Sexy Steampunk Babes: Chapter Seventy Four

It had been harder than one might think to find a quiet room to speak in, despite the fact the party was taking place in a giant mansion. Yes, the majority of the guests were sticking to the main hall, but with almost the entirety of the South’s nobility present for the coming War Council, that meant there were still plenty of bodies leftover to scheme – both maliciously and benignly – in the other rooms.

And I’d bet Yelena has one of her invisible listeners present in every one, he thought. Including this one.

Which was why he’d been ready to slap down any of his own family’s schemes with the force of an angry god.

Which was why he could scarcely believe what he’d just heard as he stared across at his family.

And it was the whole family – sans Aunt Perlia, who had likely stayed back home to oversee the Ashfield holdings and keep the county running.

Janet Ashfield sat on a nearby sofa, her posture straight and her expression unreadable.

Aunt Karla stood against the back wall, a half-empty glass of wine in her hands that she was swishing about nervously. The last two – Lira and Sophina – flanked Olivia on each side of another couch.

Sophina in particular looked like she was trying to burn a hole through him with her eyes, but he scarcely spared her a second glance – which likely pissed her off all the more.

No, his focus was on what had just been said.

“What?” he repeated – for a third time.

His mother tilted her head, studying him the way she might study a new trade manifest. “You’re many things, my son, but I’d never thought slow to be one of them. You’ve won. I surrender. We’ll be supporting the Whitemorrow girl’s claim.”

He blinked. He had walked in braced for begging or demands, and a lot of shouting either way – but instead his mother was offering her surrender with the calm finality of someone closing a ledger at the end of a bad fiscal year.

“Really? Just like that?” he asked.

Aunt Karla scoffed, the sound rich with disbelief. “Just like that. He invents a dozen never-before-heard-of new technologies, near singlehandedly defeats the most damaging attack on our capital in our nation’s history, positions himself to marry one of the most likely claimants to claim the Summerfield title. And then acts like we’re the ones being confusing.”

William opened his mouth, closed it, then tried again. “Not to downplay my own efforts, but some would believe I’m merely taking credit for Yelena’s accomplishments. Technologically at least.” A narrative he’d done a lot to reinforce. It served to further confuse any claims that he might be harrowed as well as cause people to underestimate him. “So you’ll forgive me if I’m a little surprised that you believe me to be the driving force behind these inventions.”

“Some people haven’t just been debriefed by your sister and aunt,” his mother said. “And they both believe you to be the sole architect of these Aether-less shards. And I’m inclined to believe them. You always were clever, even if you only ever sought to apply it in the most infuriatingly rebellious ways.”

“Or the kitchen!” Olivia popped in, before shrinking in on herself, cheeks flaring red. “…I mean, he also used to make a lot of nice new foods.”

Janet’s expression warmed slightly at that. “That he did.”

William also sent his sibling a grateful little smile – even as he mentally started to re-orentate himself. “Okay then. I understand. I’m still a little surprised you’re not asking me to use all that to support Olivia instead. I mean, at this point the succession is more or less a foregone conclusion.”

“I wouldn’t say that. Renal Plumgardern is no fool. I don’t know what she’s planning, but she’ll certainly try something.” Janet placed a soft hand on Olivia’s shoulder. “Regardless, perhaps we might have gone that route if you hadn’t unveiled our original plan to take the title and side with the Blackstones to Yelena. As it stands now, she’d never let Olivia take the title.”

William could believe that. Oh, the queen had no legal means to interfere in the succession – Lindholm’s ancient charters were clear on ducal rights – but she had plenty of illicit ones available to her. And not all required Olivia to die. A foolishly sworn geass oath followed by its breaking was one method available to her. And William didn’t put it past the woman to do exactly that – because short of the woman murdering or physically maiming his sibling, he wasn’t in any position to break off their alliance.

Not this late in the game, William thought. Once upon a time I might have had other options, but our interests are too tightly entwined now.

“So you’re siding with the twins instead,” he confirmed. “In the hopes of getting in the good graces of her and your future liege lady.”

“We’re siding with you, kid,” Aunt Karla said. “And Whitemorrow. So feel free to convey to our Queen that Olivia is no longer a threat.”

“It’s that simple huh?” he murmured.

“Simple,” Aunt Sophina scoffed, echoing Karla’s earlier tone. “There’s nothing simple about any of this. What was simple was you marrying Tala, using their support to let Olivia take the Summerfield title, and us all overthrowing Yelena in a bloodless coup.”

Janet shot the woman a warning look, shutting her up, before turning back to him. “Instead, you’ve managed to upset a plan nearly a decade in the making by somehow escaping an ironclad marriage clause, creating that absurdly ugly ship and those shards of yours, and somehow positioning yourself as queenmaker for the same Summerfield title that was originally going to go to your sister.”

His mother laughed, a short, rueful sound that carried more weariness than humor. “So no, it’s not simple, and you’ll have to forgive me if I didn’t predict any of it happening and planning accordingly. I made our original plan based on what I knew and what was within my means to accomplish while bettering our family. I’m doing the same now. Having two of my children with ducal titles and no war would have been ideal, but I’ll settle for one child with a ducal title and the other one hopefully still breathing when this long bloody war is over.”

William paused. He could accept that logic – even if on some level it felt surreal not to be arguing with his mother. That was, as sad as it was to say, the sum total of their relationship. Arguing. Now she was sat there offering a pragmatic surrender, and the absence of conflict was still leaving him oddly off-balance.

“I’ll be sure to convey your words to Yelena,” he said hesitantly. “When the succession formalities start, she’ll obviously expect a public declaration of Olivia’s renouncing of her title and your formal support of Whitemorrow.”

He winced a little at the look on Olivia’s face at those words – maybe she’d still held out some hope he’d offer to help her – but she didn’t argue. The girl simply nodded, jaw tight.“It will be done, brother.”

He nodded, before pausing. “Out of curiosity, no one’s going to ask me if I’m harrowed?”

That’d been another thing he’d been waiting to be asked since he’d entered.

And yet, for the first time since entering, he found Janet Ashfield looking angry at his words. Not the cold, calculated anger he was used to, but something raw and protective. “I’m your mother, boy. I can’t say I knew you as well as I liked given all you’ve done to surprise me these past few months, but I think I’d know if my own child was harrowed. Don’t ever even joke about that.”

Perhaps it should have amused him how sure she was, but it only made him sad. The truth sat behind his teeth like a live grenade – and he clenched them tight. He had told Yelena. He had told the team. But he wouldn’t tell his mother.

Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Because it hurt his soul to see how she looked at him now; with a mother’s certainty that he was simply exceptional, not broken. Not some strange creature puppeting her child around like a meat-suit.

“Right, a poor jest on my part.” He turned to leave, before pausing. “And Olivia, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. Not about my actions, but for keeping you from… your birthright I guess.”

She laughed humorlessly. “I can hardly complain, brother. I did it to you first after all.”

He did laugh at that, low and quiet.

“Though I’ll not deny that it hurts. More than I expected,” she continued. “I like Verity. And I guess I didn’t really understand what it meant when mother said we’d be backing House Blackstone’s coup. Orcs were… well, I’d never met one – and Tala didn’t have much nice to say about them.”

William could believe that. Honestly, in retrospect he should have handled that whole situation with the letters better. Replied to a few, rather than that first one and ignoring the rest.

Olivia continued, voice small but steady. “I wouldn’t want Verity to be a slave. She told me a few stories about it when we were painting the shard. And.., I wouldn’t want that for her. Or anyone.” She paused. “But I really wanted to be a duchess. And to avoid a war.”

She’s only fourteen, he reminded himself.

“There’d always have been a war,” he said slowly.

The Free orcs in the South wouldn’t just go back to being slaves. And while airships made conventional resistance impossible, the presence of the ‘true’ free orcs in the North meant it wasn’t impossible. The South might not have had the mountains they used to hide in, but it had plenty of very dense forests while conducting their resistance.

Never mind the cities themselves.

“Right,” Olivia realized, nodding. Even as mother and aunts looked confused. “So, yeah, I forgive you I guess. Even if I’m disappointed.”

And that right there was part of why he loved his sister. She was a bit of a brat, but she had a heart under it all.

“Right, I’ll go tell the Queen. I’ll also make sure she doesn’t do anything to hurt our family,” he said.

And that was his peace offering of sorts.

He stepped out to see Marline waiting in the corridor, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised.

“I expected shouting.” the dark elf said.

“So did I…” William said.

——————

Yelena frowned as she listened to the Duchess of Southshore – though her last name was actually Ironhull. A distinctly dwarvish name for an elven house, but one that had a rather long and storied history behind it. Just as the fact that said woman was now the duchess of Southshorerather than the now-defunct actual House Southshore.

Yelena didn’t care to think about those long and storied histories now. Her focus was on what the woman was telling her.

“And your woman is sure the survivors are telling the truth?” she confirmed. “And that they are who they say they are.”

Norel Ironhull nodded, keeping her voice low lest anyone else hear. A not too difficult feat given the ambient noise level from ongoing conversations in the hall as well as the wall of guards between them and any eavesdroppers.

Her daughters and their host had already made for the main floor to ‘mingle’ while Yelena received petitioners.

“We are. We’ve also checked our own records and the numbers line up from water-ships we’ve lost. If these people are imposters, they’re very well researched ones.”

Yelena didn’t slam her fist down, but it was a close run thing. Free orcs had been part of the Lunite flotilla that struck the capital.

Instead, she sighed. “Right. Well, I thank you for your discretion in this manner.”

Norel nodded slowly. Whatever her own personal feelings on the matter of Lindholm orcs being part of the attack, the fact of the matter was that the South didn’t need a schism at this time. Not with a war on. And the information the duchess had just shared… well, while it might not be enough to cause a schism in and of itself, it would certainly be a blow for morale.

Free orcs, she thought – a cold fury burning in her veins, fingers tighten around the stem of her untouched wine glass.

Sentimentality had never been the reason why she’d moved to end the practice of orcish slavery – only a desire to be able to recruit more orcish mages and see less of her own lost fighting them – and this most recent news wouldn’t change that.

As much as it burned her.

She’d get her pound of flesh one day, but it would have to wait. Likely decades.

The one bright spot in the whole affair was that those orcs had turned on the Lunites that had… hired them? Those details were more spotty, but the fact remained that the orcs now had three airships that were apparently heading back up North. Which would hopefully become a problem for the Northerners soon enough.

Let them eat each other, she thought vindictively.

The only strange part of the whole story, and the one that made her a little sceptical of its authenticity, was the fact that those same orcs chose to release the enslaved humans aboard the ships they’d taken rather than killing them all and dumping them overboard.

And it says a lot about this situation that them doing so would have been far more convenient for me, she thought.

Instead she had a crew of former slaves she needed to keep quiet lest they shoot her moral arguments against orcish slavery in the foot.

“Keep them isolated for now,” she said. “Comfortable, but isolated. We’ll figure out what to do about all this… later.”

“Already done, Your Grace.” The duchess said. “I will convey instructions to make their current accommodations more long term.”

Yelena nodded gratefully, before dismissing the woman with a gesture—sending her back into the throng of courtiers.

Honestly, after that news, she wanted a moment for herself, but it couldn’t be allowed. Not with so many nobles wanting to see her. And she’d see them because she’d need their support for the days to come. So she simply gestured, allowing the next petitioners forward through the throng of her guards.

And regretted it almost immediately when she saw who it was.

“Lady Plumgarden,” she greeted with feigned happiness.

She’d already spoken to greeted Lady Apple River earlier and was sure Plumgarden would ask the same things the high elf had.

The countess curtsied with perfect precision, dark green eyes glittering with intelligence that might well have been a boon to the Queen if applied to different ends.

“Your Grace. A pleasure, as always. I know your time is valuable, so I shall not tarry long. My question is simple, will you be supporting House Whitemorrow in the upcoming succession conflict?”