Chapter 7 : shadow and strategy

The workshop door closed with a quiet click, the wards there springing to life—much more complicated than the ones that safeguarded my living spaces. Here, in this haven of equations and experiments, I could openly speak.

"Were you tailed?" I inquired when Sylphi came in with the package I'd left with Mai in her possession.

"No. I went down the underground tunnel like you instructed me." My sister's blue eyes—blue just like my mother's—were calm and intent. She had the posture and air of an upright teenager when only thirteen years old, necessity having spurred on her maturity just like it had mine.

She set the package on my workbench. Covered in plain brown wrapping paper, it held something more important than its plain appearance indicated—a communication device that I had designed and assembled with principles that combined this world's crystal magical conductors with principles that I had learned about quantum entanglement in my past life.

Lyra and Zephyr will arrive any moment now," I mentioned, slowly unwrapping the package. "You notice anything out of the ordinary on your water training?"

Sylphi nodded seriously. "Professor Maren got an email in class. She tried to conceal her reaction, but her fingers trembled when reading it."

I raised an eyebrow. "Interesting. Maren rarely loses composure."

There is more, Sylphi went on. The junior students were murmuring about expanded patrols along the practice fields of the elements. And Kira—you know, on the diplomatic stream?—told me her father passed word that the ambassador from Karnass left the capital without official warning three days ago.

My fingers hesitated on the communication device. "Three days. just when the shipment of mage-crystal from our family mine would arrive at the royal repository."

The door opened once more to admit Lyra and Zephyr. Both had on the intent expressions I'd learned to identify with their fighting faces.

"It's worse than I thought," Lyra announced without preface. "Davin just got back from the city. Duke Ragna's men aren't just camped outside your family's estate—they've put 'emergency resource oversight procedures' in place on the whole mining operation."

"A legal sham to seize it under," I translated, seething with anger beneath my carefully masked countenance. "Under the guise of the Karnassian threat."

Zephyr set down on my workbench an unopened scroll. "Your contact within the Ministry of Resources." Confirmation that the requisitioning order is Royal-Sealed."

"So that means the Duke is in the King's ear," I surmised, the pieces falling into place in my mind. "Or his counselors' at least."

I unsealed the scroll and read its contents hastily. Formal phrases could not conceal the reality—Duke Ragna had effectively maneuvered the crown into allowing his takeover of my family mine in the name of national security.

What about my parents? I inquired, glancing upwards to my companions.

Lyra's tone softened slightly. "Technically still under house arrest, 'for protection.' No one in or out without official clearance."

I finished making the final adjustments to the communication device, a small crystal construct contained in an unassuming wooden box. "Then we go forward on schedule. Sylphi, you recall the activation code?"

My sister assented. "Three pulses of water magic and then an ongoing field of low pressure lasting just seven seconds."

Good. Our parents are hiding the paired receiver in father's old chess set—the black queen. When turned on, we'll have an encrypted channel that evades the Duke's monitoring.

Zephyr stepped to the window to examine the sun's position. "We need to make haste. The delegation dinner with Lady Elara is three hours away, and you will need to prepare."

I smiled grudgingly. "Oh, I've been getting ready for Lady Elara for seven years."

While Sylphi used her controlled water magic to activate the device, I thought back on the game I had been playing since I came to the Academy. Duke Ragna had recognized me when I first showed my skills at ten years old—a prodigy whose skills could be used to forward his plans. The betrothal to his niece had been suggested when I was twelve years old, an overt move to link my skills to House Ragna.

What the Duke did not know was how well I had researched him, his family and political machinations. I had read every book and every record and scoured every piece of data on House Ragna. I knew all about their allies and enemies, and vulnerabilities and most significant of all—about the ancient debt that technically put Lady Elara's family line under obligation to mine in spite of our power imbalance.

A debt lost to everyone who didn't have motive to scour the most ancient records—records that were usually closed to others, but open to me by virtue of my special role within the Academy.

The communicator whirred to life, its crystalline heart radiating an aura of soft blue light.

"Established." Sylphi breathed, her eyes expanding with shock

A second passed and my dad's voice—weak but firm—came through on the equipment.

"Arthur? Are you there?"

Yes, Father. Sylphi is with me also. Are Mother and you okay?

A pause. "We are not hurt, although under lock and key in the manor. Your mother loves you."

"How is the mine situation?" I inquired, knowing full well the response anyway.

Total control has been handed over to Ragna's men. They're referring to it as 'temporary oversight' but have substituted our foremen and set up military checkpoints on all points of access.

I glanced over at Lyra. "And the special section we had talked about prior to my going away to school this term?"

Another pause, longer this time. "Secured as you instructed. They haven't found it yet."

Relief coursed through me. Our secret remained the secondary vein of mage-crystals—the one that I had found with mathematical models translated from principles gleaned from my past life—hidden away to be used in the impending confrontation.

"Listen carefully," I instructed, moving in closer to the device. "The action will speed up soon. The Tournament starts in two weeks' time, and Duke Ragna has dispatched Lady Elara early with his champion, Lord Marcus Thornfeld."

"Marcus Thornfeld," my dad repeated, with worry in his voice. "The same one who—"

"That's right," I cut in. "The same one who disabled the Eastmarch scion during the fighting trials last year. He's being used as an open threat while Elara takes care of the politics."

"What do you need us to do?" my dad inquired. "For the meantime, do exactly as you're told. Act cooperative and bewildered. Stress that you're just a minor baron with scant knowledge of the strategic value of the mine." I hesitated, making my selection meticulously. "And make sure Mother keeps her use of the light magic discreet. We don't want them to know her healing powers are more than ordinary."

My mother's remarkable gift of light magic—and its healing properties—was another card that I played close to my chest. My own skills and Sylphi's water affinity were known to Duke Ragna, but my mother's capabilities were underestimated by everyone.

"What about the Tournament?" Sylphi inquired anxiously, her voice strained with worry. "If you are to confront Lord Marcus—"

"That is exactly what I desire," I stated, much to everyone's shock except Lyra, who examined me with wise gazes. "The Tournament offers an officially sanctioned area in which I can show exactly what is required to challenge House Valistein."

Zephyr frowned. "You're going to show your full capabilities? That does not sound wise."

"Not complete," I explained. "Strategic. As much to make an impact without revealing it all."

Through the comms device, my dad's voice became more urgent. "Be cautious, Arthur. Duke Ragna does not play by the rules. They say there are opponents who suddenly fell ill when going up against his champions."

I'm relying on just such efforts, I answered. I've actually already prepared to meet them.

I looked down at the plain vial on my desk—containing an apparently ordinary fluid imperceptible to the naked eye to any ordinary person. Another use of cross-world expertise: one which would identify and counter the particular toxins used by House Ragna's more covert agents.

"We need to go," Lyra warned, her eyes flitting to the door. "Magister Noctis will come to examine the eastern workbenches presently."

I nodded and leaned forward once again to the communication device. "We'll be contacting you in three days' time. Remain strong and don't forget—this is one game that I've been training to beat since I joined the Academy."

Having disabled the device and stowed it safely out of sight behind one of the false panels on my workbench, I turned to my companions. "Zephyr, double-check the security details for tonight's dinner. Lyra, I want you to make sure Brianna realizes her role—Lady Elara is to never be left alone with Sylphi, not for an instant."

As they left to carry out their assignments, Sylphi remained behind, her youthful face set in firm lines.

You are not revealing to them all the details,

I smiled in amazement once more at her perceptiveness. "No."

The formula you worked on late into the night—the one you don't want so much as Lyra to guess about? It's complete, isn't it?

Rather than responding directly, I shifted to the opposite corner of my workshop where an otherwise unassuming bookshelf rested. Applying magical power with surgical precision—dark magic fueled by an encoded prime number sequence—the shelf glided to one side to open up a hidden chamber.

There, nestled among its pages made of real leather and filled with equations that would make little sense to any being from this world, lay the fruition of two knowledge systems connected by seven years—the physics and mathematics of my past life as William and combined with the principles of this world's elemental magic.

"Tonight," I informed Sylphi, "Lady Elara will seek to assert dominance, to make me realize the price one pays when one defies House Ragna. She will offer threats cloaked in worry and deals masquerading as gifts."

I took out the journal and stroked its well-used cover with my fingers. "What she fails to understand is that whereas Duke Ragna has been making political moves, I've been redefining the underlying rules of the game itself."

The Tournament would be more than simply an exhibition of power—it would be the revealing of an emergent magical paradigm, one that would redetermine the balance of power not just among our houses, but perhaps throughout the kingdom.

"It's dinner time," I announced, tucking the journal away in the folds of my robes. "Duchess Ragna is going to be meeting with an incredibly skilled young magician who could be of service to her family's aims."

Sylphi's lips curled into a tiny, conspiratorial smile. "But she's meeting with the one who will revolutionize magic itself." As we departed the workshop, the burden of seven years' preparation comfortably rested on my shoulders. Duke Ragna had made his move and thought himself to be the predator. He would come to realize he was just a pawn on an enormous board—one on which I had been making the moves since my own rebirth into this world.