SN Chapter 12

Setting her confusion aside, the ceremony was already proceeding in orderly succession.

At one point the Second Prince opened a thick volume and read aloud from it. At another, Knight Captain Stas called out something in a carrying voice and the assembled knights echoed it back in unison. Rosaline moved her lips without sound, following along.

Figures who resembled priests carried a wide worked basin to the altar and set it before the dais. The shallow white dish held clear water to its brim—water drawn from the lake lying directly before the laurel where Idelabheim's eagle perched. It was also called holy water. The water itself carried no particular power or efficacy; it was simply used, without exception, at every ceremony of significance. She had filed this.

The investiture began with those ascending from trainee to junior knight. The Prince withdrew, and Knight Captain Stas received their oaths in his place. Many mounted the dais and descended again. When the ceremony came to those ascending from junior to senior knight, the Prince who had stood aside stepped forward once more. Rikardis conducted these investitures himself. Every face turned upward and blazed with something—the order's knights gazing at the master of the White Night with eyes alight. After a long wait, Rosaline's name was called.

"Rosaline Ester of Redwheel. Come forward."

She walked as Kallix had taught her. One step, then the next. Not too wide, not too long, not too short. Chin drawn back, spine straight, eyes to the front—she recited his instructions in her head, a private loop running beneath the ceremony. She arrived before the dais, drew her sword, drove it into the ground, and knelt on one knee. Ready.

Rikardis stood at the center of the dais. Knight Captain Stas stood to his right, a priest to his left.

His gaze came down from above, and his brow shifted, just once, before he could stop it—but she had her head bowed and missed it entirely.

"Rosaline Ester of the White Night's junior knights. Swear your oath."

His voice, low and unhurried, resonated from somewhere above her head. Rosaline raised her eyes and opened her mouth.

"I, Rosaline Ester of Redwheel, wish to swear a true oath before the Glacial Laurus."

"I, Rikardis Dareux Illavénia, the Glacial Laurus, receive the oath of Rosaline Ester of Redwheel."

Their eyes met. His blue irises held hers without wavering. His expression was one that seemed to say, Well then. This celebrated oath of yours. Let us hear it.

"I, Rosaline of Redwheel, shall become the sword of Idelabheim that cleaves the Black Moon."

"Be thou the light of Idelabheim and cleave the Black Moon."

"I, Rosaline of Redwheel, shall protect the weak and serve the Empire with loyalty."

"Be thou the steadfast bulwark of the weak, the Shield that knows no fracture of Illavénia, and uphold all honor."

"Beneath the radiance of glorious Idelabheim, I swear to devote this life as knight of the Second Laurus."

"Beneath the radiance of Idelabheim's glory, I appoint Rosaline of Redwheel as senior knight."

Rikardis dipped his fingers into the water on the wide dish and drew them across her forehead in a single line. Rosaline closed her eyes at the cold touch, then opened them. Bright silver hair hung near her face. She lifted her chin slightly to see him.

Impassive eyes held her for a brief moment, then turned elsewhere—as though she had ceased to merit attention. Rosaline gave the final salute and returned to her place.

After that there was a brief ceremony—Raymond's appointment as adjutant to the vice-captain—followed by the new vice-captain's own investiture, the final item on the agenda. The moment all proceedings concluded, Rikardis left the dais without looking back.

Knight Captain Stas declared the ceremony closed. Before long the White Night Order knights in their white dress uniforms scattered and dispersed. Rosaline ran her fingers absently across her forehead. The trace of his touch had already dried and gone—but strangely, the cold of it lingered, vivid and precise, as though it hadn't quite decided to leave.

The days that followed were, contrary to expectation, tranquil.

Senior knight she might be, but there was never any chance a freshly promoted Rosaline would be assigned something as consequential as escorting the Prince. The work that came her way amounted to swordsmanship training and document processing—the documents finding their way, with the inevitability of water finding its level, to Raymond's desk.

He had been suffering under a murderous workload already, managing affairs as adjutant to an exacting vice-captain. Now he was burning through the nights to finish her portion of the paperwork as well. This lasted a day or two. Then the dark circles beneath his eyes deepened past any reasonable remedy—a corpse with only the most tenuous claim on vitality, barely animate. Even Rosaline, who could not always distinguish between human expressions, could recognize that this was serious. It was when she came to truly understand the meaning of the feeling called sorry.

"I'm sorry... I don't know how to do those."

Rosaline's crestfallen delivery very nearly brought Raymond to tears on the spot. In his heart he could have done her paperwork for ten thousand years without complaint—but that wasn't necessarily what was good for her. Give a hungry person a fish, or teach them to fish: there was a reason the saying existed. It was past time she settled into the White Night Order properly. Raymond manufactured a smile and gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

"It's all right. If you don't know, you learn—you're sharp, you'll pick it up quickly."

"Okay."

"I'll go to the library and borrow what you need. The training ground should be empty about now. Go practice your swordsmanship. You have been keeping up with it?"

"Yes. In my room. Every day. Whenever I have time."

Memory loss or no, her diligence had gone nowhere. Raymond handed her a bag of cookies from the capital's premier confectioner's. He had trained the hounds at Grandram Manor with reward treats just the same, and the comparison assembled itself in his head before he could intercept it. His mood suffered considerably. Either way, Rosaline accepted the chocolate chip cookies and ate them with unhurried enjoyment as she headed off toward the training ground, per his recommendation.

Rosaline had been following Raymond's advice and keeping her sword practice to her room—to minimize contact with other knights while her foundations were still incomplete, he'd explained. There was space enough to move. But what was absent: the smell of turned earth, the cool breeze that arrived as sweat rose, the high thin shrilling of insects in the grass at dusk. She had been noticing the absence.

The training ground was empty. The other knights would be taking a brief rest after their meal. Rosaline drew her sword. In her mind she shaped the images of two men. Raymond and Kallix moved through her thoughts on an endless loop—the long heavy sword dancing after their forms, fluid and easy, light as a butterfly's wing; then not, then descending weighted as a mountain.

Rosaline moved and broke the silence that had wrapped the yard. The foundational forms of Illavénian swordsmanship. She traced each movement with precise attention, walking the blade through at a pace that might frustrate any watching observer—deliberate past the point of toleration—but the movements touched something close to perfection. Sunlight caught the high knot of her black hair as it swayed. She found herself smiling without noticing. The breeze felt good.

She had been moving for some time when something worked its way into the clean edge of her perception. That same prickling quality of being watched she had been receiving since her arrival at the White Night Order—a texture like grit. Rosaline maintained her sword practice and traced the source. Several tall men in the distance, watching her steadily. The shape of their insignia identified them as junior knights. They stared at her, muttered between themselves, and snickered.

Rosaline knew. The formula—laughter equals good mood—was not a universal law. These men were making no effort to conceal what they felt about her. The rawness of it, combined with some quantity of accumulated human experience, told her something plainly: these were not people who wished her well. They wanted to find a crack in her. They were watching for the moment to work their way into it.

'You have many enemies, Sister. More precisely—you are walking into a place that has many enemies. You should go to the castle prepared for that.'

Everything Kallix said turned out to be right, without exception. She had enemies. Her own kind—same species, same uniform, same roof—circled her wanting to pull her down. Her nerves prickled. Rosaline's sword was still slow. It had grown very sharp.

The junior knights who had been watching her work through foundation forms from a distance moved with their full weight toward her—the bearing of men who owned the space. They were close enough that they reached her at the center of the training ground quickly. She sensed them coming and had to stop her practice before the form was complete.

All five saluted with fists pressed to their hearts. A young blond man with his mouth twisted sideways into something that functioned as a smile was the first to speak.

"Glory of Idelabheim, cleaver of the Black Moon. It has been some time, Dame Rosaline."

"The glory of Idelabheim be upon you all."

'The saving grace is that a knight order is a group with a very clear hierarchy.'

Kallix's voice and the smiling man's voice layered over each other like a floor slowly giving way.

"Congratulations on your promotion to senior knight. Most sincerely."

"Thank you."

"You might have given us some advance notice, you know. When I think back to the times we were assigned to the same unit together—well. It was... quite unimaginable. I hadn't even thought to send a gift. My sincere apologies."

'...with a very clear hierarchy...'

"......"

That doesn't seem right. The hierarchy does not appear to be particularly clear at all. Rosaline lodged a silent internal objection against the teachings of a past-tense Kallix. The blond man was in the process of picking a fight with her. It was blatant enough that even an unsubtle Rosaline could read it.