Shango POV: Day 95

  Current Wealth: 200 gold 18 silver 49 copper

  Beam put all of his skillpoints into the physical stats he usually picked, making his new average fourteen. I might’ve guessed. The particulars of what this meant numerically were lost on me, but what I did understand was that it made him a very fucking scary individual. More so than before. Moreso by far.

  And it still left him more than just a few points behind the majority of the tournament’s strongest enemies. There’d been hope, for a while, but seeing the creeping pace of his empowerment now had dased that completely. Three rounds left. Aja, The Challenger and The King were all still in the running. And so were Beam, Argar and Arthur. The odds of one of our boys going up against the tournament’s heavy hitters were almost one hundred percent. The odds of it being someone other than Arthur, who could actually come out on top…Not a lot lower.

  I was in a fouler mood, leaving the arena, than when I’d entered it. As usual, Solitaire was the one to notice.

  “Worried about Beam.” He noted.

  “Worried about Beam and Argar.” I replied, tension still solid and pointy in the centre of my chest like I’d swallowed a bag of nails. Solitaire thought for a moment.

  “I won’t lie about his chances of avoiding a tough fight altogether.” He sighed. “But I think his odds of victory are better than you might think. Has he ever let us down before?”

  Strange, being asked that question, because I honestly couldn’t say he had. Even against the Vampire, once he’d gotten his powers back, Beam had come out on top. But that enemy had been far closer to the version of him fighting it than our sources of concern were now. It did something for my nerves, but not a lot. We kept moving.

  Velaharo Mansion felt cooler than usual when we entered it. I took a moment to realise it was because the most deranged man ever to crawl out of Liverpool had taken most of a day’s break on repeatedly firing cannons indoors. It smelled nicer, too. Black powder, I had learned since setting foot in Redacle, had a faint rotten eggs odour which was far from pleasant.

  I even took the time to make my way through the greenhouse. Apparently The Velahoros grew a bunch of cocoa plants recreationally.

  Phelia’s eyes were tight with concern as we returned, and Helena’s seemed scarcely less so. Both let out a sigh of relief upon finding out we were into the final round.

  Only Helena’s caught in her throat. Only Helena, I supposed, had seen first-hand what we’d be facing there.

  “You should drop out.” She suggested, eying at all of the soon-to-be contenders at once, but giving Argar and Beam a particularly large shard of her focus. The former snorted, the latter kindly smiled, and Nightne remained stony faced and square jawed as ever while he replied.

  “I appreciate your concern, my lady, but I am afraid I simply cannot. I promised to aid my new Lord in this tourney, and by God I shall.”

  Lying bastard, it was almost surreal to watch how good his performance was- how successful in drawing approving, awe-struck eyes from across the room. He really was one of Solitaire’s more amusing characters.

  “We have a few days in any case.” Beam noted. “Might as well use them, eh?”

  He just wanted to have another go against Arthur, now that he’d strengthened himself even more. Which was fair enough, I reckoned, I watched him and the others head off, then turned my focus to Phelia.

  “Any news from Wilskasai?” I asked, quickly. Her face was drained of its apprehension incredibly quickly. I supposed a fucking huge shit-ton of money tended to do that to a person.

  “He sent word back, just a sentence. Our delivery was acceptable, and he will continue our correspondence.”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  I let out a deep breath. The deal had been agreed upon, of course, and I’d felt confident that Wilskasai would hold to it- in no small part due to my receiving an experience reward…

  …Could I use that to tell the future? No, I bottled that possibility away for later, one thing at a time Shango.

  “Excellent.” I told Phelia. “Then we have a bit of income secured.”

  A bit was underselling it, though it would still take us literal decades to fully pay off her family’s debt at this rate. Still, progress at least.

  Phelia seemed to be having the very same thoughts, or else something different was gnawing at her, because her own excitement was quite muted too. It didn’t stop her from smiling away, in any case.

  “Husband…Shango.” She began, seeming suddenly uncertain. “I…I’d just like to say thank you. For everything. I know it was politically advantageous for you, but…Still, you’ve changed everything for me. Given my family a future. I won’t forget that, thank you.”

  It was somehow uncomfortable, seeing the look in her eyes, but I swallowed and nodded anyway. Eager to just move on from the conversational topic and into less awkward territory.

  “Obviously we’ll need to reinvest this.” I noted. “It’s not bad, of course, but a few gold a day won’t pay your debt off any time soon. What sort of things could we get into that would make the most of our…Assets?”

  Phelia was thinking before I’d even finished speaking, like usual, and I got my answer spectacularly fast.

  “Mercenary work is never scarce in these lands.” She replied instantly. “And with…Your brother’s assets, I’d wager we could become rather successful in the business.”

  I noticed that she said “we” instead of “you”, but I didn’t think about it. Phelia had given me something far more concerning to take note of.

  “Did something happen between you and Solitaire?”

  She’d practically flinched at the mention of him, and not in any trivial emotion like disgust or contempt. I’d seen fear in her face, heard it in the quiver of her voice, felt it as she spoke. That didn’t come from nowhere.

  Phelia didn’t meet my eye, but she didn’t avoid it either. Replying quickly, confusedly, as if my question were somehow unprompted.

  “You heard about the wall incident, no? In fact you even walked in midway through our argument about it. You know I have no love for Solitaire.”

  God, she was such a good liar she almost had me of all people fooled. Almost.

  “What did he do?” I snapped, angry, now, mind racing. There were any number of possible answers, that was one thing I’d learned since coming here. That however dangerous and twisted this world was, one of the scariest fucking things in it had always been the bastard I called a friend.

  Phelia backed off, deceptive calm turning to a shaky fear. I realised after a moment that it was me she was scared of. Of course it was, a Redaclan might fucking hit his wife for lying to him.

  “I’m sorry.” I continued, forcing myself calm. “Really, I am, but…Please, what did Solitaire do? I need to know.”

  She told me after a moment’s pause. I listened, and listened carefully. I kept myself calm, considered what she was saying, and when Phelia was done I nodded.

  I felt numb, but that was nothing new either. I felt like that every time Solitaire did something I’d assumed would be beyond the pale. Every time he found some new limit to the ever-moving line of tolerance for his behaviour. I took my leave from the room, heading off to see him.

  Solitaire was where I’d come to expect him, in his laboratory. This time he seemed to be frowning over a sort of pump mechanism, but I hadn’t the time to ask about that, or try to imagine what it might be for.

  “Alright Shango.” He said, without looking up. I didn’t answer, just stepped over his greeting and closed in.

  “Phelia told me what happened.”

  Solitaire paused. He looked up, gauged my expression, then shrugged.

  “I needed to know we weren’t being endangered more by her secrets. If she didn’t want me to do something like that, she shouldn’t have gotten Helena almost crippled by lying.”

  There wasn’t the slightest shred of regret on his face, and I just sort of exploded when I realised the fact.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I snarled. “Mentally, what exactly has gone wrong in your brain that you can behave like this?”

  Solitaire met my outburst without even blinking, seeming more bored than anything.

  “Shango, you’re wasting both of our time.” He sighed. “Just drop it, this is getting tedious.”

  I stared.

  “What is?”

  “This.” He snapped, gesturing at seemingly everything at once. “This little dancing around. Your game where you pretend to be outraged and disgusted every time I do something important for our survival, while continuously failing to actually stop it. We both know you don’t really care, not enough to do anything about it.”

  It was all I could do not to shake with rage. I stared at Solitaire, tried to find something to say. Couldn’t There were no words for him.

  “I give up.” I said at last. “You win. Congratulations, Solitaire, you’ve finally managed to convince me that my best fucking friend is beyond help.”

  There were tears in my eyes, and that only deepened my fury.

  “I’ll work with you for now, because I need to, but…I don’t want to speak with you anymore outside of that. What we’re doing is…Helping people. That’s more important than you or me, but outside of that…Go fuck yourself. We’re done.”

  I turned from him, before he could say anything that might threaten to change my mind, and took my leave.