The tournaments we play.

He watched them all leave his room with a frown. Maybe it had been something about Talia's comment, but he couldn't help feeling this wide gap between him and them. It yawned even wider now.

Then he saw Aric skulking at the back of the group. Something in him just couldn't take it anymore. He'd tried his best to let the m resolve their issues, and even if he didn't like Aric personally, the wretch was an important cog in the wheel that was the six claws mercenary crew.

"Aric, a moment, if you would?"

The man only glowered back at him, but he stopped moving forward. Talia looked back with a tinge of concern but then seemed to think better of it. Was she angry with him over something too?

James couldn't be sure. Aric stood in front of him without so much as a word for a time. Then James sighed and deigned to begin the discussion.

"What is your problem man? I admit, you're not one of my favorite people currently, but that's extremely personal. I don't tend to mix business with pleasure, so I'm not happy seeing how you're treating your crew mates."

"They want to kick me out!" Cried Aric, "and it's not even my fault!"

"And whose fault is it, mine?" James asked.

The silence was his only answer. He sighed. Aric was more useless than he'd first imagined.

"Mania did it too. And Jonas as well. Why am I the only one getting kicked out? It isn't fair," Aric complained.

James palmed his face. "Man, you're a useless guy. Tell me, since Talia decided to kick you out, have you made an attempt to try and change her mind? Have you asked anyone about it? Have you even thought of what you might have done wrong?"

"I've done nothing wrong!" he exclaimed. " Or nothing more wrong than any of the others."

James sighed again. "I always thought of you as the most evenly tempered of the lot, but all your decisions lately, even this whole refusing to take responsibility."

James shook his head disbelievingly.

Aric looked at him with something akin to guilt for the first time since he'd ever known him. Then his defiant demeanor returned.

"Why the hell do you even care?!" he shouted.

James wanted to smile, but he couldn't quite. This is where he'd wanted to lead him, but he was finding he himself didn't know quite why he cared. It was all very confusing.

"I don't know, okay! It's just... you guys have fought together for years. You're practically family. As a person whose basically never had one, I feel bad for you wasting what you have. Even if I hate your guts, seeing you hurt your family because you're too thick headed to realise banishing you hurts them too!"

He stopped himself. He hopped Aric didn't focus too much on what he'd said about having never had a family. After all, James Halden did have a family that loved him and all.

But he'd never accepted their love, he realised. No matter that he'd craved it, James had prevented himself from getting too entangled with his family. And now he'd just let these people think he saw them as nothing more than pawns.

Well for some, like Jason and Rayne, that was true. But he really wanted a deeper relationship with Talia. He'd already given up on the idea of friendship with Hansworth by now, but he'd recently held a kind of hope he and Mary could see eye to eye. He sighed. Wishful thinking aside, he had work to accomplish this night. If Aric was a lost cause, then so be it.

"Get out, I have to dress up," he said.

And so he did. James only put on a simple shirt and jacket and left with only his mercenaries in tow. This time he'd had them all dress in his house's colours. The morning was to be spent watching the knights tournaments. .

At least for him it was. Hansworth and the rest had to do last minute preparations, which meant a few more hours of sleep for Mary, a bit of warm up for Hansworth, and a bit of meditation for the bludgeoning sage. He didn't know what kind of preparation Jason would favour.

Being the son of a Duke, he had a special booth in which he and his escorts, or most trusted bannermen, would sit. Too bad he didn't have any such people in his circle. His was the most isolated booth in all the arena. Even more so than the Bladhaven booth from which lady Crescida was missing.

He pretended to pay attention to the jousts, cheered loudly like some sort lf drankard. He even had a glass on a stool next to him which he'd occasionally set to his lips. He was barely drinking any though. He only had it here to maintain a certain image. One he didn't even like.

Then lady Bladhaven came. She didn't have a huge entourage with her. Just a few guards, and that one huntress James remembered from a few days ago.

And she wasn't going to her own special booth. James very much wanted to curse. Was she coming to his own isolated sitting area? This was going to spawn all kinds of rumours, not to mention attract too much attention when James would rather remain incosenquential.

"I really feel like a game, lord Halden," the woman smiled at him.

He looked away quickly, grabbing his glass and this time taking a real sip.

"You do know that there are real games happening just in front of us, don't you?"

She'd come let enough that only one joust was left, and now they'd let the knights rest in favour of having a few warrior types go at it in a melee field.

She frowned at him. "You want us to bet on the outcome of the melee. Or the jousts. We both hardly know the competitors, so that will be the greatest test of chance. Are you sure that's what you want? After all, the winner gets to make a demand of the loser."

James frowned. This was not going as smoothly as he would have liked. He would have preferred a quiet afternoon of gazing at pointless fights, a quiet evening of everyone ignoring him at the fete, and then a city in chaos as his triggers were one by one set off.

He hadn't slept well the night before. Ge didn't have a lot of brain power to waste on interacting with people.

"What do you suggest?" he asked quietly.

"How about a game of chess?" and the huntress produced a board she'd been hiding in the folds of her brand new dress which so did not suit her.

James groaned. He did not want to tax his brain any much more than he had to. Besides, hadn't he given Crescida a way to save her family? Why the hell was she trying to humiliate him now? Everyone knew how she was a specialist at the game. She probably didn't think James was any better than competent. Perhaps he'd embarrass her instead if she kept underestimating him.

James stared at the board, then at Crescida Bladhaven. Her house was about to fall to her fiancé. What the hell was she doing targeting him? And the bloody attention.

Beating her would gunner even more attention. But he was getting angry. What was she doing, spitting his gift back at him? That had been a possibility, but he didn't know why it now pained him so much. He focused on the board even as he plowed through her pieces mercilessly.

"I didn't expect you to be this good," she commented. "And what an aggressive play style? Perhaps —"

Her words trailed off. James realised she was staring at him, and so he meant to return it levely. Even her frowning face seemed too much for him though. He couldn't hide his gritted teeth.

"You seem to misunderstand my intentions here," she started.

"I understand that we have nothing to speak about, my lady. I've humoured your challenge, and after I beat you, we can count this thing over, can't we?"

"Not quite. If you want me to be a tinsy bit forceful, then I will. You promised me a favour, remember?"

"And I gave you a very important pawn. I don't see what else you may want," he gritted his teeth.

She sighed. "Let's say I didn't believe your information. I'm going to demand another favour from you."

James moved his bishop. He could see what she no doubt could. She was a genius at strategy games after all. In a few moves James would win this. He could feel the eyes of multitudes on him.

"I want you to dance with me tonight," she said, and James's mind went blank.

There was a smattering of red on her cheeks, and she couldn't quite look at him anymore. James didn't say anything. He hardly seemed to so much as breathe. At least in his own estimation. She continued speaking.

"It will make a lot more sense if the victor of this bout set the terms, and since I'm the challenger, I think that should be me. I win, and then I demand you dance with me. I will demand it even if I lose, so really..." she shrugged.

James moved his bishop the wrong way, and not because he'd intended to, or because her lacklustre reasoning had done him in. He was as surprised as everyone else when he lost.