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16: The Pillars of Power
🕑 Added 2021-05-05 06:16:47 +0000 UTCCousin Blaise was waiting in her room when she returned, his nose buried in some history textbook about a battle. Was there really so much to write about? All that changed was the when, where, who, why, how, and how many—all trivial details when the outcome was the same!
Ants get squashed. The junior that dares, dies.
“Have you been here this whole time?” Daphne asked, taking her seat across him.
“No,” Blaise said, eyes moving across the page one last time before he closed its covers with a snap. “I’ve been here maybe an hour? You’d be returning sooner or later.”
“You could have just asked a servant to go get you when I did,” Daphne said.
“I didn’t have much to do,” Blaise said.
“You could train. You could go outside.”
Blaise’s brow rose. “The girl who likes to go on and on about closed door training is telling me to go outside?”
“The girl who went outside today is telling you there’s more to this world than can be found in books,” Daphne said. How would he ever capture the heart of a jade beauty if he never made a ruckus in a restaurant for her? Obviously that entailed first being in a restaurant! Her cousin might be lacking in looks, but his children need not be. For the sake of her family, she would ensure it. “So what brings you here?”
“I said we’d be talking about what you saw in class later. It’s later.”
“It’s been a day,” Daphne said.
Blaise scowled. “Yes, and last I checked a day later is still later. You were surrounded by servants and sycophants all day yesterday, and today you had that picnic of yours. Now, dismiss your servants and we can attend to the matter at hand.”
“Dismiss them for what?” Daphne asked.
He sighed with great longsuffering. “Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead,” he said. “This is a matter that must be kept within the family.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Daphne said, pointing at Tracey. “You see, I was going to teach her.”
Blaise spluttered. “Teach? You can teach it and you want to teach a peasant before your own kin?”
“Don’t be jealous,” Daphne said. It was unbecoming. Even a jade beauty much coveted like herself would one day learn to share with other jade beauties, particularly when a hero was involved. “I can teach you as well. It’s a small thing to do.”
“What I take offense with is that you wish to teach her at all!” Blaise shouted. “You’ve gone from making her a servant to considering her as oathsworn in under a week! This spell of yours could be the pillar of our house’s power, and you’re just giving it away!”
“Give us the room,” Daphne said, tone cutting as an icicle. She pinned her cousin to his seat with a stare, and only when the last servant left did she speak again. “I will not be spoken to in that way. Not by you, and not by anyone. Perhaps your memory fails you, but I remain the heir until otherwise.”
He nodded slowly. “My apologies for raising my tone.”
Daphne nodded back. “Now, what is the issue with making Tracey oathsworn?”
“It’s a massive investment of resources. We’d have to arm and armor her, get her tutors to speed up her education, round out the gaps in her training…”
“It’s one ‘spell’, as you said,” Daphne said, frowning.
“A spell that you invented, and is still secret to the world at large,” Blaise said. “A spell that lets you predict the attacks of others somehow. It might very well be foundational to our future power, and you cannot just give it away without precautions. Many will covet it.”
It seemed to her an exaggeration. Qi sensing was as basic as bullying. Then again, the people of this world cultivated differently… “Making her oathsworn protects it?”
Blaise sighed. “No, not completely. With a spell like this, I would have preferred to keep it entirely within the family for a while. Making her oathsworn would be necessary if you insist on teaching her though, which I still am opposed to. We’d be binding her to us with oaths and obligations. The oathsworn are raised high by our hands so that they will be wary of falling. It is fear as much as duty which keeps them from treachery.”
It sounded not unlike a hero’s affections—given to a girl for a brief time so that they would fear losing it to another. “We’ll make her oathsworn then,” Daphne said.
His eyes peered into hers searchingly. “You’re really confident you can teach this spell, aren’t you?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Daphne asked. Her word was her word, and she had no reason to fill this junior’s ears with deceit.
“Because you’re not even seventeen and not even a graduate,” Blaise said. “People have spent their whole lives attempting to craft new spells, and few of them ever succeed. For you to do it so young…”
“You lack faith,” Daphne said. “I am a genius among geniuses. Even the heavens know this.”
“You might well be,” Blaise said. “Can you tell me about it? What does your spell really do?”
“It is … magic sensing, I suppose,” Daphne said, taking care to translate the idea into the local terminology. “When one becomes attuned with their body, and the flow of magic in the universe, one can not so much see as feel the magic of others. With some training, differentiating between the elements is very possible.”
Blaise was locked in contemplative silence for several long breaths. Then, he said, “So that’s how you did it. How profound!”
“Really, it’s simple,” Daphne said, “but even the simplest things are profound.”
“Tell me again why you insist on teaching that serving girl of yours?”
“House Greenglade was challenged,” Daphne said. She recounted to him what Victoria had asked of her in front of their peers.
Blaise cursed silently. “As you say, it was a trap. We cannot back out of backing Tracey now that such an issue has been challenged. Had it not, there would be no loss of face, but Victoria has brought the matter to the attention of all. They will think it is her words which have shaken our confidence in your choice. That would be intolerable.”
Her cousin could be simple, but he understood some things in this world. “We can only ensure that she succeeds now, and the best way to do that is by teaching her,” Daphne said. “Being able to predict the attacks of your enemy would be of benefit in a duel.”
“I don’t see any other choice,” Blaise said. “Revealing to the world that we have a new spell in hand at the tournament is not the worst way of showing your hand. It would certainly catch Prince Hadrian’s attention too.”
“We’re in agreement then.”
“Yes,” Blaise said. “How soon can you start teaching us?”
“That depends,” Daphne said. “Broken Nose, Tracey, attend to us.”
“You know his name’s Rhian right?” Blaise said.
“I only remember the names of important people,” Daphne said. “Why do you know his name?”
Blaise smiled wanly. “It’s only good manners to know the name of the man I’m going to kill one day.”
That was fair enough, Daphne supposed.
“You called for us, Lady Daphne?” Tracey asked.
“Yes,” Daphne said. “Broken Nose, I need two more of those pills you acquired for me. How soon can you procure them?”
He scratched the back of his neck. “I’ll have to make a trip to the nearest town to check. Don’t rightly know the people here.”
“You’ll leave at once then. We’re in a hurry.”
“You shouldn’t become too reliant on ‘em,” Broken Nose said. “They’re not supposed to be addictive, but I’ve seen a few mates of mine go crazy if they go without.”
“It’s not for me,” Daphne said, tilting her head. “It’s for them.”
“You want to feed me a pill?” Tracey asked with a worried look.
“Don’t worry,” Daphne said with a smile. “It’s not an aphrodisiac.” That might have been the wrong thing to say, because she looked even more worried now. “Really, it’s harmless. Tell them, Blaise.”
He blinked at her. “I don’t know which pill you’re talking about, but I’ve never tried one either.”
Her jaw nearly dropped, but it would have been unseemly. She already knew that spirit stones either didn’t exist or were hard to come by in this realm, and if her cousin was not using pills either it would certainly explain why his cultivation was at its current level! Cultivating without pills was like fighting with one hand, or courting without an aphrodisiac!
“I will awaken your eyes to the mountain,” Daphne declared.
