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Afi had said she wanted some air. I’d been around Basil and Esmi long enough to know that this was fancy-folk code for you people make me sick and I’m going to lose my shit if I have to look at you for one more second, but there were a bunch of open doors leading out onto balconies all over the place, so maybe she’d meant it literally. The night air was cool and fresh after the stuffy heat the duels and dancing had packed into the ballroom, but Afi was nowhere to be seen on the first one. More than a few heads turned to take my measure, but apparently my stiff vest and trousers weren’t peacocky enough to keep their attention, because everyone turned back to their drinks and conversation. One raucous table near the end of the balcony had a cards-on-the-table match going on, and as much as I might have liked to stay and watch, I figured Afi wouldn’t appreciate it if she found me spectating when I should obviously be seeking her out to make amends.
It was an odd feeling, trailing after her like some kind of worried suitor. I wasn’t that, or at least I didn’t think so. Afi seemed more interested in me than I’d ever expected, certainly, and she’d been pleasing and attractive company all evening, but neither of us owed the other anything. It was more that I suspected she might become a good friend, and I didn’t have so many of those that I could afford to throw away new ones before we even got to know each other. Plus, for all of my complaints and hedging, some small part of me wanted to step out on the dance floor with her. I’d never gotten to hold a pretty woman in a beautiful dress close like the rich folk did, and I wanted to, maybe just once. If that cost me an apology, I was glad to give it.
As I made that apology I needed to be more careful about what I said about my mother, though. Telling Basil and Esmi about her was one thing, and simply letting Gale know she was demonkind was safe enough, I thought – it was her actual identity and connection to me that she wanted protected, I was fairly certain. But then I’d popped off and told Gale that she’d stolen my soul card, which hadn’t been smart or safe. I’d been trying to protect him, but… I didn’t want him knowing that about me, and if he happened to mention it to her, she might decide that was crossing the line. He hadn’t believed me, and he was better than half-drunk, so maybe it was a moot point. Either way, I needed to explain to Afi why the woman was so fixated on me without giving too much information. My feet were used to sneaking into corners and onto rooftops, but my mouth had never learned to do anything but crash through the front door.
I worked my way back through the ballroom toward the next balcony – on the west side? I couldn’t keep my bearings in this massive building – winding my way through noble party-goers, hangers-on, and servants.
A freckle-faced girl tugged on my sleeve, the bright silk of her gown not quite enough to distract from her gangly growth spurt. “Do the boys in the Lows do it different?”
I blinked at her. Three of her little friends were clustered behind her, waiting breathlessly for my answer. “Do what different?”
All four of them shrieked with laughter, clutching each other and whispering giddily as they scampered away, peeking back every few seconds. The girl in the shiny gown strutted in the middle of the others, proud to have braved the attention of a dangerous specimen such as myself. I shook my head, bewildered. What would it be like to have that be the riskiest interaction you’ve ever had? In days past the thought might have made me angry; now it just left me bemused and maybe a little envious. I pushed onward, thinking about what I might say to Afi.
“Hull,” said a musical, commanding voice. “Attend us.”
Jerking out of my thoughts, I looked up to see the Queen beckoning to me from a low divan. A dozen people or more clustered around her, and in all the commotion I hadn’t noticed that I’d drifted right past her.
Steeling myself, I approached and gave the best bow I knew how to make. From the snickers and whispers of the crowd, it didn’t pass muster. “Your Majesty.” What am I supposed to say? “I am… at your service.”
“Very good,” she said cooly. No one gasped or frowned at me any more than they had been already, so maybe I’d said the right thing, or at least a thing that wasn’t wrong enough to raise a stink. “It did not escape my notice that you offered to duel in young Hintal’s place. Are you his bondsman?”
I licked my lips. This was Gerad’s mother, the wife of the insane King. Does she know I’m his bastard? Why else would she call me over? Does she think I’m a threat to her boy? “I… I’m afraid I’m not sure what that means,” I said, cringing inwardly as someone nearby tittered. “Is a bondsman like a servant?” The tall fellow in rich robes standing just behind her cleared his throat and glared at me. “Your Majesty,” I amended.
“Ah, to hear such honesty,” she said, chuckling tolerantly. “I could wish you would teach some of my courtiers a lesson or two. A bondsman is sworn to the service of one of the great Houses, young man. Such a one might be considered a servant, but more commonly they are squires or even knights.”
I cast a quick glance around at her retinue. All were watching me, some with greater interest and some with lesser, but no one seemed inclined to help me as I waded in conversational waters that were far too deep for me. “I don’t know about that, Your Majesty. We’re friends, is all.”
She raised an eyebrow. “It’s not often a boy from our rougher neighborhoods forges a friendship among the high families. Your station has risen quite some distance in a very short time.”
Sweat sprang out on my forehead, and my vest suddenly felt very tight. “Basil has been very kind to me, Your Majesty. I’m not a big one for station or any of that. I just want to do well in War Camp, improve my deck, and serve in the army. Nothing more.” I’m harmless and I’m not going to bother your precious princeling. Please, Twins, let her believe me!
A tiny frown marred her porcelain face. “For one who performed so well in the Tournament, I would hope for a little more ambition.”
I felt a thread of wetness trickle down the middle of my back. Does she not know, then? She must. She’s a powerful woman in her own right. But she wants me to be ambitious? Perhaps she shared her husband’s obsession for advancing all of humanity. Either way, I needed to thread this needle very carefully. “I want to work as hard as I can to elevate myself so that I can serve in whatever spot Your Majesty and our glorious King see fit for me.”
She inclined her head the barest fraction. “See that you do. I hope to hear of great things from you sooner than later.” She looked at me meaningfully, but Twins twist me if I knew what it meant. Was she telling me she knew who I really was? Was she encouraging me to challenge Gerad? Or was she just a nice lady trying to be kind to a poor kid obviously in over his head?
She waved me away, and I bowed again, hopefully a little more smoothly this time. Bt the time I was standing straight again, not a single one of her courtiers seemed to even see me anymore. It was as if I had ceased to exist once she’d dismissed me. So much the better.. I turned to go and nearly ran into a Soul in pale, gleaming armor that had been standing right at my elbow, silent as the grave and totally unnoticeable.
image [https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdogSPD-RXXBtoJ8PQ-nzB3lIkiE3pdUuhWiUa7ef9lyZZmkX-JspWNENKDgXe5re0gyEN8344nWaf9YukVdtuSHg3E2AYvHjBoidxxymfDl-HwdKFojAY_W40doCu0ZPZHsVFiPSV8eRKsvSlybkk7dR11?key=Doe2A6nkNdpGqJ0SnCF7wQ]
“Fortune’s balls,” I muttered, my heart racing. It was one of the Queen’s bodyguard cards, by the looks of it. If I’d so much as sneezed at the wrong time, it could have skewered me before I ever even knew it was there. I hurried toward the balcony, glad to have gotten out of the encounter with my skin intact. The Queen had been gracious and kind, in truth – far more than I would have expected from the woman who whelped that monster Gared. Either she was a better woman than I suspected, or else she knew how to put on a good show to make it seem so. I doubted I’d ever find out which it really was.
More table games and chatting clusters of nobility dotted the west balcony. It was a long, curved affair that seemed to wrap around half the building. I followed the path around the curve, glad to let the night air wick away my nervous heat. Fewer people were congregating out toward the balcony’s nether end, and a screen of potted front plants made a little nook out of the furthest most corner, and it looked like an inviting spot to sit and collect my thoughts in relative privacy for a moment. The fronds rustled in a gentle breeze, seeming to call to me.
When I approached, though, I saw two people huddled close beyond the trees. Someone had already beaten me to the private spot, and based on thow close they were standing and the furtive whispering I could just hear over the rustle of the fluffed-out fronds, they might not appreciate being interrupted.
“That’s despicable,” I heard one say in low, indignant tones, and the sound stopped me dead in the shadow of the potted plants. It was Afi.
“Don’t be an ass,” said the other, a young man’s voice I felt I should recognize. “This is the way it’s done.”
Afi’s voice rose, and I could hear her clearly now. “You call me an ass? That’s a marriage contract you tried to slip me into, and not even a good one. Twins take me if that’s a sanctioned contract card. You went to some back-alley contract Smith, didn’t you?”
The boy sounded disgusted. “You think a lot of yourself if you think I’m going to pay to have the Dacrekin House’s Mythic judge Soul create a contract for an up-jumped washer girl. You should be hiking your skirts at the very thought I would stoop to have you.”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“I’d sooner hike my skirts for a Troglodyte,” Afi hissed. I’d never heard her so angry, not even when I’d let her walk off without me. I wondered if I should step in, but I wasn’t sure if she’d think I was overstepping. Obviously some poor fool had offered to marry her, and she wasn’t having it. A hint of jealous pride made me stay right where I was to listen.
“Why else do you think my parents spent all this time and money on you?” the boy asked. “It wasn’t for your looks, and it wasn’t for your charm. The only possible reason to keep you around was to elevate you enough to make me a good match. I don’t love it any more than you, but let’s hold our noses and get the thing done.”
I knew who it was now, and my fists clenched. That little shit-weasel Warrick had stopped sniffing around Basil during the Tournament, but Afi worked for his parents, and apparently he thought that gave him privileges.
“They kept me around because they needed a duelist to represent the family and you refused to step up,” Afi countered. “Neither your mother nor your father have ever said a single word about matching us.”
“What’s a fruit-seller’s daughter going to know about how the heads of a great family are thinking?” Warrick said. “It’s all implied. You learn these things when you grow up around it. Just put your finger on the card and have done already. Once I knock a baby into you I’ll never darken your door again, I promise.”
Afi went rigid and loomed over the shorter boy. “You try to knock anything and I’ll knock you right off the balcony.” she growled. “You think your handful of cards will stand up to a three-story drop? Touch me and you’ll find out.”
Warrick gave an aggrieved sigh. “I didn’t want to do it this way, but you’re forcing my hand. Touch the card and seal the contract… or I’ll make sure you never get what you want.”
She laughed right in his face. “You wouldn’t know what a girl wanted if she shouted it in your ear. You’re so obsessed with the idea that I’m trying to take your place. Use that soul ability of yours and actually hear what I’m saying, Warrick: I don’t want your position. I’m not secretly trying to get your parents to adopt me, and marrying me isn’t some devious master play to neutralize my ambitions.”
“I do use my hearing ability,” Warrick said. “In fact, I used it last month when mother forced me to visit my family’s training academy and you were having a private conversation with Headmaster Macilwain. Those doors are six solid inches of ironwood, and I heard every word.”
Afi went very still.
“You want to be a faculty member at the school, and you think Mum and Da will be so grateful for all your work in War Camp that when the Headmaster requests you, they won’t think twice.” He giggled, an ugly little sound. “Listening to you gush about all your research interests while he pretended to care just about made me lose my lunch. I’d be a very attentive faculty member. Do you think he even realized you were trying to slither into his robes?”
“Don’t,” Afi whispered, soft and dangerous. I could barely hear her over the rustle of the leaves.
“Touch the contract card and you can fondle the Headmaster to your heart’s content,” Warrick said. “Say no to me and I’ll make sure no school in any of the great cities will ever take you on.”
I expected her to make some withering comeback or say something that turned the whole conversation on its head – she was smart, capable, and a ruthless duelist. Instead, she stood there silently as he extended a card to her. Her hand twitched at her side.
I was suddenly very glad I hadn’t walked away when my inner coward had told me to. Stepping around the fronded bushes, I fished the brass knuckles Artifact out of my pocket and slotted it onto my fingers. Warrick, with his enhanced hearing, heard me as soon as I moved and whirled to face me as I came into view.
“This is a private conversation,” he snapped. “A gentleman would know better than to interfere.”
“Good thing I’m just a gutter rat, then,” I said cheerily, tapping the weapon into my other hand. “How we doing, Afi?”
She looked relieved to see me, but she still mustered a scowl. “Bad company no matter where I go, it seems.”
“Sorry about that,” I said. Turning to Warrick, I very casually held out a hand. “Let’s see this card you were arguing about.”
“That’s none of your concern,” he said.
“Afi asked me to escort her tonight,” I told him. “I may not have done a good job so far, but I think her concerns are my concerns right now. Besides,” I continued, quickly summoning a Nether and pumping it into my brass knucks as I laid a heavy hand on his shoulder, making the claws snik out just past his earlobe, “I wasn’t asking.”
Warrick shot a panicked glance at Afi. “Can you not control your dog?”
She looked at him like he’d just tracked shit in on his shoes. “You think I’m going to take your side after you threatened to blackmail me into marriage?”
“Let’s see this, then,” I said, reaching out to take the card from his unresisting hand. He looked ready to piss himself.
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“So if you touch the card you have to marry him?” I asked Afi.
She hesitated and then nodded, waffling a hand. “It requires intent, but yes. The card captures a bit of your blood, and that’s what seals it. But I’ve never seen a contract this bad before. We’re not even named!” She shot a withering look at Warrick. “You’re supposed to go to House Dacrekin and use their official judge card for this sort of thing. It’s a Mythic, and the contract cards it creates magically compel fulfillment. For cheap knockoffs like this, he’d have to take it to the City Watch or a palace magistrate to enforce the terms.”
“‘Seven years of servitude for breaking contract,’” I read off the card. “That’s steep.”
She looked at the thing over my shoulder, careful not to touch it. “You piece of shit,” she said to Warrick. “‘All winnings or positions?’ After everything, you still believe I want your parents to adopt me.”
“It’s the smart thing,” Warrick murmured, holding very still and watching my clawed weapon carefully.
“I have an good idea,” I said to Afi. “Or maybe it’s a bad one. You mind?”
She gave me a sharp nod. “Whatever you want.”
“Please don’t hurt me,” Warrick whispered.
“I won’t,” I told him. “Not yet, at least. But this” – I waved the card at him – “is bullshit, and you’re not getting it back. In fact…” I summoned three more Nether as quick as I could and pumped them all into the Artifact, feeling the good old rage rushing into me. I set the card on the wide stone railing and slammed the claws down onto it, Nether flashing purple. The card shattered with a crack loud enough to draw gasps from distant nobles further down the walkway.
“You can’t do that!” Warrick cried, gaping at the cratered holes the claws had made in the stone. “That’s my property.”
“It was,” I agreed. Two irregularly shaped Basic shards sat amid the stone chips and dust I’d left behind. “But you were blackmailing the woman, and I like her more than I like you, so…” I shrugged. “Feel free to keep the shards, if you like.”
“I’ll have you jailed,” he said, puffing himself up. “I belong to House Erlun.”
“Or,” I said, putting that clawed hand back on his shoulder and squeezing hard, “you can apologize to Afi and never speak of this again. That’s the smart thing.”
Afi came to stand at my shoulder, and I could feel the fierce satisfaction rolling off her.
“Go on,” I urged him.
He looked up at her sullenly and back down again, mouth hardening.
“You've seen me duel,” I said casually. “Remember the big demons? The fast ones that laugh a lot? They killed a man and ate him. I saw it.”
Horror flashed across his face, and I felt a quiver pass through him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to Afi. “Really.”
“Good man,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder. I turned to go and then paused. “Oh, and I’ll be asking her regularly about how she’s getting on with the academy. If I hear a peep about her getting turned out…”
He nodded vigorously.
I extended an arm to Afi, who took it, and we strolled away, leaving Warrick cowering behind the screen of potted frond trees.
“I didn’t think I wanted to talk to you again tonight,” she said. “Turns out I was wrong.”
“Good,” I replied, grinning. “It’d be hard to apologize for being a complete ass if you refused to speak with me.”
She glanced back. “You came down on him pretty hard. He’s always been a little shit, but all he really ever wanted was his parents’ approval. I almost feel bad.”
“Don’t,” I told her. “I’ve known guys like that before. If you don’t stop them cold, they just keep getting worse. If you let him get away with this, he’d have made your life hell.”
We strolled aimlessly and chatted, avoiding the crowded ballroom – much to my relief – and enjoying each other’s company. I was able to convince her that my mother was a crazy older kid I’d known in the Lows when I was very young who’d been something of a caretaker to me despite her obvious instability, and she seemed to accept that it was one of those connections I found cumbersome but couldn’t quite be rid of.
Fortunately, she was so worked up about Warrick that her earlier annoyance with me was gone and forgotten. She told me story after story about how he’d been demanding and grabby with her from their very earliest days together. “Honestly, I’m surprised he hasn’t tried something like this before,” she admitted as we walked the empty hallways together. It seemed the entire staff of House Hintal had been mustered to tend to the festivities, and there was something sneaky and forbidden-feeling about walking around like we owned the place. After a time, Afi began to pick random doors to try to peek through. Most were locked, but we found spare servants’ quarters, linen closets, and once a creepy, disused sitting room with all the furniture covered by thick dust cloths.
“I meant what I said,” I told her. “If he tries to keep you out of the academy, tell me.”
“And you’ll have your demons eat him?” she smirked.
She didn’t know about Ticosi; she thought I’d been bluffing. After a moment’s thought, I decided I’d like myself better if I had been. “Maybe just a finger or two.”
She laughed, leaning into me as we walked. “Challenging people to duels and saving the maiden in distress from her dastardly suitor. You’re a walking penny romance, Hull.”
I shrugged, blushing. “You’d have made short work of him yourself in a moment.”
She sobered quickly. “I don’t know. I do depend on his parents. Without their patronage and recommendation, the academy would never look at me twice. It’s a fine dance trying to fend him off without being so offensive that he convinces them I’m a bad investment.” She shook her head sadly. “All he wants is a pat on the back. If they’d spent half the effort on him that they do elsewhere, he’d have been a fine son.” Then she chucked me on the shoulder. “It’s a good thing you came along, that’s all I’m saying. Thank you.”
I hardly knew what to say. Something inside me wiggled like a little puppy, but my mouth had stopped working. Casting my eyes around desperately, I saw a set of fancy double doors at the end of the hall and pointed to them. “Want to see if that one’s unlocked?”
“Ooh, fancy. It’s too far out of the way to be milord’s bed chamber and too ornate to be anyone else’s. I’m betting… reading room, or maybe solarium.”
I blanched. “These people have rooms just for reading?”
She laughed. “You’re just asking that because you don’t know what a solarium is.”
I had a snappy response on the tip of my tongue, but to my surprise, the handle turned and the door opened. I’d thought for sure it’d be locked. “We’re in luck–”
My voice died in my throat as I took stock of what I saw beyond the doors. It was a lavish room paneled in dark wood, with shelves upon shelves upon shelves of books. Deeply-padded winged chairs were scattered in artful groupings across the white furred rugs that carpeted the floor from edge to edge, and gentle orange elemental globes cast a warm, inviting glow across the space. And there, right between two chairs draped with discarded clothing, lay Gale, naked as a baby, his arms and legs splayed out, his eyes rolled back in his head. My mother was stooped over him, wearing only a silk shift that covered exactly nothing where it bunched around her waist. She had a look of ecstasy on her flushed face, and she was pulling something out of the boy’s chest.
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She was holding his soul card in her hand.