Current Wealth: 229 gold 37 silver 6 copper
Corvan did return, eventually, and when he did the old bastard looked quite surprised by what had happened. That was more or less what decided me on not waterboarding him for answers, it was hard to fake a reaction as sincere and authentic as his had seemed to be.
We were all huddled inside the mansion, having retreated to one of its numerous living rooms with Solitaire. All of his gear was stored there, as was his body. He’d lost consciousness as soon as the fight was over, apparently having held himself awake purely to ensure the enemy was seen away, and Corvan got to work on him quickly. All of us stood back and watched the magus do his thing, nerves frayed at the sight.
Despite standing witness to the exact process more than once, I still managed to hold a grain of fear for it. Certain something would go wrong, cripplingly wrong, that Solitaire would be hurt beyond repair, or that we’d have spent too much time waiting before he was healed. There was a snag, as it happened. Corvan wincing.
“Magic.” He grunted. “This was done with magic, someone else’s.”
I went cold. It was harder to heal an injury left with magic in Redacle, one of the ways we balanced healers, but Corvan persevered. He was finished soon enough, and Solitaire’s breathing became more heavy and consistent.
“When will he wake up?” I asked, surprising myself with how dry my throat was. The nerves. I kept expecting to be over them, somehow, kept hoping I’d one day have moved past fear, worry, panic. Kept proving myself wrong. It seemed I’d never be too powerful for fear. Not while I was weak enough to be threatened.
“I should’ve been there.” Beam breathed, and I glanced over to see his knuckles squeezed white against the seat of a chair. His face was tighter still.
“I should’ve been holding a gun.” I replied. “Solitiare should’ve been in armour, Corvan should’ve been fucking with us-” I glared at the magus as I said that, then continued “- and in all, we should be stronger than we are already.”
I took a moment, eyed Beam.
[Appraisal]
- Class: Dragonknight
- Level: 13
- Condition: Fine
- Modifiers: +3 Strength, +4 Speed, +3 Toughness, +4 Alertness
- Statistics: Strength 12, Speed 12, Dexterity 8, Stamina 9, Toughness 11, Alertness 12, Charisma 6, Intelligence 5
- Inventory: Local wear
- Class abilities: Beloved II
- Current Experience Points: 86/460
- Unspent Skillpoints: 0
Beam’s powers were just as they’d been for days now. We hadn’t grown stronger at all since our attack on the orc fortress. We’d gotten lazy, let ourselves stagnate, focused on money instead of the ultimate currency. The ability to kill a fucker before he killed us.
“We were sloppy.” I finished, realising even as I said it how similar I sounded to Solitaire.
A chair creaked, Argar’s chair. They often did that when he sat in them, most furniture was simply not built with two hundred kilograms of ginger in mind. I turned my gaze to him to find the man looking, surprisingly, rather put-out himself.
It was then that the idea struck me.
“That tournament, it hasn’t happened yet, right?”
Argar’s eyes lit up quickly, and he shook his head. I nodded, beginning to pace as I thought.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Winning that, progressing through it, would mean contests and fights. Difficult ones, against powerful enemies. The exact sort of thing that we tended to gain experience from, if our observations were correct. It seemed our most promising prospect.
“I say we enter.” I said at last. “For a few reasons, the major one being it’s a good way to make money fast, which we’ll need to do to make a dent in the debts.”
Beam frowned.
“Debts?”
I resisted the urge to swear as I looked back at him.
“Yes, debts, we…Uh, inherited a few with the marriage.”
It had been my big conundrum, whether to consult Solitaire and Beam before signing Phelia’s contract or not. Ultimately I’d decided against it purely because I was aware a certain Fucking Noble and the Dead Edge had us in their sights. Evidently, given how quick the attack came, I’d been right to. We’d probably all be dead before a second meeting if I hadn’t agreed to Phelia’s terms in the first.
I was fully prepared to tell Beam as much, but he didn’t seem in the mood to even discuss it. That, I supposed, I couldn’t really blame him for. I took my leave from the room soon after that, finding myself suddenly cramped inside it. Being close to Solitaire’s slumbering form made it hard to think, and I had something else to attend, as well.
We’d found Phelia inside her mansion, after the altercation. Sitting in a living room, drinking. Drinking a lot. She’d already emptied half a bottle of wine by the time I stumbled into her room, and as I headed back for it I expected to see a lot more lying empty around her. But I didn’t. As I stepped inside for the second time, I found her reading, sitting upright and forcing some veneer of calm.
She still trembled, fidgeted, moved in all the ways I’d learned people did when adrenaline was filling them with lightning. But her composure had hardened rather than softened in the hour since I’d seen her, and it didn’t look like she’d touched another drop of booze. Once more, I let myself appreciate the woman for a moment.
Then she noticed me, looking up questioningly.
“Husband?”
It felt strange to be called that, so strange that I took a moment mulling the word over before I let it properly register. Fuck.
Then I stepped over it and answered her.
“How are you doing, after the incident?”
I’d expected some uncertainty, residual fear, trauma. What I hadn’t been anticipating, though, was the immediate, incendiary anger.
“The incident.” She spat. “That’s what we’re calling it, I suppose, when your brother uses his family members as shields?”
Her words gave me a moment’s pause, and I used it to chew on them. Solitaire, obviously. I hadn’t heard about that particular misdeed of his though.
“He…Why did he do that?”
“Because he’s mad?” She snapped. “I really couldn’t say, he’s your brother.”
I considered my next words very carefully, and decided that this was not the subject I wanted to have a screaming match about. Not at a time like this, in any case.
“We can discuss this once I’ve heard more specifics about the attack.” I replied, coolly. “Until then…How are you feeling?”
Phelia was far from happy, but no secondary rage came. I considered that a victory.
“Scared, obviously.” She replied, stiffly, and I saw a sudden flutter of shame in her eyes. “I almost died. I was helpless to save myself, I…I found that the limits of cleverness are exposed against the power of violence.”
It was so poetic, I almost didn’t catch her trembling as she said it.
“You’ve never been in a…Situation like that before.” I noted. There was no guesswork involved, no speculation, I simply saw and knew, with no more conscious deliberation than was used to see two fingers held up and label them a pair. She nodded, her usual bullwhip humour absent. Devoid of the woman’s sarcasm, I found her somehow smaller in my sights.
“I hadn’t either, until recently.” I told her, and found myself almost surprised to realise it was the truth. “You’re probably trying to process things, to make sense of it all. You’re probably not certain whether all the things you’ve spent a lifetime learning still apply. You’ve seen a new set of rules, and you’re trying to figure out how to unsee them.”
She met my eyes, held my gaze. Then nodded. I sighed.
“Well, I don’t think there’s an easy way to help you do all of that. All I can say is that you’ll figure it out eventually. I did.”
“And what did you figure out?” She asked me, suddenly. The intensity in her stare told me that this was more than just some petty challenge, she needed to know. Desperately. More than that, even, she was terrified of not knowing. It made me feel all the guiltier.
“I figured out that everything I’d learned still applied, most of the time. But your life will be as violent as the most violent people in it, and gathering attention will guarantee that that’ll be a very violent kind.” I paused, surprised by my own words even as they left my lips. Somehow, though, it all made sense. It all felt right. “I learned that peace isn’t something you choose for yourself, it’s something you force onto others.”
Phelia didn’t say anything, she just stared at me. The silence between us only lasted a few moments before interruption, the door flung open and I turned to see Helena standing and panting in its frame.
“Solitaire.” She breathed. “He’s awake!”