Ch 2.93: Cash

“No!” the chorus rang in Elaina’s ears, from Carly, Prisma, and even Flora.

“It’s true!” Shein said, looking in between the trio and Elaina. “Wait, are you with the capital?”

“It’s not that,” Flora said, conflict in her voice and manner both. “Do you have any idea what you’re suggesting? There are dozens, hundred of guards on the castle grounds at any time, any number of high ranking officials with aspects as strong as ours even with—”

“Even with us being Endrin students,” Tira said, stepping on Flora’s foot. “And not to mention the king himself, the crown prince too. We wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“Is the king really that strong though?” Elaina asked. She wasn’t arguing that the idea as a whole sounded good, not even that it sounded possible, but they had classes now. The king was supposed to be strong, but shouldn’t they be beyond that, or close, at least?

“More than you could know,” Prisma said. “My father’s there often too, Waine’s father, all the ministers and generals. It’s not even a remote possibility we could win in a fight.”

“Hmmm,” Temmie buzzed in the corner, though Elaina couldn’t exactly engage her in conversation in front of Shein.

“I’m not talking about fighting them,” Shein said. “Surely you know that’s not my style? Imagine what we could do, your connections and knowledge, my support network and aspect.”

For all their protestations earlier, that did actually cause the rest of the party to consider the idea. “There’s still no way,” Elaina said. “It’s going to be hidden, just like… the others. We can’t just go in with no idea of where it is.”

“And that’s where I come in, with myriad spies and others at my disposal, I can narrow things down.”

“How?” Tira said still obviously not convinced in either the plan or Shein as a person.

“There are tunnels, secret passages in the castle that are hundreds, thousands of years old even. Escape routes, storage, dungeons, most left untouched for generations. There are still patrols down there, but that isn’t a problem with me by your side, and I have a lead on getting a map to them. It’s not going to have a giant ‘X’ on the subcore, but it’s a start. Reference that with patrol routes, find the places nobody goes anymore, and suddenly we have a much better start at things.”

“How long?” Elaina asked.

Shein thought to herself for a moment then shrugged. “Months. Longer, perhaps. These aren’t fast moving things. I only heard about the subcore stuff so quickly because it was such a big fuss that everyone in the know has heard of it at this point.”

Tira shook her head. “Months is too long. Even if this stuff could’ve been figured out in a week, that’s far too long to let her live.”

Let her live. Tira wasn’t beating around the bush anymore.

“Now hold on,” Shein said, shaking her head at the turn the conversation had taken. “What danger am I at this point? You have your subcore, you have the same level of information I have.”

“We can’t kill her,” Flora added, stepping in between Tira and Shein, even though the former wasn’t making any overt threats. “Not like this, not defenseless. If it happens in battle, it’s one thing, but this…”

It seemed a three person argument, Prisma and Carly both looking on with apprehension, though neither taking a side. Elaina herself, she didn’t know what to say either.

“I could’ve killed you when you entered the building,” Shein said. “Could’ve done anything, yet you all trusted I wouldn’t go that far then, right?”

“Only cause you wanted something from us. But now that you can’t get it your way, what’s to stop you from trying to take it by force? Like you did barely an hour ago?”

Shein’s eyes narrowed, the sides becoming points that Elaina was almost worried could cut. “I came unarmed, trying to get the subcore back as leverage. Was that theft? Yes, that’s one of my tools, a tool I was willing to use to level the field and get back to a state where we could negotiate on more equal terms, but we wouldn’t have gotten there in the first place if you lot hadn’t made me collapse on stage. Gods, I told you before my people thought I was dead, but I was pretty sure I was dying myself too!”

“I’ll make the decision,” Elaina said, turning all eyes in the room towards her. “Unless we want to make it a vote, but it doesn’t seem like Prisma or Carly have anything they want to add, so I’ll be the decider. It’s obvious neither of you two are going to change your minds, but I still haven’t decided yet.”

Neither Flora nor Tira seemed to back down at first, and Carly kept her head low. The first response was from Prisma, saying, “I don’t think I really should have a say anyway.”

“Elaina,” Tira said. “Killing doesn’t even have to be it. We can hold her somewhere, you can keep her locked up. There’s plenty of places we could keep her captive.”

“Or just turn her in,” Flora said. “The town guard are still looking for her, and—”

“That doesn’t matter,” Elaina said. “The real danger is how much she knows, not what she can do to us. Giving her over to the guards is probably the worst thing we can do, honestly.” She walked over, Flora stepping out of the way as she stood in front of Shein, looked directly in her eyes.

“Tell me, why did you want to kill us when you thought we were ‘dogs’ of the kingdom, as you said. Why then, but not now?”

Shein took a moment, but wasn’t thinking about her answer, Elaina knew. She was confused by the question itself, the motive behind it, why that mattered. “Because Endrin is usually full of noble shits, people looking to get ahead for themselves at any cost, or help the throne at any cost for the glory and prestige, so long as it doesn’t hurt them, of course. I thought the same of your group for a while, honestly.

“That’s not who you are though, at least. Strask too, murderous intentions aside. It’s honestly rare, cause the non-noble students are often the worst about it, I find, but you two are different. Your exhibitionist friend here is mostly in your camp, Forsythe is halfway there. The only one I don’t think you’ve made a great deal of progress with there is Fireguard here.”

Prisma looked offended at that comment, visibly bit her lip, but she didn’t retort.

“We’re not going to give you any of the subcores,” Elaina said. “If that’s what you think this relationship is going to be, tell me now.”

Shein did wrinkle her nose at that, but eventually she sighed and nodded. “I suppose I have lost so thoroughly that I should expect that. Tell me, these aren’t just valuable as trinkets, are they? They do something, something dangerous, powerful.”

Elaina didn’t answer verbally, but a quick glance back at her party was all it took to have Shein nodding again.

“I thought so, from the sounds of it. I can’t take on this venture with no payment with how much I’m risking, how many favors and debts I’d accrue making it, but it honestly sounds like the subcores are more trouble than they’re worth, at least for me. I’m sure there’s plenty of ways to make a trip to the castle worth my while though, so if you let me loot whatever else I can, we can do this together still. I’ll pay off my debts, recoup my investments, and maybe make a little profit, and we both get that orb out from under King Stormshine’s nose. Otherwise, I have to take back my offer, regardless of the consequences. I’d rather die at your hands than those of capital-level loan sharks, I’m sure.”

Elaina had made her choice. “She lives. We’ll take turns keeping watch over her tonight, won’t let her out of our sight. Tomorrow I’ll chain her to something in here while we leave, and it’ll dissipate a bit after we’re gone.”

Flora and Tira both sighed, though Elaina was pretty sure only one was in relief. “I’ll keep first watch,” the former said.

Tira looked angry, not necessarily the angriest Elaina had seen her, but what was shocking was who she was angry at. Not Shein, not Flora, but Elaina herself. For a moment Elaina thought the gritted teeth, red face and intense eyes were going to overflow, that shouting was about to start, but eventually she just said, “Watch her bracelet, at all times. We need to tie her up too just in case.”

Elaina sighed at that, too finally feeling like it was over. It wasn’t, not technically, but they’d already managed to keep Shein tied up through the night once before in the forest, so she wasn’t worried about that.

“Uhm, question,” Prisma eventually said, looking around. “If there’s only two rooms like this, and one bed in each, how are we going to sleep?”