Two hundred and fifty-four people had descended on the Venn gala hall. Palatines of significance and Palatines of none. A scattering of patricians and plutocrats. And at the margins, the rare plebian deemed worthy enough to breathe the same air.
I watched from the upper balcony, observing, making sure I didn't fuck anything up before I even started.
My eyes finally settled on one person bearing the crest of Orestia. An Eagle.
Blonde hair, blue eyes, broad shoulders. A jaw that could have been carved from marble. He stood like a man who'd never doubted himself a day in his life.
The very man who would kill me—and half the Palatines in this room. I should have felt fear. Mostly, I just felt annoyed.
He was a regressor. His family had been slaughtered by Palatines in his previous life, and he'd come back for revenge—blinded by rage, killing many who deserved it. And many who didn't.
The worst part? He loved to monologue about protecting the innocent. Then he'd butcher a man's entire family because the man's grandfather wronged him in another life. Fucking lunatic.
Still, killing him wasn't an option. He was a genius with two lives' worth of knowledge and skills that bordered on broken. And yes, maybe I had two lifetimes now too—but mine came with a wine gut and secondhand memories of skimmed chapters.
Besides, the world needed him. Midway through the novel, a gate disaster nearly ended everything. He was the only one who stopped it. Kill him now, everyone dies later.
I took a deep breath, slicked my hair back, and walked downstairs to the gala hall.
Among the sea of bodies and the roar of conversation I walked to the closest cocktail table and made it my home.
I felt oddly naked in the middle of this room. I'd had perhaps twenty minutes to study the people here; they'd had years to judge me. Gazes slid past. Some held. A few stares that felt like tests. I wasn't sure if I was passing.
I reached for a glass from a passing tray—mostly to look like I belonged. The champagne was too sweet. I drank it anyway.
"You're not enjoying yourself."
I turned. A woman stood at my elbow, holding her own glass like she'd forgotten it was there. She studied me the way Marcus sometimes did—like I was a sentence she hadn't finished parsing.
"Is it that obvious?" I asked.
"You've been staring at Cassius Orestia for five minutes." She took a sip. "Either you want to kill him or fuck him. Possibly both."
"Neither. I'm trying to avoid him," I replied honestly, and took a moment to actually look at her.
She was almost my height, which meant tall for a woman here. Auburn hair pinned up in a style that looked effortless but probably took an hour. A face that couldn't decide if it wanted to be pretty or striking, so it settled on both.
Then I saw the crest on her brooch. A serpent eating its own tail.
House Mirith.
Something clicked. A chapter I'd skimmed. A comment I'd written.
I opened my mouth to say something—I'm not sure what—when a voice cut through the murmur of the gala like a blade through silk.
"Aldric Venn!"
The conversations around us stuttered and died. I turned.
A young man was pushing through the crowd. Patrician, by his dress—wealthy enough to attend, not important enough to matter. His face was flushed with wine and something uglier.
"My honor has been pissed upon." He threw the wine glass. It shattered somewhere to my left, and a woman gasped. "And I demand satisfaction!"
I had absolutely no idea what the hell he was talking about.
I spotted my father near the far wall. He stood motionless, wine in hand, watching. His expression revealed nothing.
He's not going to stop this.
Of course he wasn't. Refusing a formal challenge would shame House Venn. Whatever Aldric had done, I was going to have to answer for it.
"You want a duel," I said. My voice came out steadier than I felt.
"I want your blood." Caelin drew a blade from somewhere—a ceremonial sword, the kind nobles wore to parties precisely so they could do this. "Unless you're the coward everyone says you've become."
The old Aldric would have drawn steel immediately. I knew that much. Pride before sense. Honor before survival.
But I wasn't Aldric.
"Look at you." I let my gaze drift down his body, then back up—slow, dismissive. "Sweat on your brow. Wine on your breath. Shaking like a leaf in front of half the Palatine houses." I made a show of examining my nails. "And you want me to cross blades with this?"
Caelin's face went scarlet. "You—"
"I've dueled senators' sons." I had no idea if that was true, but it sounded like something Aldric would say. "I've drawn blood from men whose names you whisper when you pray." I dropped my hand and met his eyes. "You think I'm going to add 'the drunk Caelin boy at a dinner party' to that list? What would people say?"
A few laughs from the crowd. Scattered, but enough. The nobility loved watching someone get dismantled without a blade being drawn.
Caelin's sword arm trembled. He wanted to gut me. I could see it—the desperate need to make someone pay for whatever Aldric had done.
"You're a coward," he managed.
"I'm bored." I waved a hand like I was brushing away a fly. "Two week. The Academy training grounds. Come sober, come prepared, and come with a second who can carry you home." I let a cold smile touch my lips. "I'll try to leave enough of you for your family to recognize."
His face went from scarlet to purple.
Too far. Definitely too far.
But he sheathed his sword with a jerky, violent motion.
"Two week," he said. "And I'll take more than first blood, Venn. I'll take your fucking hand."
He turned and shoved through the crowd. A woman stumbled out of his way. Someone called after him—a friend, maybe, or a handler—but he was already gone.
The tension didn't break so much as redistribute. Conversations resumed in hushed tones. The orchestra started up again, tentative, like they weren't sure if more violence was coming.
I stood in the middle of the floor, heart hammering, and tried to look like I'd planned all of that.
Two weeks.
Fourteen days to learn how to fight. Fourteen days to master techniques I'd only read about in comments I wrote while half-asleep. Fourteen days before a trained patrician tries to remove my limbs in front of an audience.
Unavoidably I had become the center of attention. The very thing I wanted to avoid.
The crowd shifted around me like water parting for a stone. Some approached—sycophants smelling opportunity, or vultures circling what they assumed was a corpse that hadn't stopped walking yet. I deflected them with half-smiles and vague pleasantries, the social equivalent of treading water.
The Mirith woman had vanished. I scanned for auburn hair, for that serpent crest, but she'd dissolved into the crowd as if she'd never been there at all.
Convenient timing.
The rest of the night blurred into a parade of handshakes and hollow smiles. I traded pleasantries with Palatines, careful to say nothing that could be remembered, and nodded along while plutocrats complained about the senate elections and what they'd do to the markets. By the time the orchestra played its final piece, my face ached from performing.
Back in my chambers. I sat on the table in front of the tall window and opened a journal. Writing down major points of events that I could remember the closest being the academy gate disaster in few months. If I survived Caelin first.
Sleep came somewhere past three. It didn't last. At dawn a knock at my door, a servant's murmur, and the words that chased away any hope of rest: my father wanted to see me.