The line was so long that I could barely make out the building it fed into. I stood at what I assumed was the end, though even that was generous.
The queue stretched down a wide street, turned a corner, and continued well past the point where the buildings blurred together in the distance. My Gift could have told me exactly how far it went. I didn't use it. Knowing would only have made me more annoyed.
Some of the people here were locals. Many were not. I saw robes cut in styles I’d never seen before. A man three places ahead wore a coat -I think it was a coat- made out of bones. Behind him, two women talked loudly in a language I couldn't understand. The original Esra had only ever known the Arian tongue.
I had known House Solair was important. They were the breadbasket of the Kingdom, after all. A third of all commerce passed through their hands, one way or another. Knowing it and standing in front of it were different things entirely.
Every wall I looked at seemed to shine. I could almost see my own reflection in the stones, which surely shouldn't have been possible. Even the gutters here looked expensive. I was beginning to suspect the gutters actually were expensive.
Hood or not, I must have been staring too openly. "This is only to be expected, My Lady." Anias stood at my shoulder."Their wait times are not an insult."
“I didn’t think they were.” I grumbled. I had thought they were.
Violet was very loud, even in all this noise. "There's no way in hell we're standing in this line. We'd be here for weeks!"
I flicked her forehead. She swatted at my hand, and missed. "We're not standing in this line." I said. "Remember?"
Violet rubbed her forehead with a scowl. “We better not.” She grumbled. It seemed she did not remember. That was impressive, because I’d only told her thirty minutes ago.
Anias led the way as we walked past the line. She was the reason we would not see our eighteenth namedays waiting.
She had connections here. Through them, she'd said, we could get an audience with one of House Solair's stewards without any wait at all. The claim had seemed improbable when she had first made it, but I doubted Anias was the type to say anything she didn’t mean.
I had asked her, back in Aelheim, how she knew someone that important in a city she had no clear connection to. None that I could see in the family records, anyway. She hadn't answered. That was rare. I took it to mean it was part of her obviously mysterious past.
Our party moved along the edge, skirting the line. Damian walked at my left, one hand near his sword. He had been like this since we'd arrived. Every face in the crowd earned a glance. Many of the people we passed returned those looks, though they were staring less at his sword than at the warhammer slung across Violet's back.
Weapons were uncommon in Myrrheim. We had noticed that quickly. The few guards we saw carried them, and nobody else did. I probably should have asked them to leave their things behind. Then again, maybe the effect would help us more than it hurt. I hoped it would, at any rate.
Sere walked at my right. She had taken my hand some time ago, and I hadn't let go. Her grip was tighter than usual. I think it was the crowds. Or perhaps that they looked different from the ones back in Aelheim. Either way, I would hold her hand, if she wanted it. At least she hadn’t gone invisible like I’d asked.
Violet had given our joined hands one glance. She huffed once, but didn’t say anything.
We had brought only one guard with us, leaving the others to watch our 'estate'. Randell Stella walked a few paces ahead of us, and he was not dressed like a guard. His clothing was finer than any of ours, a deep blue coat with golden embroidery. He looked the part of a minor noble's heir on business. He didn’t look as impressive as I’d wanted to, not in this crowd, but he’d still look like what he was pretending to be. The rest of us were supposed to be his attendants.
I pulled my hood lower with my free hand and kept walking.
It took a full minute of walking to cut through the line. Naturally, we got a lot of angry and suspicious looks.
A woman near the front glared at our party as we passed. A merchant muttered something I could have heard if I'd turned my Gift up. I didn't. There were other looks and more glares. I only had to stop Violet from reaching for her hammer once. I considered that a small victory.
Then we were inside. The building's interior was as radiant and clean as everything else in this city. The stone floor was a single, unbroken surface without so much as a seam. The ceiling rose two stories above us, supported by columns that looked freshly carved.
A second line waited inside, feeding into a large central counter where a row of clerks processed whatever it was that needed processing. There were at least thirty people ahead of us in this line alone. Anias did not join it.
We waited as she walked straight to the far end of the counter, where a single receptionist sat apart from the others behind a slightly elevated desk. Anias leaned in and spoke. I could have listened, but I knew what she was saying.
The conversation lasted longer than I'd expected. I watched from twenty feet away. There was a moment when I thought it wasn't going to work. The receptionist pointedly shook his head. Anias' posture shifted, she leaned in further. Her face was hard. She said something. The receptionist looked up at her, his eyes went wide. He looked at something behind his desk, then nodded, and Anias stepped back.
She returned to us. "We will be able to get our audience today."
I looked at her face. Reserved or not, she didn’t seem very pleased. "There's a but somewhere, isn't there?"
Anias grimaced. On her, a grimace was the equivalent of anyone else cursing. "It seems that the House Steward is…occupied. Everyone in the administration is occupied, so close to the King's Tournament. We have an audience, but it will not be with the Steward."
"Then who?"
"The House Steward's Steward."
I stared at her. "Their Steward has a Steward?"
"It seems so, My Lady." Anias inclined her head. "I apologize. If I try again, perhaps we might-"
Insult. Vaelin's grumbled in my mind.
I can feel the insult just fine. The blade hummed.
I buried the anger that came. I needed a clear head. A steward’s steward wasn’t entirely a disaster. For one thing, it was lower stakes. Hopefully the man wouldn't be as competent as the actual steward. Besides, just because we were talking to a steward's steward today didn't mean we couldn't talk to the steward himself tomorrow. If this meeting went properly.
"It's fine." I said. "Without you, we wouldn't have an audience at all, Anias. I'll take what I can get."
Anias studied me for a moment before she nodded. “They said someone should come around to fetch us shortly.”
Fetch us. Just lovely. "So what the hell are we supposed to do now?" Violet asked.
"Wait?" Damian shrugged and pointed to a row of chairs along the far wall. Most were full, but one section wasn't.
“Might as well.”
The seats were soft. Very, very soft. They were upholstered in something that was probably worth more than my wardrobe. I sat, and Sere sat beside me. Violet sat on my other side, closer than she needed to. Any more, and I might have felt like I was being squeezed from both sides.
Sere pulled her notepad from beneath her arm and began to sketch. I idly glanced at it. She was sketching the inside of this building, from what I could tell. It seemed she’d found this place worth sketching then.
"What do you think of this place?" I asked her. "So far?"
She wrote in a corner of the page, without looking up.
Very busy. Strange people and... strange hair.
I almost laughed. She wasn't wrong. I had spotted at least four styles of hair I had no words for. One of them was an almost entirely bald head, save for a large patch of hair pointing directly up from the center of a man's skull. I had even seen some of the women wearing it. Those men and women were almost completely naked from the waist down, with patterned shirts above. I had tried hard not to stare at those people.
"It's because the King's Tournament doesn't just draw people from this Kingdom," I said. "Some of the smaller Kingdoms around us have alliances that let their people participate."
Violet had been slouching. She sat up. "Wait. So that means I can beat up people from outside Aelheim too?"
Violet had a great pair of ears, when it was something she cared about. "Kinda? Not really?" I said. "We’ll register in Aelheim. I doubt we’ll see any of these people there. But after the qualifiers? Probably."
"So I'm stuck beating up our own people." Violet sighed. "That's lame."
"It might be a good thing," Damian said quietly. It was the first time he had spoken in some time.
"What do you mean?"
Damian shrugged. He had his arms folded across his chest, his back straight against the chair. "Sometimes someone important ends up taking part in the King’s Tournament. From another country or tribe, I mean. Winning or losing is one thing, but accidents can happen. When they do…well…."
He didn’t need to finish his sentence. I could guess well enough. I looked at Violet, who was just grinning.
"Yes," I said. "It is definitely a good thing that we'll register in Aelheim." Though of course it wouldn't help at all after the qualifiers. Violet's grin did not dim in the slightest. I chose to consider this a future me problem.
My gaze moved to Randell. The man sat two seats down, his spine so straight he might have been nailed to the backrest. His hands were folded in his lap. They were very still. Actually….
Click. Click.
I was wrong. They were shaking, just faintly. I turned my sight back down and looked at him.
It must feel strange. A third son of a minor Baron house, here to try and get an audience with one of the most important men in the Kingdom. It was just supposed to be a temporary act. It also looked like it was giving him a stomachache.
"Are you ready for this?" I asked him. "Do you remember everything you're supposed to say?" We had made rather sure he wouldn’t be saying much, but it would be inconvenient if he couldn’t even say that.
Randell nodded. The nod was too quick. "Of course, my-" I held up a hand. He swallowed. "...Of course. I, uh. Remember."
I tried not to sigh. If whoever we were meeting had any instinct for people at all, they would notice that kind of thing. Still, it would be fine. Probably.
I looked at Sere again. She had finished a rough sketch of the hall. Every detail was there. The columns, the clerks, the long line of people. She had drawn a very tiny version of our group sitting in a row. I was the smallest figure, covered in darkness. That was the hood. Why had she made me look so menacing?!
Her art really was stupidly good. I reached over and lightly touched her shoulder. She looked up, and her expression was content. It was hard not to feel better about waiting when I saw that.
A woman approached us. She was short and dressed in a black suit. She even had a pale-green tie. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a suit in this world -I’d seen them at the Information Guild. It was, however, the first time I actually thought about it. Eira had said that my situation wasn't…entirely unique. The more I saw of this world, the more obvious that became.
"Your party is expected," she said. "Follow me, please."
We stood. Randell straightened his coat, took a breath, and assumed the lead position. He did this well enough. His stride was confident and his chin was level. From behind, he looked every inch a young Lord.
From behind. I hoped nobody would need to see his face until the last possible moment.
Our group followed the woman through a series of corridors that grew quieter and more ornate with each turn. I got the impression that the woman was strong. It was some sixth sense I’d started to get. It was the same sense that had warned me of Alexander’s guards, that day. Anias was watching the woman’s back. I didn’t think she’d ever stopped. That confirmed my suspicions.
We passed two sets of guards, both wearing the Solair crest. A stylized sun overlooking a sweeping field of crops.
Then we stopped. An ornate door stood before us. This door had a larger version of the Solair crest, done with so much detail I could almost make out the individual crops. The woman turned, gave a short bow, and stepped aside.
Anias moved to the door. She turned to Randell and gave him a single nod. He returned it, and some of the color left his face. A good man. At least he had agreed to do this, even on short notice.
I pulled my cloak tighter around myself and opened it. The first thing we heard was a voice. It was a tired voice, and a bored one.
"Do come in already. Let's get this over with quickly."