Chapter 1135: Grounds

The silver boundary closed behind Lucavion.

For several steps, he could still hear the muted continuation of the table through the observation enchantment.

Then the sound settled into the softer murmur permitted outside the active scenario.

Lucavion stopped.

The grin he had carried through the exit remained.

’That went rather well.’

Perhaps rather well was underselling it.

He lowered his gaze toward the Role Seal resting against his palm and pressed the black button he had deliberately ignored after the round began.

The OBJECTIVES panel opened.

—————————

PRIVATE OBJECTIVES

Preserve House Aerath’s opposition to the current funding proposal.

Create credible grounds for relations between House Aerath and House Harcourt to deteriorate.

Where possible, ensure House Aerath cannot reasonably be presented as the initiating party.

—————————

Lucavion read the final two lines again.

Then he looked back through the translucent boundary.

Lord Severin Harcourt remained at the table.

Lady Aveline Roth was speaking to him now, her posture angled inward, while Mireilla sat across from them with the peculiar expression she tended to wear whenever Lucavion had done something she considered both impressive and deeply irritating.

He almost laughed.

Credible grounds?

The examiners had probably expected a disagreement over tolls.

Perhaps an accusation involving the waystation.

A failed negotiation would have worked. A dispute over territorial authority would have been better. If House Harcourt publicly questioned Aerath’s reliability, the two Houses could have carried that tension beyond the dinner with enough justification to make future hostility plausible.

Lucavion had gotten considerably more.

An heir of House Harcourt had questioned whether an Aerath belonged at his table.

In front of witnesses.

After House Aerath’s representative had maintained every required courtesy.

And Lady Roth had spent half the conversation supporting Harcourt’s position before attempting to soften the final remark.

’Heh.’

That was almost generous.

If this had been an actual political dinner, House Aerath could withdraw from the proposed arrangement tomorrow morning, complain privately to mutual acquaintances by noon, and allow the story to reach three other Houses before evening without inventing a single detail.

The best part was that Aerath would barely need to push.

Harcourt had supplied the insult himself.

Lucavion tapped the edge of the seal against his fingers.

He had overlooked their opening play.

That much was true.

The invented patrol requests had caught him cleanly. He had read the dossier carefully enough to understand what was established, yet he had spent too little thought on everything the other participants were free to establish themselves.

A mistake.

A useful one.

Once Aveline supported Severin’s claim, challenging the detail outright would have reduced the exchange to your word against mine. Accepting it gave the fiction weight. Letting them expand upon it gave the fiction consequences.

After that, all he needed to do was pull.

Severin had handled the rest.

Lucavion’s smile grew.

’The instructors probably wanted friction.’

He had left them a grievance.

Much better.

Of course, there had been another reason for leaving.

Lucavion glanced toward the other active tables.

Remaining with Severin after that remark would have produced diminishing returns. His objective had already been satisfied, and the rules allowed movement after first service. He could wander between tables, but a man who had just invoked formal withdrawal and then cheerfully joined another dinner three steps away would weaken the very insult he had chosen to emphasize.

Leaving the scenario entirely gave the action weight.

Corvin Aerath had considered the offense serious enough to abandon the gathering.

Lucavion, meanwhile, gained the observation galleries.

A rather pleasant arrangement for everyone who mattered.

He started walking.

The strange part was how familiar the entire affair had felt.

Titles, hospitality, measured insults, people smiling while deciding which portion of another person’s livelihood they wanted to appropriate—

Lucavion had seen plenty of it by now.

There had been Baron Edris in Rackenshore.

That had been his first proper encounter with a noble household after his banishment, though circumstances surrounding the visit had hardly resembled an etiquette lesson. He had entered that region as a wandering nobody, dealt with a cultivator strangling the town’s trade, recovered the Baron’s kidnapped heir, and somehow found himself speaking inside a noble residence afterward.

Then came Marquis Vendor.

Larger halls.

Older authority.

More people around every conversation who understood that a sentence spoken beside wine could move soldiers several weeks later.

Lucavion had learned considerably more there.

And after Vendor—

Duke Thaddeus.

He gave a quiet snort.

Baron.

Marquis.

Duke.

He really had climbed the ladder one troublesome household at a time.

Even before those encounters, Lucavion would have trusted himself in a room like the Rotunda. Even before he was banished, he was a noble child...One who was engaged to a member of a duchy. The forms changed. Human beings tended to remain disappointingly recognizable.

Still, experiencing Arcanian nobility directly had taught him the local rhythm.

When to answer.

When silence became useful.

How much disrespect could hide inside impeccable phrasing.

How quickly a man’s pride could be encouraged into doing something stupid.

That last lesson had proven particularly valuable tonight.

His steps slowed.

For some reason, another room surfaced in his memory.

A cavern rather than a manor.

Firelight trembling over stone.

A pair of amber eyes glaring at him with enough indignation to challenge the sun.

Lucavion’s expression softened before he caught it.

The memory arrived with the faint sensation of fingers pinching his cheek and an offended humph that could probably have been weaponized if the Thaddeus family ever became desperate enough.

Cheeky girl.

He wondered what she was doing.

Probably ordering someone around.

Perhaps threatening another person’s life over tea.

His chest gave an inconvenient little flutter.

Lucavion stopped walking.

"..."

Then he rubbed the back of his neck.

’Really? Now?’

Apparently spending an evening surrounded by noble conversations had reminded him of the one noblewoman who would have abandoned all elegant phrasing halfway through an argument and simply hit him.

His smile returned despite himself.

Sooner or later, they would meet again.

Until then, he could keep the heart-fluttering girl somewhere far away from the front of his mind.

Preferably somewhere she could neither punch nor pinch him.

Lucavion resumed walking.

The observation lanes curved around the remaining scenarios, each separated by one-way veils that allowed those who had completed their participation to watch without interfering. Small markers above the passages identified the active tables and the students assigned there.

He found the section he wanted.

Elara’s.

Or, for everyone currently seated inside—

Lady Elise Maraven’s, as he presumed, looking at her identity tag.

Lucavion stepped to the rail.

Three familiar faces occupied the table.

Elara sat on one side beneath her nametag, composed enough that Lady Elise seemed less like an assumed identity and more like another name she had decided to wear for the evening.

Aurelian sat opposite her.

Caeden occupied the third seat.

The fourth belonged to another student Lucavion recognized by face but had never bothered learning much about.

The atmosphere could hardly have been more different from the table he had left.

Nobody was attempting to bait another person into open hostility.

Which, Lucavion decided, was slightly disappointing.

Their dispute concerned the maintenance of a provincial road used by three neighboring territories. Caeden’s assigned House wanted additional patrol funding. Aurelian’s role represented a family benefiting from the route’s toll income, while Elara’s House possessed enough administrative influence to affect how the burden would eventually be divided.

The fourth student wanted the entire proposal delayed.

At least, that was what the conversation appeared to say.

Lucavion leaned one shoulder against the rail.

Caeden handled himself as Lucavion expected.

Directly.

He remembered his role’s facts, spoke carefully, and approached political conversation much like he approached combat exercises: identify the actual problem, remove unnecessary movement, then strike the part that mattered.

It worked surprisingly well.

It also made every concession sound as though Caeden had personally inspected it for structural weakness before permitting it through.

Aurelian operated almost opposite to him.

He gave ground easily enough to make the other student comfortable, asked questions that sounded casual, and somehow returned several minutes later holding more information than he had surrendered.

Lucavion watched him redirect a complaint about patrol costs into a question about toll exemptions.

The other student answered.

Aurelian smiled.

Lucavion’s eyes narrowed with amusement.

’That one is troublesome.’

Then his attention settled on Elara.

She had been quiet for the last few exchanges.

That alone meant very little.

Elara’s silence was rarely empty.

Lucavion folded his arms across the rail.

Now this—

This might be worth watching.

******

Elara remained quiet for another exchange.

The fourth student argued that delaying the proposal until the next provincial session would allow each House to review the costs properly. Caeden objected immediately. Winter would arrive before another review produced anything useful, and the patrol shortage already existed.

Aurelian asked whether the delay applied to the road repairs as well.

That question changed the discussion.

The fourth student hesitated.

Only briefly.

Still, Elara caught it.

"So the concern is neither the road nor the patrols," she said.

Her voice entered the conversation gently enough that everyone turned toward her without feeling interrupted.

"The concern is committing to the present distribution."

The student looked at her. "House Dorvain considers the distribution premature."

"Then House Dorvain should have little objection to separating the two decisions."

Caeden’s attention shifted toward her.

Elara continued before anyone could seize the point.

"Approve the immediate patrol increase until winter. Finance it through the current toll reserve rather than a new levy. The permanent maintenance arrangement can return to the provincial council once each House has reviewed the proposed shares."

Aurelian rested one finger against his glass.

"And the road?"

"Repair the damaged sections already classified as hazardous. Leave the expansion proposal untouched."

The fourth student frowned.

"That still spends the reserve."

"Yes."

Elara’s gaze remained calm.

"On the purpose for which the reserve already exists."

Lucavion’s mouth curved.

Ah.

She had cut the disagreement apart.

Caeden received the patrols his role wanted. Aurelian’s House avoided accepting a permanent increase in burden. The opposing student could support temporary expenditure without surrendering his objection to the larger arrangement.

And Elara—

Elara had committed almost nothing.

She had spent the entire conversation listening while the others established where they could bend, then offered a solution that allowed everyone to walk away claiming they had protected their position.

The fourth student tried once more.

"If the reserve falls below its mandated level—"

"It won’t," Aurelian said.

He glanced toward Elara.

"You asked about the toll exemptions earlier."

So she had.

Lucavion remembered the exchange now.

Aurelian had uncovered the exemptions.

Elara had quietly asked how long three of them remained valid.

Two expired before winter.

The additional toll income would replenish most of what the temporary patrol measure consumed.

Caeden leaned back slightly.

"That works."

For Caeden, two words apparently constituted enthusiastic support.

The fourth student looked around the table.

His resistance had nowhere comfortable to go.

Eventually, he inclined his head.

"House Dorvain could accept a temporary measure under those conditions."

Elara smiled.

"Then perhaps we have one."

Lucavion gave a quiet huff through his nose.

’Protagonist ability.’

There really wasn’t a better description.

People looking at Elara now might simply decide she possessed a natural talent for these things. Calm voice. Good memory. Sharp judgment.

Lucavion knew better.

She had been born the legitimate heir of a duchy.

Before everything went wrong, an absurd portion of her childhood had been preparation for exactly this sort of room. Tutors, household officials, noble obligations, estate reports, ceremonies, dinners where everyone twice her age expected the Duke’s daughter to understand what her name represented.

The novel had mentioned it plenty of times.

Elara’s competence had never appeared from nowhere.

She had simply carried so much responsibility for so long that people eventually started mistaking the result for talent.

Though—

Lucavion watched her redirect Caeden’s attempt to thank her into shared credit for the proposal.

Talent probably helped.

The Rotunda chimed.

Silver light appeared beneath the four chairs.

Their discussion reached its formal conclusion, and the illusion surrounding the table began to loosen. Plates dissolved first, followed by the linen and the dark polished surface beneath them.

Elara rose.

Aurelian said something to Caeden as the boundary opened, drawing both of them toward the opposite exit.

Elara remained behind for a moment.

Then her eyes moved toward the observation rail.

Straight toward Lucavion.

’Ah.’

She had known he was there.

Probably for longer than he preferred.

Lucavion pushed himself away from the railing as she approached.

Her nametag had already faded. Lady Elise Maraven disappeared with it, leaving Elara standing before him with that composed expression she used whenever she had already decided where a conversation was going.

She stopped.

Her eyes flicked once toward the corridor he had used to leave his own scenario.

Then back to him.

"So," Elara said, "what have you done this time?"