Book 4 Chapter 37: Parade and Theatre

++Do not make eye contact with Isabel Vornholt, do not address her, and most certainly do not in any way impede her. She is not known to be randomly violent, but her moods are infamously mercurial for a reason. And she has become more powerful since the refinery incident.++

- A memo passed through the Voret family, to and from whom is not specifically known.

When I opened up my meeting with the Vorets, I knew that I would have to do it by immediately taking a position of strength. To do any less would be to, in their eyes, take one of weakness. It would be to invite challenge, to invite exploitation. That is how it has always been with magicians, and how it always will be. It is never enough to simply have power, one must project it constantly, or else the very reluctance to do so will be seen as an admission of its absence.

Fortunately, the Vorets were just as bound by this fact too. They could, for instance, have demanded that I meet with some vast collection of their family, but to do so would be to implicitly admit that they feared me enough to only accept negotiations with a massive numerical advantage. Instead I was to face off with the matriarch of their family, Exyria Voret.

Granted, she alone probably held about two thirds of the whole family’s brain cells, so this was not exactly a much less severe prospect. We met in her office, alone, and she served tea that she did not even bother glancing at to see if I was drinking. Apparently she was too engrossed in politics to care for the niceties.

“We have been patient,” she told me. “I don’t think even you could deny that. We have been very patient, allowing you to prance around and entertain whatever whims strike you while we had our every move delayed by the uncertainty of whether or not you will ever join the family. Our patience is at its end. We need an answer.”

This was not unexpected, at least.

“What is your final offer?” I asked her.

She sipped her tea. “You’ve met Ilgryn?”

“I have.”

“You like him?”

“He was…acceptable.”

She nodded in satisfaction. “I thought you’d get along. He’s never quite been a fit among this family, too…you know. Capable of seeing women as people. Not the sort of personality that meshes well in this household, but it made him perfect for you.”

“A fiancee is not an offer,” I told her. “What else is there?”

She hid a very small, very brief smile at that. “Ten million crowns transferred from us to you, provided you guarantee us that we will have access to any children you and Ilgryn produce.”

I felt my guts squirm with revulsion at that thought. It could not, however, be helped, I needed to amass power and I was not so weak as to forgo an obvious means of doing so.

“And?” I asked.

“...And you will retain full independence. Over yourself, over your lands, over your properties.”

I finally allowed a smile to break through the fortress of my face. This was precisely what I had expected of course, but hearing her confirm it out loud with a promise was still music to my ears.

But we were not done just yet.

“I want to know what sort of front you intend to put up in the world after this, though,” Exyria continued. “If you go through with this and take the name Voret, you’ll be associated with us whether you like it or not. That means everything you do, from your trailblazing to you…” her lip curled, “...perversions, all of it will reflect on us.”

“Do you have a problem with my sexual proclivities?” I asked her. I was not exactly pleased to see that my private affairs were being taken note of, but then I could only have expected them to remain so private when Sethira made a point of ogling me in public at every opportunity. Voret snorted.

“No, actually I like the perversion. Flaunting the occasional social rule is good for us, reminds everybody that we can do as we please—provided it doesn’t go too far, that is. No, keep the savage girl for as long as you enjoy her, I say. Just make sure not to embarrass the family where it counts. No other men.”

With that savory sentiment conveyed, we were reaching the end of our business.

“We have an accord then?” I asked.

“Almost. I’m preparing the documentation as we speak, or rather one of our secretaries is. You can take it with you to have lawyers look through and all that. Before then, we need to discuss the topic of Earl Elqarth.”

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I stiffened.

“Don’t look so nervous,” Exyria continued. “This isn’t a deal-breaker, but his animosity for you has become…increasingly apparent. He’s been making moves against you, you know? Trying to buy out land before you can get to it, other such things. My people have been disrupting his people, as a favour to you, but his reach is far and he won’t remain terrified of our being magicians forever.”

I recovered quickly enough to take in what she was saying. “...Thank you,” I said stiffly, though my mood was still soured. I had known Elqarth might be this vindictive, but having it confirmed was far from pleasant.

“Don’t thank me,” Exyria smiled sweetly. “We’re family, aren’t we?”

I did not like her patronising tone, and made a note to make her suffer for it in some minor way later on.

“Elqarth is an irritant, but he will become nothing at all once I surpass him in wealth,” I told her. Even she seemed surprised by that.

“Do you think you can?” she frowned. “He’s the richest man in Garamon. He has ten times your fortune, the way I hear it.”

“You hear wrong. He has only five times my fortune, and that gap is shrinking fast. This is no doubt a large part of his motive in interfering with me.”

“Five times is still a plenty big difference. You’ve been growing fast, I’ll admit, but you can’t bank on that holding true forever,” Exyria sighed. She believed, I had to remind myself, that she was speaking to a nineteen year old woman, still young and largely ignorant of the world. Correcting her would be more effort than it was worth.

“Just remain on standby to make use of my wealth as it continues pouring in,” I told her. “It remains mine, ultimately, but I see little point in this alliance if we do not properly pool our resources.”

I could see she liked the sound of that. The Vorets were less than twice as rich as me now, by my reckoning, and it was no small offer to have my wealth bolster their own. It was, after all, why they had bartered so heavily for it.

“When are you free for the wedding?” She asked me as I stood up to lead. “Ideally I’d like to have it sooner, the quicker we make a public show of having bagged you, the less our perceived defeat at that damned refinery will fester. It may be a secret, but it’s an open secret, which is almost worse. It means the only people who know are the ones who matter.”

She saw my face and rolled her eyes. “Oh, you’re going to have to get used to hearing phrases like ‘bagged you’ I’m afraid, my dear. You’ll need thicker skin than this.”

“I will not actually,” I told her. “Because I am not as spineless as you, so when people disrespect me I educate them on why it is in their best interests to keep from doing so.”

Her jaw clenched and I wondered if she might drag this into an argument. Apparently she had more productive things to do, however, and just remained focused on her initial question.

“Wedding,” she repeated. “What time works for you?”

“I do not especially care about that,” I shrugged. “Can we not just sign some papers and get it all over and done with?”

“We will”, she told me. “The signing will be as soon as possible, but you’re the greatest prodigy Garamon has ever—”

“Will ever,” I interrupted, irritating her further.

“...May ever see, and we’re certainly not forking over ten million damned crowns just to deny ourselves the chance to parade you around.”

Everything was about parade and theatre with modern magicians. I found myself letting out an uncharacteristically earnest sigh. “I hate that,” I spat. “I hate how much of magic now is…politics.”

I realised I had slipped with that ‘now’ modifier, but Voret did not seem to notice it, she just chuckled.

“You think it’s a new problem? Magic has always been politics, or at least for as long as I’ve been a part of it. When I was your age I met one of this world’s greatest talents. A brilliant boy. Older than me, I had to admit, but no less energetic—no less alive for it. And I married someone else instead, because of politics. There’s no shame in that and I don’t regret it. I’m not pining for some lost love. I’m an adult, and I did the smart, adult thing. You’re doing it too, so you might as well learn not to let it bother you.”

If there was one thing I hated more than the politicisation of magic, it was the sheer number of people who kept giving me unsolicited anecdotes and advice on the assumption that I would be learning something.

Fortunately, I could now do something about it. “I am not your granddaughter,” I said coldly. “And I do not need your input on how to live my life. You are an ally and an asset and that is all. If you want to feel like you are dolling out venerable wisdom then go and find one of your family’s unlimited infants and inflict it upon them.”

I expected her to explode with anger, but she just laughed, which only infuriated me even more. “Is that all?!” I demanded angrily.

“Yes dear, that’s all for now. But remember what I said. We’ve already been kept waiting, and we’ve already been tolerating a good deal of embarrassment from you. You’ll want to make room for the wedding day sooner rather than later.”

With that eerie thought in mind, I took my leave from her and made my way through the mansion. It did not look any different, but then it was not any different. The building itself would not change over a thing like this, and even the people within it did not yet know what sort of accord myself and their family had come to.

They gave me a wide berth as I walked, which suited me just fine. It left me with time to consider my next move and my overarching plans.

Power in Garamon was good, because it brought material resources, but for the time being it remained ultimately…not mine. Because everything in Garamon was ultimately more beholden to its Gods than they were to me.

The age of Kings was over. The age of Empires was…actually that one was still ongoing, but they were generally led by large bodies of inbred fops rather than an actual Emperor now.

Essentially, the age of states holding the power to challenge their Gods, for all of Garamon’s talk about the modern age of enlightenment, was dead.

That was fine, I could work around such limitations. All I needed was to isolate numerous powerful people at the heads of overly-privatised and under-monitored institutions and ensure they had loyalty to me unto death.

This prospect was a lot easier than it sounded, fortunately, when one happened to possess the cure to old age.