The Key

Chapter 7

In the morning, there is training, because there is always training. His head pounds from drink and his legs ache from dancing. Having observed the whole mess, Victor takes no pity on him as they spar, an empty-handed warm up followed by training blades.

Dan has never taken rejection well.

But Cas had left. Beelined right out of the castle, and Dan is… Dan doesn’t know how he is. Way more upset than he should be. Distracted.

Fortunately for their training, Victor doesn’t give a s**t about Dan’s love life. Bobby cares even less, and Rufus would probably be offended at the idea he was expected to notice. Jo, being a nosy asshole on duty at the front door, is much less helpful.

“I’m still trying to figure out how an orphan shoots down a prince,” Jo tells him over their water break.

“You should be figuring out your fireballs instead,” Bobby calls over before Dan can get into it with her.

“Still not pregnant!” she shouts back. “Don’t know what else to tell you.” Jo rolls her shoulders before stretching out her arms. “By this point, I’m pretty sure it was a fluke,” she mutters to Dan. With pregnancy ruled out and no other conditions present to boost Jo’s powers, Dan's starting to think she’s right. Maybe the kick of fear inherent in protecting the crown prince is all it was. 

“Pretty sure he’s going to run you into the ground until you do it again,” Dan replies anyway.

“Count on it!” Bobby calls. “All right, enough standing around.”

Later, jogging through their cool down and helping each other out of practice armor, there’s a bit more talk, and not merely about Jo’s freak fireball and subsequent presumed pregnancy scare. With Sam’s party important enough to use Dan’s knights as palace guards, everyone is short on free time but packed full of stories of aristocratic idiocy. Reactions to these stories vary.

Dan’s personal division of the Royal Knights pulls from all sources, taking hunters of worth from wherever they might be found. Bobby was discovered by Dan’s father back in his prince years. Then a farrier with a possessed wife, Bobby has since grown into an expert on the demonic and the many alternative uses of iron from his shop. From a family of horse breeders, Rufus came with Bobby, the pair already well synced from the trials of shoeing ornery animals together. A healer specializing in both breath and touch styles, Cleric Jim is another holdover from his father’s days.

Victor was a lawman. Jo was the daughter of a knight and a roadhouse innkeeper, now the daughter of the Quartermistress of all the roadhouses. Her mother runs the entire network these days, providing for the whole order of knights in which she once found, and lost, a husband. Regardless of the kingdom’s obvious need for fire mages, Ellen still isn’t pleased with Jo’s decision.

And then there’s Ash. It took Dan the better part of three years to realize Ash isn’t actually a mage. While Victor will pull out the obvious trappings of a non-mage while activating his tracking spells, Ash has a way of free-styling sigils and runes in a way that might itself be magic.

There are more knights and more untitled hunters beneath them, but these are Dan’s main supports. He keeps them close. Closer, ever since they lost Gordon to those vampires last year. In a way that defies propriety, they are his family.

That none of them are pedigree highborn is just a coincidence.

In any case, Jo’s moaning about the number of people who don’t seem to realize they need to bring their invitation each night. It used to be that when faced with the higher ranking nobility, she’d check with Dan after every potentially offensive thing she said, just to be sure, but that stopped while she was still his squire.

“So this woman keeps insisting that she shouldn’t have to present the invitation, despite the fact that it says right there on the invite that you have to bring it every single night for entry,” Jo tells Dan and Victor while they all strip out of their sweat-soaked training uniforms. This corner of the barracks is always crowded after training, so Jo has a few more people listening in than just them, but Dan trusts all of them to watch their mouths. He has to trust them to watch more than that, after all.

“I try to explain to her that, seeing as her invitation is not here, she can either go get it or find two people with invitations to vouch for her identity. You know what she tells me?”

“‘Don’t you know who I am’?” Victor guesses with the tired patience of someone who has been through this before. He’s not yet as old as Bobby and Rufus, but sometimes, his slow approach in their direction shows.

Jo points to him. “Yeah. And – I’m proud of this – I did not laugh. I just said, ‘I’m afraid I don’t, my lady. You’re wearing a mask.’”

Laughter spreads through the changing area, along with more stories. The occasional bit of ribbing comes in Dan’s direction, a fair enough exchange for the only person present able to attend the party as a guest, not a guard.

Jo keeps talking all through their showers. It’s not as weird as the way she’ll talk to people while they’re peeing, or while she is, but it’s up there. The stories are funny, at least, because Jo does know how to pick ’em. They’re toweling off by the time Dan forces himself to change the topic. Well, nudge it a little.

“This might sound a little strange,” he begins.

Victor shoots him a look. “Compared to work, or compared to the party?”

“Compared to normal human interaction,” Dan says, borrowing a key phrase from last night. “Jo, you might know this, you were up in a mage tower for a bit.”

Head in her undershirt, her response comes out muffled. “Oh goodie. What?”

“Did students ever, I don’t know,” Dan says. “Pretend to be interested in someone just to cut them down later?”

Jo emerges from the undershirt. Her mouth is a hard line, and she doesn’t flip her wet hair out of the neck of the garment. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Dan pauses with one leg through his smallclothes. “Wait, that happened to you?”

Jo rolls her eyes. “Put your pants on, Your Highness.”

“I wasn’t asking about you,” Dan says, but he does put his pants on. “I just wanted to know if people really did that.”

“Not sure why you’re surprised,” Victor says, lacing up his own shirt. “We’ve seen plenty worse.”

Sometimes, Victor has a way of stating things that implies questions. This is one of those times.

“I’m not surprised, I’m pissed,” Dan says.

Victor looks at him for a moment before nodding. “At him for accusing you of it?”

Sometimes, it’s clear why being the sheriff of a moderately sized village wasn’t enough for Victor. This is also one of those times.

“Wait, what?” Jo says.

“Cas thought I was pulling that on him,” Dan says, and admitting that is another kick in the teeth. “Don’t know what bothers me more, that he thought I might do it or that he went along with it anyway.” Dan laces up his breeches before turning to Victor. “What did you see? Am I imagining things?”

“He was focused on you each time I saw you together,” Victor answers, closer to a formal report than friendly reassurance and exactly the objectivity Dan needs. “The relentless poker face didn’t help, but I doubt his attention wavered. After he came down from the observatory, he was concerned about you. I don’t know what you think you’re imagining.”

“Yeah?” It shouldn’t be that much easier to breathe, simply hearing that. f**k, but he’s in too deep.

“Garth!” Victor calls.

Garth, a more recent addition, pops his head around the tiled wall concealing the showers. “Yes?”

“Prince has questions.”

“Sure thing!” He catches the used towel Jo tosses him, wraps it about his middle, and continues to drip on the floor despite it. “What do you want to know, sire?”

“You were stationed in the lower east wing last night, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you happen to observe my companion last night?”

“Yes, sir.”

Dan sits on the floor to tug his boots on. “Your observations?”

“The wings were very well done, sir,” Garth replies. “Unless you’re referring to the way he was looking at you, which was also well done, I thought.”

“Thank you, Garth,” says Victor.

Garth pops a salute, tosses Jo back her towel, and ducks back inside to resume his shower.

“Are there any more pressing concerns?” Victor asks Dan.

“Oh, just every i***t in the kingdom with a title or a connection cramming themselves into a single building,” Dan says with a shrug. “While wearing masks, possibly carrying concealed weapons, and now enchanting their outfits to do who-knows-what.”

“I can handle that part,” Victor replies. “Unless there’s another door in particular you want me to stand outside tonight.”

Dan refuses to be embarrassed. “It’s a high traffic area, and last year we had drunk people climbing up those stairs and tumbling down. You saved lives, Henriksen.”

Victor just looks at him.

“But seriously,” Dan says. “Any valuable insight into the human spirit? You know people as well as I know monsters.”

The faint praise makes a small impact, but enough of one. “When did he want to leave?” Victor asks. “That’s the crux.”

“When he realized I was serious,” Dan answers without hesitation. “I don’t know how he didn’t realize that before, but–” He cuts himself off at Victor’s raised hand.

“Sometimes,” Victor says, “it’s safer to want someone who doesn’t want you back. A dallying prince is one thing, but a prince in true pursuit is another.”

“Might not even be about you,” Jo adds, tucking her trouser legs into her boots. “No offense to anyone and the highest of praise to your father, but if I thought there was a chance of having the king for my father-in-law, I would have bolted.”

“...Right,” Dan says, and the world rearranges slightly. “I didn’t think of it that way. I mean, I’m not in line for the throne, we couldn’t have any kids who’d be in line for the throne, and it’s not like he’d see a lot of Dad anyway.”

“You’re still a prince, Highness,” Victor replies, like Dan is missing the obvious.

“I’m not that big of a deal.”

This time, Victor just stares at him.

Jo snorts. “You know that’s only true when you’re standing next to your brother, right?”

Before Dan can answer, or even think of an answer, a silence rolls through the barracks. It starts at the entryway and travels like a wave, and Dan knows the sounds of his knights better than the sound of his own voice. It’s a silence of attention, not wariness.

“Speaking of whom,” Dan muses.

There’s no murmur of directions asked for and received. There are only footsteps, leather soles against wood, and the increased rustling of hurried dressing. Jo sticks her head back into the shower area and tells everyone to wrap up. There’s an abrupt exodus of towel-wrapped soldiers. They disperse through the lines of wooden shelving, each speeding to their clothing to better vanish before the Mage Prince’s unspoken wish for privacy.

By the time Dan actually sees his brother, Sam’s already taken over the entire barracks, all without a word.

“I need to speak with my brother,” Sam informs Victor, who has remained at Dan’s side. Victor bows out in the most literal sense of the phrase, but Jo remains. They’d grown close on the long ride to Moondoor and back, even before the fireball incident, because despite his imposing control over his immediate surroundings, Sam still has a knack for making friends.

Once they’re as alone as they’ll get before the barracks entirely empties itself out, Sam relaxes enough to say, “Hey.”

“Hey,” Jo says back. They hug, because that’s something they do now. She was Dan’s squire first, his friend second, and now she seems to be Sam’s.

“Tomorrow night, come to the throne room during your break,” Sam tells her. “We can get you more public recognition for saving my life, if you’re up for it.”

“Are you asking me to dance?” Jo asks, eyes wide.

Sam nods, grinning, and laughs when Jo bows deeply, the wet tangle of her hair spilling over her shoulders to flick water at his feet.

“I’ll be there, Highness,” Jo promises.

“Sam,” Sam corrects.

“What’d you want to talk about?” Dan asks him.

“See you later, Dan,” Jo says, turning to him. And back to Sam, with a smirk wide enough for two faces. “Your Highness.” She bobs another bow and departs.

Sam grins after her, shaking his head, and then it’s just the two of them, or at least getting close.

“So get this,” Sam says. “I checked out the basement storeroom logs, and I found something.”

“There’s something in a vault full of somethings,” Dan says. “Great job, Sammy. Good detective work.”

The smile falls off Sam’s face, and now Dan feels even worse. Awesome.

“Look,” Sam says, keeping his voice down while there are still others present. “I can stop you from moping all day, or I can leave you to it. Which would you rather?”

“I’m not moping,” Dan says.

They stand in silence while the rest of the knights funnel out. The noises of cloth and leather give way to those of footsteps and the door closing.

“All clear?” Dan calls, and no one calls back. “All clear,” he tells Sam.

“Heard a couple things last night,” Sam says, which is not what Dan wanted him to say. “Sounds like Casper headed out early and you flung yourself into the party.”

“So?” Dan makes a point of not folding his arms across his chest. He’s not defensive.

“So I thought you might like to know, by eight o’clock tonight, you’ll be teaching him to dance in the library,” Sam says with absolute confidence.

Dan’s stomach lurches in two directions at once. “That’s the plan,” he tells his training uniform, straightening it on its peg.

“That’s the reality,” Sam promises. “Figured you should know that before you spend the rest of the day wondering why he doesn’t like you.”

“Shut up,” Dan tells him, but he means it less. He straightens his uniform a bit more. Hardly matters when it’s going to be collected and cleaned and returned before tomorrow morning, but his hands need something. “Did you, uh, pick up on anything else about him?” He clears his throat. “He’s kinda nervous about that. You constantly looking in.”

“It’s not him I’m looking in on,” Sam says dryly. “I’m only just starting to do it with Jess, you know.”

Dan frowns. “What do you mean?”

Sam frowns back. “This,” he says. At Dan’s blank look, he gestures between them. At Dan’s even blanker look, Sam adds, “Us.”

“Gonna need more words than that, Sammy.”

Sam sighs. “You know I don’t just think of someone and see the rest of their day, right? I’ve got the major and minor visions, but the only predictions I ever do without a visual are you. I thought you knew that.”

“You’ve always just… shown up,” Dan says slowly. “I thought that’s just what you do.”

“Yeah, with you,” Sam says. “You know when we were little and they made us have separate tutors? I think that’s when it started.”

“Yeah, because you got a mage tutor.”

Sam shakes his head. “No, because they wouldn’t let me go to you. So I guess I started figuring out where you were instead. It helped. It’s a little different from the actual visions, too. Feels a bit more like adding sums and just knowing the answer. But only about you.”

Dan says nothing, mind oddly blank.

“I thought you knew,” Sam repeats. “I don’t stick myself in anyone else’s path like this.”

“Well, I’m not around to see you not doing it, am I?” Dan counters. “Besides, you know what the people around me are doing, too.”

“Yeah, because they’re near you.”

Something breaks.

“So, what, that somehow means you have to jump in when you hear something interesting?” Dan demands. “I’m trying to have a conversation, and you have to burst in to have a debate about angels?”

“No, I had to burst in before a countess mortally offended your date,” Sam shoots right back. He pulls himself up to his full, towering height. “That’s what was about to happen, Dan. She was going to say there were no angels because they all clearly became demons, and Casper was about to tear into her like there was no tomorrow. It was going to be an amazing argument – he really knows a thing or two about converting magical power and transference loss – but she was going to dismiss him outright for being a commoner, and it was only going to get worse from there. It would have ruined your whole night.”

Sam must be right, because Sam is always right, but that doesn’t mean Dan has to like it. He grits his teeth and Sam cuts him off, because of course Sam knows what he’s going to say.

“I do know I take things from you,” Sam says, his eyes round, his hands held between them. “I know that. I walk into here and everyone leaves. I sit down at your table and the focus is on me. I know that. I don’t want to, and I don’t mean to, but I do it.”

Dan swallows it down.

Dan swallows so much down.

“It’s fine,” he says.

“No it’s not,” Sam says. “And, y’know, things with Jess, it’s just really hit me lately. Ever since I manifested, you were always the one who was supposed to have a love match instead of a political alliance, and here’s me with Jess, and I just… I’m worried.”

Dan rolls his eyes. “You can love your wife without screwing over my love life, Sammy.”

“You couldn’t marry Lisa,” Sam says, because of course he’s bringing that up again.

“Her having a mage kid has nothing to do with you,” Dan tells him.

“No, but if I’d had kids of my own already, you wouldn’t have had to risk getting him involved in a succession dispute.”

“Maybe you feel guilty, but you’re reaching pretty far right there,” Dan says. “Even if you did have kids lined up in front of him, too many people think Ben’s my bastard for him to escape the politics.”

“You are funding his education.”

“He’s a good kid,” Dan says. He’s just not Dan’s good kid. “But I’m over Lisa. Stop worrying.”

They stand in silence for a moment. Behind the tile wall, one of the faucets drips.

“I like Casper,” Sam tells him. “He knows his lore, and it looks like he can keep up with you. It could be a good match. I can see a lot of the nobles getting worked up over his background, but the people would love it.”

“You seeing things, or are you seeing things?” Dan asks. For the second, he points to both of his own eyes with two fingers, then pulls his hand out away from his face.

“Just seeing things,” Sam says with a little shrug. “But I like him.”

“Like him all you want,” Dan says. “Just don’t make him your Last Unwed Kiss.”

Sam laughs a little, as if Dan were joking. “No, I think I already have a candidate lined up.”

It takes Dan a second. “Oh,” he says. And, yeah, it makes sense. It makes a lot of sense, but Dan doesn’t have to like it. “Guess you weren’t kidding about getting Jo that public recognition.”

“What? Dan, no,” Sam says. “I mean, Jo’s great, but she’s your Last Unwed Kiss, not mine.”

Dan stares at him. The only thought in his head is: a petite blonde woman, for a tall dark-haired man. Symbolic opposites.

“That’s not a vision,” Sam hastens to explain. “That’s just me knowing you.”

“She is, yeah,” Dan mumbles. He picks at his cuffs. Still inspecting them, he clears his throat. “So, uh, who’s your contender?”

“You remember that doctor Jess was talking to?”

“That Royal Hospital guy?” Dan asks. “Guess he’s gotta be a big deal if the director gave up her invite to him.”

“You have no idea,” Sam says, and he puts on his gushing face. “He only started in February.”

“Last February?”

“No,” Sam says. “February. He’s been there less than three months.”

Dan frowns. “And the director gave him her invite?”

“As a hiring bonus, it sounds like,” Sam says. “He’s like a living breakthrough in touch healing. He interviewed at the hospital and a couple of private ones, and after he did his demonstration, everyone was fighting over him.”

Dan keeps on frowning. “A breakthrough in breath healing might be something, but touch style? I mean, points for being less awkward, but the power transference loss is ridiculous. The only reason Cleric Jim does both styles is because he has to pull s**t out of our insides by hand sometimes.”

“Whatever he’s doing, it’s more effective,” Sam says. “And I don’t mean over regular touch style. I mean over breath style.”

“This guy is for real?” Dan asks. “How come no one’s heard of him before? Where’d he study?”

“He travels,” Sam says. “He’s been all over the continent by the sound of it. That’s what he’s really interested in, traveling. He moves around until his traveling funds run out, and then he finds work at a hospital or a clinic or starts his own.”

“Well, we definitely know he’s not a noble, then,” Dan says.

Sam laughs. “No kidding. I think Jess’s dad is still traumatized by the idea she might want to actually use her healing powers on people.”

Dan leans back against the vertical plank separating his belongings from Jo’s. “That’s impressive and all, but I don’t get why he’s your leading candidate.”

“There’s something about him,” Sam says without hesitation. He smiles a little. “I mean, on top of the stories of everywhere he’s been.”