Nasty Little Witchling

I didn’t bother getting out of bed to watch the mana training as I had planned, mostly out of self-preservation because I’d woken up late and didn’t want to face the wrath of Instructor Daniels.

While trying to fall asleep last night, my thoughts kept jumping back and forth between attending the event tonight being a good thing, talking to the animals and seeing inside the place I wanted to break into, and a mistake that would plague me for nights to come.

“Are you sure you don’t want any of this?” Haily asked, around a mouthful of my breakfast.

I turned my face to the side from where it was stuffed into a pillow. “Save me the fruit.”

“Oh…”

I drew my arm back and hucked the pillow through the open doorway towards where Haily was eating in my sitting room. I waited a moment for sounds of confirmation that I’d hit something, but they never came.

However, there was a knock at the outer door, and Haily jumped up and shoved the empty plate into my hands, wiping hers on her uniform and going to see who it was.

“You have egg on your face…no, other side,” I remarked from where I’d propped myself up on the bed.

Haily spoke with whoever it was and returned with an unfolded note. “Ma’am, there’s a knight at the door who wants to umm…take you somewhere they can’t tell me.”

Jeremy’s crystal came to mind, and I swiftly rolled out of bed to change into something warm and fluffy. Haily had already fussed over my bruising and promised not to tell anyone, so I didn’t mind her fetching a long-sleeved shirt to go with my usual overalls. To avoid keeping the knight waiting, I walked out the door with shoelaces hastily tucked into my boots.

The knight nodded to me and walked off, expecting me to follow on her heels, which I did without fuss. There was a noticeable difference in the presence of the knights who stood guard like statues around the palace and those I trained with and bought lunch for.

This one didn’t look like a single stride was longer than the last, her arms swinging out in deliberate motions, nothing along the way drawing her attention from what was directly ahead of her.

I paid more attention to the enchantments we passed through on our way to Jeremy’s office. Unlike Clem’s, they didn’t have an easily seen panel to interact with the gold inlay deeply inset in the stone that made up the doorways.

We had to flatten ourselves against the walls of the stairway and weave between operators carrying paper notes and crystals between the doorways at the top of the outpost. Jeremy’s door was already open, and a meeting was taking place. So, we stood outside and watched the controlled chaos of the transmission room while we waited.

I tried to ignore the outgoing messages but still parsed through the information for anything interesting until Jeremy was ready for me. The meeting participants raised their eyebrows and whispered to their neighbours when they saw me go in after them.

The knight closed the door behind me, and I plopped down into the same chair as before. The plant had already been replaced by another, and the man behind the desk was all smiles as he brought out an iron cube from a drawer.

The hinges on one end looked hastily attached, with globs of melted iron keeping it in place. The inside didn’t look much better. Frayed carpet ends stuck out of the iron and were barely holding onto the sides and lid.

The crystal sat comfortably inside until Jeremy tipped it into his palm and deposited it on the table beside me.

“Yeah, it’s not a pretty sight,” he said, hefting the makeshift cube. “They didn’t have anything on hand to transport the crystal and felt this would be the best way.”

“I see…do I just pick it up then?”

He held a finger and scrounged up a piece of paper and a pencil for me. “Go ahead.”

I twirled the pencil in one hand and reached for the crystal as if it would turn to dust at my mere touch. There were a lot more expectations weighing on my nerves compared to the casual tests we had been doing last time. A few deep breaths helped clear my mind as much as I could manage before my finger made contact.

Sadness Annoyance at death wasted lives. List of five names with positions. Military ranks. Request for family members to be notified.

I looked over my scribbles and chewed my lip at the word choice. Jeremy reached over before I was happy, but I let him take it. “The person that made this was…irritated that the list of people had died in a wasted battle.”

Despite my voice sounding small and uncertain, Jeremy still smiled momentarily until his face dropped at my last word. “Maria!”

The door cracked open for a woman to lean in. “Sir?”

“Find out what skirmishes the Oclarans have been in this past week.”

“None, sir. We would have heard of something at that scale or at least detected increased traffic.”

“Could you please check anyway?”

“Something wrong?” I asked.

He shook his head. “It’s probably nothing, a training incident perhaps—hopefully. I greatly appreciate you doing this for us, but please keep it to yourself.”

“I will.”

“Are you excited for tonight?” he asked after taking away the crystal.

“Mhm,” I hummed.

“Miles isn’t a big proponent of the place either, but it’s sure to be quite the event. Someone leaked that the duke was attending, so it’s now doubled in length and tripled in price. I’m sure by the end of the evening he’ll regret being there more than you.”

…

The duke’s carriage was more spacious than the one Sam, Linh, and I had been inside. His whole family, along with two fully equipped knights, were able to fit along the plush seating that stretched around the entire room except for the single doorway. It was also better protected with steel sheets behind the outer wood and double-paneled glass.

Another carriage, without all the ducal insignias and silver ornamentation covering the polished wood exterior, followed behind us with Jeremy, Yanla, and palace staff.

The event didn’t start for another hour, but there were already carriages just as ostentatious as ours returning from the direction of the gambling house a few streets over.

The duke and Alonso were matching with white button-ups almost entirely covered by dark green vests and jackets. Annalise wore her knight’s dress uniform, while Janette wore a grey dress with extra layers of see-through ruffles on the skirt containing sequins that glinted in the light. Her neckline was just as dazzling, with clear gemstones drawing the attention of anyone who looked in her vicinity.

Haily had recruited help to entrap me in my dressing room for most of the afternoon. Appearing with the ducal family in public was an ‘honour’ I needed to ‘look the part’ for.

After a long and heated argument, I found out there would be two carriages. I tried getting myself onto the second with Yanla to avoid all the unnecessary attention, an attempt that was quickly squashed.

I’d been saddled with green pants that sat above my hips, and a blouse that Haily was adamant was supposed to be big on me. It was made of smooth, flowy material that sinched below my chest and had no buttons, so my collar was open to show off the silver chain I was supposed to wear. Which meant I needed to stash my mana crystal on the middle part of my underthings since whoever picked out the blouse hadn't known to think of that.

I’d annoyed my captors by licking off the oily gloss they applied to my lips and smudging the tar-like liquid they’d put on my eyelashes to make them more prominent. My hair was luckily left alone, but it then took an hour of hand-holding by Haily to get me comfortable walking in open-toed shoes that had a thick platform stuck on the heel.

My pleading for boots hadn’t been entertained in the slightest, and it still took a conscious effort to keep my grumpy mood from showing. It didn’t help that we had gotten close enough for me to sense the animals inside.

They heard the noise above them. They all knew what it meant. They just didn’t know the outcome.

I tried not to sink too deeply into their fear and hunger and was just glad that they were not in any pain. The one with a clear mind should have been easy to distinguish, yet I could not find them amongst the many creatures as I had previously.

Our carriage stopped on the opposite side of the street from the event, where a spot had been cleared near more knights holding back a small gathering. Our two escorting knights got out first, and I waited for everyone else to go before being helped down the steps myself.

The duke was grinning, something I hadn’t seen much of before, and waving to the crowd. He walked over to a few of the calmer ones holding notepads, and we followed behind him.

“Sir, what is your response to the protests over your proposed plan to tear up 7th Street?”

“Mister Duke, any comments on the mystery child staying at the palace? Who is the girl joining you today?”

“What do you have to say to Baron Graham’s success in curtailing foreign influence? Is it time for the watch to play a bigger role in the duchy? Do you think this is a political ploy to go after the ducal seat in the election just a few months from now?”

From where I stood, I could barely hear the duke’s answers, my ears being flooded with the cheers and shouts of those gathered.

“Mindy, you know as well as I do we need a new sewage system in that district. They’re just going to have to allow it to go through. You can ask Chief Sardakur any further questions on that,” he said and motioned to me for the following answer. “Valeria is my daughter's guest, and I commend Baron Graham’s involvement in our military action. Thank you.”

Annalise moved me away and towards the door while the duke continued to answer questions and shake hands with the people gathered. I was curious how we were going to deal with the line stretching around the building, and the answer was simple: we didn’t.

The mages guarding the door stepped aside for the knights leading us. A lady in a green dress, wearing shoes with thinner heels than mine, led us to a less crowded hallway.

I wobbled a bit up the stairs and hooked my arm through Annalise’s when she offered, as Alonso did with Janette.

The duke and his knights caught up with us as our escort led us into a sitting room. Unlike the few I had been in before, this one had a glass wall that had been pushed to the side to leave an entirely open section leading to a balcony that stretched all the way past a column and over to what used to be a separate room.

The balcony itself had a small glass railing to prevent only the smallest child from climbing over and an awning providing shade over cushioned seats placed just behind the glass.

A long table covered in food and drink stretched between us and the other sitting room. The men, women, and children occupying that side had already gotten up from their sofas to walk around the adjoining balcony to greet the Rikers.

Jeremy and Yanla were also approached while I hid next to one of the knights I recognised from morning training.

What the guests called the duke seemed to be the giveaway to their standing, while most just called Janette by her name. Annalise and Alonso were dealing with the younger crowd, the age group that would be off at the academies not in attendance.

“You were missing at training earlier.”

I turned to him, wide-eyed. “You’re joking. I told Faraya I wouldn’t be there.”

“Yeah, that made it worse,” he said with a chuckle. “Instructor Daniels was not happy about hearing it second-hand.”

I groaned. “Who are they?”

“The lanky one in the black and blue pinstripe is Baron Tiscar,” the knight said, quieter than before. “He’s part owner here along with brown tweed, Baron Olivihier, while Baron Hasting is the madam in the orange dress. The rest, I’m unsure, respective partners and children most likely.”

“Ah,” I said, already thinking of Trissa Hasting and trying to find the resemblance. Now that I thought of it she might have looked like a taller and thinner Pilim. She must have felt me studying her as I had to look away as she glanced over at me.

I had expected the owners to look grotesque, or at least unattractive, so as to match the depravity of their establishment, but they looked quite normal and even jovial as they talked with the duke.

One of the boys, who might have been just older than me, broke off from his conversation with Alonso to head towards me from across the room. He drew his hand through his dark hair that flopped over his ears and adjusted the silver and red gemmed pendant around his neck.

“Can you throw him off the balcony if he tries to talk to me?” I whispered.

The knight turned his snort into a cough and abandoned me to my fate in favour of standing guard at the door.

The boy was all smiles as he held out his fist to me. “Amir Tiscar, it’s a pleasure to meet someone as lovely as yourself.”

“Valeria,” I said, returning the greeting. “Nice to meet you.”

“Which of my father’s events are you most looking forward to? He still agonising over the selection he made.”

“Ahh, none. It’s my first time here, and I don’t know any.”

That seemed to make his smile falter for a moment, but he brought it back and held up a finger for me to wait a moment while he grabbed a sheet with a list of names and times. “The first few are simply warm-ups, openers for the main event if you will…”

He interspersed questions about me between his explanations of the different events: my family name, where I was from, why I was staying in the palace, and my relation to the duke.

Most were easy to answer while avoiding obvious pitfalls like my mother being a witch, but I still felt like I was saying too much. But I didn’t want to ignore him and be rude to one of the baron’s sons while on the duke’s invitation.

I wished I’d known about at least one of the events so I could have lied instead of listening to a detailed explanation of the horrors I’d have to sit through. Some of them sounded perfectly fine, two people without mana trying to knock each other out? All good. Starved predators chasing around prey and seeing if they got away? Sickening.

The list culminated in a main event written in bold writing at the bottom.

The famed Eviscerator (An Elvish cat-sìth) facing off against Galloping Strides, a mercenary troupe fresh from the front lines of the capital.

I thought the conversation would end when we sat, but my salvation never came. When a loud voice boomed from outside to announce the start of the event, I ended up sitting near the edge of our balcony so that Amir could sit next to me on his side.

Annalise did at least sit next to me and snatch away the wine he tried to hand me, replacing it with a glass that tasted more like fruit that only burned slightly in the back of my throat.

Stretched out below us was an oval area of grass outlined by a thick ring of sand with marked lanes that people and animals would be running around later on. It was all sunk into the ground to create a barrier between the events and the remaining audience, who sat on tiered sets of wooden steps that surrounded the arena.

The whole thing was located in a larger-than-normal alleyway, so people could sit around and watch the proceedings from the windows of the surrounding buildings.

Baron Tiscar complained about the revenue loss and the chancery decision that made him remove the previous blockage they’d built to stop them. He and the duke debated the decision, which a few other balcony occupants chimed in on.

We were positioned along the length of the oval arena, up on the third floor out of five. There were balconies above us and one below us from which I could hear the announcers' natural voice come from before it was amplified by an enchantment the mage was holding.

“Please find your seats. Please find your seats. The first events shall begin shortly, and betting pools shall open once participants have completed their walkout.”

Everything was split between typical and non-typical events, the latter including mana and spells. Because of the events added for the duke’s attendance, some of them would be happening simultaneously. Lights were already on to chase away the late afternoon shadows, and I didn’t think everyone would want to stay til midnight.

I leaned forward to watch a procession exit an iron door leading up to the arena from the basement, where they kept all the animals. I wanted to study the entrance, except it was directly below me, and there was only so far I could lean without tipping over the edge.

Handlers escorted knee-high jackalopes that hopped across the ground beside them. Each had unique patterns of black and brown splotches on their grey fur that were covered by a small vest denoting a number.

“You should go for number Eight or Two,” Amir said, pointing at a betting sheet. “The 3:2 payout isn’t great, but trust me, it’s a sure thing both will be in the top 3.”

Each of the animals seemed well taken care of and were not the ones I’d sensed previously. The worst I felt from them was mild hunger and some panic from the ones not used to experiencing the deafening noise and the overwhelming number of people.

From the way most liked their handlers, I assumed they were brought in specifically for the race and were not kept here with the ones in the basement. I found number 8, which had a piece of silver glinting in the light in place of a section of their antlers.

I noted that they didn’t like putting weight on their left hind leg because of an injury that hadn’t been set properly when healed.

“Ah, ha,” I said, looking at each of the other animals. I had not known to bring any money with me, but I still inspected each and found an eager but relaxed one. They had no stomach issues, no major distractions, little faffing over their uncomfortable vest, and were not hungry. “I like Fourteen.”

Amir trailed a finger down the list until he reached 14. “He’s unranked. The 8:1 odds aren’t worth it for an untested participant. See how the front runners all have names like Silver Streak and Grey Blur next to their number, and 14 doesn’t. You’re better off going for one of the middlings if you want to gamble for a payout.”

A crew in overalls came out of a different door, dragging thick ropes along and moving them into circles on the grassy area. The typical fighters sharing the timeslot with the jackalope races were walking out behind them, some waving to the crowd's cheers. They had coloured cloth tied around their wrists for the betting pools.

I could hear the crowd shouting out colours and numbers, swarming people with notepads and lockboxes that coins were being tossed into.

“Madams, sirs, may I take your bets?” the same lady that escorted us here asked from behind.

The Duke started off with a 1,000 roe split between Green winning overall and 8 coming in the top three. The Barrons went next, with the owners going for an equal amount on different colours to the duke, but still number 8. Hastings changed it up slightly by going for a combined bet of green and 2 winning to double or nothing the payout.

“Ah ha, Vince, looks like our fighters are in the first bout together. How about a separate wager?” Baron Tiscar asked.

“I know better than to wager with the house, but I do so for fun. I’d be a fool to wager with the house’s owner.”

He didn’t sound off-put by the decline as he chuckled in response. “A pity.”

The lady took down each person’s bet, with only Janette sitting out. Even a young girl being held in her mother's arms pointed out the prettiest jackalope to bet on.

“And you ma’am?” she asked me.

“Oh, no thanks. I didn’t bring any roe with me.”

“Nonsense, Valeria. Go for it; we have a tab here for that.”

“Okay, umm, one thousand on Fourteen winning,” I said to a roar of laughter.

“Oh, dear,” Baron Olivihier said. “Girl, I don’t know what nonsense Amir has told you, but the odds work the opposite from the way you think they do, big number equals less likely to win.”

My cheeks heated, and I thought I saw the lady smirk as Annalise leaned over to me.” That’s around five gold. It’s okay if you want to change it.”

I shook my head, but my confidence in picking 14 was wavering by the second. I’d feel too embarrassed to change it now and basically admit I was too stupid to understand the odds explained to me.

Based on how their jackalope picks were feeling, I wouldn't have wanted to go with the most popular choices, so I stuck with my number 14 and didn’t bother trying to predict a winner in the fight.

“Five hundred on Fourteen for myself,” Janette said and smiled warmly at me, shoring up my resolve to keep my bet.