High Lord Recindril Tostral stared across the practice yard at his opponent with intense focus, never blinking both eyes at once, for losing sight completely even for a literal eyeblink could be fatal in combat at his level. He was vaguely aware of the rest of the courtyard around them, the racks of practice weapons and a few trophies hanging high on the walls, and a part of him was alertly watching for any hint of danger from any direction. The bulk of his attention, however, was squarely on the younger man facing him with drawn swords at the ready.

It was remarkably similar to looking in a mirror. The young man in front of him had the same strikingly red short-cropped hair, the same alert brown eyes, the same angular chin, the same well-muscled but wiry frame, strong without being overly bulky. Even the youth's stance was identical to his own; right foot forward, knees bent, feet ready to dance like the wind across the ground, right-hand longsword extended forward to threaten an attack, and left-hand longsword held closer to parry. The family resemblance with his firstborn child and heir, Recindren Tostral, was unmistakable.

The younger Tostral finally made the first move, a short step forward and a lunge, but the high lord could tell it was only a feint. The movements of muscles and mana gave away his opponent's intentions to his finely tuned senses, and he responded with only a minute shift of his left sword, prepared to slap the strike away if Recindren tried to convert it into a genuine attack mid-lunge. Recindren withdrew his feint and shuffled to his right, trying to find or create holes in the elder's guard.

Lord Recindril rotated in place to stay facing his son and continued watching closely, analyzing for even the slightest flaw in the young man's movements. He fended off a rapid series of thrusts and slashes, practice swords ringing almost musically as their dulled edges clashed repeatedly. Soon, it would be time to counterattack and test the boy's defenses as well, but for now he merely played at being a hard target. That was an exceedingly scarce commodity for his son by this point, as only another noble would ever be able to stand up to the hurricane of steel the young man was unleashing on him. Most commoners, even high level adventurers, wouldn't even be able to see the attacks, much less block them.

His son needed a sparring partner he couldn't instantly overwhelm, and Recindril was happy to fill the role. It gave him some much-needed practice as well, though he still had to hold back. His heir may have been empowered by their mana wellspring, but Recindril himself had received that power as well, and had developed further beyond that point in the years since then. He had an advantage of 8 more levels of compression in his mana, and the additional speed, skill, and strength from that could have ended this fight decisively in fairly short order. Neither of them would learn much if he pushed that advantage as hard as he could, though.

The lord watched his son commit to a double lunge, one sword stabbing at his eyes and the other at his right shin, which was his most exposed body part. The move was superbly timed, with the eye strike coming just enough before the other to potentially distract from defending the leg. Against an opponent less able to keep calm, it likely would have scored a wound, maybe even a crippling one. Recindril just leaned his head a few inches to the side to barely dodge the eye stab and swung his right sword low to deflect the other. In the same movement, he smoothly pivoted forward, moving inside his opponent's guard to bring his left sword forward in his first attack of the bout.

He moved a bare measured hair less quickly than he could have, turning what could have been an instant defeat for his son into an opportunity for learning and recovery; a kindness he would never show to an actual enemy, such as those upstarts, Carlos and Amber. Not that either of them would be an issue much longer. Their souls should be dissolved already by now, and he was expecting a report of mission completion from the Black Blades very soon. That report is actually overdue at this point. Could something have gone wrong?

Recindril's mind was suddenly forced back to the sparring match by a stinging vibration in his left hand, accompanied by twin clangs of his son's swords hitting his left sword on opposite sides, trapping it between them and twisting it out of his hand. An instant too late, he realized that his son's attack, while genuine, had also been intended to bait exactly the response he'd made. He immediately stepped back and held out his empty left palm. "I yield."

Recindren backed off, lowering both of his swords, and frowned. "What's wrong, father? That move should not have worked that well against you. You seem unusually distracted."

Lord Recindril sighed, then walked over to the side and placed his remaining practice sword back on its storage rack. "Your sister's incident in Dramos should have been tied up neatly by now, but the report is late. The Black Blades are usually very punctual and professional. An unexplained delay from them is concerning."

The younger man pressed his lips together in silence as he put his practice swords on the rack too. "Concerning, yes, but it's unlike you to let any incident with a mere minor house weigh on your mind like this."

"Yes, but… which house is it?" The lord retrieved his disarmed sword from where it had fallen and added it to the rack. "At first I attributed Jamar's ignorance of that detail to merely her not having memorized every minor house's children, but I do not recognize them either, by name or description, nor have I found them in our records. I find myself wondering exactly what house we have come into conflict with. Their ignorance of the rotation agreement also seems strange." He sighed again and shook his head. "There are too many oddities in the situation for comfort, and Jamar's report is light on detail."

"Could they be foreigners? Have you checked the Crown's records? Maybe send Jamar back to investigate?"

Lord Recindril let out an amused huff. "A foreign house is technically a possibility, but would be an utterly bizarre mix of competence and stupid carelessness. I think it unlikely, and I hesitate to risk drawing the Crown's attention to a matter where they might regard us as being in the wrong. As for sending Jamar…" He turned and walked to the practice yard's door. "Send someone to investigate, yes, but not Jamar. We need someone unrelated, who no one might recognize. Jamar will just have to wait for her next slot in the rotation."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"You know she'll hate that." Recindren spoke lightly, simply stating a fact as he joined his father's walk.

"It can't be helped. Besides, a lesson in patience might be good for her." Lord Recindril hesitated, then nodded decisively. "It would soon be time to hand off Dramos to the next house in rotation anyway. Come with me, my son, and we'll tell House Golarn our concerns. They'll want to investigate it themselves for the security of their own scion's visit, and their investigators will have no connection to us."

Recindren nodded. "Of course, father." He walked alongside his father as he thought and wondered. If the Black Blades simply failed, they should still have reported that by now. What could be delaying them?

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Deep inside the royal palace, below ground in a hidden and warded room, Captain Granlan of the Black Blades examined his gauntleted hands as he slowly curled them into fists, released them, and turned them over. Small sparks crackled and danced over the surface of the enchanted steel armor, and he reveled in once again feeling how the substance of lightning subtly permeated everything. He grinned widely and turned his head to look at the royal mage standing next to him. "Ahhh, that feels much better. And just this morning, I was sitting in prison and wearing suppression cuffs."

"Her Highness ordered your supervised release. Therefore, we released you." The mage, despite being a foot shorter and half Granlan's width, somehow seemed to be looking down at him while dryly stating an explanation fit for a child. "Now, we've removed your suppression, cleaned you, and returned your equipment. Are you ready to start on the tasks required to earn the Crown's mercy?"

Granlan bowed slightly. "Of course I am. Which of them would you prefer to discuss first?"

"How you prevented the equipment of two royal guards from detecting your intrusion or signaling for aid."

"Hunting down the details that you want will likely be as difficult as proving my client's identity, unfortunately. I was telling the truth when I said I do not know the mechanics of how it worked. I just wasn't telling the entire truth." Granlan smiled a little cheekily, but the royal mage just glared at him. "We used single-use specialty enchanted items from an anonymous supplier. The items destroyed themselves when used, and I truly do not know who the supplier is. The Enchanters Guild is the obvious suspect, of course, but I looked into them many years ago and found not even a hint of any similar items in guild stores. The items are runic in the manner of guild-made enchantments, not dungeon-made; I know that much, at least. But either there is someone else who knows how to make enchanted items work, or the guild is keeping these items a closely held secret."

The royal mage continued glaring for a moment, then nodded in acknowledgement. "I see. This self-destruction was in the same manner as how the soul decoys spontaneously disintegrated? How did you come into contact with this mysterious supplier, and how do you get the items from them? Are you able to acquire more for us to examine? Have you ever shown one to a guild enchanter?"

"Yes, same as the soul decoys, which came from them too. I tried bringing an item from that supplier to an Enchanters Guild store once. The item disintegrated as soon as I came near the store, and I received an irate letter the next day, admonishing me to never try that again." Granlan shrugged. "I decided it wasn't worth the risk of potentially pissing off a valuable and irreplacable business partner, and stopped pursuing it. As for our history with them, they contacted me decades ago via the anonymous channels I had set up for potential clients to hire us through.

"They included a sample item as proof that they truly could make things that I had believed were impossible. Their message directed me to leave my response, with a sample of my mana signature, in a specific location where their own arrangements would get it to them. They wanted to be kept informed of what jobs I took and for what payment. In exchange, they offered to sell special items to me, for very reasonable prices, as needed to enable me to successfully complete jobs that suited their purposes and that would otherwise be impossible." Granlan raised a hand to ward off the mage's response. "And before you ask, no, I have no idea what their purposes are. They refused to say, and I see no apparent pattern in which jobs they have offered to help with."

"Hmm." The royal mage tilted his head in thought. "I take it you can't just request to buy an item, then. You have to tell them about a job you've been offered and wait to see if they're interested."

"Correct."

"What did you tell them about the job that brought you here? You were not aware that the guards you faced were the Crown's, I believe."

Granlan cracked his knuckles. "I wonder if perhaps my client was unaware of that fact as well." He shrugged. "In any case, I gave them all of the information that my client gave me. I told them the objective, that the targets were young nobles named Carlos and Amber of an unknown house, that they had two competent, professional, and well-equipped guards, and that they were staying at a high-quality inn in Dramos. My mysterious supplier responded with an offer of two soul decoys that would adjust to match their designated targets, plus an item that would subtly disrupt the sensing and communication capabilities of the guards' equipment. No idea how, that's just what they told me it would do."

The mage raised an eyebrow. "Soul decoys that can adjust to match a target after being made? And that do so without an enchanter working on it?" He shook his head. "Are such things typical of this… supplier of yours?"

"Honestly? Yes. After all the things I've seen from them by now, I didn't even blink at this one."

"Hmm." The mage chewed his lip. "We will have to be cautious. How would you suggest attempting to find or identify them? Have you given the matter thought over the years?"

"Send them a message about a new job, try to track it, and pray that my stealthy tracking capabilities can somehow beat whatever their countermeasures are. I considered my odds of success, or even of my attempt going unnoticed, to be rather dismal." Granlan crossed his arms and smirked challengingly. "I'm sure the Crown will have better odds, of course."

The mage laughed. "We do have rather considerable expertise available for the problem, even if it's not the Crown's specialty. Very well, we will prepare for that."

Granlan rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, the Crown's specialty of utterly overwhelming force is undisputed and unchallenged. Now if you want to try the same sort of thing for proving that my client was House Tostral, we do have an opportunity for that too in a report I'm supposed to send, but time is running low for that. We'll have to get me back to my company before they declare me lost and my second-in-command sends his own report in my stead."

It was the mage's turn to smirk this time. "That will not be a problem. Just tell me where I need to teleport you to."