The old man spoke to me and my eyes were drawn away from the triptych and to this man, both family and foe, who sat before me much as he had so many years ago.

His girth and his stern face made him seem like an immoveable mountain. His elbows, resting on the table in front of him, were a wall between us. Even though my memories from when I was 2 were hazy, I did not forget the way he spurned my parents when we first came to this room, or how he commanded his heir and daughter-in-law's fear just moments before, when I was waiting outside this room.

"Duke Feles," I said with a bow, "This one is Tilvrade of Olwick, here at your summons." I was careful to follow my father's admonitions from yesterday.

The duke's face remained impassive, but his steepled hands started tapping, perhaps reflecting a thought that was set in motion.

"I see you have changed your name." He said, small eyes watching me like a hawk from a bald head, "But I preferred your greeting the other night."

I tried to hide my flinch. Did I obey father? Or should I try to appease this man?

"Ahem," I cleared my throat but grandfather's eyes narrowed and he waited. If I was in for a penny, then I was in for a pound.

"Grandfather," I added, "I am Tilvrade Feles, son of Sivis Feles."

"Hmph," he said, this time with a small but cynical smile, "you just had to add your father in there, didn't you."

"With all respect, your grace," I said, switching to the duke's honorific, "I am not ashamed of my father or my mother."

I had just disobeyed my father to use the Feles name, but it was also father who told me to do as the duke wanted. That didn't mean I would betray my real family though. I carried this man's name but I felt no kinship with him. If he summoned me here for something, than I had to first make it clear that I felt no shame in my mother or father and that I would fight for them if I had to.

"Well, Tilvrade Feles, son of Sivis Feles," he said, only hissing on one Feles, "tell me, how did you catch Grairin's eye?"

My hand twitched. Who was Grairin? Right, that was the Elafoz's name. No one ever referred to the crown prince as anything except the Elafoz, but that wasn't his actual name, just a title bestowed to Farand's 1st in line to the throne by the elves long ago.

"Your grace, it was a coincidence. His excellency, the envoy from Klistoss was speaking to me when his highness came to meet him."

Grandfather's eyebrows rose.

"Ah, yes. Sershik was there as well."

"Is... is that why I'm here?" I asked hesitantly. I hoped grandfather wouldn't start raging at me just for asking a question out of turn, but I wanted to know.

"Audacity." He said, and I felt a shiver, wondering if I'd be walking out of the room with the same beaten expression as the angry man from before. "That is why you are here, not Grairin," he said, leaving me confused.

"Uh, pardon?"

Instead of answering right away, grandfather stood up from his chair, taking a moment to lift himself up. He turned around and held up the curtain that was only loosely tied to the side of the window to have a better look outside.

"Alright, I will humour you. Let's see if you can impress me, Tilvrade." He addressed me but seemed to be talking to himself. "I want you to tell me why I summoned you and your father that evening, just before you left."

I was left reeling as he reworded my own question back at me. Why did he summon me?

No, not why did he summon me here. There was something about being summoned before we left, in front of the doors, the crowds.

"Grairin said he met an interesting boy, yes," the duke continued speaking towards the window, "I wouldn't have summoned you if not for that. But it is not the reason why I summoned you either."

I mulled over the hint and started to speak slowly.

"We were in the middle of a crowd of the celebrations," I started with the obvious. "It wasn't that you summoned us because of his highness," I then repeated his hint, "you summoned us because of the place."

I thought of Miladona, who seemed so haughty in the palace hall and yet so discouraged when she left this room before I entered. "You were reminding everyone that you could restore father at any time." Maybe that was just my wishful thinking speaking, but I hoped it was true. "You were reminding Lord Stegan he couldn't ignore us or you."

"Your Uncle Stegan as well as those other opportunists need to be reminded sometimes that I still hold the power to determine the succession." Grandfather confirmed.

It was the exact reason father did not want this man's attentions. Dastan and Stegan were already dangerous enough without grandfather stirring the hive.

"To be a duke, there is no room to be complacent," grandfather explained. "My heirs are too confident and slothful."

There was something still missing though.

"But if you just called us as a message to Lord Stegan, then why-"

"Audacity, Tilvrade," he interrupted me with that word again. "That is the reason you are here again today. Don't make me repeat myself."

He wasn't scolding me for being audacious, but praising me.

"Then you might really make my father or I the next duke."

If he wanted audacity, then I could do that. I felt butterflies in my stomach as I said it though.

"Huff." He sniffed in the closest thing to laughter I had seen from him, "My brother quibbles while of my sons, one grovels and the other runs away, and my daughter..." He just shook his head and then looked at me. "And then there's you, fearless and bold."

He spoke in praise but his eyes narrowed into a glare. "Don't get ahead of yourself, boy. You won't be the next duke. You just happen to have that spark I was looking for, lost in the rest of this rotten family."

I lowered my head. It takes one to know one. If there was rot in this family, then I was certain this man was the blackest of it.

I felt my head clear a bit as he denied any chance of being the next duke to me or father. I also wondered what the hell I was doing, asking if he wanted me to be duke.

Father wasn't hearing all this right? I heard grandfather from outside the study when he was shouting earlier, but his voice wasn't particularly raised now.

I don't need to be a duke. In fact, if I tried, I'd probably be killed before I ever got there. I just need to make sure Olwick is safe, that my parents, Ivian, me and my brother are safe too. The fewer power hungry relatives that knew about and talked about us, the better.

"Still, I admit you have some perception," grandfather spoke, reversing the conversation as he sat down again. "I did indeed call you two nights ago for my own purposes, but I summoned you again here to see who you are. Tell me, is there anything you want?"

He was offering me a reward for my answer to his riddle? What should I ask for? Or what could I ask for, rather?

It was an opportunity: I could ask for gold, or for an assurance I would inherit Olwick from father, something that, for a lord, was never a certainty. But I felt that would disappoint this man. Should I ask for more than just Olwick, to demonstrate my ability to manage a territory, or perhaps impress him by investing his money for a return. It might work, but then what?

He said he summoned me here again to see who I was. In that case, should I just be honest and ask for protection for my family. Maybe ask for him to invest in the orphanage near South Gate, both to help the children there and to produce a future return.

It was a field of mines around me. There was a right and a wrong answer to this simple question.

He waited patiently for me to decide, his eyes never leaving me. Perhaps he could read my thoughts as he stared at my head.

Magic, an idea echoed through my head from the hunger of Sam.

"A mesmer," I blurted out, startled by the sudden thought, but inspired. "I want someone who can teach me magic."

"Hooh," Grandfather exhaled and nodded.

"A mesmer." He repeated, savouring the word. "You manage to say such ridiculous things but stay just within the boundaries of my patience..."

I didn't know much about the mesmers, except that they were the mages of the capital, the ones that mattered. No one talked about them, as if they were some kind of taboo, and I couldn't find mention of them in the books I read. Only one, a romance novel lent to me by Dilthimay, with mesmers disappearing through shadows and summoning demons to play pranks on innocent souls.

"A mesmer is not someone that even I can just hand off as a reward. Sons of lords like you grovel to be taken on as an apprentice on their terms, let alone have one sent to teach them."

"It's not-"

"Ah," he raised his index finger and interrupted me before I could speak. It seemed like he was always pulling the conversation along at his own pace. I had wanted to say he could just to introduce me. Give me a chance to ask a few simple questions.

"I will not send you a mesmer," He said, making me wonder if I wasted my chance, but then he told me the door was not closed, "Not without some assurance that it would be worthwhile. If you are so eager to learn, then prove it to me."

I struggled to come up with something that could prove that I was diligent at studying. Maybe listing off the various territories and nobility of Farand, or some of the histories of the kingdom.

Dididididing

Grandfather picked up a small bell from his desk, which he rang, the tones of metal striking metal filling the wood panelled study.

The door opened and the moustached butler, Lyum Barker came into the room.

He looked older, but I had a sense of deja vu as I remembered him entering the room the same way years ago when grandfather had summoned him to lead us to the Edbrian rooms.

It was dark then, and I was half asleep in mother's arms, so tired from being in the carriage all week.

"You called, my lord?"

"Lyum, bring Alust here." grandfather told him.

"Right away, my lord." The door slipped shut again.

"A year hence, or there abouts, I shall see you at the duchy's tournament. I expect you to perform adequately, and also to hear Alust's praise."

The duchy's tournament was a competition held by the duchy's knights. Father had wanted to enter me into the first one he could, but the last one was 4 years ago, the same time we moved into the new manor in Seventhill and I just turned 3.

"Father trains me in the sword..." I complained. I didn't need some other strong arm getting in the way of my time with father and Saul in the mornings.

"Do you think I look like someone who trains with the sword?" The duke asked and I shook my head, trying not to look at his fat frame. "Exactly, I do not and I did not. I thought it was a vain pursuit of fools who would only ever be pawns for the real dukes and kings. But it's because I am not a swordsman that I understand. The sword is important."

From any other fat old man, I might have rolled my eyes, but this was the duke himself.

"The sword is a mark of a lord, of any station. You don't need to become a swordsman of talent and renown to become powerful, but if you can't even match a lowly lord, then we shall have no need to talk further."

I looked down and bit my lip.

A lord wasn't lowly. Father was well respected by his knight and the villagers of Olwick. The lords were each a military power and a representative, but grandfather seemed to dismiss them all as if they were nobodies.

"Don't underestimate the world, boy. There are any number of merchants, artisans, knights and even courtesans who are wealthier, more celebrated or better educated than lords of fiefs. If you are to be a Feles of Efeles, then you must deserve the name."

I felt a stirring within me of respect for his views on status. It was foreign though, a feeling of Sam's. Being a lord or a noble was not a reason for pride.

I tried to resist the idea that a lord, that my family, was even less mention worthy than wealthy or influential commoners, but it was hard to resist both Sam and grandfather's values of merit over lineage when the people I respected least were some of those very nobles, and the ones I cared for were the villagers in Olwick.

It didn't take much time until the door opened again, and the butler brought in another man.

"Alust, you are here. Good." Grandfather said. "My grandson has an eagerness to learn. You will teach him for the next year, everything you think he is ready to learn. I will be expecting Tilvrade's best conduct and diligence, which you shall confirm for me."

"Your grace," the buff man said it in a blustering manner, taken aback obviously by the unexpected command.

"Lyum, lead them out, will you?"

Grandfather gave him no time, however, to balk or complain.

"Of course."

"Tilvrade," grandfather called one last time just before I left the room, "Competence is not about who you are, but about what you can do. Do not disappoint me."