Theo refused to see Lucius. He didn’t even assign him patrols through the city. Orders from the king reached Forum before Lucius’ leisurely return and while he was able to surmise what the king had ordered, it wasn’t until weeks later that the Steel Blade asked him, “How did you do it?”
The two of them were in the academy library, the Warden Blade flipping the pages of a mythology book while Lucius read histories on Aillesterra. The entire winter had been passing with a lack of privacy and growing boredom among the knights tasked with keeping Lucius in check. Boredom, and irritation that it wasn’t even impeding Lucius in the slightest. The man plainly was doing exactly what he told everyone he was doing. He was preparing to go to war with the pirate empire, for the good of Vassermark.
And he was doing it with blood on his hands.
“You’ll have to be more specific,” Lucius said, jotting down logistical notes and calculations. For lack of access to the king’s spy network, he had to guess the military strength of Aillesterra and construct variable equations that could be quickly updated when proper intelligence was given to him. No matter how he ran the numbers though, the cost in blood of subjugating Aillesterra would be too high even before factoring in the divine beasts. As long as the clans were united, the land could not be taken without inviting Skaldheim to march south.
Lyam shut his book. “How did you kill Valerie? How did you do it and get away with it?”
“I didn’t,” Lucius answered.
The Steel Blade rose. “How did you do it?”
Lucius sighed and began tidying up his space. He stoppered the ink pot and shut the books as he said, “Lyam, you and I both know that Theo gives you lot contradictory orders to what he tells me. I was told by the king to fix the situation at the docks. When the time came to act, she went off on her own. I assume to put an arrow through my skull the moment she could justify killing me. Unfortunately, she went off on her own during a bloody riot that got over a hundred people slaughtered. She was hardly a passing duelist, you know that. If even two men had gone after her, I would have had to save her but I wasn’t able to because she left!”
“She was a smuggler. You think she would have been done in by thugs?”
Lucius stood up and faced him. “Don’t you think that was exactly her issue? She was used to being treated like scum because she used to be scum. She used to look like it. But, when she arrived at the docks with me, she was seen wearing official marks. Even if she ditched them, someone would have seen her. They followed her. They did her in precisely because Theo is trying to kill me, and I will not stand here arguing with you about it.”
Lyam’s nostrils flared. “Don’t call him scum.”
“Or what? Going to hug me for a few hours until somebody realizes we’re late? And who do you think will notice first? Theo? Or Leomund?”
Lyam snarled, but backed off. “I hope Feugard kills you. I really do. I may understand why the king is leaving a bastard like you alive, but I don’t like it.”
“Would you like front row seats? It’ll be quite the show. Happening at the Quartz Bowl tomorrow. Everybody who’s anybody will be there, or so they say,” Lucius said as he began returning books to their shelves.
“A proper duel should be outside.”
“Spectators don’t like the cold.”
“A proper duel has witnesses, not spectators.”
“Come on, get with the times, Lyam. War is diplomacy and dueling is politics. You can tell the Wavefront Corporation I sent you if you want to watch. They’ll put you right up front.”
Lyam threw up his hands. “And why is a business sponsoring a duel!”
“To make money. They fronted the cost to rent the theater and are charging for entrance. The winner of the duel will be getting half of the profits too. I thought an additional wager was appropriate. Gives Jules an excuse to hire somebody who’s actually good in a fight to put on a show,” he said as he shook out his parchments, then rolled them up into a scroll case.
Lyam had to follow as he left the library. “Where are you going, Solhart?”
“Home. You’re welcome to follow. I hear the stables are warm enough, with all the horses shitting in there. Just be nice to the stableboy I hired.”
Lucius had in fact expanded his domain in the city. Before leaving the capital, he had gone back to his various allies and–based on his success–left with purses of silver from each of them. When Lady Solhart had been given the ship schedule, she had agreed to write a letter of credit and the neighboring house had been bought for her and Aria to move into.
When Lucius returned to his manor, and Lyam left to report to Theo with a pair of guards to watch the street, Aria greeted him in the front hall. She had declined her mother’s invitation, and her insistence. “Back from your tea party already?” he asked.
She winced. “I don’t want to talk about it. Why are you back from the library already?”
“Unpleasant company. Anyone else home?”
“Just Lupa. She… was in the kitchen,” Aria said, looking up the stairs.
Lupa leaned across the bannister in a thin dress entirely unbecoming of the season, or of polite company. The hem of the skirt was high and the neckline low. “Welcome home, Lu,” she said, playing with her hair which had been tied into a long braid.
“And here I thought you were wasting my money.”
She laughed and hurried down the steps, but fell into his arms at the bottom when her heeled shoe betrayed her. “How can I still not do that?” she complained as she pulled the shoe back onto her foot.
Aria rolled her eyes. “Girls who wear those don’t go running in them.”
“Why would you wear shoes you can’t run in?”
Lucius cleared his throat. “How’s Alexander?”
“Sleeping. He’s as greedy as his father, you know that?”
“What? How is a baby greedy? You mean he’s eating well?”
“Milk, getting carried, play, everything! You have any idea how lucky you are that I’m here?”
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“You know I’m grateful,” he said before kissing her.
Aria coughed. “You’re courting Felicia, aren’t you?”
Lucius looked up from whispering compliments on the dress. “She knows.”
“I’m sitting down,” Aria declared, leaving the hall.
Reluctantly, Lucius followed her and Lupa let him go. Aria had sat down at a desk with a history book she was supposed to be studying for one of her lectures, but it was uncharacteristic of her. Like most students at the academy, the knowledge was secondary. He didn’t have to say anything upon entering. Without looking at him, she said, “She still doesn’t know you’re not you.”
Lucius sat in another of the chairs. “Let me ask you a question. If your brother had tried courting Felicia, would she have even considered him?”
“No,” she said. Then she turned to face him. “I know you’ve told me before, but you didn’t kill my brother, did you?”
“It wasn’t me. I was busy stealing his armor when he marched into a riot and got his head cut off in the mess.”
“Mother must have asked me a hundred times while you were away just what happened to change you. She wants me to go back home when she leaves. The only reason she hasn’t already gone back is because I won’t go with her. I keep telling her I don’t want to go back just to get poisoned. Speaking of, have you heard anything.”
“Nothing. I imagine I won’t hear from him until he’s back himself.”
“And what if he’s dead?” she asked, almost jumping out of her chair.
Lucius scoffed. “He’s not dead.”
“Damn you, Lucius, or whatever your real name is! Do you even realize what you’ve done? I’d say I should have never gone to see you, except I know that I’d probably be dead within the year even if I had stayed home. The entire world is falling apart right now!”
His expression softened and he looked at Aria. The cracks were finally enough for him to see through. “What’s happening now would have happened regardless. Maybe not this year, but it would have happened. I assure you.”
Tears brimming, she asked, “And how do you know that?”
“Birth rates. The point of no return was passed before either of us were even born. When Vassermark was founded, over seven hundred years ago, everyone was considered nobility. A blip quickly rectified as criminals were stripped of their status. Because the reason for class divide was manifest, the difference was absolute. The temples ruled back then. Their role changed as they developed their alchemy. A division formed between temple and state. Divine right was maintained through the crown, but it wasn’t always the Arandalls. They’ve only ruled for the last two centuries or so. In the beginning, the duty of the nobility was war and prosperity. The great had to lead. Every conflict winnowed their numbers until the lower class had to be levied. They were granted rights in exchange. Again, a further class of undesirables was created to separate the citizens from the criminals. Generation after generation, the ratio of nobility to citizen shrank until your generation which didn’t even replace itself. Farmers are having seven kids per coupling and even after disease takes its toll, the fate is for the citizens of Vassermark to be all that there is. Even now, they constitute the vast majority of all positions, both in state and in temple. They form their own unions and corporations to govern their own affairs. There is no competency difference between the children of nobility and the children of the people. You see it for yourself in every lecture. Tests are graded fairly. The common students exceed the nobility nearly every time. There are no blessings reserved by the gods for the nobility, none that are manifest at least. Most don’t even have stigmata. That’s one of the reasons people accepted me. They wanted to believe that a noble miraculously discovered an innate talent, both in terms of war and from the gods. They wanted to believe that their children could surge forth. Until recently, not one family would dare suggest that my stigmata was evidence that I was not Lucius… Aria, this is a storm that was coming, and all anyone can do is grab hold of enough strength to weather it.”(1)
She wiped away her tears and composed herself. “And that’s what you’ve done, is it? Grabbed power?” All he could do was smile and turn up his hands, which hardly satisfied her. “Why do you even put up with me? I could testify against you.”
“By the time you met me, I was beyond worrying about some sort of court case. I can’t be brought to trial. Perhaps another man would have killed you before an issue could arise, but I had wronged you and the thought of compounding that crime sickened me.”
“He’s just weak to a pretty face,” Lupa said from the doorway. “Lu, there’s someone at the door. She said she’s here to apply to be a maid.”
“And you didn’t turn her away?”
“You should see her,” Lupa said, and that got him on his feet. He made a few strides to leave, turned back to Aria and said, “If it puts you at ease, I promise you that I have no ill intentions toward you and never have. If I was worried you’d conspire against me, I would have prevented you from coming here to Forum at all, much less have tea with the other nobility.”
She sank into her chair. “If only that was what the gossip was about.”
She didn’t elaborate and Lucius exchanged a look with Lupa, which she understood to be him asking her to get the explanation out of Aria. Then, he returned to the front hall and found a woman the age of Lady Solhart standing with her hands clasped to keep them from shaking. She was still in a traveling cloak, snow dripping off of it. Her cheeks and nose were both rosy from the cold, but there was no luster of life in her eyes, only sorrow. “I’m not here to be a maid,” she said.
Habit drew Lucius’ hands to his sides but he had no weapons on him. They were close enough at hand however. “Is that so?”
“You’re being monitored. I thought an excuse would be prudent.”
“Only if you have something to conceal.”
Her lips pressed into a line. She attempted to speak several times before she said, “You investigated the murder of a professor recently. Three of you, I’m told, but I was told that you were the only trustworthy one among them, so I’ve come to you.”
“Why don’t you come into this room? We’ve a fire going,” he said, and brought her to the dining room where she could sit down.
The woman revealed her fatigue as she sat down and took off her gloves. Her skin was pale for lack of blood, but she made no complaint. “You don’t know this, but the man who was killed was my husband.”
“The professor?”
“The neighbor. I’m sorry, but everyone was tight lipped about it… you won’t be happy with the reason. My husband was a soldier, but he deserted. They didn’t catch him, but they did seize the property. It was supposed to be auctioned off, but I think the person responsible was killed back at the rebellion. The property was just locked up and forgotten, so my husband returned to it and was living in squalor while he tried to find some kind of solution. I was ashamed of him, living with my uncle instead. I know he should have been sentenced to death, but to be stabbed and left like that. That’s not justice, Sir Solhart!”
Lucius’ eyes had narrowed as his thoughts deepened. “Which army did he desert from? Was it mine?”
She shook her head. “Certainly not. He served under the prince. Prince Gabriel that is. In a few of his letters, he said Gabriel had lost his way, that he was insulting the kingdom with his actions. I believe there was some trouble with a troll at one point and in the confusion, he escaped in the night. Apparently many men had been killed in a swamp and he thought he wouldn’t be missed. He may have been right, but… it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Did you come here to confess on his behalf?”
She shook her head. “I have a description of the men that went in and came out of my former home. But what was strange was that the man who went in, he had the look of the east and was short but not unnaturally short, was never seen again. Instead, it was my husband who was seen leaving, before his body was found in the very house he had left!”
Lucius smiled and began interrogating the woman on every detail she could provide. She hadn’t been the witness, but she gave him directions on how to contact the firsthand witness. When she had relieved herself of the information, he offered her some food and sent her on her way with a recommendation to the Wavefront Corporation for employment. He couldn’t hire her as a maid, but he made a promise that he would repay her in time.
When he returned to Aria and Lupa, his smile was hardly appropriate for the mood, but he couldn’t help it. “I’ll be dueling Feugard’s champion soon. Will you be in attendance, Aria?”
“I will be,” Lupa declared.
Aria nodded. “Felicia asked me to go with her. You’re going to win, right?”
“More than you can imagine. If you can, you should prepare a wager on me. What I’ll do to the Feugards is something you can actually blame me for. In this case, protecting the Solhart family honor is in my own best interests. I simply suggest you capitalize on it.”
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1. An entirely correct analysis. Any reporting to the contrary is either a fool’s mistake, or propaganda.