"So you're meeting him, then?" Celeste asked, once Yvain finished recounting his encounter with Seskel. She stood by the door, arms crossed, her expression a careful balance between concern and calculation.
Yvain gave a short nod, eyes fixed on the horizon beyond the balcony. "Doesn't feel like I have much of a choice," he said. "If he knows why Ser Hardron is really in Adwini, I need to hear it from him."
Celeste stepped closer, her voice quiet but firm. "You might have to kill him."
"I'm not above violence," Yvain replied, resting his forearms on the balcony rail. Below them, the mist was slowly dissolving as the first golden light of morning reached over the distant hills. The sea, far off, caught fire in the dawn.
She moved beside him, close enough to share the view, close enough for her words to reach him without rising above a murmur. "Yes. But you do take your lovely time getting there."
Yvain smirked faintly, a breath of amusement escaping him. She wasn't wrong. Where others rushed to blood, he hesitated. He preferred his violence focused, purposeful. Not the raw, reckless fury his cousin was famous for.
"Ask Minerva what she knows about this Choir," he said after a pause. "I'll speak to Darien about the baron's banquet."
"Or," Celeste said, cutting through Yvain's train of thought, "we could ask them together." She nodded toward the two figures who had just emerged from the tower's base.
Minerva walked in her usual quiet, self-contained manner, her expression blank but poised. Beside her, Darien chattered on, full of nervous energy, hands gesturing animatedly as he followed just a step behind.
"He's a dutiful one," Yvain noted dryly, eyes narrowing slightly at the sight.
Celeste gave a snort. "He's a lost puppy. Clings like one too."
"Afraid he'll steal your pet?" Yvain teased, as they began descending the stone steps.
Celeste laughed. A bright, mocking sound. "Please. He wouldn't know what to do with her."
The wind picked up as they descended, tugging at their cloaks, carrying the scent of salt and pine. When they reached the cliffs, Minerva and Darien were seated side by side on the low stone wall that overlooked the sea.
Darien's expression tightened the moment he noticed them approaching. Just a flicker, a twitch of the mouth, a furrow of the brow, but it vanished quickly beneath a practiced, courteous smile. "Morning, Yvain. Celeste."
Yvain nodded, his attention already shifting to Minerva.
She looked… slow to respond. Not merely tired, not merely recovering from the rites. There was something else, a delay behind her eyes, like she was wading through water to reach her own thoughts. Her hands rested neatly in her lap, unmoving, and when she looked up at them, her smile didn't quite reach her gaze.
He got the inkling that he seen this before, in deep bindings, in puppet-souls stitched to a master's will. This was enchantment, subtle and insidious. The mind turned inward, reshaped not with pain but with need. A thrall made to serve, to obey, to adore.
His gaze flicked to Celeste. Only she could do this.
Well… Brother Lome could, in theory. But the cautious monk wouldn't dare tamper with Minerva's mind, not to Master Palladius apprentice. Not unless he was ready to answer for it in blood.
No. This had Celeste's fingerprints all over it.
He tried to summon pity. He truly did. But it slipped through his fingers like sand. If he'd cared, if he'd really, deeply cared, he would have stopped Minerva that night at the inn, when she insisted on joining them. Sent her off to another table.
"You okay?" Celeste asked, voice soft.
And as though summoned by those words, Minerva seemed to come back to life. Her smile brightened, her eyes suddenly alight, warm and wide. She turned toward Celeste like a sunflower to sunlight.
"I am," she said, beaming. It was the kind of smile worn by lovers at reunions, or saints in visions.
He turned his gaze to his cousin, a pretty thing cloaked in malice. Celeste stood with that easy, self-assured grace of hers, the morning sun casting gold along her bone white hair, her smile radiant and hollow. She was beautiful in the way venom could be, gilded, precise, and slow-acting.
Perhaps the world would fare better if he killed her, Yvain thought, the notion arriving without heat or hatred, just a cold, clean line of reasoning. But even if he did, it would change little. They'd be left with him instead, not a monster, perhaps, but something worse, a tyrant who knew better. One who might flinch at cruelty but would still inflict it when necessary, which it always was.
A reluctant tyrant was still a tyrant.
Would it matter to the people, to the powerless, whether their oppressor wept for them behind palace walls? Whether he offered his sympathies while tightening the yoke? He doubted it. Suffering was suffering, and remorse could not make it noble.
"Do you need anything?" Darien asked, breaking the silence. His tone was polite, almost deferential.
"Yes, sweet Darien," Celeste purred, her voice playful and mildly condescending. "We've been brushing up on notable sorcerers of the current age. The Silent Choir, for instance. Have you heard of them?"
Darien frowned, puzzled. "Can't say I have."
"I have," Minerva said softly, her voice distant but functional. "They're mentioned sometimes in the king's court at Kvale, usually with dread. Brigands, mostly. Pillaging, raiding, vanishing into mist before authorities can catch them. Wanted across all of Malkuth. My master says they're extremely dangerous mages. Not the sort you want to test your luck with."
Yvain absorbed that in silence. So Seskel had been generous with his introduction, too generous. The Choir wasn't some arcane society of thinkers, they were more akin to a roaming warband of high sorcerers.
"Anything else we should know?" Yvain asked, eyes still on Minerva.
She tilted her head, brows furrowing in thought. "Not really... oh." Her expression sharpened as a memory surfaced. "I think one of them was killed in Nux a few months ago. Caused quite a stir. The city closed its gates for a week afterward. My master was ecstatic, claimed the Council should've retaliated long ago."
That explains the empty seat, Yvain thought. Now offered to him.
"There's some buzz about a banquet in the city tomorrow night," Yvain mentioned, his tone casual, though his eyes stayed sharp, watching their reactions.
"The Baron's," Darien said with a hint of disdain. "He throws one every year—gathers up charlatans, hedge witches, and would-be mages to amuse his noble guests with cheap tricks and alchemical parlor games. My master always receives an invitation, but he never bothers to attend. You're not actually thinking of going, are you?"
"Maybe we should," Celeste said lightly. "Minerva's last outing was rather spectacularly ruined by Ser Hardron."
"It was the demon that ruined it," Darien interjected, almost reflexively. Then his expression softened as he glanced toward Minerva, who stood just apart from the conversation, her eyes wandering the horizon. "Would that help? Going to the banquet—would it make you feel better?"
Minerva didn't answer right away. Her brow furrowed slightly, and she turned just enough to glance at Celeste. The silent exchange lasted only a breath before Celeste gave a small nod, imperceptible to anyone not looking for it.
"I think it would," Minerva said finally, her voice quiet but sure.
Yvain noted the way her tone brightened, when she got that approving smile, like a dog being played with after a good catch.
Darien gave a small sigh of reluctant surrender. "Well… I'll see that Master agrees. He won't like it, but he trusts me to manage the minor affairs."
"Excellent," Celeste said.
Yvain said nothing, but in his mind, pieces moved into place. The banquet might be frivolous, but it was still a gathering of power and rumor. If Seskel and the Ser Hardron were indeed playing a deeper game in Adwini, then the Baron's banquet might be the next board they moved upon.