Chapter 46: 14.AA: Her Father’s Daughter (Adventurers)

It had been ten full minutes since far too many people had arrived at the Alzaq manor and Kyle wasn’t sure what was happening anymore. He’d been introduced to far too many people tonight, and the allegiances were beginning to get fuzzy. In his mind, he’d already slipped into calling people by the names he might’ve assigned them during a stand-up act. To be fair, he’d been a little harried by the fact that there was apparently a free-for-all brawl going with an undetermined number of sides to it.

Oops. Kyle leaned back, allowing a thrown spear—seriously, a spear? Where would a commoner even get that?—to pass him by before reaching out and catching it by the back end of the shaft.

“Thanks!” he shouted, hoping that whoever had thrown it could hear him. “Want it back?”

“Not sure they do,” one of the lovebirds said. The noble one, by the looks of it. Kyle still had some trouble with their names—from their builds, the noble should’ve been the guard and vice versa.

“Sucks for them,” Kyle said, and he hurled it back. He activated one of his stolen spells, mimicking a trick he’d seen an Und oathholder do a few days ago. A masterful application of an Und-flavored Oathcloud spell that had totally redirected an object in an instant.

The spear turned in midair, turning away from the commoner that would’ve died to it and sailing towards one of the armored guys that had been surrounding Jazzy’s girl.

It didn’t make it all the way, caught out in midair by an Adaptive Wall and shredded to pieces by an enhanced punch, but it was the spirit of things that counted. For good measure, Kyle stole the spell structure for the Adaptive Wall, placing it into one of his free slots. That could come in handy.

“You can use a spear?” Jazzy asked. She looked ready to pounce, the only thing holding her back from doing so being the thirty-odd people currently engaged in a hectic frenzy of a brawl. Kyle was glad she’d changed out of her dress, because he was pretty sure it would’ve broken already from the sheer tension in her posture.

“You’d be surprised what a jester needs to learn.” Kyle didn’t have his full outfit on tonight, the formal requirements of the ball requiring him to actually wear something more professional, but while you could take the man out of the jester outfit, you could never take the jester out of the man.

“I don’t like the look of this situation,” Jazzy said, ignoring Kyle’s words.

She was practically talking to herself. From the way she was looking at Lily—that poor girl looked to be dead on her feet in the middle of it all—he was getting a little unsure of his referring to the other noble and his guard as the lovebirds. It looked like that status might not be unique to them.

To be fair to her, the situation was on the rough end.

Their group had managed to make it to the Alzaq manor, entering their way through the suspiciously empty front end of the estate, and they’d arrived to the scene of the fight to find another group joining them. From the back of the manor’s field, clambering brick walls to make their way to the wrecked field, there had come people. Young and old, man and woman. Twenty to thirty of them, maybe more.

“If you’re trying to kill one of ours,” a wild-haired vagrant that appeared to be their leader had shouted, “You’re going to have to go through all of us.”

The oathholders that had been fighting Lily had drawn back almost instantly upon the arrival of the groups, reassessing the situation. They had rightfully compared the beaten-down girl that was clearly reaching the end of her rope and the fresh set of unknowns that had appeared in their yard and found the latter to be more immediately worrying.

For some reason, a handful of the commoners had identified Kyle’s group as a threat as well, and they’d tossed some token resistance towards them. A stray gunshot here, fired so wide that Kyle hadn’t even bothered tossing up magical protection, maybe a thrown weapon every now and then. It was moderately irritating, but at least it wasn’t dangerous yet.

Still, why were they being targeted? Well, the reason was obvious—in any group of people, no matter how well led, there were probably going to be a handful of buffoons—but Kyle wished he could complain about it more.

As it was, the fight was getting rather chaotic. The lovebirds were contributing spells towards it, and so were Jazzy and Kyle himself, but they’d sort of entered a stalemate. Sort of was the operative phrase here, because while Kyle and the group of people he’d somehow ended up tagging along with weren’t taking or inflicting much damage, the commoner mob sure was. A number of them were in the thick of things, engaging the armored soldiers in close-quarters combat, which was…

Kyle winced as another man’s head flew off, taken by a single hard blow.

The commoner mob wasn’t disorganized, per se, but the amount of magic they brought to bear was miniscule. There was maybe a single oathholder among them, and their usage of magic was inefficient and impactless. At least they were keeping the Lord Alzaq from escaping the area. Kyle had already gotten his pay and more from the job thanks to Orchid, so he had no qualms with taking the noble down. It’d been a while since the last time he overthrew a House. He’d forgotten how entertaining it could be.

“Alright, fuck this,” Jazzy said abruptly. “I’m going for her.”

“Wait, Jasmine—“ the lovebirds’ noble… no, their guard, that was Luca or Lucian or something like that, right. Whatever the case, he didn’t finish his sentence before Jazzy was sprinting in, magic flaring at her sides.

“Ah, fuck,” the other lovebird said, and he sprinted forward as well, joining Jazzy. The first lovebird followed him shortly after.

“Well then,” Kyle said, staring down at the increasingly chaotic melee. “That’s happening.”

He joined in a moment later, already pulling on his copied spells. Kyle had offered advice to the others with him, but he was still the only one of them who’d actually fought the blacksteel-armored oathholders before.

Not that it seemed like they needed it. Jazzy and the lovebirds—now that was a group name Kyle could get behind—were tearing through them, fire and earth and lightning and nasty green streaks of light hitting multiple in quick succession. Once Kyle added his own selection of spells to the mix, no single enemy stood a chance against them. The first one fell in a matter of instants, unprepared for the sudden blitz of attacks. The second was a little more prepared, but Kyle used a borrowed Storm spell with an Igni flavor to turn their footing to ash, and then the other three ended that unfortunate soul a second later.

After that, they started falling like dominoes. A third fell, then a fourth. The remaining were just about getting ready to regroup, ready to launch a counterattack, and then an impossibly black beam of energy came out of nowhere, Lily rejoining the fight with a bang.

It was practically a foregone conclusion from there, and Kyle let his attention drift from the fight proper. The commoners, realizing that they were now missing nine or ten people that had gotten too close to the center of the fighting and perished, had wisely chosen to back up and engage on the outskirts. Lord Alzaq had gotten isolated from his guards in the frenzy, and it looked like he was trying to hold his own against the commoner mob, using some form of magic to turn a few of them against each other. It was, unfortunately for him, very clearly not going to be enough.

Kyle had a bit of a bad feeling about this. It was almost too easy, now that they’d joined the fight. Surely there had to be something else wrong, right? There always was.

He reached into his bag of tricks and found that he was running low, but that was fine. There weren’t many enemies left, so he could afford this.

A Detection spell, this one, borrowed from an Oloje oath at one of the Adventurer’s Guilds while he’d been watching Kyle do a card trick.

Ah. They had observers. Two people that the spell identified as priests of the multifaith Church, three more from three separate noble Houses.

Just about everyone had gotten Lily’s little message, it looked like. That might be a problem.

Oh well. If it was, then it would be. Kyle would probably stick with this group for a bit, especially if there was a crisis occurring from that. They seemed like abnormally nice people, which he was always grateful for.

He resolved to let them know about the observers once they had some downtime.

After that, it was all over bar the killing.

---

Jasmine squeezed her revolver’s trigger one final time, the advanced construction firing out a blazing trail of flame, and with it she cast her last Storm spell, lightning surging forth from her hands.

The last armored man fell, and it was over.

Lily was safe, and Jasmine could finally rest. She’d been operating in overdrive for the last hour, almost driven to the edge of panic when Lily had sent out her message.

Jasmine knelt down to where the girl had fallen, not unconscious but absolutely spent. She offered a hand to Lily and ended up taking her in a hug instead. Lily was warm and soft and she smelled like the burnt ash that was scattered all across the battlefield, but that was okay. She was okay.

The girl seemed exhausted. Not quite like when Lily had passed out after overexerting her oath— this time, she’d managed its fallout much better. No, Lily just seemed tired, on more levels than one. She leaned on Jasmine’s shoulder as they found a good spot to rest, the two of them sitting down on a dusty wall that had once been filled with blooming flowers. Lily started snoring lightly almost immediately, falling asleep just after Jasmine wrapped her in her arms.

Jasmine and her ragtag group had managed to clear the remaining oathholders without too much difficulty. They’d seemed somewhat spent as well, so even if she hadn’t killed them all, Lily had certainly played a part in the fight.

It had been a different experience, this time around. While adventuring, Lily had saved Jasmine so many damn times while she’d been incapable of fighting their foe. From the bat mother to the oathholders at the Sinlen Pass to the primordial, it had always been Lily dealing the finishing blow, keeping the enemy from reaching Jasmine. For once, Jasmine had been able to return the favor.

House Alzaq had committed a grievous sin tonight. From what the group had managed to piece together, its patriarch had most likely planned on using Orchid’s position as a Crown investigator to make that power play back at the ballroom, implicating as traitors the majority of the nobles currently giving the Alzaqs trouble in their upwards climb. Meanwhile, over on this end, Lily had tossed a wrench into their plans with her classic negotiation tactic of “kill people in her way,” removing their patsy from play and in the process becoming their new target.

It was a complicated mess of intrigue, but the long and short of it was that House Alzaq had hired specifically Alto Tempet to arrange a commoner revolt, committing treason against the Crown in an attempt to increase their position in that selfsame Crown’s eyes. Their plot reminded Jasmine of every damn reason for her getting the hell away from anything even vaguely noble-related. This, this right here had been the sole reason she hadn’t decided to go for the military, the primary reason for her departure from home in the first place. She could’ve had a proper education back at the Rayes city as well, but if it meant dealing with this shit on a regular basis, she was fine with not even getting any at all.

“I don’t think House Alzaq is getting away with this,” Lukas said, sitting a bit away from Jasmine and Lily. He was doing much the same as the girls were, leaning on Alex.

“I think there’s going to be consequences,” Jasmine agreed, “But I don’t think House Alzaq is going to be the only one suffering in the wake of tonight.”

“No?” Alex asked. “What makes you say that?”

“Probably the people that were watching over the damn thing,” Kyle said, the jester leaning against another wall. His eyes were on the commoner mob, the group still not quite finished with subduing Lord Alzaq. The patriarch had clearly already lost, but he was delaying the end for as long as he could.

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“Other nobles, I’d imagine,” Jasmine said.

“And two members of the Church.”

“Fuck.” Alex stretched his head back, staring up at the night sky. “They’ve been looking for a reason to campaign against us for a while. Tonight’s little stunt—Lily’s in particular—that might give them the push they need to join the fray.”

“Lily did what she could,” Jasmine cut in, a defensive edge to her voice. “She couldn’t have known.”

“I’m not saying what she did was wrong,” Alex said, holding his hands up in surrender. “Just that having the Church on our asses is going to be inconvenient.”

“As will the other nobles,” Lukas reminded him. “All they need to do is a bit of spinning, and then we have a big problem.”

“We can worry about that later,” Jasmine said, knowing she was putting off thinking about something that could set the course of Tayan noble history from here on out.

“We can,” Alex agreed. “Come hell or high water, we’ll do as we need.”

“Hey, if it doesn’t work out, you can always come adventure,” Kyle suggested. It wasn’t that funny of a joke, but the three others that were still awake gave him a tired chuckle anyway.

“I do think that there’s potential for war,” Lukas said. “Lord Alzaq probably won’t survive the night, but who’s to say his successor won’t try to defy the Crown’s punishment?“

“And House Tempet had a prominent member killed,” Alex said. “I could see war, yeah.”

Jasmine felt so detached from it all, and from the sound of Alex’s voice it looked like the others were too. The nobility’s issues felt so… shallow, even knowing that people were going to die because of it. She knew that she’d fully accept the gravity of the situation later, but for now she couldn’t bring herself to care. Was this how Lily felt all the time?

Thinking about her brought her to look at the grey-eyed girl again. Her chestnut-colored hair had come undone, a mess of it reaching down to her shoulderblades, and at some point during the night she’d changed into a tunic that had also taken some damage. Despite it all, she’d never looked more beautiful in Jasmine’s eyes.

“I think I might love you,” she confessed, whispering her words and timing them with Lily’s breathing so that there was no risk of her waking up to hear that. Jasmine wasn’t even sure if Lily liked women, let alone a noble like her, so she’d hold off on telling her to her face for now.

Still, it felt like divulging a great secret, and it took a weight off her that she hadn’t even realized was there.

Lily didn’t stir, still sleeping. She looked so peaceful, which made Jasmine’s heart anything but. There was a fountain of emotion waiting to bubble out of her, but it could wait until this situation was resolved.

Speaking of which. A cry of triumph brought Jasmine’s eyes back to the commoners. They’d finally brought the noble down, wearing him down with repeated blunt-force attacks until he’d passed out.

“Hey there! Hey, noble kid!” Someone was shouting from the commoner mob. Jasmine squinted at them, finding the source of the voice to be the same haggard vagrant that had led them into combat earlier.

“Are you speaking to us?” Alex asked, raising his voice.

“I am, yes,” he replied. “You have Lily with you?”

“You know her?” Jasmine asked, suddenly on guard.

“Relax, girl,” the vagrant said. “Look, she called us here, she did a lot of the work, we owe her a favor. Can you ask her if she wants to kill this guy?”

That was certainly a proposition.

“Well, it’s not like we lose anything,” Jasmine muttered. She nudged Lily, and the girl woke instantly, snapping to attention so fast that one might’ve thought she had never been asleep in the first place.

“It’s okay,” Jasmine said, reassuring Lily with a pat on the shoulder. She was so godsdamned tense, but at least Jasmine could help with some of that.

“What is it?” Lily asked.

“Would you like to do the honors?” the vagrant asked her. “We have Lord Alzaq.”

Lily looked at him, cocking her head. She looked totally spent, the burning emotion that had been present in her [QUERY] earlier almost completely gone.

“No,” she decided after a moment. “Do with him as you will. So long as he doesn’t survive the night, I’ll be happy.”

“Sure thing,” the vagrant said. “Can we expect you to join us for the next phase?”

“You find out what happened tonight and tell me yourself,” Lily snorted. “Probably not. Thanks for the offer.”

“This is the commoner cell you bumped into?” Jasmine asked. “Also, are you sure?”

“It is, and yes,” Lily said, wrapping one arm around Jasmine in a hug. “Thank you.”

“No need to thank me,” Jasmine said. “I’ll always come for you.”

Someone in the mob screeched with laughter, and Jasmine was fairly sure she could hear the sound of a shovel slapping flesh. That… was not her concern, not right now.

“Are you alright?” Jasmine asked. “Truly?”

“There’s one thing,” Lily said. She turned to Jasmine, then looked down.

“One thing,” Jasmine repeated. “Something the matter?”

Lily was fidgeting, playing with her hair, which she never did. Jasmine had a suspicion of what was eating away at her, one reinforced by the snippets of images she’d seen earlier, but she didn’t try to push it out of Lily. It was her choice to tell Jasmine this, and the noble intended to give her as much time and space as she needed to let it out.

Lily seemed to come to a decision, placing both her hands in her lap and meeting Jasmine’s eyes straight on.

When Lily spoke, she was unsure of herself, but her gaze was sure and firm.

“Jasmine… I have a lot to explain. I—well, I—fuck, this is hard.”

“Take your time,” Jasmine told her. “Deep breath. Take all you need.”

“I… please don’t take this the wrong way,” she said. “I don’t want to lose more people.”

“You will,” Jasmine said, taking Lily’s clenched hands in her own, “never lose me.”

Lily took a deep breath and sighed, unclenching her fists and returning Jasmine’s grip with a squeeze.

“Twenty-one years ago, I was born Lily of House Byron.”

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