Born From A Divine Gamble

"I know it"s a bit rude since I"m in your office Jorman but could you leave me alone with him for a bit? I"d like to talk in private with my grandson."

"It be fine sure. I be understandin. Everybody be leavin fer now."

The duke gestured at everyone and every servants in the room followed him outside. Aminui stared expressionlessly at Celtine who wasn"t moving with the rest until Emp told her it was fine to leave for now. She seemed a bit disappointed but still tottered out of the room following the duke.

"Why is she walking like that?" His grandfather asked once everyone moved out.

"She lost her wings and now her balance is wrong."

"I feel sorry for her then. I have nothing against her you know? If they don"t take up arms against us, I don"t mind the cursed-bloods. I just wouldn"t trust them either. If you care about her then I"ll try to appear not as scary for her and be kinder but I"m not giving her any information about our house."

"You really distrust the cursed-bloods so much?" Emp asked with a puzzled face.

"Our house has been fighting them for generations, there"s no way I"m trusting any of them, ever. I"m not some idiot who"ll go around chasing them if they don"t bother me though."

Aminui was still making that overly serious face but Emp was pretty sure it was his neutral face. It might be that he needed to put in some efforts to not look intimidating. If that was the case then he truly wasn"t trying to scare off anyone, he just looked like that all the time. Likewise, he wasn"t angry at all about anything Emp said and did previously, he was just not smiling anymore.

"Is it bothering you that I trust her so much?"

"No, she"s a sealed slave after all. I"m more bothered about you trusting your own family less than her. Then again, it"s the first time we"re meeting so I"m not that bothered by it either. I feel like I"ve been starting on the wrong foot with you between this and your wife though. I"m just used to everyone thinking the same as me. Give a chance to your grandfather to turn it back around."

"Is it that abnormal that I"d like a weak girl like my wife?"

"It is! I"ve never seen it before. My father fell for a spear-master he duelled, obviously my Korine has her reputation and my sons had Marcellia. I"m pretty sure that however far back you go, it will always be the same. I don"t know the circ.u.mstances behind your marriage and I don"t want to criticize aside from the fact you didn"t invite me but I feel pretty sure that if you b.u.t.ted heads with some strong girl you"d feel your heart burn with pa.s.sion the same as us. Even if I think that it"s strange of you, I"m not doubting that you"re truly one of us though, you pa.s.sed the test splendidly."

Emp now understood how the old man felt about his wife, he just wanted strong descendants and felt that Emp"s choice of first wife was out of character for the Muraciers he was used to. He didn"t understand what he meant by the test however.

"What test? You didn"t even ask to look at my card."

Aminui was only slightly surprised to hear Emp"s confusion.

"Chinui didn"t tell you that? I sort of expected it, you seemed puzzled throughout the test. Maybe he didn"t think you needed to in order to pa.s.s. Let me tell you clearly, people like us never trust the hunting cards. They might be impossible to falsify but the people who see them can be tricked anyway."

Emp did remember Chinui saying something similar, the card could be trusted but the ones looking at it couldn"t.

"Because we"re so high up in the hierarchy of the empire, we had to deal with a lot of problems in the past, body doubles, impersonators and so on. We needed an almost sure fire way to tell if someone is fake or not right away, things n.o.body but us would understand. I"ll tell you now but I"ll tell you only this once just like for every member of our family. Engrave this into your head and heart because this is the only way to know for sure and more importantly, no one ever must know this aside from those with our name. Even if they do have our name, don"t speak about it unless its to teach like I"m doing right now, is that clear?"

His face had not changed at all compared to earlier but Emp could tell Aminui was now very serious. He might have thrown everyone else out just for this. This was, at least for him, some very important information upon which the very survival of the house hinged.

"Are you sure it"s okay to tell me then? Maybe I was just lucky, I didn"t even understand when the test happened."

"It"s fine, the test is all about surprising the trickster. It"s all about what people think we are like. You see, for example, everyone thinks that we always wear our armors inside even though it"s wrong."

Emp glanced down from the eyes of the old man to make sure he wasn"t wrong about him wearing his armor inside right now. The old man noticed his eyes and defended himself right away.

"Sure, I"m wearing my armor inside right now but it has nothing to do with wearing my armor inside or not, I just arrived from my trip and I was wearing it outside. It"s not like I would take the time to remove it before coming here, it would just be a waste. You"re wearing your armor inside too might I point out."

"Yes, because there are cooling runes engraved in it, it"s more comfortable to wear it than not if its this hot."

"Haha!" The old man chuckled. "But seriously, it"s more about wearing the armor outside than inside, if you go into the city, will you put on your armor or not?"

"I"ll put my armor on." Emp answered without hesitation. "Who knows what might happen."

"Exactly, every Muraciers always do that, it sounds a bit cowardly because we never go out without a suit of armor but we really do not like to fall into something unexpected without proper equipment. So we go out with it and when we get back in, we can"t be bothered to remove it again so people always think we like to wear our armors at all times. That"s why, when you came in first, I got suspicious since you were wearing the armor. I went for the test right away after asking for your name. By the way, Emperor really is a strange name, was it really my Chinui who gave you that? Does it have to do with what happened?"

"No, it was my mother who gave me the name and it has nothing to do with that." Emp answered hurriedly.

Aside from the name, Emp could almost not believe that the old man thought he was a fake just because he wore the armor inside.

"Was it? I wonder what her reasons were. Anyway, I next asked you about why you used the name and you answered with efficiency and effectiveness. To me that was a good sign, you"ll see in a moment."

Emp didn"t know what this had to do with anything but he let his grandfather continue without interruptions.

"Most people think we are some empty headed warriors only ever thinking about fighting and training so we test first on that. It sounds stupid but you"d be surprised how many fakes were caught over the years just from that. I asked about your cla.s.ses and if you found them boring. You gave a great answer, none of us Muracier ever thought that those sort of things were logical which annoys us, we"d rather have everyone be honest and stop balancing all those contrivances. Say what you want, what you need and what is wrong, that is the way forward. I felt pleased by your answer, you learn but you also feel that all of it would be useless if they were just honest for once. You were not empty headed, I went on with the next question. Wine or water, the answer is obvious. Everyone knows that, it"s even written in books all over the empire. Anyone with a bit of brain wanting to look like a Muracier would answer water, however, the reasons are wrong!"

Emp felt his brows crease.

"What do you mean wrong?"
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"I mean the same thing as you, all of us just hate the taste of alcohol, we can"t stand it. Everyone always think its for something n.o.ble or fancy like keeping all our senses and mind sharp at all times but they"re all wrong! The books are wrong too! It"s as simple as it gets, we just don"t like it. That"s how every impersonators always get caught. When someone speaks to us about this tradition of not drinking alcohol we shut our mouths and let them a.s.sume their nonsense is right. Then, when someone studies real hard to make himself seem like one of us, they get caught right away once someone mentions wine or cider. They go for the established facts and say things like "no thanks, it would dull my senses."."

"Wait, you"re saying that the security of the whole house is just resting on the fact that none of us like the taste of cider and wine?"

That was the craziest thing Emp heard this whole year.

"It is! No one ever expects it! It"s brilliant! The answer you gave was the only right answer, anything else and I"d have detached your head from your shoulders right then and there! That"s why we never speak of the test ever, not even between ourselves, the moment the truth come out, the test will be ruined forever."

"So we"re lying to the whole empire then?"

"We aren"t, we"re only letting them a.s.sume wrong. Also, by the way, don"t say to anyone again that you don"t like wine, keep it secret for the sake of the future tests and the sake of your future descendants."

Emp felt that the whole thing was insanely flimsy but as long as it worked, who was he to disagree with the test.

"Finally, the last part, we only have to make sure that they aren"t lying, its easy to see for a true member of our family, no one can ever lie to us after all. The thing is, lying to us or not doesn"t matter, the important point is the curse."

"Wait, what curse?"

"Chinui didn"t even tell you that?"

Now that was an information that surprised him to the highest degree. He explained it to Emp very quickly as if it was obvious he should have known.

"Our family has been cursed since the very start. Even before the birth of the empire we were cursed. It is impossible for us to lie. We just can"t, you must have noticed it. Try as we might, the lies won"t ever leave our lips."

Emp had no idea this was a thing, he was pretty sure he wasn"t affected by it. He believed that if he really wanted to, he"d be able to lie, he just hated the thought of doing it. Did this mean that the Muraciers weren"t overly honest but simply unable to be dishonest? Maybe for them it was the same or maybe they got so used to the truth over the generations that they truly became as honest as the rest thought they were.

In any case, he knew that at least for now, telling the old man that he was indeed able to lie was probably not a good idea.

"It must be really relaxing to talk to people form our house then." He said instead. "You never have to wonder about what they say and you can just take everything at face value."

"That"s absolutely right. There"s never any worry when talking in between us because we know that if somethings wrong, we"ll be told right away. In that way, the curse is more a boon than anything. Thanks to it, it was easy for the Grandbois to trust us too which led us to our current position."

"Then our whole house is built on the most absolute truth."

"Aye it is, the protection of purity is the truth of the battlefield." The old man nodded.

"I know that"s our motto but what does it mean exactly?"

"You don"t know that either? What did Chinui even teach you?"

"He thought me how to survive alone and how to not look like such an outsider everywhere I go. He also showed me the basics of sword fighting but I really learned most of it after I got here."

The old man scratched his cheek in pity.

"What was he wasting his time on all these years?"

"That"s part of why I don"t want to say about my mother, it wasn"t his fault though, he did his best with what little time he had."

"Mhn, got it. So, about the motto, it"s not that complicated. To put it simply, we are the walls of the empire, anything wants to harm someone in the empire, they have to go through us first. Protection is our goal and duty, that"s were the general meaning comes from. The truth of our battlefield will always be protection. We fight to protect everything we know, it was always so and will always be so. Our goal is pure and the hearts of those we fight for is just as pure, the truth itself is always pure, it is simply itself without any embellishment, this is the purity we protect. Not everyone might deserve our protection but those that do are too pure, too precious to let down. The motto was meant as a reminder to never leave our post, to see justice in the battles we lead and to never feel guilt about the means used to keep the whole safe. There"s quite a lot of text in old doc.u.ments talking about it in details, you should check them out sometime later in Highsteel."

Emp understood that this small phrase had a lot of thought put into it. He was impressed that there would be whole texts written about just this small thing, it was clearly more important for the house as a whole than what he thought. He felt sort of bad not knowing about it. His grandfather also sounded rather saddened as he stated what the motto was meant to remind them of. Maybe he felt saddened that Chinui failed to remember this back when he left.

"I"ll be sure to do that once I go there. I"ve been wasting your time a bit with those questions though so I guess it"s your turn, what did you want to know?"

Aminui pointed at the papers on the desk of his friend.

"Well I"ve been looking at your files but words on paper aren"t as good to evaluate the abilities of someone than hearing everything directly from the source. It says you have a blessing but not a thing about what it does, your armor is obviously well made but its not one of ours and the extent of your abilities are unknown to me. I"d just like to hear more about you from you."

Emp nodded in understanding and did his best to explain were he was at in his training, what he was able to do, what sort of foes he fought, what he felt he was lacking in and so on. He also told him in details about how he could be at two places at once and what he currently felt about his blessing. Finally he spoke about the characteristics of the armor and how he made it with Marcy.

"So you made it with the lover of my son. I remember she was quite good at that, I"m glad she"s doing well and she"s not that angry at us."

He seemed rather happy to learn about the armor"s origin even though his face didn"t show much.

"Can I ask you... Why didn"t you do anything for Marcy after Chijou died?"

"I would have but she never came to see me. She just disappeared somewhere, she was angry that the soldiers wouldn"t tell her what happened I think but I don"t blame them for not going against the emperor"s order. I would have told her, let her stay in Highsteel with us even. My sons accepted her offering, for me, she was already family. She didn"t come to us though and I didn"t want to send knights all over to look for her, she"s not a criminal, she can go where she wants."

Emp understood his way of thinking. Even if he wanted to help her, doing so without upsetting her or disobeying the Emperor would have been difficult. The only reasonable thing he could do was to wait for her to join them in their ancestral home.

"She"s not that hard to find though, she"s just in Dark-glint." He told the old man.

"Even if you tell me that, she didn"t come say hi when I pa.s.sed through the other week, and if I invite her she"ll turn me down and call me annoying like the other thousand times I asked."

"A thousand times? I thought you didn"t find her?"

"Well now she"s hard to find but at first, she wouldn"t stop hara.s.sing the troops on the field about Chijou so I told everyone to ask her to come to Highsteel if they saw her. She didn"t like it one bit and sent back complains the other way around through the hierarchy instead. A good woman that one, it"s frustrating that my son died before sealing the deal with her."

That old man really took the relations.h.i.+ps of his family members to hearth huh? He seemed almost as upset about her not being his daughter than he was about Chijou dying. Or maybe he"d have felt like his son was still alive in a way if he left some kids of his own behind? A mix of those two was the likely answer to his reaction towards Marcy.

"You should stop by my house on the way back then, meet my wife Calla and say hi to Marcy."

"Maybe but I"m not planning on going back soon. I have to show you a lot of things first. Old man Jorman is pretty good but he can"t show you how the family does things, there"s a lot of it too."

Emp was really happy at the prospect but there was one inconvenient thing about all this that he had to bring up.

"I"m eager to start learning from you but I"d really like it if the other students didn"t learn about me being a Muracier."

"What do you mean? Jorman told me about how he tried to keep it secret up to now but it is pointless at this point. Since I"m here and I recognized you as my grandson already there"s no reason to do so and since the school is locked, Graube won"t hear about it for a while."

Now that he was brought up, Emp was curious to know what the old man thought about him but for now, he focused on the present discussion.

"It is true that it is pointless but I am having fun. Whenever I give my name to other people, they almost always start to treat me differently and I do not want my friends to do so. I like my current relations.h.i.+p with them and I"d like to keep it going for a while."

"Isn"t there some saying about how if someones opinion of you changes with your status that person isn"t a friend?"

Was there? Emp didn"t know about it. Even though it did sound rather wise, he didn"t feel like abiding by it. He just wanted to enjoy the current atmosphere and let it go on for as long as possible.

Aminui watched his reaction and chuckled weakly at the sight.

"Alright, fine, I"ll try to hide our relations.h.i.+p as much as possible even though I don"t think this is the right thing to do. I"m sure you"ll understand on your own at some point. If they get nervous or afraid of you just because of your name then they aren"t worthwhile friends. For now, even though this is silly, I"ll just keep it under wrap as long is it doesn"t impede the training or my teaching. I won"t let this silly thing get in the way of your growth, understood?"

He reached out a hand for Emp to grab and accept his deal. Emp thought it was fair, he understood that this state wouldn"t last forever and he didn"t plan on lying to extend it. Plus, if it did impact his training in any way, he"d rather reveal his ident.i.ty as the old Muracier suggested. Emp clasped the extended hand and they shacked twice on it.

While doing so, Emp remarked something he just noticed.

"You are missing a finger?"

The gauntlet of the old man only had four fingers to it, the little one was absent. It gave it a relatively strange shape which got his attention. Aminui wasn"t bothered by the question and answered happily.

"That"s right, I lost it a long time ago when I was still the great general. I had a fight with a fox tribe chief, or was it a wolf tribe chief? I can"t remember, to me, all of those sort of look like dog cursed-blood. Anyway, I fought their chief and he was much more agile than expected, he used a magic knife stolen from my personal guards to slide under my defense and remove one of my fingers. I guess it must have been one from the fox tribe then, those are more sly than the wolves or the others. I heard their tribe still has that finger and the chief that took it gained a legendary status even though I killed him right after. I was an idiot back then and I felt so strong that I believed nothing could get me. Obviously I was wrong and that missing bit reminds me of it all the time which is a good thing. Even if your opponent is way weaker than you, don"t ever let your guard down, that"s the lesson to get out of this."

Emp was reminded of what Leo did the other week by the story of his grandfather. Even though she seemed so weak that she could do nothing against him, she had still caused him quite a fright and came close to cut into his neck. He decided to Engrave the old man"s lesson into his heart, even the weakest of opponent can be dangerous if you aren"t being serious against him.

"I will remember it."

"You better, so, is there something else to talk about or are we ready to train."

Emp thought about it for a moment, he wished Celtine was here with him to remind him of things he might have forgot. He was certain that he was forgetting something and wracked his brain until he finally put his finger on it.

"The seal, did you bring me the seal?"

"The seal! Of course, I almost forgot about it, I put it somewhere in my bag here... What did you need that seal for?"

The old man asking him for some clarifications while he was going through the things stored in the bag he kept at his waist.

"Its because my wife isn"t a n.o.ble at all and doesn"t know how to defend herself properly so the teacher Blackbull said I should get some ladies in waiting for her. She also said it would help me against Graube."

"Ha, there, found it." He pulled a box out of his bag. "So you just want to send summon letters to some of our retainer"s and branch"s girls to keep an eye on your wife? That"s a sound idea, I approve of it. The girls you call for will be very pleased to receive the honor I"m sure. Did you already choose who you wanted?"

"Well, I didn"t know everyone well so Blackbull gave me a long list to study and go through. We have a lot of people."

"That we do but I know them all really well and someday, you"ll have to be the same. Knowing that old Blackbull, I"m sure her list was thorough enough though, for now, who caught your eyes?"

Emp thought for a second and started naming some family names he remembered from the list and some he was just curious about.

"I wanted to call for Vinia Porter out of curiosity, I know two of her cousins well."

"In my memory, the girl isn"t so impressive but if its for comparison sake, sure you could call her and give her a chance." His grandfather commented.

That was pretty much what he intended to do so his mind didn"t change from his comment.

"I was curious about Sorenthal."

"Oh, the daughter of baron Sorenthal, she"s really good at handling beasts and hunting, she had bad table manners last time she visited high-steel though and kept slipping food under the table for the dogs."

That was interesting but he didn"t care about table manners so that wasn"t a real negative as long as he had someone else to teach those to Calla. He continued to ask about many more, Whisperstring, Verepe, Pierécorce, Duchêne, Starbeetle and so on. He gained new insight on many of them but his list barely changed as a result from his conversation, Blackbull had been pretty effective after all.

"What about the little Mawshunt?" The old man asked.

"I have a lot of Cursed-bloods servants so I didn"t think it was a good idea."

"Right, even though she"s cute and strong, she"d pick a fight with them every day. Aside from her, I guess that"s about it for the decent girls, the rest are from branches family and that wouldn"t be right."

Since ladies in waiting were often also potential wives, calling a girl from a branch family wasn"t that well seen even though it wasn"t unheard off. Sometimes, a new wife just wanted to hear the right answer from a trusted cousin of their husband rather than the counsels of some girls who didn"t know their husband more than them. Often, placing a cousin in the position of lady in waiting was more seen as a tactic to delay her own marriage than anything else. Emp agreed it might be more troublesome than anything else even though having some of them close to him might really hinder Graube.

"Is there anyone I should really take according to you grandfather? What should I do about Graube?" He decided to ask.

It was the first time he called Aminui grandfather and it felt a bit strange but it seemed to really please the old man.

"The only thing you have to do about Graube is to be better, the family will side for who is better in the end regardless of what you, him or I think of it. Your only worry should be yourself, Graube doesn"t matter. Prove to me that you can do better than my nephew with the t.i.tle of great General and it will belong to you. I"d like it best if the t.i.tle stayed in the main family but the well-being of the Empire has to go before my pride and the usual successions rights. With that said, I don"t like how simplistically your uncle does things so I hope you can do better."

"I hope so to." Emp answered honestly. "I will do my best I promise."

"Good that"s all I can reasonably ask for. As for the other question, I really think you should take in Kaisla Grovgar. Her father"s currently the head guard of Highsteel, I knighted him myself years ago. The man is talented and his daughter even more, I"ve been spoiling her a bit I admit but she"s just the sort of girl that"s fit to stand with a Muracier. You"d please her father greatly if you took her for the job and she"s more than able to do it. Plus, and I know you don"t want me to talk about that but, It would be a good opportunity to learn to know her better. And speaking about her, it just so happen that I brought her along with me in case the best outcome happened."

This probably meant that the knight lady with a pretty face he saw pa.s.s through Dark-glint the other week was her.

"What was the best outcome?" Emp asked suspiciously.

"That it turned out that I had a grandson of course! I wanted her to get a move on fast, she"d make for a great granddaughter, she even has a blessing of her own!"

Emp held back a sigh and agreed whit a nod instead. Anyway, that woman was on the list he had chosen with Calla so he would have called for her anyway.

"Honestly," The old man added. "Merging her bloodline into ours would be the greatest honor of her family and would make sure it goes on forever, she"s the only kid of my head guard after all so it would be a great relief for him if we took her. He more than deserves it after all he did for us."

Emp wondered what the Grovgar could possibly have done for the family but it wasn"t really the time to ask about that. They had already been sitting alone in the duke"s office for a long time now and they should probably end all the talking soon.

"The only thing I can promise is to meet her and probably present her to Calla."

"I"ll take that for now. Here, take the seal. Whoever you choose to invite, don"t forget to send letters to everyone else too."

"Everyone else too?"

"Yes, they might feel upset that you forgot about them so it would be best if you sent them letters anyway to tell them honestly why you didn"t invite them for the position of lady-in-waiting. As long as you tell them the truth of the matter without hiding anything, most will feel at peace. We are the Muracier after all, honesty at all times is how we work. They"ll be disappointed but at least they"ll know. It would be way worse for them to keep wondering why they weren"t invited."

Emp nodded and answered that he understood. He felt that he too would be less upset about being excluded of something if he knew the right reasons. For those a.s.sociated with the Muraciers, this might be common sense.

"Since you know them so well, could you tell me if I should do as Blackbull told me concerning who to send the letters to? I mean, do I send them to the ladies themselves, their fathers or do I address the letters to their family as a whole?"

"The ladies themselves of course. If they"re ours, they have strong heads and wills, they"ll be offended if you send the letters to their fathers. Other n.o.bles like to keep some control over their kids and dislike it when people go over them but those will feel pride instead that their daughters are important enough for us to receive the letters on their own, do you get it?"

"I do, thank you for your help."

"Bah, that"s nothing, you would"ve known it too if you were raised in Highsteel."

"Do I send letters to the branches too even if they had no chances from the start?"

"You should, do you want me to give you some list of all the girls so you don"t forget one?"

"That would be really helpful, I"m sure you know them more than Blackbull."

"I hope so! In that case, I"ll have some sort of list sent to you soon. As for the training, how about we meet later today on the field? I think we"re both eager to start and anyway, there must be no one in the field today with this heat."

"Alright then, I"ll go back to the training field later then."

With this agreed upon, the two exchanged goodbyes for now and Emp vacated the duke"s office to let him back in. Aminui said he wanted to speak with his old friend some more so he stayed behind. Emp notified the Duke that they were done and picked up Celtine to go back to his room and tell her more about this meeting. This was the best he could do to improve her disappointed mood.

Meanwhile, in the office, the old man Aminui spoke again about a subject he thought very important.

"So, you old mud trap, tell me more about this girl you mentioned earlier. How strong are we talking about here? Maybe I should send Kaisla to have a match against her."