The gate to the Hightower estate was guarded by four men in mail armor. Two held shields and spears while the other two held firearms. They saluted as we closed the distance.

“Delaney, you’re back early.” one of the guards said with a smile, “and you’ve brought a friend I see.”

“I have.”

“Is this someone we’ll be seeing regularly?” another asked, shit-eating grin pasted on his face.

“It is, at least for the next few days.” she said before pausing when she noticed his expression, “no Paul, not like that.”

“Hmmm, your father will not be pleased. You know he wants you to marry or at least start courting soon.”

“And your mother wants grandbabies.” a feminine voice said, the guards turned around.

“My lady!” They snapped to attention.

“At ease gentlemen. You need not be so formal when my husband is not around.”

“Yes madam.”

“Good,” she said, “now onto the more important matter. Delaney…”

“Yes, mother?”

“Are you going to introduce your new companion?” That last part was said with a wink.

She groaned, “fine, mother this is Ryze, Ryze this is my mother. He’s going to be staying with us for the next few days. Have the servants clear a room out for him.”

“A pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” I said with a stiff bow. She looked me up and down as the gate opened.

“My, my,” she purred, one hand going up to cup my cheeks, “what a specimen you have brought back o’daughter of mine.”

As I was unaccustomed to people I had just met, especially an incredibly hot older woman, walking up to me, touching my face, and saying something like that. I gave what I thought was a perfectly reasonable response. “Uhhhh fffwwwwahhh?”

She giggled, “I see, now boy, do you have a last name?”

I nodded, her hand still on my face. The warmth of it radiating into my brain.

“And what might it be?”

Delaney spoke up, looking just as uncomfortable as I felt. “His last name i-”

“Hush, I want to hear it from him.” she said staring me down, her thumb came up and brushed my lip, “well? It’s rude to keep a lady waiting.”

My eyes flicked to Delaney’s and she shrugged, “my name is Ryze Maimer.”

“I have never heard of a House Maimer,” she frowned.

“Errr, well you see.” I stalled looking desperately to her for help. She gave me the `You got yourself in this mess, you’re going to get yourself out of it’ look.

I was grasping for straws, “I’m a commoner with a trait.”

“I see.” Her frown was rather telling, “please continue.”

“I’ve been studying at Leviathan for the past few months and I’m currently on a team mission. We’ve been sent to help a village in Rose fief.” Her frown mostly disappeared. Her free hand reached out and grabbed a handful of my shirt.

“My, this is not cheap clothes. Where did you get the money for something like this?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, confused and still very turned on.

She tapped my chest, “Silk from the southern giant spider. And from the look of it, dyed black. That is not clothes just anyone can buy if they can even afford it at all. You need connections for this kind of material.”

Shit, I had completely forgotten about that. I was so used to wearing it that I never put any thought into it. “Ahh, a gift from my teammate.”

Her eyebrows rose, “quite an influential teammate you must have, do you care to give me their name?”

I thought about it for a moment, she was going to find out anyway. “Samuel Bright, third in line for the throne.”

If she was shocked, she didn’t show it at all. Her eyes flicked down to my pants. A pair of dark blue denim jeans fastened with a red scale belt. I flinched as her hand trailed down and grabbed hold of my crouch.

“Ahhhbaphhhhhhh.”

“Hmmm,” she let go, “a good size, you will do my daughter good.”

“MOTHER!” Delaney cried, aghast and appalled by her implications.

She turned to her, “Oh? My apologies, I wouldn’t wish to capitalize on your time. He’s all yours now.”

With that, she gave my cheek one final pat and walked off, swaying her hips and swishing her hair.

I turned to Delaney, “Fffffwwwaahhh?”

The guards chuckled, “oh dear, she broke another one already.”

“Shut up, get back on duty or I’ll have your hides.” she snapped at the men and they quickly returned to their post, “Ryze, shall we get moving.”

“What just happened?”

She grabbed my arm and dragged me into the courtyard. “I don’t want to think about it.”

I blinked, “well I do. Shit, I’m going to be up all night thinking about it.”

She scrunched up her face, “first of all, I really didn’t need to know that, and second. EWWW, what is wrong with you!”

I shrugged, “I’d say there’s more wrong with me if I wasn’t up all night. I just got fucking molested by an older woman.”

“That woman was my mother!”

“That’s what makes it worse! You think I'll be up thinking happy thoughts?!”

We walked through the courtyard, an open space with a small fountain in the middle and a large garden surrounding it. Children played in the center under the watchful eyes of their matrons. One of the kids caught sight of us and squealed. The rest quickly followed suit and within a matter of seconds, we were facing a stampede of rugrats.

One particularly brave ankle-bitter leapt up off the ground and tackled Delaney, knocking her into me. The top of her head slammed into my chin and I instinctively grabbed onto her to keep her from falling into me.

“Watch where you’re going, you little shit!” I growled at him, a trickle of blood flowing from my mouth from were I had bit my lip.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Ahem.” I looked down, “do you mind letting go of me?”

“Right.” I released her and glowered at the kid who had caused the scene. The little runt gave me a wide smile.

“Heffwo,” it said with a rather apparent lisp, a consequence of missing all four of his front teeth.

“Miguel, haven’t I told you to watch where you’re going?” Delaney ruffled his hair, “one of these days, you’re going to run into something that’s harder than your head. What are you going to do then?”

“Nofwing ith harther fhan my head.” his speech was barely comprehensible.

“Yeah and then you ran into that pillar and lost those teeth,” she pushed him along, “now go run along and play with your friends.”

Miguel giggled and ran off, promptly tripping on the stone step down and face planting into the grass. I winced at the hollow thunk and consequenting cries of pain. The other kids quickly walked down the step and surrounded him. The old matron assigned to look after them gave an aggravated sigh and called for a healer.

“Let me show you to your room, the faster we get there the less time I have to deal with you.”

“You do realize that I’m stuck here with you right?”

“No, you can go to your team once you have your pack put away.”

“Except the highlord isn’t exactly welcoming me into his castle now is he. I’m not certain he’d be willing to let me stay at all.”

“Then I will talk to him about it,” she stopped one of the servants, “Mrs. Hilding, has a guest room been set aside for a Ryze Va-Maimer?”

The maid looked down at a list written on a notepad. She flipped through some pages, “yes, room 7C. I believe you would know the way to that one.”

“E-excuse me?” she asked flustered, “I must have heard that one wrong, could you repeat it for me?”

“Yes my lady, room 7C.”

“No, no, no, that can’t be right.” she snached the list from her hands. I scratched the back of my head.

“Is there a problem?”

“Not at all.” Mrs. Hilding said with a reassuring smile.

“Yes there’s a problem!” Delaney snapped.

“What is it?”

“That’s my room!”

“I fail to see the problem,” Mrs Hilding said.

“How do you not see a problem? That’s my room!”

She paused for a moment, “fine, it may be a problem.” Delaney opened her mouth to speak, “however, it’s not my problem, that's the room your mother assigned. Now go to your room young lady. I’ve raised you since you were still wetting the bed and I’ll be damned if I let you start bossing me around now!”

“Bu-”

“Go.”

“Bu-”

“Lord forgive me for what I’m about to do.” she said and began taking off her shoe. Delaney paled and grabbed me by my collar.

“Time to go!”

“Can you at least give me some warning next time you do that?” I huffed, hands on knees. “It’s really starting to piss me off.”

“Some Guardian you’ll make if someone like me can catch you off guard and surprise you.”

“You didn’t surprise me, I just wasn’t expecting to be dragged across the courtyard.”

“That’s the definition of being surprised, you dumbass.” I opened my mouth to respond but she cut me off, “You’re breathing a little hard, not enough oxygen to the brain?”

“No I am,” I paused, “I think.”

“It’s not as if I would notice a difference either way.” she smirked, “we’re here.”

I looked at the door, it was the same oak wood construction as the rest. With granite walls surrounding it and a single window with a blind over it. I took a step forward and grasped the handle. As I was about to turn it she stopped me, placing her hand over mine and sliding between me and the door.

I looked down at her, “Is there a problem?”

She blushed, “not really, just my room’s a mess right now. Let me just clean it up a bit before I let you in.”

“Don’t you have servants for that?” I asked skeptically.

“W-well, yes.”

“Not very good ones in that case,” I sighed, “c’mon, it can’t be that bad.” I turned the handle.

Or tried to, instantly her grip on my hand tightened like a vice and she put her other hand onto my chest to stop me. “No, let me cl-”

“WHAT IN THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?”

/-/

Sam looked down at his cards, the same ones from three seconds ago when he had last looked. It wasn’t going to help him, Noah had won every single hand they’d played for the past hour. “So I’ve got a question.”

The other three men sat around the table looked at him. Silver sighed, “really? I can’t believe the king hasn’t given you the talk yet. Right so when a man and a woman-”

“Not that, dammit Silver, I know about the birds and the bees.” Sam shouted over the amused giggling from Alex and Noah. Silver looked relieved.

“Oh thank the Lord I don’t have to give you that part of the talk.” he took another shot, “so we'll skip past it, after the baby is born. The man will run off and leave-”

“WHAT?”

“Huh?” Silver asked, “is there something wrong?”

“Where did you learn that?”

“Yeah now I’m interested, give us the whole thing.”

He blinked, “ok, well so when a man and a woman meet at a bar, they drink a whole bunch of alcohol and lose their memories for the rest of the night. Then they wake up the next day and regret their choices and don’t speak to each other for several months. After the woman finds out she’s pregnant the man runs off, never to be seen again.”

For about a minute, no one spoke.

“What the fuck?” the three of them said in unison. Sam quickly snatched the flask from him and took a long drag ignoring the burning sensation as it went down.

Alex took the flask from him, “yeah, where did you hear something like that?” He offered it to Noah who shook his head.

Silver shrugged and grabbed it back, “it’s true, Mallory says a lot of kids are conceived like that.”

They paused, while not untrue it was a very interesting way to think about it. But Silver Baldwin was an interesting man so they cut him some slack. “Right, so what was your original question?”

“I was going to ask why all the people here hate Ryze but the citizens back in Byrum were fine with him. His uncle fought in both places.”

“You don’t know?” Silver snorted, “Aren’t you a prince?”

“Well yes.”

“Then you should know this.” Sam shot him an irritated look, “Fine, so we all know that Kaedin Varus, the Red Dragon killed a lot of people right?” they nodded.

“Somewhere in the ballpark of three million.” Alex said.

“A tad conservitive but that is correct. The thing is, he killed way, way less people here then compared to Byrum.”

Noah frowned, “Shouldn’t that mean that more people in the Capital would hate him?”

Silver looked at his flask, the easy smile and mischievous look in his eyes gone. “Well if those people were still alive then they would.”

“What do you mean?” Sam frowned.

“See, here people died right.” he paused, “but the people who died had relatives and friends who didn’t. Those are the people still holding a grudge against the Varus’. In Byrum though…” Their eyes widened with shock, “he killed all of them.”

/-/

I looked over at who was yelling, a boy of medium height and a swordsman’s build glared at the two of us. He couldn’t have been more than a year or two younger than me. Dirty blonde hair in a buzzcut and ice blue eyes that seemed rather familiar but I couldn’t place why. He wore plain plate armor and had a very standard longsword sheathed on his hip, “Well?”

“B-b-brother!” So that’s why, “it’s not what it looks like.”

A bright and stupid idea popped into my head. I grinned at her, “but it could be…”

Her face lit up like a candle. I didn’t think it was possible for someone to turn that red. Delaney’s brother sighed, “I’ll come back later.” he shooed us away with a shake of the head.

In her haste to get away from me, Delaney forced the door open and walked in. I paused for a moment before following inside.

“No way.” I stopped dead in my tracks. She refused to look at me. The room was perfectly clean, not a speck of dust anywhere. A bed sat in one of the corners with a nightstand by it. The wall opposite it had a desk and a lamp. A closed closet presented itself, pressed into the wall of the right side. The other was decorated with an assortment of weapons. A sheathed sword, a crossbow, two crossed spears, an axe, a bow, and a pin up of me.

I stood with one hand in the air holding a trophy, the other behind my head, stabilizing the first. Sword clamped between my teeth and a smug look of satisfaction on my face. I looked at Delaney and pointed to it, “heh, I look good eh?”

My attention shifted to the calendar beside it, “Oh and it gets better.”

She quickly ran over and snatched it off the wall. In turn, I ripped it from her hands, “wow, I didn’t know you were into this kind of stuff.”

The front cover featured someone that just about any tournament watching person would recognize. The Invincible Girl Sarah Summers, clad in a bikini.

“Give it back.” she said weakly.

“No way,” I shook my head, turning the page. My eyes widened at the sight of a scantily clad Arya , “I’m keeping this.”

She placed a hand on her sword and glared at me, “now.”

“What do your parents think?” I asked.

“About what?”

“You know, the poster.” I said, “your mother must know, and that brother of yours. I’m not exactly the most popular person around these parts.”

“They don’t care.” she crossed her arms, “just because you're easy on the eyes doesn't make you any less horrible. Now give me the calendar.”

I flipped through it and tossed it back to her, “don’t worry, your secret's safe with me.”

“I hate you.”

“That poster says otherwise.”

“Ahhhhh! This is so embarrassing.”

“In that, you’re not alone.”