Chapter 147: A Peaceful Breakfast.

"Give me your hand," Violet said. She held her arm out across the table, palm up. It was bad manners to have one's elbows on the table itself. Only the greatest fool in the world would tell Violet Indri that.

I reluctantly extended my arm. She took it and inspected it, her fingers moving slowly over my wrist. The wrist that Vaelin had broken, and that a healer had assured me would heal in full soon. Right now the skin was just a faded pink. On anyone else, anyone with skin not quite so pale, you might not have been able to see it at all.

"Does it hurt?" Violet asked. Her eyes were fixed on my wrist. I didn't even know what she was looking at. There was nothing to see.

"Nope," I said. "Nothing that should-"

Violet squeezed, lightly, and with it came pain. A sharp spike of it that ran all the way up my arm. I cursed and reflexively tried to pull my hand back. I would have managed it, too, had Violet not been holding on. She raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't hurt, huh?"

"Doesn't hurt that bad," I corrected. "It'll be fine for one qualifier. I have plenty of mana. It's not like I'll be relying on the wrist itself."

Violet did not let go of my hand. She just stared at me. She stared at me for a long moment, and said, "Don't bullshit me."

I sighed. "Sorry." I flexed my fingers once in her grip. They worked. They worked well enough. "It'll probably be fine."

Violet held my gaze a moment longer. Then she nodded, slowly, and released my arm. "Stupid blade," she muttered.

Vaelin stirred in my mind. Just slightly. I got the distinct impression of a raised eyebrow. "I don't think he appreciates that," I said.

Violet threw her middle finger out at me. "Tell him to shove it. He should be more careful. The fuck was he thinking, breaking your hand?"

"I think it was the only way," I said. "And besides, you do know you're pointing that finger at me, right?"

Violet paused, and very slowly lowered her finger. "Well, I still don't like it," she grumbled to herself.

It was early in the day. Early enough that the sun had barely come out. I had been enjoying a peaceful night of sleep after what had been quite the day, right up until a red-haired Duchess had jumped on my bed. Demanding to see the hand someone had told her was broken. Demanding we march straight over to Duke Wardell and ask him just how a guest could get hurt under his own roof. It had taken some time to calm her down. Which was why we were here, in one of House Veyne's small parlors, at an hour when respectable nobles were still asleep. I'd thought some breakfast would help. It kind of did.

Violet turned to her right, where Sere sat and drew. Occasionally the girl would reach out, claim a cream puff from the plate in front of her, and perform the small magic of making it disappear in a single bite. "Heard you showed some brat what's what, Sere," Violet said. "Heard you put the fear of all the Gods in him."

"Just who did you hear that from?" I asked, reaching for my teacup. I brought it to my lips.

"Estovan," Violet said proudly. "Course, he didn't wanna tell me nothing. But I was real persuasive."

I almost choked on the tea. I set it down slowly. "I, uh… doubt he described it the way you're describing it."

Violet shrugged and turned back to Sere. "So? You taught some guy a lesson, didn't you?"

Sere nodded, wrote something on her notepad, and slid it toward Violet. Violet read it. Then she stood. "WHAT? SOMEONE PUT HIS HANDS ON HER?!"

I winced. Violet had been very loud, and it was still very early in the morning. I suspected she had just done a fine job of waking everyone in the manor. Estovan had told her things, it seemed, but apparently not nearly enough of them.

"It wasn't like that," I said. "It was just a boy who was worried about his mother-"

Violet ignored me entirely. "So what did you do to him?" she demanded of Sere. "Beat him up? Chop off his arms? Feed him to a dragon?"

Sere set down her notepad and threw a small fist into the air. It was almost remarkable, watching an incident get blown so far out of proportion in a single retelling. I just drank my tea. There would be no convincing Violet otherwise, and I knew better than to spend the effort trying.

Violet grinned and pulled Sere in against her side. "Good job. Damn shame I wasn't there, or I'd have given him hell." While it was not the reason he still had both his arms, I quietly thanked every God that was watching that Violet had not, in fact, been there.

Then Violet paused, and looked at me again. She slowly let go of Sere. "Heard about who did it, though. Silver? That's the one you told me about, right? From the Auction House? The one who helped my-" She closed her mouth, and frowned deeply.

I nodded slowly. So Estovan had told her that much too. I had meant to tell her myself. I was only mildly surprised that Estovan had beaten me to it. It seemed he trusted her a great deal. Or perhaps he simply trusted that I would not keep anything from her. Knowing Estovan, it was probably both. Either way, it saved me a great deal of explaining. "That's what Duke Wardell said. She gave him her name before she left."

Violet's frown deepened. "The hell did she want? And why didn't she just kill them, if she could sneak in like that?"

The obvious question, and one I had absolutely no answer for. I had thought about it for long enough that it had kept me awake into the late hours of the night. Silver. The same woman who had saved my life at the Auction House. Who worked alongside the Hero that had crippled my father. Who had handed Duke Indri the Transmutation Circle and walked away with his research. And now she was, somehow, mixed up in this too. How she had come to carry that strange darkness at all was another mystery entirely. Vaelin stirred every time I thought about it, which told me he knew something. Something he was not inclined to share, no matter how many times I asked.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

I sighed. It felt like getting a glimpse of something far larger than me. Far larger than Aelheim. Come to think of it, Duke Indri had said the woman was Alestian. So yes, this was definitely far larger than me. All I could do was hope she didn't show her face again, and see what the Information Guild knew about her in the meantime. I had already drafted the letter to Evelynn in my head. It would go out before noon.

But I did not have time to worry about an unknown threat right now. Not when there was a very real one soon to be at our gates. After I had woken his wife, Duke Wardell had listened, and he had listened well. The Karr would be there when the monsters came, and no small number of them.

Count Sterling's reports sat on my desk, and the walls would be as well defended as they had ever been in my lifetime, and likely my father's. Count Vance had left just last night with thirty of his best men, quietly, to scout the known dungeons closest to the city. If someone was stirring those pits, his people would see the signs of it before anyone else could. I had done everything I could do. All that remained was the Adventurer's Guild, and my father was handling that much himself. Yes, even the King's Tournament was the smaller of my two priorities right now. First, we had to survive, and do it well.

I let out a breath and set the worrying aside. There would be time enough for it later. There was always time enough for it later.

"Violet, we do have a tournament tomorrow, if you recall," I said. She looked up at me, and the distant look in her own eyes faded. It seemed I had not been the only one thinking of that woman. "The details on the qualifiers came out. Do you know what they are?"

Violet slowly shook her head. That was no surprise. They'd only been published in today's papers, one of which lay folded beside my plate. The format was kept secret until the eve of the event. Even the Information Guild hadn't known the details. I had asked. This year's tournament was supposed to be a big one. Every city had their own format, depending on how many people signed up. The paper I'd read only had the details for Aelheim.

"There are four groups for the junior matches," I said, raising four fingers. "Tomorrow, on the first day, there will be four free-for-all melees. There are a few rules. You get eliminated either by falling out of the ring, or by surrendering. But basically out of every ten, only three make it out. Three from each of four groups makes twelve." I gestured vaguely with one hand. "Then, five days after that, we have one-on-one duels. Random draws. Everyone who wins their match passes the qualifier."

It was a simple enough system, especially since the Junior Division was not really meant to be the highlight of the King's Tournament. Our rounds would happen only twice. Once to open the qualifiers, and once to close them. As it happened, I planned to open the Council and put our amendments to a vote two days after the first Qualifier. In other words, we were going to have a very busy week.

Violet said nothing for a moment. It seemed she was actually thinking. She nodded slowly to herself, and then she grinned. "That sounds fun as hell. You mean I get to beat up nine other people?"

I smiled. I had known this was exactly the kind of thing that would cheer her up. Then, slowly, her grin faded back into a frown. "Wait. What if some people gang up on everyone else? That'd be total bullshit."

She'd found the flaw faster than I'd expected. "It can happen," I said. "It probably will happen." It was so obvious, in fact, that I suspected the unfairness was the point. If you couldn't handle a little unfairness, you didn't deserve to move past the qualifiers. I didn't agree with the thinking, but I could see how someone with more power than sense might come to it.

"That's-" Violet frowned for a few seconds. Then she looked up at me. "Wait. We don't know the groups yet, do we?"

"Nope. We find out tomorrow. Right before they start, in fact."

Violet tilted her head and pointed at me. "Then what if we're in the same group? The hell?"

"Scared?" I teased.

She snorted and folded her arms. "No, I mean we could team up and just murder everyone else. They wouldn't stand a chance!"

Ah. So that was what she meant. "If we're in the same group," I said, "the entire city will be watching us. It won't be a good look for a Hero and a Duchess to team up and rig a round we'd probably win anyway." In fact, it would be downright stupid. Random participants had a leeway that we simply didn't. Me for being a Hero, and Violet for being Duchess Indri.

Slowly, Violet nodded. "Hmm. So how about we fight after we beat everyone else? That'd be awesome. A little one versus one right at the end!" She grinned, and it was a feral grin, the kind that showed all of her teeth. Then she paused. "But…the round would already be over by then. Oh man, this sucks!"

I was glad she realized that. "Hey, we're in this together, remember? If we are in the same group, let's just stay out of each other's way. No more than that." Violet sighed and nodded. All of this was for Cordelia's sake. We just had to reach the biggest stage we could, and hope that it was enough.

I would need to have the same talk with Damian when he came back from his family home. Ideally, all three of us made it through, to give us the best possible odds.

Sere leaned forward and slid her notepad toward me. On it she had drawn four lines in what I assumed was meant to be a ring. There were exactly ten stick figures. Nine of them lay strewn about the ring with big X's for eyes. Only one stood at the center. It had a very large head, and it was holding up what looked like a belt.

I grinned. I was fairly sure there was no prize belt. Where had she even gotten that idea? "That's the plan," I said, smiling at her.

Sere beamed. She had taken a few hours to relax after the incident at Wardell Manor. She had clung to me the whole way home. It really was a good thing that boy hadn't actually done anything. Violet joked, but he might genuinely have lost the hand.

The door opened, and in strode Anias. She walked straight, took in the room, and then the table, and raised an eyebrow. "My Ladies are not done with their breakfast?" she asked.

In front of me sat a teacup half drained and half a dozen untouched biscuits. I had been too busy talking to eat much of anything.

Anias's gaze moved over my plate. "It seems only young Sere is caring for her health," she said with a small sigh. The empty plate in front of Sere took on a purple glow, rose into the air, and drifted back toward her.

"My apologies," I said. "I'll carry the dishes back myself when we're done."

Anias just smiled. "It is fine. In truth, I came here for another purpose." Something floated out from behind her. A small brown parcel, from the look of it, wrapped in plain paper and bound with simple cord. It drifted through the air and came to a stop directly in front of me. I reached for it.

"What's this?" I asked, already picking at the knot.

"It arrived within the hour, My Lady," Anias said. "Through the Farstep Circle, by private courier. From Myrrheim."

I paused. Myrrheim. Could it be?

It hadn't been very long at all since I'd sent him my letter. And given their apparent waitlist, I hadn't expected to hear back for weeks. Something must have motivated him.

The cord came free. The paper folded away. Inside were two things.

The first was a letter, sealed in wax. I knew that seal well by now. The second was a box. A small black box of dark lacquered wood, barely the size of my palm. I broke the seal on the letter and read.

It was short. I read it once, and then I read it again, and started to smile. I could not have stopped it if I had tried.

"What the hell is it?" Violet demanded, leaning halfway over the table. "What's with that face?"

"It seems," I said, folding the letter closed, "that Duke Solair did not appreciate a certain someone slashing his prices to show up his daughter's very first convoy." I looked back at the black box. Still unopened.

Well, Cordelia. I got what you asked for.