Chapter 47: Execution*

"Hm... Seems we have a predicament. Again," Sabine said.

"Mhm," I licked. "I don’t," lick, "know what," lick, "I’m gonna," lick, "do!"

I was currently eating Sabine out in her office. As soon as I’d heard about my pending execution- I mean, next match, I went straight to her.

You see, Aldric was not Perrin. Perrin had really good training. Aldric had the best training that being a literal prince could buy.

I had no chance. Beyond no chance, actually. It was one thing to beat Perrin, now I had to beat Lily’s original endgame husband???

So, I did the only thing that came to mind. I went straight to Sabine, and I was now begging her for salvation while I licked her pussy.

"Mm, you’re doomed. Absolutely doomed," Sabine went on, one hand resting on the back of my head, just keeping me where I was. "Doomed in the way a house is doomed when the fire has already reached the second floor."

I pulled off long enough to say "That’s not helping," and got put straight back.

She was sitting on the edge of her desk with her skirt hiked up around her hips and one leg over my shoulder, and she’d made me kneel on the good rug, which I’m choosing to interpret as respect. I got my tongue flat against her clit and worked it in slow circles, then dragged down and pushed it into her pussy, and her thighs tightened around my ears, and she kept talking through the whole thing like she was reviewing an essay.

"Doomed," she said again.

[Okay, hang on. Isn’t the dirty talk supposed to be "good girl"? Or "just like that"? Something in that family? Why am I being told I’m going to die three times in a row while my tongue is inside my professor?]

"Say something else," I said.

"Such as?"

"Literally anything else."

"Mm." She thought about it, which I felt, and then she rolled her hips forward onto my mouth. "Higher. There. Yes, there, keep doing exactly that, you’re very good at this and it’s genuinely the only thing about your situation that’s going well."

"Sabine!"

"Ooh, don’t stop talking, the vibration is lovely."

I got two fingers into her and curled them and sucked her clit, and she went quiet for about forty seconds, which is the longest I’ve ever managed. Her heel dug into my back. Her hand went tight in my hair. When she came she did it with almost no noise at all, just her whole body locking up and her thighs clamping on either side of my head, and then she let out one long breath and let go of me.

I sat back on my heels with my chin wet.

"So," I said. "Advice."

Sabine straightened her skirt, walked around to her chair, and sat down in it like the last ten minutes hadn’t happened.

"I don’t have any."

"...I’m sorry?"

"I don’t have any advice, Kohaku. I’ve been thinking about it since the bracket was posted and I have nothing for you." She picked up a pen and turned it over. "Let’s be honest about the record. Greywild was a genuine achievement. You out-fought a girl with better fundamentals and a longer reach. I was proud of you. I don’t say that often, so enjoy it."

"I am enjoying it. I’d enjoy it more with a plan attached."

"And then Alderltoft," she continued, "who you did not beat, strictly speaking. He lost. He lost his temper, lost the crowd, lost his footing, and threw himself over the line while shouting. You were an obstacle he tripped over. A talkative one, admittedly."

[Rude. Accurate, but rude.]

"So we have one victory earned and one victory donated," Sabine said. "Following the pattern, to get past Aldric Stellaris-Vane you will require the direct personal intervention of a god."

"That’s your professional assessment."

"That’s my professional assessment. He has had a personal instructor since he was four, a house technique he actually understands, and equipment worth more than this building. He is also better than his father was at the same age, which nobody is allowed to say out loud." She tapped the pen twice on the desk. "You have a weasel."

"The weasel’s been very helpful, actually."

"The weasel is wonderful. But that thing will not help you beat a prince."

I put my forehead down on the edge of her desk.

"But," Sabine said, "I’ll think about it."

---

So, I had to figure something out.

My first attempt was, of course, to consult the walking encyclopedia herself.

"So, hear me out."

"Okay..." Odette nodded slowly.

"Me, right? C-rank foxgirl with huge tits..."

"Is your chest relevant?"

"... Beating Aldric Stellaris-Vane. How do we do it?"

"That’s not happening."

"What!? C-Come on, think about it a little bit!"

"No need. With all due respect, Kohaku, you’re crafty. You’re clever. You’re certainly better than a lot of people have given you credit for, I’ll hand you all that. But... Beating Aldric... It’s not logical."

And that was the end of that.

---

So I went to Marisol instead.

I found her in the Noble Course reading room. I sat down with her and put it in as plain terms as I possibly could:

"I need eyes on Aldric."

Marisol closed the notebook she was carrying.

"Finally."

"Finally?"

"I’ve been waiting all week for you to ask me to do something! You never ask for anything. Come on, what’s the point of being lovers if I never do favors for you?"

I blinked.

[... I will address that some other time. Right now, I need to focus!]

"So, uh, what do you wanna know about him?" She asked.

"Everything. Where he trains, when, how long, who with. Whether he’s actually working or whether he’s doing an hour of forms and then getting his hair done for four."

"... You want to know if he’s coasting?"

"I think there’s a chance at least." I sat down on the arm of the chair opposite her. "I mean, look, he’s the crown prince. He’s got the committee rigging the bracket for him, probably, he’s got the whole school assuming he wins, and everyone he’s fought so far has taken a dive out of politeness or been too scared to swing properly. If I’d been getting handed matches for three weeks I’d be getting my hair done too."

"That is genuinely good reasoning."

"Thank you."

"It’s going to be wrong, but it’s good reasoning." She stood up and put the notebook in her sleeve. "Two days."

---

She came back the very next evening.

I was in my dorm with my boots off and my ribs wrapped when she let herself in without knocking, sat down on Lily’s bed, and looked at me for a second before saying anything.

"He starts at five in the morning."

"... What?"

"He starts at five. You know, training. At the yard behind the royal apartments, which is walled, which is why nobody’s seen it. Two hours of forms with his own instructor and then a second man comes in fresh at seven and they go again." She flipped a page. "Break at nine. Then conditioning until noon. I watched him do weighted hill work up and down the eastern terrace for forty minutes with a man walking beside him counting."

"Please stop."

"Afternoons are sparring. Live steel, no padding, against three different opponents in rotation so he’s always fighting somebody who isn’t tired." She turned another page. "Yesterday he went until the light failed and then had them bring lamps out."

I put my face in my hands.

"... He’s not coasting, Kohaku. He’s the hardest-working student at this academy and it isn’t close. I sat in a tree for eleven hours and I was rooting for him by the end of it, which I resented enormously."

"Anything? Anything at all? A limp, a bad shoulder, a habit-"

"He’s left-side dominant on the recovery step of his swings." She held out the page. "That’s what I’ve got. I’m sorry."

I took the page.

[Of course.]

---

In the end, it seemed I was about to become a victim of my own bullshit.

I wrote this guy to be perfect. Because, obviously, that was what he represented. Among all the male leads, he was intended to be the flawless heartthrob. And that meant he didn’t take days off. He didn’t take it easy on his opponents either.

[I’m so fucked.]

As I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, suddenly, there was a knock on the door.

"Coming."

Lily had gone down to the laundry an hour ago with our whole basket, and she always knocks instead of putting it down, because she thinks she’ll drop everything if she tries the handle. So I got up already talking.

"Sorry, sorry, I should’ve come with you, that thing weighs more than you do—"

I opened the door and stopped.

[What the fuck?]

Cassian was standing there.

"Hey," he said, arms crossed. "You wanna learn how to not die in a few days?"