“What exactly did you think you were doing with that display!?”

After his surprising success in the trial duel, and the offer of his first gift, Oliver had been in high spirits. He had hoped to find the woman who had given him the runeblade, to return the gift and to thank her for her help, but his father found him first. Oliver had quickly found himself hustled into a small side chamber, his outraged father between him and the door, and he didn’t feel quite so pleased with himself anymore. He hadn’t even had the chance to recover the marvelous longsword.

“It was that or defeat, father,” Oliver insisted. He kept his eyes downcast and his words carefully toneless.

“And you think that makes it okay, boy? The fight doesn’t match your strengths, so you just go and change the rules?”

Arthur Dennan had little in common with his son, physically or mentally. He had the lighter skin tone common in Terast, having journeyed to Elliven decades before in an attempt to establish himself. Oliver's own skin was a couple shades darker, thanks to his mother’s Westerlen blood. Arthur’s hair had once been a deep black, but age and stress had overcome the influence of his Initiate level, leaving it shot through with white. Still, his graying hair was much darker than Oliver’s rich brunette. As always, Arthur wore a simple steel rapier at his right side and an ostentatious silver ring, his own ensouled item, on his left hand.

“I wasn’t going to come out well from the duel in any case, Father. I’d rather the reputation of a rebel than that of a loser,” Oliver replied, unable to keep a faint hint of resentment out of his tone.

“You dare bring up reputation? You were supposed to be the courtier of the family, boy! After this thorough embarrassment, we’ll be lucky to get you into any social circles. What gift did you even get from that foolishness, the brawler?” Arthur spat the last word, making clear his opinion of the most recklessly aggressive of the Warrior’s gifts.

“The vanguard,” Oliver replied, his voice a little stronger this time. He had only just received his first gift, but already, he could feel it emblazoned on his soul, and it felt right. Comfortable. Correct, in the same way that his preparations to earn the blessing of the fencer had always felt wrong. He wished he could see the brand too, as he felt it on his upper arm, but now wasn’t the time to roll up his tunic sleeve.

“The vanguard, of course. I might as well just throw you into the city guard. At least there you’d do some good.” Arthur paused, as if considering his own words for a moment, then shook his head dismissively. “No, not that. Maybe… where did you get that runeblade anyways?”

Oliver flushed at the question. It was a splash of cold water on the slowly building fire in his chest. “It was a gift.”

“Well aren’t you getting all sorts of inappropriate gifts today?” Arthur jeered. “Who, then, gifted you a piece of artifice worth more than you are?”

“That would be me.” The door behind Arthur opened briefly to admit the woman Oliver had met earlier. In her hands, she carried the shimmering runeblade he had left on the dueling strip when he slipped away. “Pardon my intrusion.”

Oliver looked up in surprise–her words were polite, but they were not a request. They were a command, spoken with the complete confidence that his father would comply.

“What are you doing here?” Arthur insisted, his rage making him ignorant to the woman’s confident demeanor. “And who are you, encouraging my son to be so reckless?”

The woman slowly turned to look at Arthur. Her eyes slid over him, as if only now fully noticing him for the first time. After a moment, her nose wrinkled in a hint of disgust. “You dare to speak of recklessness, Arthur Dennan?” she asked. The gentle encouragement she had spoken to Oliver with earlier was nowhere to be seen now. She barely bothered to conceal her loathing. “You, who sold out your own son to impress the Gerrots?”

Arthur’s face went noticeably pale, and Oliver looked sharply between the two. Sold him out? She couldn’t mean…

Yet his father stayed quiet. Too quiet. Arthur Dennan never knew how to shut up, and certainly wouldn’t in the face of such a stinging accusation. Yet now he didn’t respond, color building in his cheeks even if he didn’t have the decency to look at all abashed.

Oliver was speechless. It was true, wasn’t it?

The woman flashed Oliver a brief, sympathetic look. “I’m sorry to tell you this, Oliver. Your father had the clever idea to ingratiate himself with the frontrunner for the Duke’s seat by ensuring that his young scion would have an easy victory in his trial.”

Oliver’s eyes slowly narrowed. He didn’t want to believe that his father would do something like that, but… But he knew his father. All too well. Suddenly, so much made sense, puzzling pieces of his father’s behavior fitting together around what this mysterious woman said.

“That’s why you wouldn’t let me visit the Primal Halls,” Oliver said softly. His words came slowly as he tried to fully understand how thoroughly his own father had betrayed him. “Denying me a relic made sense, considering your own shortcomings, but to even deny me a Primal gift?”

This was how he had always longed to speak to his father, and now that he had started, Oliver found he couldn’t quite stop himself. “You wanted me to be as powerless as possible. All so the Gerrot’s would… what? What did they offer you, father? A title? Money? No, not even that. Too traceable, right? Just favors, more favors. What, some patronage for Olan? A good cadre for Alyssia? Or just a promise for their good will in the Court?”

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Arthur’s face flushed. He may be lesser nobility in the youngest of the Bastion Cities, but he was still unused to being spoken to so bluntly, much less by his own son.

He spun on the mysterious woman instead of answering Oliver’s question. “How DARE you? I demand your name, madam, and I demand sati-”

“Do not finish that sentence.” Her voice was a whip crack. “You won’t live to regret it.”

Arthur’s mouth moved soundlessly for a moment. The woman let him flounder for a long moment before she finally answered his question.

“I am Adeline Argent, Knight-Gallant of the Argent Order. And despite your reputation, Arthur Dennan, I know even you are not so foolish as to think you can triumph over me in a duel.”

Oliver was pretty sure his father didn’t even notice the insult implied by those words. The older man was far too busy trying to figure out how to backpedal, his eyes darting around and mouth moving soundlessly. Oliver was also stunned, but at this point, he was so deep in some kind of emotional shock that he felt numb even to the revelation of his benefactor’s identity.

The Argent Order. Everyone knew of them. Each of the Bastion Cities boasted a knightly order of some kind, each consisting of the most talented, skilled, or promising gifted sentinels in each city. They were sworn to the service of each Duke directly, and charged with handling the most dangerous of outsider incursions. In Elliven, it was the Emerald Order who served that role, though they were the youngest and smallest of the knightly orders.

The Argent Order was different from the rest of them, though. The silver knights were sworn to none of the great bastion cities, nor even the King. Instead, they pledged their loyalty to the Realm itself, roaming the vast lands between each of the Bastions and their respective Wastes, purging the rare monsters or outsiders that endangered the smaller villages that dotted the heartlands and the frontier.

Oliver had grown up hearing stories of the exploits of the Argent Order and their Knights-Errant and Gallant, like storybook adventurers come to life. As he grew older, though, he had begun to see the order differently. Their numbers were few for their supposed duty, and they were the targets of near constant ridicule by the nobility.

To the aristocracy, the greatest honor was to patrol the Wastes and combat the constant outsiders that crossed over from the Dark Worlds. In swearing themselves to the Argent Order, the knights in silver had forsaken that duty for one comparably safer and easier. However, despite the supposed shame, Oliver had noticed that those admonitions of irresponsibility and ridicule were never spoken within earshot of the silver knights themselves.

Adeline eyed Arthur for a minute, as if daring the man to continue his foolish challenge. He broke first, his gaze flinching away from her. Arthur Dennan was many things, but he had never been much of a fighter. That was why he had ensured Alyssia would represent the Dennans in the Wastes.

The woman, Adeline, turned back to Oliver, her body language looking as if she had dismissed Arthur from her attention. “I had only sought you out to return what I had offered you,” she told him, holding the hilt of the shimmering silver blade out to Oliver. “However, I couldn’t help but overhear your father’s words. I thought that poor praise for a skilled and resourceful son, myself. As such, I think I would like to take the liberty of extending you another offer. Tell me, would you be interested in joining the ranks of the Argent Order?”

Oliver and Arthur gasped at the same time.

“Are you serious?” Oliver asked.

“You cannot do thi-” Arthur’s claim was cut short by Adeline pointing a single finger towards him in a clear, silent rebuke. The gesture was enough to make him go quiet, gaping at the confident woman. Adeline hadn’t even bothered to look at him.

“I am,” Adeline answered Oliver, as if his father hadn’t even spoken. “You showed tenacity, cleverness, and ability in your duel. My Order values those sorts of skills.”

“I only did as well as I did because of you, though,” Oliver said. “Without your blade…”

“Your blade,” Adeline corrected him gently. “Another may have relied merely on its magic, and failed when it could not win the duel for them. You used every tool at hand to overcome the obstacle before you. That is also a trait the Argent Order values.”

Oliver looked from Adeline to his father. Arthur’s face twisted in a pleased look at his son’s clear indecision. The man clearly thought that some lingering sense of familial duty, some need to keep the Dennan name and what little prestige they still had, would keep Oliver under his thumb. Somehow, Arthur failed to comprehend that he had burned the last vestiges of love his son felt for him years before.

The old man’s spite only made the decision that much easier for Oliver. After what he had gone through today… the earth would open and swallow him whole before he’d crawl back to his father’s plots.

“You said your name was Argent… did you give your own family up when you joined the Argent Order?”

Adeline nodded softly. “Correct. All of the knightly orders ask that of their members. Your loyalty would be, first and foremost, to the Order and the Realm.”

Oliver chewed his bottom lip. “My family…”

“Will be just fine without you. They are not involved in this decision. Despite your father’s reputation, your elder siblings have both done well for themselves. The Dennan line’s next generation is secure.” Adeline met Oliver’s eyes, supportive and reassuring in a way his own parents had never been.

“And… would I need to swear an oath to you? Today?”

“I expect no oath any time soon, Oliver Dennan. You are still in training. The Order does not accept knights below Initiate rank. But we do cultivate talent when we see it, and I believe you would do well as a squire with us. With me. I would train you, give you the experience and knowledge you’d need to succeed amongst our numbers.” Adeline smiled, and it was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.

She really was beautiful.

Oliver wanted to be able to smile like that, one day. Just like that.

Oliver didn’t even give his father another look. Adeline was right. This was Oliver’s decision, not his father’s, not his family’s. Just ten minutes before (had it really all happened that quickly?) he had been pacing in the hall, brooding and staring down the barrel of a life of mediocrity. Now he was being offered a life of adventure. A tiny piece of Oliver was suspicious of how rapidly his fortune had turned around, but a much larger chunk of him feared to investigate it too closely, lest it disappear like the mist in the morning.

“Okay. Then… Yes, I’m interested.”

Adeline smiled, and without a spare glance for Arthur or his muted attempts at protest, she stepped to one side and waved to the door. Oliver offered his father one last look, too filled with emotion to manage any single expression.

The man didn’t meet his son’s eyes. Like a petulant child, he had turned away, studying a tapestry on the wall rather than watch Oliver leave.

So Oli turned and led the way out, taking the first steps on the rest of his life, Adeline close behind.