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the problem. (four)
By the tender and vicious age of four years old, Jeannemary Chatur had internalized three fundamental facts about her life:
- She was destined to ship out with the Cohort and bring glory to the Emperor and her House;
- She represented a long line of Cavaliers and was fiercely proud of her name and her role; and
- Her necromancer sucked.
Technically, he wasn't her necromancer yet. Technically there was a ceremony and an oath and Jeannemary would have to prove herself in order to be sworn in partnership to the then-three-and-a-half year old scion of the Fourth House, but: come on, everyone knew where this was going.
It wasn’t that Isaac was unskilled: his family lines were perfect, his facility with thanergy already demonstrable, and the Fourth House stewards and Cavalier Primary had piles of reports venerating his abilities. Jeannemary hadn’t read these reports, of course; she was four. But everyone around her, knowing her intended role, simply told her every piece of news about Isaac’s burgeoning abilities, whether she asked for information or not. (She didn’t.)
No, the problem, Jeannemary had decided, was that Isaac was shy. He was nervous. Whenever Jeannemary spent time around him, he barely met her eyes. He was herded gently into rooms by his teachers, while Jeannemary curled her lip and had to be checked from striding in front of him, the ever-present correction of “Half-step behind, Chatur,” echoing in her tiny ears. How by the Emperor Undying was she supposed to gain any glory leashed to this... bore?
After Isaac’s fourth birthday they were paired together in their first training exercise, which was, to Jeannemary’s indignation, an utter disaster. It was Isaac’s fault, of course. The exercise was simple, an obstacle course that Jeanne had run with the other youngsters so many times she’d lost count. Necromantically inclined children had different obstacles on the course, but Jeannemary had been informed that Isaac had aced every test he’d been set.
She had heard how good he was. She knew how good she was. The problem, as she realized immediately, was putting them together. Jeanne, who was used to the quick reflexes and common-senseless charge of her peers, was halfway to the first obstacle before looking back and seeing Isaac still standing at the starting line, fingers spread wide as he-- did something, Jeanne honestly had no idea what he was up to. “Come on ,” she yelled, aware, as always, of the clock.
Isaac shook his head, face scrunched into concentration. “Wait,” he called back.
Jeanne did not wait. She was impatient at the best of times, which this definitely was not, so she turned back to the first obstacle and reached out. In her standard run of the course, she would have pulled on the heavy rope hanging just barely in reach and yanked over the weight on the other side, causing the gate in front of her to open just wide enough to slip through to the next step. Instead, Jeanne watched her hand go toward the rope and immediately start to blister and blacken. Her heart rate shooting up in panic, she yanked her hand back toward herself and watched it start to heal over, the pain a momentary lapse of her eyes, not real. Not real, she repeated to herself, and reached out again.
“I said wait,” Isaac wailed from behind her, “you’re not helping.”
“Neither are you,” Jeanne replied, although not very loudly, and grabbed the rope.
This time she felt the pain first, a burning stab through her palm even as she saw the skin peel back into burning ash. She yelped, snatching her hand away again and then immediately flushing with anger at herself as it started to heal over again, more slowly this time. Before she could reach out a third time, Isaac was somehow beside her, knocking her hand away. “Ow,” she said, as though his tiny shove had any weight behind it whatsoever.
“Stop distracting me,” Isaac said, and put his hands out -- not to the rope, but fingers splayed in front of them, forehead furrowed. Jeanne gathered any scraps of annoyed patience she could and watched as Isaac’s fingers twitched and he mouthed something to himself and then, a few moments later, something shimmered and burst in the air in front of them. Jeanne gaped. “Okay,” Isaac said, catching his breath like he’d been running. “It’s okay now.”
Jeanne reached out and yanked on the rope -- no pain, no burning -- and shoved Isaac through the opening gate in front of her. No time for questions. In front of them was a crawl space, and after that a climbing wall, and if Jeanne was right in her suspicions, more terrible necromancy and a lot more of Isaac slowing her down.
She was right. Isaac balked at the crawl space, meaning Jeanne had to physically push him through when hissing at him to move faster! didn’t cut it. The climbing wall was one she’d shimmied up a hundred times, but Isaac acted like he’d never seen one before, and Jeanne had to haul him up beside her and then use both hands to get him over the top to the ledge. He slipped crawling onto it, his booted foot catching Jeanne in the shoulder, and she skidded nearly back down to the ground, practically feeling the bruises forming as she went.
It didn’t get any better from there, and they stumbled across the finish line a full three times behind Jeanne’s slowest ever timestamp, an indignity that almost made her scream even as one of the trainers came forward to attend to her injuries, and a steward took Isaac aside.
“I’m not doing that again!” Jeanne said, stomping her foot. “He isn’t fast enough!” Across the pathway, Isaac pulled away from the steward next to him and wiped at his face. He succeeded only in smearing blood sweat across his forehead and eyes in a slightly horrifying display. He opened his mouth, and Jeannemary automatically braced herself for an argument, but Isaac only blinked and looked away again. It was impossible to tell if his face was damp from tears or sweat at this distance, but Jeanne rolled her eyes anyway.
“You’ll both run the course again tomorrow,” came the stony deliberation from above her, and Jeanne growled. No she wouldn’t, she thought. This was never going to work.
the sword. (five)
“Jeannemary, you shouldn’t.”
“Why not?” Jeanne demanded. She looked at Isaac, who was looking frantically between her and the dark parade ground behind them. “I want to use a real sword.”
“Just wait,” Isaac insisted. “You get yours in a month!”
Jeanne sighed. She didn’t know how to explain to Isaac, who barely knew how to hold a dinner knife, how important this was. When kids her age were already past the wooden practice swords? She wasn’t going to wait, that was ridiculous. “I’m not going to keep it,” she said, “I’m not stupid. I just want to try one.”
“There are wards though, you’ll get hurt,” Isaac said, grabbing at her elbow.
She paused, letting him pinch her sleeve anxiously. “So. Break them for me,” she said.
Isaac’s expression of horror was obvious even in the dim light. “I can’t,” he said.
“I thought you were good at wards,” Jeanne said, and yanked her sleeve free.
“I am,” Isaac said.
“So get me inside,” Jeanne repeated. “Or are you too scared?”
“I’m not scared!” Isaac’s voice belied his words, although he hadn’t backed off yet. “It’s just. You shouldn’t. You’re gonna get hurt. And then you’ll have to wait longer for your sword.”
Jeanne rolled her eyes. “I can climb a wall,” she said. “I’m not going to get hurt. You don’t even know what’s inside.”
“I do too,” Isaac said. “The armory is full of magic. It’s not just wards. They take it seriously. It’s dangerous.”
Jeanne threw a scornful look at him. Of course they took it seriously. Had he ever even been in a training room? How would he even know? “I’m gonna break in, so, if you’re gonna help me then help. Or go away. Last chance.”
“It’s not worth it,” Isaac tried, but of course that wasn’t going to persuade her. “Please don’t-- Jeanne!”
But Jeannemary was already moving, skirting the shadows along the parade ground toward the back wall of the children’s armory, searching for the scuffed up place on the wall she’d scouted earlier for handholds. When she glanced back and let her eyes adjust to the slanting night lights, Isaac was gone. Fine, she thought. He was just going to weigh her down anyway. She reached up for the first handhold, her fingernails scraping the stone, and bounced lightly a couple of times on her foot before scrambling upwards. She hadn’t been lying: climbing this wall was nothing (well, not nothing, but doable, as long as she took it slowly). Her prize called from the top: a long rectangular window, very gently glowing with the promise of weapons-- real swords! -- waiting inside.
A foot from the top, her hand encountered its first resistance: a rubbery, oily tingling traveling up her arm from her next handhold. Jeannemary was becoming familiar with wards by now, but even expecting it didn’t stop the revulsion and she nearly slipped off the wall, clutching back just below the ward line with a smothered yelp. She would not give Isaac the satisfaction of getting turned away by something this basic. She took a deep breath and swung her hand back into it, scrabbling up into the weird pressure, reaching out for the window -- almost-- there --
And then the world exploded and collapsed simultaneously, a flash of heat-light and a crack of energy to the sternum and she was falling, breath punched out of her, ground coming up fast--
Jeannemary crashed past somebody, crumpling to the ground, gasping for air a second time, as a light--ordinary, not magic this time--swung across them. It was her Level Two Swords lead standing over her, and behind him, the shuttered-closed face of the Cavalier Primary, and behind him, in shadow: Isaac.
“You snitch,” Jeanne said, or tried to say, but her breath was still wheezing in her chest and she couldn’t manage to form the words.
Her face must have been clear enough, though, because she saw Isaac shrink back and look away. “Sorry,” he whispered, but it was lost under her trainer saying, “all right, up you get, Chatur,” and dragging her up to her feet.
“You,” Jeanne gasped as she struggled upright, “Isaac, you didn’t-- ”
“Tettares informed us of a breach,” her trainer said repressively, holding her back from launching herself at him, “and we responded. We’ll talk about your behavior in class, Chatur.”
“My behavior?” Jeanne spluttered, but he was already marching her away from the armory, the Cavalier Primary and Isaac two steps behind. She whipped her head around as they walked, trying to catch Isaac’s eye to glare at him.
When he finally looked at her, his face was tight and his brows furrowed, but he met her gaze steadily. “I told you not to!” he mouthed at her, and well, if that wasn’t just the outside of enough -- it was only her trainer’s iron grip on her shoulder that stopped her from whirling on him. He told her not to? Oh, that was it. She was never going to forgive him for this.
the explosion. (six)
“You absolutely could not.”
“I absolutely could, though.”
“I don’t believe you.” Jeannemary set down her fork and stared Isaac down with all the compact determination she had. “You could not. It’s been dead for hours.”
Isaac sighed, the tiny hunff out his nose that Jeanne knew presaged him going in depth into necromantic theorems she had no desire to follow. She wasn’t quick enough to stop him though, because he was already talking: “okay, the initial burst of thanergy is already gone, yeah, but the flesh remains, and with an infusion of thanergetic energy from somewhere else, fission is still technically possible. If you’re good.” Isaac paused, and then in case Jeanne hadn’t gotten the implication, added: “which I am.”
“Ugh.” Jeannemary rolled her eyes. “Fine. Prove it.”
Isaac’s eyes flared with a hint of that old nervousness, the pinch of anxiety he had more or less learned to hide by now. “I don’t have to,” he blustered, and Jeannemary could see his attention landing on the room around them, the dozens of people, the glittering lights. “I know I could, so --”
“Yeah, but, I don’t believe you,” she replied with finality. “So.”
“Everything all right, chaps?” came Magnus’ voice from their left. They looked over to see him pointing a fork inquisitively their direction, both of them realizing in that moment how raised their voice had gotten.
“Fine,” Jeanne said.
“We’re discussing necromantic fission,” Isaac said.
“Oh! Well, you’ll need Abigail for that, then,” Magnus replied, with a wide smile. “I’ll leave you to it.” He turned back to the adult seated on his other side, and both children rolled their eyes at exactly the same moment. Jeannemary suppressed the giggle that rose in her at Isaac’s expression: she had a mission, and there was no time to get distracted.
She speared a piece of potato on her fork, waited carefully until Isaac had taken his next bite, and then leaned over and hissed, “so you think you’re that good?” When Isaac turned to her in fury, unable to retort with his mouth full, she dealt the final blow: “then I dare you. ”
Isaac swallowed too fast, coughed, and swallowed again, but his hands were already moving under the table: knife, blood, other hand out toward Jeanne-- “spit,” he whispered, and she obediently did -- he did something complex with his fingers that Jeanne only caught part of, hidden beneath the tablecloth, but she could feel hairs rising on the back of her neck.
And then, ten feet away, surrounded by an abundance of fruits and decorations and glistening in the candlelight, the table’s centerpiece roast chicken effortlessly detonated. For a moment, there was silence across the dining hall: the musicians floundered to a halt, all conversation froze, and the only sound was the quiet, damp slap of poultry shreds falling to the floor. Necromantically-mutilated chicken bits were strewn across their plates, and the plates and laps of every distinguished guest around them, and the carpets, and also the walls, and as Jeannemary canted her gaze sideways, she saw one remnant of chicken skin slowly sliding down Isaac’s petrified face.
Jeannemary did her best, but that sight was too much, and the smallest, choked-off snort of a laugh escaped her. Isaac turned to her then, eyes wide and damning, and Jeannemary couldn’t help another snort. Isaac’s face twisted, and Jeannemary could see him grinding his molars together to keep his expression from going haywire. Before she could get herself under control, Isaac pushed his chair back and grabbed her wrist. “Please excuse us,” he said to Magnus, all perfect manners and politesse, and then dragged her out of her chair, past staring eyes and out the door into the hallway beyond, ignoring the security detail that peeled themselves away to follow.
“Wow,” Jeanne gasped as they rounded the next corner, hand over her mouth, still trying not to laugh. “Wow, you, you actually did it --”
“They’re going to be so mad,” Isaac started to say, at the same time Jeanne finished with: “Isaac, that was so cool.”
Isaac stopped halfway through the word “mad,” and looked back at her. “Was it?”
“Yeah,” Jeanne said.
“...oh,” Isaac said. His mouth twitched, and Jeanne grinned at him.
“I didn’t think you’d actually do it,” she admitted, still grinning.
“I shouldn’t have,” Isaac said, but he was starting to smile back at her. “And anyway, you said I dare you, so--”
“I didn’t think it would work!”
“Why wouldn’t it work,” Isaac demanded, their words overlapping each other’s, “it’s practically the--”
“Well, you’re a coward,” Jeanne replied, and the hall went as silent as the dining room had. Isaac’s growing smile slid off his face like an acid burn as Jeannemary suddenly realized what she’d said. “I mean,” she stuttered. “I didn’t--”
“I am not,” Isaac started, his voice wavering. It sounded like he was trying not to cry, and any regret Jeanne felt immediately boiled over into flushed contempt.
“Then don’t act like one,” she snapped, inescapably.
Isaac’s face twisted again, and it wasn’t to hide a smile this time. He stepped forward and poked Jeannemary, harder than she’d expected, right below her collarbone. “I am the Baron of Tisis,” he said, his voice still watery but holding firm. “You are my cavalier in training. You don’t get to say things like that.”
“I can if they’re true,” Jeannemary retorted, knowing with every fiber of her being that she should be standing down and still, always, not being able to. “You aren’t better than me, I’m your cavalier, not your servant --”
“Then be a cavalier,” Isaac hissed, “and stop being such a dick!” He shoved her once more, for emphasis, and before Jeannemary could say anything else, fled down the hallway.
Jeanne stood where she was, one hand coming up to rub at the admittedly painful place he’d poked, her mouth working but no words coming out. Her face still felt flushed and she wanted to punch something, or someone.
After a moment she heard the sounds of Abigail and Magnus making their way down the corridor, snatches of conversation: “he wouldn’t?” and “...Jeanne, probably,” and “it was impressive, I’ll grant him that--” and “I do think it might be a good sign, actually, dear--” the conversation trailed off as the adults spotted the six year old cavalier standing solidly in the middle of the hallway. “Jeanne, dear?” Abigail asked. “Where’s Isaac?”
“Ran off,” Jeannemary said shortly. She crossed her arms across her chest, not looking at either of them.
“Magnus, would you --” Abigail continued, and Magnus murmured something back and started off where Isaac had gone. Abigail crouched down so she was level with Jeannemary, and asked, her voice quieter now, “what happened?” Jeanne shrugged, one-shouldered, and said nothing. “Did you two have another fight?”
To her shame, Jeanne felt tears prickling the corners of her eyes, the flush of anger in her chest suddenly turning into tightness in her throat. “No,” she lied.
“Mmm-hmm,” Abigail said. She reached out and put a hand on Jeanne’s arm, ignoring the girl’s cringe, and gently rubbed one thumb back and forth, waiting. Jeanne blinked hard, and did her best not to pull away or turn into Abigail’s touch, even though she wanted to do both.
“I,” Jeanne started. “I maybe said something mean.”
“I see,” Abigail said.
“But he did too,” Jeanne protested, “he called me a dick.”
Abigail made an aborted noise that Jeanne couldn’t quite parse, and used her free hand to adjust her glasses. “That is mean,” she agreed, her tone still even. “What did you say?”
This time Abigail had to wait longer, before Jeanne swallowed around the lump in her throat and whispered at the floor, “I called him a coward.”
“Oof,” Abigail said sympathetically, and that noise finally made the tears spill out of Jeanne’s eyes.
“I didn’t mean to!” she wailed.
“All right,” Abigail replied, continuing her easy comforting gesture on the girl’s arm.
“But he is,” Jeanne went on helplessly, her face flushing again. “He’s so… he doesn’t…” she flung her free hand out, in an attempt to convey all of her boiling frustrations in one go.
Abigail stood up, her hand squeezing Jeanne’s upper arm once before letting go. “Walk with me?” she asked, and when Jeanne looked up at her stubbornly, added, “not to Isaac, Magnus will handle that for the moment.” Jeanne huffed, but training took over and she fell into step beside the Fifth house as she so often did. “I suppose it won’t be a surprise to tell you that I often forget to eat or sleep,” Abigail began, as though starting a new conversation. “In fact, when I really get into a primary source, I’m hard pressed to remember what day it is.” Jeannemary, who had in fact met necromancers before, nodded. “Magnus doesn’t have a head for research like I do, but Jeanne, could you imagine? We’d waste away to death looking at the same book, having forgotten that food is a necessity.” Jeanne looked up at Abigail, who shot her a smile. “He has different priorities, and it’s quite a good thing that they aren’t mine.”
“So you don’t starve,” Jeanne said, as Abigail seemed to be waiting for an acknowledgement.
Abigail laughed. “Yes, precisely, among other things. And he’s better at socializing than I used to be. No, it’s true,” she added, at Jeanne’s expression. “You should have seen me when I was your age, an absolute wreck if I tried to talk to anyone about anything except books. I’m much better now, because I had to be. And Isaac will be an excellent Baron, because he has to be.” She looked down at Jeanne again, whose shoulders had gone tense at the mention of Isaac’s name. “What is being brave, Chatur?” Abigail asked, and Jeannemary recognized the teacher in her voice this time.
She made a face. “I know what you’re trying to do.”
“Oh?” Abigail came to a halt, and Jeannemary realized they had stopped outside the suite of rooms that Abigail used as a study. “What am I trying to do?”
“I say what brave is and then you tell me that Isaac is that, too. And then I feel bad about calling him a coward.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Abigail said, crouching down again and looking at her closely. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad, that isn’t what I meant. Although,” she added, “excellent call out of my tactics otherwise, soldier.” When Jeannemary didn’t respond, Abigail sighed and reached out to take her hands. “I would still like to know what you think. Even if I am being a tad underhanded about it.”
“What I think about what?” Jeannemary stalled.
“What you think being brave means,” Abigail repeated, undeterred.
Jeannemary shrugged. She hadn’t pulled her hands away from Abigail’s, but she wasn’t looking at the woman directly, either. “It’s being strong,” she said finally. “And doing dangerous things. And protecting people.”
“And what if you’re scared?”
Jeanne sighed. “Then you’re scared, and you do it anyway.”
“Thank you,” Abigail said. “Do you want to know what I think?”
“...I guess,” Jeannemary muttered.
“I think we’re all asking both of you to be very brave a whole lot more than we ought to be,” Abigail said, and this was so unexpected that Jeanne finally looked right at her. “And I think you’re doing very well. Both of you,” she added pointedly. “You’re just afraid of different things, and so the ways you have to be brave are different.”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” Jeanne protested.
“Well,” Abigail said. “If you ever are, then.” She squeezed Jeanne's hands. “Jeannemary. If he was exactly the same kind of brave as you are, how would you ever help each other get better? Don’t answer that yet,” she added, letting go of Jeanne’s hands. “It’s a rhetorical thought exercise for you.” She winked at the girl’s immediate grimace, and opened the door. “Would you like to sleep here tonight? So you don’t have to share, for one night.”
Jeanne, surprising no one more than herself, burst into tears at the offer. Abigail, unperturbed, pulled her into the study, somehow managing to all at once arrange her on the sofa, find a blanket, and unbuckle her rapier while also digging up a handkerchief out of her pocket: a tiny whirlwind that ended with Jeanne tucked in one corner of a worn sofa shared with a dozen books, wiping her face and trying not to snuffle. As Abigail dimmed the lights in the front room, Jeanne twisted the now-damp handkerchief between her hands and said, almost in a whisper, “I do kind of feel bad. Maybe.”
Abigail dimmed the final light and came to kneel beside the sofa, tucking in a final corner of the blanket around Jeanne’s feet. “Well, that probably means something,” she replied. “Would you like to deal with that tomorrow instead of right now?” Jeanne nodded furiously, and Abigail patted her toes. “Right then. I’m going to go find Magnus and make sure he hasn’t gotten into trouble. You’re fine to stay here as long as you’d like.” Abigail stood, and then bent back down to press a kiss to the top of Jeanne’s curls. “Will you think about my rhetorical question for me?” she asked. Jeannemary nodded again, and Abigail gave her hair a ruffle and then slipped out into the corridor.
Jeanne dropped the handkerchief on the floor, scrunching herself deeper into the blanket, and closed her eyes. She turned Abigail’s question over in her mind, and it took a long time for sleep to come.
the interlacing. (seven)
Jeannemary loved the Fourth House-- obviously. At seven years old she already knew she would lay down her life in service of her house and her Emperor, and she would immediately draw to duel anyone who thought about impugning the Fourth’s honor. But, if pressed, she would admit that she did actually prefer going to school at Koniortos Court instead. It was brighter, and friendlier, and more to the point, there was a lot more room than back at home. She and Isaac lived practically on top of each other most of the time, but at least on the Fifth they had a larger set of rooms to live in, just down the hall from Abigail’s study, and Jeannemary had her very own desk.
Not that it mattered a whole lot, she thought, shoving aside a pile of Isaac’s books. His textbooks and flimsy and notes just expanded to fit whatever space he was in, including Jeannemary’s very own desk. (She suspected it was a bad habit picked up from Abigail, but hadn’t gotten around to asking Magnus about it yet.) She looked at the ready to topple pile of books that weren’t hers, and behind her at Isaac, who had strewn his own work on the floor next to the old sofa, and decided not to bother. Instead she flipped her own book open one-handed, pressed down to make it stay open, and pulled a sheet of flimsy across to her with the same hand.
Her other hand, her left one, was currently--annoyingly-- cuddled up against her collarbone. She’d wrenched the shoulder in training that morning, and the flesh magician who’d set it for her had bound her arm up in a sling and sternly told her to leave it that way until the next afternoon to give the healing time to work. Jeanne had immediately unbound it after leaving the doctor’s office, and was then summarily corralled by the woman’s assistant and returned to the office, where she had bundled her back in the sling, muttering about Fourth house idiocy and cavalier theatrics the entire time.
So now here she was, doing her homework one-handed, slowly, among the detritus of Isaac’s studies. And, more frustratingly, putting her pencil down every three words to shove her hair back into its lopsided ponytail, or, when that failed, blowing it out of her face. This, as it turned out, worked even less well.
After her fourth-- and most obviously annoyed-- huff of breath, Isaac looked up. “Do you need something?”
“No,” Jeanne grumbled.
“Then what are you doing?”
“I’m trying to keep my hair out of my face,” Jeanne said, doing exactly that, and picking up her pencil again. “Go back to studying.”
Isaac didn’t. “Can’t you braid it back like usual?”
“No,” Jeanne said, scratching out the last word. She’d misspelled it because she was arguing with Isaac: another thing that was his fault. When Isaac seemed to be waiting for more information, she turned around and added, “because I need both hands, and the last time I took my arm out of the sling you yelled at me.”
“I did not? I just told you not to?”
“Same thing.”
“Is not,” Isaac said, standing up from the floor. “Let me do it.”
“No,” Jeanne said automatically, but Isaac was already moving to her chair. “Why.”
“Because your noises are distracting me,” Isaac said.
“You don’t even know how,” Jeannemary protested.
Isaac paused beside her chair and tilted his head. “Wanna bet?” he asked, and something in his expression told Jeanne that taking up that bet might be a bad idea.
“No,” she grumbled again, and turned around. “Fine. Go ahead.”
Isaac tugged the ribbon out of her hair and handed it to her to hold, then gathered up some hair at the top of her head and started to work. “Are you doing the essay for religion?”
“No,” Jeanne said, “history. The short answers on the resurrection.” She stowed the ribbon in her tethered hand and flipped a page, trying to stay still for Isaac to work. He pulled another section from behind her ear and tugged the braid tighter as he went. “The questions aren't awful but the book is so boring.”
“You could sit in with Abigail and me tomorrow morning,” Isaac offered, tucking in the last section and starting the final few turns of the braid. “She’s more interesting than the textbook.”
“Can’t,” Jeanne said, “that’s when I have footwork drills this week.”
“Oh, right. Ribbon,” Isaac said, reaching his hand over her shoulder, and Jeanne passed it back to him. He tied it off, fumbling slightly at tying and holding the braid at the same time, but she felt the knot go tight and secure anyway. “Okay. There.”
Jeannemary reached up her free hand and ran it across Isaac’s handiwork. It wasn’t as precise as what she was used to, and was a little lopsided to the left, but overall it wasn’t bad. “That’s not bad,” she said.
Isaac beamed. “I know,” he said. “Now stop making weird noises, I’m trying to learn a new theorem.”
“Oh, shut up,” Jeanne said. “And take your books, they’re in my way.”
Isaac leant over and snagged the pile of books. “Thank you, Isaac,” he said--in a terrible imitation of Jeanne’s voice--going back to the floor and adding the books to another tottering pile. “That was so impressive and I’m feeling much better now.”
“Yeah, sure, pretend I said that,” Jeanne replied, but she shot Isaac a smile before turning back to her essay. She was, actually, feeling much better now.
the exercise. (eight)
Jeannemary threw herself behind the half-wall, dust flying, a second behind her necromancer, still swearing loudly. The last attack had sent something sharp -- she hadn’t seen what-- spiraling at them, and she’d misjudged her parry, leaving her right forearm to catch a long gash, which was now bleeding freely all over her coat.
She scrambled to a sitting position, thinking blurrily of ripping something for a field dressing, but Isaac was there first. He bent over her, his own bloody fingers grabbing her forearm above where her skin split, his other hand rooting into a pocket and retrieving a bottle. “Hold still,” Isaac said, as Jeanne squirmed in his grip.
“I’m fine,” Jeanne hissed, “I’ll wrap it up. Let go, we gotta keep moving to make time.”
“Just -- twenty seconds,” Isaac said, flipping the bottle open and upending the dark liquid onto Jeanne’s wound. Without any warning, a searing sting of pain raced up Jeanne’s arm as whatever the liquid was actually sizzled -- and Jeanne screamed, incoherently, partly in pain but mostly in surprise, and tried to jerk her arm out of Isaac’s grip. “Stop it,” he snapped, “don’t be such a baby.”
This was so patently unfair that Jeanne froze instantly, mouth hanging open in shocked rage. Taking advantage of her sudden stillness, Isaac wrapped a mostly-clean gauze around her arm, sealing off the stinging liquid and the open wound. "You're not the only one who gets training injuries, you know," Isaac went on, tying off the bandage. "You're not cooler than me just because you have more scars or whatever."
Jeannemary opened her mouth to automatically retort that she was in fact cooler, for exactly that reason and several others, but something in the tightness around Isaac's eyes made her pause. "Thanks," she said instead, flexing her fingers against the hilt of her sword. "It… feels better."
"Whatever," Isaac said again, but a little bit of tension had left his face. He looked up and peered around the stone wall, listening to the staged explosions. “There’s a clear path to the next checkpoint I think.”
Jeanne adjusted her grip on her rapier again, the sting of the wound now dulled, and bent near to Isaac, looking out where he indicated. “Got it. Stay close.” She shifted onto her knee, ready to run, and then paused and looked at him. “Ready on your mark.”
Isaac didn’t smile, but something in his face relaxed slightly. “Ready.” He nodded out toward the next shelter point, as behind them another thanergetic explosion shook the air. “Let’s go.” And they went.
the talk. (nine)
Jeanne hadn’t seen Isaac all morning. She didn’t know if this was some kind of tradition -- no one had mentioned it to her if it was -- but Abigail had bustled him off early, leaving Jeanne to get ready for the day on her own. She washed up and got dressed in her best clothes, braided her hair up, and was just finishing strapping on her weapons when Magnus stopped by. “Morning,” he called, knocking on the door and easing it open. “Ready for breakfast?”
“Do we have training today?” Jeanne asked as they started down the hall.
“Not officially,” he said. “But we’re here to witness your oath, and I thought you might want some company for breakfast?” It wasn’t really a question, which allowed Jeannemary to sigh theatrically and fall into step beside him, without examining whether she wanted the company or not.
After breakfast Magnus checked the time, noted Jeannemary’s restless movements, and chivvied her off to a training room to “work off some of that energy.” In the deserted training room, Magnus accompanied her through her usual drills, and then Jeanne trounced him twice in a row before he called a halt and sat them down for some water.
“You’re distracted,” Jeanne accused. “I left an opening last time.”
“You did, at that,” Magnus agreed, passing her a cup of water. “It’s a big day.”
“Yeah, but, I’m not distracted,” Jeanne said.
Magnus laughed. “True enough.” He set his own cup down and turned to her on the bench with his usual easy smile. “Jeanne,” Magnus started, “I know you’ve had some struggles with Isaac--”
“Magnuuuuus, noooo,” Jeanne protested, instantly realizing the polite Fifth House trap she’d been caught in.
“I know you didn’t get off on the right foot at first,” Magnus continued, and there was a repressive note in his voice that made Jeanne close her mouth on the next protest, even as she felt like crawling away. Magnus set a gentle hand on her knee. “And I know it’s not easy for you sometimes to align yourself with him, ah, energy-wise.”
“He’s careful,” Jeanne said, nine-year-old disdain heavy in her tone.
“Which isn’t always a bad thing--but let’s… let’s not rehash that conversation today,” he added at Jeanne’s eyeroll. “I meant what I said, about today being a big day. I know more than anyone that you’re a talented swordswoman, but it’s about much more than that, you know.”
Jeanne took a drink of water to avoid replying.
“The oath is short, but it carries a myriad of tradition and meaning behind it,” Magnus went on. “You’re promising a lot to each other today.”
“I know,” Jeanne said, casually, “it means I’ll die to protect him.”
Magnus’ hand tensed slightly on her knee. “Hopefully you won’t have to,” he said, patting her knee and sitting back. “But one end means other things, too, you know. Goals. Plans. Ideals for your House. You share those, and in sharing those, you both achieve more than you would alone. It’s like-- ah, it’s like your favorite dessert, you remember the one we made last year?”
Jeanne looked at him. “The fluffy one?”
“The meringue, yes,” he said. “It has an awfully sweet base and a tangy sauce -- you remember, you helped mash up the berries.”
“Yeah?” Jeanne asked, waiting for the point.
“Well,” Magnus continued, warming to his metaphor, “if you just ate the cake without any of the sauce, it would be far too sweet, wouldn’t it?”
Jeanne, who wasn’t sure that “too sweet” desserts existed, shrugged. “I guess,” she said, for the sake of moving him along.
“Right. But the sauce is too much on its own for you, too. It’s when you put them together that they really shine; you need both for the whole dish to really sing. Just the sweet isn’t enough,” Magnus said. He chucked her under the chin, ignoring her grimace, and finished, “you need some sharp in there to balance everything out.”
“I guess,” Jeanne said again, and drank more water.
Magnus sighed. “You don’t have to like each other all the time, Jeanne. But you do have to trust each other, always. The oath and the bond goes beyond who you two are as people. You’re joining in thousands of years of this partnership, not just pledging to Isaac himself. And so is he. You’re taking on a role that means more than just who the two of you are, you know?”
“Yeah,” Jeanne said, setting her cup down. “I have thought about this before?”
“Of course you have!” Magnus said quickly. “Never thought you hadn’t. It’s just a--”
“Magnuuuus, I know, it’s a big day,” Jeanne interrupted.
“All right, all right, you know,” Magnus conceded, holding up hands in surrender. “I’m only, er. Asking you to be open to learning a little more as you go along after today. Can you do that?”
“Fine.” Jeanne stood up to stretch, unable to sit quietly under the onslaught of Magnus’ metaphors and cheerfulness. “Yeah, I can,” she added, when Magnus seemed to be waiting for more of an answer.
“Good, good,” he said. Jeanne bent over to touch her toes, mostly to have an excuse to look away from his face. There was silence for a long moment, as Jeannemary stretched out and Magnus checked the time again. “Not much longer,” he said after some minutes. “How are you feeling?”
Jeanne paused, one arm holding the other across her body to stretch her shoulder, and was surprised to realize she was nervous. “Fine,” she lied, and switched arms.
“Good,” Magnus said. He paused, and then went on, “I know you may feel like this is inevitable, but I really do think both of you are good for each other. You’re still growing into it--”
“Magnuuuuus,” Jeanne protested. She absolutely did not want platitudes, now or ever. She interlaced her fingers and stretched them above her head, looking up at her hands and away from the older cavalier.
“All I want to say is, you have a duty to him, but he has a duty to you, too, you know. You both take care of each other.” Magnus looked at her mulish expression, and added, “which means you’ll have to let him, sometimes.”
“I don’t need it,” Jeanne said, dropping her arms and shaking them out.
“You will,” Magnus said, and while his tone was still kind, Jeanne was surprised at the steel in it. “You’ll know. All I’m asking is for you to let yourself grow into it a little, all right?”
Jeanne sighed. “All right,” she said, to stop him talking.
“Good, good.” Magnus stood up, adjusting his scabbard and jacket, and grinned at her. “Ready to go join a ten-thousand-year-old tradition?”
Jeanne swallowed around the sudden acid twist of nerves in her stomach. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, of course I am.”
the orphan. (ten)
Jeannemary had not cried all day-- not when the Captain informed her of her family’s loss and great honor, not when Abigail had given her a hug in attempted comfort, not when Magnus had raised a toast to her mother at dinner. She had taken it all in stoically, eyes dry, and congratulated herself on her even keel.
Apparently darkness was the great emotional leveller, then, because it had only been a few minutes after Isaac stowed away his book and turned off the lights that she felt something lumpy and ugly rising in her throat. She buried her face in her pillow, some analytical part of her realizing that she was about to pay for not giving into tears all day, and the rest of her falling headlong into the depths. She pulled the blanket up to her forehead and did her best to muffle her sobs into her pillow, noticing dimly that it was getting soaked, and that something sat heavy and awful in her chest, and that crying didn’t seem to be helping it budge at all.
A creak and shuffle from the bed behind her choked off her tears for a moment, a combination of embarrassment and cavalier readiness making her swallow hard and pull the blanket down, just in case. She heard more rustling, and then a great whuff of blankets, and then a shifting of weight that meant Isaac had turned himself fully around to face her at the foot of his bed. “I’m sorry about your mum,” he said after a moment, into the dark.
“It’s fine,” Jeannemary said, and almost managed to sound steady when she said it. “She was a war hero. That’s the best way to go. And she was away more than she was ever here.”
“I guess. It’s still okay to be sad about it,” he replied, and Jeannemary thought she heard him settling his chin on his hands above her.
“I’m not sad,” Jeannemary said.
“Then why are you crying?”
“I’m not,” Jeannemary said.
“Then why did it sound like you were?” Isaac asked.
“Shut up,” Jeannemary said, and rolled over, away from him. Isaac sighed and sat up, and after a moment the dim night light came on. In earlier years it had been left on all night, but Isaac had grown out of that well before their oath. She heard him rummaging next to the bed, and then a few moments later a slightly grubby handkerchief came into her field of vision. “Ew,” she said.
“It’s clean,” Isaac said, and waved it. “Take it. You can pretend you’re not crying if you want to but blow your nose anyway.”
“I hate you,” Jeanne said, though without any heat, and took the handkerchief, and blew her nose.
“Abigail says people sometimes say things they don’t mean when they’re upset,” Isaac started, in an irritatingly kind tone of voice.
“I hate Abigail too,” Jeanne cut in.
“You do not,” Isaac said, offended, and at least this was back to normal.
Jeanne wiped her nose again. “No, I don’t,” she admitted. “I just. Hate everything. Sometimes.” Her eyes still seemed to be leaking, even though her breathing had steadied. She sat up, her back still to Isaac. “She wasn’t even supposed to be on that planet,” Jeannemary went on after a moment. “And I... I’m really proud of what she did but it’s still kind of stupid, right?”
Isaac rustled behind her, shuffling in the blankets. “It’s very Fourth,” he said eventually.
“Yeah, I guess that’s true.” Jeannemary leaned back against the foot of Isaac’s bed, still poking the handkerchief into her eyes intermittently as the leaking continued. After a minute of stillness, Isaac shifted again and Jeannemary felt his hands going to her hair, which had gotten mussed with her bout of crying and blanket-hiding. She closed her eyes against the light, swiping at her tears a little less now, and let him slowly rebuild her usual braid. The gentle tugs on her scalp grounded her and helped settle her breathing, away from the occasional hiccup into a steadier rhythm. Her mind drifted to Magnus’ embarrassingly emotional lessons on cavaliership, how he’d tried to impress upon her that the care went both ways, that Isaac should attend to her as much as she attended to him. For the first time, or perhaps just the first time she’d acknowledged it, the thought crept into her brain: you got really lucky, actually.
Isaac finished off the end of the braid and passed it over her shoulder. “I don’t have a tie,” he said, and the touch of apology in his tone nearly set Jeanne off again. She took the end of the braid, fingers brushing against his, and sniffed hard, pushing the tears back in.
“That’s fine. Thank you,” she said finally, knowing it didn’t encompass what she meant, and hoping that Isaac would figure it out anyway. “I’m sorry I said I hated you. I don’t really.”
“Yeah, okay,” Isaac said, and Jeanne could hear the smile in his voice. She felt him moving around behind her and then a soft phlump next to her face -- Isaac’s pillow. He wriggled under the mess of blankets and propped his chin on his hands again. “I don’t hate you either, for the record,” he added.
“Well, you’ve always been nicer than me,” Jeanne replied.
“Maybe,” Isaac said. “Probably it’s good for me that you’re not, though. Do you want the light on?” Jeanne shrugged, still working through his last statement. “For a little bit then.”
“Sure,” she agreed, and slid down under her own blankets. “Night, Isaac.”
“Goodnight,” he mumbled, face half buried already. He was lying on his stomach, one hand draped over the foot of the bed -- not in Jeanne’s way, exactly, but close enough to touch if she wanted to. She curled onto her side facing him, wiping her nose one more time before settling in. She didn’t reach out to take his hand, but she fell asleep glad it was there anyway.
the secret. (eleven)
Jeanne barrelled into the room, slamming the door behind her, barely noticing Isaac at his desk, bent over flimsy and scratching something with a pencil. He looked up as she threw herself onto one end of the sofa, wrenching her bag open and pulling out cleaning rags and polish. This was not the first time Jeannemary had angrily cleaned her weapons in front of him, so he waited until she was slightly more settled in and furiously working at the knuckle guard of her rapier with a rag before starting with, “duel or class?”
“Magnus,” Jeanne said darkly.
“Oh,” Isaac replied, a platoon of understanding in one syllable.
“He spent, like, half an hour talking at me about cavaliership today,” Jeanne went on, possibly not even hearing Isaac, “when I could have been actually practicing with, I don’t know, literally anybody else? And he kept asking me questions, and like, quizzing me as if he’d set me homework about being a cavalier-- ” Jeanne bit off the end of her sentence, refolding the rag and attacking the pommel as though it were Magnus’ face and she planned to rearrange it for him.
“He was quizzing you?” Isaac slipped out of his chair and came to lean on the sofa. “Why?”
“I guess he was? I don’t know!” Jeanne yelled, “but I hate it! Like -- who even is he, Isaac, he’s not even the best fighter the Fifth has, he’s just… uuugh!”
“Did he even pass cav exams?”
“Who knows, that would have been a thousand years ago anyway,” Jeanne said. “But he’s all,” she modulated her voice into a passable-but-mocking version of the older cavalier, "‘Jeannemary, what do you think the most important lesson of the oath is now,’ and ‘Jeannemary, tell me about the difference between duty and loyalty,’ and then, then he goes and reminds me how important it is for me to know your necromantic style or something so we can work together on the battlefield, like I don’t already, like he’s ever even seen action--”
“He did not,” Isaac said, affronted.
“He did,” Jeanne shot back. “He’s just -- ugh, Isaac, he’s trying to tell me how to do my job but he’s only the cavalier primary because he married Abigail, the nerve-- ”
“No, I know!” Isaac jumped in as Jeanne devolved into an inarticulate growl. “It’s like -- Abigail spends so much time lecturing me on leadership and what she thinks I should be doing and how important it is to be the head of a House and everything, and she’s planning to abdicate, they’re both just--” Isaac stopped and clapped a hand across his mouth, eyes going wide.
The violent movement of rag on steel froze. “She’s what?” Jeanne asked.
“I wasn’t supposed to say anything,” Isaac said, muffled under his palm. He took his hand away. “Promise you won’t tell anyone?”
“Yeah, obviously,” Jeanne said, “You’re my necro, I keep your secrets.” She glanced back at the rag to adjust it and missed Isaac’s momentary smile at her words. “But actually for real, she’s stepping down?”
“Not immediately but yeah,” Isaac said, perching on the other end of the sofa, far enough away that he wouldn’t be accidentally jabbed by any weapons. “I mean. She spends all her time doing history and research anyway. I don’t even think she likes running the Fifth house.” He paused, picking at a stray thread on his sleeve. “I don’t even know if she does run the Fifth house. Or like. Not the same way?”
Jeanne wrinkled her nose. “It works differently there?”
“Not that different?” Isaac said. “It’s still -- it’s admin, but, big picture admin?”
“A general, not an officer,” Jeanne supplied.
“More or less.” Isaac shifted, pulling his knees up onto the sofa. “Anyway. She spends so much time talking to me about how I should lead my house and she doesn’t even want to lead hers.”
Jeanne looked across at Isaac, this new information settling her own anger enough that she could recognize his. It didn’t flare up as often as hers, but she recognized the tightness in his jawline and the deep burn in the back of his eyes. “She’s abandoning post,” Jeanne translated, watching Isaac’s face.
“She is,” Isaac burst out, “and I would never. It’s my duty. It’s my responsibility. It -- it doesn’t matter if you don’t like it all the time, it’s still important, you can’t just… stop caring about it?”
“Exactly!” Jeanne said, waving the rapier out to punctuate. “You’re the Baron. That means something.”
Isaac huffed and slumped further into the couch. “She told me in confidence last week,” he went on after a moment. “I didn’t… I didn’t know I was that mad about it until just now.”
“Get mad,” Jeanne said succinctly.
“I am,” Isaac said. “I just…” He looked up at Jeanne, who was carefully polishing the quillions now. “Promise you won’t make fun of me?”
Jeannemary looked sideways at him, considered the expression on his face, and then nodded. “Promise. This time.”
“I’ve been thinking a lot about what she’s been saying and some of the things the stewards have been handling and I have some ideas of things I want to try,” he said, all in a rush, “and I was going to talk to her about them and see what she thought and what to do but-- but I don’t really want to tell her right now.”
“Oh,” Jeanne said, refolded the rag, and started on the false edge of her rapier. “You could,” she offered after a moment, “you could tell me, if you wanted? I don’t know if I’ll know what you’re talking about but I can try?”
“Yeah of course you will, you’re not stupid,” Isaac retorted, and then he caught up with her overture. “Really? You.. would you want to hear them?”
“Yeah,” Jeanne said. “I mean. It’s my house. You’re my necromancer. I should know what you’re planning.” She caught Isaac’s eye. “I’m interested,” she added, and watched his eyebrows relax slightly.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. I will.” Jeanne held up her rapier and sighted along it, assessing it briefly before sheathing it and pulling out her offhand dagger. Isaac noted the less frenetic movement and ventured, “are you still angry? Do you...want to talk about it?”
“I mean, I am,” Jeanne said, “but it’s fine. Whatever.” She bent to cleaning the dagger, which didn’t need much, but she would be thorough about it regardless.
“I can’t believe he tried to lecture you about fidelity,” Isaac said.
“Adults are so full of it.”
“They really are.” Isaac picked at the stray thread on his sleeve again, yanking at it until it unraveled and he could snap it off. “I think,” he said after a moment, “I think sometimes they forget we aren’t Fifth?”
“Their mistake,” Jeanne said. “We aren’t.”
“No,” Isaac agreed, watching her neatly sheathe the dagger with a satisfying snick.
“Fourth House looks forward,” Jeanne said, and pointed the sheathed dagger his way. “Like you do. So. Do that, and don’t let anybody stop you.”
the arrangement. (twelve)
Jeannemary was waiting outside the library and jumped up to join Isaac as soon as he came down the front steps, arms full of books and face carefully fixed in what she knew was a polite mask. “Soooooo,” Jeanne started.
“Don’t,” Isaac wailed, speeding up, as if Jeanne was going to let him get away.
“I haven’t even said anything?” she called, catching up easily and slinging an arm around his shoulders (which slumped dejectedly underneath her elbow).
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Isaac muttered, although he didn’t try to get away.
Jeanne steered him to the side of the pathway and slowed them down, letting them meander back toward the training grounds. She leaned over and rested her head on his briefly, a moment of comfort. “Was he awful?” she asked.
Isaac sighed gustily. “Not… awful? Just, like… “
“Like,” Jeanne prompted after he failed to finish the sentence. “Like what?”
“Tedious,” Isaac confessed.
“Ha!” Jeanne shrieked, earning glances from the other passersby in their Koniortos Court finery. “Really? He’s necromantic, isn’t he? You couldn’t talk theorems for ten minutes?”
“Not every necromancer is automatically interesting,” Isaac grumbled.
“Yeah, like, hardly any of them are?” Jeanne said, and then sidled away as Isaac elbowed her in retaliation. “Anyway. Really actually?”
Isaac shrugged miserably. “I mean. I dunno. It was so awkward. And he’s like, nine. I don’t even think he knows what this was about, really? And then Abigail is there, all, you know, expecting things? And if it all goes to her plan then, I guess, that’s it. So. It doesn’t really matter what I think about him.”
“What? No. That’s stupid,” Jeanne said, stopping in her tracks and yanking Isaac to a halt. “Of course your opinion matters?”
“Not really though?”
“Yeah it does. You’re allowed to not like him even if you do end up marrying him.”
“That sucks though,” Isaac muttered.
“Yeah,” Jeanne agreed. “I mean. It’s better if you do like him, obviously.” She nudged him and started walking again. “Maybe he’ll grow up to look like. Like.” She cast about, looking around the peopled walkway as if to find the most attractive person she could. She failed and turned back to Isaac. “Somebody hot, I don’t know.” Isaac flushed slightly and Jeanne pounced: “that! them! Who are you thinking of?”
“Ugh,” Isaac groaned, trying not to smile.
“Tell meeeee,” Jeanne demanded.
“I don’t know his name,” Isaac admitted, “the one you’ve been sparring with for tournament practice?”
“Wait, what?” Jeanne said. “Seriously? My biceps are bigger than his and he’s two years older than I am.”
“It’s not about the biceps,” Isaac retorted, “that’s your thing --”
“Okay, then why?” Jeanne asked. Isaac muttered something under his breath, his blush rising higher. “What?” Jeanne asked, and poked him in the ribs. “Speak up, Tettares.”
"His eyes are cute?"
“.... uuuugh,” Jeanne groaned.
“You started it!” Isaac yelled.
“I regret everything,” Jeanne said, but she reached out and put her arm back around him. They walked on in silence for a moment, and Jeanne could feel the tension in his shoulders the moment that his thoughts went back to the meeting he’d just endured. “There’s years still,” she said bracingly. “We’ll ship out to the frontlines and come back before you even have to think about it again. And, like, anything could happen? It’s not settled or anything yet.”
“Yeah,” Isaac agreed. “Not yet.”
“And you could give him a chance,” Jeanne offered after a moment. “It might work out. I didn’t like you for years, at first.”
“Wait,” Isaac crowed, “you’re just going to openly admit in public that you like me now?”
“Oh shut up that is not what I meant,” Jeanne cried, but Isaac was already laughing, and that was worth letting him win this round. “How long is the family staying?” she asked as they turned off the path toward the salle.
“A week? You’ll meet him at dinner,” Isaac said. “Assuming you’re coming.”
“Can’t wait,” Jeanne replied. “I’ll judge him horribly.”
“Please don’t,” Isaac said, “you can’t keep that off your face.” He disentangled himself from her arm and adjusted his armful of books.
“Who cares? I’m your cavalier. I’m allowed to judge people for you. That’s, like, my job.”
“I’m pretty sure that isn’t in the oath?”
“Pretty sure it is? But like, implied.” Jeanne opened the door to the salle. “Are you staying to watch?”
“Depends. Who are you sparring with today?” Isaac asked, deadpan.
“Ugh, you are an embarrassment,” Jeanne said. “Come in, I guess.” She held the door for Isaac, who slipped around her and headed toward the stairs to the stands. She closed the door and pulled off her cloak, following after him to toss the cloak on the chair next to his. “All right. If you wander off, when’s dinner?”
“Four hours,” Isaac said, opening up the book on the top of his stack. Jeanne reached up, stretching out her arms and leaning side to side, gently warming up as she waited for a handful more of her peers to show up. After a few minutes, she reached out a foot and nudged Isaac’s, waiting until he looked up at her, then nodded at the other entrance and waggled her eyebrows. “Stop it,” Isaac hissed. Jeanne stuck out her tongue at him. Isaac peeked around her briefly, then looked back at his book.
“You’re going to just ignore him?” Jeanne asked, adjusting her rapier and turning to go.
Isaac didn’t look up from the book, but he did smile. “Go kick his butt,” he said.
“Obviously,” Jeanne replied, and went to do just that.
the promotion. (thirteen)
If it took her any time at all to analyze what was happening, Jeanne didn’t notice it. She was moving before the sound of the explosion finished echoing around them, whirling around Isaac, shoving him down against the wall, and leaning over him as a shield. Debris shattered around them and Jeanne curled herself over her necromancer, feeling stone and dust and something sharp careening over them -- something glanced off her head, and something else slammed across her back, and she could smell burning and blood, but as long as nothing hit Isaac --
Her ears were ringing, blocking out any other sounds, but she could feel Isaac’s hands shooting out to either side of her, blue and green in what looked like a heat wave, and then a second detonation -- felt more than heard -- slammed against Isaac’s hastily thrown wards. His hands clenched into fists and a wave of fission rippled outwards, consuming the last thanergy of the dying and scouring the street clean.
Jeanne’s ears still rang as she turned around, one arm holding Isaac behind her, the other hand automatically drawing her rapier, as if that was going to do a damn thing against a bomb. She could feel herself shouting “wait!” at him, but couldn’t hear it, inside her own head or outside of it. A half circle, blasted clear with Isaac’s magic, started at their boots, pushing outward into the wide street in front of them, and beyond that small zone: what used to be human bodies. Jeanne recognized the uniform of the Fourth House Cavalier Primary but could make no sense of what was left inside it. He had been just ahead of them, clearing their way down the street, and now…
Someone -- or several someones -- had been caught in the localized radius, or possibly one of them had caused the blast in the first place; if they had, it was the last thing they’d ever done. Rubble still fell from buildings around them, clattering to the concrete in weirdly ringing silence. Jeanne felt Isaac’s hand tighten around the arm holding him in place and she turned back to check on him, only realizing as she twisted her torso how much her ribs hurt (bruised, maybe broken, she thought), but Isaac was safe, that was what counted -- “are you okay?” she asked, still soundless, and Isaac nodded, shook his head, shrugged helplessly: I don’t know.
Movement around them, then -- it had only been seconds since the first blast, although time felt stretched out and too slow. Jeanne looked back to see the Captain approaching, could see her mouthing the words “stand down, Chatur,” and “we’ve got this,” although her voice sounded watery and lost. The Cohort guards were swarming around them and clearing the area and somehow Isaac and Jeanne got carted off more swiftly than she’d thought possible, back into transport, back to their destination. She hadn’t let go of Isaac the entire time.
Then there were hurried meetings, lots of people older than Jeannemary and Isaac talking over them about security detail, talking to them about what happened, dressing down whoever had missed some crucial evidence -- Jeannemary realized vaguely that she likely wasn’t supposed to be hearing that, which meant she should have taken the opportunity to eavesdrop, but she couldn’t rally herself to pay attention. By then Abigail and Magnus were both in the room, flown in from wherever they had been, and for once Jeanne had no compunctions about either of them taking over anything at all.
At some point in the blur of the following three hours, Jeannemary Chatur was promoted to Cavalier Primary of the Fourth House. Someone congratulated her, probably.
Jeanne didn’t remember any of that clearly. What she did remember was her offhand fingers gripping Isaac’s bony wrist, slippery with sweat and blood, and Isaac’s haphazard pulse under her thumb. She remembered the too-close heat of the room they were standing in, the currents of air pushed around by everyone else’s voices doing nothing to cool her down. She remembered Isaac’s unnaturally steady breathing next to her, and the instinctive knowledge that he was doing it deliberately and carefully to keep either of them from spiraling, and it was her job to not let go. She remembered -- couldn’t stop remembering -- how suddenly fragile Isaac had felt, pressed up against the wall as the world exploded. She remembered, finally, Abigail politely and impassively ending the discussions and taking the two of them outside, although she couldn’t have told you how she’d managed it.
Jeanne didn’t look at either of their guardians until Abigail had successfully herded them all out of the stifling meeting rooms and far down the hallway toward their suite, arm around Isaac, face bent close to his bleached spikes of hair, talking quietly all the way. Jeanne caught the words “...quick… on the warding” and “very proud of you” and then a lot more necromantically-specific phrasing she didn’t try to understand.
Next to her, Magnus was uncharacteristically quiet, eyes on the pair in front of them, keeping exact pace with her as they followed their necromancers. Jeanne snuck a glance at him but looked back ahead before he could catch her. He didn’t look shaken -- why should he, her brain asked, he wasn’t there -- but there was an odd alertness to him that she wasn’t used to seeing. Abigail paused in front of Isaac’s door, now listening to him as he haltingly replied to her questions. Jeanne stopped a few paces back and tried to sneak another glance at Magnus.
He was looking at her properly this time, and as she averted her eyes he put a hand on her shoulder to turn her toward him. “Jeanne,” he said, again strangely subdued, “you did very well, you know.”
Jeannemary cleared her throat and tried to respond, meaning to say thank you, but could only swallow and nod, briefly. She looked sideways, catching in one glance Isaac’s half-slumped posture, how hard he was trying to stand upright, the steel underneath the fatigue. “Yeah,” she managed finally, barely above a whisper.
“You did everything right, and you didn’t think about it before you did. You saved Isaac’s life back there --”
“I think he saved mine actually?” Jeanne interrupted.
“Well, there you are then!” Magnus finished, as if that explained everything. Maybe it did. Magnus slung an arm around her shoulder and hugged her briefly, steering her toward the other two. Abigail looked up and smiled at Jeanne, and Isaac’s gaze followed a moment later: exhausted, but steady. Jeanne reached out for Isaac’s hand again, gripping it tight, and Magnus let her go. “Get some rest, chaps,” he said, forestalling whatever his wife was about to say. She glanced at him and there was some silent communication there that Jeanne didn’t try to understand, focused as she was on her own necromancer.
“Right,” Abigail said after a moment. “Wash up and sleep, you two. There’s plenty more to do but it can wait til tomorrow.” She paused then, as if she wanted to say more, but caught Magnus’s eye and shook her head. “Get some sleep,” she said again, and left down the hallway with Magnus.
Isaac pushed open the door with his free hand, Jeannemary following a half step behind and shutting the door behind them. As if the click on the doorknob had released something in him, Isaac slumped against the door, sliding down it to sit hard on the floor. For once, Jeanne didn’t try to keep him upright; it was all she could do to sit down next to him with some measure of control. Isaac bent his head onto his knees, his steady breathing from before already shattered the moment the adults had left. Jeannemary extracted her fingers out from his grip and wrapped her arms around him instead, turning her forehead to press against the side of his, the smell of explosives and burnt ash and dried blood crawling up her nose. Isaac reached one hand out to grab her arm, fingernails digging in.
“It’s all right,” Jeannemary found herself saying, over and over, into the hot dark space between their faces. “It’s all right. We’re all right. You’re all right, Isaac.” Her calf was cramping in her awkward sprawl on the floor, but she didn’t move, held on tight until Isaac slowly raised his head and wiped at his face, smearing dirt and ash across his nose. “You’re all right,” Jeanne said again. She adjusted her leg, hissing under her breath as the cramp released, and settled back down on the floor without letting go of her necromancer. “You were so brave, Isaac.”
Isaac’s breath hitched in what was almost a laugh and almost a sob. “I didn’t know what I was doing,” he admitted.
“Even better, then,” Jeanne said. “You saved both our lives, I think?”
“I think you saved mine, actually?” Isaac said.
“Shut up and take the credit,” Jeanne retorted, and Isaac, for once, shut up. She wriggled her front arm free so she could turn his face to look at her directly, bloody hand on sweaty cheek, his earrings biting cold into her fingers. His eyes were red-rimmed, and Jeanne didn’t think hers were any clearer at this point. “Listen, I know -- I know we already did this but that was years ago and now it’s just --” she swallowed, still tasting blood, and pressed on: “now it’s just me, so. Look at me. I promise, Isaac. If anyone ever tries to hurt you, I will murder them, okay? I have your back every single day, for whatever you’re doing, I swore it -- one flesh, one end, and my end is yours, got it? That’s what I’m for. When we’re back out there and something like that happens again, I swear to you, I will die before you get hurt --”
“That is not what you’re for,” Isaac interrupted, his voice cracking.
“I will though,” Jeanne repeated fiercely, “when we’re out there fighting and it’s you and me, I go down first, you understand? I go out so you don’t have to.”
Isaac let out a breath and slumped his head forward onto Jeanne’s shoulder. “I’m gonna argue with you about that later,” he said into her coat. “Just. Don’t do that for a while, okay? Or maybe ever.”
“Yeah. Okay,” Jeanne said. She tightened her arms around him. “I mean, I’m not, like, looking forward to it,” she added after a moment of thought, and was wildly gratified to hear Isaac’s muffled snort of almost-a-laugh.
“Dumbass,” Isaac said.
“Thanks?”
Isaac pushed himself up to look at her again. “You’re welcome,” he said, overly seriously, and this time Jeanne did crack a smile. Isaac shoved her, but carefully. “Come on. Let’s wash up. You stink.”
“Yeah, it’s from saving your life?” Jeanne retorted, but she gave Isaac a hand to lever himself up anyway, stifling the groan at having to move her ribs (definitely bruised, probably broken).
“I thought you said I get the credit this time?”
“Yeah sorry, okay, I’ll write that down somewhere,” Jeanne grumbled, hauling herself up against the door. Isaac paused for a brief moment and then grabbed her once more into a hug. “Ow,” Jeannemary yelped as her ribs complained again, but she was already squeezing him back.
“Sorry,” Isaac said as he tried to pull away.
“I’ve had worse,” Jeanne replied, squeezed once more, and then let go. “You go wash first, you stink more than me.”
“Do not,” Isaac said, but he went. Jeannemary thought about going to sit down, or taking off her coat to check on her injuries, or maybe drinking some water. Instead she stayed where she was, one hand on the door, the other drifting to her rapier, listening to the sounds from the bathroom to make sure Isaac was all right. She knew he would be, obviously. But still. Just in case. She was the Cavalier Primary now, and this was Isaac, and she wasn’t ever going to let down her guard again.
the invitation. (fourteen)
“Hey!” Isaac yelled, as Jeanne snatched the paper out of his hands. “You’ve read it like ten times already.”
“I want to look at it again,” Jeanne said, shouldering her way through the door and holding it open for Isaac. She also wanted to touch it again; the paper was heavy, thick and rich under her fingers, and while a formal invitation was commonplace in their lives (it had to be, knowing Abigail), this was a cut above any she’d seen before.
Isaac shoved up the sleeves of his robes and flung himself on the sofa, reaching up a grabbing hand for the invitation. “Give it back,” he demanded.
Jeanne kicked the door closed. “I’m not done?”
“You’ve basically memorized it?” Isaac protested. “Come on.”
Jeanne rolled her eyes, but she sat on the floor in front of Isaac anyway, holding the paper up so he could read it over her shoulder. “Eight we hope will meditate and ascend to the Emperor in glory in the temple of the First House,” Jeannemary read out loud. “Meditate. What if it’s boring? ”
“Abigail doesn’t think so,” Isaac said, as though his cavalier had not been there for the hours-long discussion with their guardians earlier in the day.
“Abigail likes boring things,” Jeanne replied. “She’s not a reliable measurement here.” She looked back at the paper. “...to kneel in glory and attend the finest study,” she went on. “So. Just. A lot of studying?”
“I mean,” Isaac said, “there’s got to be things there that we’ve never seen before? If that’s where the Emperor lived.” He propped himself up on an elbow and pointed over her shoulder. “And it’s like… just us.”
“No retainers, no attendants, no domestics,” Jeanne repeated. Abigail and Magnus had touched on that point too, and speculated plenty on what it meant, but Jeanne thought she might have a different guess as to why Isaac was re-reading that. She looked back over her shoulder. “Are you nervous?”
Isaac shrugged awkwardly, still leaning on an elbow. “...no.”
“No like no, or no like you’re pretending not?” Jeanne clarified.
“Both?” Isaac scrunched his face at her. “I don’t know. We haven’t really met any of the other heirs. And they’re all older than we are.”
“So? If they think they’re better than we are then they’re wrong,” Jeanne said stolidly.
“They might be better than we are,” Isaac said. “At some things.”
“...maybe,” Jeanne allowed darkly. “But if they say it I’ll fight them.”
Isaac nudged her. “You will probably get to duel the other cavaliers if Magnus is right,” he said. “For show anyway.”
“Yeah,” Jeanne breathed. “Hot dog.” Isaac plucked the paper out her fingers, and she let him this time, lost in daydreams for a moment. Behind her she could hear Isaac reading the invitation again, tiny subvocalizations as he went over the words over and over again. After some time, a new and less exciting train of thought occurred to her, and she slumped slightly down, letting the edge of the sofa dig into her cervical spine.
“What do you think it’s like?” she asked, breaking the silence. “Being a Lyctor, I mean?”
“I dunno,” Isaac said. “Ultra powerful. The right hand of God. Probably really, really cool. Imagine the kinds of necromancy you could learn.”
“Plus you live forever,” Jeanne said. She fidgeted on the carpet, shuffling her feet back and forth. “What happens… what happens if you do become a Lyctor and live a whole myriad?” she asked, hating how pathetic she sounded, but unable to stop asking: “What happens to me?”
“You’ll come with me, dummy,” Isaac said, shifting on the sofa above her to look down at her better. “Why wouldn’t you?”
“Do Lyctors even have cavaliers?” Jeanne asked.
“They’re necromancers, aren’t they,” Isaac said, his tone heavily overlaid with duh . “Well. Like, supernecros.”
Jeanne snorted. “Supernecros?”
“Shut up, you know what I mean.” He waved the invitation in her face. “Plus, they’re asking for both of us.”
“I guess so,” Jeanne allowed.
“And anyway if I do become a Lyctor you’d have to come with me,” Isaac started.
“Because I’m your cavalier, I know,” Jeanne interjected.
“Because you’re my best friend,” Isaac finished.
“...gross,” Jeanne said, utterly refusing to turn and look at him, so he wouldn’t see the beginning of her smile. Isaac poked the back of her head. “Ow!”
“Say it,” Isaac said, poking her again and then reaching his hand over her shoulder.
Jeanne rolled her eyes, but reached a hand back to meet Isaac’s. “Fine. Because you’re my best friend,” she said, and Isaac squeezed her hand, once, and she grinned. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, after all.