Chapter 18 – Fire and Air

“Noble lords and ladies! The Order of the Primrose and the Order of the Poppy, the pride of the Essence Weavers of this realm, will now demonstrate their mastery of the scholarly art!”

The mood in the crowd was different now, a whole other kind of atmosphere, not the bloodthirsty excitement of combat, but something far more reverent. The common folk in the lower ranks craned their necks, curious but unsure of what to expect.

Two groups of Essence Weavers entered the field from opposite sides. The Order of the Primrose in formal plum-colored robes with gold trim, the Order of the Poppy in deep red with silver accents. Twelve Weavers in total, six per Order, richly adorned with several easily accessible vials of Distilled Essence, moved with dignified bearing to their places.

And among them, at the head of the Primrose formation, Valentina recognized Lady Agatha. Her ice-grey hair glistened in the sunlight, and even from a distance, she radiated an authority that had nothing to do with titles or position alone. It was the casual self-assurance of true mastery in Essence Weaving. Although she was not a large or strong person, she would be able to easily take on any of the knights present.

The twelve Essence Weavers bowed to the royal box, then to each other, and in this simple gesture lay a reverence and respect that sent a shiver down Valentina’s spine. These were masters who knew what each other was capable of.

“Let’s see what they have to offer,” Vyxara murmured in her head.

Valentina leaned forward involuntarily. Excitement mingled with a feeling she couldn’t quite place. Not envy, not quite. More like an awareness of the gulf of skill that lay between her and these masters.

Lady Agatha raised her hand, the Primrose Weavers followed, and then she made a tiny gesture, little more than a twitch of her fingers, and all six wove simultaneously.

Valentina saw Viur patterns form, six identical configurations unfolding perfectly. She recognized the basic structure with a hyperbolically opened Vanderlieu spiral as its basis, reinforced by something that looked like a modified Brennan angle, but she couldn’t see the details from a distance and the complexity was overwhelming.

Then the flames burst forth.

Not wild and unbridled like ordinary fire, but strictly controlled, directed, and almost fluid in their movements. Six streams of pure fire, fueled only by Viur essence, shot up between the hands of the Essence Weavers, orange and gold and white at their hottest points, curving toward each other like dancing snakes.

The crowd gasped as the streams of fire merged high above the field.

The precision required for this took Valentina’s breath away. Each individual stream had to be precisely coordinated with the others. A deviation of a few degrees, a fluctuation in intensity, and the entire effect would be destroyed. But the six streams met at a single point, as precisely as if they were guided by a single hand and a single mind.

“And now the others,” Vyxara remarked with an undertone of anticipation. “I wonder what they have in mind?”

The male Essence Weavers of the Order of the Poppy began their work.

Valentina strained her senses, trying to comprehend what they were doing. Their configurations were primarily designed to manipulate Luvt Essence, but Valentina saw none of the usual Luvt effects. They were working on something she couldn’t quite grasp. The patterns overlapped and intertwined in a way she had never seen before.

The fire reached its convergence point high above the field. Valentina expected it to disperse, the flames to scatter in all directions like the sparks of a blacksmith’s fire.

But that didn’t happen.

Instead, the fire remained in place. It bubbled and swirled, but it did not expand. It was as if a stern invisible hand was holding it together, keeping it trapped at that one point in the sky.

“What are they doing?” Valentina whispered before she could stop herself.

Lady Beatrice gave her a questioning look, but Valentina was too fascinated to respond. Her gaze searched for Innogen in the Ashbourne section, and she saw the same confusion on her friend’s face. Lorenzo, who had leaned forward and was squinting up at the sky, also seemed not to understand what he was seeing.

“Ah,” said Vyxara, sounding almost admiring. “Clever. They’re using the pressure.”

“What pressure? What are you talking about?”

“It’s not easy to explain. Let’s start with the fact that air has weight, little Weaver.”

“Air has no weight. Does it? Air is… air.”

“You are standing at the bottom of an ocean,” Vyxara explained patiently. “But not an ocean of water, but an ocean of air. All the air above you, from here to the highest heights, is pressing down on you and everything around you. You don’t notice it because you’ve never known anything else, like the fish that doesn’t notice the water, but the pressure is always there.”

Valentina frowned, but she remained silent and listened.

“What the Poppy-Weavers do,“ Vyxara continued, “is compress this air, increasing the pressure and making it denser. Imagine squeezing a waterskin, you know how that works. The contents resist and push back, and can become so strong that the waterskin bursts. They do something similar. They create an invisible wall of compressed air around the fire. The flames can’t escape because the air pushes back too strongly.”

Valentina understood it halfway, enough to grasp the principle. But the actual Essence configuration, the way the Poppy-Weavers interwove their patterns to achieve this effect, was far beyond her abilities and knowledge.

The fire at the convergence point seemed to grow brighter. Both Orders maintained their patterns, and Valentina could now see the sweat on some foreheads, the tension in their shoulders and jaws. The effort must have been enormous, and the vials of Distilled Essence on their belts were emptying at a rapid pace.

The effect was breathtaking. A sphere of fire hovered above the tournament grounds, glowing, bubbling, almost alive in its movement. Like a small sun that had descended from the sky to examine them all up close. The light cast strange shadows across the grounds, doubling the silhouettes of the spectators.

The crowd had fallen completely silent, and Valentina saw even the most haughty nobles forget their dignity and stare open-mouthed at the sky like children seeing snow for the first time. Duke Whitehall had stopped talking to his neighbor. King Edmund leaned forward with wide eyes. And somewhere behind her, Valentina heard someone quietly praying to the Martyr.

The heat radiated down, palpable even from this distance. Valentina felt it on her face, warm like summer sun, no, like sitting in front of a fireplace in winter.

“Quite impressive,” Vyxara admitted. “The configuration isn’t entirely lossless, but the coordination is flawless. I could show you how to make it more efficient, but-“

A signal passed between Lady Agatha and the leader of the Poppy-Weavers. A brief nod, barely perceptible.

Valentina watched intently, desperately trying to follow the changes. The Poppy-Weavers dissolved part of their pattern… what was that for… ah, the compression sphere opened, no, not completely. Only at the top. The sides and floor remained intact, but the ceiling of the air prison dissolved, opening a path of least resistance, pointing upwards.

The trapped fire, under the pressure of the compressed air, exploded skyward.

A massive fountain of flames shot up, accompanied by a thunderous bang that made Valentina flinch. It was the sound of pressure equalization discharging with brutal force. Some spectators in the lower tiers screamed, some out of fear, most out of sheer shock.

The fire rose and rose, reaching an impossible height before finally dissipating. Sparks trickled down like orange snow, burning up in the air before they could reach the ground.

Then there was only smoke and thunderous applause.

Valentina leaned back, and only now did she realize that she had been holding her breath almost the entire time. She was filled with genuine awe. What she had just seen was years, perhaps decades, beyond her own abilities. The coordination alone, the way twelve Essence Weavers had worked as one unit, each contributing their part to perfection, had to be the result of endless training and years of working together.

Humility, inspiration, and a certain sense of overwhelm filled her.

But then another thought pushed its way to the forefront, an uncomfortable and disturbing thought.

She began to calculate.

Twelve Weavers. The vials they had carried, at least six per person, all of the highest purity, judging by the shimmer. The duration of the performance, perhaps ten minutes, but under extreme stress.

Greystone Hospital could certainly be run for an entire season with this amount of Distilled Essence. Perhaps longer. Hundreds of patients could have been healed, their wounds closed and their infections fought, lives saved. With this amount of Distilled Essence, water for entire cities could have been purified, or the growth of thousands of field crops could have been supported.

Everything burned in seconds, for a mere spectacle, for a little applause from people who didn’t even really understand what they were seeing.

The farm girl in her, the child who had grown up with deprivation, sometimes even hunger, and who had learned to appreciate every crumb and every drop, was shaken, angry at this waste. It was wrong. It was obscene.

But at the same time, she also understood why it was done. The political message was unmistakable.

King Edmund looked extremely pleased as he turned to his advisors.

“You’re upset about the waste,” Vyxara remarked quietly.

“Of course I’m upset about the waste.”

“At heart, you are a healer. That is understandable.” Vyxara paused thoughtfully. “But do not forget that fear can also heal, in a way. Fear of consequences deters enemies from attacking. Prevention can sometimes be more effective than leaving it to treatment.”

Valentina did not respond. She watched as the Essence Weavers left the field, as Lady Agatha returned to the stands with the calm demeanor of absolute mastery, and she wondered how many years it would take her to even come close to that level.

Applause still surged through the ranks. Around Valentina, conversations exploded, a cacophony of admiration, amazement, and excited chatter that was meant to mask a slight uneasiness.

“Did you see how high that column of flames rose?”

“You could feel the heat even up here, unbelievable…”

“My grandfather told me about a similar performance in the twelfth year of His Majesty’s father’s reign, but I never thought I would see it with my own eyes…”

King Edmund himself gestured animatedly, pointing to the sky, where thin wisps of smoke were still drifting, and laughed heartily when his Lord Chancellor said something to him.

Duke Cosimo stood a short distance away next to Duke Aldwin Whitehall, and for the first time in days, he seemed to have forgotten his political worries. His face glowed with enthusiasm as he gestured wildly and talked to the old warhorse.

“Just imagine, Whitehall,” Valentina heard him say, “if this flame power were turned against an enemy army. The enemy’s morale would be broken before the first sword was even drawn.”

The Duke of Edhel nodded grimly. “You’re probably right, Greystone. Too bad the Clairmontines have their own Essence Weavers…”

“Valentina,” the Duchess’s voice interrupted her observations. Rosalind had turned to her, and there was genuine curiosity in her green eyes. “You are the only one of us who truly understands what we have just seen. As an Essence Weaver, what do you say about this performance?”

Lady Beatrice also leaned forward with interest. “Yes, explain it to us. To me, it looked like… well, like a fireball.”

“It was brilliant,” Valentina said quietly. “They used… the air itself to compress the fire into a ball.” She hesitated for a moment. “But the amount of Distilled Essence they used… it could power Greystone Hospital for an entire season. Maybe longer. I’m not sure what I should think about that.”

A brief silence followed. Then the Duchess raised an eyebrow, and an amused smile played around her lips.

“Always the healer,” she murmured, but it didn’t sound reproachful.

Beatrice nodded thoughtfully. “An interesting perspective. I bet half the lords here are thinking of battlefields right now. I find it very refreshing that you’re thinking of sickbeds instead.”

Before Valentina could reply, she noticed a movement at the edge of her field of vision. Lady Agatha, the ice-grey mistress of the Order of the Primrose, was on her way back to the royal box, but she had slowed her pace as she passed the Greystone section.

Her piercing eyes found Valentina, and she stopped beside her.

“You have been watching closely,” Lady Agatha said without preamble. “What have you observed?”

Valentina’s heart beat faster, but she forced herself to remain calm. “The Poppy Weaver’s Luvt applications were… I understood the basic idea, I think. The compression of the air to contain the fire. But the actual configuration…” She shook her head. “I couldn’t follow it. The patterns overlapped in a way I’ve never seen before.”

Lady Agatha’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile, but close. “An honest assessment is better than pretending to understand everything.” She tilted her head slightly to one side. “The gap between what you learn at university and the frontiers of our knowledge about the scholarly art… that’s many years of hard work and research. But you have potential.”

Then she had moved on before Valentina could reply.

Meanwhile, a messenger in the colors of some minor house had pushed his way through to Duke Cosimo and whispered something in his ear. She saw her patron’s face darken and his eyebrows knit together in a frown.

The Duchess had noticed it too. Her gaze wandered to her husband, lingered there for a moment, and then she exchanged a meaningful look with Lady Beatrice.

“For someone who keeps saying how well everything is going, he’s been looking pretty grim since yesterday,” Vyxara murmured in Valentina’s head. “Whatever it is, it’s keeping him quite occupied.”

The herald stepped forward one last time. “Noble lords and ladies! The great tournament is over! Sir Gulbert Woundsworth is the winner of the joust and receives the prize of one hundred gold crowns!”

The crowd exploded in cheers as the Tower entered the field for the last time. He hadn’t even bothered to change his clothes, but came as he was, dusty and sweaty in his gambeson and completely indifferent to the ceremony.

A servant dressed in royal colors, who barely reached his chest, stepped forward and held out a heavy leather bag. The Tower took it with one hand, weighed it briefly, nodded curtly… and left.

“Tower! Tower! Tower!” chanted the crowd again as he strode away, and Valentina watched his massive figure disappear between the tents until she could no longer see him.

She wanted him.

“We’ll ask around to find out where he’s staying,” Vyxara said quietly. “We shouldn’t let too much time pass. Who knows when he’ll leave.”

The Greystone group gathered, and amid the general departure, they happened to approach the Ashbournes on their way to the carriages. Marquess Merrick nodded formally to Duke Cosimo, while Marchioness Alessandra exchanged polite words with Duchess Rosalind.

Lorenzo and Innogen stood side by side for a moment.

“An impressive performance,” Innogen said politely.

“Indeed.” Lorenzo nodded, but then his face twisted into a displeased expression that Valentina knew all too well. “However, with the amount of Distilled Essence they just shot into the sky, Greystone Hospital could have been run for months.”

Warmth spread through Valentina’s chest at his words, and Innogen raised her eyebrows in surprise. A genuine smile flitted across her lips. “That’s a surprisingly compassionate thought, Lord Lorenzo.”

“I am a healer,” he replied simply. “Our hospital is closer to my heart than-” he gestured dismissively toward the tournament field, “-that.”

Valentina and Innogen’s eyes met for a fleeting moment over Lorenzo’s shoulder, and they exchanged a brief, small smile.

Then the groups broke up, and the Greystones climbed into their carriages.

“An eventful day,” said the Duchess as she sank into the cushions. “The Essence Weaving display will be talked about for a long time to come.”

“It was a great tournament! The Tower was simply dominating,” Lady Beatrice agreed as she sat down next to the duchess. “Raw and unpolished, but so mercilessly effective. And then that pillar of fire! I certainly had fun today.”

Valentina nodded and murmured something in agreement, but her thoughts were already elsewhere. They were with the massive knight who had his quarters somewhere in this city, and how she would find him, and what she would do when she found him.

And from there, her thoughts drifted to Lady Agatha and the other Master Weavers of the Orders, and she thought of the years that lay ahead of her before she could do what they could do, and the still so huge distance between what she could already do and what was possible.

“There are shortcuts,” Vyxara whispered softly. “I could show you how to achieve the effect today with perhaps two-thirds of the Distilled Essence required. I can show you things that are not in any book in this entire realm, things that no professor or master teaches. You just have to be willing to take them.”

The carriage rumbled through the evening streets of Vandercourt, and when it finally came to a stop in the courtyard of the Greystone townhouse, the sun was already on its way down to the horizon.

The housekeeper, Dundee, was waiting for them at the door. “His Grace was only here briefly and left word that he and Lord Lorenzo will be returning late. Urgent business.”

A shadow flitted across the Duchess’s face, barely perceptible, but Valentina saw it. “Of course,” Rosalind said calmly. “Then we ladies will spend a quiet evening.”

Lady Beatrice gently placed her hand on the Duchess’s arm and murmured something soothing.

Valentina was grateful that she would have the night to herself. That way she would have time to think. And time to plan.

The Tower was waiting for her somewhere in this city.