The Blight Chronicles: Odalia & Alador

Consequences

The following days brought forth a new routine. Now that Odalia did not have to go home she had a lot more free time in the mornings and in the afternoons at least relatively speaking. While she still woke up at the crack of dawn out of habit, Alador didn’t. It was incredible to see how much of a light sleeper he was when it came to her getting out of bed. 

The first morning after Grom Odalia had wanted to establish a new routine. She had gotten out of bed and headed down to the kitchen to make herself some tea to start the day. She had planned on using those early hours before Alador woke up to come up with a new schedule. To her surprise not long after she had arrived at the kitchen she was met by a half-asleep Alador who had followed her downstairs. She tried convincing him to go back to bed but he only kept shaking his head. It wasn’t until she went back to her room with him and tucked him in that he went back to sleep.  

She watched him sleep for a moment thinking back to when they had first met. No matter how much she shouted or made noise he wouldn’t wake up. The only successful way she ever found to wake him was to push him out of bed. Now, all it took was her whispering in his ear or getting out of bed. It was funny to think just how much things had changed in such a short amount of time. 

That day at the market she had thought to use Alador as a means for her to get ahead in life and leave her home. She never could have imagined just how much that boy would mean to her. How much she would mean to him. How close they would become.
 
“That’s enough of that Odalia you have work to do,” she thought to herself, pulling herself together. There was work to be done which meant there was no room for reminiscing. 

The past couple of months they had both wasted an absurd amount of time getting ready for Grom. She had been busy making her own dress and Alador had spent his time making her a carriage. She would not trade that night for anything in the world. She had even cast a protection charm on the photograph they got during Grom to make sure it would be well preserved. Yet they needed to get back on the ball. 

The competition was only a week away and they needed to be ready. Alador had created a weapon to present. It was big, it was flashy, and she was sure the crowd would love it but it did still need some work. What Alador had now was only a prototype; there were still a lot of kinks that needed to be worked out. She knew that he would be able to manage it by the day of the competition but she would have to make sure he stayed focused in order to do so. 

Then there was also the matter of graduation and what came after. They were in their senior year at Hexside. Graduation day was only a few months away and they needed to get things ready. The plan was that after graduation they would be able to officially open up for business with Alador at its forefront. One of the requirements to establish the company was that the owner had to be in a coven. 

Unlike most of the lesser covens, the more pristine covens came with certain requirements that needed to be met in order to be able to join. Both the abominations coven and the oracle coven had a four-year program that needed to be completed before an individual was allowed to join. They also had entrance exams as well as a final exam to enter the program and to complete it.

On top of that for them to be allowed to sell abomination-based products Alador would have to be part of the abominations coven. Their business would then have to be approved by the coven so that it could become a subsidiary.  All of this of course took time but having Alador win the competition would reduce that time tremendously. 

In the meantime, Odalia would be in the oracle coven program and helping manage the business. She wished that she could just enter a competition and have it be done with but there were no such shortcuts in the oracle coven. The program was said to be one of the most difficult to complete which is why oracles were hard to come by. You not only needed the knowledge but you also needed natural skills. On top of that, there were many rules that needed to be followed. Oracles that did not follow those rules risked the wrath of the emperor himself. Yet this was the best track to make their business grow plus Odalia had always had a gift for these things.