Family Business 33 (Patreon)

Family Business
Chapter 33

-VB-

“What do you think about your brother?”

Garen looked up from where he just put his training sword away.

“Your Grace?” he asked after him.

Jarvan IV waved dismissively at him. “No need to call me that in here. You know I don’t care. I just want to know what you think and feel about your brother.”

Garen Cronwguard frowned.

Marris … had risen. He acknowledged this. His younger brother married their sister, and despite the unwritten taboo on incest, this was allowed because he helped to uncover corruption with one of the dukes. Admittedly, the duke in question had not a popular one nor connected to many other powerful dukes or the royalty. The man had previously been connected to the underworld, but a direct attack upon the Crownguard had been crossing the line.

Marris took that chance to take the duke’s city from him and became a count in his own right,

Garen personally thought that his younger brother did well to establish himself as such, because he spent too much time as it was as the family’s treasurer.

And then…

And then he accepted Ionian refugees. He accepted the people who’s very culture and mindset was steeped in magic.

It made him feel unhappy, but what was he going to do?

Then his brother outright showed his magic just when another magician had gone and escaped the prison.

Finally, he brought that man back for execution and became the crown’s official “magician of the state” or however else they called him.

What did he feel about his little brother?

“Complicated.”

Jarvan snorted. “That’s exactly how I feel. My father keeps telling me to keep an eye on your little brother, but that if the situation continues as it is, then we are in a very good situation,” he replied. “At the very least, we will have our own counters to annoying Noxian magicians.”

Garen let out a sigh at that. What his prince said was true. One of the biggest problems that Demacian soldiers faced when they stood up against Noxian magicians was that it wasn’t just the flashy kind of magic - the fireballs, watershots, electric burns, and the like - that dominated the battlefield. No, the most dangerous kind of magic was the one that altered one’s perception. It was normally for a Demacian soldier to have killed or wounded one of their allies or even kin on the battlefield because Noxian magicians would have made them think that they were attacking an enemy.

Many soldiers who step onto the battlefield against Noxus did so as far away from their own friends and family as they could.

To have their own magicians would mean that Demacia might not have to risk their friends to friendly attack ever again. To have enemy magics dispelled, to have control over the battlefield for the first time in a long time, and to not have to fight an uphill battle. It would be a dream come true.

… But the thought of working and fighting with a magician by his side unnerved him, even if he knew that magic flowed even when he didn’t want it to. Marris, when they were younger, noted how it was impossible for a man to be strong enough to wield weapons like the one he wielded now for hours on end because that was physically impossible.

But it wouldn’t be if magic, which flowed everywhere in the world, flowed within him, too.

That and later discoveries allowed Garen to realize that the Petricite that Demacia used did nothing to curb magical power within a person, only the outwardly expression of it.

If they put him in Petracite, then Garen would be able to break out of it.

But Marris had something about that, too; a human body cannot physically break open hardened rocks with only their bare hands and arms, especially not something like Petracite which was strong enough to shrug off castle-forged steel with ease.

Would accepting magicians among the ranks of Demacians be wrong? Or would it be right?

He sighed again. He did that a lot when he thought about his now higher ranked, filthy rich, and politically more influential little brother.

“He is still my brother and loyal to Demacia. He has achieved much, and I’m proud for him.” There was nothing else he could say except for one. “But I really wish he would properly train his swordplay.”

The prince smirked. “Aye, I can get behind that.”

-VB-

“Freljord?” Garen frowned after he heard the latest news about Marris from his aunt.

High Marshal Tianna Crownguard nodded. As the leading noble in charge of Demacia’s military affairs, she spent a lot of time going over intelligence, military and civilian.

“Yes,” she replied. “Your brother has taken some of the refugees off of Marquis Bronzemoon’s shoulders, and the man is very happy to not have to spend so much on the foreigners.”

Garen hummed. “First Ionians and their magical Vastayans, and now Freljordians…”

“Yes,” she hummed as well. Humming was a family thing. “But what’s important is not that he took in Freljordian tribal refugees but the fact that he’s been visiting and meeting with great nobles of western Demacia. He’s met with your father, all of the influential and somewhat powerful nobles in the north, then the nobles between the Freljord Marches, and finally, the marquis himself. From what your father tells me, he is doing this to gather support for the crown. I don’t believe that.”

He felt his stomach drop. Auntie Tianna did not become the High Marshal because of nepotism; she got her position because she was a powerful warrior with a knack for politics and an instinct sharper than anyone else.

“What… do you believe, then?”

“Getting support for the crown is part of his reason, yes, but the true reason may be what he is doing on the side,” she replied as she slid him a paper.

He took it up and read it.

“... This is about the academy he made for magicians.”

“Yes, and notice how the flier you are holding specifically states how there will be a general education section specifically to ‘nurture’ its other students.”

Garen didn’t understand for a moment. “I don’t see how that is bad.”

“It isn’t. It merely shows what his goal is: connection.”

“...”

“Think about it this way. When you have a single institution in the country that is not the army where the children of the nobility can gather, then what do you have?”

“... Somewhere they can talk.”

“Yes. Away from the discipline of the army. Away from the reasonably rigid structure of our noble society. What happens if someone infiltrates such an institution and spreads poisonous ideas?”

“They can become imbedded in them…!”

She nodded. “While I doubt that your brother is the weak sort, though he has shown that lust is definitely his weak point-”

Garen grimaced. It was odd to hear about Marris’s sexual activities, and that was part of the rumor about him; his little brother was a man with an exotic harem.

“-but it is where he can influence people. It is where he can gather support without even raising too much of a fuss. He promises higher education, strict regimental training, and support for magic. Can you think of a better place?”

“... Other than the crown’s own guards, no.”

“The crown’s guards, not our family, is not a place of education where young’uns come. No, I will tell you now, Garen, that there is no better place for a young noble to be. That is what your brother is planning. He seeks accumulation of soft power. He is ambitious.”

Marris? Ambitious?

All Garen could remember about his brother’s “weaknesses” were his greed and occasionally flippant attitude. Magic didn’t count anymore because the crown accepted magic now.

“Then what should we do?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Little Marris is doing his own little side project on top of working for the crown. I cannot demand anything from him, especially when doing so would harm our family.”

He nodded in understanding.

“I just wanted you to know, Garen, so that it won’t backside you like how your brother and sister marrying each other did to your reputation here in the capital.”

Garen grimaced a little and nodded. “Thank you, auntie.”

She smiled. “Oh, and I expect a lot of the capital’s own nobles will seek to enter their children to this academy. Not all but significant enough of them will try, and you are the closest among us who can convince Marr to enter those children, so I expect that the noble parents will come to you now.”

He opened his mouth to answer and then grimaced. “My little brother is starting to become a menace to me.”

She chuckled. “Hasn’t he always been a menace?”

Kkkrnnngg….

Both of them paused as the distant thunder rumbled on a clear, cloudless day.

Garen stepped out of the high marshal’s office towards its balcony and looked around.

He spotted the trouble immediately.

Black clouds slowly began to form and quake above the city.

“Well, shit.”

He turned and saw that auntie was out on the balcony with him.

“High Marshal-”

“Marr would have been more useful right here instead of galavanting out in the countryside,” she sighed. “Call up the royal guard. We protect the king.”