Chương 156: Chapter 177: The Corsage

I had just gotten rid of the royal family and now I've got some brand new shit to deal with, courtesy of my fucking brother, again. And he looked so goddamned helpful about it, like he just couldn't imagine why I would be put out by him making legally-binding promises in my name without discussing the terms with me or waiting to talk it over. Oh, and positioning himself to act as my liege lord and basically take complete ownership over my legal identity and responsibilities.

I leaned heavily against the settee that Kurumi was sat in, hitching my hip up to half-sit.

"Someone go over this contract with me. The terms, if you will." I crossed my hands in my lap, with the serviette wrapped around my hurting fingers. They throbbed. My free hand applied some counterpressure to bring down the ache. The pain did not do anything to distract me from an anger that is building with each breath. Nathan nodded.

"Again, very reasonable terms. First, you will comply with a full assessment of all your magical properties at the pleasure of the magister's guild, in the person of one Magister Inquisitor Pina-" Like hell I will. I already knew that was a complete non-starter. This woman was coming at me with a grudge, and there is non-trivial evidence that I'm a lich. She's had years to look at the cell I escaped from using Untethered Essence, back when I did not know the implications of the Untethered Essence.

I was careless back then because I didn't know, and she's been in charge of getting answers. And even if this doesn't end with me being killed for something that I never had control over, an assessment by the magisters will be exactly as tedious and time-consuming as they want it to be, and somehow I feel like Nathan has just signed me up for another three years of solitary confinement, broken up only by invasive experimentation. He was not done though.

"- and also to convey all knowledge of future events to be transcribed into the care of the magister's college and guild for their archives and consideration- " Like hell I will. Again, not happening. For one thing, again, as tedious and time-consuming as she wants this to be. For another, anything for "consideration" by the magisters is also at the service of House Aumerje, which is the least- wait. Um, okay, it's the sixth -least-scrupulous House, but that's still pretty bad.

And if Aumerje knew what the Upheaval was going to do... well, I know what happens when the most scrupulous and honorable houses get future knowledge and it's all bad.

"Millions dead", that kind of bad. Unnecessary deaths on top of the inevitable casualties. Giving that capacity to Aumerje has to be even worse than that. Why would he ever think this was okay? He knows how I would react to being compelled to reveal that information! Huh. He does know how I react to being compelled to give up dangerous information. Better than anyone. It seems like maybe my thinking has finally started getting convoluted to figure out part of what he's up to. Nathan was not done yet.

"- and to publicly retract your claims to have killed the necromancer known as the Cachexia - " Wait, that's unexpected. I wonder why Pina made that one of her demands. Some sort of internal politics? That could be a clue as to what is going on with Aumerje right now. I have to file that away for later. I didn't think that the Inquisitor had any stake in that, but apparently she's got some connection to either the Grand High Master or the High Grandmaster, and this is part of their power play.

To the best of my knowledge, her only real beef with me is that I was central to her humiliation and demotion. When I was first arrested they put me into regular prison and not plush privileged aristocrat prison. And when the inquest found out about that, they were pissed and she was their scapegoat. The titled classes want to make sure that if they're ever sentenced to prison that they'll get coddled, and so they made an example of her. I didn't do it, but it's natural that she would blame me anyway.

"- and a monetary compensation equal to five percent of your earnings for this past year," he said.

"And if this gala is as important to you as I believe it is, those are some especially lenient terms." He beamed at me like he'd brought home all A's on his report card, rather than costing me thousands of gold crowns and signing me up to be a lab rat until I'm tortured to death.

"That doesn't sound right," I said, shaking my head.

"Sorry, I hear the words but I'm just not believing what I hear. Could I see the contract for myself?" I did not have to work hard to look baffled and shaken by disbelief.

"By all means," Inquisitor Pina said, and handed the damned thing over. I stood next to the mantle for better light and examined it. You know, just casually standing right next to the fireplace and the convenient fire that was burning merrily along. The contract itself was really pretty bare, with few of the allowances and contingencies and conditions that I'm used to seeing in service contracts. Which, honestly, has been quite many.

I barely touched that stuff before I died and got isekaied, and now I'm versed enough to sneer about how rudimentary this is. It gave little more than what Nathan had said, and almost all of the open-ended terms and definitions were to be resolved to the satisfaction of the magisters. Which leaves me no bargaining room at all. But there was a detail bothering me.

"What's this rune in the corner of the page?" I asked. A lock of my hair fell over my eye and I smoothed it back.

"It's to make the paper and ink immune to fire or tearing," she said. Now, that's not nearly the worst thing that a hostile magister could scribe onto a signed contract, but it's bad enough for my purposes. Still, it's starting to represent the paranoia she holds for me. Well, it was a good plan, I sighed, casting a wistful look at the fire that was not going to save me from this debacle. Time for the next plan.

"Obviously these terms are unacceptable," I said, unwrapping the serviette and tucking it into my bodice.

"I only designated a representative for an informal agreement and not a binding long-term contract, the signer was only the liege of the contractee by definitions of heir and liege that exist in two different duchies with no crossover, no good faith effort was made to contact me even though I was in the next room over, the signer did not have access to relevant information about the contractee, the terms are laughably one-sided, and the timing constitutes duress.

Also, the magisters never held up their end of the bargain so it was materially voided before it was written." The Inquisitor stood up, and reached for her staff.

"That's our contract, Miss Harigold, and you'll be honoring its terms." I rolled up the pages and held them carefully in my left hand.

"I'll be taking this with me, and it will serve as evidence when I press suit for extortion, defamation and fraud against Magister Inquisitor Pina." I pushed my hair back again. I swear, every time I lose access to my sorcery my hair becomes uncontrollable. Nathan spoke up.

"That's the only copy." His voice level, uninflected.

"Good," I said.

"Magister, please forward me the name of your lawyer at the earliest convenience." Maybe I can't beat her with mana, but I know damn well that I can run circles around her in the courts.

"Natalie, be reasonable, you got a good deal here!" he insisted. I search his face: inscrutable once more. I'm not certain that he's on the level. I'm largely sure that he's not ignorant enough to earnestly believe the contract is equitable, but he's insisting it is. Either to cover his ass while he tries to take me down? To make Pina think she's got him fooled? Or some triple-cross that I can't see from here? Probably some combination.

Maybe he's trying to get me out of the way and does not know enough about the magisters to know what he's handed them? I cannot tell how much of what he's doing comes from a place of brilliance, or ignorance. But not everyone here was carefully examining motivations and interpreting nuance. Pina pointed her staff at me, a much more direct and unambiguous act. In this district, that constitutes a threat of violence. Ballsy to pull that here, even if she is employed by the laughably-deemed justice system.

"The pages. Give them back now." I straightened myself.

"What, you'll use violent magics against the person of a ducal heir to take back a contract written under duress? I think not. Do not point that staff at me." I braced myself, made sure I had a good deep breath of air. Gotta make this good. She scoffed.

"Violent- of course not!" And then she twitched the staff, and the pages were yanked out of my hand and sailed across the room to her hands. I screamed and dropped the ground, clutching my left hand. I rolled, clutching it, and the bent fingers and swollen joints came into the open. Nathan leaped to his feet.

"Inquisitor, what have you done! Kurumi, the healer, next door! Go!" Feet thudded out the door. The magister was sputtering and protesting, Nathan yelling at her. The anti-magic field effect was still active, and I could not call on the essence of the serpent.

However, I don't need to lie to anyone to act like I'm in real pain when papers yanked out of my hand scraped abraded skin, folded back a fingernail and turned a badly-sprained finger, or yanked on my sprained shoulder, or yanked my balance onto a leg with pulled muscles. That for real hurt like a sonofabitch. Nathan and the magister were still arguing when the door opened and Kurumi came in with the healer. I let the tears come, while I clutched my wounded hand.

Small paper cuts added a film of blood to the other obvious damage to my hand. The healer I had hired for other purposes knelt at my side, and put out a hand. The glow of healing magic did not appear.

"I can't do anything," he said, annoyed. He snapped at Pina, "Restrain your dispelling sigils so I can work."

"But she's dangerous," Pina said, protesting weakly. I snapped my head around, tears still streaking my face.

"What the fuck does that mean?" I demanded.

"Did you hurt me because you think I'm dangerous?!"

"No, it's just that I can't- I mean, if she-" The magister, healer, Nathan and Kurumi all started arguing, and I tried to think this through. This rogue representative of the law and the magisters thinks it's too dangerous to be in my presence without suppressing my powers. She knows something, or thinks she does. This goes further than our grudge. She's working with someone else. Who, and for how long? My first plan had been to just destroy the contract. Because if it doesn't exist it's not enforceable.

I don't know if Pina warded the pages against that because she doesn't trust me specifically, or if that's just how magister contracts are typically written. I have zero experience with contracts drawn up by college magisters. It never came up in the game. So then I thought that I could just walk out of here with the pages. She warded them against burning and tearing; but if I can get these out of the range of her wards, I've got several other ways to destroy them.

Still, just in case she wouldn't let me do that, I got myself ready to bluff her into letting me leave. And just in case that didn't work, I prepared a narrative of her attacking me, and got ready to frame her for injuring me. I hate improvising. I always seem to end up improvising every time my brother gets involved. And the bitch of it is that this time it might not even be his fault. I suspect that he might be doing this deliberately, but not enough to be sure I'm not just being paranoid.

I'm not sure exactly what his game is, unless he's trying to cripple my power base and shut me out of his affairs. If so, this contract business is a strong move, and well-executed. If he's got any intentions other than that?... I couldn't guess what the angle is. Unless he's actually been blindsided here. Very realistically he could be the one that got caught in a trap, with a magister attached to the royal retinue waiting for a chance to finesse him into controlling me.

After all, the terms of that contract could actually have seemed very reasonable, if you don't know anything about my affairs or anything about the magister's guild and don't know enough about contract law. And I've worked my ass off to keep Nathan from knowing anything about my affairs. I just assumed that he knows more secrets than he should, because he's a spy. And as a spy, he is supposed to know things that nobody knows that he knows. And if he does, then he double-crossed me and smiled to my face.

But maybe he's just a teenaged prince who's more interested in playing Musical Girlfriends than he is interested in anything I'm involved in. He's got enough deniability that I can't be sure he's intentionally backstabbed me, but not enough deniability that I can ignore the chance that he did. In any case, that contract is a landmine. Both for me, and for Pina and her allies. I lay on the ground, groaning. I wasn't playing up the injury, I was just not hiding it anymore.

I had been suppressing the pain reaction, and now I was not. Meanwhile, the four of them were arguing. The gist was: the magister wanted to leave right now with the pages and to bring me with her. The healer wanted her to get far enough away from me for him to work, or to shut off her dispels. Kurumi did not want her to leave without giving us a copy of the contract as well. Nathan was now suddenly advocating for me, and wanted her to leave the contract and also to leave. He was actually pretty heated about it.

Did he just watch his plan spiral out of control and now he's walking it back? There's too many moves, I can't see what he's up to. Also, this legit hurt a lot and the pain was very distracting.

"Oh, fuckin'... ow. Look, you three stand there and argue. Healer Spadler, please pick me up and carry me out the door a little ways until you can fix whatever's wrong in my leg." But I was not going to be princess-carried out of this room, because three years of obsessive prison workouts followed by camogie have honed me into a wiry and densely-muscled lass, and Spadler is no Licard, he's a very sedentary healer that could no more lift me in his arms than he could punch down mountains.

So I winced and helped him transfer me into a club chair with castor wheels underneath, and he wheeled me over to the door while those three argued further. Pina was still arguing that I was too dangerous to be outside of her dispelling field, but she was outvoted four to one and she was already trying to beat allegations that she had assaulted me. The only doors that were wide enough for this rolling chair were the double-doors that led onto the main floor, the grand hall.

He set me in front of them and hustled over to push them open in front of me, moving back to keep pushing me along. The brighter lights of the main hall splashed in over the lounge area, and the whole party was staring in at us, white-faced, round-eyed. The partygoers stared at us in shock and concern, but the people behind me in the lounge were shocked silent as well.

The serviette tucked into my bodice was covering the willow wand of the microphone, and everyone at the biggest party so far this year had heard me being ambushed, extorted, and then assaulted by Magister Inquisitor Pina. Her wards were cued to allow sigil magic, such as the sigil she put on the contract. And the sigil that tied my wand into the venue's sound system, broadcasting our entire argument to the ears of a few hundred movers, shakers, and policymakers.

I looked properly pitiful, curled into the chair with my dress crumpled around me and my hair in disarray for once. While I slumped there, making the most of the moment, I had to wonder about the contract. Pina's connection to the Grand High Master. How long have they been plotting together? This did not feel like endgame, this was a means to an end. But how bad is it?" How bad is it?

", I asked Spadler, holding up my injured hand. I was looking up at him with a grimace, and my voice carried all throughout. The wand sent my words to the rafters and they broadcast to the whole room clearly. There were no secrets in that room, and no way that this was going to be a cover-up. The healer held a glowing hand over me, and concentrated on his diagnostic scan." Dislocated fingers,"he started, and then startled as my microphone picked up his voice.

I was leaning to bring him into its range, and I nodded him to go on." Contact abrasions, friction abrasions. Bruising and edema. Soft-tissue damage. Several very small lacerations, likely paper cuts. Cracked carpal bones. Pulled muscles in the shoulder, impacted hip joint. Sprained knee, torn muscles. Should only take a couple of minutes." I raised my hand up in front of my face. Dislocated fingers?

I knew that I stubbed them real good, but- well, I guess I'm still not good at judging my own level of injury. This is a recurring problem for me that Licard has chastised me about more than a few times. And then the warm amber glow seeped into me, and the fingers popped back into place. The difference was immediately visible, like oh, okay, those really were dislocated and I couldn't see the difference until I saw them fixed.

But also the gristle-meaty thock of the joints snapping back echoed through the room as well. To confess, I did not expect that to happen. I did not realize the microphone would pick up that sound. Several people gasped and I heard someone start crying. A lot of people were looking past me, staring past my chair, at the parlor room I'd just been wheeled out of. The doors were open. The Inquisitor was in there, still opposite Nathan and Kurumi. Nobody was looking at her in a friendly way.

The last time she crossed me, a council of House members found out that she had been treating me like a common criminal and gave her a just-barely-metaphorical spanking. Some of the people who tore her down then, are in this room now. I let out a held breath when the muscles in my leg slithered back into place, and finally the last pain was gone. I stood up, and wrapped Spadler in a hug. He awkwardly patted my back. I stepped back, and looked around to take stock. Ondre was hovering nearby, looking anxious.

He was kind of dancing in place, looking uncertain with his hands held together in front of him. It looked like he was trying really hard to think of a way to help but wasn't sure what he should be doing. I pulled out my microphone and handed it over to him, with a nod. He nodded back and left, presumably to hand it back to Skip, the designated drop point for sound-system equipment. The crowd was largely silent, staring at me as I turned, looking across the room.

This was the show now, I guess, and everyone's watching to see what I will do. I turned, and cast a glance the length of the room, lingering on Wendy's portrait. Many eyes followed mine, and the mood darkened. Remind them that this was meant as a memorial for my dead cousin before the king and the magisters came to bully me. With the microphone away, I could contend that I was not intentionally broadcasting our business to the room.

But I was standing on the edge of the race lanes, and she was back in the parlor, at least thirty feet between us. Nathan and Kurumi stepped further away from her, leaving her stranded. The firelight did not look cozy from here, it looked ominous. I pointed my finger.

"You need to leave. Don't come any closer! I'm not going anywhere with you!" She tried wheedling, make-polite for the sake of onlookers.

"You won't be going with me, it's not like that, the magisters will escort you to an assessment site and I will administer-""Lady, I don't know why you felt you had to come back after me. It's not my fault that your mistreatment got you demoted. It's your own fault that the conditions you held me in got you censured," I accused, glaring. Kurumi had no idea who the prosecutor for my murder trial had been, this was all brand new to her.

But Nathan definitely should have known that much about my case, and he had been cordially negotiating with her anyway. I can't believe he had no clue who this woman and I are to each other. And yet, his face gives me nothing. Inquisitor Pina's eyes darkened and she stepped forward.

"You and your princess privilege had everything to do with sabotaging my career! And now with this contract you-" She waved her indefensible contract. She looked angry enough to spit fire. I shot back in the air, fifty feet away, hovering over the crowd, hands raised to hold her at bay.

"I said stay away from me!" I yelled. I would have loved a good room-booming bellow for that, but I'd handed off my mike and so instead my voice sounded thin and strained, even to me. I just can't hit that bold formatting like some people, I'm an italics gal only. Nathan and Kurumi moved in on the magister and bent close, arguing. I couldn't hear any of it, but it took just a few sentences before they were escorting her to the back of the parlor, to the corridor that led out of the building directly.

Thank gods, at least he could do that much for me. When they were out of sight, I brushed wind to push the parlor doors shut, symbolically closing that scene. I waited a long awkward moment before I let myself drift downwards, touching down onto the ground. And the crowd closed over me from all sides; this was a room full of my friends now.