Chương 99: Chapter 97: Frustration.

I walked in silence. It was late enough that the servants had finished their rounds and early enough that the only people I saw were the occasional guards who seemed like they'd rather be asleep too. The few Magical Implements along the corridor gave off their usual dim blue, casting everything in a pallor that matched my mood. I caught my reflection in a window as I passed. My fists were clenched. I didn't know how long they had been like that.

I unclenched them deliberately, watched my fingers straighten, and kept walking. The door was slightly open, letting warm light spill through it. I pushed it open. Estovan was propped up against a bank of pillows, his chest and ribs wrapped in white bandages. A maid sat beside his bed, one of the three whose sole job was to attend to him. He looked diminished. That was the word. The First Sword Of House Veyne did not look all that different from a week ago, and yet I felt the difference.

Perhaps I was simply realizing that everyone was just flesh and blood in the end. Something twisted inside me. For a moment, Estovan overlapped with another. A man on a similar bed, covered in yet more bandages, whose entire body had shrunken in, until the difference between skin and bone was a small one. My father. The guilt came, and I crushed it before it properly settled. Estovan's eyes found me in the doorway. He shifted, and his hand moved to push himself upright.

"Don't." I stepped forward.

"There's no need for that. Not now."

"My Lady-""Just Esra." I said.

"For the duration of this visit, I am Esra, and you are a man who should be lying down." I doubted he would obey this order, but there was no harm in trying. Estovan settled slowly and reluctantly. I could see it in the brief tightness around his eyes. He turned to the maid.

"You may leave us, please." The woman curtsied, gathered her things, and slipped out. The door closed behind her. I pulled a chair to his bedside and sat. For a moment, neither of us spoke.

"How are you feeling?" I asked. It was the most obvious question. One I had asked him before.

"Well enough. Alira's work was thorough. I should be moving again within a few days." I stared at him.

"From what I recall, she said two weeks. Minimum. Do I recall wrong?"

"I'm feeling stronger than they expected." It seemed that everybody could be a little childish, given the chance.

"You are feeling impatient. Those are different things, Estovan." Estovan's mouth pressed into a line -not quite a smile. He looked like he wanted to argue, which was doubtless the last thing a retainer should do, even in front of a fourteen year old girl.

"Everything is under control," I said.

"There is nothing so urgent that it requires you to tear yourself open getting out of bed." I meant it as reassurance but the words came out closer to a plea. Estovan studied me for a moment and then eased back against the pillows. He looked at me for a time. There was a… question in his gaze, one that was impossible not to notice with the slightest raising of his right eye. I had come to check on him. yet it seemed perhaps he saw more of me than I had intended.

I opened my mouth to say one thing, only to say another entirely.

"I am considering doing something very stupid," I said, blinking. That…that hadn't been what I'd wanted to say. Vaelin stirred faintly. The impression that came was not quite amusement. Something closer to recognition, as if the blade had known I would say this before I did. Estovan said nothing save for faintly nodding. Well…I was here already.

"Something very stupid even though I know exactly how stupid it is. I'm hesitating…maybe because I know how stupid it is." I looked down at my hands. My fists were white again. I stared at them, slowly forced my fingers open. How long had I been doing that?

"Tell me, My lady," Estovan said.

"If I can offer counsel, I will do it to the best of my ability." I almost didn't consider saying anything more, even given how much I'd said without meaning to.

"It's about Greenward," I said. The name came out flat.

"He tried to have me killed and he failed." I had told him this before, on our way back here.

"Now he's moved to other methods since his assassination has failed. More…frustrating methods." I kept my voice even.

"I want to remove him." I said it blankly, and to his credit, Estovan did not recoil, nor even show any sign that I had said something un-Ladylike. He didn't even look surprised.

"How?" he asked. That caught me off guard. I had expected resistance or maybe a warning. Not a practical question. As it happened, I had given this some thought. More thought today than most other things. The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Poison is unreliable," I said, almost before I'd decided to answer.

"There's always a chance someone with the right Gift might be around, and for someone like him, the chance is larger still. Obviously a direct assault is too stupid to be worth considering…" I paused.

"But there might be ways." There was nothing stopping me from using the same kind of method he'd used. Evelynn might help me get in contact with the Assassins Guild. Well…assuming she would grant my request, and assuming they would want to try killing a Duke. And assuming it could all happen quickly enough to matter. Okay, perhaps there were quite a few things stopping me.

"I believe that the timing of such a thing would be…unfortunate." Estovan said slowly. I stared at the wall. He was talking about Dorothy's article. As it happened, today she'd sent me the first draft of that too, just out of courtesy. It had arrived just hours ago. It was…well, to say that it would send waves would be an understatement.

"Yes…it would be." I admitted.

"When people read that article, every eye in Aelheim and the Kingdom will be watching me. Perhaps, by some miracle, Julian dying before might have gone over without much fanfare but after? It will not." I trailed off.

"Combined with Duke Indri," Estovan said quietly.

"It hasn't been that long."

"Yes." My jaw tightened.

"I'm told there are already whispers about how the fall of the Indri District only benefitted House Veyne. If another were to fall too… there would be no avoiding the Inquisition then." And if that happened, then the entire house of cards I had built my life around would come crashing down. I doubt it would lead to anything like an execution for me, especially given Vaelin, but there were other levers. There always were. The fire in my chest burned and burned and yet had nothing to consume.

All it could do was burn myself.

"The timing is impossible," Estovan agreed. He said it carefully. The timing, not the deed. I noticed the distinction, and hadn't expected it from him. Silence held for a time.

"What about Sere?" Estovan asked. I flinched and stared at him. Now that was the last thing I had- Ah. So he's testing me then. Now I understood what direction this conversation was going in. He's wondering if I'd thought about even this. I had, naturally.

"Her Gift is perfect for it," I said. My voice was quieter now.

"In theory, at least. In theory, no one would see her enter, no one would see her leave. In theory."

"But?"

"I saw my share of guards when I went to his manor." I leaned forward, elbows on my knees.

"There will be defenses besides just people. Magical Implements or men whose Gifts we can't account for. If even one of them can detect her Gift...." I shook my head.

"Sere is extraordinary, and perhaps one day she might actually be up to a task like this." My throat felt tight.

"But asking something like this of her now would be asking her to die." Estovan watched me. His gaze didn't waver.

"Is that the only reason?" No, of course it wasn't. I glanced around before answering, though if she was here, it wasn't like I'd have any way of knowing. The last I'd seen of her she'd been asleep in my room.

"I know she would say yes, if I asked," I said. The words were barely above a whisper.

"She wouldn't even blink. She would say yes even if I told her how dangerous it was, even if I pointed out that she was still hurt. I know she would say yes if I asked. She would say yes before I finished asking." I looked at my hands. At the knuckles that were white again, despite having unclenched them only minutes before.

"That is exactly why I can't ask. I am afraid she would do it, or die trying." I could ask Sere to do something vile, I think. I could not ask her to give her life for me. Never that. Estovan slowly nodded, and something in his expression softened. Whatever this test had been, it seemed that I might have passed.

"Why Greenward then?" he asked.

"I have been in this bed for days now, so I am not aware of everything that's happened. He did try to have you killed but…" He paused.

"This is different, My Lady. You've been clenching your fists since you walked in here. I did not think you were the type to hold such a grudge." I looked away from him. At the wall. At the dim Magical Implement in its bracket above his bed. At anything that wasn't his steady gaze. I told him. I told him about Cordelia. About her warning long before we'd ever set off. About the guard at the Manor who had looked past her as if she were furniture when she gave him an order. About my own stupidity, and my anger.

About the article that had appeared the next day. About the price she must have paid, all because I couldn't control myself. I kept it brief and without flourish. That was all I could manage. When I finished, the room was very quiet. Estovan did not speak for a long time. Long enough that the Magical Implement above his bed flickered once, casting a brief shadow across his bandaged chest. Long enough that I began to wonder if he would speak at all.

"Is this why Duke Indri died as well?" My hand found the arm of the chair. I didn't remember reaching for it. The wood creaked under my grip. I went very still. I stared at him. Estovan met my gaze without flinching. His dark eyes were steady. He had never asked -not truly. Neither had Anias. They had both chosen not to know the whole truth. I did not know why he was asking now.

"It was one of the reasons," I said.

"He…for what he did to those children, he would have died no matter what." I murmured.

"For what he did to Violet, I wanted it to be painful before the end. It wasn't but…it should have been." Estovan absorbed this. I saw him absorb it, and when he looked at me, there was consideration in his gaze that had never been there before. And sadness. And more besides.

"Men like Julian Greenward are common, My Lady." I looked up. Estovan's voice was quiet and without judgement.

"In every House of every Province of every Kingdom. In every such place, there are parents who treat their sons and daughters like Julian treats his." He paused.

"Your father was the exception. Not the rule." He held my gaze.

"Are you going to kill every parent who falls short?" I had nothing to say to that. I sat there, in the chair beside his bed, with my fists clenched and my jaw tight and no words in my mouth at all. The answer was inside of me, and it burned with a certainty that frightened me more than the dragon had. Yes. If I could. If they asked it of me. If- Vaelin hummed somewhere in my mind. The Godblade and I were of one mind. If it were up to me, I might soak the world the color of my blade.

Estovan eased back against his pillows. The movement was slow. He was tired, I think. It seemed I had taken up more of his time than I had intended to.

"The hardest battles," he said, "are the ones where you know you could win and choose not to fight." I sat with the words. They didn't make the anger smaller. They did little for me but make me more frustrated than I already was. I stood and paused at the door.

"Rest," I said.

"Actually rest. I will be very cross with you if you don't." Estovan let out a faint sound that might have been a laugh.

"As you say." I left. My fists were unclenched. I noticed that, and I held onto it. The anger had not gone anywhere. I would find an answer to this. If I was smarter then I might find a way to cut this knot. If I knew someone who- Ah. I thought. I suppose I did now, didn't I?