The world seemed to slow as Sael watched the general's boots leave the cobblestones. His weight shifted forward onto the balls of his feet, tendons straining in his neck as his head tilted back for the downward stroke. The sword rose in a high arc, catching the morning light, and his face had twisted into something that didn't belong on a military commander.

  This was wrong.

  Not the attack itself, Sael had been attacked before, many times, by many people, and would likely be attacked again by many more. That part was almost familiar. What was wrong was the reason. Or rather, the lack of one.

  He studied Joren as the man hung suspended in that moment between intention and action. A general of the royal army. A man who had presumably risen through the ranks, commanded soldiers, and had survived the politics of court long enough to stand at the king's side in those fancy dark armors.

  Level 1202, which was, by all means, quite respectable. But Sael's power had been documented before his presumed death—over level 3000, the records would say, and that had been centuries ago. Joren had to know. Any fool with access to a history book would know. And yet here he was, charging anyway.

  Men in his position did not simply scream and attack like this because of breathing advice. They just didn't.

  And yet here was Joren, sword raised, face contorted, charging at someone who could unmake him with a thought. It was so profoundly stupid that Sael found it almost offensive. Not to his person—he didn't particularly care about that—but to his understanding of how people worked. This behavior didn't fit. It was like watching a master chess player suddenly flip the board and try to eat the pieces.

  His gaze drifted, almost lazily, to the Furies.

  Ororo stood at their center, hand on her greatsword, and—

  There.

  It was small. So small that anyone else would have missed it. The barest upward curve at the corner of her lips, there and gone in an instant, smoothed back into that professional neutrality she wore like armor. But Sael had been watching faces for a very long time.

  She was pleased.

  He didn't like to assume the worst of people. It was a habit he'd cultivated deliberately, because the alternative was exhausting, and because he'd found that most people, given the chance, were simply trying to get through their days without causing too much harm. But that smile—that tiny, fleeting smile—had not been the expression of someone watching an unfortunate situation unfold. It had been the expression of someone watching a plan come together.

  And with that realization, Sael refocused on the task at hand and the world snapped back to full speed.

  Joren's blade was descending now, white light blooming along its edge, and the man was fast. The sword sang through the air, trailing luminescence, and Sael could feel the enchantment woven into the steel.

  Swordsmen were, as a rule, some of the worst possible matchup against mages. They needed to close distance and plant their feet to generate power from the ground up through their hips and into their strikes. Everything about their combat style depended on solid footing and forward momentum. Against a mage of similar level, that could work; close the gap fast enough, and steel solved most problems. But when the levels differed by this much, all those dependencies became vulnerabilities.

  This had always been one of Sael's favorite tricks against Bran during their spars.

  [Levitate].

  Joren's boots left the cobblestones mid-stride, and the effect was immediate. A man running relies on the ground; each step pushes against it, generates force, propels him forward. Remove the ground, and there's nothing to push against. Joren's legs kept pumping for a fraction of a second, pure muscle memory, but he was moving through empty air now. His momentum bled away with nothing to sustain it. The swing that had been building toward Sael's neck lost its foundation, the rotation of his hips suddenly meaningless without purchase beneath him.

  He hung there, one meter above the cobblestones, sword still raised but going nowhere. His face cycled through confusion, then rage, then something that might have been fear as his body registered what his mind hadn't caught up to yet.

  He was floating. And he couldn't do a single thing about it.

  Then came the [Pull] spell and the general shot forward like a puppet on strings, crossing the remaining distance between them in an instant, and Sael's hand closed around his throat. It wasn't hard enough to crush, or even enough to truly hurt, but it was firm enough that the man wasn't going anywhere.

  His other hand—the one that had been holding Oz—was empty now. The dragon was on the ground somewhere, probably annoyed. That was fine. Oz was always annoyed.

  Sael extended his will toward the glowing sword still clutched in Joren's grip. The man's fingers spasmed open. The blade slid free, rotating gently in the air, and drifted to Sael's waiting palm.

  The hilt settled into his grip. It was warm.

  [You have equipped a named artifact (Dawnbreaker)]

  [Level adjusted: +10]

  [Current level: 6817]

  Hmm. What a nice sword. A mere +10 for him, but that was the thing about stats at his level, most equipment didn't register at all. The fact that he'd felt anything meant it was something special.

  Joren was thrashing now, both hands wrapped around Sael's wrist, feet kicking at empty air. His face had gone red, then purple, and strangled sounds were escaping his throat. Not words—just noise. Animal panic.

  The plaza had gone completely silent as Sael looked at Ororo.

  She looked back, and her hand had tightened on her greatsword, but she hadn't drawn it. The other Furies had tensed, weapons half-raised, frozen in that uncertain space between action and restraint. Around them, soldiers stood paralyzed, crossbows still raised but no one willing to fire.

  "Are you influencing him?"

  Ororo's expression didn't flicker. "I don't know what you mean, sir."

  "This man." Sael lifted Joren slightly, and the general's thrashing intensified. "He attacked me. Openly. In front of his king, in front of witnesses, against an opponent he cannot possibly defeat. No rational military commander would do this."

  "Perhaps he's simply loyal to his king, sir."

  "Loyal men don't charge to certain death over breathing exercises."

  Joren's struggles were becoming more frantic now. His fingers clawed at Sael's wrist, nails scraping uselessly against skin, and his eyes had gone wide and white-rimmed. He was trying to speak, trying to form words, but Sael's grip allowed only the barest thread of air.

  "Would you be so kind as to release our general, sir?" Ororo said. All calm and professional.

  "I will. But he still seems to be under some influence, which means he'll only try to attack me again the moment I do. So please, answer my question first."

  "I have no influence over General Joren. The Furies serve the Crown. We don't manipulate its officers."

  Sael considered this. He considered the timing, how convenient it was that Joren had snapped at precisely the moment that would create the most chaos. He considered the smile he'd seen, and finally considered what he knew of the Furies and their... particular talents.

  Magic, he would have sensed. But pheromones were not magic. They were biology.

  "Then one of your sisters is doing it," he said.

  Something flickered in Ororo's eyes. Gone too fast to name.

  "With all due respect, sir, you're making accusations without evidence."

  "I'm making observations." Sael's voice remained level. "A general of the realm just tried to kill an Archmage over a suggestion about breathing techniques. Either he is genuinely insane—in which case, someone should have noticed before promoting him—or he is being influenced. Since I cannot detect magic affecting him, I am left with other possibilities."

  He looked at the other Furies. The woman with the scythe. The one with twin daggers. They were very still.

  "Pheromones," he said. "Emotional manipulation. Rage amplification, perhaps. I can't sense it directly, but the symptoms fit."

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  Ororo's hand hadn't moved from her sword. "You're wrong."

  "I would very much like to be." Sael met her eyes. "I am going to give you one opportunity to release him. If you refuse—"

  He raised his other hand—the one holding Dawnbreaker—and pointed it at her.

  "I will hurt you. Here. Now. In front of everyone."

  The plaza seemed to hold its breath.

  Ororo didn't move.

  "I told you," she said. "It isn't me."

  "Then give the order to whichever of your sisters is responsible. I know one of them is doing this. I can see the symptoms, even if I can't see the cause. You have five seconds."

  "This is—" King Cedric spoke, trying for authority and falling short. "This is violence in the presence of the Crown! Assault on a royal officer! This is trea—"

  "Please be quiet, your Majesty."

  Sael didn't raise his voice or even look at the boy.

  Cedric's mouth snapped shut. His face went pale, then red, and his hands curled into fists at his sides. But he didn't speak again.

  The silence stretched.

  Joren was still struggling in Sael's grip, but weaker now, his movements becoming sluggish. His eyes had taken on a glassy quality.

  This was exhausting.

  Sael had come here to bury Aldric and the others he'd killed, report to Richter and ask him to take measures, then begin a thorough search for other sources of Corruption, because he now knew for certain that Aldric hadn't been alone. The last few days, ever since he'd descended from his cloud to visit Eirlys's grave, had given him more social interactions and unwanted battles than he'd had in decades, it seemed.

  So he was exhausted. He recognized it now, that frayed feeling at the edges of himself. Emotionally drained. And when he was drained, he got sharper and harsher. Less patient than he should be.

  And to add oil to the fire, all of this felt engineered. Like a play where everyone knew their lines except him. The arrest without charges. The convenient presence of the Furies. The general's impossible rage. The king's theatrical pronouncements.

  He didn't like drama.

  He had spent centuries actively avoiding people precisely because they insisted on creating situations like this. And yet here he was, somehow, inexplicably, at the center of one.

  "Two seconds," he said.

  [Wrath Level: 1%]

  "One second."

  "ENOUGH!"

  King Cedric had stepped forward and shouted, his face white, his hands shaking at his sides.

  "Ororo, make it stop! Release him! He's going to kill us all, do you understand? All of us!"

  Oh?

  Sael looked down at the general still dangling from his grip. Joren had gone limp, his head lolled to one side, his hands no longer clawing at Sael's wrist. Unconscious. His breathing was shallow but steady—he would live.

  He opened his fingers and the general crumpled to the cobblestones with a thud. No one moved to help him.

  Sael turned and began walking toward the king.

  The Furies moved immediately. Steel sang as weapons cleared sheaths—Ororo's greatsword, the scythe, the mace, the twin daggers. They formed a loose semicircle between Sael and Cedric, blades raised, stances perfect. Professional to the last.

  The royal guards, however, did not.

  One of them took a step back. Then another. Then a third. Their crossbows lowered, inch by inch, and their eyes found the ground rather than meet Sael's gaze. A gap opened in their ranks, then widened.

  "Stand down."

  Richter's voice cut through the tension. He hadn't moved from his position, but his hand was raised, palm out, directed at his own men.

  "Do not interfere. Any of you."

  The guards obeyed. They stepped back further, some of them visibly relieved to have been given permission to do what they were already doing.

  Sael kept walking.

  The Furies held their ground. Ororo's greatsword was leveled at his chest, rock-steady, and the woman with the scythe had shifted her weight onto her back foot, ready to strike. Sael walked past Ororo's blade as if it weren't there. The edge grazed his robes; or would have, if he hadn't angled his shoulder just slightly. He didn't look at her. He didn't look at any of them.

  They didn't attack.

  Weapons remained raised. Muscles remained tensed. But no one moved.

  Sael finally stopped in front of Cedric.

  The boy—and he was a boy—took a half-step backward before catching himself. His crown had gone slightly askew. He didn't fix it.

  "Did you plan this, Your Majesty?"

  Cedric's eyes darted to the left. To the right. Anywhere but Sael's face.

  "I don't—" His voice cracked. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I don't know what you mean."

  "Your Majesty." Richter stepped forward. "Perhaps this conversation would be better suited to a more private setting."

  Sael didn't look away from the king. "Perhaps it would."

  Cedric seized on the lifeline like a drowning man. "Yes. Yes, of course. Everyone—" He gestured vaguely, the motion jerky and uncoordinated. "Leave us. All of you. Now."

  The guards didn't need to be told twice. They filed out with the kind of speed that suggested they'd been waiting for exactly this order. The servants who had been frozen near the palace doors vanished inside. The handful of minor nobles who had been watching from the colonnade suddenly remembered urgent business elsewhere.

  Ilsa caught Sael's eye, a question in her expression, and he gave a small nod. She turned to leave, gesturing for Orion and Robin to follow. The boy went without protest, though he cast one long look back over his shoulder as he walked, his curiosity apparently not quite satisfied by the spectacle he'd already witnessed.

  The dragon, however, did not move.

  He stood exactly where he had been for the past several seconds, near the base of a decorative column, observing.

  Within two minutes, the plaza was empty. Well, almost empty.

  The Furies remained. Ororo had lowered her greatsword but hadn't sheathed it. The others stood in a loose formation around the king, their weapons still drawn, their eyes fixed on Sael. Richter stood a few paces back, hands clasped behind him, watching everything with an expression that gave away nothing.

  And on the ground, General Joren continued to breathe in shallow, unconscious rhythm.

  Cedric was the one to break the silence. His voice came out smaller now, stripped of the theatrical bravado he'd worn earlier.

  "It wasn't supposed to go like this."

  "How was it supposed to go?"

  The king's jaw worked. For a moment, Sael thought he might try to salvage some shred of dignity and lie his way through this. But there were no crowds left to perform for.

  "They told me," Cedric said, still not meeting Sael's eyes. "My advisors. They said—they said if there was someone stronger than the entire kingdom, someone who could just... do whatever he wanted... I would lose my authority. I would be seen as weak. A figurehead." His voice grew bitter. "More of one than I already am."

  "So you decided to test me?"

  "T-to submit you," Cedric said. "To show everyone that even you answer to the Crown." His laugh was hollow, brittle. "That was the idea, anyway."

  What an odd conclusion to reach... but Sael kept the thought to himself, deciding that now was perhaps not the best moment to point out the flaws in that particular line of reasoning.

  "I thought—" The king's voice dropped. "I thought if I could make you kneel. Just once. In public. That would be enough. People would see it and remember. They'd know that I was the one in charge."

  "And the Furies? The pheromones?"

  Cedric flinched. "I just wanted him angry enough to commit. Joren is always so cautious, always going on about chain of command and proper procedures. I needed him to act without thinking."

  "So you manipulated your own general into attacking someone who could unmake him..."

  "He wasn't supposed to get hurt! You were supposed to—I don't know—block it or dodge or something, and then we would have had cause to—"

  He stopped. Even he seemed to realize how thin that excuse was.

  "Did your advisors tell you to do it this way?"

  Cedric was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was very small.

  "No."

  "What did they suggest?"

  "Gifts and honors. A formal welcome ceremony. They wanted to..." He made a vague gesture. "Court you. Slowly. Make you feel valued. Give you reasons to cooperate."

  Sael didn't particularly need gifts—though some money would have been nice, given his current state of being entirely broke and not especially proactive about changing that—but still, that seemed like a much better idea than whatever this had been. Perhaps now was the moment to point out the flaws in the king's reasoning after all.

  "But you thought this would be better?"

  "I thought it would be faster."

  Sael waited for more, but nothing came. No justification, or desperate plea for understanding. Just that. Faster. As if subjugating an Archmage through brute force and manipulation was simply a matter of efficiency.

  The plaza was very quiet.

  Sael studied the young king standing before him. This seemed like a child who had been given too much power and too little wisdom,

  "Your Majesty."

  Cedric's chin lifted, as if expecting a blow and determined to take it standing.

  "I'm not your enemy." Sael paused, letting the words settle. "You have advisors who care about the fate of this kingdom. Listen to them and learn from them. A king who surrounds himself with wise counsel and heeds it will always be stronger than one who acts on impulse and pride." He held the boy's gaze. "You're young. You have time to change your ways easily before they become too rigid in you. But only if you choose to."

  The defiance in Cedric's eyes flickered, just for a moment, before hardening again. Whether anything Sael had said would take root, only time would tell.

  He turned to Richter. "Would you mind if I accompanied you to your office? I believe we have matters to discuss."

  The Duke glanced toward the king, and something unspoken passed between them. Cedric's jaw tightened, but after a long moment, he gave a curt nod.

  "You may go," the boy said, his voice flat.

  Richter bowed slightly. "Your Majesty."

  They began walking together, leaving the king and his Furies behind in the empty plaza. Sael heard the soft click of talons on cobblestone and didn't need to look to know that Oz had fallen into step behind them.

  "Tch, puny king."

  The words were dripping with contempt, and Sael stopped mid-stride. Richter stopped beside him. The Furies, who had been in the process of sheathing their weapons, froze with their blades still half-drawn, and Cedric's head whipped around, his eyes wide and searching for the source of a voice that had no business existing.

  Everyone's gaze landed on the chicken.

  Oz continued his unhurried trot across the cobblestones, passing within a few feet of the humiliated monarch without so much as a sideways glance. Cedric looked from the chicken to Sael to the chicken again, his expression caught somewhere between outrage and utter bewilderment.

  "Please do not mind him," Sael said.

  He didn't feel like explaining why the chicken could talk, so he decided not to. And to be quite honest, it was something he found strangely vindicating to witness, and the absurdity of the situation nearly made him laugh. Sael turned to leave again, then paused, glancing back at Cedric.

  "Your Majesty," this felt like an appropriate time to say it, "you have something stuck between your teeth."

  Cedric blinked, his hand rising automatically to his mouth. "I—what?"

  "A bit to the left." Sael gestured vaguely. "No, the other left. Higher. Almost—yes, there."

  The king's tongue worked awkwardly against his front teeth, his fingers prodding at his gums. The Furies watched in silence, clearly uncertain whether they were supposed to intervene in this particular crisis. One of them looked like she wanted to offer assistance but couldn't quite figure out how.

  "There you go," Sael said, when Cedric finally seemed to find whatever it was. He smiled—a genuine smile, warm and utterly inexplicable given everything that had just transpired—and then turned and resumed walking.

  Richter fell back into step beside him after a moment, though his gaze lingered on the dragon in chicken form considerably longer than it had any right to. They walked in silence until they had passed through the colonnade and into the cooler shadows of the palace interior, their footsteps echoing softly against the marble floors.

  "It seems," Richter said eventually, "that you have quite a the story to tell from this mission to Ashams."

  "As do you, I suspect."

  Richter let out a short breath of a laugh. "Oh, you have no idea."

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