Tempered by the Will

19 - Business

"What were those things?" Vica demanded as soon as Felix reappeared in the hallway. She had been waiting for several minutes outside the makeshift infirmary, which was actually nothing more than one of the spacious lounges in the duke's home converted in a haste to somewhere the wounded servants could rest. "Also, what happened to you, and how did they find out I was here? What are we going to -"

"One thing at a time, madam," he interrupted, and she stopped mid-sentence when she noted suddenly the hoarseness of his voice. The rest of her questions died away when for the first time since he arrived, she noticed the light gray tinge of exhaustion on his face as well as faint lines of stress between his slender eyebrows. If he weren't so proper, she was sure he would have been leaning back against the wall, too; he looked like if he stayed standing for much longer, he would fall right over onto the floor.

"...Sure," she said slowly. "Then...actually, how are they? Can your healer friends sort them out?"

Two of the three people he had come with were medicinally and magically trained to heal. She'd noticed Constantine slipping away after helping carry the wounded; hopefully, his anti-magic wouldn't hamper the mages since he was hiding away somewhere on the third floor, she guessed.

"They'll be fine. A few of them will take a while to recover and rehabilitate fully, but it seems there was deliberate effort on the part of Lady Murena's men to keep from killing anyone outright."

"Lady Murena?"

Felix nodded. "Duke Murena's consort. I guarantee you she's the one behind this - she's merely pulling her husband's strings. She's been particularly unhelpful for a while now and has always been the sort to flout the acceptable way of doing things. Including, as you saw today, leading an attack on someone else's lands under the guise of rescuing some poor captive."

Vica pursed her lips and crossed her arms over her chest with a sharp huff. "So why wait until today? You were gone for nearly a week."

"Because I didn't make an appearance in the Court until early this morning. She couldn't be sure I wasn't here until that happened."

"But you said you were handling Court business all this time..."

"I was, but I wasn't there in person. There's a plague that's begun to make its rounds in several areas of the Capital, including in the lower district of my duchy, and I needed to see to it. I'll need to return as well. I came here when I received a message from one of my spies that he had just seen a large number of mages leave Duke Murena's lands."

"Spies, huh?"

"An advantage that will help us greatly in the future. The Resistance is good for bringing together Houses that were former rivals. We're more numerous than you might suspect."

Interesting. So they weren't alone in this, and they had an entire other House on their side as well...and it might have soothed her worries a little if he weren't being so evasive. Who were they? Why hadn't he mentioned them before? Questions she already knew he would dodge answering because he thought it was better that she knew no more than she had to. For the sake of the movement and everyone risking their lives for it, he would explain, just as he liked to say whenever she pried for details about his secret army. And later, later, was his favorite thing to say whenever she hinted at moving things along more quickly.

She was the prize, and yet she was kept in the dark. They wanted her, but they didn't respect her. The only reason she hadn't exploded in anger over it yet was because Bren had agreed with Felix that biding their time and exercising caution was a good idea.

And also because despite her newfound power to crush and destroy all obstacles in her path, she was all too aware that she had no wisdom to fall back on, no experience to guide her hand. She was no less impatient to change her world than she had been after that night over the Steps, but the last two weeks she had spent here had shown her that she had much to learn before she truly understood how to do that.

"Vica?"

She lifted her head. "I was thinking about those beastmen," she lied. "What were they?"

"Chimeras. They're mostly a relic of the past because of how notoriously difficult it is to create long lasting ones, but House Murena was famous for their abominable experimentation for decades. Old magic is hard to come by, and chimeras were their answer."

"Old magic? Because of Resistants?"

"The demand for old magic has existed before the first Resistant appeared in the Capital. It's thought of as slower and more subtle than human magic, but there are things we will never be able to achieve through our cooked runes and talismans. Natural magic, the old kind, lean toward the otherwise unattainable, like immortality."

"Oh..." Immortality. What a greedy ambition, but unsurprising. Even folk stories were full of tragic accounts of foolish men searching for springs of eternal youth and the golden fruit of trees that would make old men young again.

"Chimeras are a forced mixture of elf, man, and beast, done in such a way that the very process itself ensures the preservation of old energy, old magic -"

"Mixture of what?" she demanded. "Say that again."

He frowned and looked down at the floor. "The Capital has a vastly colored history. You shouldn't be surprised at the things you hear. You will learn far worse before this is all over."

She rubbed fiercely at her eyes with balled fists, growing more and more frustrated. Every time she tried to find answers to her questions, she encountered only more problems, more horrors.

"So what do we do when they come back?" she asked. "They will, won't they?"

"Yes. I'm waiting on hearing back from the others about what to do next."

"I thought you were the head of the Resistance?"

"One of them. But even if I wasn't, this is something I would need to confer with the others over before taking action on my own."

She raised one shoulder in a half-shrug, refraining from commenting that she respected his restraint. She rather liked that kind of humility; it made Duke Aventine seem a little more genuine, a little more trustworthy.

"And what about your plague business? Is it serious?" His face tightened with a renewed strain, and she realized at once that she had asked an idiotic question. "Sorry," she apologized, instantly guilty. "I meant - do you have to leave again right away?"

The stress that lined his face failed to fade. "I can't leave again knowing that Murena won't leave it at this, but it's just as well. Knowing her, she'll act tonight, and hopefully we can come to some resolution by the morning. I'll leave then."

"You'll be gone for a while again?"

"I'll return if you need me."

"Hm." That wasn't what she had meant, but she supposed it wasn't a good time to hint to him that she was suspicious of his apparent penchant for long absences. She had to sympathize: taking responsibility for the sick was a daunting task, one that she had never been particularly good at but always wished she was. Speaking of which - "Does that mean you're proficient at life magic?" she asked, her eyes squinting curiously. "I never asked..."

"Like my grandfather, yes."

Ah, that was right. Philio had even been able to outright summon small insects like butterflies from seemingly nothing. Made sense that his grandson would inherit something of his nature and talent. A sudden rush of envy swirled inside her, and she glanced off down the hallway to avoid looking Felix in the eyes. Must be nice, she thought. She'd spent half her life under Philio's tutelage and earned nothing but his scorn and ire despite her best attempts to gain the elderly man's approval and affection. Meanwhile, his estranged grandson inherited an inclination toward the most prestigious class of magic there was, a birthright passed down from his grandfather.

"I'll need to rejoin my friends and continue to help with the healing," he said after a moment. "Perhaps you can see to Constantine. I think he's injured as well, but unfortunately, the only elven healer whose services I can request at the moment will be occupied for a little while yet. But her owner will send her over soon, discreetly."

"Owner?"

"Yes."

She grimaced. Was their no escape from the constant reminders of how twisted the Capital was? To own someone, what a repulsive thing. She hadn't forgotten her vows to fix everything wrong with this ugly place, and this was just one more thing to add to the list.

"Alright," she said. She didn't relish the idea of going to check on Constantine, but she didn't like this conversation either. Besides, she supposed she owed him - he'd tried to do his best to stave off the intruders, essentially single-handed. She hadn't decided yet how much that did to redeem him in her eyes, but she ought to at least acknowledge what he had done. "He's somewhere upstairs. Probably on your third floor. If you need me, send someone in..." She looked up at the ceiling, trailed her eyes to the far end of the hallway, and pointed upward in a diagonal direction. "That direction."

"I'll keep that in mind."

She was trudging up the curved stairs a moment later with her lips pursed as she pondered what to say to Constantine when she saw him. 'Are you hurt anywhere' could come off as either callous and indifferent or bizarrely solicitous if she pitched the words one way or the other, neither of which she wanted. Or maybe she could just immediately relay everything Felix had told her just now like a report instead. That would surely spare her from having to give him an awkward greeting after having given him such cool treatment the last two weeks.

She reached the third floor, and by the time she came to a stop at the far end of the hallway in front of a white door left slightly ajar, she was drowning in Constantine's anti-magic again. Damn him. Just when she had been considering being slightly nice to him, he had to go and irritate her once more with his very existence.

She raised her fist and rapped twice against the door.

"It's me," she said, voice curt and sharp. "I'm coming in."