Late Friday Short: Random 04

The Duke gritted his teeth as he watched his daughter’s servant utterly decimate the other duelist. While livid at his daughter’s actions, he couldn’t argue she had an eye for people. The young woman had never handled a rapier in her life, but she improved in skill at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Learn or Grow were terrifying Skills that any noble would give their soul to possess. A commoner had acquired such was nothing less than a black mark for all the blue blood. The woman’s sword moved like a piece of flowing artwork. Every motion she used peeled the clothing from her opponent like one would shuck oranges—blood-dyed swathes of white on the young man fighting against her with ever more desperate maneuvers.

It had long shifted from a duel into a slow execution.

The duke was prepared to intervene, but out of his eye, he knew there was no point. Charlotte had weaseled her way to the young man’s family and was discussing things in a quiet voice with them. He attempted to listen in with the wind, but the girl shut him out with firm power. She would offer them their son's life in return for support; it was practically sealed in stone.

For a moment, the duke felt tired. His first wife had been the light of his life, but he hadn’t been strong when she passed. His now current wife had come to him during his weakness and smothered him with soft, irresistible embraces. In embarrassment, he’d fallen head over heels all over again.

However, unlike his first wife, his second wasn’t content to merely be at his side. She wanted to be known, recognized, and respected. Her plotting drove a wedge between him and his brother Ralph. It was also her that had murdered his first wife, he suspected. By the time he realized the situation, it wasn’t recoverable.

Be that as it may, he couldn’t renounce her. His second wife had firmed the alliance between her house and his own. She had done everything possible to place him in a position of power. Privately, he would admit he favored her more than his first wife for that alone.

That had been fine in the past when Charlotte was growing up, but now that she was about to ascend to Heir, it had become problematic. His daughter had been raised out of his sight by Ralph. She hadn’t grown up with a mother who could sway her opinion with gentle words. She had been raised among the magical elite. Even now, he could feel the power of Air surrounding his daughter. If they were to fight, it would take everything to break even against her. He could feel it in his bones.

That was without adding the loyal servant with horrific physical skills to the confrontation.

Even as he watched the fight's end, his eyes narrowed as a troubling thought struck.

The servant had used the liquid in her wine flute during the fight, yet it hadn’t drained. There was still liquid within the glass that the younger woman was even now drinking.

A horrifying thought took hold even as his mind denied the potential.

The younger woman who served his daughter was a magical Prodigy.

It was a terrifying concept that he wanted to decry even with the evidence in front of his eyes. Such a thought made the idea of conflict even more remote. The duke didn’t want it to come to blows. A strong Heir meant a strong Zienfer in the future. He might not have that option, though. Charlotte wasn’t kind and gentle like his first wife. She was someone who remembered, someone who counted scores and kept the bodies petrified for eternal reminders.

A mixture of pride that he had fathered such a rare creature battled with the surety of cold political calculation.

She is the Heir. I have no other who can equal her. The needs of the bloodline come first. Duke Zienfer decided.