Cries came from outside, in the Lesser Banquet Hall. Daniel had a notion of what had occurred. "Allow me to guess." Daniel heard his own voice speak softly. "If I were to go back to the banquet hall, I would find all that food is similarly spoiled."

The fae light gleamed in their eyes. He had guessed correctly.

“Aren’t you going to eat, eh, Lordling?” the Glasbin fae asked, gleeful mockery in his eyes.

The others chuckled ruefully.

“Don’t play with your food now!”

“I thought Lordlings had good manners?”

“How do you like being a lowling now, eh?”

“Bet you have never worked hard in your life.”

Daniel struggled to compose himself. Or restrain himself.

But what remained in his mind was how could a person feel both cold and hot at the same time?

Cold, plotting, planning, revenge. How to return the retribution? How to slowly build a web that tightened so slowly it would be completely unavoidable long before ever feeling the strands grow tight.

Hot, burning, anger, rage. Immediate response, how to ruin these people's lives quickly, dynamically, brutally. It would be difficult, but not impossible.

The food was spoiled now. Just a prank. Don't over react.

Daniel felt hollow. Numb, yet hot. Forlorn gave way to cold floating disconnection.

If he had still been Lordling Elswith, he would have walked away, cold and detached and plotting. But as his position left him, he felt like his blood was hotter than it had been before. Was this another holdover from his heritage? Or was it the realization and reaction of a powerless person, standing against a collective that had already decided how to view someone?

His stomach growled.

He straightened his shoulders, frustrated and raw. He needed to survive this game. He had to save those towns. If the name Branch wasn’t made official, then Dragon Scull would fall. Why didn’t the lords care about that region? Why did they let it all rest on him? Why did these…lowlings not understand that he was suffering this for people like them.

If he had been a Lordling, he would have walked away. If he had just been a servant, he would have launched into a fist fight, or thrown the rotten food at their sneering faces.

But he was Daniel, and the rightness of his True Name gave him pause. What position he held was of little consequence to who he was.

He was not hungry. He was not hurting. He was not tired. He was not overwhelmed.

He was Daniel.

He felt hungry, he felt hurt, he felt tired, he felt overwhelmed. But that was not who he was.

He would overcome those things. He could not do it as Lordling Elswith would. He needed some thread of reason, some...touch of conscious. But he would also need to face them. Just to understand.

Did they not understand? Did Daniel not understand?

Some common ground must be established.

Daniel set down the rotten food on the countertop above the basket of squirming spoiled food, “I don’t understand.” Daniel said to the Glasbin Fae. “When I was a Lordling, I saved your job. Jasper.” He pulled on the name that owed Elswith much. “Jasper, I know you.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The room became quiet.

“Who told him my name?” The Glasbin fae whispered to his former Hall Attendant partner next to him.

Another one spat, darkly. “What would a Lordling know of what we do?”

Daniel pushed forward. He didn’t know enough about being a lowling servant. But he knew everything about being a Lordling.

“I don’t know everything a servant faces. I know more than most. I know that you cut corners. That you are mouthy. That you spit on food of those you dislike. I know that you are surrounded by beings so powerful it makes your knees weak. I know that you are brave and courageous. I know that most of you support families in your home courts, and that this is your only chance to ever advance from lowling fae, disposable, replaceable, and unremarkable, into midling fae, able to have property and position in your local courts."

The sneering looks paused, as Daniel behaved differently than what they expected.

"I don't know everything you did. I am sure I will never fully understand."

He glared at Jasper, then the rest.

"But what do you know of what I did? I have survived over three dozen assassination attempts, nineteen campaigns, and the burden of being the Heirling of the Red Sword. Most of the assassination attempts came from my own faction. What do you really know of me? Nothing. You know nothing of the hours of training, the years of work, and the little, rural places that I have shed blood defending. Do you know of the advancing Dread hordes? Forging Alliances with those who despise you for the greater aim to keep those who cannot defend themselves alive?”

He felt so hot, so close to enraged. He needed to catch his breath and distance himself from this moment. Distance himself from his hunger. He needed to play the game. But right now the Game was bitter in his mouth. This was the reward for his efforts?

He looked at his minder. From what he could tell, the Glasbin fae seemed to be the inciting factor, who had stirred up the other servants' dislike. “Your name is Jasper. Five years ago, it must have been, your hand slipped and a priceless wine bottle crashed into the floor, shattering. I was there. I saw. And I said nothing. You owe me a favor. You owe me your position. You would have been sent back to whatever place you came from, unable to join the servant class again. At least not with any reputable influential family. But apparently, you have a short memory.”

The hall attendant paused. “You can’t remember that. You can’t possibly remember that. There were hundreds of servants present. How did you remember me out of all of them?”

Daniel sighed and pushed his poisoned food onto the basket with the back of his hand. The worms crawled and squirmed inside, and the stench of the food reached his nose.

“Did thee never consider what suffering I accepted in thine place?" Formal words flowed from Daniel's mouth, the Law of Fae suddenly in attendance.

The lights around them dimmed and flickered.

"How careless and crass, bite the hand that fed thee? Can thou design a smidgen of what sorrow followed? Of that shame was that twas mislaid at mine door?"

"Why?" Squeaked Jasper. "Why didn't you say anything then? Why did you cover for me? You acted like it was no problem..."

Daniel stared at him. "Had it befallen thee, Jasper Dunlap of Glasbin Landshire, it would have been as if a death had covered thee, and thine entire future stilled and barren."

The room became silent.

Daniel forced himself to breathe. He was hungry and his head hurt. “My Lordly Father..." he breathed. Daniel stopped himself from finishing, least he draw too much attention from the magic of the Fae realm. He felt the light of fae leave his eyes, and they returned to blue-gray. When he spoke again, the rhythm and formality was gone, and plain speech was all that was left. Little magic attached itself to plain speech, "I was punished duly for shaming my house and my Father." The bindings were sharp and cutting. And these lowlings thoughtless hurt him. Just a prank. Just a little mischief.

He was Daniel. They may tell him what he was now, but he would rather suffer than beg. He knew more about the Law of Fae, he could see it too. The Law of Fae was listening to him. It was considering his words too.

“I didn’t cover for you to earn favor. I did it because it was the right thing to do. Because I could heal from a beating, from having my senses shredded and slashed, from having the unmitigated wraith of the Red Sword faction against myself. When I attended this house as a guest, I never hurt any of you." He looked each fae in the eyes, for just a few seconds.

The servants flinched back from him, as the crowd itself grew. That was fine. He knew their names too.

"I know your faces. I know your names. Dorian, Finch, Ellanher, Andric, Thayer, Roscoe, Vesper..." He listed every single name of every Hall Attendant in the room, the servants in the kitchen, and even the maid sweeping the floor "Need I continue? I know all your names. I have been coming to this place for years. I could have caused troubled. I could have strung you along. I have seen all of your mistakes and even shielded you."

The Glasbin fae and the dark haired hall attendant, Jasper and Finch, looked at each other with shame.

"Now you believe me to be declawed and weak. Is this how behavior is settled? Be polite to those you can’t offend. Snarl and bite those you think are defenseless? I have seen Trolls with better honor, and goblins with higher morals.”

He stood, straight even though his bindings tore at him, and straightened his clothes.

“I thought better of all of you.”

Then he left.