Reiner had come back with a fresh drink and considerably less patience for pleasantries, dropping into his seat with the particular sigh of a man who'd spent the last twenty minutes being cornered by someone even more tiresome than himself.
"Don't ask," he said, before either of them had. "Some cousin of a cousin wanting an introduction to Grandfather. Everyone's got an angle these days."
"Everyone's always had an angle, Reiner." Dorian swirled his glass. "You've just gotten worse at avoiding them."
"I've gotten more important. There's a difference." Reiner waved a hand, dismissive, and settled back properly. "Speaking of angles — what's the actual mood among the houses right now? About the succession business. I hear things, but half of what I hear is nonsense dressed up as insight."
"Depends who you ask." Dorian considered it a moment. "It's a bit like a cat and a dog stuck in the same house, honestly. The bloodline faction thinks the republicans are mongrels sniffing around a throne that was never theirs to want. The republicans think the old families are cats — comfortable, useless, convinced the whole house exists to serve them just because it always has. Neither side particularly wants to share the same room, but neither side can leave it either."
"Charming image." Ilsa said it dryly. "Very flattering to everyone involved."
"I didn't say it was flattering. I said it was accurate." Dorian shrugged. "Grandfather thinks it'll settle itself the way it always has — slowly, expensively, with a great deal of posturing and very little actual bloodshed. I'm less convinced this time. The complacent ones have gotten bold in a way they weren't before the old emperor died."
Reiner grunted, unconvinced either way, more interested in his drink than the politics of it. "Well. However it settles, make sure I'm invited to whichever side wins. I've no interest in picking a losing horse this early."
"You'll be at the meeting next week regardless of who wins anything," Dorian said. "Grandfather specifically asked for you. And your family."
That got Reiner's attention properly. "All of them?"
"All of them. Sons included. He wants the whole branch present this time, not just you wandering in solo with an excuse for everyone else."
"Marta's up north." Reiner rubbed the back of his neck. "Overseeing the dragon preparations. You know how particular she is about that sort of thing — she won't trust anyone else to make sure the capture cages are sound, not with how much money's already gone into the campaign."
"Then she comes down for the week and goes back up after." Ilsa said it simply, without much room for argument in it. "The old man isn't asking for a courtesy visit, Reiner. He wants to see the boys. All of you, actually, together, in one room, which — given how rarely that happens — I'd take as more of a compliment than an inconvenience."
Reiner sighed, long and put-upon, though there wasn't any real resistance behind it. "Fine. I'll write to her tonight. She'll complain the entire journey down and then behave herself perfectly once she's actually in the room, same as always."
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"Sounds about right for most of us," Dorian said, and Reiner huffed something that was almost a laugh.
"What about the academy selections," Reiner said, changing the subject with the ease of a man who found politics tiring and gossip considerably less so. "I hear half the noble district's turning up to watch this cycle."
"More than half, probably." Ilsa counted it off without needing much thought. "House Ardennow is financing two candidates this year — cousins, I think, not direct sons. The Voss family's putting forward their heir apparent himself, which everyone's talking about, since old Voss has never once let that boy near anything dangerous before now. And House Calvray's been quietly courting three separate promising commoners to sponsor, which has certain older families rather offended, though nobody's said so directly."
"Calvray always did like buying loyalty cheap and selling it expensive later," Dorian said. "Can't fault the strategy. Just wish they were subtler about it."
"And of course," Ilsa added, "every house with a son or daughter under eighteen has to send someone regardless of whether they want to. The law doesn't care whose crest is on the door."
"Right." Reiner nodded slowly. "Even the crown, technically."
"Even the crown." Dorian said it plainly. "It's one of the older laws, and one of the few nobody's ever successfully argued around — every family, royal, noble, common, any child under the age gets tested. No exceptions bought, no exceptions inherited. Grandfather's grandfather apparently tried getting an exemption for a sickly cousin once and got laughed out of the room for the attempt. The law doesn't bend for blood. That's rather the entire point of it."
"Suppose that's one thing keeping the whole system from rotting completely," Reiner said, with the air of a man arriving at a conclusion he hadn't expected to reach. He drained the last of his drink and set the glass down with a decisive little click. "Speaking of things that keep systems from rotting — my construction business finally broke ground properly in Aurvantis last month."
"Aurvantis." Ilsa raised an eyebrow. "That's further south than I thought you were willing to go."
"Further south than I was comfortable going, if I'm honest, but the money's too good to ignore." Reiner said it with some genuine satisfaction now, the businessman surfacing briefly from underneath the horse-obsessed socialite. "The Meridian Dominion's expanding three of its port cities, and they need people who actually know how to build something that survives their coastal weather, which — no offence to the locals — half their own firms clearly don't. We've got contracts through the next four years if the first project goes well."
"That's actually impressive, Reiner." Dorian sounded faintly surprised to be saying it.
"I have layers," Reiner said, mock-offended, though pleased underneath it. "I'm not just horses and inconvenient cousins, you know."
"Could've fooled me," Ilsa said, and Reiner laughed properly this time, loud and easy, the sound carrying warm and unbothered through the low red light of the room.