The party-goers were easy to mine information from. Endless glasses of relatively strong drinks combined with a strange mixture that supposedly filled one with energy, something that sounded suspiciously like a stamina-boosting potion that a few reckless knights used during long campaigns but those weren’t made in a noblewoman’s kitchen, left the crowd inebriated enough to have loose lips while alert enough to accurately recall information.

Better, everyone was more than willing to talk about their hostess. And what interesting tales they told. Lou and Kierra had been at the Grand Hall for a scant year yet had accomplished many things, some praiseworthy, some that begged belief, and some that were outright ludicrous.

She was happy to know that Lou’s problem with the crown wasn’t a fledgling thing. The animosity ran deep, born of the noblewoman’s strange aversion to members of the royal family. Not that she had any reason to care for her king. The crown had done nothing for Lou and, for some reason, had no idea how to handle her. Those in power weren’t even making attempts to understand her.

She didn’t know how things worked in the south but if the king had any competence, he would have Lou under surveillance. And if not him, there should have been at least one sensible person at his side that would do it for him. For several reasons, starting from the moment she returned to Harvest with an elven bride. If Yulia was the king’s aide, she would have insisted on scrutinizing Lou, and perhaps her immediate family, for that alone.

She also would have insisted on an investigation into the circumstances behind Lou’s kidnapping. It was beyond ridiculous that the crown had let the matter of an insane master caster simply drop. According to Lou, the man had died in a summoning gone wrong, putting an end to the threat, but the situation was curious, at the very least.

Master casters were no fools, yet the actions of Lou’s kidnapper was nothing but foolish. Why, by all the ancestors, would a man take victims from the King’s Road? Especially a noblewoman whose family might have the connections and power to investigate her disappearance. It was a harsh truth that was impolite to say out loud but if he had targeted young women from out of the way villages, disguising his actions as those of a bandit, no one would know about their disappearance or even care.

On the other hand, if he wanted noble victims, he would have been better off hunting in a major city. Not the capital, with the looming presence of the royal knights, but any of the other major cities. Perhaps Rosentheim, where the people were known to be wealthy, happy, and generally less inclined to martial matters. The knight order sponsored by the Rosefields, the Iron Roses, dueled to first blood, a practice that would see them laughed out of the north.

So, there were plenty of better places to find his victims but the master caster, a man of some intelligence, had chosen to pick a victim at random on the King’s Road. For a summoning, an art he had no interest in for all his long life. An art looked down on by the kingdom’s magic community, yet the educated man had believed that it was the key to reversing the flow of time and giving him eternal youth or some nonsense.

Perhaps the man had gone insane, but it was hard to believe that someone could be so insane as to believe something more ridiculous than a children’s tale but sane enough to plot and execute a scheme to enact it. And even if he had straddled the delicate balance of mental stability and been in charge of his actions, summoning wasn’t an art one merely picked up or dabbled in. From what Yulia had learned from Lou, it was incredibly demanding, physically, financially, and on one’s time.

Yulia refused to believe that a man in such a compromised mental state could have devised a stable summoning, no matter that it failed to do what he intended. She doubted he had come to summoning as a solution on his own either.

Which begged several questions. Who had introduced the mad and desperate master caster to summoning, no doubt feeding his false expectations? Had said mysterious person directed the caster to snatch his victims from the King’s Road? Had Lou been targeted specifically? And of course, the biggest question, why?

All things someone should be investigating. If she was the king’s aide, she’d also be interested in the story behind the fall of the Grimoires.

Gordon had the most fascinating story and was the most eager to tell it. One day, he’s practically a prince, his family well-respected, or at least feared, throughout the capital. The Grimoires had money, power, influence, and his father served as a royal adviser. While sipping brown liquor, the young man slurred about what he called the good times. When people bowed and scraped at his feet. When he could go where he pleased, when he pleased. When he could have any woman he wanted. When his future was bright and without limits.

Yulia habitually tried to cheer him up. She had heard about the scandal surrounding his family, even in the north, but it wasn’t all bad, she assured him. He was young, handsome, and reasonably talented. He had contracted a succubus, and she knew just how much an asset one of those creatures could be. His family’s reputation was terrible but the death of his father and his attempts to distance the rest of the family by changing their name was a good step, if a little drastic.

He’d laughed at her.

When she asked why he was so grim, so sure that things wouldn’t work out for him, all he would mutter was that things had gone to the Abyss after his father visited the Tome estate and that Lou was all manner of things a lady shouldn’t repeat. She tried to press him on what he meant, and more about Lou, but he waved her off, growling like an irritated animal when she kept asking questions. She eventually gave up and left him to drown in his drink.

Making her rounds around the rest of the room, Yulia discovered that Lou had a reputation as a lecher and a ruthless tyrant, but both were greatly exaggerated. Despite being a relentless flirt, something the redheaded instructor complained about in heated whispers, no one could name a single relationship or fling outside of her household. According to Kierra, who wore an amused smirk while relaying the information, Lou had yet to be intimate with Talia, her supposed mistress and latest romantic partner. That hardly sounded like a lecherous beast.

As for being a tyrant, that was a similar exaggeration. William, her teammate during the qualifiers who spoke with his eyes firmly glued to his shoes, described her as a bit of a bully, but only toward people who annoyed her. In general, Lou was civilized and agreeable. When it came to women, she was downright generous. Despite all her strength, she was reluctant to fight, and she only fought those who attacked her first. Truly a terror to frighten children.

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Everything she heard, everything she saw, brought Yulia to a few conclusions. The first was about Lou’s personality. The woman, for all her strength, for all the rumors circulating about her, for all her outrageous feats, was a complete softie. A plush bear. Harmless as a kitten.

Oh, she was capable of violence and could deal out death with the best the north had to offer but she wasn’t a creature of war. Yulia was pretty sure, willing enough to gamble the future on it, that if Lou had the option to never raise her fist in anger, she’d take it without a second thought. Some people loved the thrill of combat, the exhilaration of spilling a creature’s blood. Victorians were raised in a culture that normalized it, made it as common as snow and gray skies. Lou didn’t have the nature or conditioning to be a soldier, merely putting on the mask when she needed to.

The second conclusion was about Lou’s motivations. The noblewoman wasn’t motivated by wealth or status, like most of the kingdom. She didn’t care much for tradition. Summoning was dear to her, but it was nothing she’d wage war for.

There was only one thing Lou seemed to care about. Love. Particularly, her lovers, as no matter how many people she asked, they didn’t know anything about her family. Not even with Lou’s cousin in the room.

Lou reminded Yulia of a young girl. Or perhaps a young boy. Maybe a mix of the two. The key was that her dreams were adolescent in nature. She wanted to live happily ever after in domestic bliss, the most common dream among young girls, surrounded by beautiful, adoring women, what Yulia understood to be a common dream of young boys.

Her strength wasn’t to protect herself, defend the kingdom from threats, or lift her family to greater heights. No. She had trained and magically cheated her way to the strength of twenty men so she could sweep her wife off her feet in the bedroom. That’s it. It’d almost be romantic if it weren’t so ridiculous.

So. The most powerful woman Yulia had ever seen, physically, who seemed to be immortal, without mentioning her wife’s pure physical affinity, was a complete pushover when it came to the women she loved. The female equivalent of Yulia’s husband.

One of the qualities she loved most about the man was that he knew when to let himself be led for his own good. A crude person, or her sister that was determined to think the worst of her, would call such a thing manipulative but Yulia didn’t see it that way. Her marriage was a partnership. She trusted him in matters of war, never questioning him when he discussed strategies for the campaigns or adjustments to his men’s training. And he trusted her when it came to social matters and housekeeping. Whatever…influence she exerted over his actions was in his, their family’s, and Victory’s best interest.

Alana was in the exact same position, with an even more influential wife, pending, and Yulia had no doubt Lou intended to make good on that promise, but did she do anything with the resources at her disposal? The opportunities practically throwing themselves at her? What did Alana plan to do with what amounted to the sharpest blade in the kingdom at her at her beck and call?

Sit on a couch while a girl with furry ears pawed all over her while several more women swarmed her wife to be. Yulia tried not to be judgmental, as the north saw all kinds of relationships. Having multiple lovers, or even conditional lovers, wasn’t unusual when spouses went off to war for a whole season with good chances that they wouldn’t return. The duke himself had three wives.

Yulia would never approve of a harem in her house. Perhaps it was a selfish view, but she saw love as a finite thing. She believed someone could love multiple people, but she didn’t believe anyone could love equally. More importantly, love required care that couldn’t be given to multiple people.

Her views were formed from watching her mother’s unhappy marriage and cemented by her own experiences. Growing up, she had many admirers. A boy first confessed undying love to her when she was fifteen winters old. She couldn’t picture his face well, given half of it was wrapped in bandages, half of his mouth turned up in a pained smile as he presented a titan’s tooth to her, hoping the war trophy would impress her.

It hadn’t, but his passion had, even though she didn’t entertain it. She didn’t think it was wrong, enjoying the admiration of others, being showered in their care and surprised by their tokens of affection. Perhaps it was selfish, her sister certainly seemed to think so, but she also hated when that affection waned. It was particularly bad when she was younger.

Despite being a James, she was a useless fighter. She had no interest in war whatsoever and wouldn’t think about it twice if it wasn’t necessary. Yulia didn’t have much of a talent for anything. She loved art, really all things bright and colorful, but that didn’t extend to creating it. Even her ice gardens were a mere idea. Someone else had brought it to fruition. She didn’t like working with her hands and didn’t have a head for contemplation, thoughts easily distracted and swayed.

Her only gifts were a pretty face and a affable personality. One drew people to her and the other made them enjoy speaking with her. As her husband once said, she put people’s hearts at ease. It wasn’t much in a world full of knights and titans but it’s what she had. And she had been desperate to keep it, carefully doling out her smiles, hugs, and kind words.

She’d accepted her lot in life but that didn’t mean she didn’t long for a different kind of power. It’s what made her choose her husband. In the end, soothing hearts wouldn’t change the north. That required strength, the more of it the better. The Northern Devil had wanted love and she’d needed a sword. He was a simple field commander now but, in a decade, or two? He’d be worthy of being a duke of the north.

But Lou…the sloppily smiling noblewoman thoroughly enjoying her party could be a queen if she only gave the slightest damn. From what Yulia knew of her abilities, she could waltz into the palace and snatch the king from his throne without anyone being able to stop her. Not a single person. And from their conversations while on the road, she was under the impression that it was a purely physical advantage. Despite being an acolyte of the Hall, Lou hadn’t dedicated herself to her magic. Once she replaced some of her frivolous tendencies with a bit of discipline, she’d be a true monster. An unrivaled sword.

With a few glasses of the delicious wine in her system and in general solitude, her presence going mostly unnoticed with the crowd absorbed by the show, her mind considered the possibilities. What such a sword could do in her hands. Ancestors, her traitorous mind could easily imagine it. But they were silly flights of fancy. She wouldn’t trade her family for anything, not to mention she and Lou were completely incompatible.

No, she would have to make do with being a sister-in-law. And if she wanted to reap the benefits of the relationship, and help Lou in the process, she wasn’t completely selfish, the only way was to go through her sister. Which meant repairing her relationship with Alana.

Something she’d been trying to do for years, her efforts amounting to nothing. But they were different people, especially Alana. Perhaps now, united in purpose and surrounded by good cheer, Yulia could finally melt the ice between them. She would have made the journey for that alone. Hopefully, together, they could do some good for the people of Quest. Then, Yulia could indirectly point the sword of Lou at the north. She had big plans, for all of them.

The more wine she drank and the longer she stood in the vibrant air of the party, the more outlandish those plans became and the more determined she was to see them come to fruition. So determined that she convinced herself that perhaps her usual subtle measures needed to be set aside in favor of more…direct means.