One should not, under any circumstances, try to befriend a saurian once it’s hatched. There was some cracked-pot tamer who approached a grown, caged dreadwalker of her realm, trying to befriend it. The whole pompous event ended with the crowd screaming and fleeing the sight as nothing but the lower half of her legs stuck out of the dreadwalker’s maw.

  — Excerpt from Spectacular Ways to Die

  Day 463, 1:50 PM

  Once more, I entered the royal palace, and a servant at my realm escorted me to the inner garden.

  “Many rumors surround you, Master Dandelion,” the princess said from behind her screen once the servant had left. “I hear you helped a number of people who suffered from a variety of deviations.”

  “I merely facilitated their recovery, Your Imperial Highness.” I was on one knee, waiting for permission to stand.

  “You left your tea untouched last time. Sit and have a taste.”

  I did as ordered, bringing the cup misting with a rainbow of different mana types to my lips. The brew tasted of metal and batteries, but not in a bad way, tinged with a final bitter note, which remained in the mouth after the tea slid down the throat.

  A heat spread through my body as if I had drunk an alchemical concoction, and despite my fears, the rich mana didn’t flow into my realm. Instead, it sank into the flesh, nurturing it and reinforcing my body.

  [Ability - Master Imperial Body acquired]

  My eyes nearly fell out of their sockets when the blue screen appeared.

  “I see you already noticed it. Thousand temperings tea can only provide its benefit once,” the princess explained. “My family uses it to scout for talent. The greater one’s innate potential, the greater the benefit.”

  I swiftly checked the ability’s description. It granted a major bonus to all physical attributes. Then I checked my stats and noticed the physical ones had increased by ten. My body had improved by more than two-and-a-half times from a single tip of tea.

  “What do you think about becoming my retainer?” Her voice was calm and sweet, seducing me with countless benefits.

  Can’t say I wasn’t tempted, but ultimately signing over my freedom to another was not something I would do. At least not while I had other options.

  “I appreciate your offer, Your Imperial Highness, but I fear such a commitment would hamper my growth. That said, I am and will be at your disposal whenever you need me for any reasonable requests you might have.”

  She was silent, and the cup from which I had drunk was cold and void of mana. Every last speck of it had entered my body in that single sip. A tense silence stretched, but I remained calm.

  If the imperial was out to get me, I was dead, and I would redo and strive not to grab her attention or flee the city before she summoned me or something.

  “What is reasonable in this world, Former Brigand Blackfist? Is a lowborn murderer and a rapist having tea with an imperial princess reasonable? Is the fluke of the heavens that he had drunk a poison and changed his fate reasonable?”

  She had a point there. My definition of reasonable and her definition of reasonable probably had few things in common. For her, it was entirely reasonable to execute people who said no to her request.

  “Point taken, Your Imperial Highness. I am certain that whatever you have summoned me here for today is entirely reasonable.”

  A light laugh escaped her.

  “I have heard you have devised a privacy seal. I wish to see it.”

  A beat of silence as I processed her words. Then I picked at them from every possible angle. No, she wished for a private conversation, but it came with a few problems.

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  “Your Imperial Majesty, the seal’s area is too small to include the entire courtyard, and even if it was large enough, I would have to get to your side to scribe it.”

  A pale, milky hand that had seen too little sun pushed the screen to the side, folding it without a sound. A veiled woman wearing green with hints of gold stood there, her hand disappearing into the reaches of her elaborate robe.

  “You may begin.” She ordered as if nothing had happened.

  “Yes, Your Imperial Highness.” Luckily, I had brought my spatial pouch along with all other implements for scribing the seal, since I had been using it liberally with my other patients.

  First came the eight balance and eight fragility runes, sloppily drawn for extra fragility, but carefully spaced in the seal’s outer circle.

  Inside came the illusion and mana-extraction work, all carefully connected, and five minutes later, we had our primitive privacy seal.

  “The seal is ready, Your Imperial Highness.” The barrier sprang into being, repeating, “Highness, Highness, Highness…”

  “Interesting.”

  The princess stepped through the illusion, which popped like an unstable soap bubble that it was. I followed behind her, and about five seconds later the bubble reformed before immediately bursting again.

  “Someone is listening, Your Imperial Highness.”

  “I wish for privacy,” she said, and the bubble sprang back up, ironically repeating “privacy”.

  “We will know someone is listening if they burst our bubble, Your Imperial Highness” I made the same joke I did with everyone, and like the rest, she failed to grasp it.

  I should stop it with the self-amusing nonsense.

  Something about the princess’s presence seemed to relax. Her clothes covered her head to toe and blocked her mana from my sight, and I had lacked the presence of mind to check out her hand while she moved the screen, so I didn’t know what gave me the feeling, but she certainly did relax.

  “Something about your presence is calming, assuring.” She said thoughtfully. “I guess that is a part of your innate talent for soothing.”

  She went silent, and I had nothing to say. After a moment, she continued, the tension back in her voice, despite there being no observable change. “Do you remember what we discussed the last time?”

  “Naturally, Your Imperial Highness, we discussed the unknown not-lightning.”

  “Stop trying to make your words cleaver, I deal with that every day, searching for warnings and hidden meanings in everything I’m served.” A tinge of stress and annoyance did enter her voice there.

  “Yes, Your Imperial Highness.”

  “Other than poor attempts at wittiness, you are correct. There was something wrong with that lightning—”

  The bubble burst, and her patience along with it. “I will be left alone. This is my final warning.”

  A soul-shaking chuckle slammed into me, despite it being so quiet my ears barely picked it up.

  The princess went down on her knees, and I followed a fraction of a moment later after she started moving.

  “My sweet child needs alone time with a man.” The voice came without a person appearing. A trick of mana I could certainly pull off with some practice, and one I had known on Everrain. “And not just any man, but one with the perfect compatibility with thousand temperings tea. Your future is limitless, young man, and yet you refused to join Our service.”

  Something about the words and the voice raised my hackles and turned them into spears. While there was no clue to it, the malevolence and greed in that voice rang in my head like alarm bells.

  “We can offer you anything you desire. Resources, fame, influence, fine foods and fine wines.”

  “Thank you, Your Imperial Highness.” I touched my forehead to the ground on instinct, not out of respect or awe, but to present a smaller target. “This lowly one has come to perform his duty and obey the princess. While I promise my loyalty, signing the contract now would hamper my growth.”

  There was a pause, a tension in the air, then it vanished, like an adder looking at me and deciding not to strike.

  “Very well, mind him, my daughter. He has a lot of potential, and I will consider it your personal failing should someone snatch him from beneath your nose.”

  Abruptly, the presence disappeared, and both the princess and I could breathe once again. Still, neither of us moved or spoke until my privacy barrier sprang back up.

  Only then did the princess dare stand.

  “You may rise.”

  I did and waited for her next command, but the princess remained silent for more than a full minute before speaking.

  “I was telling you about the lightning.” The words trembled as they left her mouth, as fragile as the barrier protecting them. “You correctly assumed that the lethal force didn’t frighten me, but there was something else, something hungry and malicious that hid there.”

  She stopped talking, gathering courage to say the words or trying to form words fitting the horror she had seen, despite knowing such a feat was impossible.

  “An old woman, warped and covered in sores and boils, stared at me from the lightning and yet not within the lightning. I don’t know how to say it without sounding mad.”

  “I will not think you mad, Your Imperial Highness. Just put it into words as best as you can. Verbalize what you have seen, and just sharing it like that should at least ease your burden.”

  She nodded.

  “I know it sounds crazy, but it was as if the heavenly lightning had torn the world asunder, ripping a veil of some sorts and letting me see beyond the heavens, and there the crone stood, tearing at the world’s veil with her wicked fingers. I saw one other. It was a mound of rocks, immobile, yet malicious, unseeing, yet completely focused on the crone and the golden tear she was making.”

  My soul shuddered. She had gazed at the outer gods.