Solitaire POV: Day 86

  Current Wealth: 307 gold 2 silver 33 copper

  I felt it all, that’s what people never got. That’s what Shango never got. I wasn’t just observant and clever, I wasn’t just good at guessing. I felt everything. Every feeling and thought running through other people would run through me as well. My brain was a crowded highway, other people’s emotions were the cars. And all the drivers were drunk.

  Shango didn’t say anything as we hurried down to Helena’s side, finding her dumped just beside the entrance to the arena. The fucking animals had just left her lying there, and she seemed even closer to death by the time we were kneeling down. One of her arms still worked, so I wrapped my fingers around hers and held the hand while I waited for Corvan to come, heart pounding so fast she could probably have felt it through the skin contact. If her own agony hadn’t blotted out everything else.

  Corvan took his sweet fucking time to show up. He’d been nearby of course, but I guess the old wanker had struggled with the stairs. Even he looked disturbed to lay eyes on Helena, his face paling, eyes twisting with horror. But he was made of hard enough steel to get working quickly, kneeling down beside her and doing what he could as soon as he could do it.

  Magic healing worked best the more recently after injury it was applied, and became exponentially less effective the more healing the body itself had been allowed to do naturally. It was why it couldn’t really do much for old age, a form of damage that was entirely caused by the body itself, and had its treatment of cancers limited to simply vaporising the tumours out. It made the sight a tense thing, because I’d already seen Corvan’s magic had its limits with Argar. How much had we exhausted the magus before he treated the giant?

  Only one way to find out, and I felt my guts sloshing around like meat in a blender while I did.

  Meat went wet and runny like water, melting back together, severed ligaments re-fusing, smashed bone reforming. Corvan was exhausted quickly, but kept working. Skin knitted itself back, soft tissues regrowing where they’d been hacked away entirely, new blood letting itself bubble into the emptied husk of her body. Just when she’d started to resemble a human, rather than some raw steak, the magus leaned back panting.

  “I can’t.” He shook his head, exhaustion palpable. “My magic, it has its limits.” I felt my hands curl into fists.

  “So we take her to another healer.”

  “There’s maybe one or two in this entire city.” He snapped. “And neither are as powerful as me, or as cheap.”

  “They’ll be something.” Shango pressed, just as forceful, and I saw a flicker of emotion twist along Corvan. The sort of strained sympathy one feels for an idiot when they drool on themselves.

  “Do it.” I replied, standing. “I’m heading home.” Shango looked at me as I left, and I could feel the blend of worry, disgust and anger even without looking at him, but it only made me leave faster. I needed to be gone, needed to be free of other people’s misery as soon as I could. To clear my head enough for some actual thought, or at the very least my own emotions.

  It wasn’t so much to ask, I thought, that I be allowed to feel my own feelings. And it wasn’t fair that I have it demanded otherwise by people who didn’t even realise what they were asking.

  Elizabeth accompanied me to the mansion, for all the good she’d be in a fight. I saw terror in her eyes, tasted it on my tongue, felt it coursing through my veins like poison, urging me to act. I knew what she’d say long before she said it.

  “I didn’t know you were feuding with a noble.” Elizabeth began, firm, combative. Ready to be challenged. I didn’t challenge her, just told her how things would be.

  “I’m going to kill him, every other member of his shit-eating class, then use their heads as bowling balls whilst I civilise the moron species they emerged from. If you’re not in the mood to help that then you can flee whenever you want, but a bit of danger is going to be found anywhere, and if you leave our service then I can’t guarantee you won’t be captured and interrogated for whatever you know about us.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  She glared at me, but it wasn’t a glare made for me. Elizabeth was just in a glaring sort of mood, her face simply doing that to let some of the thoughts swirling around behind it leak out. Our journey didn’t have much more talking involved before we were back at the mansion.

  I didn’t waste my time marching farther inside, not even when Beam came over with a frown across his face and worry deep in his eyes.

  “What happened?” He asked. I didn’t say anything, just let Elizabeth explain as I knew she would. I had other things to concern myself with.

  Phelia was in her study- Shango’s study now, I supposed- and looked up at me in confusion as I entered. Her confusion turned to worry as I closed the door, picked up one of the thick oaken chairs opposite her desk and propped it up under the handle. Beam’s hammering came an instant later, handle turning, frame rattling, but he couldn’t force it open with how well I’d lodged the chairlegs into the fixtures between wooden floor panels.

  Me and my sister in-law had a bit of privacy.

  “Solitaire.” She said, eyes widening as I stalked around the desk. Phelia was on her feet instantly, backing away, sensing what was coming. She wasn’t as fast as me. I was on her in an instant, hand closed about her jaw, grip squeezing just to the line where I was certain I wouldn’t crush bone and cause any permanent damage. I lifted her off the ground, brought her around and pinned her down against the desk, leaning in to stare into her eyes as I took her hand with my other.

  “Fingers.” I said, slowly, holding one of her digits up while she struggled against me. “You have ten, I’m going to ask a few questions. Some I already know the answer to, others I don’t, I won’t tell you which is which. Every lie I hear is another snapped bone.”

  Her fear was slick and painful, like boiling oil running over my tongue. I resisted the urge to spit and clear my mouth of the phantom sensation, forcing my glare to sustain itself on her eyes.

  Phelia nodded, shortly, sharply. Terrified. Good, terror would lubricate this conversation.

  Beam wasn’t an idiot, and he’d known me for close to ten years. His banging intensified, bodyweight hitting the door, then bouncing off. It was a sturdy thing, inches thick, hardwood all the way through. Shango had confirmed that our friend hadn’t gained any XP from winning his bout, and even with a superhuman’s strength an object as tough as that wouldn’t yield. If he was as clever as me, he’d already have left to go and find a hammer or axe, but he wasn’t, and so the pointless impacts continued.

  “Why does Byror consider you an enemy?” I asked Phelia.

  She was clever, I knew that, and I could see the gears turning behind her eyes. Doubtless she knew that something had happened to make this question pressing, so she’d be trying to calculate what, worrying that I might just kill her if I found out she’d had reason to suspect anything of what had been done to Helena.

  Which wasn’t wrong.

  “His family and mine have been rivals for generations.” She croaked. I couldn’t falsify that, and it actually did get corroborated by what Byror had said himself, so I moved on, looking for more specificity.

  “What does he think of you as an individual?”

  She hesitated, taking another moment to think. I gave her finger a twist, just enough to hurt, to hurry her.

  “Quickly now.” I snarled. She obeyed.

  “He tried to marry me ten years ago, wanted my…Mind. He considers me intelligent.”

  Dangerously intelligent? I almost asked, but there were better ways.

  “Why?”

  Another hesitation, quicker this time.

  “I once saw through one of his plans, warned my mother of it, but she told him of my suspicions, thinking of him as a friend. His plan came to fruition, and he wanted to marry the girl who’d seen through it at just fourteen. My mother refused.”

  I considered that, and snarled.

  “So one of the most prominent nobles in the city considers you actively dangerous, and you didn’t fucking tell us before marrying my brother.”

  Her eyes widened with raw, undiluted panic. The sort a bunny might have in a bear trap.

  “I had to.” Phelia croaked, speech constricted by the tightening of her own vocal chords. “I…My family, we’re on our knees, my sisters can’t even stay in Elswick anymore because of-”

  My hand came down on her mouth, smothering her words into silence.

  “You have one chance, right now,” I said, “To tell me anything else that might be relevant. After that I’ll fucking kill you if I find out you didn’t, understand?”

  Her face paled. I elaborated.

  “I’ll wring your pretty little neck like a chicken, I’ll cut you into tiny little pieces, and I’ll burn you in a fire so hot you’ll be cremated into ash within minutes. Nobody will ever know what happened to you, who did it, or why. You’ll just stop existing.”

  Phelia nodded, eyes wet with tears, heart thundering like a drum. I released her, and smiled.

  “Wonderful, now I suggest we keep this conversation between us.”

  I waited for her to nod again, then turned for the door, opening it and letting my face fall blank. Beam was on the other side, staring confused between me and Phelia.

  “Sorry.” I winced. “Decided to get a bit of privacy breaking the news to our sister, she’s quite distraught, as you can see.”

  He turned to Phelia, who remained quiet, and nodded in understanding. Buying it without a thought.