Valentia continued reading his letter from the noble court with a dignified and precise diction he truly envied at that moment.
“The cabal will take place in Korhaurbauten nine moons from now. If you cannot attend this cabal for reasons related to the state of your manor or lands, a justification for your absence that meets with the emergency exemptions granted in times to strife must be delivered in your stead. In such a case, you may not cast a vote. We look forward to seeing you in our great capital.”
Valentia finished reading and frowned at him. “This is unusual.”
“It is the cabal?” Drake asked. “Is the cabal unusual, Val?”
“That is simply the official name for any meeting of all nine manor lords, in person, in Korhaurbauten. What is unusual is the urgency of the meeting.”
“So asking us to meet in the capital nine moons from now is urgent?”
“Cabals, in those rare cases when five or more manor lords agree to call one, are typically announced months in advance. Lords have sufficient time to gather information about its purpose from their spies, to plot meetings with their allies, and to hatch new conspiracies in person. So yes, nine moons implies an emergency.”
“We haven’t had a cabal in years!” Nicole said excitedly. “Last time, Lord Frostlight’s second daughter got beheaded for dallying with some ritual murder that was too gruesome even for the table. I think it had something to do with using heated knives to peel—”
“Don’t need to know!” Drake interrupted loudly. Holding back a shudder, he looked to Valentia. “So how long will it take to reach the capital?”
“At our normal pace with an entourage and personal vanguard sufficient for your security, it will take us seven days to arrive at the capital. Lord Frostlight will have to rush to make it by nine. The rest of the manor lords may arrive a few days ahead of us, but not long enough to gain any advance knowledge of the cabal’s purpose.”
“But we have a few days.”
“That is not correct. We have seven days of travel now available. So either our messenger was waylaid in his travels by bad weather, or he was sent late to rush us.”
Drake groaned. “So basically, to make it, we’d have to leave today.”
“Indeed. This very afternoon.”
“And we can’t simply claim we can’t go because of an emergency?”
“We could,” Valentia said. “But given the current political situation among the manors and their lords, do you feel it wise to discard our vote?”
Every conversation he’d had with Sky about the tilting table played back in his mind on fast forward. Was Lord Brightwater making her move this early? Was this cabal when she would announce she was officially joining the big four against the remaining manor lords?
“Probably not,” Drake admitted with a grimace. “We need to be there.”
“Given Lydia’s current state, I will make the arrangements immediately,” Valentia said. “With your permission, Lord Gloomwood?”
“Yes Val. Thanks, Val.” He sighed. “I guess we’ll just have to hope none of the zarovians are plotting to burn the manor down while I’m away.”
Once Valentia was out the door and he was alone with Nicole, he glanced at her. “Looks like if we want to check out my spy chamber, we need to check out my spy chamber.”
“I imagine I can’t talk you out of it,” she agreed reluctantly. “Still remember where to find it?”
He did. He knew the layout of his manor fairly well now. His spy chamber was not hidden off his master bedroom, which would have made too much sense. According to Zuri, it was built beneath the manor at the end of one of the cellar hallways, hidden by a false wall he opened with a dollop of his own blood.
Only the master of Gloomwood Manor’s blood pact could open the wall. Only Lord Gloomwood could become the master of its blood pact. So basically, he was the only one who could open the door to the chamber where missives somehow appeared from his spies.
He was curious to find out how all that worked.
He asked Nicole to go ahead and clear the path to the cellar stairs, then had her lead him quickly once she completed her task. Once they entered the cellar, he no longer worried about being seen being led around by the hand. His cooks... now down four... were cluttered in the kitchens with a few others picking up the slack for dinner. These halls were empty.
After Nicole grabbed and lit a torch, he reached the end of a non-descript stone tunnel that would otherwise be dark. Several worn wooden boxes sat in front of it, but there looked to be a small space he could stand in. He cautiously squeezed in and then pulled the letter opener he’d grabbed from his master bedroom from his pocket.
This’ll be fun. He drove the tip of the sharpened letter opener into his thumb, then placed his bleeding thumb on the cold wall. According to Zuri, the touch of his warm blood and flesh would trigger the door to open. It was practically biometrics.
He expected a loud rumble and was surprised by how quiet the wall was as it slid sideways to reveal a small, cluttered chamber beyond. Rolled scrolls with small wax seals were piled up in several corners, but it didn’t look like rats had eaten them. There was also a single table and a single chair, as well as another Zippo candle.
Drake glanced back at Nicole to find no sight of her. Her lit torch now sat in a torch rest, but she must be invisible thanks to penumbra. He was tired of putting up with her games.
“No vanishing,” he told her. “Come out now.”
“Spoilsport,” Nicole whispered from his other side.
Drake resisted jumping only with great effort, glared at her, and ignored her mocking smile as she slipped aside to allow him to shuffle into his personal spy chamber. When he shuffled, keeping his feet firmly on the ground and taking small steps, he seemed fine. Lydia’s advice about how not to flutterstep had served him well today.
There was no sound behind him. Yet when he glanced back he found Nicole inside as well, which was good, because the door to the chamber immediately began to slide closed. His entry into the room must have triggered the door to seal itself again. Drake shuffled to the Zippo candle and lit it, which ensured the closing door didn’t drop them into darkness.
Nicole glanced at the now sealed wall, then back at him. “So only you can open that wall, huh?”
“So I am told,” Drake agreed.
“And while there’s nothing to stop me from killing you in here, you still walk around like you don’t have a care in the world.” She eyed him. “You are impossibly reckless.”
Drake sighed. “Is there something you need to get off your chest?”
She glanced down at herself, then at him. “Is this where you claim you need to search me for an obedience fetish? I assure you, Val is quite thorough.”
“I’m serious. At first I thought you were just abnormally unhinged, but now I’m convinced you’re literally trying to pick a fight with me. Why is that?”
“Why ever would I try to pick a fight with you, lord?”
He didn’t miss how she danced around his question. She couldn’t lie, but she didn’t have to answer him. However... he did have another way to get her to talk.
“How’s this?” Drake asked. “Until you tell me why you’re trying to get under my skin, we stay here together in this room and look at boring old scrolls.”
“I imagine we might both enjoy that.”
“Are you sure?” Drake asked. “Remember, I’m the only one who can open that door. Just imagine how boring it’ll be to be stuck in here with me. For hours.”
“You will get bored first,” Nicole assured him confidently.
Drake leaned back against the table and crossed his arms. “Let’s find out.”
What had to be less than a minute of silence later, Nicole sighed. “You really wish me to speak freely of my feelings about you?”
“I do.” Drake grinned. “Why are you trying to make me mad?”
“You are going to hurt someone here eventually. I was hoping to goad you into trying it with me so I could kill you in self defense, but now, I’ll just motivate you with a threat.” She reached to her skirt and produced a glowing spirit knife. “If you ever hurt anyone I care about, which is everyone here, I will immediately stab you in the balls. And then other places.”
Drake had expected something petty. He hadn’t expected that. “Why are you so convinced I’m going to start hurting people? I’ve already told you I won’t.”
“You believe that now,” Nicole said quietly. “But one day, when a thrall refuses to do what you ask or speaks to you in a way you don’t like, you will hurt them.”
“Why are you so sure of that?”
“Because I’ve seen it.” All of Nicole’s flippancy was gone now, as was her smirk. “The lord who I came here to work for claimed he would never hurt us. Guess what happened?”
Drake understood now. He mentally did the math based on her age and what Zuri had told him about how long the last two lords had lasted. “That was the lord before Dickcheese.”
“Indeed. Once my penumbra rarity manifested, all nine lords pursued me. I had my pick of manors and offers that would make your head spin. Yet all the manor lords who attempted to woo me to their side felt the same to me. Greedy. Petty. Focused on themselves.”
“And the old Lord Gloomwood didn’t seem that way?”
“I interviewed many before I joined. All with whom I spoke adored Lord Gloomwood and spoke warmly of his good nature... as he compelled them to do. And I, a naïve girl raised on tales of benevolent manor lords and the honor of joining a blood pact, let myself be deceived. I joined my kind Lord Gloomwood, and he showed me just how much of a fool I was.”
Drake looked at the empty wooden table in the small room. “So that’s why you’ve been pushing me. You’re trying to prove to everyone else I’m not the benevolent manor lord I claim to be. You think I’m secretly an asshole who will turn on you the moment you piss me off.”
“So how far must I push you? Knowing that will save us both a great deal of time.”
Drake glanced at her and grimaced. “You believed in your manor lord, and he betrayed your trust. After that, I can see why you’d never trust any lord ever again.”
“So what will you do now that you know? Imprison me? Exile me? You’ll lose Val’s loyalty the moment you do that.”
“I’m not going to do anything to you,” Drake said calmly. “You were a mystery, one I thought might be a threat to my manor, but you’re solved now. If you don’t want to listen to me or follow my orders, that’s your choice. That’s the reason I made my decree.”
“I’m glad I was so easy to solve.”
“Don’t get me wrong, Nicole. I’m not discounting your feelings, and I also don’t begrudge them. If I wanted to compel you to trust and serve me, I’d never have altered the blood pact. What matters to me, now, is I know I can trust you.”
Nicole’s gaze hardened. “Why would you say that after I’ve just threatened to stab you to death? I’ve already told you I don’t trust you. I will never trust you.”
“But you love your battle maids,” Drake reminded her. “You love them all so much you tried to push me to the point where if I turned out to be an evil bastard, you’d end up fighting alone against a guy who could turn into a dire rat. That’s brave. Stupid, but brave.”
A faint trace of her constant smirk returned. “I am brave. So impossibly brave.”
“I’m not like the other manor lords you’ve met,” Drake said. “But words don’t mean anything without deeds to back them up, so I’ll only ask you judge me on what I do in the days ahead instead of whatever your prior lords did. Watch me. Give me time to prove you wrong.”
Nicole nodded casually. “Nothing would please me more.”
“Great. So, shall we see what my spies have been up to while Samuel was dead?”
“Given it’s that or murder each other, checking the spy reports would be best.”
Valentia continued reading his letter from the noble court with a dignified and precise diction he truly envied at that moment.
“The cabal will take place in Korhaurbauten nine moons from now. If you cannot attend this cabal for reasons related to the state of your manor or lands, a justification for your absence that meets with the emergency exemptions granted in times to strife must be delivered in your stead. In such a case, you may not cast a vote. We look forward to seeing you in our great capital.”
Valentia finished reading and frowned at him. “This is unusual.”
“It is the cabal?” Drake asked. “Is the cabal unusual, Val?”
“That is simply the official name for any meeting of all nine manor lords, in person, in Korhaurbauten. What is unusual is the urgency of the meeting.”
“So asking us to meet in the capital nine moons from now is urgent?”
“Cabals, in those rare cases when five or more manor lords agree to call one, are typically announced months in advance. Lords have sufficient time to gather information about its purpose from their spies, to plot meetings with their allies, and to hatch new conspiracies in person. So yes, nine moons implies an emergency.”
“We haven’t had a cabal in years!” Nicole said excitedly. “Last time, Lord Frostlight’s second daughter got beheaded for dallying with some ritual murder that was too gruesome even for the table. I think it had something to do with using heated knives to peel—”
“Don’t need to know!” Drake interrupted loudly. Holding back a shudder, he looked to Valentia. “So how long will it take to reach the capital?”
“At our normal pace with an entourage and personal vanguard sufficient for your security, it will take us seven days to arrive at the capital. Lord Frostlight will have to rush to make it by nine. The rest of the manor lords may arrive a few days ahead of us, but not long enough to gain any advance knowledge of the cabal’s purpose.”
“But we have a few days.”
“That is not correct. We have seven days of travel now available. So either our messenger was waylaid in his travels by bad weather, or he was sent late to rush us.”
Drake groaned. “So basically, to make it, we’d have to leave today.”
“Indeed. This very afternoon.”
“And we can’t simply claim we can’t go because of an emergency?”
“We could,” Valentia said. “But given the current political situation among the manors and their lords, do you feel it wise to discard our vote?”
Every conversation he’d had with Sky about the tilting table played back in his mind on fast forward. Was Lord Brightwater making her move this early? Was this cabal when she would announce she was officially joining the big four against the remaining manor lords?
“Probably not,” Drake admitted with a grimace. “We need to be there.”
“Given Lydia’s current state, I will make the arrangements immediately,” Valentia said. “With your permission, Lord Gloomwood?”
“Yes Val. Thanks, Val.” He sighed. “I guess we’ll just have to hope none of the zarovians are plotting to burn the manor down while I’m away.”
Once Valentia was out the door and he was alone with Nicole, he glanced at her. “Looks like if we want to check out my spy chamber, we need to check out my spy chamber.”
“I imagine I can’t talk you out of it,” she agreed reluctantly. “Still remember where to find it?”
He did. He knew the layout of his manor fairly well now. His spy chamber was not hidden off his master bedroom, which would have made too much sense. According to Zuri, it was built beneath the manor at the end of one of the cellar hallways, hidden by a false wall he opened with a dollop of his own blood.
Only the master of Gloomwood Manor’s blood pact could open the wall. Only Lord Gloomwood could become the master of its blood pact. So basically, he was the only one who could open the door to the chamber where missives somehow appeared from his spies.
He was curious to find out how all that worked.
He asked Nicole to go ahead and clear the path to the cellar stairs, then had her lead him quickly once she completed her task. Once they entered the cellar, he no longer worried about being seen being led around by the hand. His cooks... now down four... were cluttered in the kitchens with a few others picking up the slack for dinner. These halls were empty.
After Nicole grabbed and lit a torch, he reached the end of a non-descript stone tunnel that would otherwise be dark. Several worn wooden boxes sat in front of it, but there looked to be a small space he could stand in. He cautiously squeezed in and then pulled the letter opener he’d grabbed from his master bedroom from his pocket.
This’ll be fun. He drove the tip of the sharpened letter opener into his thumb, then placed his bleeding thumb on the cold wall. According to Zuri, the touch of his warm blood and flesh would trigger the door to open. It was practically biometrics.
He expected a loud rumble and was surprised by how quiet the wall was as it slid sideways to reveal a small, cluttered chamber beyond. Rolled scrolls with small wax seals were piled up in several corners, but it didn’t look like rats had eaten them. There was also a single table and a single chair, as well as another Zippo candle.
Drake glanced back at Nicole to find no sight of her. Her lit torch now sat in a torch rest, but she must be invisible thanks to penumbra. He was tired of putting up with her games.
“No vanishing,” he told her. “Come out now.”
“Spoilsport,” Nicole whispered from his other side.
Drake resisted jumping only with great effort, glared at her, and ignored her mocking smile as she slipped aside to allow him to shuffle into his personal spy chamber. When he shuffled, keeping his feet firmly on the ground and taking small steps, he seemed fine. Lydia’s advice about how not to flutterstep had served him well today.
There was no sound behind him. Yet when he glanced back he found Nicole inside as well, which was good, because the door to the chamber immediately began to slide closed. His entry into the room must have triggered the door to seal itself again. Drake shuffled to the Zippo candle and lit it, which ensured the closing door didn’t drop them into darkness.
Nicole glanced at the now sealed wall, then back at him. “So only you can open that wall, huh?”
“So I am told,” Drake agreed.
“And while there’s nothing to stop me from killing you in here, you still walk around like you don’t have a care in the world.” She eyed him. “You are impossibly reckless.”
Drake sighed. “Is there something you need to get off your chest?”
She glanced down at herself, then at him. “Is this where you claim you need to search me for an obedience fetish? I assure you, Val is quite thorough.”
“I’m serious. At first I thought you were just abnormally unhinged, but now I’m convinced you’re literally trying to pick a fight with me. Why is that?”
“Why ever would I try to pick a fight with you, lord?”
He didn’t miss how she danced around his question. She couldn’t lie, but she didn’t have to answer him. However... he did have another way to get her to talk.
“How’s this?” Drake asked. “Until you tell me why you’re trying to get under my skin, we stay here together in this room and look at boring old scrolls.”
“I imagine we might both enjoy that.”
“Are you sure?” Drake asked. “Remember, I’m the only one who can open that door. Just imagine how boring it’ll be to be stuck in here with me. For hours.”
“You will get bored first,” Nicole assured him confidently.
Drake leaned back against the table and crossed his arms. “Let’s find out.”
What had to be less than a minute of silence later, Nicole sighed. “You really wish me to speak freely of my feelings about you?”
“I do.” Drake grinned. “Why are you trying to make me mad?”
“You are going to hurt someone here eventually. I was hoping to goad you into trying it with me so I could kill you in self defense, but now, I’ll just motivate you with a threat.” She reached to her skirt and produced a glowing spirit knife. “If you ever hurt anyone I care about, which is everyone here, I will immediately stab you in the balls. And then other places.”
Drake had expected something petty. He hadn’t expected that. “Why are you so convinced I’m going to start hurting people? I’ve already told you I won’t.”
“You believe that now,” Nicole said quietly. “But one day, when a thrall refuses to do what you ask or speaks to you in a way you don’t like, you will hurt them.”
“Why are you so sure of that?”
“Because I’ve seen it.” All of Nicole’s flippancy was gone now, as was her smirk. “The lord who I came here to work for claimed he would never hurt us. Guess what happened?”
Drake understood now. He mentally did the math based on her age and what Zuri had told him about how long the last two lords had lasted. “That was the lord before Dickcheese.”
“Indeed. Once my penumbra rarity manifested, all nine lords pursued me. I had my pick of manors and offers that would make your head spin. Yet all the manor lords who attempted to woo me to their side felt the same to me. Greedy. Petty. Focused on themselves.”
“And the old Lord Gloomwood didn’t seem that way?”
“I interviewed many before I joined. All with whom I spoke adored Lord Gloomwood and spoke warmly of his good nature... as he compelled them to do. And I, a naïve girl raised on tales of benevolent manor lords and the honor of joining a blood pact, let myself be deceived. I joined my kind Lord Gloomwood, and he showed me just how much of a fool I was.”
Drake looked at the empty wooden table in the small room. “So that’s why you’ve been pushing me. You’re trying to prove to everyone else I’m not the benevolent manor lord I claim to be. You think I’m secretly an asshole who will turn on you the moment you piss me off.”
“So how far must I push you? Knowing that will save us both a great deal of time.”
Drake glanced at her and grimaced. “You believed in your manor lord, and he betrayed your trust. After that, I can see why you’d never trust any lord ever again.”
“So what will you do now that you know? Imprison me? Exile me? You’ll lose Val’s loyalty the moment you do that.”
“I’m not going to do anything to you,” Drake said calmly. “You were a mystery, one I thought might be a threat to my manor, but you’re solved now. If you don’t want to listen to me or follow my orders, that’s your choice. That’s the reason I made my decree.”
“I’m glad I was so easy to solve.”
“Don’t get me wrong, Nicole. I’m not discounting your feelings, and I also don’t begrudge them. If I wanted to compel you to trust and serve me, I’d never have altered the blood pact. What matters to me, now, is I know I can trust you.”
Nicole’s gaze hardened. “Why would you say that after I’ve just threatened to stab you to death? I’ve already told you I don’t trust you. I will never trust you.”
“But you love your battle maids,” Drake reminded her. “You love them all so much you tried to push me to the point where if I turned out to be an evil bastard, you’d end up fighting alone against a guy who could turn into a dire rat. That’s brave. Stupid, but brave.”
A faint trace of her constant smirk returned. “I am brave. So impossibly brave.”
“I’m not like the other manor lords you’ve met,” Drake said. “But words don’t mean anything without deeds to back them up, so I’ll only ask you judge me on what I do in the days ahead instead of whatever your prior lords did. Watch me. Give me time to prove you wrong.”
Nicole nodded casually. “Nothing would please me more.”
“Great. So, shall we see what my spies have been up to while Samuel was dead?”
“Given it’s that or murder each other, checking the spy reports would be best.”
