Chapter 479 - Advisors

“Lady Blackwoo—”

“Shh. I’m working.”

“But—”

“I believe I said shh.”

Silence fell.

“Good boy.”

Mistress pushed whichever nameless nobody had addressed her out of her mind and refocused the sliver of attention she had so generously spared him on the complex web of runic matrices shifting through a succession of interlocking configurations before her.

A subsection of runes flared as their alignments locked into place. Carefully selected fragments of rubble began lifting from the ground. Shattered marble, multicoloured crystal, warped strips of treated metal, and several rare components whose original purpose had been thoroughly beaten out of them all floated up.

Mistress flicked one hand, guiding the pieces as they rearranged themselves in the air.

They came together through a series of bright chimes and dull clacks until what floated before her formed a tolerable reconstruction of the assembly that had occupied the heart of the court’s array.

She contemplated it for several seconds, then sent the pieces drifting towards an already sorted pile in the corner with a disappointed frown.

At least half of it was entirely useless now. Shiny baubles, at best. The sort of things that might draw excited squeals from the lesser arcane practitioners of this land who thought to call themselves wizards, but hardly worthy of even the least cluttered shelf in her laboratory.

Without diverting more than a thread of thought, Mistress spun up a delayed mnemonic working to remind herself to embed a few subtle aetheric siphons in the prettiest of the useless pieces before arranging for them to find their way into some inconsequential mage towers. Let the children marvel. There was no reason she couldn’t gain something from their covetous ignorance.

She directed the rest of her attention back to the remaining workings.

Their runes expanded until shifting light covered nearly half the court. The arrays unfolded a layered picture within her mind: the movement of local mana currents, pressure along the boundaries between realms, sympathetic disturbances beneath the palace, and countless fire-seared points where reality had been torn open and violently forced shut. Beneath those lay a dozen subtler traces that would have reduced most other mages to dribbling wrecks if fed directly into their brains.

Against her better judgement, Mistress found herself impressed by what she gathered.

How irksome.

She had never been particularly fond of being impressed. It was a grating feeling. But there was no denying that what had happened here was impressive.

As much as it was an annoyance.

For one, the borrowed monstrosity in Rellaria Lake had been a pain to deal with while maintaining her guise. As far as Mistress was aware, the last Abyss Leviathan in existence had been slain by the Third Divinarch millennia ago, but that distinction meant precious little when an enemy could weaponise a perversion of its concept. She supposed she ought to consider herself fortunate that it had chosen something aquatic. Wings would have made the entire affair intolerable.

Naturally, the most frustrating part hadn’t been the creature, the lives lost in the attack, or even the destruction inflicted upon the palace. The dead were regrettable in the abstract, she was sure, and repairing the palace would no doubt result in months of dreary complaints. Given enough effort, she might even coax herself into pretending to care.

Though the exertion was liable to give her heartburn.

But what truly offended her was how close this enemy had come to interfering with the plans she had fashioned around the Empyreal Barrier.

The sheer arrogance.

The presumption that it could interfere with her vengeance.

That trespass alone had earned the culprit a place on the short list of beings upon whom Mistress intended to inflict the pettiest, cruellest, and most disproportionate reprisal she could devise before drawing her final breath. She would spare no expense, indignity, or quantity of spilled blood in the process.

That said, it wasn’t a long list. She would get to them all eventually.

Candid pragmatism came first, however tiresome it might be. For now, that dictated publicly decrying the horrors of the attack and its unknown perpetrator so that her fellow ‘servants’ of the empire found her appropriately incensed.

Privately, she was far more interested in speaking with whoever was responsible and determining what they stood to gain from one another before the inevitable betrayal arrived. After all, it could hardly be a coincidence that the Barrier remained standing when half the infrastructure meant to sustain it had been damaged, disrupted, or rendered entirely useless.

The attacker’s convenient circumvention of the palace’s defences also hadn’t escaped her notice, though that was a curiosity for another time.

“Lady Blackwood…”

Mistress scowled as that persistent little fly buzzed into her ears again.

She snapped her fingers, leaving her workings suspended mid-shift, then turned towards the dull little man. She didn’t waste time examining the forgettable arrangement of features he called a face. Simply glancing at the unimaginative robes that marked him as belonging to Elystead Tower told her everything that mattered.

He shrank slightly beneath her stare.

“Yes?” she asked. “What is it?”

“I-I’m here to inform you that Dean Godwin has begun investigating the conduit below the Kilnstones. He would like to establish a resonance link with you from this end.”

“And he sent you because…?”

“He has been unable to reach you through Zephyr’s Communion.”

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“I’d imagine so.”

Zephyr’s Communion was beyond all but a handful of modern aeromancers, and Godwin was one of those irritating exceptions. As far as Mistress knew, he was the only living mage who had achieved anything resembling mastery in more than two schools of magic.

That almost deserved praise, but he had survived this long without it.

Regardless, Mistress had never made a habit of allowing long-distance spells to reach her. Doing so was generally considered a poor life decision among people who possessed the sort of enemies she did, secrets worth keeping, or simply a functioning brain.

Godwin knew this perfectly well. Apparently, he had simply decided to remind her of her supposed duties as imperial advisor by sending this boy to pester her.

Mistress clicked her tongue.

The mage flinched.

“Go on. Shoo.” She waved him away with a loose motion of her fingers. “Tell him I’ll establish the link in precisely three-quarters of an hour.”

“Y-Yes, my lady.”

The man bowed and hurried away. Mistress had already returned to her work before he finished turning.

The worst part of being Evelia Blackwood really was the absurd number of people who expected her to perform the duties attached to the identity. False smiles, tedious meetings, the need to pretend that imperial policy actually mattered.

They came to her with questions. Problems. Responsibilities. As if becoming the emperor’s foremost arcane advisor had somehow obligated her to advise them.

The nerve.

She might have to retire this mask soon. Then she wouldn’t have to be quite as generous towards the next person who interrupted her.

It was a small mercy that there were few other nuisances nearby. Most of the rabble that had been scampering around this place had been herded off somewhere safer by now. Mistress didn’t know where, and she didn’t care much to find out. A few clipped orders had been enough to clear the remaining stragglers from her section of the court and secure some peace while she dealt with matters requiring an adult.

Or it should have been.

Unfortunately, Mistress’ life was one destined to be a torturous quagmire beyond the ken of ordinary mortals.

She hadn’t been working for long when another presence approached.

“I haven’t found anything yet,” she said dryly.

Several seconds passed. Then came the slow scrape of metal and a heavy step carrying an unspoken warning.

“Are you truly looking?”

Mistress paused and glanced over her shoulder.

The Captain of the Royal Guard stood there, his dragon-helm gone and his wheat-blond hair tousled and dishevelled.

His white-gold armour was mangled, the breastplate caved in along one side, one pauldron missing entirely. Someone had stripped away the most badly damaged sections and healed the wounds beneath — but either they hadn’t been able to heal him fully, or he’d lost patience with them, because his face was nearly bloodless, and a fresh bandage covered one eye.

He had planted the butt of a spear against the stone and was resting enough weight on it that one could have been forgiven for mistaking it for a crutch.

“Are you accusing me of something, Captain Swale?” Mistress asked.

His remaining eye stayed fixed on her.

“I am asking you. Is His Majesty alive?”

“How should I know? Keeping him that way was your responsibility, if memory serves, and you were the last person to see him. Or have I gotten those details mixed up?”

His expression darkened.

“Still, I am, of course, his ever-dutiful servant,” Mistress said. “If I do find any signs of him, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

The captain’s aura sharpened. The spear beneath him suddenly felt much more like the weapon it was.

Mistress smiled innocently. “Or signs of Her Highness.”

He studied her for another long moment.

Then his aura eased.

Mistress’ smile widened. “Anything else?”

The captain turned and left without another word.

Mistress chuckled after him.

As irritating as she might find aspects of the current situation, she had to admit the emperor had surprised her — and some grudging, wretched little scrap of her almost respected him for it.

She had always known that they were using each other. He wasn’t doing it nearly as well as she was, naturally, but he had enough sense to make their arrangement interesting. She simply hadn’t expected him to be involved in something quite like this.

There was no doubt in her mind that he had been involved in what happened today. She had several theories about the how and why, but for all the freedom he allowed her—and she allowed herself—there had always been certain matters he managed to keep beyond her reach.

It was one of his more tolerable qualities, actually.

Whether he remained alive was an inconveniently genuine question.

Mistress supposed she would make some effort to find him. A small one, out of respect for old attachments, fabricated though most of hers might have been. One couldn’t spend years playing the devoted confidante without picking up a few habits.

Frankly, though, she was more curious about that daughter of his.

The girl had disappeared at some point during the chaos. Somewhere in the palace, nobles and officials were no doubt tearing out their hair at the possibility that only one member of the imperial family could be confirmed alive.

Mistress, however, would be genuinely surprised if the princess had died. That child had a habit of finding doors she wasn’t supposed to know existed. And while considerable effort was no doubt being wasted searching for both her and the emperor, Mistress suspected the girl would only be found if she wished to be.

She tucked another mnemonic into the back of her mind, this one reminding her to make a legitimate attempt at finding the girl when she had the time.

For now, though…

Mistress placed her workings on hold once again as yet another presence decided to intrude upon her peace. This one, at least, was ever-so-slightly more interesting than the others.

“I don’t believe we’ve ever had the opportunity to speak,” a calm voice said behind her.

“No, we have not.”

Mistress’ staff appeared in her hand. The gem set into its crown glowed as she tapped its butt against the ground, and several additional wards snapped into place around them, shutting out eavesdropping, scrying, and the usual varieties of institutional nosiness.

She released the staff, leaving it standing upright on its own, then turned to regard her visitor.

“Senior Wizard Yamina Ward, was it?”

The purple-haired wizard offered a mild smile. Her emerald robes were almost entirely untouched by the evening’s events, and she lifted one hand to nudge her gold-rimmed glasses higher on the bridge of her nose.

“That’s right.”

“People speak highly of you.”

“I can say the same of you.”

Mistress scoffed. “Can you? Then I would question how fond those people are of you.”

She might be maintaining a respectable persona, but there were limits to how much effort she could be bothered to expend on the performance. Rarely did she waste that effort on the sort of people inclined to praise ‘Evelia Blackwood’.

Yamina’s smile took on a slightly shrewder edge. “I would hope they’re fond enough. At this point, I think it would be a challenge for me to do anything against her otherwise.”

Mistress raised both eyebrows. “I suppose you’re referring to our new ‘Revenant Flame’?”

The woman nodded. “I am.”

“I can’t imagine what she might want with me. We’ve hardly spoken before today.”

Though the Baroness’ actions earlier had certainly been a sight. Watching her contend with the Nametaker had been especially entertaining. Mistress might have labelled the woman mad for that, if she hadn’t already reached that conclusion when the baroness nearly provoked a Vile’s incursion into the Material Realm.

Fortunately, Mistress had accounted for some degree of insanity before offering to work with her. She would never have bothered if the woman were entirely sane and dull.

“I’m told you and Scarlett have rather more in common than one might assume,” Yamina said. “Her intention was to meet with you herself, but with circumstances as they are, I hope you understand why that isn’t possible. So I’ve come in her stead.”

Mistress studied her for several seconds.

Naturally, she knew quite a lot about the woman. Anyone whose opinion mattered in the modern arcane world knew both Yamina Ward’s name and that of her late father.

Still, whenever Mistress had bothered spending the extra effort to look into her, Ward had always seemed a touch too much like the person her history said she ought to be. Every fact sat neatly where it belonged, and every accomplishment had a reasonable explanation. Even her peculiarities were precisely the sort one expected from a mage of her background.

That had always been somewhat suspect.

That Ward knew enough about Baroness Hartford to serve as her intermediary was news to Mistress, but perhaps it shouldn’t have been. It explained rather a lot.

Mistress rested one finger against the curve of her cheek, continuing to regard the woman.

“Well, consider my interest piqued,” she said. “What does our little baroness want?”

Yamina’s smile deepened by the smallest degree.

“The Baroness would like to know how soon the gala can be held,” she replied, “and how many invitations she may extend.”