Blood Shaper

Book 5: Chapter 39

Kay and Eleniah stayed close together for several dances and Kay enjoyed every moment of it. He wasn’t the best dancer but he’d learned to love moving his body in battle and while less bloody this was an exertion that was close enough to be comparable. He’d learned the basics of several dances from Eleniah and a few others over the last few years, just to have them in his repertoire. While Eleniah had been his main teacher, Amanda had been there to help him with several of the more esoteric dances that didn’t see much use. He’d put that away as yet another thing to not dive too deeply into until it was safe for his Prime Minister to tell him all her secrets and moved on.

The dances on Torotia that Kay had come across weren’t that different than Earth’s dances and many of those had been brought over by this or that Outworlder. There were mostly variants of ballroom dancing at this particular party, with several of what dance-illiterate Kay called a waltz, a few that he was pretty sure were version of a salsa, and what was probably a tango. He was never completely sure which were which, but movies and some dance shows had given him a basic understanding of what different dances looked like from an outside view.

With bodies empowered by tiering up people were capable of incredible feats of acrobatics, adding moves Kay was sure would never be pulled off on Earth for safety reasons but were seen as basic parts of a dance here. The sheer speed of several spins and dips would give any regular person whiplash and pulled muscles. In between the different styles of dancing changing from one to the next, each getting progressively faster and loosing a few dancers from the crowd as the music changed, there were displays of what Kay felt were non-standard dances. They were closer to acrobatics performances with people doing insane flips and aerial spins, all set to music. There were also a few he would have called interpretive dances that more confused him than anything else.

They stepped away from the dance floor completely as one of the interpretive pieces ended and the fastest group dance of the night began. Kay was fast enough to keep up, if just barely in a few cases, but he didn’t know the steps. Trying to learn as he went while tightly packed together at the speed the dancers were moving at seemed like a great way to cause an accident. They weren’t the only pair that stepped away as things began to heat up, with the number of people still dancing less than half as many as there’d been when Kay and Eleniah had joined in.

A few more people took the opportunity to speak to Kay, although only one of them was one of the people Miri had pointed out as potentially avoiding him. That gentleman approached Kay to offer his daughter as a potential concubine. Some of the subtext told Kay that he’d originally wanted to offer her as a wife to Kay, but seeing him dance with Eleniah had made him rethink that. He said more than once that his daughter couldn’t hold a candle to a Selthoran lady, but she was pretty and talented all the same. The thought of someone trying to sell their child to him in any form made Kay want to vomit, though the fact that the man saw it as assuring his daughter had a good life reduced the feeling to Kay only wanting to vomit a little in his mouth instead of a lot all over the place.

Doing his best to politely turn down the offer with a preplanned excuse that he wasn’t going to take any concubines without his future wifes approval, Kay excused them both and led Eleniah, who’d gone silent at the man’s offer, away to their original spot, still held by the Blood Guard. The excuse was a lie of course, Kay had no plans to take any concubines. Stepping back into the protective circle of his guards, Kay took a drink from Miri to wash the acrid taste of disgust out of his mouth.

“You alright?” Kay asked Eleniah, who was still silently staring into space.

“… Alahna said that you’d get offers like that.”

“I’m sure I would have back home as well if Amanda wasn’t there to terrify everyone into backing off.”

She grunted once then turned to take a canape from the tray Miri held. She tossed it into mouth, chewed, and swallowed before speaking again. “I find it a bit distasteful. Can’t the women make the offer themselves? Or men, in cases other than yours. What if his daughter didn’t want to be a bed toy for a foreign king?”

“Well it definitely would have ended there, I can say that for sure. I agree though. I don’t want to have more than one wife, but if circumstances ever push me into it there’s no way I’d ever accept someone negotiating with me like the person they want me to marry isn’t an adult who can make their own decisions.” He grimaced as he thought of something, “Do they do child betrothals here?”

“The Isles? No. Some places do, although it’s not incredibly popular. There’s no way to know if someone will end up strong just from their lineage, even though people will push the affinity theory. Even the aficionados of that idea tend to wait until the beginning of adulthood when they pick their first Class, just to have some proof that “the right genes” are being brought along in the marriage.” She trailed off after telling him that. She absent-mindedly took another small treat from Miri and ate while staring at the dancers, obviously thinking about something.

Kay took a few bites of food himself while he waited on her. The dancers were moving at blistering speeds. During several maneuvers they blurred with motion, turning the dancer floor into a momentary display of whirling colors from each dancer’s outfit. Kay noticed for the first time that many of the women who’d stepped away from the faster dances were wearing tight clothing like Eleniah’s dress that wouldn’t be easy to move in. A second look showed him that many of the men who weren’t partnered with someone in tight clothing had clingy outfits of their own.

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“There’s more than just the question of autonomy bothering me about you getting offers like that.” Eleniah spoke up, drawing Kay’s attention back to her. “It’s that-“

“I so very hate to interrupt this, for many reasons.” Miri suddenly spoke over Eleniah. “But someone’s about to-“

“For an Isles free of tyranny!” Some one shouted, and a blast of magic erupted on the far side of the ballroom. A bright light shone as someone launched a thick magical beam attack. The brilliance being put off by the spell of Skill turned the person casting it into a silhouette and blocked any view of the recipient, making it impossible to tell who was attacking whom.

The Blood Guard pushed in tight around Kay, setting the wall at their backs so no one could come at them from the rear. Weapons formed in their gauntleted hands as they stood ready to repeal any attackers. Kay smoothed his fancy outfit into armor of his own, but stopped before making himself a halberd or sword. Next to him Eleniah swore angrily and reached down, tearing her dress from the bottom up past her knees. It immediately gave her significant freedom of movement, but it also revealed a tantalizing glimpse of her legs that momentarily distracted Kay.

When the attack ended and the watchers managed to blink the spots out of their eyes, it was much easier to see the person who’d shouted and launched a massive attack. It was Duke Karmondur and who it was combined with what he’d shouted made it even easier to figure out who he’d just tried to kill.

“That,” He shouted, “Is the only end for those-“

An explosive whip crack of thunder followed behind a blinding streak of lightning that blasted out from the cloud of particulates thrown up by Karmondur’s assassination attempt. A series of overlapping barriers appeared around the duke, keeping him alive when the bolt struck him. It did nothing else to lessen the force coming at him and it threw him several feet away. Most of the barriers around him shattered and faded away under the force of the blow and several pieces of jewelry on his body disintegrated into dust at the same time.

The concealing cloud swirled away as wind began to build, revealing what had been hidden. A ten foot, square, translucent pane of energy floated in the air, create by one of Alahna’s guards who stood there with his hand outstretched. Behind him stood Alahna, looking even more thunderous than her dress. Crackling bolts of lightning crawled up and down her body and globules of water seemed to wrench themselves out of the air as they swirled around her. While the entire crowd watched, the spiraling wind highlighted by the dust it had captured joined the dancing balls of water and began to make clouds. The clouds rose upward and spread, becoming a miniature storm system that loomed ominously over the entire ballroom in a matter of seconds.

Karmondur’s allies had rushed to his aid when he’d taken the counterattack, and many of them had drawn weapons or begun casting. They were now frozen in place, staring in terror at the unharmed and very angry queen.

“Did you think I didn’t know of your plans?” She asked, sneering down at the duke, who was still on the ground, gaping up at her. “I’ve known for years. Years. I have let you play your little games and plot your little plots this entire time because you are nothing, and you haven’t crossed the line. Until now. Tonight you’ve finally reached too far, and its time the world was rid of your petty selfishness and naive narcissism.”

The shock faded from the traitors who’d tried to kill a monarch and they clutched their weapons tightly. A pair dragged Karmondur to his feet and he shook himself, coming back to world around him. His hand turned pale as he gripped the wand he’d struck at her with. “Do you think I’ll fall to words?” He snarled. “We have stood too long under your domineering ‘rule’. We’ve come too far and sacrificed too much to fail now. It’s past time that we returned to how things were, how things should have always been!”

Kay made eye contact with Alahna in the tiny moment before combat began, and he nodded when she shook her head. “We’re staying out of this. Deal with anyone coming at us, obviously, but don’t get involved in the fighting beside that.”

The Blood Guard nodded at his orders and hunkered down into a defensive position. Lauren manifested her bow and created a few arrows, but didn’t place them on the string. Next to him Eleniah stood completely motionless, looking like a beautiful statue as a perfectly blank expression hid all of her feelings in that moment.

Melee fighters threw themselves at one another as spell casters began throwing spells or starting chants. Guards clashed with gaudily dressed nobles and fighting broke out among the crowd as allies of each side got in on the battle. The uninvolved guests started to scream in panic or lash out around them in an attempt to keep everyone away from them and a minor stampede pushed at the doors, trying to get away.

Alahna ignored the attacks coming her way, which all deflect harmlessly off the barrier in front of her. She narrowed her eyes, glaring at Karmondur, but her attention was stolen by one of the duke’s accomplices. The spell caster was working on a lengthy chant and a large amount of mana was gathering together over the woman’s head into an obviously dangerous attack.

Shifting her aim, Alahna flicked one finger out at the woman, and the storm above everyone answered her call. A bolt of lightning descended from above and slammed into the caster. It was met by a shield that appeared around her, but like Karmondur the force of a lightning bolt still hit her even if the lightning itself didn’t. She was slammed to the ground, a loud crack sounding out as her head hit the floor.

The queen of the Seramist Isles scanned the traitors trying to kill her, then lashed out again. This time a twin pair of bolts coiled around her arms and leapt forward. They struck two different attackers, then bounced off, continuing their rampage in the first case of actual chin lightning that Kay had ever witnessed. Kay didn’t know if Alahna was controlling them or if it was something about the Skill itself, but the snaking bolts curved around people to strike others, never hitting anyone that Kay could clearly recognize as one of Alahna’s allies.

One of the people who did get hit was thrown back into a nearby portion of the wall the Blood Guard was keeping behind Kay’s group. As they sluggishly pushed their way out of the dent their body had made their face began to slump. For a brief instant, their skin looked like black sludge. Looking around, the woman who’d been hit saw Kay staring at her, and her expression instantly became blank and robotic.

“Ignore the last thing I said.” Kay shouted over the din of combat as he formed a halberd and simultaneous launched a spray of blood at the fake. “Kill anyone whose skin starts melting!”