of our power. A man whose research had been discreetly marginalized, his writings probably hidden here, out of sight.

I clutched the small diary tightly. This was it. If an answer existed, a buried truth, it had to be between these forgotten pages. With my heart pounding with a mixture of hope and fear, I headed back to the relative safety and privacy of my own study, the small book hidden under my jacket.

Back in the solitude of my study, with the heavy curtains drawn against the dying light of dusk, I placed the small leather diary on my desk with an almost unconscious reverence.

The air smelled of aged wine and the faint metallic scent of the components of my personal etheric telegraph, a stark contrast to the smell of dust and secrets from the archive. I lit a desktop ether-gas lamp—a Müller model, with a steady, white light, preferable to the flickering cheaper models—and its soft hiss filled the silence.

With hands that trembled slightly, a betrayal of my usual composure, I opened the diary. The pages were thin, almost brittle with time. The handwriting, as I had noted, was tight, full of abbreviations and marginalia that suggested a mind working at high speed, perhaps under pressure. I went through the first entries: observations on family politics, notes on early experiments with fine telekinesis, complaints about the rigid thinking of his contemporaries. Interesting, but not revealing.

Then, I found the section I was looking for. Several pages dedicated to what Theronius called the "Essential Fatigue," our euphemism for the Eternal Anemia. But his perspective was radically different from everything I had been taught.

"...they insist on seeing it as an external weakness, an impurity that infiltrates, a lack of control from the initiate," I read, the faded ink almost a whisper on the page. "They are blind. The Fatigue does not come from without, nor from a failure of will. It is intrinsic. An inherent imbalance that arises not from a lack of control, but from the very nature of the Gift as it is channeled through our mortal form."

My heart skipped a beat. Inherent? Not a curse, not a disease, but a direct consequence of our power? I kept reading, my breath held.

"There is a fundamental cost," the nervous handwriting continued, "an unavoidable dissonance when we touch the primordial sources. The energy we wield... is not pure. It is... unbalanced. And our lineage, in its pride, seems determined to ignore this cost, to hide it under rituals and superficial pressures, instead of seeking the true cause... or the lost harmonization."

Harmonization! The word resonated with unexpected force. Theronius spoke of a "dangerous connection," of the urgent need to understand the interaction between our essence and the source of power before…

Here the writing became more agitated, almost frantic. The sentences were shorter, the ideas tumbling over one another. He spoke of "resonance patterns," of "external influences" that exacerbated the imbalance, of an "ancient method" that could…

And then, nothing.

The next three or four pages had been brutally torn from the diary. Not carefully, but violently, leaving jagged edges and the frustrating sight of the next intact page, beginning in the middle of an unrelated sentence. The crucial explanation, the core of Theronius's theory, had been censored, erased from history even within this personal, hidden record.

I stared at the ripped pages, feeling a mixture of icy fury and a deep desolation. What had my great-great-uncle discovered? What truth was so dangerous, so heretical, that someone—he himself in a fit of fear? Another family member who discovered his diary?—had felt the need to erase it so completely?

I closed the small book with a dull thud. The etheric lamp hissed softly, oblivious to the whirlwind in my mind. Everything I thought I knew about my lineage, about our power, about the Anemia that afflicted Elie... it all felt fragile now, built on a lie or, worse, on deliberate ignorance.

The Gift was not just a gift; it was a pact with a hidden cost. And someone, at some point, had decided it was better to pay the price in silence than to admit the truth.

A new determination, cold and sharp, replaced the desperation. I would no longer simply search for a cure within the failed system. I would search for the truth. I would find those lost pages, or I would unearth the knowledge they contained, no matter who I had to confront or what family secrets I had to expose. For Elie. And perhaps, for myself as well. The insidious doubt had taken root, and I would not rest until it was replaced by answers.