1

  The victory had been easy, too easy, which usually put Gaspar Lobera, the Sapphire Prince, as the common folk called him, in a foul mood. The moment the duel began, the five Sped runes etched into the steel plates covering his boots were enough to launch him forward at great speed and close the distance between him and the Archbishop of Conztanza. Like Gaspar’s brother, the archbishop was no runic knight but rather a mage. Dangerous if given time to cast his spells, but vulnerable at close range. He did not even have his sword raised; instead, he was flipping through the pages of his grimoire, which floated at his side. The first thing the duke did was cleave the book in two with a single stroke of Tizón, the ancestral sword of House Lobera, whose incandescent runes emitted the sapphire glow that earned its bearer his nickname.

  The archbishop activated the runes on his gauntlet, but before he could finish reading them, the duke was already countering his Fa? spell by conjuring G?z in three minor, diverting the golden beam of light. It burst against the magical ward that protected the spectators. The explosion made the stadium tremble with jubilant screams. At the same time, Tizón drove at his rival. The archbishop’s translucent ward held back the sword’s wrath, and his own weapon finally rose to join the fray. But by the time the first rune carved into its edge flared emerald green, signaling its Püs nature, the duel was already over. Three swift thrusts from Tizón, and the thin turquoise ward around him collapsed, dispersing into a thousand crystalline motes.

  “The victor is Gaspar Lobera, Duke of Lisandra and Irinea, Paladin of the Order of Runic Knights, Commander of the League’s Forces, and son of the Sorcerer Supreme of the League of Wizards!”

  After the applause, the grating ovations, and all the ceremony, the duke approached the archbishop and set a hand on his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry about the grimoire,” he said. It lay on the ground, split in two and mostly scorched. “Send an invoice to my Master-at-Arms and I’ll reimburse whatever amount you name.”

  “It’s nothing,” the elf replied. “I have hundreds like it. Good fight. I only wish I’d been up to the task.”

  “I won’t lie, you could have fought better. I hope I get to face your cousin at Eleonora’s tournament. It’s coming up soon,” he said, removing his helm. He had black hair and beard, blue eyes, grayish skin, and an aquiline nose.

  “Then I’ll warn him, so he can start preparing.”

  They mounted their respective pegasi, saluted the seventy thousand spectators, and left the stadium through one of the many arches crowning the coliseum’s dome. When the duke reached the stables of the Basilica of Diamanthora—once his squires caught up with him and helped him unfasten his harness, dismount from Gabriela, and remove the sapphire-studded armor—he went to meet his father. He had left him looking after his little daughter, Sophia, in their luxurious quarters. A family meeting was coming up shortly, so he hurried through the labyrinth of marble staircases and imperial officials. He knocked, turned the key, and stepped inside without asking permission. He found them sprawled on the floor and smiled. Father had convinced her once again to play dead so he could take a nap undisturbed.

  “Sophia, you can stop playing now, you’ve already won. Grandpa is sleeping.”

  The curly-haired, emerald-eyed girl—who was not very good at playing dead, since she could not contain her excitement even while lying still—sprang up and, clumsily, took a few steps to confirm her father’s words.

  “That’s not fair, Grandpa!”

  She shook his shoulder with her chubby hands, but the old elf did not so much as flinch. Seeing him there, with his long white beard matching his hair, moonlight ash-colored skin, a bulbous pink nose, dressed in a robe and house slippers, and lightly snoring, Gaspar could not help but smile. It was hard to believe he was looking at one of the richest and most powerful elf in the Tree of Oldione.

  “Father, wake up! Father!”

  The old man cracked his eyes open and looked around, yawning, confused.

  “Where am I? Where’s Ammie? Speak to Ammie, she’ll sort it out for you,” he said, rolling onto his side and falling asleep again.

  “Ammie died years ago, and you’re in the Basilica of Diamanthora, two days before the votes. Father! Wake up! Did you take your medicine?”

  “Grandpa!”

  Sophia shook him again, and he seized the chance to grab her and tickle her.

  “All right, all right!” he said, as the little one squealed with laughter.

  The duke didn’t even need an answer. He went to the travel trunk and pulled out a wooden box packed with potions. Father always forgot his medicine, and even if he remembered, he never knew the proper dose. Gaspar was the one in charge of his care.

  “We have that meeting you arranged this morning, remember?” he said, holding the small glass vial up to the sunlight and tapping it with a finger as he examined the solution.

  The old man rose with effort, setting the girl aside.

  “A meeting?”

  “Yes. With the whole family and… you know. About…”

  “Ah, yes,” he said, fixing him with a glare—one eye emerald green like Sophia’s, the other clouded by cataracts. “All that.”

  He opened his mouth for Gaspar to give him the spoonful of medicine and swallowed, grimacing with disgust.

  “Right then. Let’s not waste time. Where are Colatho and my hat?”

  “Here!” Sophia replied, bringing the luxurious staff engraved with runes and set with diamonds at its tip, along with the pointed hat of the University of Dacaroth.

  “First we leave Sophia with her mother. Carmela doesn’t need to attend, does she?” the duke asked.

  Father shook his head as he took the items the girl offered him. The staff was so long she could barely hold it for more than a moment. He scooped her up as well and set her on his shoulders.

  “Very well. In that case, let’s go,” Gaspar said.

  “Your father is all business, no fun,” Father told the girl. She promptly snatched his wizard’s hat and put it on her own head. It was so big it covered her eyes.

  “Papa is a very important man. Everyone says so.”

  “Without a doubt,” the old man replied, smiling at Gaspar.

  “Are you important too, Grandpa?”

  “Nah. I’m just an old idiot. An old man who can’t even see rats.”

  “Is that because of your blind eye?”

  “Yes, maybe. But luckily, the good one sees everything.”

  They went down to the eighth floor of the basilica’s west wing. The entire wing had been reserved so the whole family could stay there during the elections, under the pretext that Father, acting in his capacity as Sorcerer Supreme, needed quick access to any last-minute consultations. They left the girl in the rooms shared by Gaspar and his wife, who kissed him on the cheek before he left, and then they climbed the marble stairs again toward the private dining room on the twelfth floor, where the meeting would be held.

  “You know I don’t like it when you fall asleep while you’re keeping an eye on Sophia,” the duke said as they walked.

  Father waved a hand, dismissing the remark.

  “I put seven wards on her. Even if you threw her into a barrel of acid and launched it from a catapult, nothing would happen to her. And I locked the door.”

  Father quickened his pace once they reached the corridor leading to the chambers, gripping Colatho by the middle and muttering something Gaspar couldn’t make out. Something that promised nothing good. He drew the Loberonicon, his personal grimoire, from an inner pocket of his robe. It opened by itself and hovered at his side. The pages flipped as if turned by a gale, then stopped on a passage of glyphs that shimmered in a riot of colors as father read them quickly. The immense oak doors watched by guards flew open as though struck by a battering ram, and they could see there were already people inside.

  Gaspar picked out his sister Aurora, seated beside the head of the table. She was an elf with silver hair, gray skin, and blue eyes shadowed by pinkish dark circles. She held many titles, but the most important was Father’s chamberlain. Where Gaspar commanded the family’s military forces, Aurora handled most administrative and legal affairs, and served as father’s spokesperson whenever he was absent. He also saw his cousin Hilario, the loudmouthed idiot, whispering something into Aurora’s ear; his brother Gespirito holding a cup of wine; Aunt Isolina, the Spider Queen, by the fireplace; Uncle Fermún, who wasn’t anyone’s uncle, really, but everyone called him that, picking at some cheese; and his sister Leopolda laughing at something Cousin Gustravo was saying. Twylwarlido II, the emperor, was there too, alone at one end of the table. Everyone startled when the doors slammed against the walls with such force it sounded as if the hinges might burst.

  “Hey, dad,” Gespirito said, stepping forward.

  Once they entered, Gaspar realized there were more people in the room than he’d expected: Uncle Filisindro, an actual uncle, and several servants.

  “I’ve published my new theater review in The Relations. Let’s see what you think of this,” he said, unrolling the newspaper. “‘Although I find myself grieved and at once astonished by the courage—perhaps even the audacity—of the decision, so exacerbated and oh ever so adamantine, of the acclaimed director and playwright Eod?r Illiden to include a human actor performing the role of the high-elf…’”

  “Gespirito, go suck my dick,” father snapped.

  He hung his hat on the nearest peg and set Colatho in a corner. Then he turned to the rest, glaring at them with his emerald eye.

  “I want to know which one of you brain-dead retards told the King of Jalolandria that we’re interested in buying land.”

  Those seated hurried to their feet, and those already standing began to flutter about. Gespirito took a long drink from his cup, eyes wide. The guards outside in the corridor shut the doors, and the servants rushed to refill any empty glasses.

  “Um… father, I think...” Gaspar began.

  “I wasn’t talking to you, princeling,” father cut him off. “I’m talking to this pack of villains and sycophants I call family.”

  He took long, agitated strides toward the head of the long table while the Loberonicon followed him, levitating. Aurora sat back down.

  “Dad, I didn’t… I… I don’t know who, but I...”

  “Yes, yes, it wasn’t you, Aurora. I know that. You wouldn’t be capable of something that clever anyway. Calm down before you give yourself a tachycardia.”

  Aurora looked as though she might cry, though that was her default expression whenever father scolded her. He sat and sighed. Gaspar sat opposite Aurora, and the rest took their places.

  “Where’s Valentinus?” the duke asked then, noticing his absence.

  “Yeah, where’s the little cretin? I’ve known him since he was semen messing with my balls from the inside. It was probably him,” father said.

  “Late, as always,” Uncle Filisindro replied. He did not hold his nephew in high regard.

  “Father, what’s going on?” Leopolda asked, trying to make her voice as angelic as she could.

  She was the youngest sister, and the one who could calm Father best, after Sofía, of course.

  “Yes, Father, what’s going on?” Gespirito echoed.

  “‘What’s going on,’ as if you don’t already know damn well, Gespirito. It hasn’t even been two days and you’ve already gone and spread the story to everyone. It’s like you never learn: I find out about everything. What is it, have you started buying imperial bonds again and decided to go kiss ass so you can make money for your faggot friends?”

  “No, Dad, it wasn’t me. I swear... not this time.”

  “You swore that when we funded the war between Conztanza and Xydalia.”

  “I don’t recall swearing anything during that episode, but I’ll say it again: I’m sorry. And I also find it highly offensive that you refer to the wood elves as ‘faggots.’ They’re beautiful, passionate people who—”

  “Shut your mouth. Tree-hugging pieces of shit and gorse defenders, with their bullshit about fluid gender and art so shitty a brain-dead child could make it. Speaking of brain-dead, you two,” he said, turning to cousins Hilario and Gustravo, “did you go and run your mouth to my brother? I said this topic wasn’t to leave the people who were in the room at the time, no matter who it was.”

  “I didn’t tell him anything, I swear,” Hilario said.

  “Neither did I.”

  “Maybe it was your beloved firstborn, the princeling sitting there, all quiet,” Aurora suggested, pointing at Gaspar, who only raised his hands, confused. “Yes, yes, play dumb. How much do the guilds pay you to sell little action dolls made in your likeness to children?”

  “The ‘for children’ part is more of a suggestion, Aurora,” Gespirito quipped.

  “If Val were here, I’m sure he’d find a way to make a perverted joke out of your question, Aurora,” Gaspar replied.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “The princeling would never betray me, and that’s all I have to say on the matter,” Father said flatly. “And what about you, Isolina? Are you going to say something with at least a shred more intelligence than Aurora, or do I send you both to the fucking kitchen to iron my underwear?”

  His aunt lifted her head with pride.

  “Go to hell, Lisardo,” she said. “I’m not one of your children for you to talk to me like that. And no, I didn’t say anything. Your affairs don’t concern me.”

  “They don’t concern you except when you need money to pay for your divorces. And I’ll talk to you however the fuck I want while you’re under my roof!”

  “Technically it’s the empire’s roof, we’re in the basilica,” Aurora said, without looking at him.

  “Like I said: my roof. Were you born yesterday?” Father glanced at Emperor Twylwarlido II as if only now noticing him. “No offense, Fido.”

  “No offense taken, sir. And no, before you ask, I didn’t tell anyone anything.”

  The emperor was a high elf around Valentinus' age, barely fifty-two. When his father died, his throne had nearly been usurped by his generals and his lands confiscated. It was Father who managed to have them sentenced to death and to take the young emperor under his protection, raising him as though he were one more son. He considered Gaspar and the others his brothers.

  At that moment, the doors swung open again with the same melodrama as before, which could only mean one thing: Valentinus.

  2

  Gaspar turned his head to confirm it. They said his brother was the spitting image of their father in his youth: tall, green-eyed, with jet-black hair hanging to his shoulders, pale gray skin, and a neatly trimmed beard. The resemblance was heightened by his attire. He was the only sibling who had studied at Dacaroth, the university of magic and runecraft, and who had earned the staff and hat that officially granted the title of mage. Gaspar knew the runic language needed to use enchanted artifacts, but Valentinus knew not only that language, he also knew the complex lexicon and syntax of glyphs needed to produce runes. That meant he could cast spells without runed artifacts, simply by reading glyph-texts, whether on paper or from memory. Unless they were runed, most spells required dozens and dozens of pages of glyphs to cast, and Valentinus and Father had memorized a handful of them, without even needing to consult their grimoires. That gave them an advantage over runes: they could alter a spell’s properties as they cast it, rather than having them fixed, though it took more time. Gaspar knew two spells, both wards, but for everything else he depended on artifacts like Tizón.

  “What the fuck is going on, you sons of bitches?” Valentinus said as he strode in.

  He wore his black pointed hat, and his grimoire levitated at his side. He had on a blue velvet doublet richly embroidered with gold thread and pearls, and a black silk jerkin fastened with gold buttons that accentuated his noble bearing. His puffed sleeves fell elegantly over his arms, adorned with lace and more jewels.

  He hung his hat and leather coat on the peg, set his staff beside Father’s, circled the table, and as he passed he gave Leopolda a tight hug, feigned a punch at Gespirito’s chin, and planted a kiss on Aurora’s cheek. She reacted as if she’d been bitten by a mosquito.

  “Insulting our dear mother,” Gaspar reproached him, but Valentinus found the remark hilarious and answered only with a laugh.

  “I can hear you shouting from outside, old man. What is it, today’s the day you remind your children how disappointing we are, how grateful we should be to you for just breathing, and that we’re all useless?” he said, kissing Father on the forehead as he passed and ruffling his hair.

  “No, but if I said it, I’d be absolutely right,” Father replied, shooing him away with a hand and reordering his hair.

  “‘And I’ll talk to you however the fuck I want while you’re under my roof.’ If I got half a bronze coin every time I’ve heard that, I’d be three times richer by now, and that’s saying something, because I’m already disgustingly rich. Old man, dressed like that you look like we rescued you from begging in the streets.”

  “And dressed like that, you look like a daddy’s lad who was handed all the wealth he brags about,” Father shot back.

  Valentinus squeezed Gaspar’s shoulder and sat beside him.

  “Who the fuck irons underwear in the kitchen, by the way?” he said. “Couldn’t decide on a sexist comment, so you had to do two at once, old man?”

  Father ignored them and pointed at Uncle Fermún, with whom he began speaking in a low voice.

  “By the way,” Valentino told Gaspar, also in a low voice, “I heard you left the Bloody Prince begging for bread with hand signs. What did you do with his sword and armor? The Master-at-Arms says you didn’t bring them back.”

  Gaspar shrugged.

  “I gave them to a scavenger.”

  “What?!”

  Gaspar still remembered the sailor boy. He’d seen him shortly after the Bloody Prince crashed into the cliff, sailing on a fishing boat. At first, Gaspar had hovered in circles, using the visual spells in his helm to get a good look at him in case he was an enemy. But it quickly became clear he was only a child: long-limbed and thin, long teeth, a freckled face, red hair, and a wiry look. Gaspar watched as he loaded the corpse.

  “Why did you do that, princeling?” Valentino hissed. “That was a legendary artifact of House Satyrnia. It's priceless.”

  “I don’t need the money.”

  “You could’ve given it to me for research in my lab. It contains ancestral magic.”

  “The adults are trying to talk,” Father said suddenly, sour. “Fermún, what do you have to say?”

  “Maybe it was the Parceló who snitched,” Uncle Fermún suggested, as if he’d had the answer prepared. “They’re the only ones we’ve contacted so far to start negotiations.”

  “Impossible they know anything. We only sent our little whores to convince them to come to Diamanthora,” Father said. “Little whores” was what he called the empire’s ministers. “And even if they did know, why would they say anything? They must be like teenagers at the thought we’d even contact them. They won’t ruin their chance to escape the filthy swamp their lands are. The filthy swamp their whole family name is, rather.”

  “It was me,” Valentinus said then, simply.

  Uncles Fermún and Filisindro exchanged stunned looks, and the cousins laughed, thinking it was a joke. But the siblings went pale, because, just as the old man had predicted, they already feared it had been him.

  “Mm-hm,” Father said at last, resting his head on his clasped hands, expressionless.

  “What are you saying, Valentinus?” Aunt Isolina asked, aghast.

  “You were talking about who leaked our plans to buy land, right? Well, I’m telling you it was me. Mystery solved. Now stop intimidating everyone, old man. Cousin Gustravo over there is using every ounce of willpower he has not to shit himself, and I can practically see the crap coming out of his mouth.”

  Gaspar looked at his cousin, who indeed was pale and trembling.

  “Val, you’re an idiot,” Aurora said.

  “Yeah, Val, what the fuck?” Gespirito added. “Betraying your own family? Half a star out of five. Would not recommend.”

  He mimed writing in an imaginary notebook.

  “Save the drama for your shitty theater reviews, Gespirito. I’m accelerating our plans.”

  “Accelerating the plans?” Twylwarlido said. “If the high elves find out about this, there go the plans. They won’t let mere dark elves match them in power, let alone surpass them.”

  “We already surpassed them. It's just that no one’s told you yet.”

  “Father has been very clear about the privacy of our plans,” Gaspar said.

  “So what? You don’t go to the market to shop in whispers. You have to shout to be heard.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us first? None of us can act on our own, or this becomes a circus,” Aunt Isolina said.

  “You can’t act on your own. I can do whatever the fuck I want. I’m here for mutual interests, not just because I’m family, remember? I have my own Beacons.”

  When Father was nothing more than a sergeant-major of what was then the minor noble line of Baron Lobera, seeing the need runic knights and battle mages had for immediate access to aether resources, he designed the Aether Beacons. Back then he was a young mage and sorcerer, freshly graduated from Dacaroth, but already brimming with ambition. Casting spells required the use of that gas naturally produced by the body known as aether. When a runic knight or a mage consumed a certain amount of aether, they had to recover before casting again; otherwise, magic would eat away at flesh and bone, draining whatever energy and matter it could steal from the body until it killed them. But that had changed with the Beacons.

  Towers crowned with a great sphere of light, hence the name, they absorbed every particle of aether they could draw from the area where they were built, providing a sustainable, continuous source of the gas, which could be stored in crystal orbs. When casting their spells, mages needed only to hold the spheres in their hands to replenish their aether reserves. Many scholars and nobles claimed this was the decisive factor in Diamanthora’s victory over the Ascaroth, and ever since, the economy and the practice of magic had been changed forever. Aether spheres became a currency more valuable than gold or silver, turning the Lobera into the richest bankers in the world in only a few years, and magic was no longer a discipline reserved for a handful of aristocratic elven families.

  Dwarves, fae, and even some humans could learn runecraft and cast spells, with varying degrees of sophistication, but the opportunity was there. From the day he became a mage, Valentinus had begun building his own Beacons—of his own design, on lands he acquired himself. Father considered him a thief and an opportunist and liked to say his designs were as original as fishing in a latrine. The truth was that even before he stole the Beacons, Father had never much liked Valentinus. He didn’t like anyone, but he held a particular grudge against his third son, and Gaspar had never been entirely sure why.

  Maybe it was because, when they were children and Father taught them magic, Valentinus learned the fastest and took the lessons the least seriously, and mocked Twylwarlido for being so slow—so much so that he made him cry more than once. Or maybe it was that time when, at twelve, he mocked Uncle Filisindro for going to war brave and coming back a cowardly drunk. Father slapped him across the face that day, the first time he ever raised a hand against one of his children, though not the last. The second time was when Valentinus, furious that Father hadn’t attended his investiture as a mage of Dacaroth, threw in his face that Mother probably ended in an asylum just to avoid having to endure him. That time, Father didn’t slap him like a child. He punched him like a man, and Gaspar had to step in.

  As Father began to age, Valentinus more than once drove him to faint with rage; and sometimes, while Gaspar was tending him medically, Father would speak of him in delirium, saying that what goes always comes back, and that he didn’t have the strength to return the smile in the dark night.

  “Time passes, and one day you realize you’re an ugly, filthy old man. Just another horseshoe, rusted, waiting to be replaced. I see it every day, even without mirrors,” he had said once.

  “Is that because of the portraits from when you were young? If you want, I’ll have them taken down,” Gaspar had replied.

  “Portraits? What portraits?”

  The situation was a hundred times more absurd given that, for the past six years, Valentinus had been the heir to all of Father’s properties and almost all his titles, as stated in the will. The only exception was the title of Sorcerer Supreme, which was not hereditary: the Council of Trismegistus decided whom to grant it to.

  “Your heir?!” Gaspar had shouted when Father told him in private, in the very moment he was writing the will. “I should be your heir. I’m your firstborn. I command your armies—the one who knows how to fight and lead, the one who’s won battles and taken castles. I’m Tizón’s chosen, the best to wield it in centuries, without a doubt, and I’m the one who takes care of your health the most.”

  His eyes had fogged. He added, in a whisper:

  “I’ve killed for you. For our family.”

  “I’ve killed for our family too,” Father said, mimicking his whisper without stopping his writing. “More than you have, and not always under the protection of the law.”

  “I love Valentinus, and he’s a brilliant mage, but you hate him and he makes your life impossible.”

  “I don’t hate him, and in any case the spoiled little shit left me no other choice,” Father said, each word making the pen scratch a sharper stroke. “We are a bloodline of sorcerers, and what we’re living through is only the beginning of what can be done with aether spheres. Kings, dukes, marquesses, barons… all of it will be devoured by industry and magic. Our family needs the Sorcerer Supreme's support, and Valentinus is the one for whom it will be easiest for me to secure the post. The Sorcerer Supreme and my heir must be the same person, like a chimera with a lion’s head and a baboon’s ass.”

  He looked at his son, as if expecting the joke would cheer him up, but Gaspar was in no mood.

  “So I’m just another horseshoe too, then.”

  That made Father set the pen in the inkwell, stand, and step closer.

  “No. Not a fucking chance. You will never be my heir, Gaspar, because you’re far too precious to me for that. Precisely because you’re my firstborn—the one I’ve trained best—you’re going to be something else. Something better.”

  “Something better? What—King of Diamanthora?” Gaspar said with a cynical laugh.

  “No. That belongs to Fido by right, and pfft—that’s not better. Not even close.”

  “Then what? What am I going to be king of?”

  “Everything. The whole Tree of Oldione. After all, you’re my prince.”

  Father had a way of making anything sound possible, but Gaspar remembered thinking he was taking him for a fool.

  “King of the whole Tree?” he had asked, raising his eyebrows. “I don’t even have rights to Diamanthora’s throne, much less to the lost ancient lineage of the Kingdom of Ascaroth. Worse than that: our family was one of the main forces behind winning the war against what remained of their dominion. Add to that that dark elf nobility is considered low among the rest of elven nobility—and even among them, we were considered low before you built the Beacons. Our family wasn’t even part of dark-elf nobility until about six generations ago! By what authority am I supposed to be crowned king?”

  “By the authority of my holy balls.”

  Despite everything, in six years he had never said a word to Valentinus about it. When Gaspar asked, Father only said that “if I tell him, that stupid little grin will never leave his face. He’ll find out when I’m dead…”

  “‘I can do whatever the fuck I want,’” Father repeated now, holding a quill over the table and dipping it in ink. “How edgy of you, Valentinus. Careful—freedom cuts both ways. Maybe I’ll postpone our plans for a few years, deny any claim that I’m involved in buying land, say you’re acting on your own—as you yourself admit, even in public—and leave you all alone to face the high elves and deal with the shit you’ve just created.”

  As he spoke, the grimoire drifted down to land in front of the old man, who began to write.

  “You won’t do any of that after you hear what I’m about to say, old man.”

  “You’re a danger, Val,” Aurora began. “No one can trust you with anything.”

  “Nope,” Valentino admitted, “but it doesn’t matter, because my plan is going to work, and it’s going to benefit our family spectacularly.”

  “It’s what I think it is, isn’t it?” Gaspar said. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “There are times, dear elder brother, when it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission. If I’d told you, you wouldn’t have believed me, and even if you had, you wouldn’t have approved because of your code of honor, and the rest of you would’ve thought it was too risky.”

  “And something tells me we’d have been right,” Uncle Fermún said.

  “This isn’t one of your games. In the position we’re in, there’s a sea of choices, and any rash decision can end in disaster. You’re risking starting a war,” Aunt Isolina added.

  “Starting a war is the plan. That’s why Gaspar wouldn’t approve,” Valentino said. “We outnumber them, we outgun them, we outspend them, we outmatch them in magic—and we have Fido in reserve. We’ve never been as powerful as we are now, and we may never be again if we don’t take advantage of it. All we need is a more-or-less reasonable pretext to go to war, and they’ll hand it to us if we challenge them publicly by threatening to take the only thing they still have over us: land.”

  Silence fell over the room. Aurora rolled her eyes. Leopolda opened her mouth and looked around for someone as unshaken as she pretended to be. Gespirito laughed as if Valentino were joking. The duke held Valentinus' gaze in reproach. Father never looked up from his grimoire, writing with one hand while holding a magnifying glass before his good eye with the other.

  “You’re out of your mind,” Aurora said. “Even if we surpass them militarily, they can always retreat into the fortress of Conztanza. It would take us years to besiege, and by then they could easily gather forces with their allies, plus the clans of wood elves, sea elves, and mercenaries. A war is staking everything on everything, when we can get what we want without bloodshed if we act with subtlety. I know you and the princeling like to throw punches first and think later, but this requires a delicate hand. Hey—stop waving your hand like blah blah blah, this is serious! We haven’t spent years maneuvering our political ascent just for you to come in now and try to cut the knot with one sword swing. You’re only going to shoot yourself in the foot.”

  “My dear sister,” Valentinus said, “maybe one day you’ll learn you don’t need all that subtlety and all that foreplay when you’ve got a massive cock.”

  And, as if to illustrate his point, Valentinus pulled something from his pocket and slammed it onto the table. Gaspar already knew what it would be: a wooden model.

  “For a second I thought you were literally going to pull your dick out of your pocket and put it on the table,” Gespirito said.

  “Don’t tell us about your paraphilias. This is my masterpiece, my ultimate weapon. It took many nights of smashing my head against the wall, reverse-engineering the Beacons and fixing design problems. I’ve had armies of dwarven artificers and renegade mages working tirelessly to bring my plans and spells into reality. No siege will last more than a few days, because no wall or magical ward can withstand its power. I call it a cannon. An aether cannon.”

  “This drugged-out cannon idea again?” Leopolda said, pressing a hand to her face.

  “I thought cannons were nothing but mediocre artillery with no practical use, like most dwarven inventions,” Twylwarlido said. “Even if workable powder didn’t cost a fortune, and even if storing it near troops weren’t a huge risk the enemy could exploit with good use of a Shadowknight, the structure wouldn’t survive the implosion. And even if it somehow did, the recoil would make it impossible to predict where the cannonball will land. There’s a higher chance you’ll hit our own troops, or the contraption will explode in the mechanics’ faces, than you’ll bring down wa...”

  But Gaspar stopped paying attention to Fido, because out of the corner of his eye he saw Father lift his gaze from the grimoire, set the magnifying glass aside, and study the model intently.

  The wooden figure consisted of a cylindrical tube mounted on a wheeled carriage. Its design was intricate, adorned with engraved flourishes and runic symbols, and what looked like gems decorating the breech. Connected to the muzzle by a siphon was what Gaspar deduced must represent a metal tank where the aether would be deposited. A telescope was mounted on its top. His aging father rarely smiled, and when he did it was only with Leopolda or Sophia, but that time, even if only for half a second, Gaspar saw how his eye betrayed what would otherwise have been an expressionless face.