THE PALAZZO DE CONTRAIER did not demand attention the way the White Citadel did. It wasn’t ostentatious or desperate to impress. It didn’t reach for gold or jeweled embellishments like a noble fumbling for titles.
Instead, its wealth was quiet. The mahogany walls had the sort of polish that only old money leaves, as if no one thinks much about it. Rugs lay thick as river moss and softened every footfall. The travertine tile seemed to drink the light, so the whole place felt hushed. Statues lingered in the corners, each one a figure in mid-stride, caught in some silent moment of elegance.
I was barely through the entryway when the harp found me. It lilted through the grand halls, running fingers along the ribs of the palace, seeking. It led me, and I followed.
I moved carefully, smoothing the deep green waistcoat I’d bought for the occasion. It cost too much. It felt too much. The cloth was too fine, and the fit too precise.
Then I saw her.
Denna.
She stood behind the harp, her arms curved around its frame, fingers careful on the strings. Her head cocked, as if listening for something distant. The harp bowed to her will, yielding a melody as fragile as spun glass, a harmony as strong as drawn wire.
Near the song’s end, her eyes found mine. For a moment, they widened in recognition. Her hands faltered, only for the space of a heartbeat, only enough for me to notice.
The music faded to a thin applause, too polite for what she had given them. The murmur of conversation rose again. Still, Denna’s eyes lingered on mine, and in them I read the question she would never ask aloud. There you are. I was beginning to wonder if I should keep searching for you at all.
There was a pause before she crossed the room to me. A hesitation, a decision made.
Then she drew me into her arms, so gently it was almost just the thought of an embrace rather than the real thing. “Here we are again, it seems.”
“Always turning up where I shouldn’t,” I said.
Denna leaned in slightly, her voice silk-soft and dangerous. “Especially with the wrong women, I hear.”
I blinked. “The wrong women?”
Denna gave me a knowing look. “Your reputation is quite the talk these days.”
She was amused. But beneath her amusement, pointed curiosity lingered.
“We weren’t,” I started. Then I stopped. What was I supposed to say? That I had spent sleepless weeks with Devi, not tangled in bedsheets but hunched over secretive research? That our relationship had been ink-blotted notes, whispered plans, and too many close calls? That there was nothing more to it?
That sort of answer would only make it sound more suspicious. I could already picture the way Denna would tilt her head and the amused glint that would spark in her eye. “Oh, of course, Kvothe. Weeks alone with a pretty girl, deep in your work. Definitely just research.”
She was watching me now, unreadable, waiting.
“You wound me, Denna,” I said smoothly. “To think you believed I’d betray my boundless devotion to you with an alchemist. No offense to alchemists.”
Denna laughed. “See, now that sounds like a lie.”
“Only if you don’t believe in poetry,” I said.
Her smile lingered, indulgent. “I don’t,” she admitted, amused.
“Then I’ll have to prove you wrong another time,” I said, pulling us both back before the current took us somewhere neither of us was ready to go.
Denna considered me for a beat longer than necessary, then took the escape. “Of course,” she murmured, glancing toward a rustle at the entrance. Her posture shifted, barely, but enough for me to read unease even as it disappeared. “Ah,” she said lightly, too lightly. “Fascino has arrived.”
I waited.
She looked back at me. “I can’t linger,” she said after a brief hesitation, then, softer. “Stay. I’ll show you my favorite part of Renere.”
Then she was gone, slipping into the crowd, and for a moment my sense of purpose went with her.
Bredon found me before I found him. He always did.
He sat among the watchers, the old-money men whose business was not business but influence. He wasn’t near Fascino, nor was he near the lesser lords of Renere.
Instead, he chose the perfect corner. A place to watch, yet remain unseen. He was the sort of man who measured the weight of a room in silence before deciding where to set his stone.
His silver-threaded attire might have suited a merchant prince, but no merchant ever carried himself with that unhurried ease. The stillness of a man who had never once needed to prove his wealth. A cane rested against the crook of his arm, its handle set with mother-of-pearl. Not gaudy, but old. A thing passed down.
Bredon watched the way a man watches a game he has already decided the outcome of.
Perhaps it was only my imagination. Yet when our eyes met, I could have sworn I caught the edge of a smile he hadn’t meant to give.
I moved toward him, deliberate.
Then came the crash.
A sudden bloom of red across my new green waistcoat, the sharp scent of wine soaking through.
The man who had backed into me turned, blinking down at his stained orange coat. He didn’t look embarrassed. That should have told me everything.
He was older than me, broad-shouldered with the easy posture of high nobility. His coat was of Aturan cut, his insignia woven in gold thread at the cuff.
His accent, when he spoke, was unmistakably Aturan. A drawl that carried constant disinterest. “Watch where you’re going,” he said, his voice just a shade too loud.
I brushed a hand over my waistcoat and gave a small, apologetic shrug. “Tragic,” I said lightly, tilting my head at his ruined sleeve. “Killed mid-vintage. A true loss.”
But when I moved to walk around him, he stepped sideways, close enough to make his meaning clear. “You’ll apologize,” he said smoothly. “Or perhaps you’d prefer satisfaction instead?”
Ah. Of course.
I didn’t even know his name, and already we were speaking the language of knives.
“Satisfaction,” I said, shaking my sleeve, “is a bit dramatic for an overturned drink.”
In my periphery, I saw Fascino standing apart, arms folded, watching the whole thing play out.
“And there it is,” the Aturan sighed, feigning long-suffering patience. His orange coat caught the gold chandelier light as he turned ever-so-slightly to display me to the others.
“The glib tongue of a Ruh, sneering at civility itself.”
More guests began to look our way and I could feel the room tilt against me. I pressed my hands flat against my thighs, willing the tremor out of my fingers. I had suffered worse insults without lifting a hand. If I reacted, I was lost.
Then, the man moved.
His foot slid back too quickly, his movement exaggerated just enough. His body twisted at exactly the wrong moment, his weight shifting as if he’d been shoved.
He staggered. His heel caught. The tray of a passing servant flipped with a sudden, crashing sound. Broken glass rained down, striking the stone below.
A hush rolled through the room.
I didn’t react immediately. I hadn’t touched him. I knew I hadn’t touched him. But that didn’t matter, did it?
The guests had seen what hadn’t happened.
There was a breath where I might have laughed, named the whole thing for the performance it was. But I hesitated. In a place like that, hesitation serves as well as confession.
The man adjusted his sleeve, steadying himself as though struggling to contain his temper.
“I try to excuse your vulgarity,” he said gravely, “and you respond with violence?”
The weight of the room shifted fully against me.
I stepped forward. At last, I recognized the shape of what was happening, though my realization came too late.
Then, at the perfect moment, Fascino arrived.
“Come now, gentlemen,” he said pleasantly, sliding into place like oil over water. His tone was mild, amused, perfectly timed.
Then, with the measured ease of a practiced hand laying down the final card in a fixed game, he spoke.
“Lord Vatis, Kvothe, surely there are better ways to settle disagreements?”
Lord Vatis.
A lord.
The story had already been written. I had simply been too slow to name the players.
Lord Vatis turned toward the crowd, his words falling into an easy, practiced cadence, each one placed as carefully as a foot on a stage.
“Since this man seems to have forgotten his manners,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back, “perhaps I should remind him how things are settled among gentlemen.”
Polite laughter.
Then, smoothly, without raising his voice.
“A duel, then?”
He let the words linger in the air, offering them to the room as if they had been inevitable from the start.
The murmur that followed hardened into expectation.
I could deny it. I could argue, protest. But no one in this room would unsee what they thought they had witnessed. A lord had been attacked, or at least something very near enough to count.
If I refused the duel, I was a coward. A dangerous, out-of-control Ruh given a second chance by tuition and charity.
If I accepted, I was playing noble games on noble ground.
I had already lost.
Fascino said nothing. I glanced toward him, searching his face for any sign of doubt. But he merely adjusted his cuff.
Vatis arched an eyebrow, his expectant smile leaving just enough room for my words.
I let out a long breath, already regretting my next ones.
“I accept.”
The room exhaled as one.
Vatis inclined his head, his grin widening.
Like a man who had orchestrated the whole evening before the wine was even poured.
Bredon found me watching them.
Vatis and Fascino, moving through the room toward the gilded halls beyond.
They weren’t hasty. That was what unsettled me.
“Your knack for catastrophe is truly unparalleled,” Bredon murmured beside me. “One might almost believe it divinely ordained.”
“I do my best,” I said, voice dry. “For the greater good, you understand.”
Bredon tipped his cane against the marble. Once. Twice.
“No one ever starts these things, Kvothe,” he said. “They simply drift into them, like leaves on a river.”
A quiet statement, almost mild, but I felt the weight of it.
“But you, my dear boy,” he mused, “seem to make a habit of gravitating toward waterfalls.”
I huffed a tired laugh.
Bredon watched me for a moment longer. Then, with a manner as light and as casual as before, he spoke.
“Do you realize your opponent is a poet?”
I blinked. “Oh?”
“Terrible at it,” he added. “Though courtly decorum ensures he will never know.” Bredon tilted his head, tapping his cane again, as if considering something from a different angle. “He fancies himself an actor as well. Tragic roles, mostly. The suffering noble. The wronged heir.” His cane made another quiet tap against the marble. “His falls could use some work, though.”
“You could have led with that,” I said.
Bredon gave me the smallest, most indulgent smile. “Should I have?”
Before I could answer, Bredon shifted his attention to another figure lingering nearby.
“Ah,” he said smoothly. “But we’re being rude. Kvothe, allow me to introduce Prince Trenati.”
“Prince Trenati?” I asked. “As in Roderic’s youngest?”
Trenati inclined his head, smiling with the restrained amusement of someone accustomed to being recognized.
“One and the same,” he said. “I was eager to meet you. My sister remembers you fondly. She says you helped her in Imre.”
“She helped me just as much,” I admitted. “It was mutual.”
Trenati shifted ever so slightly, positioning himself near the back of the chamber.
There, against the far wall, a steward stood with idle precision. He was one of those men who remained silent unless addressed directly. A ledger rested on his polished oak desk, the sort used for quiet accountings and for recording names that should never be spoken aloud.
Trenati loosened the fingers of his left glove, rolling them absently between his fingertips. Then, with an ease that made it seem unimportant, he pulled the glove off and held it in his right hand just as the steward glanced downward.
The steward simply nodded once, as if acknowledging something entirely mundane, and then continued his work. Before I could think further, Trenati slipped his glove back on, fluid as water through an open hand.
Tap. Tap.
Bredon’s cane touched the marble beside me.
Too casual to be formal.
Too precise to be idle.
Trenati gave no sign that he noticed Bredon. His gaze returned to me. “I saw your altercation with Lord Vatis.”
I let the silence serve as answer.
He nodded, eyes bright with careful interest.
“Most wouldn’t have taken the duel, you know.” A pause, measured. “Honor is harder to find these days.”
“Oh?” I asked cautiously.
Trenati inclined his head. “I remember when Vatis dueled Captain Hostenner. Over some slight about his wife. A brutal affair. I hear the captain may be able to ride again someday.”
I gave him a steady look. “I would hope he’s recovering well, then.” Trenati was watching my reaction closely. Too closely.
Bredon adjusted the cuff of his sleeve. “From what I understand,” he murmured, “Lord Vatis has been a fixture at court for years. He and Baron Jakis go back some ways.”
I did not react outwardly. Inside, though, the shape of the evening came clear.
Ambrose’s father had set the board. Vatis was his piece. And Fascino had simply led the lamb to slaughter.
And yet.
I looked at Trenati now, truly looking. His tone was light, his posture relaxed, but there was an edge of intention beneath it all, deliberate as a stone placed on a board.
But I did not yet have the right shape for it.
“I’m not terribly worried,” I said at last, and let my gaze drift toward the back of the room, as if placing my first stone. “I’m a fair hand with a sword myself.”
I refused another drink, knowing all too well how wine and swords made unfortunate companions. I suggested to Bredon that we find time for a game of tak before long, offered my goodnights to both him and Trenati, and stepped outside.
The night wrapped around me, cool and edged, the sort of air that notices you in return. I lingered beneath the uncertain glow of a streetlamp, humming “Leave the Town, Tinker” to draw my thoughts away from what the morning would bring.
I was three verses in when Denna’s voice broke gently through my thin defense. “There you are. I thought you’d wandered off with some Vintish strumpet.”
A careless remark, tossed like a stone skipped across a pond. Not meant to land hard. But I knew Denna too well to take anything she said at face value. There was a careful quality to the way she leaned against a low stone railing, her posture loose, her smile easy.
I gave her a lopsided grin. “Denna, you’re the only strumpet for me.”
Something warm crossed her face, quick and unguarded, before she caught it. She waved her hand, brushing it aside. “Well, yes, of course I am, Kvothe.”
And just like that, it was decided.
Whatever she might have thought or assumed about me and Devi, whatever curiosity or hesitation had lingered there, she smoothed over in an instant. The matter was settled. Not by any great revelation. Not by any heartfelt discussion. Just by sheer force of will.
Denna rarely let herself dwell on things she didn’t want to hurt her. She decided, and it became true.
She held out her arm, a gesture so effortless it might as well have been instinct. I took it.
Renere stretched before us like a second chance, its streets alive with pockets of firelight and wandering shadows. First, she led me to a tucked-away playhouse, where we caught a bawdy rendition of “The Ghost and the Goosegirl.” A performance saved only by Denna’s laughter, which came soft and helpless, her scarf barely containing it. Later, a chestnut vendor’s crackling brazier offered warmth, and we dirtied our fingers on blackened shells, peeling as we wandered.
We paid a trio of street musicians to play us song after song. Even though they stumbled over nearly every second note, Denna clapped along, urging on their uneven enthusiasm. Still, these were only amusements, flickers of light that lined the path to her true surprise. She led me to a square crowned by a fountain so tall it seemed to cradle the moon. Its waters shone silver in the night.
Lanterns floated in the air above us, their flames tracing slow paths against the dark. She handed me one, the fragile paper whispering under my fingertips. Together, we lit its wick and held it between us, waiting for the flame to catch.
That was when she looked down at my hands.
“You’re trembling,” she said.
I curled my fingers tighter around the lantern’s frame. “Just nerves,” I said easily. “Nothing more.”
Denna tilted her head, studying me with that particular look she wore when she was deciding how much truth she wanted. Then she let it go, as I knew she would.
“I know a trick,” she said. “Nahlrout tea. Bitter as anything, but it steadies the fingers before a performance.” She flexed her own hands, demonstrating. “I drink a cup before I play. Otherwise my hands shake so badly I can barely find the strings.”
“Nahlrout,” I repeated. I knew what it was, of course. I’d taken it more than once to keep from bleeding during my whippings. But I had never thought to use it this way.
“Trust me,” she said simply. “It helps.”
We let the lantern rise into the dark, tugged upward until it became just another point of light among the stars.
“I heard about Fascino’s,” she said, her voice light but her eyes fixed on mine. “You can’t brush this off with a clever smile, Kvothe. I’ve seen your scars. I know better.”
Her words left me fumbling for ease. “I’ll manage,” I told her, but my voice carried the weight of someone promising too much. She looked at me then with that intensity she wasn’t always able to hide, as though measuring my promise and everything it might cost.
“On your good right hand this time?” she asked, a small smile breaking the quiet between us.
I took her hands in mine, folding them between my own. “On my good right hand,” I said, the words resting unevenly in the air. She squeezed once, then let go, and I watched her walk away until the dark between the streetlamps swallowed her.
Alone on the walk back, I stopped in an alley and began stepping through the Ketan, hoping muscle memory might calm the restlessness in my chest. My movements were stiff, stuttering like fingers on unfamiliar frets, and I faltered on Catching Rain, landing gracelessly on the cold cobblestones.
Instead of trying a third time, I let the tension spill out of my body. Then I walked on toward the Blind Beggar. By the time I arrived, I had made myself an oath. If I managed to live through tomorrow, I would not waste another moment.
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