AO 4 Ch 20 (Patreon)

Chapter 20

“Are we really doing this?” Emlyn peeked over the lip of the roof on Aldis Manor.

We had all come to the roof, even in our fancy dinner outfits.

“Afraid of heights?” I teased her.

“Afraid of you making me go splat.” Emlyn squinted.

“You’ve ridden on his ice platforms more than a few times.” Aurelia reminded her as she stepped onto the sheet of ice I made on the roof.

“Yeah, Em. You’ve done it a thousand times. You just don’t like being part of the show.” I smiled at her and the rest of my cohort arrayed out on the rooftop. All of them had come out in Aldis colors of blue and white. Though, they weren’t uniform in style like they had been at some of the balls.

Perhaps the poofy shoulders were going out of style; I could live with that.

One and all, poofy shoulders aside, they looked beautiful.

But I had to admit that Zuri took the cake today. She was either ahead or behind in the current fashion and was beautiful in a dress that hugged her every inch and was scandalously short ending above her knees. I stared of course. Zuri had fantastic legs.

Emlyn stepped on the ice and I smiled. “Off we go.” Pulling at the ice, I made a dome around us and lifted us off the rooftop.

“How do you know where you’re going?” Sienna asked.

“That’s the best part! I don’t.” I gave all of them a wide grin.

Emlyn groaned. “This is why it’s a terrible idea.”

“People will get out of the way.” I said and made a few discreet holes so I didn’t squish anything important as I spiraled down from the roof and landed amid the dinner guests in the garden.

As we landed, I melted away the dome to reveal my party with a smile.

The reactions I received were from mildly amused to full blown eyerolls and snorts.

“I can’t believe we did that.” Emlyn muttered.

Stepping off my ice platform, I let my group fall in behind me as I went to check in with my mother.

Gwen had been watching me from a nearby table. Her face held a thin veneer of amusement. I waited to see if she was amused or angry behind that face. Kim Keller was standing with her and laughing while a few other people I didn’t recognize appeared unsure how to react. They glanced at my mother for cues.

At least she was the leader of this group.

“I see you got dressed.” My mother’s tone was dry as I approached.

“Yep. Look, I have poofy shoulders.” I batted one of them down, only for it to rebound and remain poofy.

Secretly I had hoped it would deflate or at least stop being quite so large. My shoulders kept catching the corner of my eye, like something that wasn’t supposed to be there.

“Current fashion.” My mother shrugged with her own signature shoulders. “At least you came, even if you went overboard.”

“Told you.” Emlyn muttered.

“It was great.” Kim admonished my mother and slapped her on the shoulder. “Perfect for  a young budding mage to make himself the star of the show.”

I beamed back at the radiant mage’s praise. “Thank you. At least someone can appreciate my flare.”

“It was unique.” A man in the group dipped his head and checked my mothers reaction. He totally had the hots for her.

Go mom. I always wanted siblings. “Thanks. What’s your name?”

“Rodger Thorne, but those familiar with me call me Rod.” He flashed a charming smile.

“Mom, Rod’s a looker. What do you think? You keep talking about how House Aldis needs some new children to bounce back. You should do your part.” I flashed an innocent smile at my mother.

Kim spat out the wine she’d been drinking and her anchor patted her back.

Rod’s face turned bright red as my mother let out a heavy sigh.

I was also fairly sure I heard at least one of my anchors slap their face behind me.

“This is what I’m dealing with.” My mother ignored me and turned to the group she was talking to. “He’s far too willful, but it reminds me of Harry.”

“I think he’s even bolder than Harry.” Rod added and shot me a glance that wasn’t entirely unfriendly. It was somewhere between grateful and embarrassed.

“Alright. I’m getting you out of here before your mother decides you’d look better with your own ice muzzle.” Sienna took my hand. “Lovely meeting all of you.” She said as she pulled me away.

“Really, Ard?” Emlyn asked.

“Really. She keeps telling me to have children, and then Sienna’s old Nana Graystone leaned on me about it. They should start popping children out. My mother’s not that old for a mage.” I huffed. There was no reason why all the pressure had to be on me.

“Let’s go find one of our peers to chat with. Maybe that’ll be more entertaining for you.” Sienna had my arm hooked and led me across the yard looking for someone to talk to. “Strathmoore is always fairly neutral. No one likes to go against the people making their food.” She shifted and avoided several groups with pretty ladies and instead we stopped at a table with a few men and their anchors.

“Quite the entrance.” One covered his face as he snickered. “I’m Flour Strathmoore.”

“Flower like a budding plant?” I asked with a smile rising on my lips.

“Worse. Flour like what you get after you mill wheat.” He rubbed his face. “I hate it, but best to get that out of the way. You’re Arden Aldis?”

“I sincerely hope so, or I’ve hit my head rather hard. Oh! Drinks.” I accepted some from Maribelle. “Thank’s Belle.”

“You know the names of all your servants?” Another asked, his eyes trailing after Maribelle as she handed out drinks to the rest of our group. “Can’t really blame you though.”

“She’s an anchor.” Another commented, no doubt sensing some magic from her. “Arden here probably has the troubling task of filling up her magic. I’m sure it’s a pain.” He glanced at Maribelle’s retreating form.

In fairness, she was absolutely a treat.

“It’s harder than you would imagine.” I lamented. “Yet the duties of a four sphere never seem to end.”

They laughed at my antics. “I heard you are going to pass the mage test? Can we see your adept spell?” Flour asked.

“Sure.” I spun my finger around in a circle as a single manticore claw formed and twirled above it.

“Oh, a claw. Kinda simple. No wonder you got it in such a short order.” Another didn’t seem too impressed.

“Hey, he stopped a giant wyrm.”

“Actually he faced it down and then healed it’s injured young.” Sienna added.

My anchors seemed to float off from the table and stay close, but they were busy talking with the other anchors. It left us mages to converse among ourselves.

“Whoa.” Flour nodded and one of the pretty anchors picked up a few h’orderves and a glass to hand to him.

I realized that he was the only one here with Strathmoore colors. That made six of the anchors around us his. He was another man of fine culture, it seemed. Or at least, he couldn’t be terrible for that many anchors to stick with him.

Immediately, I liked Flour, even if he had a terrible name and poofy shoulders.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal. Pretty sure it didn’t even see me as a threat.” I gave a self deprecating chuckle.

“How big was it?” Another asked.

“Absolutely colossal.” I spread my hands as wide as I could. “My arms aren’t long enough to even give you a scale.”

They laughed.

“No really.” The man insisted.

“It was like someone had taken a city wall and turned it into a massive serpent. It flattened buildings just by moving over them. The head was the size of our stables.” I pointed my chin over to the side.

There was a small whinny from my shadow at the mention of the stables. Cyam needed some attention later. He’d been such a good boy.

“That’s huge.” The crowd at the table turned away from where they were looking. “You stared it down?”

“No. I nearly pissed myself as it tried to dig into our shelter. Someone had brought one of its eggs into the city. I found the egg smashed in the Eighth Princess’ carriage.” I said, receiving a pinch from Sienna and ignoring it. “It was struggling and I started healing it. After that Big Bertha, that’s what I named the momma, took its young and retreated.”

“Incredible.” Flour shook his head. “You're a different breed than most of us. Too bad you won’t spend much time at the Enclave. Most of us are close to our adept spells… but… not quite there yet.” He turned awkward.

Something told me that they were avoiding the war by not showing off their progress. There was probably a whole class of them. Nobles would avoid sending all of their young off if they could.

“Don’t blame you. If my mother and grandfather weren’t pushing me so hard, I’d have loved to go to the Enclave and learn magic for a few years. Sadly, not only do they push me on magic, but they even are trying to marry me off as quickly as they can.”

“I’m not that bad.” Sienna put a loving hand on my arm.

“Oh, I was talking about the other ones.”

She smiled while she pinched me. “Don’t be a brat.”

I chuckled.

“My brother’s got three noble marriages.” One mage perked up. “Sister’s got two.”

“That’s because those low nobles are clinging to your family.” Flour added. “Though, Arden has those four spheres. I’m sure anyone would love to see if they couldn’t add some of his magic to their family.”

“They really would.” A lovely woman walked up with a fan half obscuring her face, yet I recognized a few traits and immediately realized she was from House Thorne like Rod. Her blonde hair was put up in an intricate bun behind her.

She was a stunning beauty, practically sculpted.

“Sorry for intruding, this seems to be the place to be.” Another mage came with the Thorne mage, though she was of a lower house that I didn’t recognize.

A few more ladies filtered over and I waved my hand to increase the size of the table slowly.

“Welcome.” Sienna’s smile was slightly strained. “I’m Sienna Gra—Well soon to be Aldis. We have a marriage contract.”

“I heard it was provisional.” The Thorne mage switched her attention to me and held out a hand to me. “Claire. It is an absolute pleasure to meet you.” She held my hand and smiled like I’d done something wrong before deciding to take my hand and kiss it.

Curiosity got the best of me and I peeked at her soul just brushing the surface. Her family had pushed her to seduce me.

“Ah. The contract might be provisional, but I don’t think that’ll be any problem.” I pulled my hand back and wrapped a possessive arm around Sienna. “I’m quite fond of Sienna”

“Lucky woman.” Claire’s smile was polite. “How bad is the pressure between your two families to produce an heir?”

I coughed, not prepared for her to be so direct.

“Extreme.” Sienna sighed dramatically. “It’s like every spare moment we have needs to go towards making a little one.”

It was funny watching Sienna be a little territorial. Then again, after the conversation with her family’s matriarch and a time frame being added to the contract, she might be trying to solidify that into something other than provisional.

I rubbed her back to try and reassure her. “There are so many of you and I know practically no one. Why don’t we all introduce ourselves and maybe point out your Aldis relations.” I tried to pull myself out of the center of attention.

They quickly started to introduce themselves. The men often focused on one of the lady mages. However, almost all of them focused on me when they introduced themselves.

More than a few of them had come as guests to their parents, which made a little more sense.

At this point the garden was packed with visitors, and I had trouble believing there were that many Aldis anchors to go around.

But it seemed that people were interested enough in attending that they snuck in more people than would normally be invited.

My grandfather did not seem to care one bit.

I spotted him walking away from a table of old geezers to the center of the garden with a giant smile on his face.

“Everyone.” He shouted and let a piece of ice lift him up. “I think tonight I learned a little something about how to get people’s attention from my grandson.”

People laughed at his joke.

I however was glad that he admitted to learning from me.

“The dining room is now open and you’re welcome to filter that way and claim your tables.” He gestured towards the manor where a pair of maids opened the doors at his cue. “Doors will close in a half an hour so dinner can get under way. Thank you for coming, and I hope to talk to you more inside.” He raised a glass in toast before he let the platform of ice settle back down and he was the first to start heading in.

“We should all go and get a table together.” Claire insisted, rounding everyone up and urging them forward.

Sienna tugged lightly at my arm, but before we could move, I turned her cheek and kissed her on the lips.

“You have nothing to worry about.” I whispered.

She gave me a look out of the corner of her eyes. “Really?”

I sighed and held her arm tighter. “You’re going to ruin my surprise.”

“Is it a big one? A battle ax?” Sienna teased.

“Certainly not as big as a battle ax.” I mimed wiping my brow. “Couldn’t imagine carrying that everywhere. Don’t get your hopes up.”

Her brows pinched slightly before her eyes went wide. “Wait.”

“Yes.” I knew we were on the same wavelength. “Come on, be my date for the whole night? You certainly are lovely enough.”

“Hold on.” She urgently waved to Selina who came over looking confused and then she whispered a long string of things quickly to her anchor.

Selina’s eyes grew wide with every passing second and then nodded sharply to her mage and hurried off.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Nothing.” Sienna batted her lashes at me. “I know you like surprises.”

I hummed to myself and nodded. “Yes I do.”

“Claire is pretty, isn’t she?” Sienna prodded. “All the Thornes are stupid pretty.”

“You could be just as pretty if you wanted.” I pointed out.

“But then I’d just look like another Thorne.” Sienna touched her nose self consciously.

“I like the nose. Makes you look more substantial than a puff of hot air. Also, she was asked to seduce me by her family, not her own idea.” I kept my voice low so those in front of us wouldn’t hear.

As we walked the stone halls of the manor sound bounced off every surface and it was loud enough that we had a sort of privacy as we walked.

“Oh. You peeked?” She asked.

“I peek with everyone if I can. Why guess what people are thinking if you can actually know it?” I shrugged helplessly. “It’s not like I rifle through their entire history, just what they are doing at the moment.”

Sienna held my arm tight. “Sorry about my touchiness with it before.”

“I understand. You’ll guard my own secrets just as tightly?” I asked.

“Even more so.” She nodded. “House secrets weren’t mine to share, and I’d taken some serious oaths to be let in on them. I take my promises seriously.” There was a quality in her eyes that I didn’t see in everyone.

Perhaps it was her will to follow through on what she said or she was exactly as she seemed. It made her feel more solid, more reliable in my life.

“I love you.” I kissed her temple. “Which is why I won’t plan for the worst at every point. I’ll hope for the best.”

The smile I got in return made my heart do a few flips in my chest and threaten to hammer its way out.

“Lovely.” She clung tightly to my arm. “I love you too. It hasn’t been that long, but you’re so damn charming. I have trouble thinking of a future without you. When I do, I feel immense regret.”

“I didn’t know you had those thoughts. Something I need to be concerned about?”

“No. When we were at odds in the fortress or when someone decided to face down a giant wyrm, they popped into my head.” She puffed out her cheeks and poked me for the wyrm comment.

“Fair.” I said as we stepped into the dinning room.

The space was nothing like I remembered. The one giant table that had seemed comically small for the space was gone and instead several dozen round tables that could fit ten people comfortably cluttered the room.

On one side, there was a platform raised so that a speaker could be seen over the other tables.

I hoped my Grandfather had some good speeches in mind. If they put me on stage, I had no idea what I would say. Although I was fairly certain it would be witty and endearing. Emlyn would surely agree.