As Frances and Ayax raced into the stadium, pandemonium broke in the stands.

Robert immediately stood up and hurled a fireball at the group. The fire hit the stands, igniting the gunpowder the saboteurs had been piling up.

The explosion that sounded sent a shockwave that staggered Elizabeth, Martin and Robert, despite the distance they stood. It evaporated the nearest assassins.

But for whatever reason, maybe not all the powder had been stored, most of the saboteurs were just knocked down. Elizabeth couldn’t imagine how badly their ears were ringing. She could actually see some with blood trickling down their ears.

Not enough however, there were nearly thirty in the group at first, and ten got up quite quickly, and ten other harpies who were hovering nearby were almost completely unaffected.

“Keep the harpies off of us!” Martin ordered. He drew his sword and Elizabeth right beside him, ran down the stairs to face off with the attackers.

Though outnumbered, the teens had a couple of advantages. They had the high ground, and Martin and Elizabeth had armor on. Their attackers were not armored.

The problem was the surviving harpies. Even as Martin deftly parried and dispatched his first attacker, an orc with a hatchet, harpies were swooping at his sides.

Elizabeth kicked the human she was fighting in the groin and swung at the attacking harpies. She missed, but she forced them away. “Robert where the hell are your spells!”

“Occupied!” Robert snapped. He was firing wildly at the five harpies that were trying to attack him. They swarmed and scattered, trying to make him miss.

He unfortunately did. Robert was just too busy trying to make sure the harpies didn’t get near enough for them to use their claws.

“Elizabeth let’s retreat!” Martin yelled.

“Alright, go! Get Robert!” she cried out. She conked an attacker on the head with her warhammer and covered Martin’s back as he ran up the stairs. The knight grabbed Robert by the arm and led the way back toward the hallway.

Elizabeth was faced with two opponents, a human and an orc, but both were being far more cautious. Glaring at them, she suddenly turned and with her Otherworlder speed, ran away, catching up to Robert and Martin, who were dodging dives from harpies.

Only, as they reached the exit that would take them out of the stands and back into the stardium, they found their way blocked by four more opponents. Two orcs and two humans, one of the orcs having a mage’s staff.

“Give up, you’re surrounded!” the orc mage demanded.

“Kill me and the Windstorm House will hunt you down!” Robert snapped back. He was momentarily confused when Martin groaned and Elizabeth sighed. Then, the troll noticed the grim looks on the faces of the saboteurs.

“We don’t care whose merchant brat you are. You’re going to die here. You only get to choose how painfully,” hissed a human.

That was when a song that brought a grin to Elizabeth and Martin’s faces echoed down the hallway and into the stadium. The assassins glanced around, looking for the caster.

Lightning flashed and a bolt of lightning smashed into the saboteurs closest to the entryway, sending them flying, or twitching to the ground. Thunder boomed and roared immediately after, and Frances charged out, Ayax close behind her.

Frances raised her wand getting ready to cast a shield spell, but found that the saboteurs were already fleeing. Martin and Elizabeth charged after them, but harpies swooped down on them, forcing them to back away.

“We need to stop them, or capture one!” exclaimed Martin, arms raised to ward away the harpies claws. Ayax managed to drive them away by sending several bolts of magic in their direction. All that did however was scatter them. Now, they were in retreat.

“Mages, bring one of them down!” Elizabeth yelled.

Aiming with her staff, and able to see clearly into the dim light with her troll vision, Ayax threw a bolt of magic that smacked into the back of one of the harpies. The harpy fell from the sky, and Frances encased it in a ball of magic, bringing it to gentle landing.

Where Martin and Elizabeth were waiting. As soon as Frances lowered the shield, the pair jumped on the harpy and pinned it, tying the assailant up with some rope that Elizabeth had.

“Let’s get out of here before someone finds out we are here,” said Ayax, worriedly glancing at the stadium’s different entryways.

“But who are we taking this prisoner to?” Robert asked.

“You are going home to tell your family what happened tonight. We’re going to the Windwhistler Compound. Grandma Eleanor will know what to do with her. Expect a call, though,” said Frances.

Eleanor was enjoying her beauty sleep with her husband when the slam of her door opening woke her and Paul. Blinking wearily, she recognized a wide-eyed Edana.

“What—Edana, what’s going on?”

“Frances and her friends captured a saboteur at the stadium, with the help of Robert Windstorm,” said Edana, almost breathless.

It took several seconds for Eleanor’s sleep-addled mind to process this. Long enough for Paul to sit straight up and go, “What the actual fuck?”

“Yup, it’s a real shit-tornado,” Edana said, as Eleanor sized up the gravity of the situation and sprang off her bed.

“Get a courier to contact Rachel Windstorm, but don’t send for the City Watch yet, not until I know how your daughter captured a saboteur!” Eleanor snapped.

Frances knew she and her friends were in a bit of trouble, but it was nothing compared to the nervous harpy that was being interrogated by very tired, but also very alert Windwhistler and Windstorm family members.

Only, Eleanor looked supremely annoyed, with mirrored expressions on their faces. Robert’s mother, Rachel Windstorm, wasn’t looking happy either. Edana looked calmer, but her green eyes were narrowed. Meanwhile, the teenagers, standing lined up against a wall, with Robert and Ayax being on opposite ends of the line of course, stood in silence.

“So let me get this straight, you all decided to break into the stadium because you suspected that someone was sabotaging it?” Eleanor asked.

“Where you engaged in combat with the saboteurs and captured one?” Edana continued.

“Instead of just telling the adults about the situation and having them take it over?” Rachel hissed.

“I don’t want any excuses, just yes or no,” said Eleanor.

The teenagers glanced at each other and all said, in varying tones of morose distress, “Yes.”

But similarly, the three older women had very different reactions.

“Robert, you were incredibly lucky it all went well!” Rachel hissed, looking about to spit fire.

“Ugh! Fine, just tell us next time and don’t do something like that again!” Eleanor groaned

Edana coughed, officiously and averted her gaze. “Um, I have a confession to make. They did tell an adult. Frances told me yesterday night and I approved the mission.”

“Wait what, you told Edana?” Robert squawked. He paused and groaned, “Nevermind, that makes a lot more sense.”

“You… did what?” Rachel stammered. Eleanor was just staring at her daughter with a look that was torn between eyebrow-raised admiration and mouth-open shock.

Edana sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I approved their mission. It was meant to be a reconnaissance and Frances and her friends have succeeded in far more dangerous missions before. Furthermore, none of us were certain that we would actually find anything.”

“You should be glad you did, Edana,” said Emelia, Windwhistler Trading Co. intelligence head, as she stormed out of the room. “They placed the bombs right under your seats. They also made sure to use Windstorm-manufactured gunpowder and leave enough debris and material to pin blame on the Windstorms and Voidsailors.”

Robert paled and his mother, Rachel, stumbled, putting her hand against a wall. “If they killed you and Edana… Oh Gods of Sea and Sand.”

“Let’s hope we can get something out of her we can take to the City Watch,” Eleanor said. She turned to the teenagers. “You all get some bloody rest. It’s way past your bedtime.”

When Frances woke up, she was exhausted. However, she was eager for some answers as to who had tried to kill her.

She was very quickly disappointed. She had noticed that although Edana and Eleanor purported to be very different people, they had very similar tics. What she didn’t quite understand was how Edana was like her father, Paul, her grandfather.

As she came down, she quickly realized that how.

Her mother had a scowl on her features was pinching the bridge of her nose and pacing across the dining room. Right beside her was her father, Paul, who was deep in thought, and also pacing. Eleanor was at the breakfast table, just scowling.

“Morning Frances, girls and boys, I’m afraid I have some good news and some bad news, which would you like first?” Eleanor snapped.

Frances blinked and turned around to notice her friends had filed in behind her, having woken around the same time, in various states of exhaustion or awakeness. They however all perked up at Eleanor’s growl.

“Morning Grandma. The bad news first?” Frances said as she took a seat at the table.

“The agent we captured had a contract that activated when she said too much. She didn’t realize it because like the idiot she was, she forgot to stipulate the contract can’t be changed unless both parties agree to it,” Eleanor snapped.

“It’s actually a quite common mistake,” Edana and Frances explained at the same time, before meeting each other’s eyes and smiling with amusement.

“So, Lady Windwhistler, we don’t have anything to go on?” Martin asked.

“Not quite, young whippersnapper. What we got suggests that it wasn’t House Pacha. The guards were bribed, but not by House Pacha. No doubt the City Watch will confirm it.

“So, Kingdom of Alavaria agents?” Ayax asked.

Eleanor narrowed her eyes. “That’s the current theory.”

“You all don’t believe so,” said Frances.

“No. The Kingdom of Alavaria can’t get ahold of so much Windstorm gunpowder, especially after all Erlenberg businesses officially stopped selling to them. Well, at least not gunpowder stored in Windstorm brand bags. We’re aware there’s a black market trade, but then the gunpowder wouldn’t be sold in the branded bags.” Shaking her head, Eleanor took a sip of her coffee. “This all makes me very confused.”

Paul suddenly stopped pacing. “Dear, maybe we can talk to Rachel. She was quite shocked by this. Maybe she has an idea of who bought her house’s powder.”

Eleanor blinked and grinned. “That’s a great idea, Paul. But you probably should do the talking, I’m probably going to be too grouchy at her to do so.”

“Um, pardon me Lady Windwhistler, what’s the good news then?” Martin asked.

Eleanor smiled and said, “Edana, why don’t you take over?”

The White Order mage smiled, “Whoever the saboteurs are, this was their last shot to interfere with the Winter Tournament on a large scale. Security is going to be extremely tight now. I don’t think you’ll have to worry about anybody sabotaging the tournament. Every House will be watching for Alavari influence.”

“That’s good.” Frances smiled, “I suppose I just have to worry about Jeffrey Seaskimmer then.”

That day and the day after that was relatively quiet, aside from nonstop training. That being said, training was exhausting, as usual.

Frances was however, coming to realize that she had a problem. Something that she voiced as she and Edana sat down to take a break.

“Mom, am I imagining things, or do I start to have trouble when fights start to drag out?”

Edana shook her head. “No, you’re not imagining things. You have very good instincts, Frances. They keep you moving, and casting spells. However…” her mother pursed her lips. “This is a theory mind you, and you might not like it.”

Frances frowned, but decided that whatever it had to be, it couldn’t possibly be that bad. “You can tell me.”

Edana hesitated for a second and sighed. “Have you ever noticed you have a better-developed and instinctive survival instinct than most people your age? That even if you feel scared in fights, you don’t let it affect you?”

Frances shook her head. She hadn’t actually. She had noticed that she wasn’t so easily panicked when she was in a fight, but it was honestly kind of hard to remember what her friends looked like in a fight. She had been too busy trying to stay alive.

“It might be talent, but I suspect that your instincts were honed because of the time you spent with your parents,” said Edana.

Frances stared at her mother for a moment, before grabbing her water and taking a drink. “You were right, I don’t like that theory. Can we move onto why it is a problem having these instincts?”

“It’s not a problem having these instincts, Frances.” Edana squeezed her daughter’s shoulder. “They’ve kept you alive after all. They give you an edge against other mages, but in prolonged fights, your decision-making starts to get obvious. They’re good choices and in a battle all you can make are good choices.”

It suddenly clicked and Frances sighed, “But in a duel, when your opponent can prepare for you thoroughly, you might not want to make an obvious choice.”

“Precisely. Just keep that in mind tomorrow. I know you’ll win,” said Edana.

Frances smiled, enjoying the touch of her mother’s hand on her shoulder. It was nice, knowing that even if she lost, that would not change.

As she watched her daughter walk out to the duelling ring from the stands, Edana smiled proudly as the stadium cheered. She knew that Jeffrey Seaskimmer had no chance of beating Frances, it would be a supremely small chance for that to occur. It was time to just sit back and watch her daughter trounce Jeffrey.

To think that if Frances and her friends hadn’t acted on Robert’s tip, they would be sitting on bombs. It was a morbid thought and Edana was now rather glad that security had been tightened even further.

It was as the referee was reading out the rules to Frances and the grim-faced Jeffrey that a thought occurred to Edana.

“Mother, can I ask a question that might sound absurd?” Edana asked.

Eleanor didn’t even look up from the match that was starting. Frances was walking to her side of the ring and was taking her stance. “Go ahead.”

“Why hasn’t the tournament been cancelled?”

That made Eleanor look away, and she missed Frances’s first spell, which from the look of the effects, was a fireball that forced Jeffrey to dodge. Cursing, Eleanor kept one eye on the match and hissed to her daughter. “What do you mean, it’s the Winter Tournament. It’s never cancelled.”

“Someone was killed in the stadium—make that a couple of someones now—and there’s an ongoing conspiracy that is possibly funded by a foreign power. And yet nobody has even brought up the possibility of cancelling the tournament. For that matter, why haven’t you, or any Windwhistler?”

Eleanor blinked, her eyes wide. She did notice Frances dodging out of the way of a fireball thrown by Jeffrey. The pair were exchanging a flurry of spells that smashed against each other’s shields. Jeffrey was trying to bury Frances with a barrage of spells. His speciality was mid-range fire spells and he was trying to leverage it.

“We… we probably have tunnel-visioned. It’s always been our family ambition to win the tournament. It doesn’t help that from birth it’s the biggest thing our rivals have rubbed in our faces— Get him Frances!” Eleanor cheered as Frances caught Jeffrey’s ankle with a whip of magic and pulled him off his feet. She almost threw him out of the ring, but he managed to sever the magic just in time.

Edana grinned as Frances continued to press on, showering Jeffrey with sharp bolts of lightning, not as strong as her usual lightning spells, but they forced him back nonetheless. “I understand why our family is so focused on winning the tournament, but what about the others? They don’t have anything to lose if the tournament is cancelled and they can hurt us as a result. Why aren’t the Voidsailors for example muttering about rescheduling? Why not the Seaskimmers? You’d think that would help them save face.”

“The Windstorms haven’t said anything about cancelling the tournament, what do you think?” Eleanor asked. She glanced back at the match in time to catch Frances backing off. Her half-orc opponent had unleashed a wave of flames that had forced her to turtle up behind her shield for a second. Immediately, Frances dashed, making herself a moving target. Her song filled the stadium as she summoned up a gale that blew Jeffrey’s flames back into his face.

“Well, Robert didn’t expect to lose and they seem just as desperate to get a good result in the tournament as we are,” Edana pointed out.

“True. Wait—” Eleanor groaned “—Oh this is a shit parade. Are you saying that out of all the houses in Erlenberg we can trust them the most?”

“Your words mom.” Edana said. She turned back to the match and blinked. In an attempt to counter her daughter’s aggression, Jeffrey Seaskimmer had closed the range. A flaming torch spouted from the end of his wand that smashed down again and again on Frances’s shield. The half-orc was trying to use his superior size to batter her daughter into submission.

“Edana, do you think the conspirators, whoever they are, are going to try something else?” Eleanor asked.

Edana pursed her lips, eyes still on the match. Frances was trying to get away from Jeffrey, but the half-orc was persistent. After another second hunkering down behind her shield, Frances pointed her wand at the ground.

Jeffrey yelped and staggered back. Rock spikes had shoved up from under the soles of his shoes, hard enough to pierce the leather. He tried to regain his balance, but as more spikes stabbed up directly into his heels and toes, he pinwheeled and fell to the ground.

“Possibly. Though, I can’t figure out how the Alavaria would drive the houses to war now,” Edana said.

Frances leapt onto him, well, metaphorically that is. Trying to get on top of an opponent larger than you was a recipe for disaster. She did however try to pin him down by summoning serpent-shaped coils of earth. They weren’t strong enough to do more than to briefly hold the half-orc, who wriggled and smashed his way out of them. However, it bought her enough time to draw a vial from her pouch and toss it at him.

Jeffrey shattered the vial, only for it to explode, raining Crownfire on him. Yelling, “Hot! HOT!” he rolled out of the way, though, his magical shield was actually on fire.

“Let’s think about that later, right now…” Eleanor leapt to her feet. “GET HIM FRANCES!”

Edana was on her feet as well. She cheered as Jeffrey was forced to drop his shield and Frances, not letting the opportunity go to waste, threw a light blue bolt of magic. Normally, Jeffrey would be able to dodge or block it. Exhausted as he was, though, it hit him square in the chest and shot him backwards out of the ring.

Clapping, Edana cried praises for her daughter as the referee declared her the victor. Yes, there was still an ongoing conspiracy, but her family would get to the bottom of it eventually.