CHAPTER 533: SCHEMES AND CELEBRATIONS (1)

"Dragon eggs?" Lyan blinked. "We barely have chickens."

"Exactly." Wilhelmina’s smile was all blade, no polish. "They’ll waste weeks chasing it. Meanwhile, their purse strings tighten and their men stay home guarding empty nests."

"Why dragon eggs?" Alice asked, incredulous but curious.

A giggle preceded Josephine, Belle, and Alina squeezing together into a single doorway like conspiring siblings. Josephine popped an exaggerated curtsey. "Because a lie should sparkle," she said. "Goblins and grain tithes bore nobles. Ancient reptiles get them frothing."

Belle twirled a copper cage in her fingers; inside sat a plump pigeon with faintly glowing runes across its feathers. "We enchanted a flock of gossip birds," she announced proudly. "They’ll perch on city balconies and coo hints about the eggs, complete with scandal—apparently Baron Roston wants to hatch one for a pet." She winked. "Let envy do the rest."

Alina produced a length of parchment covered in doodles—some questionable—and waved it like a banner. "Also drafted bawdy poems mocking any noble who ’plays with dragon shells.’ I’ll slip them into taverns."

Lyan massaged his temple. "Remind me to build a bigger dungeon for whoever taught you strategic slander."

Josephine perched on the edge of the table, legs swinging, grinning like a fox that’d found the henhouse key. "You said deter, we deliver. Nothing scares an ambitious lord faster than the possibility he looks ridiculous."

Surena’s eyes flicked to Wilhelmina. "Their schemes create distraction but not resolution."

Wilhelmina nodded. "Correct. Hence real measures." She unrolled one last parchment—hand-drawn diagrams of a supply caravan. "We leak a rumour that this week’s convoy carries Wyvern glass—very expensive, very fragile. The nobles drool, send spies. Our convoy actually holds timber and salted pork but travels with an escort of thirty veterans and two illusionists." She rapped the parchment. "First scout arrow loosed, the illusions bloom—makes it look like a hundred soldiers. Spies will retreat and report inflated numbers."

Lyan laughed, low and pleased. "A snake dressed as a wolf to scare cats away."

"Exactly." Wilhelmina tucked the parchment back into her folder.

Alice cleared her throat, pointing to Dunbridge on her tunnel map. "One complication—goblins sneaking in smell smoke, but they’re clever enough to dig bypass vents. I want mountain tribesmen stationed topside listening for fresh air holes. If they hear goblin chatter, they plug from above."

Alina brightened. "I know a tribesman who farts louder than most goblins speak. Could be double duty."

Groans circled the room; Josephine nearly toppled off the table laughing.

Lyan let the banter wash over him while his mind aligned the pieces: misdirection to buy time, illusions to inflate strength, scent bombs to rout tunnel creeps, healers to monitor mana sickness near Valmere. He pictured schedules, supply chains, messenger rotations. Everything clicked into place like a well-oiled trebuchet.

He looked up, swept the room with a quiet smile. "I have a kingdom of schemers," he declared. "Beautiful ones."

Belle fluttered lashes. "Flattery accepted, payment pending."

Alina blew him a kiss shaped like a grenade. "We also expect hazard pay for creative slander."

Josephine stretched her arms over her head, spine arching like a lazy cat. "And a bonus for avian espionage—bird feed isn’t cheap."

Surena hid a smirk behind a hand. Alice yawn-smiled, already rolling up her maps, mind drifting toward the next problem. Wilhelmina merely arched an eyebrow—one elegant, lethal line.

"You’re not wrong," she said, voice cool enough to still the chatter. "Just outnumbered."

_____

The festival had been planned as a modest harvest fair—three musicians, a few extra market stalls, perhaps a goat-race if somebody remembered to borrow a finishing rope. Josephine took one look at that first ledger and, in a single afternoon, rewrote it into something closer to a coronation: twenty-seven musicians, garlands on every stationary surface, a bonfire tall enough to threaten low clouds, and barrels of wine requisitioned from every cooperative vineyard within two days’ ride. By late afternoon, Grafen no longer looked like a recovered war fortress; it looked like a jewel-box someone had shaken open and scattered across every street.

Lyan descended the keep steps and felt the hum of it at once. It wasn’t only the colour—though there was plenty of that—but a heat in the air, a fizz in the blood, as if the stones themselves had learned a new tempo overnight. His shoulders, habitually braced for bad news, loosened an inch. Not enough for anyone to notice—except, perhaps, the eight spirits living in the quiet fold of his thoughts.

(You’re smiling,) Cynthia remarked, gentle delight glimmering.

(I like when he forgets to look dangerous,) Azelia chimed, her bright voice a skipping pebble.

He kept walking so no one would see the private grin tugging at his mouth.

Children swept past first, the oldest no more than ten, brandishing sticks like spears. Their paper wolf masks wobbled comically, eye-holes too wide. A little girl tripped in front of him, mask sliding sideways. Lyan steadied her with a palm on the shoulder; she looked up—chestnut curls, freckled nose—and squealed delightedly, "Pervert lord!" before sprinting away. At the corner she shouted, "He’s real!" and the entire clutch of youngsters dissolved in shrieking laughter. Somewhere Josephine was cackling into her wine.

The main square was a five-ring circus. Drums stationed by the fountain pounded out a call-and-response beat with ram’s-horn trumpets blown by the mountain hunters; every second measure a tribeswoman punctuated the rhythm by slapping the iron rim of a quenching barrel, sending water sheeting in diamonds through the sun. Smiths and hunters roared approval, and a drinking game sprang up immediately: if the splash hit you, you drank; if it missed, you had to dodge another round.

Lyan tried to pass unnoticed, but two apprentices spotted him and raised tankards in salute. One bellowed, "Guardian of the East, come test your liver!" The challenge echoed; necks craned. He shook his head with a rueful gesture toward the paperwork still waiting, but the apprentices felt victory anyway—he had acknowledged them.

All around, scents layered like instruments: smoke from lamb skewers, orange zest grated over honey cakes, a coil of incense drifting from the temple stall. Beneath it ran the older smells of horse, leather, and forge—but softer now, because war had stepped back a pace.

At Scholar’s Lane the pie-eating contest had drawn a frenzied crowd. Arielle sat center table, posture stiff as if still in a ledger meeting, except her lips and uniform were iced with cream. Quartermasters twice her mass had already surrendered, heads on the planks. Arielle dabbed at a smudge with the same care she might use to remove excess ink from an invoice, then calmly dispatched the final wedge. Cheers erupted. Someone thrust a laurel wreath made of intertwined pastry strips over her head; she blinked owlishly, as though being crowned was an accounting error.

Josephine shouldered through, arms crossed. "You teleported," she accused, squinting as if expecting to see a spatial rift behind the empty pie tin.

"If I teleported," Arielle said, voice prim as parchment, "I’d have done it before the berry round." She pointed to the crimson stain on her sleeve. Josephine, caught without retort, stuck out her tongue, leaned forward, and licked a stray dab of custard from the bridge of Arielle’s nose. Arielle’s eyes went wide; the crowd whooped. Lyan rescued them both by producing a gentleman’s handkerchief like a conjurer pulling a dove from a sleeve.

Further along Carnelian Street, carts groaned beneath rare imports: lapis cabochons from the southern reef mines, illusion-woven scarves that shimmered between colours with each breath, herb bundles trussed with silver wire and humming faintly with preservation runes. He paused at one booth where a veteran cavalryman had converted his broken spear shafts into coat-racks. "Souvenirs," the man said, tapping the scar where armour no longer covered ribs. "Better to hang cloaks than bodies." Lyan bought one and surprised himself by paying double.

Over by the practice yard, Raine—usually composed as fresh parchment—had wholly surrendered to the music. She tugged Wilhelmina’s wrist, and after the third attempt the commander relented. Wilhelmina’s first steps were precise, checking angles like scouting an ambush, but the fiddle dipped into a mischievous minor run, and something shifted: her boots slid easier, her shoulders eased, and a faint brightness crept into her eyes. She never smiled, not really, but her gaze shone like a sword fresh from oil, and when Raine spun away, Wilhelmina followed with a perfect, un-military twirl. Lyan felt an almost painful swell in his chest, as if the sight confirmed some private prophecy: even iron can choose to bend toward joy.

The stonemasons’ contest sat under the west wall. Sigrid, already barefoot and dust-coated, lifted stones heavier than sheep, humming a cradle-song that set a three-tier cairn trembling toward the sky. When she stepped back and wiped grit on her thigh, the apprentice mason gaped, asked timidly if he could borrow her for foundation work next season. Sigrid laughed, deep and rolling, and agreed on one condition: pay her in mead.

At twilight, the lantern-lighters came, and Grafen inhaled a new glow—soft roses, deep sapphires, candle-gold flickering through coloured glass panes suspended by fishing line. Children pointed skyward, claiming each orb as a personal star. Lyan watched flamelight play across stone archways, smoothing siege scars into something like a painter’s brushstroke.

Alina and Belle’s improvised tavern song reached its scandalous refrain just as he crossed back into hearing range. Belle belted the line about "unsheathing the longest sword," then waggled her brows in his direction. Lyan nearly choked on his cider. Two watchmen laughed so hard one slid off the bench. Alina, cheeks crimson, stage-whispered that she had written the verse under protest. Belle only winked wider.

The final rocket—white-sprangled, hissing—peeled a gasp from every throat, then cracked into a waterfall of sparks that seemed to freeze against the stars before drifting down. Silence settled, heavy with awe. In that hush, thoughts felt louder. Azelia’s spirit-voice slipped gentle across his mind: (This is peace...)

He touched a fountain’s rim—smooth marble, cool despite the nearby fires—and promised himself he would recognise this memory even if the world caught fire again.

People ebbed away, leaving embers and sleepy chatter. Surena kept vigil, but even she leaned into his shoulder a fraction when he offered wine. No words; they were not needed.