The whisper network is like fight club.

 

The whisper network is hard to define. In its simplest format it is just the way that rumors spread. The reality of it is far more terrifying. It is primarily run by women. It has many layers and is broken up by social hierarchy, wealth, politics, power, and prestige. While the government is run by men, society is run by women.

 

Yes, the king has the power to raise arms, declare war, and have people put to death, but a single word from the queen can leave your entire family ostracized. A yawn can destroy a playwright's career as nobody will buy another ticket to your play. If she buys a dress from a tailor, his business will become flooded with requests. If she looks ill while eating your food, not only will you never cook in the capital again, but whatever dish you made might not be ordered again at a restaurant for years to come.

 

It is thought that the crown prince is a part of the selection process for who will be his bride, but nothing could be further from the truth. Many different power brokers clash with each other trying to put forth their candidate as the crown prince's future queen. While the next king is almost always selected by birth order, there is some wiggle room. Until a crown prince is actually crowned king, anything can change.

 

So if the queen wants one particular son to be the king, she needs to get him some proper support. 

 

The process by which the queen whittles down the candidates is brutal in a fashion that makes any battlefield look tame in comparison. The irony is, most men are not only ignorant of this, but all the women involved make a point of making sure that men in general never notice what is going on. If you can't keep the selection process secret, what hope do you have being queen?

 

Which brings us to the daughter of Duke Darkwold, Lilith Darkwold.

 

The Darkwold family was not the queen's first choice, but Lilith showed a skill and talent for social manipulation that utterly crushed her enemies. The queen even went through the effort of actively acting against her just to see how well she would fair when put under pressure. A fair number of people turned on Lilith when the wind changed direction, but Lilith never gave up. She made it a mission to utterly destroy anyone who dared come between her and becoming the fiancee to Crown Prince Arthur Dracosbane.

 

Boy, were people surprised when the queen did an abrupt one eighty and selected Lilith for the process.

 

The queen was no fool. She knew her son was lacking in the social department. Yes, he was strong, noble, and in many ways looked like a proper king... from the outside.

 

The queen couldn't help but notice that her son lacked her husband's talent for reading a room. The king, for all his many... many flaws... knew how to make friends. He knew how to gain the trust of the people. He knew how to work the room, be they commoners or nobles or a room full of generals as they are fighting a losing war.

 

Her son lacked this quality.

 

But Lilith did not. She would be an excellent steward for her son. Help him rule just like she had for her husband. Sure, he made mistakes, but all men do. The point was to make sure it all works out in the end. Lilith had what it took.

 

As soon as Lilith got the head nod, her future was assured. Power. Prestige. Everyone would bow down to her. She had her followers and only kept the ones that had proven to be most loyal. They were her arms and legs. They were her eyes and ears. They were an extension of her will. Why? Because Lilith was well on her way to become the most powerful woman in the nation and they would be second only to her. They would BE the whisper network. All the years of toil and suffering would be worth it. The best husbands. The best positions. The best of everything! They just needed to wait.

 

Then along came the saintess.

 

No one could figure her out. Some women speculated that she was just retarded. That she was insane or brain damaged. It didn't matter. The saintess was a breath of fresh air. She cut right through the bullshit of society telling forbidden truths and acting in a fashion that made no sense.

 

Yet, somehow, it kept working out for her.

 

It was like she could see the future. Hell, maybe she could. Regardless, she very quickly developed a protective circle of men who made sure she was safe from repercussions. This included the prince. He explained to Lilith that the saintess was important. Without her, the demon lord would win, so she needed to be protected. There was nothing between him and Pricilla Pureheart, as far as romance was concerned.

 

Except everyone around them kept saying there was.

 

The funny thing is, it sure appeared that Pricillia didn't WANT a relationship with Arthur. She didn't seem to want a man in her life, period. She was, indeed, the chosen of the Church of Mira, a good person who wanted to do good deeds and help people. She was nice, kind, and clueless about society. Her dress styles were insane. She ignored the rules entirely. What was worse, nothing phased her! She was unflappable! Which might have been the problem.

 

Word got back to Lilith that the Saintess was 'real', and Lilith was... not.

 

This set Lilith off. She confronted the prince and in the end only managed to figure out that what made Pricillia so appealing was that she WASN'T Queen Material. It took three days for Lilith to recover from that little bout of nonsense.

 

And so began Operation: Destroy The Saintess.

 

The only thing that matched the scale, depth, and extent of how far the plan went to destroy the saintess, was how large a monumental failure it was. Nothing she did so much as scratched the saintess. Nothing bothered her. Nothing phased her. She just kept coming. Since nothing was working, she finally decided to lay down the law. She confronted Pricillia alone in a deserted part of the campus where they could finally have this out.

 

And then Reed came out of nowhere and grabbed Lilith’s boobs.

 

It completely derailed the conversation at just about the time she was about to get down to business. Then a bunch of people showed up looking for Reed. It was as if someone was looking out for the saintess. Maybe some divine power was.

 

After that, things just got strange. Lilith backed off to try and figure out the situation. Nothing made sense and Reed's actions? Even less so. She made sure nobody found out about her getting felt up, but that little incident drove Reed's sister insane. Well, Lilith isn't the only manipulator in the kingdom. Some time later, Reed found himself humiliated at the freshmen dance.

 

Lilith had not planned it, but accepted it as the gift that it was. A suitable punishment for Reed's actions. While she didn't plan it, she approved it, after the fact. If she had any idea what approving the action retroactively would have resulted in, she would have thrown herself at Reed's feet and begged for his forgiveness.

 

Lilith didn't know it at the time, but she was considered by most to BE the next queen and thus the queen's chosen successor. That meant that what Lilith did, The Queen approved. With Lilith approving the utter humiliation of Reed at the dance, that gave the signal to others that Reed was now fair game. Thus Baron Akar took this as a green light to destroy Reed. Thus the kidnapping and the trap.

 

If he HAD succeeded in destroying Reed, the whole thing would have been swept under the rug. But Reed was not destroyed, in fact, he utterly obliterated the entire Akar FAMILY. When the Baron's wife came to the queen begging for help, the truth came out and she quickly realized where the mistake was. Alas, it was too late to reverse things, so she cut the Akar family loose and made sure to spread the rumors that made Aldelmo the hero of this event, thus shifting the blame to the Second Prince.

 

The queen called Lilith to the palace and they had tea together. The conversation was pleasant chit-chat about nothing important. You'd think this wouldn't be a problem, except for the one black rose in the middle of the floral arrangement. Most people wouldn't understand what this meant. Lilith did. When she finally left the palace, she ordered her driver to pull over so she could vomit.

 

‘I will no longer protect you.’

 

Lilith didn't even fully understand what had happened. She didn't know where she screwed up, so she had no idea how to fix things. It wasn't until school started for the spring semester that she finally figured out it had something to do with Reed. She was close to putting all the pieces together when the tournament happened. This might not have been totally a bad thing, except that one of Lilith's followers' fiance was the one who ‘lost’ Reed and Aldelmo's application to be in the tournament. He didn't get approval to do this from his betrothed and certainly NOT from Lilith. He just did it because.... funny!

 

Then the attack happened.

Then Reed saved everyone.

Then the headmaster, pissed off that he didn't get to show off his prize student in front of all the visiting dignitaries, investigated.

Then a certain fiance got kicked out of the academy so hard he bounced.

 

It was done rather quietly, not because the headmaster wanted to avoid a scandal, but because he was certain that if Reed heard about it, he'd beg for the headmaster to let the kid stay in school.

 

The headmaster was not letting this go. As far as the headmaster was concerned, if it wasn't for Reed's odd habits, he wouldn't have been in the stadium during the attack. If there was no Reed, then there wouldn't have been such an easy take down of the demons. That student's 'harmless' prank could have killed hundreds, maybe thousands. There was no way the headmaster was going to spare this moron.

 

None of this was Lilith's fault, of course, but the queen had made it clear that she was not protecting Lilith, so it was open season. The incident spun out of control so hard the stars in the sky started moving out of place. Anyone with an axe to grind was pulling out all the stops. It was the perfect storm as everyone wanted to take down the top bitch. In fact, there were quite a few who wanted to replace Lilith with Pricillia, not because she'd be a better queen, but because she'd be absolutely no threat whatsoever.

 

The Whisper Network would be up for grabs.

 

Reed's star was in ascendance and everyone wanted a piece of him. Reed was turning down EVERYONE. He wasn't making friends with ANY side. What was worse, he wouldn't say why. The whisper network thrives in places where there is no information.

 

Before you knew it, the problem was Lilith. You couldn't blame the queen. You couldn't blame the crown prince. Lilith was clearly the highest up the ladder you could go, and so everyone set their sights on her. In desperation she sent her followers out to try and shift the blame. Lucinda would have to take one for the team.

 

When Lilith found out that they almost KILLED Lucinda and it was only the timely intervention of Reed that saved her life, Lilith thought about taking her own life. If Lucinda HAD died, Lilith would be blamed and more than likely wind up in jail. If Lucinda had merely been hurt and it couldn't be covered up, Lilith would be looking at expulsion, and she'd also be looking at her betrothal to the prince being annulled. She could count on Lucinda and the others to keep quiet, but not Reed.

 

Reed owned her.

 

Reed now possessed the very evidence he needed to completely shatter Lilith's life. She was totally beholden to him. She would have to play whatever crazy mind game he had for her. So when he said meet me for lunch in the cafeteria, she went.

 

She had no choice.

 

She sat there, waiting for the end, glancing around the room to see the many who had gathered to watch. This was it. The end of Lilith. Reed was well known for his temper. He was a barbarian. He was a monster. He punished those who wronged him and everyone was going to watch this and ENJOY IT.

 

So it came as a complete surprise when Reed bowed his head to her and begged for her forgiveness.

 

Nobody knew why. Nobody knew what had happened, but what everyone knew was that Reed Demonslayer bows to no one, save the king and Charity. He might be rude, he might be crude, he might offend in a hundred different ways, but one thing was clear, No one save the king or Reed’s maid could tame the Demonslayer.

 

And now Lilith was added to that very short list.

 

Not only that, but he fed her. Fortunately he let go of the spoon after she closed her mouth around it. If he had not, the First Prince and Reed would have had a duel that very afternoon, and it would most likely have been to the death. Letting go of the spoon at the last second was basically running right up to that line then stopping just before you stepped over, and instead dangling your foot over said line while saying over and over, "I didn't step over it!" in a sing-song voice. Reed, as far as everyone else was concerned, flat out told the world, "If you ever find yourself no longer betrothed to the Crown Prince, I will marry you."

 

Lilith was no fool. She could tell that Reed had no idea what he had done. He didn't mean THAT, judging by his facial expression and body language. She wasn’t certain he even understood the meaning behind what he did. Immediately after he pointedly included his sister and Lucinda in on the event, thus protecting both of them as well. So on one hand, he kinda understood what was going on, but on the other... maybe he didn't?

 

Reed made no sense.

 

Asking him to stay and enjoy the desert was a masterstroke. Just her way of stating to the world, "Why yes, if I ever do find myself back on the market, I will indeed swing by to accept your proposal."

 

And the whisper network went INSANE.

 

That very afternoon the Crown Prince showed up to speak to her in private and yell at her. She calmly and deftly deflected all his accusations and even enjoyed throwing back into his face the very same excuses he would give as to why it was okay for him to hang out with Priscilla. The next day she was invited back to the palace for tea with the queen. The floral arrangements were wonderful yellow roses, the symbol of friendship.

 

Only briefly did the conversation shift to Reed where the jist of it was, "How did you tame that beast?" To which Lilith just smiled. The day after that Lilith got to enjoy lunch with the prince. She contemplated making him wait, but decided against it. She made sure to have lunch in the cafeteria, in front of everyone, for no other reason then because she knew he HATED IT.

 

That wasn't the end of Lilith's good fortune. All those people who were aiming to take out Lilith either ran away, tried to blame someone else, or begged for her forgiveness. Curiously, she didn't get revenge on all who betrayed her. Instead she just made it clear that this was a time of war and that we all have to pull together. This is not the time for petty concerns. The unspoken subtext was, "I'm letting this go ONCE. Pull this shit again and I WILL END YOU."

 

Outwardly, Lilith looked like the master manipulator who had stumbled but once again proven to everyone that there is only one Top Bitch in this town and that Bitch was Lilith.

 

Inwardly, she was a complete wreck.

 

Reed didn't make sense. She didn't know where she stood with him. Was he insane? Was he planning something? Would he strike later when he was in a better position or did he have some evil plan ready? She needed to know. She didn't want to, but she knew what Charity was and her importance. Lilith made contact with Charity and arranged to meet her in secret. Under the cover of darkness with only Reed's sister there, just in case she might provide some insight, Lilith asked Charity one question.

 

Why?

 

"Why? Well, first, let me make something perfectly clear. I almost killed you. I mean, I was REALLY close to killing you. Your stupid boneheaded stunt at the party caused that whole Baron Akar fiasco. If you hadn't humiliated Reed, they wouldn't have thought it was okay to kidnap that little girl and use her as a hostage." Lilith tried to speak, but Charity cut her off, "I don't care. I indirectly brought it up to Reed and he said to let it go. The only reason you aren't dead is because of him."

 

Lilith said nothing as she soaked this in.

 

"So as to why? Simple. Reed is a nice guy. He gets wronged by people and then begs others to forgive them. When he makes a mistake and knows it, he actually feels bad and tries to fix it. He doesn't just pretend to be a hero... he is a hero. He cares about the little guy. He cares about his enemies. He just... cares."

 

Lilith shook her head a bit then said, "Wait... are you telling me... he did everything this past week... to help me... and he did it for no other reason than...?"

 

Charity sighed as she stood up, "Than because he thought you were having a bad day and he wanted to help you." She leaned in closer, "He did it, because he just wanted to be nice."

 

Then she left.

 

As Lilith and Reed's sister walked away, Lilith listened to the prattling of her companion, "I can't believe my brother is so stupid. I can't believe my brother's big weakness is that you just need to make sad eyes at him! Sweet Mira, how did my brother survive this long?" Lilith didn't respond. Eventually she made it back to her room, got ready for bed and laid down. In the dark, she stared at the ceiling and wondered if anyone else had ever done anything for her...

just...

to be...

nice.