Chapter 143 No Preference

Riven studied the boy across the fire, weighing a dozen clever answers before settling on the truest one.

"They don’t choose me," he said, "I send an invoice and they decide to pay."

"That is not recorded in any ledger I have been given."

"Then how do you decide anything?" Riven asked, poking the coals.

"I wait for a record to tell me," Number One said, "I have no preference."

He said it plainly, the way a ledger reports a balance, while firelight showed nothing behind his eyes. Riven knew that look from Cassen’s old portraits, gold paint laid over a face nobody ever asked anything.

’A hero with the choosing stripped out... somebody built that boy to be a coat on a hook.’

"Sleep on it," he said, "we start in the morning."

---

By morning Yukine sat at the supply wagon, a travel chessboard set squarely between herself and Number One. Her white ivory pieces gleamed beside his glass ones, a set she normally refused to let anyone touch.

"Your move," she said, tapping the ivory king with one gloved finger.

Number One lifted a pawn, set it down, then lifted a knight, his face as smooth as river stone. Minutes passed that way, the sun climbing above the lantern fruit while his fingers hovered over all the squares.

"Every opening is equally valid," he said at last, "none of them is mine."

"Pick whichever looks least boring... I will wait."

"Boring is not recorded anywhere I can find."

Yukine waited without a sound, gloved hands folded, watching him the way she watched a lock refuse a key. She once played kings, regents and one very rude archduke, yet none of them ever stalled quite like this.

"He cannot lose a game he cannot begin," she murmured, eyes on the stalled boy.

Riven leaned against the wagon wheel, chewing on the problem like a piece of tough bread.

He fished two apples from the stores crate, setting them side by side on the dusty tailgate. The left apple shone like a coin, while the right sagged with a bruise on its cheek.

"Pick one," he said, nudging both apples an inch closer.

"Which of the two is the correct choice?"

"Neither is correct, that’s the whole point of the exercise," Riven said, folding his arms.

Number One stared at the apples while the whole camp went about its morning around his outstretched hand. Bram scrubbed the bucket, Greta mended a sleeve, Tobin sneezed at a wedge of cheese by the wheel.

"Twelve minutes, bruised one wins," Cael whispered to Tobin, "I will take your silver now."

"I bet the shiny one," Tobin whispered back, sneezing into his sleeve.

Eleven minutes crawled across Yukine’s pocket watch, its second hand ticking like a patient accuser.

Number One’s fingers finally closed around the bruised apple, slowly, as if the fruit might be taken back. Nobody in the camp spoke while the boy turned his small choice over and over in his palm.

"Why that one?" he asked, crouching to the boy’s eye level.

"I do not know," the boy said, studying the bruise as though it might explain itself.

"Congratulations, that’s the first thing you ever wanted in your whole life."

Number One bit into the apple carefully, as though the skin itself might object to being eaten. A faint crease appeared between his eyebrows, an expression that no ledger anywhere ever scheduled for him.

"It is soft in one place," he said slowly, "I like that place."

’He wanted a bruised apple... for a boy built to want nothing, that’s a start.’

Yukine watched the whole exchange without moving, wearing an expression she would deny under any form of torture. When the boy wandered off to finish his apple, she towed Riven behind the wagon by his sleeve.

"You collect broken things," she said.

"I collect owed things... different ledger."

Behind the wagon the noise of the camp faded to a murmur, leaving only the tick of her pocket watch. She stood close enough for him to read the frost on her lashes, refusing to step back from the closeness.

"Of course you do," Yukine said, setting a pocket board on the tailgate, "Black has waited long enough."

At his word she moved his black knight to take a pawn, pressing her cold signet to his hand. The metal left a pale circle of frost there, like a seal on a letter nobody has opened yet.

"Black is greedy," she said, watching the frost creep across his knuckles.

"Black is owed, I intend to collect."

"We shall see what the position says about that greed when I return to the board tonight."

Ysabel swept around the wagon in a flare of sleeves, fan open, as though she happened to be passing.

She stopped at arm’s length from Yukine, smiling with every tooth she owned, clearly ready to bite someone today.

"A purely academic duel this afternoon," Ysabel announced, "strictly educational, with tea and no witnesses at all."

"I have a prior engagement that I fully intend to keep."

"With whom?"

"Chess," Yukine said, adjusting her glove, "and at the moment it is winning."

"Then I shall take it from you, beginning with—" Ysabel started, red sparks crawling up her sleeve.

Ysabel’s fan snapped shut, bright red flame meeting the frost that raced across the wagon boards between them. A dark shadow dropped from the lantern branch overhead before either woman could even throw a single spell.

Mara landed on both of them at once, settling her weight with her arms folded.

"Nod or argue," she said.

Ysabel wheezed from underneath, her fan crushed against the dirt, "Mara, this is entirely unnecessary."

"Get off, I cannot feel my legs," Yukine added, muffled.

"Nod."

Both rivals nodded sulkily, glaring at each other across the dirt while Mara rose and brushed her palms. Riven walked away very slowly, knowing that a sensible man never laughs while the Chair is in session.

---

Dusk found Number One alone at the tree line, rolling the apple core between two fingers.

Behind him the camp’s cookfires winked on in turn, painting every trunk a deep amber.

Dorian stepped from the trees with his notebook tucked beneath one arm, smiling like a man who is never wrong.

"You were built to be the hero," he said gently, "with the villain as the only obstacle in your Chapter."

Number One kept his eyes on the apple core, turning it slowly against the last of the light. The brass token on his collar stayed silent, as if the record could not decide what to write.

"I prefer the bruised one," Number One answered, still staring at the core.

"I beg your pardon?"

"That is not recorded," the boy said, pocketing the core with great care, "I will keep this."

"Preference is a malfunction," Dorian said, his voice thinning, "we can repair it by dawn."

"I do not know whether I wish that," Number One said, "I will find out."

’The book never says the hero keeps garbage... something is writing him wrong.’

Dorian’s smile slipped a quarter inch as high overhead a white paper bird came gliding out of the dark. It circled once, then dropped straight into Number One’s open palm with a faint rustle like a folded secret.

Number One read the note aloud in his flat voice, the brass token chiming against his collar, "Witness the villain’s end at dawn, the King will provide the scene."