WW Chapter 71: Ducal Demands (Patreon)

PW 250 is at 3226 words. I'm halfway through the descriptions of Skills for the second Class. I'm finishing that chapter, will have it up either today or tomorrow. sorry for delays on other things.

The formality that Ezra had been holding himself with bled away at that announcement. He paused behind Chloe, who stood at the door with a broad smile. She knew the little trick she’d pulled, but while Ezra had made plenty of progress in acting more formally, he was far from capable of letting that slide.

“What the hell do you mean I’m going to be getting my assignment from the Duke?”

“Seems to me like you understand perfectly what that means.”

“Don’t give me that look,” Ezra snapped, then immediately regretted it when he remembered that she was his commanding officer and, beyond that, could kick the shit out of him if she thought he was being too disrespectful.

“I understand you think this is funny,” he tried again, steeling himself to better control his tone. “However, I’d rather not make a fool out of myself and you as I’m going in to speak to your boss’s boss, especially considering you’re already my boss’s boss. So tell me, what’s going on?”

“Better,” Chloe said, laughing. “However, I’m not allowed to tell you what exactly your proposed assignment is. As a reassurance, it’s coming from the Duke himself. In addition, I wouldn’t worry about offending him. He’s been around for a good long while, and accidental lapses in politeness from a brand new recruit are not going to curl his ears or even make him frown. Listen to what he has to say, and from there, decide what you’re going to do.”

“So whatever this assignment is, I can say no?” Ezra clarified.

“Technically,” she shrugged. “The Duke couldn’t care less. He’d rather somebody be enthusiastic, trustworthy, and all in on the assignment. However, you’ll definitely burn some bridges with Dominick, myself, and the rest of the people loyal to the Duke, to say nothing else.”

“So I can’t really say no.”

“Technically—”

“So no, I can’t.”

“No.”

Ezra let out a long breath that was just as much curse as it was acceptance of his fate. Chloe looked just as unbothered as ever, and then asked, “You ready?”

“Lead the way, Captain.”

Despite his reluctance to be told what to do, Ezra trusted Chloe. She made no secret of where she stood, and she’d never hidden the fact that she generally liked him. Despite any continuing misgivings at her inability to completely rip out the Blades as an organization in a few short hours, she’d only ever done right by him, and he wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.

However, as he walked out of the office, a thought occurred to him of a more delicate application of his aura.

Before thinking about it, Ezra pulled a faint thread of aura from his inner world to start whirling around his fingers, which he then ran through his wet hair. The cool damp was pleasant in the remaining warmth of the dying day, but wet hair seemed like it was probably a less than perfect idea for meeting the Duke for the first time. Without being able to see what he was doing, he pushed wind through his hair and dried it as best as he could. He’d never been one for really styling it, so he couldn’t say if, in the end, the result was better than what it was before, but once the decision was made, he couldn’t do anything other than continue to run his hands through his hair and hope for the best.

As he worried over the hair, Ezra followed Chloe’s lead around the garrison. She took him out of the officers’ quarters, where he’d expected to go to the usually unused office for Dominick. Instead, their path took him down and down and down a series of stairs that he’d never come near before. It wasn’t long before he was positive that they were underground. Here, it was cool, actually, almost cold.

Chloe walked to what looked like a sturdy closet door, unlocked it with a key, and let him in. A long, straight corridor was there, mostly dark with just three blue lights that he could see. Each one didn’t gutter like a candle or a torch, but shed more light than any regular flame he’d ever seen.

“Magelights,” Chloe explained when she saw Ezra looking at them. “They only turn on when there’s somebody nearby.”

He nodded appreciatively, wondering if Tilly would be able to create them, and how they were able to tell if somebody was close. True to what Chloe had said, as they walked forward, another light flashed on, and as they got farther ahead, another turned on ahead of them around the same time that one behind them turned off.

They walked in the comfortable, easy quiet that they had developed over their weeks of traveling together, the journey taking them, overall, at least a kilometer. Finally, they reached another door, this one banded in heavy iron and without a place for a key on their side.

Even before they got close, a small metal slat recessed in the wood was pulled open, revealing somebody’s eyes on the other side.

“Password?” a masculine voice asked.

“Turtle. Gold. Kilometer,” Chloe answered, giving a firm pause between each word.

With the password given, Ezra heard the movement of a heavy bolt on the other side of the door, and then it opened. Chloe gave her thanks as they walked into the other room.

Ezra followed her lead, nodding at the guard who stood there. Guards, it turned out. Four people wearing full sets of armor sat there, fine chainmail clinking as they stood along the edges of the room. Solid helmets and shining steel weapons were in their hands as Chloe and Ezra walked between them. To Ezra’s surprise, the guards didn’t ask any questions, simply waiting for the two visitors to continue on their path. Once they did so, the quiet murmur of conversation started up behind them as Chloe led Ezra deeper into what he could only assume was the Duke’s manor.

“Sorry about the whole cloak-and-dagger nature of this all,” Chloe said with a shrug. “We take the Duke’s safety pretty seriously.”

“Of course,” Ezra replied, looking around.

As they came out of the basement, following stairs, unornamented walls gave way to tapestries, paintings, and every other trapping of luxury that he could imagine. Large windows decorated every wall, though the light of day had entirely disappeared by now. Before he could get entirely lost in looking at everything around them, Chloe elbowed him and called his attention forward.

They stood in front of a large set of double doors, each one nearly 3 meters tall. A guard stood in front of each of the doors, and Ezra felt a faint flush of embarrassment heat up his neck as he refocused and squared his shoulders.

“Here we are,” she said, stepping back and looking at Ezra. “Any last-minute questions?”

“Is now the time to ask them?” he asked, disbelieving.

“Well,” she laughed in response, “not really.”

Then, without any further conversation, Chloe stepped forward, and the guards started to open the doors. One called in ahead, “Announcing Captain Chloe Mirellis and Ezra Soldier.”

No words answered them, and instead, the doors creaked as they opened, and Chloe led them in. Instead of the arrogance that she carried herself with in front of Count Aaron Standage, she walked into the room with squared shoulders and, before she got too far, fell to one knee.

Ezra didn’t try to hold back from looking around, seeing what appeared to be the official reception room for the Duke. Like everywhere on his path here, there were large windows on every wall, but behind a pair of giant chairs that sat on a dais, two steps above the rest of the floor, a massive stained glass window loomed. He couldn’t see it too clearly, since the light of day was gone, but the light from magelights along every wall cast enough light for Ezra to be reasonably sure it was a resemblance of the queen in the window.

Beyond the room, though, was something else that demanded his attention.

Sitting in one of the two large, padded chairs was a man with a well-trimmed black beard. His beard had no white in it, but his dark hair was silver at the temples. His eyes were a piercing blue like Ezra’s own, and the crow’s-feet at the corners of them showed both age and a man who wasn’t afraid to smile. His clothing was finely tailored to him, and he stood as Ezra took a knee beside Chloe. He was dressed well, but not ostentatiously, and as he stepped forward, a presence that Ezra felt more than he saw followed the Duke.

That presence, Ezra was willing to bet everything, was Dominick.

He didn’t wear fancy armor, though a heavy breastplate across his chest and the halberd visible behind the Duke’s seat reminded Ezra that this was a Knight. Even so, Ezra could feel from the pressure of the other man’s inner world that he didn’t have a snowball’s chance of facing him in a fight, regardless of how much equipment he himself had or Dominick lacked. He couldn’t tell how it was that Dominick’s inner world carried so much weight that he could feel it like this, but Ezra also wondered if somebody who wasn’t at least an Adept could feel the same.

With the pressure coming from the Knight’s inner world, Ezra struggled to actually look at the older man. Once he finally did, Ezra was surprised at the complete difference in the man’s aura and his physical body.

Dominick was an old man, at least seventy, by Ezra’s reckoning. His hairline was completely gone, leaving just a ring of white hair going from one temple and wrapping around the back of his head to the other. The top of his head was shiny and bald, and the hair on the sides was nearly shaved all the way gone. The skin on his face hung loose, and though his shoulders were broad and his uniform well filled out, he moved carefully. The strange confusion between the danger that Ezra knew Dominick posed and the frail body he could see kept Ezra on the back foot as he looked at Chloe for any indication of what he was supposed to do now.

“Thank you, Chloe,” the Duke said, leaning forward with a smile. “This is the man you recommend?”

“Yes, my lord,” she said, her head still bowed.

“All right then,” the Duke nodded. “So, Ezra, do you know why you’re here?”

“According to Captain Chloe,” Ezra said, looking up at the surprisingly personable noble, “you have an assignment for me. More than that, I don’t know.”

“I suppose it is my place to give the details regarding an assignment from me,” the Duke said. His face remained as agreeable as ever, though Ezra couldn’t help but notice the way that Dominick glanced at Chloe. She stiffened, but didn’t seem to doubt the actions she had taken thus far.

“Before I give you this assignment, I do have a question for you,” the Duke said, stepping back toward his chair. He walked easily up the stairs and settled back in his chair. “Of course, both of you, please rise.”

Ezra took his cue from Chloe, who didn’t hesitate to rise to her feet.

The Duke continued, “What are your thoughts regarding serving the ducal house?”

Despite Chloe’s reassurance that it would be fine, Ezra was entirely unwilling to answer that question. He looked at Dominick, then Chloe, then back at the Duke. The two older men standing in front of him didn’t say anything, just continuing to take a measure of him, and after about thirty seconds, Ezra finally answered, “If that’s what I’m commanded to do, I’m happy to do it.”

The Duke’s face settled into something less kindly, but before Ezra’s stomach could drop too hard, Dominick stepped closer to the Duke.

“You know you walked into that one,” the old man said. “You brought someone you don’t know who knows that his life is in your hands and then asked him an open-ended question.”

“True enough, I suppose,” the Duke said.

Then the amiable disposition bled away, and he stared directly into Ezra’s face. Now, with the change in his bearing, the Duke asked, “If given the opportunity, would you ally yourself with the anti-Duke faction?”

“No!” Ezra scoffed. “The only thing they’ve ever done is treat me like garbage. I’ve never been in the habit of making friends with people who look down on me.”

“If given the opportunity,” the Duke continued, his eyes drilling into Ezra even more, the weight of his gaze somehow making Ezra more willing to talk even as Ezra heard and felt Jormun nearby trying to say something, “would you work against the interests of the Duchy of Brayton?”

“I can’t see any reason why I would,” Ezra shrugged. “It’s taking care of me, and it’s not like I have any enemies here.”

“If given the opportunity, would you bring harm to me or my family? Why or why not?”

Added to these words, that force of will slammed into Ezra even more, and he started to recognize what was happening, but he couldn’t stop himself from speaking anyway.

“I don’t love the nobility, how they think they are better than everybody else. It pisses me off, but I don’t hate any of you enough to hurt you, especially because it would cause so much trouble for me if I did. No, I wouldn’t bring you harm, unless somebody decided to make me their enemy or something.”

As soon as he said the words, though he desperately wanted to stop himself, Ezra felt something in himself shift. The Duke continued to look at him with those same piercing eyes, but Ezra no longer felt compelled to do as he was told, even as the eyes seemed to demand his compliance. When the effect disappeared, the Duke’s face lit up, not seeming to dislike Ezra’s ability to thrust off the… magic?

“That was what, maybe two minutes?” The Duke asked, leaving Ezra more confused than before. 

“Just a bit over one,” Dominick answered, seeming to look at Ezra for the first time. “Ezra, was it?”

“Yes, sir,” he answered, narrowing his eyes at the two older men. “What was that?”

“I’m sorry, both for talking around you as well as casting a spell on you,” the Duke said, stepping forward. “It’s a first circle spell, compel truth. And the fact that you could shove off its effect so easily is a testament to your strength. I’m a first circle sorcerer—”

Then, the Duke walked forward, offering his hand to Ezra. “Actually. Let me start with this offer, then, regardless of how you respond, I’ll give you more answers.”

He waited for Ezra’s answer, and without anything else to say, he nodded, confused. 

“Great. Would you be willing to be my second son’s bodyguard?”