Willem looked at Arend (formerly Arend Rook), the other side of the conspiracy to kill him that’d taken place many months ago by this point. He’d only seen the man briefly—he’d pointed to Willem and tried to say something before the government-sponsored cavalry arrived in the form of Galahad. After that, he’d seen him for a bit after Viviene had beaten the piss out of him.

  Still, Arend looked worse now than he did then.

  Arend had blonde hair so bright it almost appeared silver, but now it was thin and wispy. He had a terrible, patchy beard, and dark circles under his gray eyes that made him look like he’d been punched in the face. The aura within had kept his body in decent shape, but it was clear he was very out of practice. All he wore was a set of burlap rags, and he didn’t have a weapon in sight.

  “Why are you here?” Arend demanded, his voice hoarse and out of practice. “If you want to finish me, I won’t resist.”

  Willem tsked. “The easy way out? No, I’m afraid not.” He pulled up a nearby chair and sat down. “People like you and me are fated to live long, healthy lives.”

  Arend’s lips trembled as he sat up in his bed. “I may have wronged you, Willem, but that doesn’t mean I suddenly think you’re innocent. No matter what my…” he choked, even now having difficulty saying the words. “No matter what my sister was, I know what you are,” he said with a voice of contempt.

  “Shut the hell up,” Viviene snarled, taking a step forward.

  Willem caught her wrist. “If you’re going to be like that, wait outside,” he told her firmly. “Or put a muzzle on it.”

  “And leave you alone with him?!” she demanded. Willem stared without saying anything, and she pulled her arm free of his grip. “Fine. I’ll stay quiet.”

  Willem looked back to Arend, who seemed to be getting his bearings somewhat. “Do you know what’s going on this month?”

  “Why should I?” Arend said, leaning against the bedframe.

  “King Arnoud is selecting a groom for his daughter among thousands of participants,” Willem said. “The person that becomes her husband is to be the heir to the kingdom. After what I did, he’s decided that I have to be a participant in this contest.”

  Arend hung his head. “I don’t give a damn.”

  Willem put both of his hands on his knees and stared at Arend. The man was in a deep, deep depression—that much was obvious. Having gone through a phase like this himself, he sympathized somewhat. Dorothea must have meant a great deal to him, but all of that was predicated on a lie. He couldn’t relate to the betrayal, but he could relate to the mire of misery.

  Ordinarily Willem would just move on, let the man sort out his own problems. But this was something that Willem Junior wanted to fix. It was part of his big bucket list that he’d delivered in small pieces with the help of Suzanne.

  And good private security was a hard thing to find for cheap.

  “Do you know what I’ve managed since I abandoned the Brugh name?” Willem asked rhetorically. “I built my own business. We have well over two hundred active members in the Society of Assured Prosperity, each of whom pay a substantial annual fee trusting that I’ll look after them. And using that as a springboard, we’ve since built a manufactory that produces soap faster than you can believe. I’m also a major investor in what promises to be the most efficient shipyard in the Kingdom of Ravenveld—perhaps the world. That, alongside half a dozen other ventures just barely getting their feet off the ground.”

  Arend looked at him with a hateful gaze. “Good for you.”

  “What I’m saying is that being disinherited, cast out, isn’t the end,” Willem insisted. “It’s the beginning, Arend. For me, and for you. A name is just a name.”

  “You haven’t been labelled as a traitor,” Arend said gutturally.

  “The common perception in the barony was that I poisoned Baron Tielman,” Willem disagreed.

  “Why do you care?” Arend looked over, eyes hard. “This was your plan, to reduce me to this. At best, I was just collateral damage. Do you want to use me like you’ve used so many others?”

  “Exactly.” Willem pointed and nodded. “I’m glad you’re catching up.”

  Arend laughed at the absurdity of the admission. “Just leave me be. I want the whole world to forget I ever existed.”

  “That’ll happen naturally. Give it five hundred years for you, and maybe ten thousand years or so for me. Everyone’s forgotten someday.” Willem tapped his knee. “But today is today.”

  “Damn today, and damn you,” Arend said, then laid down on his bed. “If you aren’t here to finish what you started, leave. Keep talking and I’ll call for the priestess. Just go.”

  Viviene put a hand on Willem’s shoulder, gesturing for the door. He pushed her hand off and stood up.

  “Alright, fine. I’ll finish what I started.”

  Arend opened his eyes. “What?”

  “You came bursting through the door of some stranger’s mansion looking for a duel against Willem van Brugh to avenge your family’s honor,” he said, looming large over the man as he laid there. “Your big day, taking another swing at the King of Stiff Sticks of Steel. But you missed out, on account of some timely intervention from the actual king.”

  “Willem, what…!” Viviene began.

  “Let’s do it,” Willem said, tapping his chest. “The duel. You, formerly Arend Rook, and me, formerly Willem van Brugh. Fight for the ages—two people divested of their name and honor, clashing it out on the gilded marble of the Ravenveld arena.”

  Arend sat up slowly, stunned into silence.

  “That’s what you wanted more than anything, wasn’t it? A fair fight, with a fairly sizable audience. Got a big damn arena in this city just begging to be used. I’m told aura users can schedule duels. If you’re really serious about this… then get ready, get prepared. Any expenses you’ve got—weapons, armor, anything you can imagine—I’ll cover personally. Then we step onto the marble, and Arend Rook and Willem van Brugh paint the skies, just like it was all those years ago.”

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  “What’s the game now?” Arend demanded. “How does this benefit you? What else are you going to take from me?”

  Viviene grabbed Willem’s arm, staring at him with a hard gaze. He looked back at Arend and said, “Winner takes all. Either you take my life, or I take yours.”

  Arend didn’t say anything, staring at Willem with a gaze as hard as stone.

  “We’ll be staying in the Verdant Spring Guesthouse,” Willem said, pulling a paper out of his pocket and tossing it down. “That little slip of paper should give you access. When you’re ready, come find me.”

  With that, Willem didn’t say anything more. He turned, and he and Viviene walked out.

  ***

  “What in the name of the goddess are you thinking?” Viviene demanded, lightly pushing Willem once they were out of the church that had been keeping Arend alive.

  “A favor for my kid brother,” Willem said, walking through the streets of the capital with confidence. “And a way of getting peace of mind. I’ve got some big things in mind for the capital. The kind of things that might genuinely get assassins sent after me. I’d like to have a security guy that knows what he’s doing on-hand for any unforeseen incidents. Besides—you saw the guy.” He looked back to that church. It was relatively run-down.

  “What about him?” Viviene pressed, following along.

  “The man’s got no one,” Willem said firmly. “Not a single person. Parents? Dead. His uncle, the count? Denounced him personally. Sister? Left him for dead, personally threw him to the wolves. And that was the person that he’d spent what seems to be the majority of his life looking after. It’s a miracle that he survived this long after that happened.”

  “And you’re all of the sudden so generous,” Viviene said, pushing past a few people to stay beside Willem.

  “Hey,” he paused in the streets, pulling her off to the side. “I have a great deal of affection for depreciated assets. Beaten down companies are my bread and bloody butter. And beaten down people? It’s the same principle.”

  Viviene grabbed his face with both hands and shook his skull. “The man tried to kill you, honey. He hates your guts.”

  “You’re wrong.” Willem grabbed her wrists. “The poor bastard was being used and abused by his sister. And he wasn’t trying to kill me, he was trying to kill Junior.”

  “It’sthesamething,” Viviene said rapidly in frustration, trying to shake his head more with less success.

  Willem pried her hands away. “We’re doing this,” he said firmly. “Me and my kid brother. Older brothers are supposed to help their younger parts do stupid things. It’s in the manual.”

  “Do you really think he’ll just see the error of his ways when—no, if Junior wins the fight?” Viviene asked.

  “Are you crazy? No,” he said incredulously. “But it’s something for me to build on. And importantly, it’s a free way for Junior to spar with someone in real life, not in his head.”

  “Spar,” Viviene repeated. “In a duel to the death.”

  Willem walked down the road. “We’ve got some advertising groundwork to do. Come on.”

  ***

  The female receptionist smiled brightly as Willem and Viviene approached. “Hello, sir. Welcome to Verdant Spring—”

  Willem slammed a bar of soap on the counter. “Smell this.”

  “…sir?” the receptionist looked down at the bar of soap.

  The new, more mass-produced soap bars from production facility in Gent were infinitely more aesthetically pleasing. They’d used woad—a plant-based dye—to give it a pleasant, refreshing blue hue. Molds had been made to conform the soap into a perfect rectangle, and give it the perfect label of SOAP on the top. There was a diamond in the middle of the O to give it brand recognizability. On top of that…

  “Smell it,” Willem pushed it forward, staring into the receptionist’s soul.

  She was a head and a half shorter than he was, and looked up at Willem with the fear of the goddess in her eyes. She hesitantly took the soap and gave it a light sniff. After, she smelled it deeply.

  “It smells… pleasant, sir?” she finally said, unsure of herself.

  “It smells of lavender,” Willem said intensely. “Lavender is a miracle herb. The number of medicinal properties within that small little herb will baffle the mind. insomnia, hair loss, anxiety, stress… this pleasant-smelling herb helps alleviates all of it, young lady. Do you remember that?”

  She blinked uneasily. “Umm…”

  “I’m going to pay you to put this in every washroom in this place,” Willem said. “Any place that hygiene is involved, you put this where people can see. You don’t need to mention it. You don’t need to say anything about it to anyone. Just put it there, in a position of mild to strong prominence. If you can do that for me… I’ll give you twenty-five gold. My people will be by with the gold and the soap tomorrow.”

  “I’ll… I’ll have to speak to the owner, sir,” the woman said, politely sliding the soap back over.

  Willem nodded. “I also have a reservation for Willem.” He pointed behind himself, but didn’t break his gaze. “My mother’s also there somewhere. One eye. Hard to miss.”

  “Oh!” she said, then stepped back. “I’ll go get the information and prepare your room.”

  Willem turned when the receptionist walked away, looking back at Viviene. She looked quite tired.

  “I don’t know how you can go around doing that all day,” Viviene said, yawning. “You must’ve done that shtick in twenty different guest houses.”

  “Because I know that every Big Johnson in the whole kingdom is going to be in the capital, soon,” Willem said. “Nothing quite like a Superbowl to build a brand’s reputation, their market share in the mind. And this? It qualifies. More than qualifies.”

  “Willem?” said the receptionist, emerging from the other room. “If you’ll follow these gentlemen, they’ll take you right to your room.”

  ***

  Willem drank some water, feeling wistful without Dirk. Usually he’d have called the man short in a backhanded way about two times at this time in the morning. He missed the man. Viviene fought back, and she was good at it, too. Bullies like himself naturally strayed from people that fought back. He almost envied the man, rolling in easy coin as the treasurer back in Gent.

  Almost.

  But as Willem looked at his written collection of various advertising schemes, he realized that it would be a very, very fun time to be in the capital. There was nothing better than a good old fashioned product launch, expanding into a new market. If he did this right, their facility in Gent could be supplying not only the capital, but perhaps all of the Kingdom of Ravenveld.

  Willem heard a knock at the door and turned his head. An obsequious servant entered.

  “Don’t you knock?” Willem asked.

  “Umm… sir?” the man paused. “I apologize, I thought I—"

  “I’m playing around,” Willem said, standing. “What is it?”

  “There’s a man in armor here to see you,” the servant continued. “He said you were expecting him.”

  Willem gestured. “Send him in.”

  A few moments after the servant left, Arend walked through the door. Now donning his armor again, Willem once more saw that man he’d met back in that mansion. He was built like a wall. His armor—once proudly displaying the Rook family heraldry—had been filed down so that it was unmarked. But his sword was still grand and proud, his back was still straight, and there was a certain resoluteness in his eyes that had been missing in that church.

  “Let’s duel,” Arend said without any pomp.