Chapter 140: Two Girls in the Dark

Cordelia nodded slowly. Then she turned her head towards the entrance of the tent. "I must go to the servants' tent for a time. It will take five minutes, perhaps ten. If someone were to meet me on the way back, discreetly, then it would not be remarked upon." Then she rose, and left. She left the tent without so much as looking back.

I took a breath and glanced around. Ten minutes, huh? I could wait them, if I had to. It didn't seem like anyone else had noticed. Julian and his wife were both far too busy at their own tables. None of the children seated around me seemed to have noticed either. Still, I kept myself perfectly composed, my hands flat on the table in front of me. And I counted down the minutes, one at a time. Ten minutes did not sound like a long time. It felt long.

I don't suppose you can keep the time for me, Vaelin? The sword's impression came and it was…strange. It felt like the blade was raising its nonexistent eyebrow at me for daring to ask it to do something so petty. I'm sorry I asked.

Eventually, I rose. I kept my back straight and made for the tent flap. It was far less crowded outside the tent, and far darker. The sun had gone down at some point, and today was only a half-moon. Lanterns hung on lines between the three tents, beaming down. Small islands of light between the darkness. A few people walked to and fro. Mostly servants, dressed in that same uniform Katarina had somehow found.

I did not step out of the light right away. Instead, I stood there like a girl taking the air, and I turned the knob on my hearing.

Click. Click.

There were servants gossiping somewhere near. Apparently, one of the noble children had spilled his drink on another. They were speculating whether it was a harmless accident or a deliberate slight. There were more people, walking back and forth between the tents. I turned my hearing back down and stepped into the darkness.

Then, I waited. There was one benefit to the Veyne blacks and blues, it made one hard to spot without light. Though, perhaps my hair and the rest of me made that somewhat moot. I waited, and I looked. I waited for a very long time. I did not see Cordelia. I started to wonder if somehow I had missed her. Or perhaps it was taking far more time than Cordelia had guessed.

Something brushed the back of my hand. Cool, and thin, and gone almost before I had realized it was there. So faint I almost missed it. Almost. I whirled, my hand extended. There was no-one. But I suspected what I would see if I used mana sight. I would see a thread of mana, as thin as silk. In the distance, I saw her. A figure in the darkness. The figure raised an arm, and waved. I walked.

Cordelia was nothing more than a black blur before I got to within a dozen feet of her. We were at least fifty paces away from the nearest tent. Both far from the lantern light, and the light of all the Magical Implements that surrounded Indri Manor itself.

It was no wonder she had stood so far back. Her house's green was not made for hiding. She said nothing for a long moment. A breeze blew from the east, and carried with it the scent of flowers. I only smelled the lilies. "You called me out like this before," she finally said. "I did wonder what it would be like, to be the one waiting."

"I was waiting too," I said. Heat crawled up my face. There was no reason for it to, but it did anyway. Actually, maybe that had been too embarrassing to admit, but now I'd said it and it was too late.

Even Cordelia looked slightly surprised. It was no more than the faintest widening of her eyes, which for her, meant a lot more than that. Then she smiled, and it was once again that small smile. "I do not dislike that," she said.

"How did you-" I gestured. "How did you get free of him?" There was no need to say who I meant.

"It wasn't so difficult," Cordelia said. She raised her right hand. I focused with Mana Sight, until I could see the thin threads unfurling from her fingers. "He wanted to dance. For the benefit of all who were watching. Alas, before he could make his way over to the floor, some drink spilled all across his fine coat. He had to leave to change into something more…suitable."

Cordelia made it sound simple, and perhaps it was. I still had to ask. "And…and what if he realized just why that drink had spilled?"

"Then I imagine it would have been quite uncomfortable." For me. She did not say that part, though I heard it just fine anyway. She had taken a risk, one she did not have to take. One I knew Cordelia was too smart to take.

"Thank you," I said. And meant it.

Cordelia nodded. Neither of us said anything for a time. She looked past me, at the tent. I followed her gaze. Once, we had stood like this, separated from a hundred dancing noble children. We had been two girls, trapped in a cage made of light. Now we stood in the dark, and the light was very far away from us.

There was too much to ask. There was so much to ask that I did not know what to ask first. I finally settled for the easiest, and most obvious question. "Are you well?" My voice was soft. "How have things been for you, Cordelia?"

"I am perfectly-" she met my gaze, and stopped. When she started again, that small smile had turned into a small frown. "About as well as can be expected, I should think. My marriage draws ever closer. And my father's demands grow ever more demanding. And my mother has…taken an interest in my preparation. She reviews my days now. In quarter-hours." Cordelia turned the ring on her finger, once. "She is very meticulous."

I winced. I had asked her for the truth. It was rather silly to flinch from it when it came. Cordelia was not done. "And most of all…I feel guilty. For what's happening to House Veyne," she said.

Ah. She was referring to Julian's schemes. The schemes that were unorthodox, and yet threaded the needle just right to be frustrating without breaking Aelheim's absurdly long charter. Cordelia had confirmed she had been behind Julian's gambit on the wall. Now she confirmed she was behind the rest of it too.

"You don't have to," I said. "It's not like you had a choice." I took a step closer to her.

"I did."

"What?"

"I did have a choice," Cordelia said. "The person who proposed all of these things could see where they might all lead, someday. At the time, I had simply thought it didn't matter. I did not know you, as I do now. And if I had not known you, I would not feel this regret now either." Her voice had gotten very soft. I barely heard her at all over the murmur of the tents far away from us.

It was a strange thing to be guilty of. From what Cordelia had told me, her father had given her tests when he had found out how brilliant she was. And Cordelia had applied herself to them. Applied herself to them well. I would rather not be in the situation I was in, but I would never blame Cordelia for being in it. "You were a child, Cordelia. And he was your father. Any child would want to make their father proud. Even if their father was Julian Greenward."

That got a small laugh from Cordelia. No more than a huff of air. "And there is no point in wondering what you might think or do if you didn't know me. You do know me. And I do not blame you for any of it. I only blame a father who thought to include his daughter in his scheming."

Cordelia was quiet. She was quiet for so long that I worried I had said the wrong thing. Then Cordelia sighed, "You are very strange Esra, do you know that?"

"I'm just myself," I said.

Some of the tension seemed to have finally left her. Cordelia's shoulders dropped, just slightly, as some of the tension left them. "What do you plan to do now? About the wall?" she asked.

It was a sudden change. It took me a moment to answer. "Violet is a Duchess now. I plan to reopen the Council. It was closed for the King's Tournament, but we now have enough votes to force it open. And enough votes to alter the charter. The charter gave us the mandate to man the walls, but it did not guarantee our right to access them in any way that was reasonable. I plan to change that."

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Cordelia nodded. "A change to your mandate itself then. You would require four votes, for something like that." Her lips slightly parted. It was how she always looked, when she was really thinking. "A small change though, subtle. It disrupts very little. You could get Duke Thalos to side with House Veyne for that."

I let out a deep breath. It was an obvious plan, but I didn't know how it would work out. Hearing it approved by Cordelia did make me feel a lot better about the whole thing.

"But my father has already thought of that," she said. "And by himself, this time," she said quickly.

"What- what does he have planned?" I asked. It was much to ask of her, but by now, I hoped she would answer.

"He plans to cause a monster attack. Ideally on the day you try to open the Council again," Cordelia said. And she said it simply.

"WHAT?"

Cordelia grimaced. I looked back at the tents. It didn't seem like anyone had heard. I looked back at Cordelia and slowly composed myself. "He…he plans to have monsters attack the walls," I repeated. "Why? How?" It made no sense, and for a reason so obvious I spotted it immediately.

"If monsters do attack a part of the wall he's barred by men from, or at least made it more difficult for them to man….Cordelia, he might have almost every newspaper in the city, but that's too much for even them to somehow make my fault." Honestly, if this was Julian's plan, then I dared him to do it. I would be there, with more men than usual. We would thwart the attack, despite our difficulties manning that section. It just made our case stronger.

Cordelia shook her head. "He plans for the monsters to attack, and for the Third Shield to fend them off," she said. "There will be another attack. A larger attack on the section of the wall that surrounds the Veyne District. There will likely be a breach there. While the attack on our District is repelled. That will…."

She did not need to finish. I could envision what would happen clearly enough. An attack on our side of the wall that we could not repel, while Julian's mercenary company protected his section of Aelheim just fine. He didn't need a newspaper to spin a story like that. It would do more than just harm House Veyne's reputation, with something like that he could-

Cordelia must have read it in my face, because she nodded. "He plans to go to the King after. And have House Veyne removed as the shield of Aelheim," she said.

It was just as I had feared then. To remove one of the five houses of Aelheim, one could only go to the King himself. Even if I had four votes to Julian's one, I couldn't do a thing like that. It was, I supposed, not too different from what I ultimately planned to do to Julian himself. Except my scheme was an investigation and an entire King's Tournament away. I did not know how to feel, knowing that I thought along the same lines as him.

Vaelin idly hummed somewhere in the back of my mind. I ignored him.

"This isn't one of yours," I said.

"No," she agreed. "I would never plan something that would…that would be like this. But I suppose this is where my plans ultimately led to. He realized that much just fine on his own."

"How is he so sure it would work?" I asked. "That we would fail? The Great Wall has stood for-"

"The wall is vast. And House Veyne does not have enough men to stack every inch of it. The current defense works because attacks usually happen in small trickles here or there. If there was a sudden outburst of monsters, focused especially on a certain section of the wall…." she shrugged. She did not have to say the rest of it. The wall would be breached, at the very least. It didn't much matter what happened after. The breaching alone might be enough.

"How?" I asked. That part still didn't make sense. It wasn't like monsters were eager to listen to humans. Some people did have Gifts that could help tame beasts, but one or two at a time. Nothing like this.

"There are dungeons, outside these walls. I suspect he plans to force them out of these dungeons and here," Cordelia said.

"You suspect?"

"He didn't tell me the particulars, but I don't see where else he can find so many monsters. There are dungeons within a few miles of these walls. How he plans to actually bring them here, I do not know. I just know that he's confident this will work."

The how of it didn't matter tonight. "Then I'll delay the opening of the Council," I said. "If he's planning to time it with me doing that, then maybe-"

"Then the attack will happen on a random day. One that neither of us can predict," Cordelia said. "That sounds more dangerous than the alternative."

She had me there. "There's no way to prevent this? Or at least to bring him to justice when all of this is over?"

Cordelia thought for a moment. "He only mentioned it in passing, but from what I can gather, it's all well underway. All he has to do is give some kind of signal, though I'm unsure what that signal should be. As for bringing him to justice…." she shrugged. "I imagine everyone involved will be gone soon after the attack takes place, never to be found again. There won't be a Magical Contract for you to sever this time. He knows you did something back then, since you're still alive."

I nodded slowly. That much was to be expected. Even if he didn't know I could sever Magical Contracts themselves, he must know I did something. "The signal," I said. "What kind of signal? A letter? A courier? If he has to send a signal outside the wall, then we might be able to-"

"I don't know, Esra," Cordelia said. "I just know that he wouldn't try this if he wasn't sure it would work."

Well, then I was stumped. If Cordelia was right, and I had no reason to believe she wasn't, then it seemed Julian had covered all of his bases. In retrospect, perhaps this was the entire point of his stunt with his section of the wall in the first place. He'd truly thought far ahead then. A Hero's sword did little and less when the battlefield was public opinion. And now there was to be an attack of unknown size, against unknown monsters.

Protect then. Vaelin murmured. My right hand twitched open and shut. Cordelia looked at it, then at me. She didn't say it.

"Then we have to make sure our defense holds out," I said. "He assumes it'll be an attack that takes us unawares. If we are aware, and we prepare, we can win. The walls of Aelheim are not called the Great Wall for nothing."

"I thought you might say that," Cordelia smiled, just faintly. "Be careful."

Yes, I supposed it came down to something truly simple then. If there was to be an attack, we just had to thwart it. And then Julian would-

I stopped. If the wall was more prepared than normal on a day it had no reason to be….

"Cordelia," I looked at her. She flinched and looked vaguely…guilty. "If we do this, then Julian will know. He'll know we were better prepared than we ever were, for an attack we should not have seen coming. He'll know someone talked." My voice was soft. "He'll suspect you, won't he?"

Cordelia, to her credit, only nodded.

"I'll-" I swallowed. "I'll make another reason for us to be prepared that day. My father is awake, and maybe he chooses that day to inspect the walls. The men are readier than they ever were for him, and so the attack-"

Cordelia was still looking at me, and her expression hadn't changed by so much as a hair. And I knew why. I just didn't want to know it. "He won't believe that, will he?"

Cordelia shook her head, just slightly. "No, he won't."

Even if I staged a perfectly reasonable reason for the wall to have twice or thrice the men that day…Julian would not believe it. Because Julian was a man whose paranoia had let him try to kill a fourteen year old girl in her sleep. A girl who had come back alive despite news saying otherwise. And so he would suspect Cordelia anyway, no matter what I did. And she would suffer, no matter what I did.

Cordelia had that smile again. The soft and small one. She was putting herself at great risk, again. When she did not have to. When the smart thing was to simply look away. I would not dishonor her by asking her why. "Thank you," I said instead. I stepped closer.

Cordelia frowned. Then my hands were around her back. She was very warm. Cordelia stiffened, and only eased into the hold a few seconds later. She smelled of lilies, as she always did. "Will he hurt you?" I murmured.

Cordelia went still at that. It was faint. I would not have seen it, but I could feel it now. "No, my public engagement makes that difficult. I will just…lose some of the freedoms remaining to me. Such as…."

"Such as tonight," I finished for her.

Cordelia nodded against my shoulder.

Something inside of me was burning. My hand was twitching. How long had it been twitching? Every instinct I had told me to take Vaelin, march into the tent, and paint his pretty green coats red. But that would be the stupid thing to do. And Cordelia had not told me all of this so I could kill her father tonight. Though I might, soon. I would only take so much of this. If I ever saw so much as a bruise on-

"Esra," Cordelia whispered. "You're holding too tight."

Cordelia waved me off. Then she looked past me, at the tents. At the light. "I'll be expected soon."

I nodded. I had expected as much. Honestly, I was surprised she had stayed for as long as she had. No doubt another risk she had taken when she knew better. "I'll come ten or fifteen minutes after you."

Cordelia nodded. We shared a look. The half-moon had climbed while we spoke. Its light took the green out of her dress, until she looked like she was made of silver. She was beautiful. And she was sad.

Then she was leaving. I did not want to watch her go. Her footsteps paused, and she spoke again. "You have met Duke Solair by now. Are you…friendly with him?"

"Yes?"

Cordelia nodded slowly. I could not see her face, but it seemed to me that she was readying herself for something. "House Solair possesses a…certain type of device. Something almost akin to an Artifact. One they have guarded jealously for decades. It's…it's a device that allows conversation over distance. Discreet conversation. My father has tried to obtain a copy for many years. He has not been able to."

I did not understand. And then I did. Cordelia had sacrificed much…and now she was asking for something. For a way to still talk. That was all she asked for. "Of course I am not saying you-"

"I'll talk to him," I said. "I promise."

Cordelia looked back at me, and smiled. Then, she walked to the tents without looking at anything at all.

I stood in the dark and counted my own ten minutes. Sadness came. Some of it was mine. Some of it from Vaelin. "Is this the world Vindicta wanted to break, Vaelin?"

I felt the Godblade hum in my mind.