It had been a hectic night, and Jasmine was growing rather tired of it. Things had been going so well, too! The girl that occupied far too much of her headspace had seemed happy enough to be with her, and the two of them had had a truly blissful moment on the dance floor.

She’d known it wasn’t going to last. Going into this, she’d known that the Crown would be making their move, one that would likely upset the balance of the party, but she hadn’t expected someone else to interfere first. Alto Tempet. That was the name of the man who’d fled, three adventurers and a squad of noble guards chasing him. It had been a good half an hour since they’d disappeared, now, but Jasmine wasn’t worried. Lily had dealt with tougher foes before. Alto was a weakling. One with a sharp tongue, that was true, but he was a pathetic excuse for a man who only rose by making his allies fall.

Lily would be fine.

A hand moved in her peripheral vision. A gloved one, the red of blood distinct against the white fabric. Soft green light trailed in the wake of its fingers, forming a spell.

“You set the frame too early,” Jasmine said, the movement prompting her out of her thoughts. “Wait two more seconds before finalizing it. You do not race against others here—all you have been asked to do is ensure your patient makes it across the finish line. Take it slowly and you will find your spell forms more smoothly. Especially for a novice like you, speed is the last aspect you need.”

Lance of House Varga, a fresh-faced teen who couldn’t have had his oath for more than a year or two, knelt down and began casting again, the motion significantly slower this time.

It felt like she was being insulted. She’d used her broken oath to temporarily heal the people who’d been hit, a musician and a noble, and the noble—one of House Lysin’s, she was fairly confident, though it had been hard to tell through the blood—had been taken away immediately, given the best care the Crown had to offer. Meanwhile, she’d explained her situation to House Varga, knowing that the most efficient Nacea oathholders could be found there, and they’d saddled her with a kid.

“Stability,” Jasmine warned. “If your hands shake like that the whole way through, the patient may end up worse than they started. Better not to heal them than to heal them half incorrectly.”

“Understood, ma’am,” the youth said, not meeting her eyes.

Just like his older brother, Lance had dark brown skin with black hair. Unlike his brother, unfortunately, the boy was a nervous wreck, incapable of mustering even the slightest confidence in himself.

In short, he was a rank amateur. The patriarch of House Varga had essentially treated a life-or-death situation as a training session for his child, and Jasmine had been forced to accept the proposition with a smile. Court rules dictated that starting conflict over anything so minor as, say, a commoner’s life, would be a breach of protocol, and it would be the cause for nasty glares and lost bonds between House Rayes and the more traditional Houses here. As much as she wanted to sock the Varga patriarch in the face for what he hadn’t offered, she’d been the good noblewoman she was supposed to be.

It left a sour taste in her stomach, but at least the wounded musician wasn’t at risk of dying anytime soon thanks to her own magic. Furthermore, while Lance was an amateur, he was certainly not incompetent—he merely needed more time and training to come into his own as an oathholder.

“Do not tense your hands to slow yourself,” Jasmine instructed, injecting warmth into her voice. “All that will accomplish is a slow, shaky frame. What you need here is to be slow without forcing yourself to do so. Flow with it. Your magic is like a river, and you will not find success in trying to beat a river into submission.”

Was Lance being purposefully sabotaged? Jasmine frowned. A lot of what she was covering were basics. She admitted that of the fundamentals that Lance knew, he knew them well, but it seemed like he was unsure of himself with others.

“You’re a lot calmer than my tutor,” Lance said, his voice hesitant. “I’m sorry, I know this is serious, I—I work poorly with pressure.”

That explained it, then. Not incompetence but inexperience.

“Right now, that is acceptable, since the musician lives yet. Everyone forgets skills sometimes, and nobody can blame you for feeling pressured. In the future, you must leave this hesitance behind.” The words Jasmine spoke were regurgitated from her own tutors, but they were no less true for being repeated countless times.

“Y—you’re right,” Lance said, returning to the spell. He started casting, his hands still shaky but significantly less so, and this time his motions were smooth and controlled.

Another shouting match was breaking out in the center of the room, and Lance nearly flinched. Jasmine made a noise of warning, indicating for him to continue making his frame, and he calmed, continuing forth. A few moments later the frame was finally finished. When forced to do it right, Lance had good form, Jasmine saw. From there, it was just the fuel and the spark, which any properly-made frame would make a trivial task.

Jasmine turned her attention away from the musician once it became clear that he was going to make it out of this unharmed, looking towards the mass of noise at the center of the room.

Orchid had bagged another one. From House Tempet, it looked to be. The accused woman was pointing at him and shouting, something about him forcing her confession, and the room was shouting back.

The Ditas oathholder looked uncomfortable, Jasmine noticed, her eyes drawn to the man who’d once been a dear friend of hers. They hadn’t parted on bad terms, but the fact of the matter was that he was now acting as judge and jury for a room full of nobles, most of which Jasmine was fairly sure had no connection whatsoever with the rebellion.

“He lies!” the Tempet woman shouted. “I would never deal with a godsforsaken peasant!”

That, unfortunately, was probably true. Jasmine was no fool. She knew that much of the nobility—particularly the generation before her, though hers was by no means exempt from this—tended to be elitist pricks who only dealt with others of their own kind.

For Orchid to declare that she had aided in the rebellion…

“Stop lying,” Orchid said, the oathtongue recognizably forming words despite not being part of any language. Jasmine could feel the shape of the power, having had ample experience with the art, and it felt wrong.

Cries of outrage and insult joined Orchid, decrying Magnolia of House Tempet as a liar and traitor. He’d gotten a mob going. Jasmine shook her head in disappointment. These hangers-on trying to gain the favor of the Crown investigator were no better than the commoners who’d grouped up to assault the ball.

Whatever Orchid was doing, it wasn’t his usual oathtongue. Jasmine had learned much about this type of spell, seen Orchid utilize it hundreds upon hundreds of times, and she could tell that there was some level of modification to the words, some effect that was not immediately recognizable to an untrained observer. A compulsion, one that she could not fully comprehend the shape of. Whatever it was, it was not part of the regular oathtongue interrogation process.

Her father should have seen it, at the very least. Jasmine had learned almost everything she knew about the oathtongue from him, and he was one of the most prolific users of the art in all of Tayan. It would be a breach of court conduct to imply a Crown investigator was lying, though, and no matter how progressive her parents were that did not extend to actively shooting themselves in the foot to point out injustices.

Orchid is lying. Alto, perhaps, had truly been an ally of the commoner revolt, given the fact that he’d sealed Orchid’s throat—a feat that had taken two separate Nacea oaths to fix—and fled.

The others, though? Charles of House Lysin, Briar of House Varga, Bloom of House Karte, and now Magnolia of House Tempet. None of those were names that she could believe were ones that would orchestrate a rebellion. Some other method to gain power, perhaps, but nothing so crude as base violence. Nobody else had pulled an Alto, and Jasmine was slowly beginning to believe that Alto may have been the only truly guilty person in the room.

She trusted Orchid more than she did most people, but the Alzaq noble didn’t look like he was in his own element. Like he was biting into a lemon every time he accused another person of aiding and abetting the commoners.

Jasmine knew Orchid well, and this wasn’t him. Orchid was sure of his actions, and if he believed something to be right and true he would pursue it to the ends of the earth. That meant a few possibilities, all of them bad.

The most likely two: Orchid was either being magically compelled to do this, or he was being ordered to do so by mundane forces. Jasmine knew Orchid was strong, both in mind and spirit, and his magic resistance was high. So high, in fact, that he’d had issues with being healed when they were younger and Jasmine was still an effective Nacea oath. If he was being compelled magically, then that boded poorly for the rest of the people here. It would indicate an incredibly powerful oathholder, one strong enough to render any defense moot.

Jasmine would assume that wasn’t the case. There was preparing for the worst and there was assuming the worst, and when the worst case in this situation was one in which Jasmine’s loss condition was already met, it was safe to assume that that hadn’t come to pass.

Acting on someone else’s orders was the safest bet, then. Whose? The Crown’s? His father’s?

“I’m done,” Lance of House Varga said, rising to his feet. “I thank you for your assistance.”

“I thank you for yours,” Jasmine replied. She rose alongside him, still observing the nobles clustered around Orchid.

The four that had been named so far—everyone other than Alto—had been restrained, an oathholder manifesting thin cuffs of steel from thin air. Jasmine continued studying them, trying to see if there was a pattern with them. If there was a common thread running through them, that might provide a hint as to whose dirty work was being done by Orchid.

Charles Lysin had been the second person implicated after Alto. Lysin, Lysin, Lysin… they were one of the enforcer houses. Charles had been notable as a noble that had also been a Strike Team Leader, surviving and defeating over a dozen primordials over the course of his career. He maintained that level of discipline for the House he was a patriarch, and he was a formidable foe both on and off the battlefield.

Briar of House Varga. A healer, and a good one at that. Better than Jasmine, even before she’d lost a significant chunk of her power, though that was mitigated by the fact that he was also colder and crueller than she was. Also a patriarch.

Bloom of House Karte. Karte was a tinkerer House, and they were well known to be beloved by the Crown. Bloom wasn’t the matriarch of her House, but she was close to the position, and her name was well-known in niche communities, especially among Aedi oathholders. Jasmine hadn’t been keeping up with the court as much recently, but she still knew that Bloom was regarded to be one of the most intelligent Aedi oathholders alive, able to incorporate other oaths into her work without even holding those oaths.

Magnolia of House Tempet. Once again, not the matriarch, but a favored candidate for it.

Another commotion was starting, Jasmine noted, one that had an oddly familiar voice at the center of it. Her eyes flew wide open as she realized who it was.

Mother.

“I will accept interrogation and restraint,” Jasmine’s mother said, her raised voice clear to Jasmine even when a dozen others were trying to drown her out. “The truth will inevitably be released.”

Calm and collected as ever. From a distance, Jasmine flashed a small, hard smile. No matter the situation, her parents had taught her, she was to keep her calm and position herself to come out on top at the end of it all. It was beyond relieving to know that her parents drank their own medicine.

Carla of House Rayes. A matriarch of another generally militant House, and one that Jasmine knew for an absolute fact had had absolutely nothing to do with the disturbance at the ball.

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Find out what your opponent wants, and you have already won half the battle. Jasmine’s father’s words echoed through her head, a warm reassurance that she had the tools and the intelligence to make sense of this situation.

Focus. What did they all have in common? Well, that was easy. All of the accused so far were either the head of a House or in a position to be one. All of them were critical parts of their Houses, and House Lysin, Varga, Karte, Tempet, and Rayes were all names that the Crown was familiar and friendly with.

Eliminate the impossible, the improbable, and the unsolvable. Her father’s lessons again. She’d already done that, concluding that Orchid was doing this with a compulsion that was likely more mundane than magical.

But who was the one orchestrating this? That was the million-sun question. Jasmine only had two prime suspects—the Crown and the heads of House Alzaq—since those were the only ones that would have had extended opportunity to influence the young noble and the only ones that could enact any form of leverage on him. Every noble was experienced in dealing with external forces holding a loved one hostage, and Orchid had always been unflinching in the face of adversity. That meant that either the adversity was too great—only the Crown could do that—or too personal—his father.

When searching for a culprit, ask yourself: who benefits?

What motive did the Crown have to order their investigator to falsely find people guilty? They would risk damaging relationships that had been critical to their ongoing hegemony.

That left a number of minor possibilities, but there was only one group of people that fit this operation perfectly.

House Alzaq. They were new to nobility, Jasmine knew. Only a decade or so ago, they had been naught more than exceptionally politically adept merchants. The Crown had brought their status to one of an official House recently, and their recency was doing them no favors with other nobility. They had a lot to prove and a lot of obstacles in their way. The Alzaqs had shown themselves to be competent in the noble circles as well, but they wanted more. Jasmine recalled conversations with Orchid that they’d had while training together… it had been years, at this point.

“I fear my House may become a snake so hungry that it will devour its own tail,” he’d said. At the time, Jasmine hadn’t really understood what that meant, but she’d grown to. House Alzaq was desperate for a win, and something like this? Disgracing the other Houses while also elevating their own position. If nobody contested them—and it didn’t look like anyone truly wanted to, given Orchid’s commanding position as a Crown investigator with a rabid mob of nobles behind him—then this would be a clean win for them.

How could Jasmine keep that from happening? She could try to bring up the fact that Orchid was screwing with his magic, but that required a skilled oathholder to understand. While she could ask for elite royal guards to be brought in to verify her claims, she would be torn apart by the court of public opinion in the meantime.

She didn’t even know if she was right. All she had to go off of was a feeling that things were wrong, a slight sensation that could’ve just as easily been caused by poor ventilation.

Jasmine found herself wishing Lily was here. She wouldn’t have cared about things like social ramifications. Jasmine could almost picture Lily, clad in her stunning black dress, cutting through the webs of lies and intrigue to simply shout at Orchid and leave. It was a pleasant image.

And just like that, her thoughts were yanked off course, her mind drawn to the not-quite-noble girl that she’d become entangled with. It was becoming more and more of a problem these days, the amount that she focused on Lily. Jasmine had no concern with thinking about the girl that she’d grown to adore, but the frequency with which this was happening was beginning to become concerning.

Thinking about Lily prompted her to wonder where she was at the moment. She’d disappeared, chasing Alto of House Tempet. That man had a nasty tendency to find secrets, and an even nastier tendency to try to twist the knife on the people who had them.

Lily would be fine. Jasmine knew that for a fact. There was one secret that she was fairly sure Alto was going to try to use, but Lily was made out of tougher stuff than most nobles. That much had been clear ever since the two of them had met, that fateful day in the Tayan Adventurer’s Guild. From the moment they’d met, Jasmine had known that she’d been hiding something about her lineage. Too many things didn’t make sense about her story—being named after her village, certain timings, her never bringing up her parents, and that way she spoke like she’d had too many experiences with nobles.

Jasmine hadn’t confronted her over it yet—after all, Jasmine also hadn’t revealed everything about her own past—but she hoped that Lily was going to feel comfortable enough to speak about it soon.

She was hoping that Lily was going to feel comfortable enough to speak about a lot of things soon, really. Jasmine wasn’t blind to her own emotions. She was past the stage of infatuation and well on her way to fully falling for Lily, but she didn’t want to make a move. Sure, Lily was nice enough, but Jasmine didn’t know if that meant anything—hell, she didn’t even know if Lily liked girls.

She shook her head, brown hair falling out of place. I’m getting distracted. Situation now. Lily later.

Thinking of Lily had brought up something useful to the current situation, thankfully. Lily had said something about the adventurers under House Alzaq’s employ as bodyguards had a pretty noticeable lack of dedication to the House itself, and there had been a Shanzhai oathholder among them. Those were rare, and not all that much was known about them, but there was a faint possibility that he had picked up oathtongue as part of his bag of tricks over the years. He might be able to tell Jasmine if what she had noticed was truth or illusion.

The oathholder wasn’t hard to find, Lily’s description of him being “basically a fancy clown” nailing him right on the mark. He was chatting in a corner with a few others, a fair bit removed from the nobles.

As Jasmine approached, she realized that she hadn’t been the only one to have this idea.

“Jasmine,” Alex said. “You alright?”

“As alright as anyone can be, given everything,” she replied, gesturing to the room as a whole. “You came here to talk with the adventurers?”

“I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced,” a jester said, offering a gloved hand. “My name is Kyle. I’m a Shanzhai oathholder.”

Jasmine shook it. “What brought you here, Alex?”

“I found fellow adventurers,” Alex said, a shit-eating grin plastered over his face. “I heard about them being in the area, and discovering that Kyle here was a Shanzhai oath had me quite intrigued.”

“He does have a rare oath,” another man said. He was cloaked in dark green, and his voice had a raspy quality to it that Jasmine could easily tell was mostly affected.

“In all seriousness, I came here to discuss what Orchid is doing,” Alex said. “Lukas and Lily both took off to pursue Alto, so he was the strongest oathholder remaining that I could talk to.”

“Can you feel it too?” Jasmine asked, surprised. She’d never heard of Alex doing any training in the oathtongue.

“What should I be feeling?” Alex asked. “No, I just thought that there was simply no world in which some of the accused would orchestrate a plan that involves commoners. It was odd, and Orchid’s acting suspiciously.”

That much had been plain to see to everyone. “And Kyle here, have you found anything?”

“He laced the words,” Kyle said immediately. “Oathtongue was one of the first things I copied, I know what it’s supposed to sound like.”

“I thought the same,” Jasmine said. “Are you not under Alzaq employ? Why inform us?”

“Employment isn’t alliance,” Kyle said, his voice laid-back and cheerful even in the current situation. “I have no duty to protect his secrets, only his person. Besides, I’m not going to stick around much longer.”

“He’s an adventurer,” Alex said, like that explained anything. “A non-noble adventurer. I mean not to offend, but—“

“I know what you’re saying,” Kyle said with a good-natured grin. “You’re right. Money talks louder than status around these parts, but I’ve no love for noble intrigue anyway.”

“Orchid is manipulating the others,” Jasmine said. “What do we do?”

Once again, she wished she had Lily with her. If Jasmine tried to solve issues with a scalpel, Lily did the same with a hammer, and the decisiveness of that hammer would have been appreciated.

“We could raise a point of interest,” Alex suggested. “Perhaps?”

“That is a move made by desperate Houses or ones seeking conflict,” Jasmine said, shaking her head. “It would not endear us to our audience.”

“Temporarily disable him,” Kyle said. “Prevent him from capturing more.”

“No,” Jasmine said. “No. There must be a more civilized way to do this.”

“Someone needs to get their hands dirty sometimes,” Kyle said, shrugging.

“I know,” Jasmine said, the words coming out harsher than she’d intended them to. “I know, better than you might think I do. But this is not a battlefield where a heavy hand is guaranteed results.”

What could they do? If they tried to contest Orchid now, Jasmine and Alex would both look like fools simply trying to remove their family from suspicion. Kyle wouldn’t even be considered despite his contributions to saving the lives of many within the ballroom, a solid chunk of the remaining nobles being those that viewed themselves as greater.

That didn’t leave much. Violence, external appeals, delaying… there were a number of even less viable tactics that came to Jasmine’s mind, but she discarded them instantly.

“I have an inkling of an idea,” Jasmine said after a moment.

“Oh? Do tell.” Kyle stood straight and attentive, his arm crossed over his chest.

“Orchid is a Crown investigator,” Jasmine explained. “However, that does not make him the crown. We should be able to requisition another investigator to confirm the veracity of Orchid’s claims.”

“And if the investigator is on his payroll?” Alex asked.

“Then we lose nothing but time,” Jasmine said. “Time in which we can develop a better approach.”

“I haven’t any better ideas,” Kyle said. “I don’t like the shape of this, but I’m not sure I can provide much help. Gods smile on you.”

“And unto you,” Jasmine finished. That saying is awfully archaic for a modern adventurer to be using. “Alex, we should go. We haven’t much time.”

The two of them left, striding towards Orchid with purpose. Kyle trailed behind them, ostensibly to ensure that they didn’t pose a threat to the Alzaq heir.

“Orchid,” Jasmine greeted the other noble coolly. “I see you’ve been having a productive night.”

“Jasmine,” Orchid replied in kind. “Have you a conflict with me?”

All eyes were on them. Orchid had become the center of attention over the course of the last few hours, and Jasmine had just forced herself into his sphere of influence. Depending on how she chose her next few words, this could go very, very poorly.

“I have no conflict,” she said, measuring her words. “I would simply seek to confirm your claims.”

“Do you imply my dishonesty?” Orchid asked. He still didn’t seem awfully confident in himself, almost like he was reading from a script. Nothing like he usually was.

“I would never impugn House Alzaq’s honor with such an accusation,” Jasmine lied. “I simply state that we may be able to determine more information from the accused if you are not alone in questioning them.”

Orchid looked even more uncomfortable at that. Something broke in his expression, and he looked away. The voices of the nobles around them were agreeing with Jasmine, though she knew that meant little. Her ploy had been a simple one. If he was truly invested into this endeavor, he would easily be able to turn around their audience’s opinion of the situation.

Orchid remained silent.

“You’ve worked yourself hard enough,” Jasmine said, seizing the opportunity. “Bring in another investigator of the Crown to assist you.”

The other noble sighed, long and deep, and he met Jasmine’s eyes again. There was defeat in those eyes, the kind that came with knowing that you’d be punished for a failure. “Very well.”

“I’m sorry,” Jasmine said, quiet enough that only Orchid would be able to hear her, “But you and I both know that this has to be done.”

“I’m sorry too,” Orchid murmured back, “For what is coming. I cannot stop it.”

Louder, Orchid continued, “I will continue in the time being. Would you care to find a Crown investigator while I do so?”

“It would be my pleasure,” Jasmine said.

“Camellia will join you,” Orchid said, and it wasn’t a request. He looked at her pointedly.

“Of course,” Jasmine said, a pleasant smile plastered onto her face. Supervision.

Orchid wasn’t dedicated enough to the cause he was fighting for to fully attempt to counter Jasmine’s play, but he wasn’t just going to let it go uncontested.

That was fine. So long as they were able to contact an unbiased investigator, they should be able to contest Orchid’s claims. It wasn’t a perfect solution, and it wasn’t one that could be completed exceptionally quickly, but it would work.

Jasmine beckoned Alex to join her, and Camellia of House Alzaq followed, a tall blonde-haired noble that resembled Lily except worse in every way. The three of them were joined by Kyle, who claimed that he was there to prevent any foul play on Jasmine’s end.

They left the ballroom silently, the four of them all headed towards the throne room of the Crown. Despite being the ones to host the event, not a single member of House Tayan had attended the ball, but the majority of them would likely be in or around the royal castle. The throne room, located at the heart of the castle, was guaranteed to hold at least a few, and from them they could requisition further investigators.

The plan fell apart almost immediately. As they exited the ballroom, they rounded a corner and were met with the pop-pop-pop of a Caël oath’s teleportation. Three bodies, it looked like. Two of them were armored in the black steel of a Strike Team, and the third’s face was hidden in shadow, a cloak wrapped around their body. Before Jasmine could ask who they were, one of the Strike Team soldiers clasped their hands around the cloaked figure and vanished, their armor enabling near-instantaneous transportation.

Camellia looked distinctly unsurprised at this development, Jasmine noted. Like she’d been expecting them.

On closer inspection, those soldiers… those were Alzaq crests seared into the steel above the heart.

“Report,” Camellia said.

“What is this?” Alex asked.

“House Tempet burns,” the soldier rumbled. “Alto Tempet is dead, and his partner in crime has fled.”

“Explain yourself!” Alex demanded. “What are you doing?”

“Who is the partner?” Camellia asked.

“She calls herself Lily Syashan, but her—“

The knight wasn’t able to finish his sentence, Jasmine’s magic already surging from her fingertips. Her bolt of flame wasn’t enough to put the soldier down, but it was enough to at least stagger him for the time being.

A moment later, a ball of translucent magic followed, exploding into a zone of intense cold upon contact with the armor.

“Traitor!” Camellia shouted. “You are a—“

Jasmine swung on her, grazing the noblewoman’s neck with the back of her hand. It wasn’t a punch or a slap, but it didn’t need to be. In that moment of contact, she healed Camellia, restoring her body to the state her soul wanted it to be in.

It just so happened that this healing was modifying that selfsame soul as she cast, making minor changes that would have major effects. A temporary action, but it didn’t need to last forever. Just long enough.

Camellia lost the use of her vocal cords. In the moments that followed, her limbs froze up, green fumes passing over her body.

“What are we doing?” Alex asked, his voice fraught with tension. He cast another spell at the knight, knocking him off balance.

Jasmine had to appreciate how willing they were to follow her, though that part was probably thanks to Lily. Alex and Kyle both knew Lily only through adventuring, and even given that, she’d made it quite clear that she was not one to be following in the footsteps of nobles.

Jasmine paused the formation of her spell just long enough to reply to Alex. It was a silly question, but then Alex was unused to fighting against his own kind. If her father had ever taught Jasmine anything, it was that there was a time for the pen and the time for the sword. Now was definitively a time for the latter, and even if she had nothing else Jasmine would never lack conviction.

“Is it not obvious? We’re stopping traitors.”