After listening to this narrative, Danjuma looked down at the golden manilla that he and many other noble scions wore on their wrists as a sign of their positions and wondered how much of this twaddle he could credit.

  No doubt that Chukwu did create all things, but what about this talk of the blood of a god being the source of Gold? It was without a doubt the most amazing of the three classes of metals (Earth and Moon being the other two), but he also knew the habit of these so-called priests of devoting themselves to endless genealogies and myths and not the stewardship of God.

  Regardless, he saw the man off with respectful farewells before turning back to the reason of his visit.

  Contrary to expectations, what followed was the most pointless of small talk; their separate travels, gossip of the local and harmless scandals among the nobility and even, briefly, on the many beautiful young mistresses both within and outside the clan. Garo, as the oldest by a significant margin, an important member of the Dari clan’s hierarchy and (if his faction were to be believed) the true heir apparent of the clan, was already in courtships for a first wife.

  The Elves, like most of the population of Reigina, were quite open to polygamy, as it aided in the begetting of suitable offspring. In fact, Garo and the younger pair were only half brothers, accounting for the almost decade of difference between the oldest and his immediate younger brother. This wasn’t seen as an overly important fact, though, as even third cousins often saw each other as brothers while simultaneously observing the necessary class differences between main and branch families. It was a scenario that seemed contradictory, but, as was often the case in this land, still occurred.

  Soon, the talk drifted to the immediate business, and Danjuma related the exact events of his trip.

  Garo expressed no feigned shock about this but instead admitted that he was aware of it. More than that, he pulled a few pieces of parchment and threw them onto the table.

  Observing them cursorily, Danjuma saw that they were strategic maps. To be precise, they were strategic maps that detailed the threat levels and migration patterns of the beasts on the routes he and his entourage had used for their hunt. Most importantly, they were different from the ones he had received before setting out for the journey.

  Rather than denying cognisance of the event, he was throwing the evidence of his own meddling out at the slightest prompt. The younger brother, despite knowing of his elder’s bluntness and disregard for guile, was properly shocked at this level of boldness. After all, this could easily be interpreted as making a move on elders of the Dari clan.

  The warm yet determined amber eyes stared back at him without any indication of fear or guilt. Danjuma, a young master armed with many gifts, including his silver tongue, found himself stymied by this boldness. All his plans to eke out information from him through subtlety and cunning had gone out the window with this fearless action of his.

  As expected, he thought resentfully, he is far more deserving of the name Lion.

  The second young master leaned back into the plush material of the chair and let himself feel at ease in what could only be described as an over-comfortable posture. All the refinement and poise he had been displaying earlier had evaporated faster than drops of water on a heated pan.

  “Aciyau and Afiri both perished.”

  The words were nearly sighed out.

  “I’m truly sorry.”

  “Brother,” he said, his voice reflecting the tiredness of his posture like a mirror, “why don’t we put an end to this already?”

  Garo listened to his words attentively, as though eager to hear what his brother planned.

  “For now, it is servants, but it won’t be long till we have no choice but to shed the blood of our own brothers. I’ve never grudged you the right to be clan lord or envied our father’s seat, and I promise not to be an obstacle on your path… there’s still time to turn back.”

  Tap.

  Tap.

  Danjuma’s eyes had turned downwards during his entreaty for peace, and it was the curiously sharp sound of his brother’s sandals on the carpeted floor that made him aware that he had gotten up to walk towards him.

  “My dear brother,” he said, placing that solid and wide hand on his shoulder, those amber eyes that, while not as striking as his brother’s, held an indescribable wideness, looking at him with no small measure of remorse, “what you ask for is impossible.”

  The latter looked up despairingly, but not without hope, knowing that his brother still had more to say.

  “The role of Sabo,” he began, “and this our gruelling means of selection isn’t just to sift the chaff as it were.”

  He stood before the large map on the side of the spacious room.

  “The only constant in this realm is inconstancy,” he said, “day after day, the boundaries of our territory shift as a result of attacks from the Bori, the increased activity of beast hordes and even our fellow Elves. If we do not signal to everyone that we’re strong enough to hold onto what we have, we’ll lose everything.”

  “To him that has, he will have more, and the weak will lose even the little he has.”

  Garo nodded in acknowledgement of his brother’s words.

  This was the philosophy of the Lion.

  Jan Zaki wasn’t merely a clan but a consortium of the nine great Elven clans of Reigina, headed by their nine clan lords. They were a community of interests, but even though they cooperated and protected each other, the infighting was brutal.

  They were not called the red lion without reason.

  The successor exams (called simply Sabo for firstborn) were not simply used to determine the next clan lord, but in the negotiations for the quotas on shared resources among the lions. If the successor appeared vulnerable, his brothers would exploit this weakness through lobbying and conflict.

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  “So, we must shed our own blood to avoid it being shed by outsiders?”

  Crack!

  The sound of wood tearing apart sounded out as the solid work desk that the eldest son of Dari had been seated at imploded.

  The culprit stood with a furrowed brow, barely able to express himself through his gritted teeth.

  “What sort of cruel joke is that?”

  Even the usually stalwart Garo couldn’t help but give an expression of sympathy at the state of his brother.

  “It’s certainly cruel, if not funny,” he replied, “but it’s impossible to change these things just because you don’t like them. Unless, of course, you’re sufficiently powerful.”

  The warm contact of his hand stirred Danjuma from the whirl of his turbid thoughts and called his eyes once more to that solid face.

  “You must grow strong, Danjuma. Only the mighty can do away with these things.”

  Not long after, the two brothers said their farewells. During their conversation, the younger had come to discover that his brother actually had urgent business and had only stayed behind because he had expected a visit from his strong-willed sibling. A rather weary apology for the inconvenience left the latter’s mouth as he left his brother to his affairs and returned to the wing where he would be staying for the time being.

  I came in with all that momentum and ended up being the one apologising?

  These and other such reflections tinged with the unmistakable flavour of self-mockery were his only accompaniment as his gentle steps traced the length of the hallway.

  In reality, it was often this way. Despite his excessive talents, he had never been one to jump into an altercation. Especially, as was the case now, when it wouldn’t yield any results. After all, even if he could best his brother physically, the two dead servants wouldn’t come back, and neither would the bloody battle the brothers had been forced to wage be called off… Unless he was willing to kill him.

  Even then, nothing would be solved by that. Successors were forbidden from directly harming or killing one another with very few exceptions. The penalty was beyond severe but still manageable if the offending successor was judged to be much more valuable than the victim.

  Danjuma, despite his preeminent talents, was not entirely prepared to bet on his ability to defeat his brother, so that option could only remain in the aether of his imagination for the time being.

  He had stopped walking at this point.

  He was caught up in his conflicted and often half-formed thoughts, drawn in every direction with scarcely a prayer at a solution.

  Fight.

  Run.

  Surrender.

  Fury.

  Revenge.

  Succession.

  His arm shook slightly, but he quickly caught himself, remembering that it was unseemly for a noble scion to lose control in such a manner.

  Noble scion, he thought, mockingly.

  Even the plebeian populace of this perilous land knew how to value family and blood ties, but the apparently enlightened nobility found themselves without that same sympathy for flesh and blood, calculating contributions and currency over kinship.

  In a manner that betrayed the naivety of youth, he yearned for the simple life that he, as one who had never lived it, painted with an overly idealistic palette. Who hasn't entertained such thoughts at least once in their lives? Thoughts of leaving behind the tedium of a regular life and escaping into some remote utopia.

  Another rueful smile appeared on his face. He wondered if his brother had ever entertained such thoughts. They had been much closer when he was younger, but he had never recalled, in all the idle and yet uniquely stimulating talk of children, any expression of some desire for anything outside the clan. In all honesty, his eldest brother had never been one to complain about anything, unless it was something meaningless and mostly unobserved by most others.

  Feeling that he had spent enough time in fruitless meditation, the young master crossed the rest of the hallway in a few strides and decided to check on his injured servants. He gave the door he had just left one last glance before saying goodbye to it from that point on.

  “He’s rather shaken," a voice rang out from inside that same abandoned room, prompting the eldest Dari clan heir to regard them with a neutral expression before speaking.

  “He’s always been averse to conflict that posed a challenge to him," was the dry reply, “the conditions I created in this scouting trip forced him to make a move though… the elder assembly has already taken note of him.”

  “I’ve never seen someone so determined to fight his own brothers,” the person said with a smile. “It was definitely possible for you to reach an arrangement with the others. Young master Danjuma’s unwilling to fight, and Busa’s a bit too much of a coward to resist some opportunity for peace.”

  It wasn’t uncommon for compromises to be made in successor exams. Especially in cases where one of the successors was the favourite for the position. Rather than make meaningless sacrifices, both sides would agree to support one another in exchange for benefits down the line.

  Garo merely smiled at this and waved his hand.

  The gesture had the most curious effect as it swept away all the debris from the ruined desk away like an eraser on pencil marks. To an observer, it was as though there had been no object there moments ago.

  The figure, still obscured in some corner, couldn’t help but gulp at this display of power.

  “Are you a gambling man?”

  Garo’s question pulled them back into the conversation.

  “Not generally, but I’m never one to turn down a good wager.”

  “I am,” Garo said with his smile, “it’s perhaps my only vice.”

  The person he addressed listened without any suggestion of interrupting.

  “I consulted a diviner years in the past, and they told me that my path was one of austere simplicity. In order to preserve my Dao-heart,[1] I have abstained from drink, women and everything I saw as a deviation from this simple life my Chi had suggested to me.”

  “Still, I was drawn to this particular pastime inexplicably.”

  His expressions didn’t differ greatly, and he seemed to always be in that almost placid state of self-contentment, but his brown eyes held almost the entirety of his personality in them; shifting and glowing subtly, becoming almost dreamy as he continued his apparently pointless story.

  “It started in perfect innocence and idleness, but it was something that quickly built a room in my house of habits. I’ve also discovered that it’s affected my mindset (you cannot touch pitch without blackening your hand after all).”

  “Affected in what way?” his companion asked, noticing the young master’s silence.

  “I cannot stand to be bored,” he said at once, placing his hand over his brow in a gesture of faux embarrassment.

  “I have no interest in tedium or the day-to-day. Promises and alliances just for the sake of avoiding conflict would be the death of me. I need to put everything on the line. Yes, despite the talent I have for statecraft, the Dao has revealed to me that I’m made for the simple life. I’m meant to fight and conquer and kill and be killed when my time comes. If I ever engage in plotting and scheming, it won’t be to avoid conflict in some sheepish way but to raise the stakes.”

  He turned to the now flabbergasted man who shared the room with him.

  “In short, it’s no use betting if you don’t bet it all!”

  His guest acknowledged these words with some horror but reflected that the Dao was various and scarcely revealed itself to different people in the same way. Besides, his show of power earlier was evidence that he wasn’t just blowing smoke.

  Should I get into gambling? He asked himself, mostly joking.

  “Anyway, I’ll be setting out now. I’ve wasted enough time just observing things here. There’s still much to be done.”