'I care not what the rumors say,' quoth the Heirna with burning defiance. 'I know the man I have chosen and the line that is our duty to shepherd. I will not abandon that destiny, nor shall he. And every Reirn from hence forward shall be proof of my devotion and my honour.'

-Line's Legacy: Heirna Heraha

“Desten,” I said casually, as we practiced with my still-uncooperative power in his back garden. “I heard people talking at the gala. Something about a new dueling fad, wherein the loser's body is aggressively torn apart?”

I was watching closely, so I saw his expression tighten into distaste. “Yes. I have heard that as well.”

“So, what do you think about it?”

“I think it’s what happens when you give idiot children the power of life and death over one another. Taking heartstones as trophies is new.”

“So, this sort of duel-to-the-death is a normal thing?”

“It is discouraged, but not disallowed. Legally, such a duel is a binding agreement to bear responsibility for your own demise. It’s incredibly stupid to accept a duel with someone you aren’t certain you can defeat.”

Oh. Wait. “So, if two nobles fought and one of them died, it wouldn’t be an actual murder if they were in a duel at the time?”

“Correct. So while this rash of violent and uncivilized death is worrying, it is not actually something we can forbid without overturning centuries-old laws shared among all the houses. It has been proven time and again that people don’t like ancestral laws overturned for any reason, however sensible.”

“Even if one of those involved is of much higher rank than the other?”

“You’ve stopped practicing.”

With a sigh, I refocused on pulling my power up out of my body and into the world around me. It worked just as badly as usual, with no visible indication of progress, but somehow Desten could tell when I was slacking.

“And, yes," he answered. "Even if you challenged the reirn, if you both agreed to the duel, it would not matter if you killed him. No reprisals could be brought against you as a result.” He smiled grimly. “Officially, that is. I would personally do everything in my considerable power to destroy your life, so don’t go killing Reirn Ushan unless you want me as an enemy.”

“I have no such intentions, I promise.”

I sighed. So, maybe I had messed up by not making it very clear that the fight between Desten and Fylen was a full on duel. It would seem that I was investigating a non-issue. The Sarosa may be upset by it ‘personally’ but there would and could not be any official repercussions for the killer Desten even if I found him.

It’s not like I’d set out to lie to Reirn Ushan, but the way my story jumbled over itself it’s not surprising some details got lost in translation.

But now he had a false idea of the situation, because of me and no one else. Would he be less eager to protect my secrets if he knew Fylen’s death was technically legal? Or would he be one of the parties to pursue justice ‘personally’?

I couldn’t worry about that. I had nothing else going for me. If I couldn’t even solve this one tiny mystery, of even less importance than I’d originally assumed, what use would I be to anyone?

“You’re not focusing.”

I growled in muted frustration and yanked hard on my power. For a moment, everything blurred with a pink overlay across the world, then I felt the pulse of calm wash through me and my power subsided, retreating into its center.

“Enough for tonight. It’s been a long day.”

“Is this why you keep such a late-skewed schedule?” I wondered aloud as we walked back to the house. “Because half the year is full of midnight partying?”

“Not the reason,” Desten replied.

“Are you attending the other parties?”

“Yes." He sounded resigned.

“Am I?”

“Only if you want to.”

“I’ll get back to you.” I hesitated. “Someone invited me to go touring with him this season.”

“If you need funding you’ll need to talk to the reirn. I’m only authorized for my own expenditures on your behalf, not third parties.”

“No, that’s not— am I allowed to?”

“You’re here to learn from me. If you’ve decided you’re done learning, I can strongly urge you to reconsider, but I can’t disallow you from doing anything. You’re officially an adult, even if your power control is awful.”

“So, I can, but you think I shouldn’t?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“I’m not going to be your personal flier,” he warned. “If you want to go traipsing about to other cities, that’s your decision. But I’ve yet to see you hover, let alone manage sustained flight. It takes about an hour to get from one city to the next, and most party hubs are generally at least two cities apart.”

I tried to imagine living in a world where cities were only an hour apart. The trip from my home city to this one had taken over a week and a half, stopping in towns and villages along the way each night before riding on in the morning. My sojourn to Teshron territory had required nearly a month of travel, each way.

I’d sometimes seen nobles fly overhead in colourful blurs of speed, but never tried to figure out just how insanely fast they were moving.

“How long would it take to reach Teshron from here?” I asked, curious.

“Straight without stopping? I could do it in, mm, four to five hours. Less if I’m cleared for priority flight.”

Four to five hours. Less than half a day’s travel, to get from one corner of the continent to the other. I tried to imagine it, but couldn’t.

I lay awake a long time that night, as time and distance and speed tried to reorient themselves into something that made sense, but which I couldn’t accept as reality.

A knock on my door woke me far too early in the afternoon.

“Hrng, wha?” I asked, coherently.

“A message has arrived for you,” said a voice I couldn’t quite place. One of our servants? Yes, probably that.

“Yehh, okay,” I responded, rolling over to shield my face from the sunlight trying to stubbornly slip through the cracks in the curtains.

“It is an invitation to lunch today, which might require you to be awake.”

Lunch? Who would be inviting me to lunch? Was it Desten 3, wanting my opinion on some more of his naive theories about unity or cooperation?

“Desten?”

“Yes, Desten Varon, 87 Drell street.”

Drell street? That wasn’t 3. He was on Farren road. I sighed and sat up, trying to drag my groggy brain into something resembling wakefulness. Drell street? Which one …

I rummaged at the pages stacked on my bedside table until I found the Desten list that had appeared under my door. I’d since numbered them all, and was using it to take notes. 2 was crossed off with ‘hair/power control’ as reason for disregarding him as a suspect, with the hasty note ‘8? - female’ at the bottom from last night. I hadn’t figured out her home address, but she was one of the two I didn’t have info on. 6 was never at home, 4 and 5 were father and son, 7 lived in another city entirely.

Right. So, Drell street? That was 4 and 5’s family residence. Lunch. Lovely.

Wait.

Lunch?

“What time?” I asked, suddenly awake. “I mean, when do I need to be there?”

I couldn’t just fly there in a minute or two, so I’d need to start out well before the assigned time if I were going to not be late.

“Two thirty.”

I glanced at the clock, and groaned. If I started right now, I might make it. More likely, I’d need to run.

“Why is there no such thing as public transportation around here?” I grumbled. At least downcity I could rent a horse for the day to get around faster. Here, everyone assumed that each person was faster than a horse. Which, okay, was probably completely accurate, but still! For the 0% of the population that was me, stuck at infant level power usage, it made getting around very inconvenient.

I hastily changed out of my night clothes and into a more formal Varon outfit. Desten had ordered them for me when I first arrived, so I hadn’t needed to worry about making complicated class or cut or colour decisions. They were all tay-styled, with greens predominant. Which was fine. There was a clear distinction between Varon green and Novarot green, aside from the red and yellow accents to fully clarify. (Novarot’s accents would be orange and teal.)

I rushed out the door and ran the first several minutes to give myself a bit of buffer time, then slowed to a fast walk. I worried even that wouldn’t be enough, then I worried about showing up out of breath and sweaty. But there was nothing I could do about that at this point. I needed to get a feel for who all the Destens were so I could narrow them down. And ignoring an invitation after I’d made a point of seeking them out would be rude.

Tension built as I pushed myself to move faster. So far, all the Destens I’d met had seemed pretty normal, which only increased the chance that the next one would be the crazy one. This had begun to feel more futile, more like a pointless risk that would benefit nothing, but I couldn’t turn back.

The world shifted, a faint pink haze covered everything, and each step slipped me further forward without resistance. The anxiety faded away as I moved with sudden calm confidence, gliding at a fast jog, then faster.

I didn’t know what was happening, and I didn’t care. As long as I got to my appointment on time, that was all that mattered.

So it was a surprise when I reached my destination and discovered, upon checking my pocketwatch, that I still had nearly an hour until the designated lunch.

How fast had I been moving? Could I still do it?

I glanced down at the ground beneath me, further away than usual. It only took that moment of noticing I was no longer touching the ground for the effect to shatter. The pink tint I'd become accustomed to broke and vanished, I dropped several inches to land unsteadily on the ground, and I stared around in uncertainty at the world. Everything looked oddly green now, the contrast confusing my eyes for a minute until they readjusted.

Then I picked myself up and laughed. I'd been flying! I hadn't even noticed at the time, but I'd actually been doing it! Not very high, not nearly as quickly as most, but I'd made it here in record time. I couldn't have gotten here this quickly even if I could have been running flat out the entire time.

Now, I just had to figure out how I'd done it so I could do it again. I'd tried wanting my power before, but this was the first time I'd ever felt like I needed it. Was that the difference? It had to be deeper than just desire, deeper than convenience, a pressing urgent necessity?

Probably not in the end. For the moment, though, that seemed the obvious angle to approach from. After all, I had nearly an hour to practice with before my appointment, and I wasn't even out of breath.

What could I convince myself I needed? Well, I needed to get to a library and find something to do with myself while I waited. I would die of boredom if I just stood here for an hour.

I focused in on that desire, tried to amplify it to urgency, to necessity. I didn't just want a book to occupy my mind while I waited, I absolutely had to have one. And that meant I needed to get to a library as quickly as possible.

Was it working? I couldn't tell. There was no obvious pink aura around me, but I wasn't sure if I'd be able to see it clearly any longer. I set out toward the nearest library at a quick pace, focused on the urgency of my mission. Alas, it seemed my power wouldn't be so easily tricked. When I'd walked for five minutes with no sign of the attempt succeeding, I gave up. I relaxed my intense focus and continued at a more sedate pace.

Desten 4 lived in a very convenient location, local to a great many library and record-keeping buildings. It wasn't quite as administrative as the district where Desten 1 lived, but it was a close second. The Varon capital city was considerably larger than most, according to what I'd read, but it still felt odd to me. The downcity portion of the capital was so much bigger. It wouldn't be possible to walk the full circumference of the downcity in a day, while even far distant locations in the upcity were within walking distance, even though the buildings were spread much further apart.

All that to say, I reached the library within ten minutes, sat for a while reading a book selected at random. (Which turned out to be a sensationalized biography of Heirna Heraha Varon, formerly Wightok, whose marriage into the dwindling Varon close line near the end of the fourth century catalyzed a significant shift in internal Varon politics, accompanied by a great deal of suspicion and scandal due to some uncertainty about her husband's right to the Reirn title at all. She would eventually end up as the mother of the entire close line in what could be styled either a complete usurpation of Varon upper nobility, or a perfect underdog story. But since it all happened a hundred years ago, modern writers could spin it any direction they wanted as anyone involved was dead by now.)

I did get a little caught up in the story, and ended up rushing to make my appointment on time after all.

Despite my urgency, my power did not make itself known and I arrived two minutes later than the stated arrival time. A girl opened the door this time, seeming alternately shy and curious, but she followed form perfectly as she greeted me and led me to their dining room. Through a house which bore evidence of recent frantic tidying.

A young man who must be Desten 5 sat awaiting me with the expression of one who would rather be anywhere else doing anything else. He was by far the youngest of the Destens, barely sixteen if I remembered the genealogies correctly. His mother, the woman I'd met on my initial visit, bustled about with food. She smiled and motioned for me to sit, and the girl sat on the other side of Desten.

"I hope this isn't too much," she said. "I know you probably just wanted an interview, but I do believe in hospitality."

"This is fine, thank you." I hesitated, not sure of her name.

"Retti," she said, pouring a pale yellow drink for each of us. "And you've met Talish, and this is Desten."

Desten nodded at his name.

"Will Desten Sr. be joining us?" I asked, and the family immediately went ... still, quiet, neither of those but something intangible and heavy inserted itself into the atmosphere of the room. It was the wrong question, I knew at once.

"My father is unavailable," Desten said, with the sound of someone trying very hard to be responsible with obvious effort. "I will do my best to answer your questions."

"Well. Ah. Good. Thank you for inviting me." I realized that I should have prepared a list of questions, or at least brought a notebook or something, but I'd rushed off in such a hurry that I hadn't even considered what would actually happen once I got here.

My earlier worries about putting myself in Desten's home and under his power seemed ridiculous now. Even if Desten 5 were the killer, he'd hardly slaughter me in front of his mother and little sister! I nearly laughed at the thought, but managed to focus on sipping my drink instead. It had a faint cherry flavor and a slightly bitter tang, but smooth and with a pleasant aftertaste.

"Well, I suppose my first question is, do you have the infamous yellow Desten power?" I asked into the waiting silence.

"I do."

"And your father does as well?"

Desten looked at his mother. She gave a faint shrug and nodded, and he turned back to me. "He did."

Past tense. Oops. What had happened? Clearly my information was out of date. I reassessed my impressions of the family in that light, and suddenly the weariness of Retti, Desten's attempts to seem more responsible, and Talish's uncertainty fell into a different prism.

Desten was trying to fill his father's place and take care of his family in his stead. They were all lost in a new paradigm, trying to find their way forward with everything disrupted.

I lost the thread of my interview for a moment, trying not to let the heavy feeling of kinship distract me from properly assessing his potential as the killer.

Retti brought out plates of food for us all, then sat down herself after topping up all the drinks. I allowed the feeble attempts at conversation to die down as we all ate in silence, trying to consider the situation and plan my next words more discretely.

First, was there anything that could disqualify him from consideration? Not allowing my bias to seep in, I thought it through. He had the right hair; it was tied back right now in the same style as the guards and half the population of Varonhold. His voice wasn't obviously too high or too deep, but on that specific point my memory was pretty hazy.

There was always the possibility it had been his father. Maybe Desten 4 had killed Fylen, and then either run off or been killed in vengeance by an unofficial Sarosa retaliation. Maybe I was wasting time investigating something that had already been resolved.

Or it could have been any of the other Destens I hadn't gotten to yet. I didn't have enough information. I couldn't start jumping to conclusions so soon.

I tried to imagine the weary teen across from me as the cackling madman who'd torn Fylen apart, and I couldn't. It was far easier to picture Desten 1, with his unpredictable rages, than this unassuming boy picking at his lunch. Then again, I also couldn't quite picture it being Desten 3 either.

Perhaps it was a failure of my own imagination, or perhaps it had actually been one of the others. But for now, I had to assume it could be anyone and gather as much information as possible.

"Have you ever been interested in political maneuvering? Has being a Desten made you want more from life?" Clumsy, awkward question, but I had to break the increasingly uncomfortable silence somehow.

"I actually always wanted to be an artist," Desten said quietly, almost reluctantly. "I don't think hearing about how great Reirn Desten had been really changed me much. It could be a bit intimidating actually. But also freeing, once I figured it out."

"Figured what out?"

"That it didn't matter. That I wasn't going to be Reirn, that I didn't have to worry about trying to live up to something so far in the past. That I could excel at just being Desten Varon."

"So you'd say the name did have an impact on you?"

"Well, a little. Not as much as that makes it sound like, really." He glanced uncomfortably at his mother, who seemed not to notice.

"Would you mind walking with me?" I asked, setting my fork aside. "This has been lovely, but I'd like some fresh air."

Desten looked uncertain, but after a moment he nodded. "Sure. Okay." He turned to his mother. "We'll be back for dessert?"

"Okay." She smiled at me warmly.

I wasn't sure how to respond to that, so I smiled briefly without saying anything and followed Desten outside and into the street. He instinctively pulled up his power the moment we were clear of his home, yellow glowing around him as he lifted a few inches from the ground.

"Where did you want to go?" he asked.

"Nowhere in particular. I just wanted to talk to you alone. I understand that this could get a bit personal, and I didn't want you to feel awkward about your family listening in."

He shrugged, drifting a little lower. "They know what I'd rather be doing. It's not like it's a secret."

I started walking and he fell into place beside me.

"I'm sorry. Whatever happened with your father, I know how that can be. When everything changes without warning and you just have to keep going even if it's the hardest thing you'll ever do."

"No you don't," he snapped. "You don't know anything." Then he looked away, voice dropping. "It doesn't matter."

"What were you going to say, before? When I asked about the impact the name Desten has had, it seemed like you were thinking of something other than Reirn Desten."

"It's nothing," he muttered, still not looking at me.

"Is it the verdis player, being so popular and acclaimed? Doing what he obviously loves, while getting everything he could want?"

"No, of course not. I know how hard verdis is to play well." He drifted higher, yellow light growing stronger beneath his feet as he walked.

I had to hurry to keep up.

"Who, then?" I pressed.

"Why does it matter? It doesn't change anything."

"It might."

We walked for a time, neither speaking.

"It was my father, okay?" The words seemed to flare out, edged with years of desperation locked away until now. "He was a genius, and he could make anything, and when I tried it always came out like misshapen garbage. And I've tried so hard, and come so far, and now he's gone and I'm still not good enough, and everything he built is going to fall apart if I can't do something, but I can't afford to take the time to figure it all out because I have to keep us from starving or losing the house and it's all too much and—"

Desten broke off, breathing heavily, as he drifted lower, his yellow light dragging against the ground in sparking trails.

I wished I had any sort of true position, any wealth or connections I could leverage to help this family, but I was little better than a freeloader myself at the moment. I technically had a small sum still saved back in downcity Midpeak, if I returned to reclaim my old life. But none of that would be any help here.

"And I know I'm not enough, and I can't do it, because I'm not him." Desten abruptly dropped to the ground in a puff of yellow light that surrounded him for a moment, then vanished entirely, leaving him looking dim and diminished. "And I never will be, no matter how much I want to, no matter how hard I try to. Whatever I do, it'll never be enough."

"You don't have to be," I said quietly.

"What do you know?"

"I know that what you said earlier is still true. If you don't have to try to be Reirn Desten, you don't have to be your father either. You can just be you."

Desten laughed harshly, but didn't say anything.

We continued to walk in silence.

"It's not that easy," Desten finally mumbled.

"Nothing is ever easy. But it's still worth doing."

Desten sighed. "But when you've spent your whole life working on one thing, it's stupid to just think you can change on a whim."

"Hah. If you'd told me six months ago I'd be in upcity Varonhold, I'd have said it was impossible. It doesn't take much to change the entire trajectory of your life. And you're still so young. You can become whoever you want to, your future isn't set in steel just because you were focused on one particular route up until now."

"But it is what I want to do. I'm just no good at it."

"It's too early to say that for sure either."

He shrugged. "I wish there were an easier way to fix things."

"Life isn't easy."

"I've noticed."

We walked without speaking for a while longer, then Desten sighed. "Did you have any normal questions, or is this my mom's idea of sneaking life lessons on me with subtlety?"

I stared at him, at the confused, frustrated, overwhelmed young man whose path would only be difficult no matter what, and that I could do nothing to ease.

"The only way out is through," I said, quoting an old saying that felt utterly inadequate. "Let's go have dessert."

Desten 5 remained quiet as we returned to his family home. While we politely ate a dessert of fluffy pastries covered in thick fruit sauce, Retti picked up the conversation and proceeded to make small talk until it became possible to reasonably extricate myself and bid them farewell.

My trip home took longer than I'd hoped, but I was in no hurry. I had a lot to think about.

If there were a group of disgruntled teens going around violently dueling each other? I could easily imagine Desten 5, alone and lost, getting caught up in that as a way to vent his frustrations.

But I couldn't figure out a connection to Fylen. The Sarosa capital would be an odd place for such a group to be active, and there was no obvious motive for Fylen traveling so far for a simple duel. Especially one that could end in his death. Especially when he was about to have a child.

Nothing about Fylen's side of the event made sense from that perspective. I had to figure out the personal connection.

And for that, I needed to get out of this Varon circle and investigate the other houses.

Guess I'd be taking Desten 3 up on his invitation after all.