Rey snapped his fingers, and Lord Aubert fell silent, staring blankly at his hand. “Three. Saving a girl who was bricked in a well by her own father.”
“Who told you that one?” Eli asked. Olivier stood there, looking as confused as Eli felt.
“That makes him a knight, a proper one. The law was made before the first de Guillory took the throne. Knights belong tothe countryside, to the places where the king’s soldiers don’t go. Isn’t that right?”
There was the sound of a throat clearing, and Eli blushed red as Isiodore stepped forward.
“Archaic,” he said, “but correct. If such a knight existed, they wouldn’t be beholden to the crown.”
“And knights can challenge the nobility,” Rey said. “That means Sir Barrow here has every right to duel Lord Blanchet if an insult has been made.”
“I said nothing that wasn’t true,” Olivier said, and winced as Eli stepped forward. The magic that Rey’s voice had instilled over the room shifted, and Eli felt the crowd turn their gaze his way. They were watching him, seeing him, but not as Eli de Valois—as the story Rey had created, someone honorable and strange, a relic of the past.
“First blood,” Eli said. He drew his sword, and there was a collective gasp from the onlookers.
“I’m not fighting against that,” Olivier said, pointing at Eli’s longsword. He did have a sword at his hip, but it was much thinner than Eli’s, and likely lighter as well.
“You’d have the advantage of speed,” Sabre said, and there was the singing sound of steel being drawn. “But if you’d prefer an even fight…Barrow, you may use my sword.”
Eli had to stop himself from shaking as he turned to find Sabre standing not two paces away, holding a sword out hilt-first. Eli bowed and sheathed his longsword.
“As you wish, Your Grace.”
“Just Sabre,” Sabre said. Eli took his sword—Sabre’s sword. It was lighter than Eli’s, whippier and flexible, but it could pierce someone’s heart with enough weight behind the thrust. Eli unbuckled his sword belt to remove the extra weight, startled as Sabre leaned in to take it from him.
“Did you really save those girls?” Sabre asked. “We heard about it in the palace when it happened. Their disappearances had the city guard on the ropes for some time.”
“If I’d been a day later, I wouldn’t have found them alive. It was luck, Your Grace.”
“Luck that you were there, perhaps. Don’t kill him,” Sabre added, lowering his voice. “I don’t know what he said, but death isn’t any kind of justice.”
“Just first blood, Your Grace,” Eli said, and shivered as Sabre patted his shoulder.
“I’m going to tie you to a chair and ship you to Lukos after this,” Rey said, as Eli tested the weight of the sword with a few swings. He could sense Isiodore watching him like one of the Wild Hunt’s spectral wolves, and he shook off the sudden sense of unease.
“Always wanted to know what Lukos was like,” Eli said. He looked at Olivier, who was clenching his fist too tight around his sword. “You, Blanchet. Are you ready, or shall I ring for tea?”
There was a chuckle from the crowd, and Olivier straightened. “I won’t be insulted by a country brute.”
“And I won’t let your word against the duke pass,” Eli said. “Raise your sword and take your beating.”
Olivier growled something incoherent and raised his sword. The crowd had built a circle of space for them with just enough room to lunge and parry, but they were restricted by the statues and the creek cutting through the grass. Their blades rang as they slid together, and Eli, too used to fighting for his life to bother with proper dueling forms, slammed his blade against Olivier’s so hard that Olivier cried out. He smacked Olivier on the arm with the flat of his sword, and Olivier darted back.
“Pause,” he said.
“This isn’t a practice bout,” Eli snapped, dominance thick in the air as he moved. He smacked Olivier again, hard enough tobruise, and Oliver had to stumble into the stream to avoid a cut along his chest. For an absolute bastard who had probably lied every time he called Eli lovely when he was young, he was a quick one.
Not quick enough. Eli stepped over the stream, driving Olivier up against the wall of the house, and knocked his sword aside. It went flying into the grass, and Olivier ducked too late as Eli thrust his sword through Olivier’s shoulder, pinning him to the brick wall of the house.
Olivier let out a ragged, broken sob, and Eli wrenched the blade out of his shoulder.
“Get on your knees,” Eli said. Eli was barely speaking above his usual volume, but his dominance was so thick that Eli could see that even Rey was getting hazy-eyed. “Face de Valois when you do it.”
“I won’t kneel…” Olivier said, clutching his shoulder, “for a submissive whore.”
“You say that like it’s an insult,” Sabre said from the crowd, and the look of pure hatred in Olivier’s eyes was almost sickening.
“You’ll kneel,” Eli said. “What are you?”
