Chương 140: Chapter 137: The Mad Red Duchess.

Violet wore a gown the color of a deep winter sky. It was made of four hundred and thirty of Vyranthos' scales, every one of them stitched onto silk beneath. They looked almost like feathers, glistening wherever the red lantern light caught them. When Violet took a step, they moved with her. Her hair had been done into a single long braid that trailed down her back. When she scanned the crowd, her eyes shone. And when those eyes found me, something in that gaze softened, just slightly.

I had not seen her wear it before. I had seen the scales when they had first arrived. I had even seen one of the Scrylens pictures Madam Verner had sent of an unfinished dress. Even knowing that all of this was planned and calculated, I still found myself surprised. Violet looked beautiful. Cool, Sere wrote, and tilted her notepad toward me. I could only agree. Yes. That was the word. It took several seconds for the tent to recover. The Inquisitor recovered first.

His head tilted, and he frowned at Violet's back, as if he could see her and still did not know what to make of her. Then he spoke, and his voice carried to the back of the tent.

"You are late, Violet Indri. Do be more punctual in the future. For today you bury the girl, and let a woman be born in her place." His sewn gaze swept the crowd once more.

"If you have something to say, say it. Then we shall do the rites." The tent was muttering and murmuring now. The Inquisitor's words had stirred everyone all over again.

"To wear something like that as a gown," Alexander muttered beside me.

"Truly a she-beast, as all the rumors say."

"Are you afraid?" I asked, low enough for only him to hear. He paused and looked toward me. Then he smiled.

"Afraid? Me? Hardly." He sat up to his full height, which made him a good head taller than me, and smiled wider, enough that I could see all of his perfect teeth. And his hand moved past the barrier of the armrest, far more than propriety would allow.

"I have heard that the Bulwarks all join the King's Tournament," I said. The hand stopped.

"Is that true?" Alexander tilted his head.

"It is." His chest puffed out.

"That reminds me. I will be competing in the King's Tournament myself. Though not from this city, of course." He said it the way one says a thing distasteful.

"If you come to the capital for my wedding, perhaps you will be able to see me in the final rounds." He would compete in a tournament days before his own wedding. One whose final was hours before the ceremony. It wasn't as if I needed more reasons to dislike Alexander Bulwark, but I found a new one anyway.

"And will you compete in the junior division?" He nodded.

"I will. I am still sixteen, after all. If you would like, I will ensure you have the finest seats in the Grand Amphitheatrum. The very front row." His hand started its slow crawl again, and I wondered, briefly, just how far it meant to go, with Cordelia sitting only a few seats away.

"That's convenient." I gave him a smile of my own.

"But I will not require seats. I intend to take part in the King's Tournament myself. So does my friend." I gestured absently in Violet's direction.

"Perhaps we shall meet in the final rounds." That surprised him. I saw it surprise him. His eyes widened, and he stared at me, and his hand forgot its crawling entirely. I had half thought he would know by now. It wasn't as if I had registered in secret. Perhaps he simply thought Aelheim's papers beneath his reading.

"Listen up. I'm only going to bloody say this once." I turned from him and back toward the stage. Violet had her arms folded, and she had a glare for everyone. Her voice was hard, and I felt the mana rolling off her with every word. It was hard not to be a little nervous. Minus the entrance, my only instruction to Violet had been to be herself. Violet's gaze moved from the crowd to the first rows of the adults' section, where her retainers sat.

"Things haven't been great for my District. My father is dead, but even before that he was-" she paused, for just a second, "-he was busy doing his own thing. So a lot of you were probably damn mad with him, and wouldn't say anything to his face. Don't try to deny it. I'm not bloody stupid." There was some muttering at this. Both from our section of the seats and from the adults'. Click. Click.

"Seriously? This girl is crazy."

"Where did she learn her manners from? A barn?" Those voices and more came from the children sitting a few rows behind me. I ignored them and turned my attention to the other side.

"-even ruder than her mother, and that's hard to-""-perhaps the last head of House Indri, if this is anything to-""So there are problems," Violet said. She took a step forward, until she stood at the very edge of the stage.

"A lot of them. And I have no gods damned idea how to fix any of 'em." Now it seemed she was glaring at her retainers especially, and I watched grown men and women squirm beneath the gaze of a fourteen-year-old girl. It was almost amusing. Violet could be intense.

"So I'm not going to bullshit you and tell you I'm going to fix everything," Violet said.

"But I am going to listen. That's a hell of a lot more than my father ever did. If something's fucked, come to me, and I'll listen. If you have a solution, then for gods' sake, come with that too. I know how a lot of you think about me. You all called me the 'Mad Red Dog.' And hell yeah, I am mad. I'm mad because it's your fault too. You let shit get this bad without saying anything. So now you can." Violet stepped back.

"Who the hell knows how it'll turn out, but it'll be better than it was before. Anyway-" She paused, and her gaze found mine. For some reason, she blushed, and much of the bluster left her. Her back stayed straight anyway.

"Anyway, that's my speech. So let's get this over with." If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. She turned. I could not see her eyes, but I was certain she was glaring at the Inquisitor.

"-what a strange child-" someone said from the other section. I could not tell who.

"-so ill-mannered. Who taught her to speak so?"

"-almost too much like Scarlet-" That was the comparison I heard most often. Violet, measured against her late mother. That was good. I suspected anything at all was better than being compared to her father. And amidst all the many whispers, one stood out.

"-might just take her up on that. If she's serious. Better than being ignored, at least."

"You called her a she-beast," I whispered. Alexander was looking at me. I could see it from the corner of my eye.

"She is," I acknowledged.

"That is also the best thing about her." I felt Sere nod at my other side. She had not stopped drawing. Alexander said nothing at all. Then the Inquisitor spoke again, and when he did, every murmur in the hall died to nothing.

"Very well then." He stepped up to the podium's edge, his robes of white and gold flowing around him though there was no wind at all.

"Your… strange address aside, you will take the vows properly, as is custom." His head turned slowly across the hall, though what a man with sewn eyes meant by such a gesture, only the Gods could say. Then that sightless gaze settled on Violet, and held there.

"Go down as Violet Indri, girl." For one long moment, Violet did not move. My hands clenched against each other in my lap. Then she lowered herself onto one knee. The Inquisitor looked down at her. And when he spoke again, his raspy voice had changed. There was fervor in it now. The weight of a man who believed that what he had to say was very important indeed. And in this case, perhaps it was.

"Do you swear your loyalty to the Crown? To His Grace, King Friedrich Wilhelm von Arianmere the Third?" There was a pause. It could not have lasted more than a heartbeat. It felt a great deal longer. All of the preparation aside, Violet was still Violet. There was truly no telling what she might do. The Inquisitor's head tilted, just a fraction. From impatience, I hoped.

"I do," Violet said.

"Do you swear your loyalty to the Arianmere line?"

"I do," Violet said. Quicker, this time. I let out a small breath.

"Do you agree to take responsibility for all of the people who serve under you? Rich and poor, noble and common, Gifted and not? Do you agree to see to their wellbeing and prosperity as if they were your own kin?" There was another pause. These vows, at least, were not ones the Violet I knew would bristle at.

"I do," Violet said.

"Do you agree to uphold the laws of Arian? To always act in accordance with the throne, before you act in accordance with yourself?"

"I do," Violet said. The Inquisitor nodded.

"Very well. Then you have gone down as Violet Indri." He laid one hand upon her shoulder.

"I proclaim that you may rise as Duchess Indri. I witness this as Carrion, third of the Kingdom's twelve Inquisitors. Now…" He paused.

"Rise." And Violet rose to her full height, and I let out a breath I had not realized I had been holding. The vows were no Magical Contract. But they were still important, and now they were done. Violet turned and surveyed the crowd. The stunned silence held for a moment longer. Then someone began to clap. I turned my head and found the source near the front of the adults' section. My father sat with his walking stick laid across his knees, clapping slow and steady.

If the gesture strained him at all, he did not show it. Count Sterling joined him a heartbeat later. Then Count Calloway, then Lord Everstand, whom I had only just spotted, until the whole Veyne block had taken it up. Then, slowly, some of House Indri's retainers joined in. Then more of them. Then most. I started to clap too. Sere had been clapping for some time. I snuck a glance down my row. Cordelia was clapping as well, and there was a smile on her face. It was a small one, and it was not quite perfect.

Which, to me, said everything. I looked at Julian last. The man stared up at Violet with an expression I could not read. At the girl on the stage, and at the four hundred scales she wore. All of his emeralds looked dim beside them. Cheap, even. I knew that he would not notice this at all. After a moment, he began to clap too, if only not to be out of place. His wife joined in beside him, and then Violet Indri was standing at the center of a tent full of applause. Her gaze found mine through all of it. She smiled.

I found myself smiling back. Then Violet spoke again, and her words cut clean over the noise.

"Alright, enough of that clapping," she said.

"Let's have some damn food." Whatever spell the investiture ceremony had cast over the tent, that broke it. There was laughter, some of it startled out of people who had clearly not planned on laughing today. Servants flooded in from the far side, and the long tables of food began their slow relocation toward the second tent. Again, why they didn't start there was a true mystery. The people in the front rows rose first, and I rose with them. Violet stayed up on the stage.

I waited as the first of the crowd began to file past. Beside me, Alexander hesitated, and for one terrible moment I thought the boy might actually try to escort me. Then he smiled instead.

"Until later. I do hope we can speak again this day." And then he was moving toward Cordelia. Sere took my arm as the two of them passed us by. Cordelia did not meet my gaze. Her posture was perfect, her smile was perfect, and Alexander's hand settled at the small of her back as though it belonged there. I watched them go. Sere tapped my side. I looked down at her.

"What is it, Sere?" She unclenched her right hand. Sitting on her palm was a small piece of paper, folded down to almost nothing. I took it and quickly unfolded it. Let's talk later. There was no signature, not that I needed one. I would have known that elegant hand anywhere by now. I smiled.

"A rather useful Gift," I said, and pushed the note deep into my pocket. Then Sere and I were moving toward the stage, against the flow of the crowd. The Inquisitor was already gone. Where to, I had not seen, and I found I did not much mind. Only Violet remained on the dais, arms folded, glaring down at all of the people leaving for… some reason. Our eyes met. Violet hopped off the stage, scales flashing as she landed.

"Duchess Violet," I said, and dipped into a low bow.

"What an honor it is to meet you." Beside me, Sere matched it, rather more awkwardly, one arm pressed across her chest the way I had seen soldiers do.

"…If there weren't so many people around, I'd pull your ears," Violet grumbled. I looked up at her and smiled.

"So, uh… how'd it go?" she asked. Her hand had already found her braid.

"What'd you think? Didn't have too many fancy words like you would've, but-""Violet." She stopped and looked at me.

"Never change," I said, and I meant every word of it. Violet's face turned red, all the way to the tips of her ears. She looked away, and pulled her braid hard. And somewhere far in the back of my mind, I heard Vaelin sigh. Feeling cryptic today, are you, Vaelin? He did not answer.