Felicia had delayed several suitors and tricked them into all attending to her on the same day. Naturally, this drove their passions to a boil as they were kept with one another in the central courtyard like too many roosters for a coup. Manly spirits thus riled, Lucius was marched out in front of them to take on their ire.

While a few may never be uncovered in history–Lucius himself was too hungover to remember the less interesting people and why he had to best them in duels–some remain. There was one boy demanding that he be given a job as her personal guard because his stigmata turned blades blunt against his skin. Lucius didn’t draw his sword and knocked the lad’s front teeth out. I believe he was later referred to the proper channels for applying and ended up transferred to Prince Gabriel’s army where he perished.

One upjumped merchant’s son who fancied himself an unlanded noble, no such thing existed, wanted to settle a point of honor regarding his sister who had been denied an invitation to some feast. He brought with him a pair of dueling sabers, so thin they were nearly whips. He must have thought that an unfamiliar warrior would be easy pickings in a duel to first blood. Lucius ignored his prattling as he felt the flexibility of the metal foil and after the duel commenced Lucius struck out with the flat of the blade as hard as he could. The merchant parried perfectly, arm locked out at the fencer’s side. The two blades struck with a clang fit for a bell and blood splattered across the flagstones. Lucius’ blade had bent nearly at a right angle, whipping around the guard to rip the man’s wrist open. He ruined the blades too.

A knight from some disgraced order sought a duel of honor with the champion of the Raymi’s because of some land dispute. He wished to prove that the martial order had been revitalized despite a volcanic landslide devouring their training grounds. As this was no dispute but an earnest plea, but fought to prove a point, they bound their respective weapons in cloth. Normally, a rather accurate way to fight without harm, but the knight used a spear. I mean no disrespect to the humble weapon, it has killed more people than any other in history. But this was quite a mistake. The shape of the blade flange let Lucius bind the cloth of his sword against it, catching on snares that should not have existed. He nearly ripped the weapon from the man’s hand before slamming his fist into his unarmored gut–another aspect of unreality.

He, on his honor as a warrior, had to proceed to argue on the spearman’s behalf to Felicia. The exchange had been informative, even if Lucius had come out the stronger and that hardly mattered when it came to judging the man’s skill. Felicia listened, all the while stifling a yawn. When he finished the explanation, she saw an opportunity–namely that she hardly cared about offending anyone remaining–and proposed that the case be made to the drill master of their defense corps. Naturally, Lucius was required to attend to her as she left to fetch him.

Drenched in sweat and dirt and with his insides fighting the opposing forces of exhaustion and adrenaline, he trailed behind the noblewoman up three flights of steps. He kept swallowing his complaints about the long route, the presumptive use of his body, and the lack of gratitude, all the way until she showed him to a dainty indoor garden with a breakfast set laid out for the two of them.

“You worked hard, Lucius,” she said, sitting down at the table.

He sat down across from her, the skinny legs of the chair creaking. “Did you learn that at the capital?”

Felicia plucked a fruit tart for herself. “I sure did,” she said before ringing a bell for a fresh kettle to be brought.

“That spearman does genuinely deserve the work. He will be an asset,” Lucius said, taking one of the treats for himself.

She shrugged and ate. After washing it down with a sip of cool tea, she said, “I believe you. I’ll have father do whatever is proper. Can’t you let me thank you, first?”

“Thanking me would be taking me to a bed,” he grumbled. When she cleared her throat and blushed, he caught himself. “Giving me some rest. I arrived late in the night and have scarcely slept. I was actually dozing between duels as you let some of those men monologue.”

Felicia laughed, and airy and cute tinkling of her voice. “And here I was wondering why you weren’t courting me.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It would be rather natural, would it not? Our families are allied, but thanks to the conquests of my father, we stand in slightly higher position. You are the eldest son, I am the eldest daughter, of our respective families. We got along as little children and you’ve shocked a great deal of people with your maturity. What’s more, you got me kicked out of the court.”

“I did what?”

She sighed and mixed in a dollop more of honey to her tea cup and the maid freshened the kettle. She rattled a spoon roughly and shook her head. “After you humiliated the prince, the angel grew rather sullen. She’s been dealing with theological schism lately, being the head of the temples. The sun worshippers make for wonderful lawyers, did you know that? They’ve been digging up Sapphira’s own texts and using them against the temples. If that alone were enough, Acheliah could simple abrogate the rulings, but Helios left behind a number of compacts among the gods to befuddle her with. Which is all to say that as soon as I stopped being fun for her, I was a nuisance to be gotten rid of. She likes Kassie quite a bit, you know.”

Lucius drank his tea without tasting it. “Just as well. The capital will be starving soon,” he said. Felicia froze. “Gabriel is forcing a war and Westshire will side with the central kingdoms. The ties run thicker among them than with us. If the king is smart, he may order the crops be harvested early–before they can be burned. This is why I went to such efforts to get the Misty Isles growing. Sadly, I think the merchants largely planted tobacco. I wonder if the poor can smoke their hunger away.”

“There won’t be war. The armies are needed for Skaldheim. The king is treating with the council as we speak to negotiate trading routes in the ice sea.”

“What’s happening in the ice sea?”

She shrugged. “Something to do with a copper mine(1). They were able to drag the equipment over by sled during the winter, now there’s practically a fortress in land claimed by Jarnmark.”

Lucius took his time picking over the bakery treats, trying to discern which were fresh and which had turned to briquettes. “I hate to break it to you, Felicia, but that makes it all the more likely. If we look stretched thin, that’s weakness and weakness is a provocation.”

She nodded. “I suppose that’s why you’re being sent off on a gamble.”

Picking a crumbling mass of sugar and pistachio, Lucius said, “If I’m to be the game piece, the question becomes who is throwing the dice.”

“Duke Ashe.”

He nearly choked, and then nearly burned his throat washing it down. “I wasn’t expecting good news.”

She demurely shrugged. “Who else would be trying to smooth over the conflict in the east? He’s the one that has to fend off Skaldheim, not Feugard.”

“This is better than expected. I have a friend who will be paying a visit to the palace today. Mateo Mendez, son of one of my investors. They’re looking for security guarantees on their land.”

Felicia’s grace drooped. She even put her elbow on the table. “You’re not going to ask me, are you?”

He flashed a gambler’s smile back at her, broad, toothy, and ready for a fight. “Only to assist as an intermediary. If Ashe is sending me off to win a war for him, then surely he will be happy to buy our crops before the harvest, no?”

Felicia arched an eyebrow and watched him steep another cup of tea. “Are you going to answer my other question? Why aren’t you courting me, Lucius von Solhart?”

“I already have a woman.”

“The bard? She’s nobody.”

“She’s pregnant.”

“Oh.” Her ears burned. “Does your mother know?”

“She will soon enough, I’m sure. Aisha is on her way now. Miss Felicia, if you want me to court you, I’m afraid that it will have to last at least until I return from Duke Ashe’s expedition, and for her safety I plan to leave Aisha here in Rackvidd. She’s perfectly trained in court etiquette of course, and I’ve secured more than enough to cover her expenses. If you can still stomach the thought of me after such time with the mother of my bastard then it would be a disgrace of me to not court you.” He heard approaching footsteps at this time, a warrior’s senses to pick out the clink of metal.

“Isn’t she the sister of that rebel? I thought you had to keep her with you.”

“If someone says I should bring her into the desert with me instead of leaving her in safety, tell them I will personally kill them in a duel.” He paused, letting the fury melt away. “War will make the world a dangerous place. I know you must be upset that the angel kicked you out, but I think you should stay here in Rackvidd. Don’t go back to the capital, and don’t let my sister go either.”

She tried to ask why that was, but he had timed his statement well. The door swung open and in marched the man clad in steel. Not an assassin but perhaps a threat, Lord Felix von Raymi greeted his daughter and guest. “Better with a sword than ever, Lucius,” the grey-haired soldier said. His warm smile was reserved only for his daughter. “Sweetie, did you enjoy making the men dance for you?”

She swept out of her chair and gave him a hug. “Better this than leaving them be.”

Lucius greeted him properly, fists to his sides as he stood and bowed. “I was happy to help her.”

Lord Raymi kept his hand on Felicia’s shoulder, as a sailor might keep his finger to the wind. “Then I suppose you will be happy to help me. I have to meet with a bunch of scholars begging me for help with the university.”

“I’m not sure how I can be of help, Sir…”

“I need you to divide their attentions–keep them from ganging up on me. Especially if that syphilitic oaf is dragged out of his cretinous dungeon.”

At the time, the Skaldish merely called it the Western Copper Mine. The untranslated name seeped through the Vassish rumor mill primarily among people who didn’t know the meaning of the words. This bit of trivia is rather moot except as a point of modern translation. In the years that followed, that highly contested mine came to be known as the Blood Mine, and the name has stuck ever since. To not cause confusion, I will be using the term ahistorically just as I preferentially call my pupil Lucius.