“Don't speak of it again. Ever.” It sounded harsh enough that both the royals looked taken aback. It was rude, you didn't tell royalty no, and you didn't confront them directly, but it was for their own protection. If they knew that a Count was murdered, no matter how good the reason was, and did nothing, then it would be the same as the crown sanctioning it. Every other Count would have to go to war then, just to insure that they weren't next.
“Ever. Not to anyone. Promise me.” If his eyes were a little wild, well, that would be the panic he felt wouldn't it? This could all go so bad, so quickly. If he had to die Tor sure as heck wouldn't be taking his friends with him, not even if it made them hate him now.
“We promise Tor! I… didn't know you'd feel that strongly on the matter though. It's you know, nothing I haven't done.” Rolph spoke grimly, sadly.
“Gods! Rolph, I don't want to know about that either! Don't you get the implications of all this?”
The Prince looked ready to cry, which didn't fit his normal demeanor, real tears of agony filled his eyes and he was swallowing them back hard. That he'd been the cause of them made Tor feel awful, a true heel, lower than he'd remembered ever being. It was no way to treat a friend, but he had to, didn't he?
Varley stared at him, her face blank, then, after a minute her eyes went wide.
“All holy, fucking pig shit…” She said, which got the attention of both men. It wasn't her normal manner of speaking at all. Karina in a tense moment? Sure. The proper and brilliant Princess Veronica? Hardly.
“Alphonse, this isn't about Tor having sex with Denno Brown to help him escape, either real or magical seaming. It's… Count Derring.” Her voice was low and conspiratorial.
Rolph hit an amulet instantly, not even waiting a full three seconds. A silence field.
“What? What do you mean?”
“Tor… Doesn't want us to speak about Derring's death. His suspicious death while flying, his shield failing during a crash… Shields, that otherwise, have never failed at all.”
Tor blinked. This was about sex? Him and Denno? Tor started laughing and couldn't stop. He might be a hick, but he wasn't that worked up about people in Austra thinking he was a lover of men. It wasn’t real, but a lot of them had seen it happen themselves as far as they knew, so it was just a fact there, wasn’t it? Why would anyone care about that though? Even there it had just been about humiliating him because he was reticent, not because anyone would really care. Well, other than him, and his family back in Two Bends, all their friends and neighbors… He tried to make it seem like he was really worried, about that. They weren't buying it.
Not at all.
He might as well, run through the streets screaming the whole thing out at this rate. At least his friends went silent then, both with wide, frightened looking eyes. Tor couldn't even reassure them or anything, or explain what he'd been thinking at the time. Anything he said would make him look guilty. Mainly because he was. Amazing how that worked.
That led to his friends hardly speaking to him at all for the next week, preferring to ride in silence. None of the girls found his bed at all, and he just stopped asking. They didn't want a murderer, and who could blame them? Tor didn't regret what he'd done, not for a half instant even when he lay alone at night wondering if anyone could have ever really loved a thing like him? Probably not. They'd all just been being polite and that was before they knew what he really was.
Slowly Tor withdrew as well, not wanting to bother anyone, he started just building device after device, reading and practicing violin. He pushed too hard on building he knew. Burks had cautioned him to keep to one or two novel builds per month. Tor was doing that each day. His field held well though. Weeks passed that way, and by the time they reached the mountain villa he'd pretty much stopped talking at all. There was no reason to any more. Karina and Ali just glared at him and Varley gave him baffled and silent looks that seemed to probe his very soul, her blue eyes searching his brown for… something. Maybe to see if he was really a person at all?
Rolph tried to talk to him, and would spend time with him, just sitting and reading himself, not bothering to say anything after a while, but not leaving Tor alone either.
He kept to his exercises and tried to actually come up with ways to improve, reading his opponents fields while he fought, learning what subtle sense of things meant what, how to use the early warning to get out of the way or even block, how to counter with attacks instantly. It was harder with a weapon than hands and feet, until he learned to accept the practice wand, what looked like a big wooden kitchen knife, as a part of his own information. Then it went better. He still wasn't good, far from it, but he started to not be beaten as badly each day by the Royal Guards, and while they made suggestions they came slightly less often.
The place they were to stay looked like a huge stone keep, three stories high and a little worn on the outside, the roof sloped sharply and the stone looking like moss had grown on it during the relatively warmer summer. It was a nice enough looking thing, not rich, except for its size, but that could be forgiven. Especially since it was all fake.
It was one of the newer type of magical houses he'd made himself. The field screamed at him as they rode up, calling to him and saying “remember me?” which of course, he did. It was a part of him after all. All his devices were really, especially the complex ones like this. No one else seemed impressed with it, but that was probably the idea, a place that looked nice enough for these carriages to be out front, but not so nice that all the royal children would be stored there for safe keeping. It was a good plan.
Tor climbed out, with Ali next to him. She held his hand, but that was probably just a perfunctory thing, to make it look like she still loved him, even though she was mad that he wouldn't help make her a murderer too. Karina and Rolph just shrugged when they saw the place, as if it was what they expected, more or less and Varley grinned.
“There will be snow here, won't there? I've never really seen snow except in the ice garden you made mother Tor. Do you think it will get deep?” She seemed pleased with the idea.
He nodded.
“Yeah. This is up a bit in the mountains, I don't know the seasons here, but it's cold, even if we don't feel it. Look at our breath in the air, it looks like it's freezing already. Little crystals in the air, falling gently to the frozen ground below…” His voice sounded sad to his ears, not meaning to, he forced a smile, hoping it would look genuine.
“We can build snow people and forts if you want, once it falls.”
Ali clapped her hands and the others all smiled warmly at her action, even some of the guards. They seemed to like her and had kind of adopted her as a mascot. For that matter they even seemed to like Tor well enough, even Veren, now that he didn't have to kick Tor's butt for whatever reason he'd had. Apparently it was enough to simply beat him, and the man could let the disagreement about where Karina was going slip away. Then, this wasn't the Lairdgren School and there didn't seem to be a lot of people around either.
Only one it looked like.
A familiar black haired man, face cleaned of the stupid facial hair that Tor had always associated with him, hair short and for the first time ever, not covered with oil or grease. The clothing was nice, warm and plain looking, a thick padded brown jacket over brown trousers. The hands had thick gloves as well and on his feet were warm looking boots of unpolished tan leather.
Dorgal Sorvee.
Whee. Tor couldn't help the thought. They might be business partners now, and had even agreed to be friends, but in his current state all Tor could remember was how often the boy had hassled him in school. Bullied really. He was about six foot-two and lean, and annoyingly had a warm and friendly smile on his face when he saw them all.
“Welcome!” He cried out.
Happily too.
The bastard.
Tor seriously just considered leaving. The King and Queen had set him up to spend his “vacation” first in the back of a carriage, something he hated and everyone knew he despised, now he was being dumped on Dorgal freaking Sorvee? What had he done to the royals to deserve this anyway?
Tor nodded, trying to make himself smile. It was hard and seemed false, which Dorgal didn't miss, but didn't mention either. Rolph gave the boy, a man now, a warm hug and so did the others. Tor didn't move forward for one, and even though he seemed concerned Dorgal kept his distance.
“I, um, was asked by the King to provide a place for you to stay that would be pleasant but not too obvious, I
