“Fucking Eloken gets to enjoy the festival while I have to suffer here,” Echo said fidgeting with her gown unconformably.

“Relax,” Trotk said carefully. “We get to enjoy ourselves too. We get to drink their expensive wine and eat their best food and for free at that.”

“To hell with their wine and food,” Echo said loosening one of the buttons and finally relaxing a little bit. “You only say that because you ate hound food for the past seven months.”

“Hey, hey,” Trotk said cheerfully. “Don’t get mad at me. And for the record, hound food is decent, or so I’ve heard, not that I’ve eaten it there.”

“Where are these three,” Echo asked and Trotk shrugged his shoulders.

Eloken had issued a rule to bring at least two students to each of the balls or big events they attended so they could get accustomed to the way of Isari nobility and acclimate themselves with them. Also, they got to hang out with the sons and daughters of the Isari elite and those kids often blurb out things unintentionally, Eloken always had a hidden motive for everything.

One of the customs Echo found weird is that every attendee had to bring their servant to the gathering, and they would make them available to help their servants during the event and it was also customary for the servers to clean after their own. It was an old custom that people tried to get rid of a few times, but somehow it still prevailed.

Moments later three of them finally walked out of the Academy building. Serpahius was explaining something to the two students. Tall lanky boy with messy dark brown hair and unshaven remanences of a puberty beard and blonde-haired girl with piercing blue eyes. The boy was wearing a now customary dark blue Academy coat buttoned to the top while the girl like Echo had a gown made specifically for this event and later on the materials would be reused for something else.

“Nice of you to show up,” Echo said.

“Sorry Mistress Echo,” Serpahius said in an apologetic tone. “I needed to help the kids get dressed and go over the customs one more time, it’s their first ball after all.”

“Don’t apologize Serpahius,” Trotk chimed in. “Echo is a little nervous.”

Echo shot him a look and Trotk just smiled back, “Alright let’s go then.” Echo said.

Two carriages waited for them a short walk away from the Academy door. Eloken took three carriages from the king himself and the royal carriages were as grand as they came. They were sleek and elongated, able to seat four people and their carriages for the long trips comfortably.

They were designed with an elegant curvature that gave them a menacing look. The body was crafted from a dark, polished wood that shone under the moonlight. It was carved by one of the Isari best artists with an intricate silver filigree and each carriage depicted a scene from one of the Isari legends. The Isari loved to travel in style and show their wealth whenever visiting the neighboring kingdoms.

The windows were tinted a light blue, offering privacy to the travelers while still allowing them to view the world they passed outside.

Each carriage was drawn by two large horses, the Veldrunners. This breed was used for war, with long, flowing manes and tails that shimmered with a spectral hue. Their coats were a mix of deep blues and purples depending on their gender, the male horses being more bluish than the female. Once retired from the war, these rare creatures were given a life on the lavish Isari nobility farms and they were only used to move carriages. For their size, they moved with such a grace that often left people speechless.

The journey to the ball was a smooth ride, the Veldrunners’ powerful strides eating away the distance to the grand Denris House on the outskirts of the World.

The Denris family was one of the oldest in the Isari empire, their roots spreading to the beginning of the Isari kingdom. They were always intertwined with the kings or rules in one way or another, and their history was one of riches and power.

The mansion itself was a testament to their wealth and lavish taste, with towering spires and wide balconies all across the three-story building. The gardens were kept tightened and displayed a variety of the most exotic plants, trees, and flowers from the continent, including one of the rarest flowers, the blooming spirit, a flower that glowed in the dark, each night a different hue of one of the green, blue or purple.

As if the motion of people and the glowing spires of the mansion were not enough, two rows of blooming spirits painted a clear way toward the grand mansion’s entrance. As they disembarked from the carriages, Echo caught sight of the other arriving guests. Nobles and their entourages from all corners of the Isari empire were gathered. All of the women wore gowns, so Echo didn’t feel as bad for wearing hers, while the men wore neatly tailored coats.

As they approached the entrance several servants in crips uniforms bowed respectfully as they passed, offering glasses of wine, Trokt couldn’t resist so he grabbed one glass before even going through the mansion door.

Like most of the Isari manors, the inside was decorated by tapestries depicting the glorious history of the Isari empire. The crew was escorted to the grand ballroom by the servants who waited for them inside the manor. The large ballroom was a spectacle of its own in most manors, but the Denris family had to outdo everyone, so they somehow looked even more lavish.

Not long after they arrived at the grand ballroom, Echo found herself standing uncomfortably alone at the table, cursing the day Eloken forced her to go instead of him and Trotk for leaving her alone here.

Moments later she was approached by a man, in his early forties by her judgment. The man had that nobility walk, each step taken with the confidence and an aura about him that Echo despised in most Isari Elite, but this man, this man somehow made it work.

He walked straight to her, taking her hand in his, which she allowed him to do, and kissed it three times left right, and in the middle. “My name is Reobard Denris, would you care for a dance Mistress Echo?” He said in a confident tone looking her straight into her eyes.

The man was of average height but had wide shoulders that made him look a little bit intimidating at first glance. He had a short haircut, neatly cut and trimmed to fit his round head. His beard was short and stubble, only his mustaches were longer by half a centimeter.

"Or perhaps you prefer Echilia Hourtas?" His voice was soft, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he uttered her real name.

Echo met his gaze, her eyes betraying a flicker of surprise before she masked it with a nod, silently consenting to the dance.

“I do my homework for all my guests,” Reobard whispered taking her to the middle of the dance floor. “Especially the important ones.”

“What makes me important?” Echo finally spoke, following his rhythm. She wasn’t a great dancer, but she could dance, she hated that she could, but she could dance pretty well.

“Eloken trusts you with everything,” Reobard changed the rhythm along with the song. “And he is the most important person on the planet at this moment, all eyes are on him.”

Echo didn’t say a word, she changed her moves to match his and came a little closer which made the nobleman loosen his grip a little bit.

“That must be a heavy burden to bare,” Reobard continued. “One can't help but wonder about his ultimate ambition." His question was direct, stripping away the pretense.

Echo chuckled softly, her lips curving into a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She leaned in, her voice matching his almost whisper-like tone. “I am afraid I am not at liberty to discuss that, you will have to ask Eloken himself.”

“A game of shadows and whispers then,” Reboard said matching her smile. “But remember, Mistress Echo, even shadows reveal themselves in the right light.”

As soon as the song ended Echo excused herself from the dance, she felt a surge of fury building up in her because of the nobility games, so before she did anything stupid she moved back to her table.

“Shit, they are here,” moments later Trotk joined her at the table looking concerned.

“They who?” Echo asked.

“Stonecutter Guild, or at least their leader,” Trokt said looking around the room frantically. “I just saw him come in.”

“Shit,” Echo exclaimed. “Let’s walk.”

Two of them started walking around the large ballroom, greeting a few people here and there, stopping for a brief moment to exchange pleasantries with some of the guests, but with the corner of their eye, Trotk was looking for the man.

“There,” Trotk said as they moved away from the elderly couple that gave them compliments on their looks. “That’s them,” He said subtly pointing at the man with a gray hat and dark gray suit.

“That’s their leader,” Trotk continued as they moved slowly towards them. “He is the one that was pitching the weapons to Joixari. And those two,” He shot a look at the man and a woman, dressed nicely but out of the place for Isari ball. “They are with him.”

They danced around the hall keeping an eye on the newcomers with each step. Minutes later they were approached by Reobard Denris and two other Isari noblemen.

They shook hands, exchanged a few words, and slowly, not to draw attention walked out of the ballroom into one of the hallways.

“That’s not good,” Echo said, still gazing where they stood moments ago. “They just left with the heads of three out of the five most influential Isari families.”

“Yep,” Trotk let out. “We need to hear what they are talking about. I can’t move freely here, everyone knows me.”

“I’ll try, maybe we can send Yslvia or Odren.”

She scoured the room for two of the students and found them mingling with the nobility youth, Yslvia was casting a light spell above their table for the amusement of all the attendees. Echo called Odren from the table and left Yslvia to keep them engaged, whispering to her to pretend to cast a larger light spell on accident to draw the attention of the room.

She instructed Odren to go outside and try to find which room they were in and if he could scale the building or somehow reach their window using his Vis source. After Odren left Echo took a drink to make her breath smell of alcohol and then spilled some of the wine over her gown. She excused herself from the party to look for a bathroom and snuck into the hallways where the nobleman and stonecutter guild members walked in minutes ago.

The hallway was long and dark, only lit by several oil lamps that shone dimly. Each side of the hallway had several doors, she walked past each of them, leaning in trying to hear any sound from the rooms, but to no luck.

The hallway split in two, and she was sure she heard words being spoken in the right wing. She followed the sounds she thought she heard, but the hallway had another turn. Peaking around the corner she saw two guards standing in the end of the hallway by the larger door. That must be the room.

Echo tried to think of a plan to distract the guards reaching one of the adjacent rooms and trying to overhear the conversations between the two parties, but nothing short of knocking out both guards came to her. She wanted to go with that plan and for a moment she was fixated on it, she would throw something as a distraction around this corner, hide in one of the doorways, and knock out both guards before they could react.

But that plan was faulty for multiple reasons, she would make a noise as she dismantled guards that would alert the people having a meeting and possibly other guards, even if she didn’t make noise she couldn’t just kill two guards for no reason and they would most likely recognize her there was no time to make a makeshift mask to cover her face. But worst of all she was in the god-forsaken gawn and wasn’t sure if she would be able to even hit one of the guards before they disabled her.

So reluctantly she decided to return to the ball and cut her losses hoping Odren maybe found a way to listen in to a meeting. As she turned to leave her gown hit a cabinet on and the wase fell from it shattering into a million pieces with a loud bang.

“Hey who’s there,” One of the guards yelled as he ran towards her with a spear ready in his hand.

Echo saw him running and thought about knocking him out and engaging with the second guard before he could react, but that was not an option.

“Ohh, clumsy drunk me,” Echo said in the most drunken voice she could act out. “I am sorry I’ve broken that I will pay for it.”

“You are not supposed to be here Madame,” The guard said seeing it was a lady in a gown, stumbling drunk.

“I am sorry,” She said channeling the most clueless drunken noble woman she could think of. “Silly me, I’ve spilled wine on myself,” she pointed to a red spot on her beige gown. “I was looking for a washroom where I could try and salvage this.”

“There are no bathrooms here Madame,” The guard’s facial expression changed and he stiffened a little bit, Echo guessed he recognized her. “You should have asked one of the servants to point you to the washroom, but here, I’ll take you.”

“Thank you,” She said giving him a wide warm smile. “Thank you a lot, I am sorry to be a burden.”

“Not at all Madame.” The young guard led her to the nearest washroom which was luckily in the same hallway as the ballroom, but just the left turn where she took the right, so she had a plausible story on why she was there if the guard relayed the message to Denris. She went into the washroom for a couple of minutes and left immediately for Trotk and Yslvia, to her surprise Odren was already there with them.

“Any luck?” She asked him.

Odren shook his head, his expression one of disappointment. “Unfortunately, no, the yard is swarming with guards, particularly around that balcony overlooking the meeting room," he confessed, his voice tinged with frustration. “I was able to get close, but not near enough to catch any words and I didn’t want to risk getting caught.”

“You did well,” Echo reassured him placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, and the boy’s posture softened a little bit. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s all mingle a little bit more and we exit in an hour.” Three of them nodded and spread around the party once more.

The following hour was uneventful, they had a bunch of small talk with minor nobles but no information of any use was soaked in. During that hour Echo ran into Serpahius and informed him about their earlier exit. As the night flowed, the nobility got drunker and drunker, music was louder, it was a good time to learn any new gossip or information from them, but Echo felt that she heard all of those stories already.

As agreed upon earlier they all met by the exit and she excused them from the party looking ‘for Lady Denris as Reobard was still at the meeting, she presumed, as he was nowhere to be found.

Lady Denris was a nice, sincere woman, who felt a little insulted that they left this early, but still escorted them outside and waited until their carriages arrived.

Serpahius was already in the front carriage. “Do you mind if I ride with you Mistress Echo on our way back?” Serpahius asked in his consistent tone.

“Of course not Serpahius,” Echo answered. “Why do you even have to ask!”

“But can we leave those two alone in the back carriage?” Trotk asked half-jokingly looking at the two students who were talking in hush voices, visibly tipsy.

“Are you two ok to ride alone?” Echo asked them.

“Yes Echo,” Yslvia answered right away and Echo gave them thumbs up.

“You think Mistress Yslvia and Master Odren are kindling a romance?” Serpahius inquired as he stepped into the carriage.

“They are young, tipsy, and possibly stupid,” Trotk blurred out with a chuckle. “So I’d be surprised if they didn’t.”

“We were much worse at their age Trotk, do you remember?” Echo said as she closed the carriage door behind them. “How many people have we conned, robbed and god knows how many other awful things we’ve done, compared to that a little fling is nothing. Let the kids have some fun.”

“Don’t remind me,” Trotk said, providing a bottle of the Veil Vintages he stole from the party, with a dumb grin on his face.

Once they were out of the mansion and on the cobbled stones of the Worlin city Echo and Trotk had downed almost half of the Veil Vintages.

“The reason I wanted to ride home with you,” Serpahius cut through their chatter and they turned towards him.

“Well, you see…” He continued. “Master Eloken handed me another assignment before he left.”

“Of course, he did,” Echo couldn’t hold the words inside her.

“He wanted me to snoop around a house and look for an object I can’t disclose right now,” Serpahius said with an apologetic look. “But while I was looking for that I found myself in one of the rooms on the first floor, and while there I started to hear voices coming from above through the open balcony. I think it was Denris speaking with people that had an unfamiliar accent, so I listened, thought it might be important.”

“And what did you overhear?” Echo asked.

“Nothing good I am afraid mistress,” Serpahius said shaking his head. “Those men offered Denris and the rest of them some kind of weapons, and I am afraid the deal has been made as far as I was able to hear.