After some explanation, Selene and I convinced Lady Solana that matters involving the remaining suitors should only be handled by her aides – us, in particular. The original plot called for her death at the hands of another suitor. This meant it was simply too dangerous for her to even encounter them. It didn’t matter if circumstances had changed. The idea of her dying just to move the plot along made me sick to think about.
Now that Helian had safely been moved off the estate, the next suitor would ideally find her there, though it was possible that they would come here instead. We needed to be ready to repel them with force without escalating the conflict.
Few of the knights present on the estate had experience fighting mages. Out of all of them, Selene was easily the most qualified, so the countess, while reluctant, agreed to entrust the responsibility to her. In the event that the dame was unavailable, the role would fall to me. I lacked Selene’s battlefield experience, but due to my two decades of training with Helian, I was confident that I would at least survive the encounter.
Probably.
To justify my new role, the countess invented a new post and appointed me as captain of the guard. This unfortunately meant additional responsibilities. When I asked politely for a raise so I could save for my future, my suggestion seemed to amuse Selene, while the countess took the opportunity to pivot to a new topic.
“Looking to create a nest egg for yourself? We can’t have my little bird leaving the nest so quickly, can we?” She turned to the dame and they both nodded to each other. I had a bad feeling about this.
“As we’ve agreed, it’s unwise for me to encounter Coroban at present. You’re in a similar position, XXXXX. It would be dangerous for you and the saintess to be around each other, lest we complicate the situation further. And I regret to say that you’ve demonstrated a prior lack of restraint in this regard.”
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I groaned. “That wasn’t my fault…”
Selene smiled. “Even so, Sola is right. For the foreseeable future, consider yourself confined to the estate. As you promised not to betray my trust, I assume I can rely on you to comply with this restriction. Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of work to keep you busy.”
Solana agreed. “Yes, we’d best prepare you for your future. You have considerable potential, after all.”
Since Helian’s departure, the countess had resumed favoring me with meal invites, flattery, and teasing—much to my surprise. The invites to her bedroom had ceased, however, though that seemed natural now that she had rekindled things with the dame. Unfortunately, she had also developed a new interest in honing my skills, which meant I had gained an unwanted familiarity with the abilities of the kingdom’s greatest swordswoman. When I complained about the cuts and bruises from our sparring sessions, she merely remarked that this was “only proper for any member of House Solana.”
My evening instruction resumed as well, now with a larger variety of tutors and specialists. The subject matter had expanded to cover duties normally under the purview of the countess, like managing the county’s affairs or how to best make decisions as the head of a house. I began to fear that she had concocted a plan to somehow appoint me the new head of the barony. When I confessed this concern to Selene, however, she insisted that I had nothing to worry about in that regard, and that Solana merely wanted another person to pawn her work off onto.
On that note, my promotion to captain of the guard naturally implied a much larger volume of paperwork. At times, it felt as though the work had been manufactured by Selene for the specific purpose of tormenting me.
The additional work at least served as a useful excuse to turn down the veteran knights’ attempts to cajole me into joining them at the tavern, supposedly “so the men can get to know the new lady captain.” While their verbal jabs and light bullying so far had been harmless, I detected an undercurrent of envy and wanted to avoid escalating it.
Ruby, Sapphire, and Rufus now made a point of regularly visiting my office with tea and snacks. It seemed as if Helian’s conversation with the girls had left the trio with the impression that I was “prone to loneliness” and “needed looking after.” As such, they took it upon themselves to keep me company, though in practice, they weren’t terribly good at it. While Ruby did her best impression of a mother hen, the other two mostly spent their time laughing at my obvious discomfort.
