Bruce_Sentar
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AO 7 Ch 8
🕑 Added 2025-07-29 06:00:08 +0000 UTC"To think he had the gall to do something like that and invite Bianca to the family dinner," I grumbled into my cup, happy that my ladies were sticking with me even if I was in a poor mood.
"Well, I doubt he'll do that again," Emlyn offered, reaching out and sliding my ale a little bit further away from me.
"Hey, I'm not that bad," I said defensively, subtly assessing my own level of drunkness.
"Not yet," Emlyn smirked. "And I prefer we don't get there."
"Fine," I grumbled and reached for the cup again. "I'll just make this one last, happy?"
"Very. If you do any more than that, I'm going to have Maribelle cleanse it from your system," Emlyn warned.
I grunted, not even sure she could really do that, but also not wanting to find out.
"We'll save that option for when we need it. Why are you not mad? You should be mad with me.” I told her, letting my gaze cast over the other women at the table.
We were attracting a fair number of stares, which was only expected. They were all dressed for a nice dinner with my family, looking ravishing enough to drive a blind man mad.
"By the way, you're all beautiful," I said, smiling as my mind shifted away from whatever we had been discussing.
"Ah, maybe he's coming out of it," Missy said.
"I'm sorry if I ruined your night," I apologized. The girls would have loved dressing up and flirting over dinner.
"Nothing's been ruined," Ditzy waved a hand dismissively. "Your grandfather pulled a shitty trick on you. I've seen a thousand times worse. But regardless of scale, it's still understandable that you're upset.”
“I appreciate the support, Ditzy. Though I know that was a rough situation for both Bianca and the rest of my family. It’s just… I needed to put my foot down."
"I heard…" Ditzy said, waving her fork back and forth indecisively. "that you and Bianca had a history."
"Brief," I clarified. "And it became abundantly clear that Bianca was little more than the shadow of her brother, working expressly on his interests, and very little for herself."
"Harsh," Missy said.
"Sometimes the truth is harsh." I said, wincing at that particular tone.
“So you are done with her. That much is clear," Bad Kitty said. "So now what?"
"What do you mean?" I took a sip and looked at the goddess.
"I mean, quite literally that. Now what? So you've reacted to your grandfather and you've slapped his hand away, saying that he shouldn't meddle in your affairs. That's fine," Bad Kitty leaned back. "But if you don't close off other routes, he's just going to try again."
I frowned, not entirely understanding and suddenly wondering if I was more drunk than I realized. But ultimately my curiosity got the best of me and I asked anyway. "What do you mean, close off other routes?"
"Do you think you can slap his hand away and then suddenly sit down and think he's not going to try anything else?" Bad Kitty asked me.
"Well," I started to say some empty threat before realizing how hollow the statement would be. "Okay, I'm listening, Bad Kitty. What should I do?"
"Well, first off, you shouldn't cut all communication off. It's only going to cause him to try more extreme measures that will catch you by surprise." She told me. “By allowing his communication you can still assert control and might get some forewarning.”
"Okay, that makes sense," I nodded along, realizing this was probably also why you should keep your enemies close. "Not to mention, I don't want to completely freeze out my own family. I'm not that cold."
"That's a relief," Missy said. "It would be a shame to try and abandon them completely over something silly like this."
"I wouldn't call it silly," I glared at Missy.
"Sorry, not silly," she corrected herself. "Would childish work?"
"Nope." I said. "Who else has ideas?" I turned to the rest of the group.
"She's not entirely wrong, Ard," Emlyn hedged, and the glare I gave her wasn't entirely fair. But then again, I wasn't in the most fair of moods.
"I'll promise not to make a decision right now if we can move on from this." I grumbled.
"Moving on sounds great. Sadly I’m not sure what you are moving on from," my mother rolled up to our group. "I'm glad to see you are all taking the appropriate measures to look like a spoiled, upset noble."
"Mother," I sighed, and turned to face her properly. "I don't suppose you brought Bianca with you, perhaps bringing her to a random tavern and locking us in a room that'd probably suit grandfather's purposes wonderfully." I was perhaps a touch upset, and my mother so kindly responded with a heavy sigh.
"Ard, I know you haven't been a noble for very long, and perhaps you have zero desire to even be one. However," she spoke with a fierce look in her eyes, "right now you are one, and I would ask you comport yourself, no, I would beg that you comport yourself with the respect that everyone expects from you."
"Well, who told anyone to expect anything from me?" I growled back at her. This was admittedly me being childish. Yet I didn't go through so much in my short time as a mage to be controlled by my family.
My mother must have seen the tension in my eyes, because she held her hands up in surrender. "I didn't come here out of any other motives than to inform you that your grandfather is furious, and that as your mother, I should give you at least a passing lesson."
"And what would that be?" I did my best to not scowl at her.
"That you can't fight your family on top of other battles. Multi-front wars are rarely advised." She told me. “Not to mention we are your biggest support even if you don’t like it.”
"Second, proper and formal communication is expected of you." She instructed with her hands laced in her lap and ice blue eyes boring into me.
I narrowed my eyes. "What does that mean?"
"It means if you wanted fanfare this morning, you should have sent a letter ahead in advance. If you wanted to avoid all of the trouble of the succession, perhaps you could have contacted me or your grandfather in advance to give your perspective. Formal communication sent ahead of you to set expectations prior to your arrival.” She enunciated each word. “Honestly, Ard, this is basic shit and I shouldn't be having to explain this to you now." My mother told me.
I glared at her, wanting to argue, but I found that I had uncomfortably little ground to stand on. "And what exactly should I do, Mother, now that I am here and I believe some ships have sailed?" I grumbled.
"Well now, that's up to you, isn't it?" my mother said with a saccharine sweet smile and stood. "Now you all will make sure that he doesn't get too drunk and returns to the estate to sleep. The last thing I need is for one of the other houses to get stupid ideas with him staying out at a tavern." She looked over my anchors, her eyes landing on Emlyn for an extra long moment.
"Don't worry, we will do our best to keep him out of trouble," Emlyn promised.
"And if trouble finds me?" I asked.
"Then we're shit out of luck, aren't we?" Emlyn pinched her eyes together as she smiled too much.
"Somehow you don't seem too upset about that fact," my mother said dryly. "Just bring him back in one piece. I will try and settle my father. When you do return, Ard, please don't continue to needle him. The two of you waging a silent war in our house is the last thing we need as a family. While you may not want any role within the royal family and the kingdom at large, I can tell you as the matriarch of the family, there are plenty in House Aldis that would kill for such an opportunity. And I mean that quite sincerely. House Aldis will attempt to take the crown, because conceding it is tantamount to suicide. Considering the stage that has been set, your mere presence in the house means that we will always be a threat to whoever takes it. Do you understand, Ard?"
I grumbled and refused to give a clear answer. It wasn’t like I asked for this.
My mother leaned forward. "Because of you, every other house not firmly allied with us will try and destroy House Aldis simply because a bunch of old men are terrified of you." Her icy blue eyes delivered a stabbing glare straight to my soul.
If I didn't know better, I would think She was trying to use soul magic to attack me. But in this situation, my mother’s truth and anger was simply raging through her eyes.
"If you have no desire for the crown, then the least you can do is not make it worse for House Aldis. Given everything we have provided you since you've returned to us, I ask that you at least pay this back in return."
I hated the idea of paying it back. I had seen from several other mages the concept that they owed their family, in some cases, quite literally, with their life and happiness. I wanted to stamp my foot, but that was not going to help the accusation of being childish.
Which I wasn’t, normally, tonight was just… not great timing.
“Am I supposed to be a big bad threat that all the other houses are scared to hit our house, or am I supposed to be a tame little kitten that no one should fear?” Rather than argue, I tried to understand.
“In my opinion, the latter has already sailed. Enough people saw you fight with the King of Avente that trying to appear harmless would do nothing but arouse suspicions.” She tutted.
“She’s right.” Emlyn said and I was going to make her pay for that one later.
"No, Ard, I think the safer option is for you to bare your fangs, but you should bare your fangs once or twice, with very reasonable justification," my mother sighed and closed her eyes. "What I would like, if at all possible, is for everyone in the kingdom to see you as a sane, reasonable, but incredibly powerful mage. One that is disinterested in the crown, however, would crush another if your family was in danger."
Specific, but I could work with that.
I rubbed my chin as Sienna put a hand on my arm. "Since I will be staying here, if you can manage to do as she says, it will be a great protection for me." Sienna looked me in the eyes and it did something.
I let out a heavy sigh and turned back to my mother. "Fine. I will try and appear reasonable, but powerful. Actually, if I come off a little crazy, maybe that would be best?" I tried, only for my mother to slowly shake her head.
"If we're honest, crazy is a lot easier for him than sane. I think sane might even be too tall of an ask," Emlyn said with a massive smirk.
"What are you trying to say, Emlyn?" I asked.
"I'm just saying I don't think you could act sane for your entire time here." Emlyn replied.
"Well, I'll show you," I said, suddenly squinting. "Fuck."
Emlyn burst out laughing, as did the rest at the table.
"No more women, though, mom. Can we at least agree on that? That means no shoving Bianca in my face, some other princess, or other houses for allegiance," I pointed at those around the table. "We're stopping at this. And besides, I think we're going to go on another trip here soon, so I just need to be sane for a couple more days. Certainly not long enough to start anything new."
My mother smiled. "Really, only two more days, because with the expected end of the war. Also missives went out, to reduce those stationed on the war front and send them back home with the hope of sparking this summer's crop yield before it's too late, there's going to be a ball held in the royal palace. After that, you're welcome to do whatever you wish as long as it's not in the Capital."
I rubbed my chin and leaned back. "One last ball, eh? Yeah, I think I can manage."
Emlyn, however, had her head in her hands. "You want him to act sane, and then you tell him to go to a ball? This isn't going to end well," Emlyn muttered.
"What do you mean?" I huffed. "We all are going to get ready and make sure we look fabulous for this. Who knows what kind of new fashion I might introduce?" I grinned, already imagining the changes that would come.
Comments
dark phoenix99
I totally agree with you. I also have huge issues with how Ard's Mom talking about how much the family has done for Ard. They've done *literally* nothing for him except cause him trouble by subjecting him to a murderous noble tradition and a list of people trying to murder him from his own country. Who needs foreign enemies when you've got a country like this at your back? Why should Ard care about any of these venal and corrupt people? What exactly is he supposed to be grateful for? I do think Ard needs to decide what he actually wants. He's been pushed and pulled in every direction since he's gotten magic and made no real decisions for him. It would be interesting to drill down into what he actually wants. There is a lot of meat on the bone to delve into, if it stopped being a insult and nickname a rama. Everyone is so busy being quippy, they've all forgotten to be people.
TMill
I really hope that as this book progresses, that Bruce can dial in Ards character back to the quick tongue, intelligent and driven character that played the fool to further his plans and goals while adversaries and those seeking to control him underestimate him. The Ard that has been written so far this book comes across as a more self aware Jack Sparrow type idiot savant who is successful despite himself. He’s digressed as the main protagonist and is becoming harder to like as a character because his behavior is more flippant and immature than usual, which is a feat in and of itself. Most of the supporting characters that are around him constantly have all but lost their voice and we only seem to hear anything from them when they’re scolding Ard or agreeing with someone who’s scolding Ard. It almost feels like a parody of the Ard story in that instead of a plot that’s given life by the comedic antics of the protagonist, it’s become a series of comedic bits and banter with a very loose plot serving as the mechanism to get to the next bit. There’s a lot of different threads that can be pulled to further the story, Eva and political intrigue surrounding her country, political intrigue in Ards own country, as well as the whole gods angle with forming a new pantheon and fighting back against “Cow Tits”. I hope we get some direction from Ard and some strategic planning as to what he’s thinking and where he and the story at large is going soon, because the web that has been woven is massive and needs space to flesh the story out. I’m seeing shadows of the latest RD book in this story so far in which a lot of real estate is used up on the micro level at the beginning. I just hope that things tighten up a bit and we don’t have several different hard jumps in location, time and narrative because Bruce ran out of book space again and had to cram so much in to the back half to get to the ending he wanted to write. I love this series and the power fantasy that is Ard, I just wish i grew more fond of him as we move along and not less.
Wesley Wiggins
Is it just me or is his family drastically changing their attitude around Ard. I understand that they are grabbing for power but his grandfather has done almost a 180 and is acting like he’s never been around Ard . He should have known exactly how it would play out with Bianca so it baffles me why he’s so shocked. Also kinda not liking how his mom seems to be trying to subtly control Ard by bringing up paying back the family for what they have done like have they forgotten everything HE has done for them with coming back into their lives as a 4sphere mage literally bringing his mom back from basically a coma, saving the house from the royals MULTIPLE times and greatly expanded their trade network if anything I think they OWE him. Having ranted that love this series and living this volume so far just hate how it seems his family is doing a 180 on him now.
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