I sat in the high-backed chair of the conference chamber of the Tower. I was cold and frozen, removed from the conversation. The voices buzzed around me, but they didn’t penetrate me. I was insulated from the world by a fleece of sadness.

  Somewhere in the Tower, Chowwick’s body lay preserved, held under an Order Field of sufficient intensity that time wouldn’t touch it.

  Grief is a strange beast. It moved my thoughts, sent them scattering and fleeing from point to point, latching onto ideas with obsessive ferocity and letting them go just as quickly. My attention was unable to contain itself within my own head, let alone within the conversations of the room around me.

  Chowwick was dead. The sadness and loss I felt at his passing exceeded the magnitude of sorrow I had felt at Father’s death. This shamed me somewhat, but I understood it. Chowwick had encouraged me, nurtured me, driven me to strive for greatness—a greatness he believed to be mine.

  I thought back to our first meeting, my fear that he would begrudge my winning of the suit over his son, Arthur. I thought of the gruff exterior that had first presented itself to me and the softer, kinder being I had discovered inside.

  I thought of his hopes. I thought of the way his thinking had evolved and changed in our time together. He had gone from being a cog in the machine that barely sustained the city to believing that we were embarking on greatness. It was his commitment to that new idea, his belief in it, that had led to his death.

  He should have fucking yielded, I thought as I sat there, not listening to the voices of Darkwater and Balthazar, growing heated.

  Enki was there, responding to me. The voice was uncharacteristically kind in these days after Chowwick’s death. Part of me expected or understood this behavior. Enki didn’t want me to turn inward, to lose my drive. It didn’t want me to grow fearful of combat. Enki wanted me to grow, and for me to do that I needed to recover from this horror.

  Maybe I was being overly cynical. The being was something unknowable to me, something I felt was vaguely sinister, but we were allies. We had spent enough time together to maybe be friends of a sort. Maybe the gentle tones and encouraging validations were real.

  It spoke in my mind, “He died doing what he believed in. I’ve had my fingers in the pudding of his mind as well, kiddo. Chowwick was a dead man walking nearly his whole life. He was bound to the Tower of Boston. Sure, he started out full of belief and vigor. But he learned soon enough that this city was a dump, with a dumpster fire for leadership. It didn’t take him long to grow jaded. These last years he was a drinking and rutting machine, going from woman to tankard to woman again. He hadn’t really been living for a long time. That changed with you, kiddo.”

  I thought, Yeah, it sure did. It’s what got him killed.

  “Kiddo, kiddo, listen to me. If you hadn’t woken him up, he would have died somewhere along the way anyhow. He was an average Griidlord at best. He’d have met his match somewhere. The way his habits were progressing, he’d have been entering the field tanked up before much longer and he’d have found a way to get himself murdered for nothing. Chowwick died for something, kiddo. He died for the belief he had in you, with the light of hope in his heart.”

  It was rehash. Enki had been spinning the same platitude for the last two days.

  Darkwater was speaking heatedly. Lady Ironveil sat alongside him, silent but darkly thoughtful. My eyes languidly drifted toward them, my attention briefly captured.

  “…all along! You’ve been engineering everything for this day! Dammit, Balthazar, what you’re doing amounts to a coup!”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Balthazar’s voice was strong. He wasn’t shouting exactly—not like Darkwater—but there was a force to his voice that somehow seemed louder. He said, “We’ve suffered long enough under old traditions that have failed us. Look at the state of our city. Look at how we’ve barely survived. It’s madness to continue with the same policies that have failed us. Everything I have done has been with the support of the council. Every modification to every charter and constitution was with the support of our peers. I’ve engineered nothing for this day, but I have prepared us for this eventuality.”

  Darkwater snapped, "Fine then! If we’re to forego the Choosing, then it must be my boy, Lance."

  This caught my ears. I felt my distraction at Chowwick’s passing fading suddenly.

  Balthazar stared at him. He looked as though he might have detected a trap. Had Darkwater feigned his objections to make a bargain? Objected to Balthazar’s alterations to the selection criteria so that the selection of his son to be the next Shield could be the bargaining chip for his acquiescence?

  Balthazar spoke slowly, evenly. "The choice of Shield will be the best candidate."

  Ironveil shook her head. "What are we even talking about? The changes state that the Choosing can be superseded by executive selection in an emergency. There is no emergency! You can’t conceivably be considering that we continue with the Falling. We’ve reaped a great bounty. It is time to call a halt. We risk the lives of all our Griidlords, of all our forces, by returning to the field hurriedly with a rookie Shield."

  Balthazar said, "We did well enough with a rookie Sword. We have a Griid-key. Would you waste it?"

  Ironveil said, "Waste it? We’d waste the lives of our forces to compete now. It’s the best that win the keys! How are we to enter the field against the finest forces in all the lands with two rookies? Tiberius has done stupendously well, but he’s greener than fresh grass."

  Balthazar said, "He’s level 31 now."

  Absently, hearing my voice from afar, I heard myself say, "32… I gained another level when I slayed Viktor Taurus."

  Darkwater burst in again. He said, "My boy came second in the Choosing. Prodigy though young Tiberius may be, Lance nearly bested him. There can be no better candidate. I can support this field promotion. I can give it my blessing. But only if it betters the city, only if it helps us. If putting Lance in the field to bolster the Griidlords can be achieved, then I can endorse this."

  Balthazar said nothing.

  My thoughts raced in panic. My stomach practically heaved at the thought of having Lance be a part of the team. Potentially being my teammate for decades, or even longer. I couldn’t imagine the peaceful camaraderie of the group surviving his toxicity. I couldn’t imagine finding comfort in the group again. I would be his nominal commander if he became Shield, but I could only envision him sowing dissent. I certainly couldn’t imagine trusting him to be my protector.

  Balthazar spoke slowly, "I don’t know if Lance has the affinity for the Shield suit… but it is true he’s gifted… how quickly can he be summoned?"

  My eyes darted with fright. Wait, was this happening? This couldn’t be happening.

  As startled and disgusted as I had been with Darkwater’s suggestion, I had almost taken it for granted that he would be denied.

  But Balthazar was a cunning creature. Could he have engineered all of this to make it seem as though he was appeasing Darkwater? Force Darkwater’s acceptance of the arrangements while also putting the best candidate available in the suit anyway?

  He was right; Lance was not someone I expected to have an affinity for the Shield suit. But his skill in a suit would be hard to replace.

  Darkwater hesitated. “He’s… I believe he’s training in a monastery in the wilds. My boy did not take his defeat lightly. When the tournament ended, he rode out to better himself. That is the caliber of the young man. That’s the dedication and determination that we can put in the suit of the Shield.”

  Balthazar said, "How long then? How soon can he be here?"

  Darkwater seemed to think for a minute, his pupils darting as he performed some mental calculus. He said, "Under Footfield, he could be retrieved in maybe two days."

  All eyes turned to me. I had returned with Chowwick’s body and Alya. She had been damaged in her battle with Viktor and had come to heal.

  They wanted me to go forth and bring Lance back to don the suit. I again suppressed the urge to vomit.

  I stood then. I gathered all the nobility that I had no claim to. I looked down on them as a god surveying mortals. I tried to let my voice convey the gravity of my own agency.

  I said, "I can’t fetch Lance."

  Darkwater spluttered, "Wh- why not?"

  I said, "Because I have to go to Houston."

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