Once Drake emerged from his chambers with his entourage, an older man with dark hair and fine clothing arrived. He offered a low bow. He wasn’t Drake’s blood thrall, so Drake didn’t complain about the gesture of respect.
“Rise,” Drake ordered.
The man rose. “If you would please follow me, Lord Gloomwood.”
This man was here to lead him to the chamber where the cabal would take place. Drake knew where the central chamber where all the manor lords met was from his study of the capital, but he knew it was procedure to have a guide take him there to ensure no manor lord got “lost” on their way to a cabal. Having guides (who were also spies reporting all they observed to the noble court) cut down on any shenanigans preceding the day’s meeting.
The trek to the cabal, with his entourage, took place along internal corridors within the Temple of the Eidolons. All of those corridors were guarded by warriors in glistening black armor. Drake knew from his reading about the capital and its capital guards that those inside the temple all wore full ferrocite, a material that was almost impossible to melt, as resistant to magic as silverweave, and very difficult for traditional weapons to crack.
The armor looked almost like plate mail, if plate mail were formed of volcanic rock instead of steel and iron. It had grooves and ridges that looked hand-carved, obviously ornate instead of functional, but nothing that would catch a blade. The helmet covered the entire head and left only a thin T-slit through which the guard inside could see out.
Ferrocite armor also weighed a lot, which meant the men and women of the capital guard were universally strong and athletic. Also, like the capital’s courtesans, none of the capital guards had rarities. Since they were charged with the protection of manor lords, Drake knew prior manor lords had insisted that no capital guard could have divine blood.
Otherwise, one could kill an unsuspecting manor lord and steal their blood pact.
Lark walked ahead of him and beside Emily, following Emily’s lead without being obvious about it. She was terrific at following his instructions, which Drake had to keep reminding himself had nothing to do with their time together today. As tempting as some alone time with a willing Lark might be, he didn’t have time for that sort of distraction.
He didn’t glance back at Fox—doing so would suggest he didn’t trust his steward—but he did trust Fox was holding up his fake Samuel act as well. So with Emily and Lark ahead of him and Fox and Valentia behind, he followed the dark-haired tour guide through corridor after corridor until they finally emerged in a hall much larger than the rest.
This hall was easily two stories tall and wide enough that several carriages would travel down it abreast. More capital guards in gleaming black ferrocite stood at attention along the walls by open arches leading to other hallways that led elsewhere into the temple. Ahead, two large wooden doors reinforced with ornate metal bars stood closed.
In addition to the two capital guards standing at either side of those doors, Lady Skybreak waited there as well. She stood dressed in a blue silverweave tunic, dark silverweave pants, and black knee-high boots. Her braids were done atop her head in a complicated tower of hair, and a golden tiara glistened there as well. She dressed to impress.
No one spoke as they approached the doors. Once they were close, one of the armored guards standing beside them left his post and pounded, loudly, on the doors. A moment later they creaked open. Emily strode forward confidently and then stopped before entering.
“I am Lord Gloomwood’s guardian,” she declared calmly.
The capital guard on the left nodded. “You may keep your weapons. The rest of you, save for Lord Gloomwood, must surrender any weapons. Do you carry any weapons?”
Drake looked to his people. “Answer the man.”
“I carry no weapons,” Lark said confidently in Lydia’s voice.
Hopefully, since people here couldn’t lie, the guards wouldn’t need to search Lark. That would ruin the disguise. The rest of his entourage repeated those words, but Lady Skybreak did not. She had probably already assured the guards she had no weapons once she arrived.
“You’re cleared to enter,” the capital guard said, but he eyed Drake as he did so. “Is that a... crossbow, lord?”
Drake raised Magnum for display and grinned. “You like?”
“It is certainly an impressive weapon,” the guard said cautiously.
Drake wasn’t sure if the guard was really impressed by Magnum or simply annoyed Drake was bringing such a massive weapon into the cabal. Still, the man didn’t try to stop him. He assumed that the other manor lords would have protection against crossbow bolts.
Once through the doors, he got his first look at the chamber manor lords for their cabals: The Chamber of Council. It was round inside, as he’d expected, and about as big as a large high school auditorium. The seats, however, wrapped around in a circular pattern like those in an ancient Greek theatre, high at the edges of the circle and descending in tiers.
The only thing that made it different from a standard theater was that the seats were set in a C rather than an O. Tiers descended inside the C to meet at what looked to be a stage on the side of the open side of the C-shape. Odd.
The domed stone ceiling was several stories above his head, braced by arched wood and stone that looked both complicated and expensive. There were also huge stained glass windows up there that admitted brilliant light and showed creatures that looked like some sort of cross between a unicorn and a pegasus. These had six legs instead of four and had small wings on the hooves of all six legs in addition to the two big ones on their backs.
So the Eidolons were winged six-legged horses... or were represented as such in these stained-glass windows. It seemed entirely plausible that this whole world and all of its dangerous rarities had been created by a bunch of My Little Ponies with a God complex. Though, given they were gods, Drake supposed he couldn’t fault them for that.
The theater was divided in a straightforward manner. There were aisles between each row of descending benches and armored wooden boxes built around the perimeter of the C like pizza slices. There were twelve slices, which reminded Drake there had once been twelve manors in this world. Now, after two manors married and one was destroyed, there were nine.
There were also four different doors into this theatre, one that Drake immediately judged must be located at the cardinal points on a compass: north, east, west, and south. He judged he had entered from the eastern door, and his box was on the upper side of the C... or north. Sky and her entourage were already seated in the box to the right of his, or west.
He saw it then. The pizza slices were set up in the directions that each manor stood in relation to the capital. Drake knew Gloomwood and Skybreak Manors to both be on the northern top of this realm, with Skybreak’s mountains to the northwest and Gloomwood’s silverwood forest to the northeast. That explained why he and Sky’s boxes were on the top of the C. They stood north of the capital.
The capital city, Korhaurbauten, was naturally represented by the platform on the open part of the C, just as it sat on the bay on the eastern side of the total land mass. Also, the stage wasn’t empty. A single figure in fine red robes sat in the center of the stage in a raised seat/dais. That would be the noble court’s judge, who would administer today’s proceedings.
The woman—Samuel had informed Drake to always refer to her simply as Judge—would be as old as his grandmother if he had one, and mid-sixties was old for a world where there were so many ways people could die. The Judge had brown, weathered skin and pleasant features that would have been kind if she didn’t look as intense as someone about to hand down a life sentence. He also understood her rarity, ultimatum, to be quite powerful.
There was no question in Drake’s mind. He did not want to piss that woman off.
As he walked to his box, he glanced at Sky to see if she would turn around to greet him. She did not. Emily reached the box first and opened the door, and Lark walked in before him as if she’d been attending cabals for years. Drake stopped to allow Lady Skybreak—Viktoria—to precede him into the manor lord’s box.
A faint smile was his reward for reading and re-reading the order of operations for cabals—if a manor lord brought an advisor from outside their manor, that advisor was always to enter after the steward and before the lord—and then Drake followed Viktoria into the box, followed by Fox and then Valentia, who closed the gate behind them.
There were only six designated seats inside the armored box, whose wall would rise to chest height once he sat. Drake also understood the box itself to be built with powerful magic that would flare to being if anyone or anything unauthorized tried to enter it. Even if he shot across the theater at Lord Proudglade, the man’s box would stop the bolt. Still, if it wouldn’t get him censured and possibly kicked out, it would be amusing to try.
Drake sat with Lark to his left and then waited for Viktoria to seat herself to his right. Fox then followed, sitting behind and to his left as instructed, and Valentia sat behind and to his right. That left the seat directly behind him empty. Emily chose to stand by the entry to his box, a choice that made sense given she was his guardian today.
The rest of the manor lords and their entourages, save three, had already arrived. Lord Blackmane was not here yet—Drake imagined the negotiations about which of his spurned blood thralls would and would not be in his box was still ongoing—and also, judging from how the positions of the boxes matched up with the location of the manors, Lord Frostlight and Lord Brightwater were also not in attendance. The rest of his enemies were already assembled.
For the first time, Drake found himself directly across from the man who had repeatedly tried to assassinate him over the past few weeks: Lord Proudglade. Even without the name emblazoned on the front of his box, the glare of challenge the blond asshole offered was exactly what he’d expect from this pompous entitled prick. Drake offered his own wry smirk in response, which seemed to only make Lord Proudglade’s glower grow.
Good.
Though he hadn’t seen Westin in weeks, there was no doubt this man was his father. Especially since Westin was sitting beside him. Westin even smiled when their gazes met, and Drake offered a shallow nod. That seemed to piss Lord Proudglade off.
Lord Proudglade had Westin’s stoic, annoyingly heroic features, including his fine nose and piercing blue eyes. His styled blond hair was immaculate and probably shampooed vigorously every night. The man also wore a thick fur cloak with a golden clasp at his chest.
As to why Lord Proudglade had Westin with him, it wasn’t hard to guess. The only reason Lord Proudglade would bring Westin today would be to call him as a witness at today’s cabal. Drake already knew what Westin would say... or hoped he knew.
Drake also recognized Orson, the absurdly mustachioed golden knight who had stolen Cresh’s magical axe. He stood as Lord Proudglade’s guardian and stood holding Blood Woe, the magical axe he’d stolen from Cresh. Of course he did. The rest of the people in Lord Proudglade’s box were unknown to Drake, though they all looked to be golden knights.
Lord Proudglade seemed content to keep up their glaring contest until the cabal was called to order, but Drake had better things to do. Given the position of his box to the right of Lord Proudglade, on the man’s western border, Lord Mistvale was next on his list of enemies.
Given the name of the man’s manor and the fact that he lived up in a giant tree, Drake had expected a guy who looked like an easygoing hippie. Instead, Lord Mistvale looked like a fucking vampire, except one of the evil and sexy ones who taunted the hero between rounds of sucking blood out of maidens. This man had a gaze he’d describe as “intense”.
Lord Mistvale’s hair was longer than Lydia’s and platinum blond, which made Drake think the man must be growing some strong dyes up in his tree. Moreover, the suit/armor Mistvale had worn to the cabal looked almost like it was made of wood, except wooden armor would be stupid since an axe would destroy it. The armor was absurdly detailed.
Finally, Mistvale had just a hint of a blond goatee on his chin, completing his image as a brooding asshole vampire. Drake was glad they were enemies. He wouldn’t want to be friends with this guy even if he wasn’t with Lord Proudglade. He looked like Eurotrash.
Drake didn’t recognize any of Lord Mistvale’s entourage—three women dressed in brown and green leather armor and one man in the same—but assumed they were all Mistvale’s bodyguards. Probably archers or assassins. At least they weren’t elves.
As strange and overwhelming as this world might be, Drake wasn’t ready for elves.
Once Drake emerged from his chambers with his entourage, an older man with dark hair and fine clothing arrived. He offered a low bow. He wasn’t Drake’s blood thrall, so Drake didn’t complain about the gesture of respect.
“Rise,” Drake ordered.
The man rose. “If you would please follow me, Lord Gloomwood.”
This man was here to lead him to the chamber where the cabal would take place. Drake knew where the central chamber where all the manor lords met was from his study of the capital, but he knew it was procedure to have a guide take him there to ensure no manor lord got “lost” on their way to a cabal. Having guides (who were also spies reporting all they observed to the noble court) cut down on any shenanigans preceding the day’s meeting.
The trek to the cabal, with his entourage, took place along internal corridors within the Temple of the Eidolons. All of those corridors were guarded by warriors in glistening black armor. Drake knew from his reading about the capital and its capital guards that those inside the temple all wore full ferrocite, a material that was almost impossible to melt, as resistant to magic as silverweave, and very difficult for traditional weapons to crack.
The armor looked almost like plate mail, if plate mail were formed of volcanic rock instead of steel and iron. It had grooves and ridges that looked hand-carved, obviously ornate instead of functional, but nothing that would catch a blade. The helmet covered the entire head and left only a thin T-slit through which the guard inside could see out.
Ferrocite armor also weighed a lot, which meant the men and women of the capital guard were universally strong and athletic. Also, like the capital’s courtesans, none of the capital guards had rarities. Since they were charged with the protection of manor lords, Drake knew prior manor lords had insisted that no capital guard could have divine blood.
Otherwise, one could kill an unsuspecting manor lord and steal their blood pact.
Lark walked ahead of him and beside Emily, following Emily’s lead without being obvious about it. She was terrific at following his instructions, which Drake had to keep reminding himself had nothing to do with their time together today. As tempting as some alone time with a willing Lark might be, he didn’t have time for that sort of distraction.
He didn’t glance back at Fox—doing so would suggest he didn’t trust his steward—but he did trust Fox was holding up his fake Samuel act as well. So with Emily and Lark ahead of him and Fox and Valentia behind, he followed the dark-haired tour guide through corridor after corridor until they finally emerged in a hall much larger than the rest.
This hall was easily two stories tall and wide enough that several carriages would travel down it abreast. More capital guards in gleaming black ferrocite stood at attention along the walls by open arches leading to other hallways that led elsewhere into the temple. Ahead, two large wooden doors reinforced with ornate metal bars stood closed.
In addition to the two capital guards standing at either side of those doors, Lady Skybreak waited there as well. She stood dressed in a blue silverweave tunic, dark silverweave pants, and black knee-high boots. Her braids were done atop her head in a complicated tower of hair, and a golden tiara glistened there as well. She dressed to impress.
No one spoke as they approached the doors. Once they were close, one of the armored guards standing beside them left his post and pounded, loudly, on the doors. A moment later they creaked open. Emily strode forward confidently and then stopped before entering.
“I am Lord Gloomwood’s guardian,” she declared calmly.
The capital guard on the left nodded. “You may keep your weapons. The rest of you, save for Lord Gloomwood, must surrender any weapons. Do you carry any weapons?”
Drake looked to his people. “Answer the man.”
“I carry no weapons,” Lark said confidently in Lydia’s voice.
Hopefully, since people here couldn’t lie, the guards wouldn’t need to search Lark. That would ruin the disguise. The rest of his entourage repeated those words, but Lady Skybreak did not. She had probably already assured the guards she had no weapons once she arrived.
“You’re cleared to enter,” the capital guard said, but he eyed Drake as he did so. “Is that a... crossbow, lord?”
Drake raised Magnum for display and grinned. “You like?”
“It is certainly an impressive weapon,” the guard said cautiously.
Drake wasn’t sure if the guard was really impressed by Magnum or simply annoyed Drake was bringing such a massive weapon into the cabal. Still, the man didn’t try to stop him. He assumed that the other manor lords would have protection against crossbow bolts.
Once through the doors, he got his first look at the chamber manor lords for their cabals: The Chamber of Council. It was round inside, as he’d expected, and about as big as a large high school auditorium. The seats, however, wrapped around in a circular pattern like those in an ancient Greek theatre, high at the edges of the circle and descending in tiers.
The only thing that made it different from a standard theater was that the seats were set in a C rather than an O. Tiers descended inside the C to meet at what looked to be a stage on the side of the open side of the C-shape. Odd.
The domed stone ceiling was several stories above his head, braced by arched wood and stone that looked both complicated and expensive. There were also huge stained glass windows up there that admitted brilliant light and showed creatures that looked like some sort of cross between a unicorn and a pegasus. These had six legs instead of four and had small wings on the hooves of all six legs in addition to the two big ones on their backs.
So the Eidolons were winged six-legged horses... or were represented as such in these stained-glass windows. It seemed entirely plausible that this whole world and all of its dangerous rarities had been created by a bunch of My Little Ponies with a God complex. Though, given they were gods, Drake supposed he couldn’t fault them for that.
The theater was divided in a straightforward manner. There were aisles between each row of descending benches and armored wooden boxes built around the perimeter of the C like pizza slices. There were twelve slices, which reminded Drake there had once been twelve manors in this world. Now, after two manors married and one was destroyed, there were nine.
There were also four different doors into this theatre, one that Drake immediately judged must be located at the cardinal points on a compass: north, east, west, and south. He judged he had entered from the eastern door, and his box was on the upper side of the C... or north. Sky and her entourage were already seated in the box to the right of his, or west.
He saw it then. The pizza slices were set up in the directions that each manor stood in relation to the capital. Drake knew Gloomwood and Skybreak Manors to both be on the northern top of this realm, with Skybreak’s mountains to the northwest and Gloomwood’s silverwood forest to the northeast. That explained why he and Sky’s boxes were on the top of the C. They stood north of the capital.
The capital city, Korhaurbauten, was naturally represented by the platform on the open part of the C, just as it sat on the bay on the eastern side of the total land mass. Also, the stage wasn’t empty. A single figure in fine red robes sat in the center of the stage in a raised seat/dais. That would be the noble court’s judge, who would administer today’s proceedings.
The woman—Samuel had informed Drake to always refer to her simply as Judge—would be as old as his grandmother if he had one, and mid-sixties was old for a world where there were so many ways people could die. The Judge had brown, weathered skin and pleasant features that would have been kind if she didn’t look as intense as someone about to hand down a life sentence. He also understood her rarity, ultimatum, to be quite powerful.
There was no question in Drake’s mind. He did not want to piss that woman off.
As he walked to his box, he glanced at Sky to see if she would turn around to greet him. She did not. Emily reached the box first and opened the door, and Lark walked in before him as if she’d been attending cabals for years. Drake stopped to allow Lady Skybreak—Viktoria—to precede him into the manor lord’s box.
A faint smile was his reward for reading and re-reading the order of operations for cabals—if a manor lord brought an advisor from outside their manor, that advisor was always to enter after the steward and before the lord—and then Drake followed Viktoria into the box, followed by Fox and then Valentia, who closed the gate behind them.
There were only six designated seats inside the armored box, whose wall would rise to chest height once he sat. Drake also understood the box itself to be built with powerful magic that would flare to being if anyone or anything unauthorized tried to enter it. Even if he shot across the theater at Lord Proudglade, the man’s box would stop the bolt. Still, if it wouldn’t get him censured and possibly kicked out, it would be amusing to try.
Drake sat with Lark to his left and then waited for Viktoria to seat herself to his right. Fox then followed, sitting behind and to his left as instructed, and Valentia sat behind and to his right. That left the seat directly behind him empty. Emily chose to stand by the entry to his box, a choice that made sense given she was his guardian today.
The rest of the manor lords and their entourages, save three, had already arrived. Lord Blackmane was not here yet—Drake imagined the negotiations about which of his spurned blood thralls would and would not be in his box was still ongoing—and also, judging from how the positions of the boxes matched up with the location of the manors, Lord Frostlight and Lord Brightwater were also not in attendance. The rest of his enemies were already assembled.
For the first time, Drake found himself directly across from the man who had repeatedly tried to assassinate him over the past few weeks: Lord Proudglade. Even without the name emblazoned on the front of his box, the glare of challenge the blond asshole offered was exactly what he’d expect from this pompous entitled prick. Drake offered his own wry smirk in response, which seemed to only make Lord Proudglade’s glower grow.
Good.
Though he hadn’t seen Westin in weeks, there was no doubt this man was his father. Especially since Westin was sitting beside him. Westin even smiled when their gazes met, and Drake offered a shallow nod. That seemed to piss Lord Proudglade off.
Lord Proudglade had Westin’s stoic, annoyingly heroic features, including his fine nose and piercing blue eyes. His styled blond hair was immaculate and probably shampooed vigorously every night. The man also wore a thick fur cloak with a golden clasp at his chest.
As to why Lord Proudglade had Westin with him, it wasn’t hard to guess. The only reason Lord Proudglade would bring Westin today would be to call him as a witness at today’s cabal. Drake already knew what Westin would say... or hoped he knew.
Drake also recognized Orson, the absurdly mustachioed golden knight who had stolen Cresh’s magical axe. He stood as Lord Proudglade’s guardian and stood holding Blood Woe, the magical axe he’d stolen from Cresh. Of course he did. The rest of the people in Lord Proudglade’s box were unknown to Drake, though they all looked to be golden knights.
Lord Proudglade seemed content to keep up their glaring contest until the cabal was called to order, but Drake had better things to do. Given the position of his box to the right of Lord Proudglade, on the man’s western border, Lord Mistvale was next on his list of enemies.
Given the name of the man’s manor and the fact that he lived up in a giant tree, Drake had expected a guy who looked like an easygoing hippie. Instead, Lord Mistvale looked like a fucking vampire, except one of the evil and sexy ones who taunted the hero between rounds of sucking blood out of maidens. This man had a gaze he’d describe as “intense”.
Lord Mistvale’s hair was longer than Lydia’s and platinum blond, which made Drake think the man must be growing some strong dyes up in his tree. Moreover, the suit/armor Mistvale had worn to the cabal looked almost like it was made of wood, except wooden armor would be stupid since an axe would destroy it. The armor was absurdly detailed.
Finally, Mistvale had just a hint of a blond goatee on his chin, completing his image as a brooding asshole vampire. Drake was glad they were enemies. He wouldn’t want to be friends with this guy even if he wasn’t with Lord Proudglade. He looked like Eurotrash.
Drake didn’t recognize any of Lord Mistvale’s entourage—three women dressed in brown and green leather armor and one man in the same—but assumed they were all Mistvale’s bodyguards. Probably archers or assassins. At least they weren’t elves.
As strange and overwhelming as this world might be, Drake wasn’t ready for elves.
