As she walked the bright streets of Veinora, Nika thought over her visit to the mines. By any standards, it had been a good and productive visit. The operations were running well, if not delivering enough output of processed stone simply because there were not enough people. But the active teams were doing an outstanding job; besides some minor improvements she’d suggested, all that was left to do there would be to add additional shifts.

  Those dark tunnels that ran through the mountain might feel cramped to some, but she’d felt right at home. Hewing and carving the black stone was not only satisfying work, but a superb form of training besides. That had given her an idea, though she would have to speak to the recruiting team for that.

  Still, as she recalled her conversations with those miners, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there had been something they hadn’t been telling her. Their faces had lit up when telling her of the latest techniques they employed to track and extract the mighty boron, yet when she asked for their thoughts on their lack of new recruits, eyes turned to the floor as they scratched their heads and began to mumble.

  But as she exited the last of Veinora’s busy streets and walked the stretch of bare land to the Hashira fortress, she lifted her chin proudly and smiled. These mighty walls had been erected by Houjo hands, built from the stone of the mountain behind their clan residence. She filed away her concerns of recruitment and refocused on her other goal: forging alliances.

  Hashira was a good option - relations were good, yet business dealings were still limited. She’d always appreciated Enmei’s honesty and professionalism; the woman rarely showed excessive emotion, as was proper. But the Hashira had good relationships with nearly every clan, she knew, and were not likely to be first movers.

  Ashikaga would be out of the question, after that incident with Hokori, the spoiled brat. That was a shame, for they were the richest of all the clans, but she would have to make do. The Kassai clan was not an option. Unthinkable. As if she would give Hikoro the satisfaction of refusing her, that dreadful hound of a woman.

  Taira might be an interesting clan to approach, though she would not know what to offer them. She’d have to try and gather information on what they desired, if any Taira would even deign to show up.

  That left the Takeda clan as an obvious choice for the complementary nature of their businesses. Excess metal dug up by the Houjo workers was occasionally traded for stone-like wood cut in the Takeda groves, but there were many more exchanges to be made. Only, she hadn’t spoken to Kire for a while and he had seemed distant at the Ascension. How long had it been? It couldn’t have been more than a year, surely?

  After passing the guards who recognized her immediately, she ran her fingers over the sturdy basalt of the inside walls. She’d never been inside of this particular fortress, but she nodded with satisfaction as she noted that the inner walls were exactly the right height and slant to fend off attackers from the inner bailey, in the unlikely scenario where some would breach the external walls. Multiple contingencies and fallback options, as was Houjo doctrine.

  She took her time strolling through the halls, appreciating the tapestries and the architecture. Nodding at the staff with a smile, she then walked into the reception room and accepted a cup of wine. She wouldn’t finish it of course, intending to take only a few sips. Five at most. A sufficient amount to wet her throat but not enough to impair her judgment.

  The room was tastefully decorated with tapestries, chandeliers and tables that all were made either fully or in large part from minerals that matched the light blue crystal of the ceiling. The blues mixed well with the earthy tones of the stone and the mostly neutral fabrics that covered the tables. Rich, without being gaudy like the Ashikaga. It suited a gala thrown by the Hashira.

  Her eyes scanned the room, searching for Kire but not finding him, pausing for a moment on Hokori who gave her an unfriendly look, revealing his lack of maturity, then easily passing over the hated Hikoro without giving her the slightest acknowledgement. There was Enmei, speaking to a man whose outfit boggled the mind. In a room full of tastefully dressed nobles, to be wearing a flashy gold-and-black jacket with a matching tophat was like waving a red flag and screaming ‘here I am, look at me!’. She moved closer at an angle, taking a sip to hide the fact that she was staring.

  When she saw his face, she choked on her wine and nearly dropped her cup. Her stomach churned. Dario. Why? How?

  For a moment, as she coughed up her drink and accepted a cloth from one of the staff, she imagined that he was a specter that had latched onto her. It had never been a real person to go down with her to that horrid floor, but a curse in the shape of a man, one that would haunt and torment her until she died.

  She moved closer, determined to pull him out to limit the damage, but she was too slow to prevent disaster.

  Enmei asked him a question she could not make out and, to her horror, he then grabbed an artificial flower from the buffet and popped it in his mouth. Their noble host showed a rare expression of surprise as Dario’s jaw moved faster, his nostrils flaring as he chewed frantically, like some mad goat that had gotten into the pill cabinet.

  Nika put a hand to her stomach. She was going to be sick. Could she just walk away from this nightmare? Did they know he was affiliated with the Houjo clan? Yes, naturally, since she’d taken him on her platform and he’d provided a fancy lightshow for all to see. She had to get him out of here.

  She was close enough to hear Enmei pointing out that he’d eaten a piece of the decor, but his reaction stopped her in her tracks, jaw dropping low.

  In one eerily fast, distinctly amphibian motion, his mouth opened, ejected the flower, then closed again. He must have employed some trick of light Ki, as the flower became invisible as soon as it had left his mouth. But she was close enough to hear the wet splat when it hit the floor, followed immediately by another splat as Dario’s foot snapped out to kick the chewed-up, invisible flower away from him.

  He straightened his back and lifted his nose in what she was sure was an ill-advised impression of a noble.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said haughtily.

  Nika’s stomach gurgled. She felt paralyzed, not knowing what to do. Enmei’s pale eyes had moved along the likely trajectory of the spit-covered ornament, and now she was gaping back at Dario. The silence stretched and she could feel bile rising to her throat, but then Enmei broke the silence with a sudden chirping sound.

  It came again, repeating in a pattern, and it took Nika far too long to realize that it was a laugh. She could barely remember Enmei ever blinking, yet now she was laughing? The dark-skinned noblewoman covered her mouth with her hand as the high-pitched laughter continued. Dario noticed her and waved, daring to flash a grin and give a thumbs up.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Nika set her jaw and stepped closer, giving a brief bow. “Houjo greets Hashira. My thanks for the invitation, Enmei. It’s a wonderful gala,” she said with a smile then turning a hateful look to Dario. “My dear attendant, might I have a word?”

  Enmei finally stopped laughing and inclined her head. “Hashira greets Houjo. Feel welcome to anything you need, Veronika. I must say, you’ve found quite an unpredictable attendant. I haven’t been that surprised in years.”

  Their host was still smiling as she walked off. Nika grabbed Dario’s arm and hissed in his ear. “What are you doing here? Have you decided to actively sabotage me now?”

  “What? No, I’m here to help you. I mean, let’s be honest, you’re not exactly the smoothest at making friends.”

  “I’m not here to make friends,” she continued in an angry whisper, “Nobles do not make friends. We come to agreements, make deals and alliances. How are you planning to help with that? By chewing up the contents of this hall like a rabid dog, one small piece at a time?”

  Dario at least had the decency to look embarrassed. “That was just a little mishap. No, listen, what I was thinking is, you’re not great at reading people, but I am. I can see things you can’t, remember?”

  He lifted his black and gold shades so that she could see him wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. She opened her mouth to protest, but then she realized what he really meant. His ability to see emotions. That… was not a terrible idea. Could she use that to her advantage? Or, more importantly, was it worth the risk of having Dario around?

  “Listen,” he said, pulling her to the buffet, “let’s act cool before we cause a scene, alright?”

  She looked around quickly, noticing a few eyes on them, then forced a smile onto her face and selected a modest appetizer as Dario began to load up a plate.

  “These are meant to be appetizers,” she chided, “small portions are proper. It’s not a competition for who can build the highest tower. And before you dig in with your hands, you’re meant to use the cutlery, which is over there.”

  He pulled his hand back from the plate and went to fetch it. “Obviously. You think I’m an animal? Anyway, here’s what I was thinking. We can go and chat people up and when I can see that they’re not into it, I’ll uhh… subtly steer the conversation in the right direction.”

  Nika gaped at him. “You’ll subtly steer-” she cut off, closing her eyes for a moment and taking a calming breath. “Dario. Listen to me, please. Under no circumstances are you to engage in conversation with my peers. However, I will concede that you have a valuable ability. Besides, it would be suspect to send you away this early. So you may stand somewhere and watch. Without doing anything else. I will come to you for updates. Agreed?”

  He shrugged and nodded as he chewed down a mouthful of actual food this time. She turned to him, giving him a serious look. “This is deeply important to me, Dario. Please, do not embarrass me.”

  He nodded again. “I promise to do my very best not to embarrass you-”

  There was a cry and a crash of broken porcelain as a server hit the ground, the wooden platter clattering loudly on the stone floor. Nika could see a colorful, wet shape sliding over the floor from where the server’s foot had landed, though the flower quickly became invisible again.

  “...Starting now. That one didn’t count.”

  Nika’s stomach was still churning as she made her way through the nobles, giving bows and exchanging polite greetings. That man would end up giving her an ulcer one of these days. Kire had finally arrived, so she excused herself from a boring talk with one of the smaller clans and walked up to him.

  “Houjo greets Takeda.”

  Kire sighed. “You know I don’t care for formalities, Nika. What do you want?”

  Her lips thinned at the impropriety, but she pushed on, not wanting to be distracted from her goal. “I would like to explore with you possibilities for mutual gain,” she began, and his face lit up, but then she finished with “for our respective clans.” and his expression dropped again.

  “For a moment there, I thought you were going to suggest sparring sessions. What mutual gains are you thinking of?” he said, head turning away from her to scan the room.

  “Low cost access to raw materials, for starters. We would have to work out the details, but I’m certain there are more exchanges that can be made to benefit both clans. Furthermore, I-”

  “Where did you even find that fool?”

  She frowned at the interruption, then followed his gaze to see Dario leaning back against a wall, arms crossed as he stared right at them. Her stomach clenched again. That was his idea of being subtle?

  “It was happenstance, really. We ended up in an unexpected situation and he helped me out. I’m returning the favor. Now, if we could get back to-”

  “He looks like he was raised in poverty. Highly unlikely that he had proper training, if he had any training at all. It’s abundantly clear that he’s an idiot of the highest degree, with barely a sense of how the world works.”

  Nika watched him, not feeling the need to correct anything there - Kire was wrong about the training part, but that would be nitpicking. But Kire did not carry his usual, bored expression as he spoke. In fact, she thought he looked frustrated.

  “By reason, he should be a terrible fighter. Worthless, really,” he said, frown deepening. “So why is it that my gut is telling me he’d be worth fighting?”

  Nika couldn’t help but smile. Finally, there was another person who shared the kind of vexed frustration that Dario engendered in her, which was sometimes hard to put into words.

  “He has a knack for surprising people.”

  Kire’s silver eyes searched her expression for a moment, then he shook his head briefly. “If you want to deal with me, there has to be something in it for me. Let me fight your idiot, or fight me yourself, then we can talk.”

  He turned to walk away and Nika felt a flash of indignant anger. Did he think she would give up that easily?

  “Why don’t you just fight Hikoro, if it’s a sparring partner you seek? I’ll give you a tip for free - she has no control over her emotions. All you’d have to do is insult her and she’d immediately agree.”

  Kire paused, corners of his mouth lifting a tad. “Fire is not a good sparring opponent for a blade. The risk of injury is too high on both sides and the fights are too short. You do know how blades are sharpened, don’t you, Nika?” he asked, showing a wolfish grin. “By repeatedly grinding them against a hard object.”

  Again, a challenge to a fight she did not want to give him. Clan policy was clear on this: the Houjo should not show their abilities in public unless absolutely necessary. It was as elder Ishikata had said. Fear of uncertainty was what kept the wolves at bay.

  But if she wanted to hold his attention, she would need to be bolder. What was it that Kire really wanted? She had known him for years, forced from an early age by her parents to make friends, to ensure that their clan alliance would last into at least their generation. He’d always been interested in fighting, honing his skills. He looked up to mighty warriors. But he was also ambitious. Come to think of it, there was a dream he’d often repeated…

  “Do you think that is all that will be needed to achieve your desires, Kire? To be unmatched in the arena is not enough to become the Takeda’s Flawless.” When his eyes locked onto hers, she knew she was on the right track, so she pushed on.

  “The Clan Flawless is a champion of duels, yes, and a general in times of war. But do you really think it’s your skills in a fight that your leadership will doubt? In times of peace, what would you do, Kire? Spar with the other Flawless and risk starting a war? For a clan to prosper, more is needed than just winning fights. Leadership. An understanding of business. To be cunning in negotiations and wise in one’s decisions. That is what we must show, on this floor and each one that comes after it.”

  He looked at her for a long moment through narrowed eyes, then finally let out a sigh. “Fine. Prepare a proposal and I’ll hear you out. Try not to make it too boring, though, will you?”

  She was smiling as he stalked off and then she looked around for who to approach next. It was a small step, to be sure, but one in the right direction.

  Now, who was going to be her next opponent?