exalted war: CH 4 (rough draft) (Patreon)

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Chapter 4: Church intervention

Octavian held the door while we entered a room furnished with a desk and four chairs. A cup stood on a stack of student papers, leaving a brown ring across someone’s work.

“Please, my prince. Forgive the accommodations. I thought you would prefer a conversation here to receiving congratulations in the corridor.”

“I’ve had some practice accepting those without knowing what they’re for,” I said. “I’d appreciate knowing what I’m thanking people for this time.”

He smiled and offered me the chair beside the desk. I waited for Ashley, Rachel, and Tiffany to sit before taking it. Octavian remained standing.

“A household does not surrender one of its daughters to sacred service without questions. There is no shame in having them. I trust the announcement has spared you the burden of answering everyone else’s.”

“It has spared us several conversations we had no means of conducting,” Ashley said. She settled her bag against her knee. “Adelia’s father will expect something from us, though. I would prefer that what we tell him agrees with what he hears from the Church.”

“A proper concern, my lady. You may direct him to me. His daughter has been chosen by Ack. Whatever expectations he held for her, he has been granted something greater.”

“And if he asks to see her?” I said. “Or we do? She left a room full of possessions and people who expected her at breakfast.”

Tiffany looked at me.

Octavian rested a hand on the back of the empty space between our chairs.

“You will not be seeing her, my prince. Her service requires her separation from such attachments. I understand that this may seem abrupt. But consider what it would mean to receive the High God’s summons and ask him to wait while one settled the affairs of a household.”

“I wouldn’t want to be the one explaining the delay,” I said.

“No, nor would I.” His smile returned. “We can attend to what she has left behind.”

Tiffany lowered her bag to the floor. The strap remained looped around her fingers.

I’d attended to some of it. The broken bedroom came to mind.

“Tell me,” Octavian continued, “did you observe any signs of her calling? A change in her manner, perhaps? Something that puzzled you at the time?”

Ashley left the question to me. Rachel sat with her hands folded over her notebook.

“She seemed happy that night,” I said. “Joyous, I suppose. But distant. I had the impression she was thinking about something she didn’t want to share.”

“Did she speak of a revelation?”

“Not to me. I took it for a good mood and left it at that. We’d had few enough of those that I didn’t want to spoil one with questions.”

“Ah, yes.” He nodded. “The profound power of Ack, beginning to fill her. Imagine being granted a purpose beyond anything your family or tutors had prepared you for. Some struggle to speak of it. Others find that the concerns which occupied them have lost their importance.”

Tiffany slipped the strap from her fingers.

“I thought she was pleased about the gala,” she said. “She cared about who would be there.”

“And perhaps she was, my lady. Faith does not require that every pleasure be renounced. You need not reproach yourself for failing to recognize what she had been given.”

Tiffany pressed her lips together and nodded.

Octavian turned to me.

“Have you found time for the Testament, my prince?”

There it was. The book. I’d wondered how long we could talk about Adelia without him recommending what had helped ruin her.

“With the gala and the household to settle, my reading has suffered.”

“A familiar difficulty. There is always some demand upon a man of your station.” He inclined his head. “But I hope you will make room for it. I would welcome the chance to discuss what you find.”

“I’ll make time for it,” I said. “Though I suspect I’ll have questions.”

“I should be disappointed if you did not. Leonard had questions enough, but he preferred answers that required little of him.”

Octavian glanced at Tiffany. She lowered her eyes to her bag.

“But we need not concern ourselves with his failings. What passed to you through conquest is yours to use as you see fit. The Testament, his place among us, and the responsibilities that accompany it.”

“And what should I expect those responsibilities to involve?”

“There will be a gathering of the Order. Your attendance is required, though I would consider it a poor welcome to send you into such company without preparation. Read what you can. Bring your questions to me. Some passages benefit from instruction.”

I could think of a few. Starting with how to burn the fucking thing without setting the rest of the city on fire.

“Has a date been set?” Ashley asked. “His Highness has obligations to the college and the imperial household. I would hate to discover that two people had claimed the same evening.”

“No date that need trouble you, my lady. I shall see that you receive notice.”

She inclined her head. “Thank you. There are people who consider notice something one provides after the carriage arrives.”

Octavian gave a chuckle.

“The Church has been accused of worse. In this instance, we can accommodate the prince.”

“And until this gathering?” I asked.

“Until then, do not mistake my encouragement for a demand that you neglect your duties.” He brought his hands together, one resting over the other. “We serve the Prince of the New Blood. We await your orders, my prince. My task is to ensure that when you give them, you understand what stands at your disposal.”

I had been preparing an excuse for why I couldn’t attend another bloody meeting. I let it go.

“That would be useful,” I said. “I’d rather know what I’m asking of a man before I send him to do it.”

“A consideration those beneath you will appreciate.”

Rachel shifted her notebook on her lap. She had not opened it.

“For the present, I would like Adelia’s family dealt with through you,” I said. “They’ll have questions we can’t answer, and I don’t want guesses passing for statements from my household.”

“I shall attend to it. Her father will understand that the summons came from above any authority he holds over her.”

“Good. Ashley will direct any inquiries to the Church.” I said.

Octavian bowed his head.

“Is there anything else you require of me, my prince?”

I wanted the location of the original Testament, a list of everyone who had read it, and some idea of how many of them had become things I would have to kill.

“That will do for today. Thank you for making time for us.”

“The honor is mine. With your permission, I shall return to my duties.”

“Of course, Your Excellency,” I said with a slight nod of my head.

He stepped toward the door, then waited with his hand short of the latch until I rose. Ashley collected her bag. Tiffany had to pull its strap free from beneath one foot of her chair, and Rachel held the chair while she retrieved it.

Octavian opened the door for us.

“May Ack guide your reading, Prince Grayson.”

“I’ll give it the attention it deserves.”

We parted in the corridor. A pair of students stopped their conversation to bow to Octavian, then caught sight of me and attempted to include us without standing up.

Ashley took my arm and kept us moving.

“Was that satisfactory?” I asked.

“Which part?”

“I was hoping you’d choose.”

“The part where you gave her father someone else to argue with.”

“That was my favorite too.”

Tiffany walked beside Rachel, carrying her bag against her stomach. At the elevator, she reached for the gate, but I caught the handle and held it while they entered.

“Thank you, husband.”

There was room beside me. She took it.

We rode to the residential level with the sound of the mechanism filling the pauses between floors. Rachel watched the passing stone through the gate. Ashley examined a loose thread at the seam of my sleeve, pinched it between her nails, and broke it.

“You can change out of this when we get in,” she said. “Sasha should have your armor prepared.”

“Titus will appreciate that. I doubt he wants to spend the afternoon waiting while I fight my way out of formal clothes.”

“He should try dressing you, if he wants a true battle,” Ashley said.

The elevator stopped, and the attendant opened the gate. The royal apartment floor was bright in the way only too many chandeliers can produce. The imperial guards stood at the door to my apartment, the former abode of Linard. The guards bowed and opened the antechamber doors. 

I walked into the main salon and heard a woman laugh by the fireplace. After two hours of Mundness instruction and a private audience with Octavian, I had a fair idea which part of my day I was going to prefer. Four elven women had drawn the chairs into a circle on one of Ashley’s blue rugs. A pot of cossa stood among them. When they saw us, they rose and knelt in greeting, though Lira took care to put a cup in my hand on the way down.

“You remembered,” I said to her. The last time Lira served me cossa at dinner, I’d thanked her for filling my cup past the polite inch the college seemed to consider sufficient.

“I thought you might want a proper one after class, Master Grayson,” Lira said. She was a tall, honey-blond woman with brown eyes and a long braid drawn over one shoulder. Her pale blue dress left the other shoulder bare. She had a lovely mouth, wide and generous, and I realized I’d seen her swallow that smile a dozen times at dinner without ever getting to see the whole thing.

“Lira and Nessa have been looking forward to this, husband,” Tiffany said as she put her bag on a chair. “I told them I could spare you for an introduction. I made no promises about the rest of your afternoon.”

“I seem to have a cup of cossa to get through,” I said, taking the chair beside the pot. “Come and sit with me. Who have you brought to meet me?”

Nessa took her place beside Lira. I knew the two of them by sight, though I doubted anyone could have mistaken one blonde for the other. Nessa had pale flaxen hair, freckles across her nose, and enough curve to her hips to give the same blue silk a different shape. She wore her hair pinned at the nape, which showed off the long points of her ears. She caught me looking and touched a finger to one of the little silver hoops along the rim of her left ear.

“The woman beside me is Seren,” Tiffany said. “And this is Veyra. They came to the college with Adelia.”

Seren had warm brown skin and black hair cut along her jaw. When she turned to greet me, the point of one ear slipped through it. She was slender, with fine shoulders and a long neck set off by the square neckline of her black dress. Veyra wore the same silver-trimmed black, though she was shorter and fuller through the hips. Her light blue curls refused to stay behind her ears. One caught at the corner of her mouth when she smiled, and she blew it free.

“May I ask him, mistress?” Veyra said to Tiffany.

“You made me promise you could, darling,” Tiffany said. “Go on.”

“Are Seren and I allowed to stay at the college with you, Master Eric?” Veyra asked. “I’d like that. We both would.”

I’d expected a question about Adelia. It took me a moment to catch up with the one she’d asked.

“I’d be glad to have you,” I said. “Ashley, do I owe the college a letter, or can these ladies take my word for it?”

“They can take your word, husband,” Ashley said. She settled on the arm of my chair and rested a hand on my shoulder. “Adelia is your wife by right of combat. She keeps that standing while she serves Ack, and the attendants she brought into the marriage fall under your authority. They can keep their rooms at the college for as long as you wish.”

“Good. You’re staying,” I told Seren and Veyra. “Lira and Nessa will continue with Tiffany. I’d like to see all four of you at home with us.”

Veyra reached across the space between the chairs and squeezed Seren’s hand. Seren had brought a key with her. She slipped it into the pocket of her skirt.

“What was the key for?” I asked her.

“Our trunk, master,” Seren said. “I packed it in case we had to leave. Veyra made me open it to get that dress out.”

“I wanted to look pretty when he met me,” Veyra told her. She turned those warm gray eyes on me. “Did I do well, master?”

“You did, Veyra,” I said. “You’re a lovely woman. All four of you are pleasing to the eye, and I’m pleased to have your company.”

Veyra’s smile brought out a dimple in one cheek. Seren leaned across to free a blue curl from her silver clasp before it could pull.

Leonard had chosen the four of them for his wives because, of the races permitted to serve in a noble household, elves looked the most human to him. I had assumed he took them to bed. Tiffany had corrected me on that point. The women slept in their own quarters. It was his cane they’d had cause to remember, and I had stood on the sand of the imperial arena and seen the marks he’d left on his household that morning.

“Master Eric?” Seren asked. “Whom would you like us to attend while Lady Adelia is gone? I can take care of clothes, and Veyra has a good hand with hair.”

“Speak to Mistress Ashley about your duties,” I said. “She knows where we could use help. I’d like you to consult her about what you wear, too.”

I met Ashley’s eyes. We’d had a conversation about clothes once, sitting on her bed at the House of Stars. She could remember the name of every kitsune she’d bought a dress for that day, right down to the woman who had gone back to washing windows with a bandage on her hand. Ashley gave my shoulder a squeeze.

“We’ll have Faith bring some things to try,” Ashley said. “You’ll want a lining in those skirts before you brave the carriage in winter. Will get you into proper house colors soon.”

“Thank you, mistress,” Nessa said. She rose and turned her shoulder toward me, gathering her pale hair to show where the silk dipped to the small of her back. “Lira talked the dressmaker into doing this for me. What do you think, master?”

“I think Lira has excellent taste,” I said. “I hope you thanked her.”

“I’ve promised to do up thirty little buttons for her every morning for the rest of my life,” Nessa said. Beside her, Lira lifted her braid. A row of blue buttons ran from the waist of her dress to the nape of her neck.

“Twenty-two,” Lira said, laughing. “You can count them when you help me out of it.”

Tiffany leaned against the back of my chair to look. “I paid for thirty,” she said, which set Nessa laughing hard enough to spill a drop of my cossa when her hip caught the table.

I put my thumb over the spot before it reached Ashley’s rug. Nessa held out a napkin, her cheeks pink and her smile intact. I took it and finished my drink while Seren asked if she might wear green. She’d seen the deep green of my house colors on Sasha and had wanted some for herself.

“Bring a length of it to the window with me,” Ashley said, holding out her hand to Seren. “I want to see it against your hair. Tiffany, where do you keep your cloth samples?”

“I’ll show you,” Tiffany said. She bent to pick up her bag, and this time Nessa let her carry it. She had the last of my cossa to pour.

Rachel took my arm as we left them at the window. Her notebook brushed my sleeve on the walk down the corridor, beneath the amber magical lamps and the tapestries Ashley had hung on Leonard’s old trophy hooks.

“You remembered how Lira serves your cossa,” Rachel said.

“She makes a good cup,” I said. “I’ve been calling the other two ‘Adelia’s attendants’ since we moved in. I like Seren and Veyra better.”

“So do I,” Rachel said. At the mother-of-pearl door to my room, she slipped her fingers between mine. “It’s Mundness, husband. Do you remember the blue dress I wore to Professor Trianna’s apartments?”

“How could I forget?” I asked.

Rachel smiled. “I’m glad it made an impression; Trianna seemed to like it as well.”

“Rachel, you spent half the lesson leaning over a drafting table. I had an excellent view of that dress,” I said.

“That was rather the idea,” Rachel said. She drew my hand to her waist. 

“I look forward to seeing what you wear tonight,” I said. “Even if it winds up on the floor.”

“I will put proper thought into it, husband,” Rachel said. She lifted her face for a kiss, and I gave her one with my hand at the small of her back. It took me a moment to let her open the door.

Milly met us inside with a folded letter. “This came for you and Mistress Rachel, Master Eric. The porter said Professor Trianna would like an answer. I offered to take it down to her.”

“Thank you, Milly,” I said. I broke the seal, and Rachel read over my arm.

Exalted Prince Grayson and Lady Albillac,

May I expect you both in my apartments after supper for our private study session this evening? I should like to see the finished sword. I have Lady Albillac’s drawing on my desk and a question about the placement of the needle that the drawing fails to answer.

Trianna

“The placement is on the second sheet,” Rachel said.

“Good. Bring it along. I’ll bring the sword.” I handed her the letter. “Tell her we’ll both be there after supper. I owe Tiffany the seat beside me first.”

Rachel opened her notebook on the dresser and took out her pen. She wrote our acceptance and passed it to me to sign. Beneath our names she added a line about bringing the second drawing. Whatever else Rachel wanted from this evening, Trianna was getting an answer about that needle.

Sasha had laid a coverlet across the foot of the bed to protect the linen from my armor. She took my college coat while Milly tucked the reply into its envelope and set it beside her things.

“Is Mistress Tiffany all right, master?” Sasha asked as she unfastened my collar. “She asked me to have her writing things ready in case she had to send word to her father.”

“Octavian has offered to handle inquiries about Adelia. She can write to her father if she wants to. She’s under no obligation to explain what happened; that is the church's job now.”

Sasha nodded. “I’ll leave the paper on her desk.”

I stripped to my shorts and sat on the bed. Milly held the greaves of my Shavala armor upright while I worked my feet into the boots I’d fused to the suit. Sasha lifted the weight of the backplate and helped me into the sleeves. The cloud wool had folded beneath my left shoulder. Her fingers found the crease and drew it flat before I had to ask.

“Does that sit right, Master Eric?” Sasha asked.

I rolled my shoulder. “It does. Thank you.”

Milly had one hand on the open breastplate. “May I have my kiss before we close this, master? Last time I tried to hug you in it, I caught my chin.”

“Come here, Milly,” I said.

She put her arms around my neck and leaned her weight against me. I had the pleasure of holding her with a layer of soft wool between us. The bed was close enough to catch us if she put much more enthusiasm into it. I kissed her, and she gave me a second kiss of her own before fetching the provisions.

“Strafa packed enough for the six of you,” Milly said. “The two little parcels are mine. I cut some of the cheese we made for the orc commander and the lady who mends the gates. Will you give it to them?”

“Dular and Ashaya,” I said, taking the parcels. “I’d be glad to.”

Milly smiled. “I’d like to know if they enjoy it, master.”

I put the food in my ring and drew out the Ashul’kai amulet. Sasha held the breastplate open until I had the chain over my head. She ran a finger beneath it at the nape of my neck, swung the plate shut, and pressed the edges into their enchanted seal along my right side.

Rachel had set her pen down. “Eric, when you speak to Titus, will you tell him what the amulet did to your hand?”

“I mean to tell him about Adelia,” I said. “He needs to know the seed has chosen a champion.”

“He does,” Rachel said. “He should know what it cost you to reach Eighteen, too. When did your fingers start to hurt?”

“Somewhere around Gate Ten,” I said. “By Eighteen I had to force the amulet to fire.”

Rachel looked at my hand. “That’s a fair stretch of road to keep to yourself, husband.”

I flexed my fingers. I could remember the pins and needles at Ten. I could remember watching Lucius limp by the time we reached Eighteen and wishing the stubborn bastard had said something about his leg.

“I’ll tell Titus before we go through the doors,” I said.

Sasha settled the last pauldron onto my shoulder, and Milly handed me my Mobius belt. I fastened it, touched the scabbard to my hip, and felt the gel take hold.

“Come give me a kiss, Sasha,” I said. “I have to go.”

She came up on her toes, one hand braced against my chest. I caught the little bell at her throat between my fingers before it could strike the black and silver plate. That got a smile out of her. I kissed her goodbye and felt the brush of one soft ear against my cheek as she settled onto her heels.

Rachel walked me to the door. I put my bare hand beneath her chin and kissed her before drawing on my gauntlet. “Tonight, we would not want to disappoint Professor Trianna.” I reminded her.

“Mmm yes, husband,” Rachel said.

I left down the hall, and I crossed the salon to the sound of Ashley and Tiffany discussing house cloth colors and took the elevator down to the main atrium. Students coming off the curving stairs made room for me to descend to the dungeon lobby. The polished marble gave way to worn stone beneath my boots, and I heard Oodson counting coins before I reached the dungeon lobby.

Titus waited beside a column with his shield at his leg and his short-crested helmet beneath his arm. He put his fist over his heart as I approached.

“Exalted Prince. The others are waiting on Twelve,” Titus said.

“Good. I’ve had a conversation worth repeating, and I’d like all five of you to hear it.”

Titus glanced at the adventurers gathered around Oodson’s counter. “The lake, then,” he said, putting on his helm.

We passed through the checkpoint and stepped into the blue shimmer beneath the portal arch.

“Level twelve,” I said.

For one unpleasant instant my stomach seemed to stay in the lobby. My boots sank into white sand, and I took a breath of air warm from the lake. Across the water, sunlight lay on the pale northern cliffs. A line of hoofprints followed the wet margin of the beach to a patch of grass where a spear and a tower shield stood propped together.

At the edge of the lake, the rest of Titan’s Shield waited for us. Branwen raised a hand in greeting, Lucius and Chariklia rose from the grass, and Clymiphae drew her forehooves from the shallows.

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