“Twelve years.” A burly man in less-than-impressive clothes mutters on a grassy lawn behind the castle. A dozen freshly pulled flowers sat on the stone before him. Drips of water striking the flowers quickly bead and roll off the petals. “Every damn year it rains on my birthday.”

The butler behind the man quietly nods. “Truly a shame.”

“I suppose you are going to tell me its nearly time.” The king says turning back to the trusted servant.

“Your party will not begin without you, your highness. Feel no need to rush yourself simply becau…”

“Got it, Got it.” The king stifles a grin and begins to retrace his step towards the castle.

The butler, taking up a position gracefully behind him again speaks once far away from the grave site. “Your daughter was looking for you early this morning. Were you able to meet with her? It seemed fairly urgent according to the maid I spoke with.”

“I did.” The king nods quietly. “We spoke.”

The butler, unsure what to say remained quiet as they continued to trudge through the brush at the outer edge of the castle’s grounds.

“More and more like her mother every day that girl.” The king eventually chuckles to himself. “Say, Bo. Mind helping me with one final thing before this shindig starts.”

“Of course, your highness. Simply name it, and so long as it is within my power…”

▐◊▌▐◊▌

Business is always good around celebrations like this. And, even more importantly, people tend to be loose lipped when around peers in the capital.

Honestly, owning a bar is the perfect cover for someone with my position. It’s easy to leave in the event I am called to action, and I get a front row seat to the inner thoughts of the nobility.

“Another two over here, Hyde.” A man in a far corner of the bar shouts with a hand raised.

Isn’t it a taboo to call a ranked noble by solely their last name? Although here bar laws tend to trump written ones, so I suppose it can be forgiven. Readying a second cup I uncork a cask and tilt it off the rack. Serving the couple their drinks I can’t help wonder how Aryn is handling the capital.

It can be stressful to move from a small town like dad’s frontier village to a big city like this. Although I suppose he probably doesn’t get out of the castle much.

I hope he’s getting along with everyone. My colleagues who work in the castle talk highly of him, but I can’t help but wonder if they are just trying to make me feel at ease.

The bell on the door, chiming to bring me back to reality, made me realize my thoughts had materialized. And a signal to receive a report.

Casually greeting the group of guards from the castle I take their orders and a silver coin as a front from each.

The light one is easily distinguishable. Depositing the rest into a metal crate, carefully I fish the slip of paper out of the hollow coin with a thumbnail.

Figures.

They want me on the town during the event. I am shutting down the bar anyway so I may as well.

Originally, I was going to attend the party with Dad and Skule but a holdup during the frontline drills forced them to cancel. And seeing as Aryn and I don’t exactly speak to each other much, it felt pointless to go alone. Patrolling town with a few other incog’s would be a much better evening than I had planned.

▐◊▌▐◊▌

Now I can’t help but notice the similarity in accenting colors between me and Lotil. Probably because I only saw a mirror a dozen minutes before the party started. I hope I am the only one who notices. Was it the maid, Tasha, or was this another concoction of Lotil?

Luckily the food is good, or I would never be able to let the issue slide. But tell me, honestly. I don’t want any side pedaling of the question here. Real answers only.

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If I am eating steak at four o’clock while standing, is it lunch or dinner? I see dinner as a seated, eight o’clock meal. So technically, this is closer to lunch which is a noon to one o’clock meal. But who would have steak at a lunch? Maybe this is one of those hybrids?

Dunch?

Linner?

In any case, compliments to the chef. I need to get more of those roast potatoes before they run out.

A solitary benefit of being Court Adjunct is I rarely have people I must talk to at these parties. So long as I stay within a certain distance of the King, in order to mask my security detail, I basically have the freedom to do whatever I want. I don’t envy Lotil who has an endless line of clowns vying for her time.

I’m not jealous. If any of these people were realistic candidates a marriage would have happened the day she turned sixteen.

I don’t know why my mind immediately jumped to that. I’m sure most of these people have totally reasonable reasons for wanting to talk to her. Despite being a princess, she holds quiet significant amounts of sway in politics and industry.

Seemingly noticing my glances Lotil shoots me a cute grin and wave. She must realize she is making these spine-tingling gestures, right?

Everyone around her seems to have noticed. ‘Thanks a lot Lotil’ I wave in response with a plastered grin.

Seemingly now proud of herself, Lotil continues her chat with the Kosgroph patriarch.

Come to think of it, I often see Winston carrying books beside various levels of researchers and he never seems to call me out when we cross paths, so from the looks of it he really doesn’t remember much from the examination period.

I also heard Wilt is working the ovens in the kitchen under the tutelage of the current stoke-master. As bad a job as it sounds, it’s fairly prestigious. The mana required to fire all the stoves in the castle is quiet an undertaking. The maids were whispering that today would be the first time he would take complete control over the entire kitchen. It’s make or break.

Judging by the doneness of the potatoes I say he’s doing a superb job.

I really can’t get over these things.

▐◊▌▐◊▌

Signaling a butler nonchalantly he sets off to begin preparations. It’s about time.

Finding an easy out in the conversation with the East Setican Trade Co. branch head, I take it. “If you want to talk about seafood imports then Minister Kirk over there would be the one to talk to, or since its regarding cosmetic production, the princess might be willing to assist too.”

“Thank you very much your majesty.” The man bows nobly “I will certainly talk to them.”

Perfect out.

“Well then everyone, if you’ll excuse me it’s about time I thanked all the attendees. It would be impolite to go too long without proper pleasantries towards everyone who traveled so far.”

With the rehearsed line delivered without a miss I nod to the awaiting line and turn towards the stage centered in the wide ballroom.

In my life before all this I would have felt it was gaudy and sickening. But now I rather like the stylings of nobility. Perhaps it is because my own tastes have been adopted into the standard. Ten years ago, a stage like this would have never been set up. Black was for funerals only. The color of death, but that’s why I embraced it. I’m a king of death. Countless deaths bought me my throne. So why not decorate with it? Years of that excuse seems to have paid off.

Too cool.

I’m glad I chose the long flowy cape. The burnt one wouldn’t have flipped up as I stepped up to the stage.

With one last check of my watch and a glance at Aryn to my left everything was prepared. Time for the ball to drop.

▐◊▌▐◊▌

The group I was partnered with include two I trained with in my first year in the capital. This is a typical grouping, since we regularly spend days off together not only do we coordinate well but we have the chemistry to pull off the role of drunken festivalers without arousing suspicions.

I honestly didn’t know what to expect when I enrolled to be a covert op. soldier. I didn’t really understand how covert ops. fit into the battles this country could face. I never realized the thousands of battles that happen daily to maintain the stable control of a country spanning from ocean to ocean. A country which maintains the very boundaries of the human continent, a country that can’t be allowed to fall.

So far throughout the night we have only seen typical festival behavior. There was chatter about rioting but from the looks of things it may just be the usual empty threats from nutjobs.

“Seems like there’s a tussle up ahead. Want to check it out?” Tirus asks after a long moment of squinting. As the person with the best vision we typically leave Tirus to long range scouting. And his question was only rhetorical. He warned us about the fight and informed us that no guards had arrived yet.

If the situation were different he would have said ‘looks like trouble’ to indicate it was already handled, or ‘we can take the back way’ which indicates they should split up in the nearest alley to report the situation while leaving someone to observe it from afar and assure the safety of the citizens in the area.

All these codes are self-made and are extremely extensive. I can describe a person head to toe and, to any outside observer, it would sound like a sandwich order or directions to a nearby pub.

None of this is trained behavior. If it were, the secret would be out. All of this is left to the agents in the field. As a test, regularly squads are sent to spy on other squads. If they can break your codes its back to fatigues for the whole group.

To be safe our group regularly changes our own code. Two years ago, a fight would be reported to us by Tirus complimenting a passing woman on her appearance. This quickly became a hassle when we were deployed into one of the more male dominated areas of the slums.

Not to mention Tirus’ proclivity to woman meant there were often false flags.

By the time we reached the fight a patrol of guards arrived, and we went back on ease.

But the feeling was short lived. A shrill scream cut through the air causing every onlooker to stop in place to look.

What we saw when we followed the source was exactly as horrifying as the scream implied.

It’s impossible.

There was no report of the line collapsing. How could they possibly be here?