“Get on with it.”

“Sorry, sir. So, the girl’s old man could fight, like, proper fight, and catches the old man’s attention. Does well under Silva Senior for a lot of years, until there’s a problem. Silva Junior takes an interest in the girl.”

“Hardly a surprise,” Lucian said. “He has eyes.”

“She is a looker, sir. But she didn't want any part of Silva the younger, and none could blame her. He'd left more than a few professional women in no state to undertake their profession, if you catch my drift. Old Man Silva, he knows what his son is, and likes the girl's father. So he tells his son that it's hands-off.”

“I bet he took that well,” Lucian said.

“About how you’d expect, sir, yes. He did as he was told, but didn’t make things pleasant for the girl. Got to the point that her father decided to get her out. He just didn’t go about it a good way.”

“Oh?”

“The father takes out a loan from Silva the senior. A hefty one. Tries to start up his own trade expedition, but even without a monster surge, the man ain’t got no luck with the sea.”

“Monster attack?”

“Pirates. Was quite the excitement, from what I hear; father and daughter fighting pirates back to back. Managed to fight them off, too, but the father didn’t last long after, and neither did the ship. For the second time in her life the girl arrives at the city in a dinghy, and this time she’s got no father and a shipload of inherited debt. She would have been sixteen, seventeen back then. She had an essence her old man had bought, which had just made the debt all the bigger.”

“That was when she started pit fighting,” Cassowary contributed.

“Shut up, Cassowary,” Lucian barked. “Carry on, Bert.”

“Now, I knew the father and daughter going back to when her father was muscle here in the Fortress,” Hubert said. “He was a hard man. No essences, but I’d seen him put down people who had one, even two. He never fought in the pits himself, but the fighters showed him nothing but respect. His girl, as it turns out, was even better. Run up walls, fly through the damn air like a bird.”

“Nightingale,” Lucian said.

“That’s right,” Hubert said. “She had a good run. Took some beatings early on, but she learned fast. Add that to the way she looks and she got some attention.”

“She fights for Silva?” Lucian asked.