EBOOK SEVEN IS OUT! WOO HOO, Finally!

“I… what?” Dante de Zorozo repeated, staring in shock. “But I paid for my license this morning, uncle!” he protested strongly.
“And were you given a receipt?” hissed Professor Ortagez.
“A receipt? Why would I…” the younger elf trailed off.
“Give me your license!” spat the Professor. Dante urgently dug it out of his tightly configured vest and handed it over with a trembling hand.
The Professor snatched it from him and barely needed to glance at it before tossing it into the air and dividing it into half a dozen pieces with a deadly flicker of movement from his rapier. “This is a license for dueling with a smallsword, not a rapier, you idiot!” He tore the license up as his gaping younger relative watched. “You would have been thrown in jail for a month and cost the family a hundred crowns to get you out, along with being forbidden to carry a weapon in Zanzyr City for years if you so much as touched anyone with it!”
The darkly-skinned Dante was looking kind of yellow around the edges. “I, I did not notice, uncle!” he exclaimed woefully. “I have been cheated by, by…”
“Do go on. What noble member of a human family known for their hatred of all elves might have arranged for everyone involved in this duel to come out looking horribly, eh? A hundred ways to avenge himself for a slight, and he chose a hot-headed fool of questionable relationships,” his withering stare took in Dante’s comrades, who all decided they had somewhere else to be rather quickly, “to send a message for him?
“Go, you fool, and do not touch your weapon. I will inform your aunt of what has transpired here, and we will take care of this matter!”
“Yes, uncle. I am sorry, uncle!” The thoroughly brow-beaten young elf bobbed and retreated and strode away hurriedly, and doubtless would have had laughter dogging his steps if his uncle were not present. The snickers in the eyes of the students were probably worse for the proud idiot.
Dante’s uncle watched him go, and then he turned to me. “My apologies for the interruption, young lady. I meant no insult to your honor, but there are extenuating circumstances behind my foolish nephew’s actions which would best be settled elsewhere,” he said, coldly but sincerely.
“But of course, Professor. You acted as a loyal gentleman of Colorajo should have, nothing more.” I curtsied to him gracefully, earning a gleaming eye and a smile at the sight. “Although I confess, I was looking forward to breaking the nose of such an upstart.”
He blinked at me in consternation and amusement. “Oh? You think you would have bested him, young lady?” he inquired, not without confidence in his nephew’s skills.
There was a crack, a hiss of steel, and a solid crink of steel on bone.
I pushed Professor Manuel’s head back, the head of Dread against his nose, his parry not having come up quite in time, while I was well beyond his reach. There was an indent in the stone floor of the hall where Dread had extended to full length out of my sleeve, rebounded with shocking speed and force, and swept out to land before he could parry in time, while I was a good two feet out of range of a riposte.
The Professor slowly pushed my Staff off to the side, eyeing the gemstone gleaming in the head warily. “I see.”
There was a pause as Dread’s head snapped over in an eye-blink, and a foot of dark steel gleamed there, protruding quite well past his nose.
He stared at it in some concern, then inclined his head at me in acknowledgment of the, ah, point. The spear-head rotated back and vanished into Dread’s haft, and I spun my Staff back between my fingers, whirling it like a baton as it shrank and then vanished up my black-laced crimson sleeve.
“Unlike a rapier, a staff is a wizard’s badge of office, an emblem of their station, and any Wizard may carry one without restrictions,” I noted to the Professor coolly, that being a grandfathered fact as senior Wizards weren’t going to pay for toting around their staves in their own country. “A fool stirring a pot he has no business sampling wouldn’t get to play games with young men who think literacy has no power compared to bare steel.”
“As you say, senora.” He clicked his boots and bowed to me again, every inch the Colorajo gentleman.
A rose with crimson petals turning dark black arced through the air, and he nimbly caught it as I swept past with my own coterie. He turned to watch me go, feeling the rose in his hand turn into a sheet of paper.
Senor, Duke Fenkroft has come to Zanzyr City to purchase a powerful Wand from Master Ollafey’s workshop, and they are meeting tomorrow. That means that his payment will be somewhere in his apartments at the Grand Hotel tonight, does it not?
My Sims were always busy gathering information, and it had not been difficult at all to get that information out of one of his guards, as the man was widely despised by his own people.
I was certain that Professor Manuel had a very thoughtful look on his face, and he strode away with rather more energy than was entirely proper, after first retrieving his nephew’s rapier.
And now he would also owe me a favor.

The next day…
The School was abuzz with the rumor that Duke Fenkroft’s quarters in the city had been burgled the night before and a great number of valuables stolen from him, forcing him to go out and get a loan to complete the purchase of a new Wand he had commissioned from one of the city’s better craftsmen.
The people really in the know were far more interested to learn that there were substantial discrepancies in reported tax receipts from merchants and the reported taxes paid by the Duke. Somehow, despite the influence of House Lhamsa in the bureaucracy (owing to their Prince being the highest-ranking judge in the land), this information had fallen into the hands of Prince Jaggenfel of House Grafburg, the Duke’s previous lord, and he was now adding to the woes the Duke was facing.
Indeed, multiple records from his time at the County of Osherric had come to light, and it appeared his messing around with taxes extended back at least ten years!
Of course, all of this only came to light AFTER he had taken out his loan for his new Wand of Lightning Bolts for blasting flying monsters and humanoid raiders coming down from the Neros Alpes. The associated back taxes, penalty fees, and interest rates were naturally ruinous, and caught the bastard completely flat-footed.
His former lords were plenty willing to see him ruined, and Prince Jughamya simply did not have enough influence by himself to stop the imposition of tax penalties.
Unable to pay the required coinage, as well as already being in debt, Duke Fenkroft did try to make a break for it from the Magical Revenue Service agents who came looking for him.
Alas, someone had raised an Interdiction about him as he tried to Teleport out of there and escape, and he got nowhere before the MRS burst into his quarters, multiple Dispels neutralized his Casting, he was swamped in Webs and Hold Person spells, immobilized, and captured.
His debtors promptly tried to lay claim to his Wand, but he had never promised it as collateral, and the money had basically been a signature loan mostly contingent on Fenkroft going out and finding some powerful beast to Charm and lead back to be sold off, a matter that could have been taken care of in a week or less. Who knew that such a matter would blow itself up so quickly?
Ex-Duke Fenkroft vanished into the Tower of Whispers under the disappointed eye of his former Prince, desperately sending out word to relatives in Federyn to bail him out.
That meant that the Duchy of Highwall was suddenly up for bid, and nearly every Count in the nation of Zanzyr was grappling for the opportunity to advance in station and noble rank!
Exceeeeept… an old document was hauled out of the tax files of the Tax Bureau, relating to matters of succession if a family member of the Duke of Highwall was deemed ineligible for retaining the title. For certain considerations of the previous Duke who had passed with most of his family under mysterious circumstances, something to do with Summoning demons or something, the right to name the succeeding Duke was traded to the Principality of Erendyl in exchange for paying the tax debts of the Duke, just to prevent exactly the sort of thing that was happening to Duke Fenkroft now.
However, deliberate tax evasion was a far cry from poor circumstances leaving one unable to pay their debts, and the former Duke Fenkroft was going to stew in the Tower of Whispers even if Clan Erewahr paid his current debts. After all, back taxes and penalties from his prior holdings were all his problem!
Naturally, Princess Erewahr immediately deposited a promissory note against funds that had been placed in the national treasury nearly three weeks prior, paying it directly to Prince Jughamya and getting his receipt and validating the exchange document at the same time, to the absolute uproar of Parliament.
The fact that two companies of Erendyl elves surrounded the Tower of Highwall and took possession of it before Fenkroft’s underlings could loot it clean and abandon it, literally the same day as Fenkroft was indicted and captured, had the other Princes of Zanzyr somewhat reeling in shock at the smoothness of the machinations of the normally peaceable and conservative Sidhe elf clan. Erewahr had made an absolute coup and become the third strongest House at Parliament with the addition of a presumably loyal new duke!

Twenty-five years earlier…
“And who might you be?” Alamander Enzefi, Duke Highwall, looked much put upon, over-worked and run ragged with management of his Duchy. He had been caught between the ire of Colorajo for not swearing fealty to them despite being on their borders, and not wanting to offend the equal if kinder influence of Erendyl. He had chosen to go with the House of Argencal and the Prince of Iendyl to the south, but that had opened up a whole new array of problems, especially with Houses Tilian and Fuireze!
“My name is the Lady Edge, and I am not here,” I informed the overworked Duke calmly. He was a ruthless and ambitious man, but not a sinister one. Nevertheless, he did not know he was being slowly drained dry by the weather magic of Erendyl neutralizing the benefits he thought to gain from Argencal, and so inclement weather had destroyed his harvest, while Tilian was alternately paying for raiding parties of humanoids from the Neros Alpes to harass his borders, and the equally irate Fuireze was Charming monsters and unleashing them to do the same.
In short, he’d managed to piss off three neighbors and only placate one. Fenkroft had the inspiration to piss them ALL off, favoring none, and so had earned neutrality, especially with his willingness to work with Argencal and Fuireze against Colorajo and Erendyl.
“Is that so.” He considered me and my white skin, Transyvian accent, and appearance, making a gesture of protection. “I was not aware Prince Mordai was taking an interest in my problems…”
“I represent Erendyl.” He stiffened only a little. “You are having problems here of a violent nature. I have been empowered to offer you some help dealing with those problems, in the form of ‘independent adventurers’, who are willing to energetically and violently put down some of those problems, in return for full looting rights and non-taxes on spell component retrieval from the various corpses, or capture and resale of the monsters.”
The Duke looked me over warily. “And what must I offer for this help?” he asked suspiciously. He was not in a financial state to pay mercenaries well.
I handed over the document, already signed by Princess Brittabelle… albeit over two decades in the future. He took it, read it once. His brow furrowed, and he read it again. “This… is all?” he asked, less suspicious than irked at us and our presumptuousness.