5th day of Zun’s Rest, twelfth month of the year, 983:

Soral flexed her arms in front of her mirror. Her muscles were finally starting to define themselves a bit, the training wasn’t being for nothing. ‘All that work has finally paid off.’ Thought while inspecting herself. After a while, she finished dressing and walked to the window.

The slums stood now proudly in plain view from the castle. The mad man had managed to completely reform the outer ring before winter managed to arrive. She had to give him the win here, nobody would die from cold this year. While turning to the table she meditated about giving some encouragement to the carpenters that had worked from noon to dusk to achieve this total reconstruction.

Soral looked at the table, and read again the letter that had been sent to her. The unsealed wax carried the, now deformed, coat of arms of their Rightful Liege, the Countess Simil of the Rosekeepers, ruler over the county of Astar. This county engulfed over 20 baronies, and served, together with the other 4 Countesses, the Duchess of the North, administering the cold north frontier of the Empire.

“My loyal vassal, Soral of the Ashen, soon to be baroness of the Alpin barony, we hope this letter finds you in high spirits.

You have been invited to the coming of age of my heiress Maliz, your future Lady, that will have its place on the ‘Welcoming of the Sun’, a month from the start of winter and a month from when this letter finds you, we hope.

We are sorry for the brevity of this letter, but there’s much to be done on our domain.

May you find prosperity,

High Commander Kraus, loyal vassal of Her Elevated Authority, Countess Simil”

Her fury from the first read she gave it hadn’t cooled down yet, wanting nothing but to beat up that arrogant woman for the agravant disrespect she had shown them. She had neither invited Noct, who she vowed to force to act as her escort for these festivities just to spite her. Nor had she written the letter herself. With a badly hidden scorn she was already cursing his luck, it was going to be Nether for her. A woman who knew not to sew and dance and, what’s more, who had the budding body of a warrior? She was going to get chewed out. “Maybe having my brother come along wouldn’t be that bad. He ought to bait most of the looks to himself.”

With this on her mind, she got dressed and left her room to search for her brother.

Crossing paths with Lumia, she asked, “Where’s Noct?”

“Good morning, lady Soral, he is already working hard on his personal room, should I….”

Without letting her finish, Soral resumed her trot. She was already making a list of the things she would need to look presentable and planning both the guards and the route to take with the carriage.

Not bothering to warn of her presence, she entered the study and sat in the chair in front of Noct, smacking the opened letter on the table he was writing on.

“You know there’s some….”

“Spare me your nagging, Noct. I need you to get a couple things.”

Reading the letter, the face of Noct started to look a little angry and, in a calm tone of voice, asked, “Are you going?”

“Of course I am going, are you a moron? The Duchess is also going.”

“....care to elaborate?”

“She wouldn’t have invited us if she didn’t need all the might of her complete force of vassals and her reputation as a countess. You add the late trend of securing her vassals the Duchess has been undertaking together with the importance of an heiress reaching maturity and it is a foregone conclusion. Failing to present her respects when one of her countess calls for it would be detrimental to her position. I would expect all of the other baronies to come.”

“I see. What do you require?” Asked Noct, finally resting his quill.

“Your best men for the escort, at least eight guards would be necessary, counting the elites. I also need you, a dress, accessories and a carriage. Sorak I can get her myself. Ah, of course, a gift that acts as an insult but one she wouldn’t be able to return easily. Maybe your puppet wizard has some nasty hat or something.”

“If you are asking something of me, maybe you could, at least, ask with respect when you require from mine vassals.”

“Ha! You, caring about other people? Never took you for a clown. You would be better at that job too.” Laughing a bit, she continued, ”Still. you know this letter is intended for you, right? In the eyes of the northern nobility, you are the true baron, the power behind the curtains. I may be the de jure baroness but, ‘till you prove it, I am but a legal receiver. If you do not make me pose as the true ruler nobody will see me like that, even if you really give the throne, you know?”

Breathing in to calm his ire, he answered, “I do not care. You can disrespect me all you want but, “His eyes growing cold, ”disrespect my vassals another time and I will get you dressed on the rugs of a slave. Maybe your arrogance will decrease a bit.”

“....what happened to you to be in such high spirits? Mulia gave herself to you?” Asked, surprised, Soral. He had recovered a bit of the fire he used to talk to her before his change. Nonetheless, and in spite of her disbelief, she fully regretted the words she had said when the eyes of Noct met hers. “Now he is angry, great work, me. Now was not the time to poke the bear.”

“I will let that comment pass by as if I did not hear it. There won’t be a second chance. You want to go to the ceremony, fine, I never intended to not let you go. You want to appear as a baroness and not as a puppet? Then I will dress you as one. You will have to act as one too.” He rose up from his chair, grabbed her, and phased them both on a shadow walk, his signature teleportation dark spell.

Emerging from the shadows near an alchemy store, Soral doubled down and started puking in the road near the wall of the building, nauseated by the dizzinning teleportation his brother used. “He did it on purpose, the fucker!”

“When you are feeling ready, enter the store.”

Soral tried to make a snarky reply but opening her mouth was a bad idea, as she doubled down again.

……….

“To what do I owe the work, Lord Ashen?” Said a reptilian, a cold blooded biped species with the body of a lizard similar to a human one but covered on scales. The warmth of the store contrasting with the cold outside.

“The same as always. For two”

“Upping the anti-poison dosage of your sister with the anti magic ones, I see. Something big coming out?”

Smirking, Noct asked in return, “Do you want to know, Silvius?”

“...no m’Lord, I don’t think I want to, no.”

“Smart answer.” Not much later after, both started laughing.

By muscle memory, entering his sales pitch, Silvius returned to the matter at hand, “Well, here you have it, sixteen different anti-poisons and eight different varieties of anti-magic poisons all mixed in one easy to drink potion. Two of each. Remember to come before five weeks or it will lose effe…..where is your sister?”

As if he had called upon a devil, Soral, pale as a ghost, entered the store.

“Pardon my interruption, I’m Lady Soral of the Ashen. A pleasure to get to know you, head alchemist.” She tried to curtsy, nausea making her give a simple nod.

“I am the honoured one to be in your presence, my Lady. As I was explaining to your brother, these potions will start to lose effectiveness after thirty days, and I won’t be able to testify for their effectiveness, my Lady.”

“I see.” Looking at Noct, who had already started to drink them, she got to it. They tasted appallingly bitter, so much she felt her stomach settle down. She didn’t know why, but it felt very familiar. Achaking it to the sickness of before, she finished drinking it.

Putting two gold coins on the counter, Noct beckoned Soral to get out of the store. Now alone, Silvius spat, “It is two silver coins, m’Lord.”

“Everything alright in the city, Silvius? No more problems with the guard?”

Giving up, he reluctantly answered, “No, m’Lord, since the opening of the free classes the people calling me a monster or getting scared have disappeared. That or your warning to the guard of, and I am paraphrasing, ‘insult a sapient member of the races and I cut your tongue for you to eat it, no matter how they look’. You should relax a bit, being discriminated against is not as bad as getting hunted for your scales.”

“I do not care about your opinion, Silvius. I am happy you are feeling more at home.”

“Me and my family too, m’Lord. Not so bad to see a city full of different species in the north, I would have never expected it if you had told me 4 years ago.” Putting away the coins, he continued, “Come again, always a pleasure to do business with you.” Doubting for a bit, he added, “The orphans won’t need your donations for long, the slums will house them.”

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Not answering, Noct left the store.

……………….

“Now are we going to….?”

“The craftsman Guild, you wanted accessories? There they are.”

“.....” She hadn’t expected him to humour her that much.

In silence they walked towards the Craftsmen Guild. While they walked Soral could but gaze around, she usually didn’t leave the castle.

The city was bathed on a white carpet of snow, giving it the typical look of a city of the north with thousands of chimneys blackening the snowing sky with their smoke. Bonfire, as it was called the city, in jokes and giggles by the first settlements and now with the normalcy of everyday life, had, partially, recovered its old cosy feeling. Short and chunky houses that betrayed their warm interior, ample roads to ease of movement that were maintained relatively free of snow thanks to the work of the guard, and hundreds of people of different ethnicities and species walking on as they lived their lives. Her small work had done wonders to give it the feel of a normal city, and the vigilance state of before had almost dissipated. The new magical streetlights already in place, she wondered from where Noct was getting the money to better everything so quickly.

Looking to Noct, she took in a sight she was not accustomed to. He had discarded its usual armoured appearance with a normal, black winter cloak and the working clothes of a common craftsman, which did wonders for the normal walk they had been enjoying.

“....so, what are we going to buy?” Tentatively asked Soral, trying to dispel the illusion of how great having his old brother back.

Noct hadn’t thought that far ahead, and took a long look at Soral. Black hair that had a dark blue hint, green eyes that shone pure, a fair face, toned arms, legs and defined abdominals from the training lessons. A good looking young almost 16 years old lady.

“Maybe a light green necklace to favour her eyes, a headband of onyx with a few sapphires of dark blue, long bracelets of slightly darkened silver, a simple but heavily embroidered dark purple dress, that would one up that damn countess, and long boots. ” Meditated Noct

“...hello?”

“....and a sword; a rapier and a parry dagger suit her combat style. I got work to do, maybe the best metals would be….” Before he could start sinking in his craft a waving hand in front of his face woke him up.

A faintly reddened Soral was puffing at him. “I am not a painting AND you are bothering the people walking. Move!” said as she started to pull him towards the Guild. Realising what she had done, she retracted her hand, something Noct was still too engrossed to realise.

…………….

“So you want a large dress that’s not symmetric and it is made of the most comfortable and resistant cloth we have, and tall boots like yours but less tacky?” At the words of the head weaver Soral couldn’t but let out a mocking smirk. Noct gave it no attention and responded.

“Yes”

“No dyes or nothing? Do I have to remind you that the most durable and comfortable type of cloth is not the best for dresses?”

“No need.” Now Soral had grown a bit scared.

“Really now.” A bit exasperated by Noct’s apparent ignorance of the art of weaving, she gave up and accepted this request. Looking with pity at the young lady, she finally gave a date. “We can get it as quick as in three months, one if we give it priority. We have a lot of orders already so I do not think it would be possible.”

“Then I will build the materials.” Soral was by now pale. Sensing her distress, the woman tried to help her.

“Are you really sure? It is not something a newbie can manage and maybe we could finish it earlier. If you do not employ us I cannot testify for nothing more than the quality of the cloth.” Tried to convince him.

“How much?”

“....1 silver and 90 copper coins.”

……………………….

Back at the castle, Soral followed Noct when he entered his study and closed the door just before him. Soral, flabbergasted, stood in front of the door, locked out.

After waiting for a few minutes while knocking on the door, hoping he would realise he had left the measures for the dress he was going to make outside his workplace, she gave up and went to train, not seeing Mulia enter the studio with the master key of the castle, a thing she had forgotten it existed.

On the castle grounds, under the snowing sky, she grabbed a random wood sword and tried to keep his head straight while remembering his training lessons as she warmed up with some swings. She would have been alone if not for the daughter of Andras, who was being tutored by Sorak on straightforward manoeuvres.

More centred on their session than hers, she listened to them.

“Focus on the spacing and always have in mind where your equipment is at all times. Fighting with a shield could turn into a death trap if you do not take it into account, tripping it on a stone because you lower it too much will destroy your stance.” Said Sorak while peltering Samil with strike upon strike.

“Hold it steady but do not block your vision with it, watch your steps, raise it but position your legs to not get stabbed,” Upon saying this, a high stab came flying that Samil blocked just in time,” That’s right! If you had pushed my sword up I would have been wide open to a counterstrike!”

Samil was way too exhausted to answer and quietly asked for a time out. Having been stalking them, Soral walked towards them to find a punching bag to soothe her anger.

“Good work, Samil.”

As Samil could only nod, Sorak answered their liege, “It is a pleasure to see you, my Lady. Training?”

“Yes. If I may ask, could I join you?”

“Gladly!!” Beamed Sorak, “Andras has been complimenting you non stop, so I am expecting a good performance, my Lady. Are you up for the task, Samil?”

“Yes, I think…I am.” She lifted her wood shield, one of the same kind that Sorak used and readied her wooden short sword.

Sorak twirled her rapier and examined the lashing of her buckler. She was left handed, so that shield would be a bit less of a problem, as Samil was right handed.

“Begin!”

Sorak quickly rushed forward and feinted towards the face of Samil, forcing her to raise her shield, and, stabbing her in the knee, Soral quickly backed away. She circled around Samil, using her tiredness against her, pressuring for an attrition battle. She pestered her with small but safe strikes, a slash on the hand carrying the short sword, and stab on the side, a glancing blow on the face and lots of ineffective, evaded or blocked, strikes.

Noticing time wasn’t on her side, Samil charged against her, failing to catch her with an horizontal slash on the retreat by a centimetre, as her shield and fatigue were making her movements difficult. Having almost lost, Soral doubled down on the caution and continued the stalking. The battle followed those lines, with Samil trying to charge by surprise Soral and Soral waiting for her to tire out. She slowly stalked more and more closely until Sorak missed a wide swing and got stabbed in the chest.

“I…yield”

“Huh, good habits. Andras wasn’t just sweetening the apple. You maintain your level headedness even in the face of victory, and you don’t get carried away, a normal fault in fighters who had the advantage.”

“Forcing an attrition battle was a smart choice, you couldn’t have beaten her any other way. You were on pretty thin ice, that first shield charge almost got you. Never underestimate the speed one can accelerate to in a mere moment.” Meditating about the fight, Sorak nodded to herself.

“You really took Noct’s lessons to heart.”

“Thank you for your kind words.” Her excitement reduced by this therapeutic fight, she returned to his duties, forgetting her training.

………………

As Noct was nowhere she knew, the following week she spent doing the work she had been preparing all her life for, administrative work. Accepting and judging permits, licences, managing the barony’s guilds and carefully supervising the implementation of the new farming techniques on the nearby villages. The new upgrade to the sewers, thanks to the investigations on mushrooms conducted by Albestus’ Research Guild, had raised their fertiliser output by an almost unusable amount. They would have to expand the farms or export it to other baronies.

How Noct was able to upgrade so quickly the end points of the sewers with the mushroom farms was beyond her.

She finished the last stack of documents and fell on the table of Noct’s study. She had never felt so drained and it hadn’t even been ten days. She would really need to decentralise all the bureaucracy or she wouldn’t be able to get out of this room. “Why the hell would he need to micromanage the economy?” So many regulations, upper limits for the prices of basic commodities, a stratified taxation system proportional to the wealth, workcamps for small criminals on guilds that would get them a future job. Did he hate nobility and rich people that much? This was madness.

Facing the window, she realised why the city had not collapsed nor run away but prospered with baby steps despite the huge debt of the Ashen household. He had had to make it attractive for the common people.

Powerful people brought stability, but that was not needed when ruling as strongly as he did; rich, skilled people brought business, but if one was able to make them they would not be needed; innovation sprung the money needed to be able to do all of that with time, and they were now ripping the benefits of that money sink. “Cunning, I will have to give him that.”

What she didn’t know was that the limits to the cost of living and proportional taxation had come from Latraz, as it had hammered onto Noct the principles of equality and that everyone needed a living space worthy of them once it had learned them; the Guilds had come from Eve when he had spent a day cursing his ignorance on construction work, “Just find people to do the work for you, and slave them to the gold you pay them.”, had said Eve, and the fund to innovations had come from his hopeless aspirations of being a researcher.

Reclining on the chair, which she bowed to switch for a high end couch as it was giving her back pains already, she watched as the shadows rose up, forming the silhouette of her brother and soon enough, letting colour come to him as he exited his phasing. He was carrying on his arms some purple dress and boots. His face, on the other hand, looked tired and sleep deprived, darkening the seemingly shining of the beautiful clothes he was carrying.

She rapidly grabbed the clothes and looked at them. Not believing her eyes, she went back to his room, as the study didn’t have mirrors, and quickly dressed up.

The reflection returned her with a long purple dress with embroidery in the form of the style of warriors of the Ashen Household, emulating the armour her ancestors, the warlock hunters, wore to battle, the ashen armour. It did not hide the dress behind the millennium old history of the family she was so proud of, but accentuated it as the dress of a ruler that commanded from the front.

Near his waist it had frills in the form of black fire, undulating spikes and a more aggressive dark colour, that drew gazes to them, highlighting the open cut on the side of her left leg for ease of movement and flowing to the black boots. These were more the kind that would be used in a battle, even if they lacked the armour normally used, as they had been woven imitating the greaves usually worn by knights, almost reaching her knees, reinforcing the image of strength of the outfit. The dress body highlighted her budding figure but maintained the waving pattern of the boots, as it played with the seams and shadows to imitate the evil look of the ashen armour. Even if it looked a bit gaudy, it was too comfortable to move in to be called a dress. The dress’ arms finished on armlets of simple onyx, letting her arm’s skin stand bare till it reached a wristlet of onyx, too, now adorned with a small darkened sapphire in the center of it. To end it all, a darkened silver necklace with a small emerald.

She rested a tambling hand on the glass, not believing her eyes. It was the most unorthodox dress she had ever seen, as it stood proud of its warmongering roots, damning to Nether what the nobility had to say about the jobs despised as men’s. It glorified the figure of a knight, long berated for its warmongering connotations, and stood in the image of the ashen knights of old. What she saw in the mirror was the fairy tale his brother had always read to her on her bed; the tale of a noble woman who had forsaken his birthright and had disgracefully taken a sword to save her lover from the fangs of a dragon, the tale of the first Knight. He still remembered her favourite fairy tale.

Returning to the study, she found Noct collapsed on his bed. After doubting a bit, she crouched down a bit and whispered, a shily current of air that a small gust of air would drown out, next to his ear, “Beautiful work, brother.”

………………….