Both magically silenced, slipping quietly across the house and up the stairs was easy. Nearing the top, a shaft of clear moonlight allowed Orison to see just well enough to recognize the wretched look of lewdness on his brother"s face. Intuition telling him that whatever Venito was up to, it wasn"t something Orison wanted to be a part of, he followed anyway. After coming this far, Orison reasoned, he might as well find out what kind of mad he should be at his brother.

It didn"t take long as Venito slunk closer to the master bedroom, from where Orison stood at the top of the stairs, the sound of moaning and other more visceral sounds could be heard. From his distance, Orison could see a pale figure with backside towards him, bent head first into a darker figure the weak moonlight couldn"t illuminate. A fact Orison was grateful for after registering what he was seeing as he turned around and went back downstairs.

Nearly a quarter hour later, Venito walked back into the guest bedroom drying his hands on a towel. A faint scent of herbal soap wafting towards Orison that showed his brother to at least be fastidious after taking care of business. While putting the leather gauntlets back on, Venito subtly sneered at Orison.

"I"m beginning to believe that you have more than "zero" reason to be concerned about your future happiness, little brother," Venito said.

Orison snorted, "I"ll be the first to admit that Lyra is a stunning woman but did you forget that the other woman is my mother?"

Suddenly thoughtful, Venito said, "Um, I guess. She didn"t give birth to you or anything and she"s, uh, respectfully speaking of course, an exotic kind of beautiful as well... I kind of noticed it before but did you know your eyes glow in the dark? Not strong but enough for someone with good eyes to pepper your face with arrows at a hundred paces in pitch black."

Orison nodded and said, "An annoying quirk but not the biggest of my problems."

Venito"s eyebrows raised as he said, "Not being able to hide without covering your eyes IS a problem. But tell me, what"s the bigger one?"

Orison sighed and slumped onto the bed. "Conditional maturity... I have a long lifespan and without finding more of the weird stuff that did that to me, I don"t know how long it will take me to hit p.u.b.erty much less "man up"."

Venito laughed dismissively. "Are you seriously complaining about living longer?"

Suppressing annoyance, Orison said, "No. I"m b****ing about the possibility of being found out and turned into a mage"s lab rat test subject for a new type of longevity elixir... Just for the record, I doubt they"d find anything usable but since when have curious mages not been historically known for dismantling interesting things to figure out how they do what they do? I mean, it"s okay for a little while and I"ve gotten lucky once. It doesn"t feel like I"ll grow much but I should grow some.

"I"m probably just being over sensitive about it but it still worries me a lot. I"m not exactly a person unknown but it wouldn"t be that hard to become one. It wouldn"t be fun but there are ways to make life doable. To put some of my concern in a way you can appreciate, how would it feel if you didn"t know how long it would take until you could "enjoy" a woman"s company. Add on that it could be years after starting to feel the need before a woman could take you seriously."

The older teen said, "If I wasn"t worried she"d accidentally kill you, Portia could probably forcefully make you mature by using her blood magic as she fed on you. Not ideal but if you get desperate... I really think you"re having a big sweat over nothing. Just keep your mouth shut about it and let people talk themselves out of doing bad stuff and then kill the ones who fail. Honestly, it kind of comes across like a rich man complaining about his gold being too heavy or something."

Orison rolled his eyes, "To a poor person, that does sound like backhanded humility but another rich person would understand that the man"s real worry is thieves... And before you go there, everyone has some greed to them. Obviously the man could dump some, in theory, to help protect the rest or give him a lighter load to run away but who wants to lose their stuff if they know there"s a way to keep it... You know what, you"re right. I"m probably sweating this for no reason. It"s just that, to survive up until now, paranoia"s been my best friend. It"s hard to give it up once it becomes a habit."

Adopting a sage demeanor, Venito stroked his chin and said, "A piece of advice Portia handed to me, I now hand to you... The dark voice behind you can be useful as long as you never let it grow beyond a whisper."

Orison chuckled a little forcefully and said, "And she would know. She literally has a dark voice that whispers behind her."

Venito blinked in confusion.

Orison prompted, "The deep abyssal sounding voice that talks with and sometimes for her?... Okay, you still look confused so you can ask her about it or pretend I didn"t say anything because I am, pretending that I didn"t say anything, I mean."

Venito said, "Well, alright... Here"s a thought that might not have occurred to you. Since you act all accepting and whatnot but live like a temple acolyte, you"ve probably not thought to, you know, purposefully pop your own cork. You know, orcs encourage their boys to start tugging their twig and berries as soon as they understand words. The boys can reach full adult size by thirteen so... And there"s the look. I"m just saying."

Orison sighed, "As weird and unwanted as that piece of racial knowledge is, there is a kind of logic behind it but can we please stop there?... Oh, I see. Did you go look for that intentionally as a t.i.t-for-tat on the wood elf, two soul thing?"

Venito said defensively, "You"re not the only one who knows how to read and what I found actually ended up being useful to you."

Tilting his head back so he could look down his nose, Orison said, "But what was the original intent?"

Smirking, Venito said, "I think you know, short-stack. Here I was, trying to play nice but if you won"t let me..."

Venito lunged to put Orison in a choke hold. Taken off guard, Orison only had time to tuck his chin and turn to downgrade it into a head lock. While the older boy did his best to grate his younger brother bald with his knuckles, Orison successively cast Create Water and Degree Shift at Venito"s pants. A full second later, Venito had released him to dance a jig in an effort to get the thin layer of ice and frost from his sensitive bits.

Orison crowed, "I"ve heard that occasionally applying ice can help a man increase his virility. See, it actually ended up being useful to you."

From there, it was only a matter of course for the roughhousing to turn into a brawl. Despite their current antics, they were both trained and skillful enough to keep it in the bounds it was intended. Both of them knew what it was and by tacit understanding let it happen. Chances to capture a bit of what life and circ.u.mstance had stolen from them were more rare and valuable than gold to the two orphans who were forced into the ugliness of the world long before they should have.

Coming out the worse for the exchange but understanding what was more important, Orison finished setting and healing Venito"s broken finger before healing his own bruises and sc.r.a.pes. As much as they were enjoying themselves, the sound of a sharp snap was enough for them to both stop with the same suddenness that had started it. Two sets of disapproving eyes were watching from above but currently the brothers were surveying the disaster that they had caused with perverse satisfaction.

Lyra growled, "It"s your house. Do what you want but don"t expect me to stay in it if I can"t get a good night"s sleep or it looks like a pig"s sty."

Droya purred ominously, "We are guests. I don"t know what this was about but make it right... Before you go to bed!"

Having said their piece, the two turned back towards the bedroom.

Orison looked at Venito sheepishly and said, "You don"t think we interrupted them, do you?"

Picking up the pieces of the busted chair that he had stumbled over and onto, Venito smirked, "Do you think I would have came down here for my lame little brother if there was still a show to watch?"

Orison sighed and said, "Sometimes, the most important parts of a moment are what comes after it"s over." Looking around at the mess they had made, suddenly Orison felt less satisfied and more regretful as he got busy cleaning up.

After giving some token a.s.sistance, Venito handed him a tied up roll of papers. The promised information was his real reason for showing up with the rest being just a pleasant surprise. After griping about what he might have missed waking up an unappreciative little brother, he prepared to leave. As a part of his farewells, Orison cautioned Venito about the presence of a werewolf pack in Whiteriver from a couple of clues that he had picked up while visiting the mercenary guild with Lyra. He also mentioned that Lyra was going stir crazy and if time and circ.u.mstance allowed, Venito should include her on some of his less sensitive ventures.

The older brother told him that at the bottom of the stack of papers was a small map to a set of cabins in the woods, should the need arise. Venito promised to put some money back just in case Orison "got tore up or went toe up". He a.s.sured Orison that taking care of a hot, grieving mother would be no trouble at all. There was even room enough for a couple of servants and a house guard or two.

Once Venito was gone, Orison poured over the papers. He wasn"t really surprised to see that if he was interested in seeking vengeance on the conspirators behind the attempt to rob him of land and other holdings he"d have to target nearly a fifth of the lower echelon patricians in the Centerlands. The initiative to send him and his mother to Mortal Winds was started by a family attempting to find a safer patrician a.s.signment for their heir but the actual backing behind it"s approval went higher than the legate had privilege of knowing.

On the surface, Droya and Orison represented a promotion of diversity acceptance. They were meant to be an image cleanup to soften the criticism that the empire had endured after a sweep of land and t.i.tle reclamation became more thorough than it was supposed to be. Underneath that surface there were multiple factions with their own reasons to support such an unorthodox a.s.signment. Some were easy to understand, such as the lack of desire to send a qualified legate to be a glorified postal worker in a political nightmare of bickering clans or a scapegoat to cover up past embezzlement. The most mysterious supporter came from the royal faction with no real way of knowing just who but that person specifically pushed forward the t.i.tle heir of Baulder to take the a.s.signment. And since that coincided so beautifully with most other power players desires, it became set.

Most of the information Venito provided were irrelevant Northland negotiations but there were juicy pieces of gossip and records of underhanded dealings that Orison could make use of yet hoped he wouldn"t have to. Portia included an afterward that gave a general outline into the area around the peninsula where the Centerland Consulate had been constructed. There was also a point of contact location given for the purpose of keeping in touch with "The Order" which implied a desire on her part to feel out how much of a "friend" to it Orison may wish to become. It was a question he didn"t have an answer to, nor was he any closer two days later.