Book 2: Chapter 26: Divide and Conquer

  They came for Alex and Eric at dusk in silence.

  A black-cloaked knight stood in the doorway, like a person-shaped gravestone. Not a word was spoken, the knight only gave a nod of expectation, and his gaze bore into them like a boot on the neck. The unvoiced statement was clear, House Thorneth had arrived.

  The walk through the lower tunnels of the palace was long, empty, and cold. Not chilled from a lack of heat, but cold by design. Below their feet the stone shone, polished like obsidian glass. All sound dampened by yards and yards of thick rock in every direction, the air tasting faintly of iron and incense.

  On entry the chamber was rounded and set a grimvibe, lit by wall sconces that burned with smokeless flames. Seven banners draped high across the stone arches in colors of blackened-grey, and deep violet, with splashes of green and gold. Each was embroidered with a crest belonging to a Noble House just as in their suite. There was a thorned crown, a broken sword, a fist surrounded by a halo of blue ather. All family crests or representations of whatever else denoted the house’s personal history.

  And waiting beneath them, seated in apparent judgment, were three figures of House Thorneth. Alex looked at each, trying to get a feel for them. He recognized the three figures based on the reports they received from the gala, and the throughout the early morning.

  Seated at the center: High Marshal Cydric Thorneth, his armor was not ceremonial but battle-worn, scarred, and fitted like it hadn't been removed in a decade. His eyes were pale and pitiless. The aura he gave off placed him solidly in the late part of liquid-stage of Adept Tier.

  Seat to his right was Lady Verrianna Thorneth, his niece if the rumors were right. He looked her over carefully. Verriana was sharp-jawed, all lean muscle and contempt, dressed in sparring leathers and old bloodstains. We was weaker than her uncle, her core giving off the distinct pressure of an early stage Adept.

  To his left he saw a younger man with a duelist’s build and a soldier’s eyes, his armor polished and personalized, wearing the smug half-smile of someone who had never lost a duel and didn’t plan to start now. Callen Thorneth, second cousin to Verrianna. He smiled at Alex as he looked at him, almost like he was presenting a challenge. His aura was only a fraction denser than Verrianna’s, but he felt more dangerous.

  “Commander Eric Thompson,” Cydric said as they entered. “And the other one.”

  He got no title, no name. A subtle disrespect meant to get him angry, or throw him off. Instead, he only smiled at the man as he walked forward and sat in one of the two chairs across from them. The High Marshall then did something he wasn’t expecting, he smiled back.

  Alex felt a chill settle under his collar.

  Cydric continued, “You’ll answer our questions. You’ll be brief. You’ll be honest.”

  Eric sat in the chair next to him. He looked like he also wasn’t sure what was going on. This almost felt like Alex was being court martialed, and Eric’s face told him that he was feeling something rather similar.

  “Pay attention meatboy, you’ll need to make sure you don’t miss anything.” Obby so helpfully chimed in his head.

  Lady Verrianna didn’t wait for her uncle’s permission to begin, she jumped right into it. Her voice rang out proud, snarky, contemptuous. “Say your squad is ambushed. Your rear is cut off, one wounded, one deadweight, enemy in front. What’s your call?”

  “Depends on the terrain,” Eric said before he could. “And how long I’ve had to prepare a fallback.”

  “Not what we asked.”

  They are pretty aggressive, she’s looking for submission, acquiescence. He looked over to Eric, seeing that the man was still calm and unbothered. Would he have been as coolblooded?

  If my fire element attunement still had its claws me, and I didn’t have the experience handling the Demon Asura Style, the Wyrmblood heart, or even handled that kobold dagger in the dungeon… maybe I’d have already snapped back. He realized the truth rather quickly. He might be seen as the ‘Commander’ to the team, but it was Eric and Kate that had the bearing of true leaders, not him.

  “I think you’re a great fleshsack leader. You really know how to break your body for their safety, at the very least.”

  I wouldn’t call that good leadership, Obby. It’s just be me being too emotionally attached to those around me because of my feeling of inadequacy around my brother. Again, he surprised himself with how introspective he was at the moment. He suddenly started to feel like maybe they had somehow slipped him something. But he hadn’t drank or eaten anything since leaving their suite. Weird.

  “Not giving you the fantasy answer,” Eric eventually replied. “Thorneth might train for drills, but we’ve been doing it live.”

  Verrianna smiled, the kind that didn’t resemble anything human. “So you improvise. That’s what you’re saying.”

  “I lead,” Eric replied. “Improvisation happens when you’re alive enough to need it.”

  Lady Verrianna dismissed Eric’s response with a scoff and a wave of her hand. She turned to him then. “What do you do when orders are wrong?” she asked Alex.

  “I ask who’s giving them,” he said.

  “And if it’s your commanding officer?”

  “Then I ask louder.”

  Callen stood up at that, eyes narrowing down at him. “He thinks he’s funny, witty. It’s just arrogance. What do you expect from a barbarian worldstrider?”

  He met the young noble’s gaze without flinching. “I’ve lived through worse than Thorneth’s disappointment.”

  Verrianna stood now too. She crossed the raised platform in front of them to lay a soothing hand on her cousin’s shoulder. She seemed to be trying to calm him, as he could see her lips moving, whispering something unheard in his ear.

  Callen eventually sat down, but he could still see the man’s blood still boiled, his chest rising and falling in measured gasps. “You wouldn’t last a month in our legion.” he spat out at Alex.

  “That’s mutual.”

  Cydric lifted a finger, before another outburst could occur. The room quieted and he turned to Alex. “You.,Pierce. You were dropped into our world. Untrained. Untested. The court wastes time hoping you’re useful. We see you as you are, unblooded blades flailing in an armory you don’t understand… no military protocol. No battlefield etiquette. Do you even know how to hold a formation?”

  “I adapt,” Alex said flatly, refusing to give them anything else.

  Verrianna smirked and gave a dry chuckle. “A polite way of saying no.”

  Alex kept his face calm. “I’d rather be underestimated than outdated.”

  That earned what he thought as a twitch of interest from Cydric, but it passed as quickly as it came. “You talk like mages do when they haven’t seen blood.”

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Lady Verrianna stirred beside her uncle, sitting straighter and taller, until her shadow reached the two of them. “So here’s your second question. Two of your own are bleeding. One’s a stranger, but a stronger warrior. The other is family, but weak. You only have one healing draught. Who gets it?”

  “The one that makes the team win,” Alex said.

  “Wrong answer,” she replied.

  “It wasn’t an answer,” Alex said, eyes narrowing. “It was a test of my own.”

  A beat of silence followed that.

  Then Cydric rose for the first time. His armor clinked softly, like rusted teeth in a far too dry mouth. “We don’t care about your ideals or morals,” he said. “Or your excuses. You’re foreign weapons. Dangerous, unstable, and unrefined. The court may be drunk on curiosity, but we are not.” He stepped down from the dais.

  “You’re not soldiers. You’re anomalies. And the only use we’ve ever had for anomalies—” He paused. “—is to study them before they get someone useful killed.”

  “Doesn’t look like he’s happy with your performance.” Obby intoned.

  No, I don’t think he would no matter our answers, unless they were supplications to him and House Thorneth.

  Alex looked to his right as he heard the creak of Eric’s chair. He had stood now too, and took a step forward. “Then why waste your time on this little pageant?”

  Verrianna’s grin curled again. “Because we wanted to see the enemy up close.”

  A heavy moment settled over the area as she said what everyone was already thinking but hadn’t yet voiced. They were enemies here, House Thorneth, and them. This little talk was not an offering, they wanted no peace, no redemption, no hints of alliance. Just cold, ironclad judgment.

  Cydric gave a final glance. “You may go. Dismissed. Until the vote.”

  He stood up from his chair without any hesitation and fell into step with Eric. They walked out in silence, boots echoing like rifle clicks in a crypt.

  Back in the hallways, they were halfway back to the suite when Eric muttered, “I don’t care how old their banner is. That family’s rotted from the spine outward.”

  Alex just shook his head. “They don’t want any answers. They wanted to just marvel at us, like a zoo exhibit. What a waste of time. A waste of good cultivators.”

  ***

  Kate found the palace balcony where moonlight hit the white stone in perfect arcs. It wasn’t exactly hard to figure out the riddle on the napkin which she had been slipped during the gala. It was just annoying that she had to wait until nightfall for her to go search it out.

  Lady Thessalia Caerwyn was already waiting when Kate arrived. The woman was already seated at one of the balcony’s outdoor tables. Her silver and blue dress glittered under the night’s starlight, her hair pinned up in elaborate braids that curled and fell around her face and shoulders like decorative ribbons. Seated beside her was a puzzle box the size of a bread loaf.

  She gestured at it without looking up. “Before I offer influence, I require a demonstration of your mind, your poise. Solve it, if you will, please.”

  Kate didn’t argue. She sat down across from the woman, pulling the box towards herself, and studied the object intently. The box was woven with spinning aether-locks, and small sliding segments that only aligned with precise movement. Surely there was a hidden nook or latch along its surface somewhere, but the majority of its surface was aether lines and slides. Half riddle, half dance.

  It took Kate eight minutes.

  She didn’t smile when it opened. Neither did Thessalia.

  “Very good,” the Lady said softly. “It is not about strength. It’s about how pressure and precision is managed. The right application of timing and knowledge”

  Thessalia stood now, she moved towards the balcony railing in graceful steps, her dress’s hem never once brushing the floor. Then her gaze drifted outward at the view, seemingly toward the high towers across the city. “The Houses speak of you all as fire. Some see a hearth. Others see a wildfire.”

  Kate asked quietly, “Which do you see?”

  Thessalia didn’t turn back. “I see an unlit torch held by a nervous hand.” she paused a moment, a stretch of time that would make any normal person compelled to fill the void themselves. Kate only waited.

  “But that means someone might still light it with purpose.”

  Kate didn’t answer that statement either. She didn’t need to, the Lady had said enough to get the point across. Finally, Thessalia reached forward to the puzzle box that still sat on the table and it shut with a simple flick of two fingers. A locking rune flashed, the surface shifted and rotated quickly and then lay still. She didn’t take the box with her. Instead, she set it aside and tapped it once with the back of her hand.

  “That’s yours now. Every time you open it, the mechanism resets and the puzzle changes. But the core logic remains. Much like politics of court.”

  She reached into her sleeve and drew a small slip of paper, folded into thirds. A seal marked it, not her house sigil, but a lesser crest, belonging to Thessalia herself. A personal mark, not a political one. “There will be a vote. You know this. And there will be sides.” She placed the folded paper in front of Kate like an opponent performing a final chess move.

  “You show promise. If your team is more than a just a wildfire, if it can be a hearth, I’ll speak for you.”

  Kate’s eyes flicked to the seal, but she didn’t reach for it yet. “You expect us to prove it before the vote.” A statement, not a question.

  “I expect you to endure long enough to try.” Thessalia didn’t offer a farewell. She simply turned, robes whispering against her legs, and vanished through the curtained arch with the same silence that Kate was certain she’d arrived in.

  She sat there for a while after, the puzzle box and the sealed note sitting like silent challenges in the moonlight. She didn’t open either as she picked them up to leave.

  ***

  By the time he back in the suite, he had already determined Thorneth was a lost cause. Alex didn’t need a seer to tell him how they’d be voting in the future. So had to focused on other things instead, places his time and attention could make a difference.

  Inside the suite, a few of the teams was already waiting. Zach and Lance sat on the couches. Henry and Cole were out on the balcony, they looked at Henry’s plant together. Devon sat alone on the edge of the long dining table. His leg twitched up an down, his hands were contorted, thumbs pressing into each other like he was a child trying to figure out how to hold still.

  Tom-Tom was in the kitchen eating something he had cooked up in their absence. The little Kobold didn’t seem worried, mainly because he didn’t have to be, he truly was a diplomatic guest, it was all of them that were prisoners on the chopping block.

  The others trickled in, Eric was already with him, but Kate entered through the suite doors shortly after, then came Allie and Holly.

  “Alright,” he said once everyone was present. “Let’s compare damage.”

  Garret kicked off from the wall and headed toward the table. “We starting with good news or the bad?”

  “We’ll run out of ‘good’ too fast,” Kate said. That got a few faint exhales, not quite laughs.

  He turned to Devon. “You first.”

  He took a moment to finally look back at Alex. When he did, he looked less shaken and more hollowed out, like someone had reached in and scraped something out of him.

  “Vess Auralde,” he said. “Is not an ally. She’s looking to use us as idea generators, tech labor.” He rubbed his hands together once, slow. “She showed us something. Earth tech. A broken fragment, but familiar. Claimed it came from another group of Worldstriders.”

  Devon looked to him. “She hinted one of them might still be alive.”

  Alex didn’t react immediately. He thought back to the Gala and when he had spoken to Duke Orein Velcryn. “House Velcryn said something similar. Possibly having encountered and traded with Worldstriders before.”

  Holly’s brow furrowed. “So this game between Terraxum and Worldstriders is older than we thought.”

  Allie nodded. “And we’re not the first pieces on the board.”

  Alex paced once, hands at his hips, but not quite clenched. “Anything else?”

  Holly stepped forward, “Mother Theralyn gave us a small opening. She won’t fight for us yet, but she might lean that way if we keep our hands clean.”

  “She warned us too,” Allie added. “Something about ecclesiarchs tangled up with Lira Snavek’s guild. Said rot hides under incense.”

  Alex’s eyes narrowed. He looked toward Eric, who was already halfway to a thought.

  “The hallway outside Thorneth’s chamber. The one before the martial interview…”

  Alex nodded. “Burning incense. Heavy, stuck to my clothes for sure.”

  “That might explain something,” Eric muttered. “As we were being questioned in there, I had a... spike. Doubt. Fear. More like...” He paused. “More like I suddenly wanted to believe everything they said about us. It was brief, but there.”

  He crossed his arms while Eric spoke, the man’s words confirming his earlier suspicions. “So it wasn’t just me. Just Thorneth being dickish. They juiced the hallway.”

  Kate scowled. “So Thorneth’s already dirty, and look like they are working with Snavek against us.”

  Holly moved to the edge of the room where the enchanted table still sat. The war board flickered back to life with a tap. She began dragging markers. Theralyn and Caerwyn shifted from neutral to the “Leaning Ally” arc, just left of center.

  Then came the others; Thorneth, Auralde, Snavek, all slid across to the edge of the map, where a glowing red sector labeled High Risk / Watchlist hummed softly like a low warning bell.

  Two allies and three enemies already, it was not a promising spread.

  Devon sat back, rubbing his eyes. “So that’s the board now.”

  “No,” Kate said. “That’s today’s board. Tomorrow, we start shaping it ourselves.”

  Alex looked around the table, at the quiet tension in every shoulder, every posture. “We’ve been reactive, passive” he said. “Waiting and watching. Hoping for signs.” He reached down and spun the Strider sigil on the board slowly, letting it rotate in place.

  “No more.”

  Eric cracked a knuckle. “You want to make plays.”

  He nodded once. “They’re already playing us. Time to play back.”

  The markers glowed faintly beneath the dim suite light, warping in subtle ways beneath the surface enchantments, each faction drifting, waiting for the next move in the game of ‘twelve angry crests’.