Chapter 2: Behind the Façade
Lyvia is far more politically savvy than those in Luthadel who regard her as a back-water city ingenue would ever suspect. While the city of Tremredare is small compared to the capital, through carefully chosen alliances, deft political maneuvering and carefully playing rival houses off one another, Lyvia was the secret power behind the entire city. Her informant network had eyes in every keep, and fingers in every deal, while never leaving a trail back to her. Under her benevolent if clandestine leadership, the city has prospered and her house coffers filled.
However Lyvia knew that her home town would always be too small for her, and set her sights on Luthadel. When a minor Luthadel Lord was temporarily assigned to Tremredare, she saw an opportunity to gain a foothold in the capital. As she and Tanniker courted, however, he was charming and engaging, and Lyvia found herself genuinely falling for him. He had a history as a philanderer, but promised her that was all behind him. He wouldn't even take skaa women anymore. She imagined a future as the new power couple within Luthadel.
Sadly, it was not to be. On returning to Luthadel, Tanniker turned out to expect Lyvia to "restrict herself to the feminine areas of nobility and leave the business dealings to those with a mind for it." Lyvia's access to the house finances were strictly limited, and he obstinately refused to even take suggestions from her on how to conduct house business, ignoring her far greater experience and abilities. Lyvia did what she could through social ties to limit the damage her husband did, but chafed under the lack of control and influence she had. Her own wealth and influence in her home city was greater than her husband's, but at such a great distance she had to manage her affairs via intermediaries, the long delay sapping her effective influence, her wealth infuriatingly out of reach.
She resolved that she could forgive Tanniker's well meaning ineptitude in business, forgive his patronizing and overprotective attitude to her, even forgive his blindness in recognizing what she was capable of in the service of her house… but one thing she could not forgive.
She could not forgive the skaa women.
The one thing Tanniker had promised, the one sacrifice he had vowed to make for her… and he had broken it before their first anniversary.
And with a skaa, to rub salt into the wound! An affair with another noble would have been a betrayal, but for him to choose to lie with a skaa over her… it was humiliating. She was one of the most beautiful women in the city, what skaa could possibly compare? But that wasn't the worst of it. That wasn't what hurt the most.
Had it been a noble, she could have believed him seduced, or seducing as part of some scheme, or even manipulated by some misting. But no skaa would seduce when their life would be forfeit before the dawn, no advantage could be secured from such an act… this was something he had chosen to do—something he forced—utterly selfishly. It was a slap in her face.
And it was such a waste.
Lyvia had never approved of the noble custom of taking skaa women and killing them afterwards. Her attitude towards skaa was progressive for Tremredare; for Luthadel it was outright benevolent compared to her peers. And Tanniker wasted so many good servants—good people—on his lustful whims. The encounters grew more frequent, less well concealed, as if he were growing more confident that she did not suspect.
Confident she was too stupid to catch him.
He would live to regret underestimating her and what she was capable of.
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