The day after the swords were completed, I was awakened by Emilia. Her red hair was in my face as I opened my eyes and I tried to compress myself into the pillow further as she stared down at me. All she said when her eyes met mine was “You snore.”

  I wiped my mouth and started to get up, then I froze, realizing what she was wearing. It was the least practical dress I had ever seen. It was a solid black and barely went down a third of her thighs. It was embroidered with a unique, lacy design. What was worse was that her chest was also revealed. The dress wrapped around her neck and back, but left a window for breasts to be revealed. She had a larger chest than Meryl by leaps and bounds. Which conjured images of her jumping up and down. I sighed and fell back to the bed.

  “What's this?” She asked, playfully. I felt her hand land on my lust which was pointing inconveniently up to the sky. She gripped it through the blanket and I twisted, trying to escape her grip.

  “What are you doing?” I glanced up at her with worry and still fought to get out of her reach. That was when I noticed, with her bending over in the way she was, that she had no undergarments on. “You're not wearing underwear!”

  She grinned at me and pulled her dress up in a curtsy, revealing her bare pussy to the light. She was also bare down there. And her soft, brown skin didn’t lighten so much as a shade under her clothes. “Neither are you, m'lord.”

  I could not help but lick my lips before staunchly meeting her eyes. “Why aren't you wearing any?”

  “Mm, queen's orders. She said I had to find a way to keep your attention.” Her voice was a purr. I swallowed, trying desperately to keep my eyes directed above her collar bone. She was pleased by this reaction.

  “Th-this is the way you choose to do that? Why?”

  “Because,” she poked my nose softly and put a knee on the bed. “It's fun.”

  “B-b-but, won't Queen Meryl or L-Lady Carmella be upset by this? By you uh . . .”

  “They know my intentions. I told them after I first saw you. Why do you think that I was assigned to watch you?” She made her way closer and I spun out of the bed on the other side, bringing the covers with me and held them up to shield at least my lust and held up a hand.

  “I-I have a job for you. I-I mean a request.”

  “A request, you say?” Her eyes were locked on the blanket and she still wore a smile. “And what is that?”

  I made my way over to the two swords that were lying on a table in the room. “I want you to put these in Lady Carmella's room without her knowing that you did so. Can you do that?”

  She took a couple of steps forward and I stepped back, losing the blanket in the process. I hit the wall behind me and she closed the distance faster than I would have suspected she could have. Her eyes met mine and she reached out. I figured it was for one of the swords, but she gripped my . . . Hilt and I stiffened. Yes, there. But also the rest of me, too. “I can deliver your . . . sword. But why don't you do it yourself?”

  “B-b-because I don't want to make a show of it. She already has a hard enough time having to deal with me being here. I don't want to make it worse.”

  Emilia considered me for a while longer. It felt like an eternity because she had not removed her hand and it was warm and soft. She then nodded slowly. “She'll know it was you.”

  “I figured. But I just don't want to make a big deal out of it, okay?” She shook her head after I finished and picked up the swords and examined them.

  “Get dressed. I was told you haven't gone to court for the last few days. You're going today.” I shifted uncomfortably at her words and mumbled about not wanting to go. She put the swords down and closed the distance between us, pressing me into the wall, her hand on my chest. “If you don't want to go . . . we can just spend all day here. Alone.”

  I gulped and tried to ignore the fact that my cock was pressed up against her and my heart was beating faster than it ever had before. “I-I'll go.”

  “We'll go. Get dressed now.” She said with that same vulpine smile. Her hand brushed me all the way down as she departed, causing me to jump. I quickly got dressed, trying to ignore the fact that she watched me the entire time, toying with her short dress. I also made an effort to look at her face instead of her thighs, which were surrounded in tight stockings that caused a little bulge of flesh above them. They went up to the middle of her thigh and were still half a hand below her dress. That's when I noticed that her ears were pointed. They stuck out pretty far but were subtly hidden by her hair. I got closer to the woman and stared down at her. She smiled up at me.

  “Did you change your mind about spending the da-” She cut off when I reached up and caressed her ear. I traced the entire thing with my fingers and she could not stop herself from leaning into the touch. Suddenly her breathing was quicker and she bit her lip which did not suppress her soft moan entirely. I stopped and pulled my hand away.

  “I'm sorry. I just didn't realize before. You're an elf.”

  She met my eyes and muttered almost too quietly to be heard “Half.”

  “Half?” I asked placidly. I was thinking about playing with her ear some more, but I kept my hands at my side. “Oh. You're a half elf.”

  “Y-yeah.” She sounded upset. She started turning away from me and I caught her arm.

  “What's wrong?”

  “It's nothing.” She lied. It was incredibly obvious.

  “Liar.” I said evenly. She looked at me, searching for something in my expression.

  “I know how humans feel about elves. Because of the war.” She said, pain in her voice. As she spoke, she started walking away. “I try to hide my ears. I don't want people to look at me that way. Like I'm going to hurt them.”

  I caught up with her before she could leave the room and I closed the door she had opened. I grabbed her hand and brought her over to the mirror. Her face was red with emotions she was trying to suppress. I took a moment, running my hands through her hair. She stood there passively. Her lip was trembling and it was honestly pretty heartbreaking to see. Eventually I figured out how her braid worked and I started to undo it. She reached up and grabbed my hands. “What are you doing?”

  “You have a pretty new dress. Your hair is lovely, but I think you need a new hairstyle to go with it.” She hesitated and put her hands over her ears.

  “I don't want people to see my ears.”

  “And I think they should. I can't make you, if you really don't want to.” I responded, but I slid my hands under hers and started caressing her earlobes softly between two fingers. She moaned softly and let her hands fall down. I continued to rub them, running my fingers to the sharp tip and then back down. She shuddered under my touch and her breathing quickly became ragged. “You are what you are. And I guess I’m here to stay, so if anyone causes any issues, you can come to me and I'll fix it.”

  She reached up and put a finger to my lip, her head moving against my hands unconsciously. We stood there for a long while until she started shuddering and a loud moan escaped her lips. Her knees went out from her and I caught her and held her up. She wrapped her arms around me and shivered into my chest. There was a little bit of drool leaking from her mouth and she wiped at it absently. I was fairly certain that I understood what happened, but I was not going to say anything.

  After a few moments, she pushed off my chest and walked over to my blanket, which was still on the floor next to the table with the swords. She grabbed it and tried to subtly wipe her inner thighs with it. I watched carefully, noting the wet spot that came away and I flushed. Her legs were unsteady as she threw the blanket back on the bed. “A-alright. Let's go, Johann.”

  “No, I want you to do your hair in a different way.”

  She stared at me for a moment, mouth working. She eventually managed to ask “Why?”

  “Because,” I considered for a moment. “I don't know what all happened in the war or what happened to make you ashamed of your ears, but I think they're really cute. And I want to be . . . friends with the cute half-elf maid cleric. And I want people to know what she is so that they can know that they're friends with her, too. Maybe that'll start to mend the rift between men and elves.”

  When I called her cute, her entire face became the same color as her hair and never really changed as she walked over to the mirror, considering. “Is this an order, m'lord?”

  “No, I don't have the right to order you to do . . . Anything, really. I can't even get you to leave me alone when I bathe.” I began, hesitating only slightly. “But I would like it.”

  She stared at me in the mirror. “What if I say no?”

  “Then you say no and we go about our business.” She watched my face carefully, then turned to face me directly.

  “I'll try it . . . on one condition.” She put her fists on her hips and squared up. “You have to stop resisting this so much.”

  “Resisting what? I'm here. I haven't run away since that first night. I’ve learned that that’s about as useful as locking my door around Meryl.”

  “You keep running away from me. From Queen Meryl and Lady Carmella.”

  “No! I do not!” I protested, shaking my head.

  “You jump every time we touch you.”

  “Carmel- Lady Carmella has never touched me.” I said, my voice cracking a bit. My mind flashed back to her caressing my hair until I fell asleep. “And she doesn't plan on doing so any time soon. And the rest of you shouldn't either.”

  “I'll redo my hair so that . . . so that it shows off my ears if you don't resist the next time a woman is in your bed.” Emilia grinned knowingly. “Well, resistance can be fun. But you can't run out of the bed for your life as though we're trying to kill you.”

  I stared at her as though she was insane. She stood there, waiting for me to make a decision. I mean, it's not like one of them would go very far with it. They are reasonable people. It is not as though one of them would go all the way just because I stayed in bed. Right? Right.

  “O-ok-kay.” I managed eventually. Her grin was gigantic. She nodded and started redoing her hair. It somehow took more and less time than I thought it would. I never really thought about how much work some people put into decorating their hair, but when she was done it was so intricate and neatly done that I had to ask. “Did you use some kind of magic to do that?”

  She laughed at me and shook her head. “No, just practice.”

After she was ready, she escorted me, arm in arm, to the court. The queen was sitting on her throne, legs crossed. She was also wearing a dress that was a little more risque than she normally did. Nothing like Emilia or even the one Carmella was in yesterday, but it showed off more of her chest and legs. She smiled at me and when I took my place a few steps behind and to the left of her, she motioned me closer. I stepped closer and leaned over, figuring she had something to say to me, but she just ignored me from then on out. I stood there next to her chair, admiring the gilding and listened absently to her petitioners. There was not anything that I felt confident commenting on.

  I watched Emilia come and go, making sure people had drinks and were comfortable. Some of the people pointed to her ears when she had her back turned and whispered among themselves. I glowered at them and any who saw me dropped their hands and their eyes. After some time, she stopped helping people and stared at the floor. Her hands were clenched into fists and were shaking. I edged back to her and put my hand on her shoulder. She looked up at me with tears brimming her pink eyes and she took in a deep breath and smiled. It was the first time I had seen her force a smile. At least so obviously that I could notice it.

  The words coming from the petitioner cut into my attention. “Why do you have an elf serving people here? What if the knife-eared cunt is a spy?”

  I whirled around and stared at the man who was speaking. I stood in between him and Emilia, even taking a few steps forward. He was tall with dark hair, blue eyes, and wore incredibly fine clothes and a sword at his waist. Queen Meryl held up a hand to stop me. Or perhaps to stall the man from continuing. She shifted to loom over the man even further, straightening her back. “Who I have as a servant is none of your conce-”

  “The fuck it's not!” The man cut in. He was wearing fine clothes. Almost as fine as the ones that I had been given for my stay here. I figured he must have been a merchant, but merchants usually knew better than to insult potential customers and a queen to boot. “Elves are monsters. They use their terrible magic to wreak havoc upon us!”

  I stepped forward glaring down at the man. He continued spewing nonsense until I was right above him. I stood above him a fair amount. He had not risen from his prostrated form he had taken while addressing the queen. I looked back to Meryl and to Emilia. Both of them looked worried. I turned back to the man and tersely said “I'd like you to leave, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you're making a scene and you're insulting my . . . My friend.”

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  “You're friends with knife ears? Traitor!” He stood up. He was taller than me by a head and a half. This was not terribly surprising. I was never all that tall. “I should gut you where you stand and anyone else that lives with that thing!”

  When the man had first started talking, a lot of the remaining crowd had seemingly agreed with him, but as he became more irate, less people were on his side. People looked uncomfortable. Even if they hated elves, they were not okay with this. I looked back to the queen and the maid and Meryl had schooled her face to a neutral mask. I thought I could see anxiety wrinkling around her eyes. Emilia bit her lip and I thought I could see tears daring to escape her eyes.

  With a sigh, I realized that I had made a mistake. I had made several mistakes. I had not realized that people hated elves this much. It did not make a lot of sense to me. But I had never fought in a war. “Sir, if you really want to do this, we can do that outside where we won't stain the nice carpets here. It would be rude. But I'd also point out that you did just threaten the queen, which is treason, if I'm not mistaken.”

  The man blanched and glanced at the queen. His hand was on his sword but it relaxed. “Why does she support the elves? Maybe the queen is a traitor to us!”

  I gauged the reaction of our audience and it was not favorable to that statement. It was one thing to insult an elven maid, but it was another thing entirely to insult the queen of the land. Meryl's reaction was a neutral disinterest. She met my eye and raised a brow. I spoke loudly enough so that everyone in the court could hear me. “Okay. You are committing treason. In front of the queen. Because of a maid who was kind enough to bring you a drink while you were waiting. I just want to emphasize that. You're committing treason because you were brought a drink by a person you have never met and could have just ignored.”

  The man drew his sword and pointed it at me. “You besmirch my honor. I challenge you!”

  “What?” I said, thickly.

  “You and the elf tricked me and will pay with your blood!”

  I laughed. I could not help it. Which I admit was probably also not the best reaction. At least I didn’t point at him when I did it. Though I’m not sure it would have made anything worse. His face flushed with rage and he swung the sword at me. Surprisingly, the guards did not rush in to stop him. I stepped into his range and grabbed his wrist, still laughing some. “Alright. You challenge me. Forgive me, I'm a little new to all of these courtly things. But like I said, if we're going to do something, let's go outside. They have nice carpets in here.”

  He roared and tried to pry his wrist from my grip. But I am a blacksmith. It would not be that easy to escape my grip. I let go slowly and prepared myself if he swung again. He did not. He was still furious, but he managed to contain himself. I started on my way out to the castle grounds. I was careful to make sure that he did not just outright attack me from behind, since none of the guards seemed to want to intervene. Surprisingly, everyone but the guards followed. All of the remaining petitioners, Meryl, and Emilia. Meryl kept the same cool expression. I really wish I could know what she was thinking. All I kept thinking was that I had screwed up and would not be able to recover. Emilia looked terrified and mortified. People were looking at her and whispering.

  We got out to the courtyard and I stood about ten paces away from the merchant. I looked around. Everyone was eagerly watching the two of us. “Okay. How does this work? I've never had to do anything like this before.”

  “Draw your sword. We battle to the death.” The merchant's fury was seemingly replaced with a haughtiness. He expected to win this with ease. There was still anger underneath it all. I could tell from the way he held his sword. I bared my blade. It was shorter than his by maybe a pace or so. He dashed forward and slashed. I managed to step out of the way of the first but the second he brought slashed through the flesh of my arms. He reversed the flow of his sword and brought it down towards my shoulder. I managed to raise my own sword blocking it, but only just. He took his blade away and slashed at my legs. I jumped back and narrowly avoided the long-sword.

  I came forward, bringing the sword down in both hands. He brought his up faster than I would have thought possible and deflected my blade and then slashed forward. It was not a strong slash but it burned. I could feel blood leaking down my arms and now my shoulder. He came at me again and I managed to block them but I had no opportunity to respond. The crowd oh'd and ah'd at his swordsmanship. Even I had to admit that it was impressive. I managed to twist his blade and throw him a little off balance. I thrust my blade forward and he got nicked in the shoulder but jumped back before it could become any worse.

  “I have a question,” I said, jumping back as well. I held the sword up defensively, ready to try to parry any attack that he threw at me.

  “What is it!?” He growled.

  “Am I allowed to use another weapon?”

  “No, Johann.” It was not he who answered, but Meryl. “You have to defeat him with exactly what he is wielding.”

  “That doesn't seem fair. His is longer. But I guess this is my faul-” I was cut off as he closed the distance and quickly sliced twice. I managed to deflect both of them then I slashed down quickly, catching his leg. It was a shallow cut, but better than nothing. He started at me again, his blade seeming to almost spin in his hands as it danced around. I managed to dodge the first few, but one caught me in the arm and another on the cheek going down. I met his sword and stopped it. He tried to overpower me with the increased leverage he had with his bigger blade. I held him there and then slid my blade to the side and stepped around him. I lifted the blade and slammed it into his thigh. He groaned and fell to one knee, blood pouring out of the wound. I gulped and tried not to process it. I kicked him to the ground and he landed with a moan. I closed the distance and prepared to stab him through the throat. Violence is a curse of its own. The thought echoed through my head. I froze in place, sword a hand away from his throat. He stared up at me. At the point of my sword that I held at his throat. “Yield.”

  “Fuck you, blood traitor.” He spat. I shook my head and turned to walk away. I heard him get up and start to charge at me. I spun on my heel and thrust my blade forward. It pierced him through the chest and pushed harder onto it, sinking more and more onto it. I watched his face drain of color. He tried to raise his sword but the action just caused the blade to tear into his flesh more. The blade fell out of his hand and I watched his eyes start to glaze over. He slumped onto my blade and I pushed him onto his back. Since all of this had started I had killed four men? Five men? It was hard to keep track of. They seemed to blur together. I never took the time to learn about them or what they were. Violence is a curse. I never mourned them or buried them. I should have.

  I stared down at him for a moment and then I closed my eyes and pulled my blade from his chest. I had to put my foot on him to do it. I eventually managed to get it and almost fell on my ass doing it. My eyes fell on the blood that painted my blade. The etchings made it look like the blood was alive still. That it was moving. I felt sick. I wiped the blade off on his shirt and felt even worse. I rushed past the crowd who parted in front of me. I think they were cheering. I could not tell. I was not able to hear anything but the blood pounding in my ears. I rushed off to the room they had given me and stripped off my shirt and threw it on the ground, blood staining the floor. I reluctantly picked it up and then I realized I had trailed blood with every step. I closed my eyes and got into the tub. There was not any water and I could not make it appear like Emilia. Nor did I want to find a servant and ask them.

A while later, it could have been minutes, it could have been hours, Emilia came in. I glanced at her and realized she had been crying. I did not meet her eyes. A few unwilling tears had stained my face as well. She walked briskly up to me and leaned over the tub. “Johann, why did you do that?”

  “He challenged me. He attacked me. I didn't mean to . . .”

  “No, not that, you idiot.” She pulled my chin up and looked me in the eyes. “Why did you have to make a scene?”

  “I'm sorry. I just . . . You've been so nice to me and I just couldn't take them being rude to you. And for what? Your skin? Your ears?” I scoffed and turned over. “I tried to warn you. I tried to warn all three of you. I shouldn't be in this world. I don't mesh with how things are supposed to operate.” I spent a moment and gathered myself. “I'm sorry. I'll leave you be.”

  “No!” She crawled into the tub with me and pried my face from the metal side and looked me in the eyes. Every time I tried to pull away she just found another way to meet them again. “I don't think you know what you just did.”

  I shook my head. “I can't leave you alone now. Never again.” Emilia said.

  “What? Why?” I asked, trying to back away from her. She was essentially sitting on top of me. I realized I was trapped.

  “Because,” she gazed down at my bloody arms and shoulder. She poked it and a light pink glow flowed from her fingers to the wound. I felt it close on a scale smaller than I could have ever conceived of before. I shuddered. After a moment, all of the wounds were closed. She spoke as she did this. “I'm a special subset of elf. Elves don't marry, but you did the equivalent of proposing to me twice.”

  “What? No I didn't.”

  “Oh, I see you became a master of Blood Elf culture when I wasn't looking. That's good to know. You'll be able to do the other rituals to ensure that we have bountiful rain and hunts in the desert.” I just looked at her blankly. She smiled and leaned down to rest a cheek on my chest. “Our ears are some of the most intimate places we elves have. Some believe them to be more intimate, more erogenous than anywhere else. Some, most even, only share that touch with their Nutes. Additionally, one of the old blood elf traditions is to face down a challenger on behalf of their intended, usually it’s another suitor, but an enemy isn’t unprecedented. Face it. You're betrothed to a half elf.”

  “I didn’t know any of that!" I exclaimed. "I didn't know about your ears. I was just . . ."

  "Not keeping your hands to yourself," she said, grinning. Somehow, her grins were always lascivious.

  "You literally never keep your hands to yourself. I thought it was a game."

  "It is a game," she replied, shifting herself against me. "And you've won yourself a Hanwa Nute. Once we complete the bonding ritual. Until then, we're just intended."

  "But I was already betrothed! To two women! One of which just beats me up and calls me ‘blacksmith’.” I all but shouted. She closed her eyes and rubbed her face into my chest. “How can I be intended to you, too?”

  “That's kind of my fault, honestly.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, after Queen Meryl fulfilled the first prophecy she read the rest and found out that she was going to have three lovers in her life.” She said quickly. Maybe even a little sheepishly. “She was nine and just as confused as you are. She thought you could only have one lover. I explained that elves don't do that as much. We . . . They have a lifebond that lasts as long as we live, but we can share that with as many people as we like. She became obsessed with it. And due to . . . A pretty similar situation to yours and mine, she ended up bonded to me when she was 16. Not that I was upset with that. I grew up with her for the last five years and she's . . . Well, she's amazing. She always has been. She was already really close with Lady Carmella at that point. That was when I found out that they had done more than enough to establish a lifebond. After a couple more years passed, I developed the same bond with Carmella. Though I was the one that initiated it that time.”

  “Okay. But if you all are bonded already, then why do you need me?”

  “Because you're the last person. Meryl will have three lovers. That's what the prophecy says.” Emilia said in a way that made me feel thick.

  “But who is to say that it is all at the same time? Who is to say that I needed to be involved in all of this?” I said quickly.

  “Oh, the prophecy doesn't specify. Not one bit. Just said that they existed. So Meryl made a decision. She decided that they would all be with her for as long as possible. She says that prophecy is vague and as long as she doesn't break the spirit of the prophecy, she can manipulate it. She figured since she already had two by the time she was 16 there was no need to wait for the world to find her one. She could find one herself. At first, she was looking for a woman blacksmith. There are a few here and there. She thought she had a type because of Carmella and I. But none of them felt right. She said that none of them felt like us.”

  “Yeah, but that could just be because she didn't know them like she did you two.” I put in.

  “Yeah,” she said, simply. She patted my chest approvingly. “That's what we said. But then she said that she always knew about us. The reason that she brought me to the castle after my parents . . . Well, she said the reason was because she knew I was special. Like no one else. And not because I was an elf. She said she had seen elves before, but she could pick me out of a crowd of a thousand.”

  “That sounds like a post hoc rationalization.” She leaned up and looked at me confused. “I . . . I read every book I could back home. I wanted to be a writer. But no one wants to hear from a writer who has never traveled past the far hills.”

  “Well, you have now.” She said, laying back down. “Still. I thought that too. Then she proved it. Five times. She did the same with Carmella. And she spent years looking at blacksmith after blacksmith. Sometimes, it would take her a while to realize that it wasn't right. Sometimes it was immediate. But when she found you, she came to us immediately. She brought me to look and I watched you for a while. Carmella, too. Carmella wasn't convinced for the longest time. She said that you were like every other blacksmith that she had seen. Even when you gave most of your money away. What sold it to her was your plan to get out of making a sword for Meryl.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because it was clever. She thinks all blacksmiths are fools. They just beat things into place and don't have the ability to think themselves out of problems.”

  “Well, that's rude.”

  “Yeah. But she liked the idea. She also liked that you accepted it didn't work. You were willing to change your mind when it came to it. So, she volunteered to bring you back. To make sure that it wasn't some kind of fluke.”

  “Yeah, but she hates me.”

  “No,” Emilia said, giggling. “She just doesn't know how to express herself to new people.”

  I thought about it for a while. “Okay. That explains Meryl. How she found me. But what about you two? Why are you so . . .”

  “Willing? Truth be told I wasn't really. I wasn't sure I wanted to be involved with you at all. But I knew that I had to give it a shot. You're cute, even if you're a little thick.” I sighed and she looked up at me. “I'm kidding.”

  “No, I was just hoping there was an out. You guys deserve someone smarter. Better. More capable.” I responded. Someone who isn't a murderer. The thought bubbled up and echoed in my mind again and again. She leaned up and kissed me. In order to do so, she needed to reposition herself and ended up straddling my waist, legs on either side.

  “Stop that. I won't have you bad talk my Hanwa Nute.” I looked at her quizzically and she rolled her eyes. “My bonded. You are my Hanwa Nute. Meryl and Carmella are my Inya Nute.”

  The door burst open and Meryl strolled through. She was alone. “What in the hells were you thinking?”

  “I, uh, I wasn't. I'm really sorry.” I stammered, barely managing to get the words out.

  “You could have been killed!”

  “I don't know! I just wanted to protect Emil- What?”

  “You could have died. What were you thinking, accepting a challenge like that? Then not finishing it when you could have. You damn near died half a dozen times in that fight! He was a Babryckian blades merchant!”

  “He was a what now?”

  “They're merchants from Babrycg that sell the special blades created by the best blacksmiths around. They are trained from the time they can stand to hold a blade.”

  “Oh. Sounds like I should have been allowed to use my dagger, then.”

  “You shouldn't have been fighting at all! Don't go provoking fights!”

  “Hey! They were treating Emilia terribly! And that guy called you, the queen, a traitor.”

  “Yeah, and if you hadn't accepted the fight, we could have had him tried for that.”

  “Oh.”

  “ ‘Oh’ is right.” She sighed and leaned down, her hand going over to the maid's hair and stroking it. “Is he okay?”

  “He'll be fine. He would have been fine sooner if he hadn't run away.”

  “Yeah, well. Why did you do that?” Meryl asked.

  “I just killed a man. I . . . It wasn't . . . I didn't have to. He could have yielded.”

  “Babryckians never yield.” She turned her attention back to Emilia. “Get him cleaned up. He's coming to dinner tonight. Now that he's done playing with swords. Gods.”

  Dinner was mostly uneventful. People made small talk. Some commented on my swordsmanship. They were impressed. Some insisted I had gotten lucky. I readily agreed with them. Meryl rolled her eyes every time it was mentioned. Emilia giggled. She still wore her hair down. Which was nice. Carmella came in halfway through the dinner, donned in her full armor which was dirty and had blood splashed across it. She came over to Meryl, whispered in her ear and gave her a subtle kiss before making her way to her room. Meryl had a servant bring her food just after.