Eleanor led her daughter to a small smoking room, whose door she locked, and took a seat. Edana followed suit. “Overnight, the stakes of the Winter Tournament have risen dramatically. At first, it was all about house standing, but Robert and Ayax’s confrontation has riled up the war refugees and middle-class citizens.”

The White Order Mage shut her eyes and pinched her nose. “Sorry, how did this happen? It’s been less than a day.”

“Part of it is my speculation, but word travels fast.” Eleanor smirked. “Also, you know how good your Aunt Emelia’s information network is.”

“I must concede it’s better than the White Order’s network in some respects,” Edana admitted, mirroring her mother’s expression. “So what’s changed.”

“Since the war began, Erlenberg has been taking in war refugees, but not all war refugees are the same. Many human and Alavari families have relatives in both kingdoms and are taking in relatives. Some are adopting war orphans. Others are refugees seeking asylum from the kingdoms and Alavaria, though, most from Alavaria.”

Edana frowned. “Hold on, that’s odd. I thought that there would be more refugees from the human kingdoms. We’re the ones whose territory has been penetrated. Notwithstanding the raid on Ayax’s village, the Alavari have managed to force us largely on the defensive.”

“You’re still fighting over the same border territories however. And from what we’ve managed to glean, King Thorgoth’s war is not entirely popular amongst his own people. He’s bent the will of his different lords and clans and that has made them put pressure on their subjects.” Eleanor crossed her arms. “The point is, Erlenberg has a rather large population of war refugees who are both non-citizens and citizens due to adoption or marriage. So what do you think happens when Robert Windstorm and Jeffrey Seaskimmer provoke Ayax, a Windwhistler war refugee to assault them by insulting her parents.”

“Not… great things, but are you sure this is what is happening—” Edana paused as her mother pulled out a morning newspaper from the table beside her and handed it to her. Erisdale didn’t have these papers, but Frances had told her about these items. Stories printed on papers that would allow people to be informed on the goings on of the world. The newspaper Eleanor gave Edana didn’t look like the newspapers from Frances’s world, it was only a few sheets thick, but Edana took it and could see the headline.

“Windstorms and Seaskimmers Insult War Refugee and are Rebuked?” Edana accepted another newspaper from her mother. “Windwhistler Refugee Assaults Windstorm… Windstorms and Seaskimmers Bully War Refugee?”

Eleanor nodded. “So to remind you, Erlenberg’s nightlife never stops, especially during winter. Most people were talking about it last night and are now talking about what happened this morning. So overnight, the printing presses went into overdrive and now Ayax and Frances are celebrities.”

“Are you pulling my leg?” Edana asked.

Eleanor shook her head. “I wish. Now this all ties into the upcoming military bill that I was discussing with Oscar. It’s to drastically increase the size of Erlenberg’s standing army and provide more funds for fortifications and equipment. We, the Windwhistlers, the Voidsailors, war refugees and other middle class families tend to support this, but the Windstorms and Sea Skimmers and other merchants don’t. To put it bluntly, it would cut into their profits and they don’t want to compensate.”

“So why not talk to them about it, offer aid if necessary?” Edana suggested.

The Windwhistler matriarch snarled, “You did see how they treated your daughter and Ayax, did you?”

Edana thought for a moment and sighed. “That’s true.” She pinched the bridge of her nose again. “So, why does this mean the Winter Tournament has increased stakes?”

“It’s about posturing and influence. The vote on the military bill is just after the Winter Tournament. If the Windwhistlers win, we look stronger, and then the undecided representatives on the City Council will vote with us and the Voidsailors. If the Seaskimmers or Windstorms win, then the opposite occurs,” Eleanor explained.

“If the Voildsailors win?” Edana inquired.

“Thankfully still favorable to us. That being said, I don’t want Ayax or Frances to lose.”

“Of course.” Edana pursed her lips. “So what is this favor you want me to do?”

Eleanor got up and retrieved from a pocket, a small scroll. “I need you to show this to the War Council. It’s the current strength of the Erlenberg military with notes.”

Edana stood up, backing away from her mother. “Mom… how did you get that?”

Eleanor smirked. “I’m a Council Member. I have access to this information.”

“But you’re not allowed to copy or show it to anybody, much less give it to a foreign agent.” Edana swallowed. Her voice had risen to an unseemly pitch as she watched her mother, waiting, hoping for her expression to change.

Except, Eleanor’s expression didn’t change. Her smirk was without humor, completely serious.

“As much as I trust Frances and Ayax, I’m not risking the fate of my home on a fucking tournament, Edana. I hope you understand that.”

Taking a deep breath, Edana exhaled, and reached forward to accept the scroll. “Just this once, and only because the War Council does need to know about this.” She paused. “You do realize this is treason, though?”

Eleanor nodded. “Oh I do. But they have no way to trace it back to me. Still, thank you, dear.” She dropped the scroll in Edana’s hand and she pocketed it safely. “Now, I think we are both in need of breakfast.”

Edana nodded. She felt like a hot tea would hit the spot to steady her stomach.

---

Frances and Ayax took the news that they were in the morning papers… differently.

Frances seemed concerned at first, but upon realizing that there were no cameras in this world, and nobody had an idea of how she looked, shrugged and went back to eating. Ayax however, well she was muttering with her face buried in her hands.

“Galena swallow me up whole and—”

“Ayax, they don’t actually know how you look,” Frances said, after swallowing her bacon of course.

“They will. The tournament preliminaries are in less than a week! A WEEK!”

Frances blinked. “Oh, yeah, that is a bit concerning. There’s nothing we can do, though.” She took another bite of the bacon. It was best enjoyed hot after all.

Ayax looked up at her cousin. “How are you so calm?”

“Because getting worried won’t help,” Frances said in a questioning tone, one eyebrow drifting upward.

The troll stared at Frances and silently nodded. “Is that a… war mage thing?”

“It’s more of a life lesson,” Frances said. She finished her bacon and started on a pasty. “Mom mentioned to me last night she had a surprise for you after breakfast. I wonder what it is.”

“Probably it’s related to the staff she said she was going to make.” Ayax paused. “I do have dad’s old staff but it’s… not really suited for me.”

“Well then, let’s see what it is,” said Frances.

---

Edana’s staff for Ayax was essentially a steel and wood bo-staff. As the troll twirled the staff experimentally, though, she realized that it had a few tricks in it.

“Is that a diamond in the centre?” Ayax asked.

“Yes. It’s meant to help you focus extra magic around the staff.” Edana gestured to the diamond. “Press the diamond.”

Ayax pressed the diamond. There was a ‘click’ and the two metal ends of the staff extended, lengthening the weapon by more than three feet. “Woah. That’ll be a nasty surprise.”

“Don’t use it for the preliminaries, though. You’ll probably want to keep that for Robert, Jeffrey or Ophelia,” said Eleanor. She crossed her arms. “Speaking of, you do know the plan for those rounds, right?”

“Take our opponents out quickly, and don’t use too many spells,” Frances recited.

“We just need to win enough duels to reach the round of sixteen,” Ayax recalled.

Frances nodded, but then, a thought occurred to her that furrowed her brow.

“Grandmother, mom, what happens if we encounter Ophelia, Robert, or Jeffrey?”

The adults exchanged a glance. Edana spoke up first. “Since you can afford to lose exactly one matche in the preliminaries. You can go easy on them, try to draw out their more complex spells.”

“They might be doing the same, though,” said Eleanor. The older woman frowned. “I think they should do what they feel is best, and prioritize winning.”

“Hmm, not a bad idea,” said Edana. She smiled at the two girls. “And no matter what happens, we’re proud of you both.”

Eleanor hesitated, but a glare from Edana forced a nod from her. “Yes. I do… want you to win, but don’t blame yourself if you lose.”

Ayax and Frances exchanged a glance and bobbed their heads.

Erlenberg’s Winter Tournament was held in a stadium located almost to the city centre, south of the Grand Canal. Frances had previously just heard it called “The Memorial Stadium” and expected something like the Roman Colosseum.

What she saw was something far more intriguing. The stadium was a huge stone building made of perfectly interlocking stones fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle. The roof was of tile and wood, similar to those of Erlenberg, but the stonework was nothing like she’d ever seen in Durannon. Corridors lit by braziers led into the structure, going up and down at will. As Frances emerged into the grounds, she started.

She stood amidst a massive grassy field. This rectangular field larger than the size of a football field, was surrounded by a curtain wall that held up row upon row of stone terraces holding wooden seats. She saw now that the field itself was exposed to the elements, but the seats were covered. It was an engineering marvel like none she’d seen before.

“Awe inspiring isn’t it? The Memorial Stadium, or should I say, the Tawantinsuyu Memorial Stadium. It was actually designed four hundred years ago after the 3rd Great Hero War by an Otherworlder called Pacha who decided to stay in Erlenberg where he also founded House Pacha, one of the Five,” Eleanor explained to a gawking Frances.

Frances nodded, soaking in the information, when suddenly her mind made a connection.

“Tawantinsuyu Memorial Stadium?” she asked, a cold chill playing over her skin.

“You know the meaning of the name? We called the stadium that because it was his dying wish. Nobody knows the meaning of the name, though,” Eleanor said.

Frances nodded numbly, recalling an old history lesson. “Tawatinsuyu means “The Land of the Four Corners.” We Otherworlders know it as, The Incan Empire. It… it was conquered years ago by the Spanish Empire, another empire in our world.”

Edana, who’d been listening, put a hand on the stone wall. “He named it after his lost country.”

Frances nodded, feeling suddenly melancholy as she looked at the structure. Did Pacha knew that others would gaze upon what he’d built to immortalize his fallen homeland? She looked down at Ivy’s Sting and took a deep breath. Would anyone remember her when she was gone?

Ayax elbowed Frances hard, making her yelp.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“Sorry, you looked… worried,” Ayax muttered.

Frances blinked and realized that whatever melancholy thoughts she had were gone. Smiling, she said, “Thanks.” She looked across the field to where the other teams and competitors were assembling. “Let’s win this.”

The Winter Tournament preliminaries essentially grouped competitors into eight mostly random groups of ten, and then had them each fight each other. Any competitor who lost one or less than one of their rounds qualified for the bracket of sixteen. It was only mostly random because if a house had two competitors, the two competitors wouldn’t be grouped together.

The size of the stadium meant that five matches could happen at once, and so the shouts of the spectators were very disordered. To Frances’s ears, they seemed like cacophonous and off-beat cheering.

At the moment, though, Frances was focused on her opponent. Her third in the preliminaries. The boy was an ogre-human mage from House Antoine named Peter.

After shaking each other’s hands, the two went to their respective sides of the duelling circle and waited for the referee’s call. Frances watched the ogre-human with narrowed eyes. He watched her too. She wondered, what was Peter thinking behind his tense expression.

“BEGIN!”

Frances sang, whirling Ivy’s Sting in a practiced swirling motion. She’d prepared several different openings for her duels in this stage of the preliminaries. This one began with blocking her enemy’s vision.

A hazy mist filled the air, obscuring Peter from sight. It also hid her from his view, though. She switched to an aria at a lower note, and summoned a shield to protect herself. Her ring flared in response, and once the barrier was up, she finally made the transition to her most practiced song, the one that would summon lightning to strike her opponent down.

Peter emerged from the mist, and yelled a Word of Power, a crimson whip lashed out towards Frances. It cracked across her shield and hissed, but did nothing else. Taking a deep breath, the ogre-human drew his wand back and yelled a phrase. The air thrummed with power as a lance of magic shot toward Frances.

But Frances had already started moving. The lance of magic scorched beside her shield, but didn’t hit it. Peter started to charge another spell, but Frances had finished the last notes to her spell.

Lightning flashed, and thunder deafened the shouts of the spectators. Peter went flying out of the ring, stunned.

“The winner, Frances Windwhistler!”

Frances bowed politely, before running over to help Peter up. He gingerly accepted her hand.

“They weren’t joking about your lightning spell,” Peter stammered.

She smiled. “Thank you. Your lance was quite strong too.”

“Thanks. Good luck with your next bout,” Peter said. He went back to his coaches, whilst Frances turned and went to her grandmother and mother.

Eleanor grinned. “Good show. You know what’s next, though.”

Frances nodded, her eyes finding the preliminaries schedule, which was posted on a nearby wall. Written on it, was this:

1400 Hours - Ophelia Voidsailor versus Frances Windwhistler.