I trusted Maria to handle the counterinsurgency team. But more than that, I also trusted the secondary leader she chose for her assembled task force.

  That being Sylvia, of course.

  Once upon a time, my lover had been just as much of a Nocturne as anyone else in the Expedition. While her memories of our finest moments over the course of the war were now fuzzy, she still possessed them. And she had only grown in both skill and level over the intervening time. I had full confidence that they, and the couple of dozen other people they recruited for the team, could do the job.

  They weren’t alone, of course. To my surprise, Olag and his forces hadn’t chosen to immediately rejoin the general Rhoscaran forces. He hadn’t been at the meeting where we had voted on helping the city with their saboteur problem, because I had…kind of expected him to do so? The tattooed Dwarf had been a bit offended, actually, when I told him about it. But according to him…

  “Marshall, the only manner I am subject to my dear cousin is through familial ties,” Olag told me later, a bit exasperated. “The only way she could legally command my forces is through a paid charter. However, the Raven’s Beak is not currently accepting commissions for the duration of the emergency. Elysael does not own either me or my men. We still intend to defend our city, of course. But we shall do it through our own methods. And those just so happen to align with your goals.”

  And so, some of the very Raven’s Beak scouts that had once ambushed us joined up with Maria’s counter-insurgency team. They weren’t even the only Dwarves to do so, actually. While the Rangers may not have been well-suited to urban combat and counter-espionage, they were still generally competent. More importantly, they were willing to learn.

  And, also, they were commanded to join us, so there’s that.

  When I actually informed the completely unsurprised, and yet still grateful, Elysael about the expedition’s plans to deal with her problem, she volunteered the services of the Rangers to join us. Partly, I think, as a way for there to be an official liaison from the now city-state of Rhoscara during an approved operation in their territory. But Elysael was a bit more canny than that, as I soon rediscovered.

  The Rangers were also learning from our pack of former spies and assassins. They may not have the proper knowledge and experience for urban maneuvers now…but they would soon. An amused Maria told me that, during her team’s first planning session, the Rangers were attentive to an almost studious degree.

  I had no problem with their desire to learn from us. Maybe they could actually put it all to good use in the future, defending their people. Besides, they were pulling their weight. This was the second day they had been deployed at this point, and while they had yet to encounter the raiders, I’d been informed they were on their trail. For now, our counter-insurgency agents were either scouring the city, or lurking defensively near key Rhoscaran resources. I had confidence they could solve the issue in time, before the Principality arrived.

  Besides, I had my own problems to worry about. Setting up an actual operating base within a city was…not something I had a great deal of experience in. There was so much to do, from cooperating with the Rhoscaran armed forces to choosing what sections of the curtain wall surrounding the city we would be defending, to integrating our classers into guard patrols. That wasn’t even counting all of the extremely abrupt construction we needed to do. Palisades, barriers, spike walls, traps, you name it, not only were we working overtime to help the frantically preparing Dwarves, but I was in the middle of that as well. I was well known at this point for my crafting capabilities and the strange lightshow that emanated from my hands as I did so. I never gave an actual explanation for just what I was doing when I used Aetherial Melding. I think that people were just starting to attribute it to my growing legend.

  Fine by me. A reputation was helpful for someone in my extremely front-facing position

  With all of the work piling up on my shoulders, I was leaning heavily on Umbra Gemina Exactoris and my clones. Not only did I have my full three clones running around constantly, either crafting or directing our efforts to prepare, I also had dozens of Sprites hidden all around our defenses, each with their own sub-mind granted by The Lattice of Heaven and Earth. This was, by far, the most I had flexed my evolved mental Skill since I had broken through the second breakpoint and evolved Ringed Mind. The strain was…more than I had anticipated, especially when I separated out my Core and Middle Lattices and they couldn’t filter the sensory feedback for me. I think, maybe, the only reason I could withstand it was because I at least still had Fade. My Familiar could still help shore up my mental defenses, for all of my genuine incompetence in the field of Mental Magic.

  For now, though…I had a meeting to get to, up at the palace. Middle and Core could handle the preparations in my absence.

  Supposedly.

  …man, I didn’t like it when they weren’t actually up in here with me. That would have started an outright war if they were.

  When did a mind with just me in it start to feel so lonely?

  …………………………….

  When I was let into the palace by the grim-faced soldiers left behind on guard duty, while everyone else was out in the city preparing, I found it strangely quiet in the halls of the Scarlet Palace. There didn’t even seem to be many servants on duty. I wasn’t even being led to the room where I was to meet with Elysael. I’d only been given instructions on where to go by the guards outside before being waved in.

  Honestly, that was…a lot of trust to give me. Had I really done anything to deserve it? Still, I knew where I was going. It may have been a year since I’d wandered these gilded halls, but I remembered where to find it.

  Elysael’s personal office. The same one I had...inadvertently wrecked, after I had been gifted the final component of Aetherial Melding that I needed.

  Presumably, it had been fixed since then. Guess I was about to find out.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  When I finally reached the door, I was even more surprised to find it unguarded. You would think that with a pack of roving saboteurs literally within the city walls, she would have been better guarded. But no, apparently. I knocked on it with two knuckles, fully expecting the waiting Prince to welcome me in immediately. Elysael had always been a very punctual person, after all.

  Nothing. Silence was my only answer.

  I tried knocking on it twice more, each time with more force, before giving up and trying the doorknob. To my further surprise, it was unlocked, and I was able to enter the room with no resistance at all. Once inside, however, I was able to see just why my knocks had elicited no response.

  Elysael was slumped over her desk, out cold. The Dwarven woman’s long, crimson red hair was entirely unbound, for the first time since I had ever known her, strewn out across the curiously messy desk in almost bloody waves. Similarly, her ivory white dress was wrinkled, with the golden ornamentation appearing askew. If I didn’t know any better…

  It looked like she had outright slept at her desk overnight.

  Hmm. Maybe I should…come back at another time. I could well understand just why the Prince of Rhoscara was exhausted enough to do such a thing. God knows I’d done it plenty times, back in my comfortable chair at the Bastion. Shaking off the pang of homesickness the thought of home brought, I sighed and started to pivot on one foot, fully prepared to leave her alone for now.

  That was apparently a mistake.

  Elysael may have slept through more than one loud knock, but it seems like the sound of my breath was enough to wake her instead. More than that, in a particularly violent manner.

  Directed at me.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as Elysael startled awake, bolting upright with something held in her hand. Something it seemed like she had held in her hand, concealed by her head resting on it.

  A throwing knife.

  Blindly, but with admirable force, speed, and precision for her half-awake state, Elysael tossed it.

  Right at my head.

  I reached out and plucked it out of the air, microseconds before it could embed itself into my cheek. As Elysael’s vision cleared and an absolutely mortified look crossed her royal features, I simply smiled at her wryly. “Well, that’s quite a welcome.”

  Hastily, Elysael stood from her chair, gathering up her loose hair with astonishing speed as she did. “I deeply apologize, Marshall Hart,” She stuttered out, binding her hair up into the fastest bun I’d ever seen. “That was…I was…”

  I shook my head gently and approached her desk, laying the dagger on the surface of it as I did. “There’s only one way I’ll forgive you, oh mighty Prince.”

  A determined look crossed Elysael’s face, then, as she set her shoulders and braced herself for a blow. “Name it, and I will deliver.”

  “Nathaniel,” I gently corrected her with a smile. When the Dwarven woman blinked in abrupt confusion, I chuckled lightly. “To you, my name is Nathaniel. Not Marshall. Preferably even Nathan…Ely.”

  Embarassed realization stole over ‘Ely’ then, and she shook her head. “I see…” She breathed in a strangely relieved manner. “You truly haven’t changed all that much…Nathan. Despite appearances, you are still the same man who destroyed my office and acted the jester before my court.”

  I hummed in agreement, as the now relaxed Elysael began gathering up the disparate scrolls and papers strewn across her desk. “Older, rougher, and battle hardened…but I’d like to think so,” I agreed.

  Despite everything that had happened over the last year…

  I liked to think I was still me.

  Fundamentally Nathan.

  “Stronger, as well,” Elysael said, lowering herself into her chair now that she’d tidied up. I did the same, sitting in the chair across from that was almost, but not quite, as comfortable as the one in my office. “I could not imagine you catching my blade in such a manner when last we met.”

  “War will do that,” I nodded. “It forces you to either adapt…”

  “Or die,” She finished softly, shaking her head. “As I am discovering, to the detriment of my people.”

  Silence stole over the two of us, for a moment, as I believe we both contemplated the coming Dwarven civil war. I was the one to break it, stirring from the bloody memories that had risen at her words. “It seems unavoidable,” I mused. “Slavery as an institution…it can only truly succeed for so long, before it crashes into the rocks of morality.”

  “The waves of discontent against it have long existed within the Principality,” Elysael sighed. “An undertow, ready to decimate our entire society. Many people, no matter the House they owe allegiance to, have long possessed doubt about its necessity. Especially when a sufficiently strong, Strength imbued Classer can do the work of ten to twenty slaves alone. But, to outright challenge such a long tradition?” She shook her head. “Unthinkable. Until, at least…”

  “One fool introduced a way to break the Slave Bond, with no adverse effects at all,” I said, almost absentmindedly, gazing off into the distance over her head.

  “…yes,” Elysael quietly agreed.

  It was a strange thing to think that you were directly responsible for a war. That with your own hands, you had created the conditions in which an entire society was now on the brink of dissolution. Brother against brother, friend against comrade.

  Just how many deaths could now be laid at my feet? Strangely, I think I could handle it. I think I was…a bit warped when it came to slavery. I was willing to do quite a bit and go extremely far if it meant that nobody would ever wear another collar again.

  Perhaps I wasn’t just Nathan anymore, after all.

  I shook my head to clear it of such thoughts, doing my best to smile at Elysael as I did. “So, why did you want to see me?”

  Unsurprisingly, Elysael could tell that I wanted to move past such matters. She was essentially a career politician, after all. She picked up a stack of parchment that she had left on her desk and handed it to me. “Ah, it wasn’t anything too urgent. There are simply a few legal and civic matters we must attend to if we intend to make our alliance official. Especially,” She said, with a pointed look. “If you intend to lobby for our aid in the coming conflict with the Mad God.”

  “Of course, of course,” I said easily, accepting both the paperwork and the pen and ink she handed me. But once I shuffled through the stack, I paused for a moment and then looked back up at her and smiled again. “However, when I’m finished…perhaps we can take the time to catch up? A lot has happened over the last year, after all.”

  She paused for a moment before returning my smile. “I suppose I can spare a half hour for some minor socializing. I…would like that indeed, Nathan.”

  And when we got around to it…

  Elysael was particularly surprised to hear that I had a daughter.

  Ah, Azarus.

  If only you could see the face she made.

  ………………………………….

  My good mood didn’t last forever.

  After a pleasant half hour spent speaking with Elysael, there was a particularly…shocking thing waiting for me when I returned to the expedition base. There had finally been an attack from the raiders while I was busy with Ely. Luckily, the team had been watching that site, and with the help of their rapid response reinforcements, they were not only able to drive the saboteurs off…

  They had killed one of them. Maria and her team had even brought back the corpse, hoping that Alveron would be able to identify these particular raiders.

  However…

  Someone else was able to, instead.

  Namely, me.

  I stared down at the bald-headed, bloody Elf for a moment with barely seeing eyes. The massive rent in his chest where a sword had carved straight through his heart and cloven it in two was certainly eye-catching, but it wasn’t what was most important to me. No…instead, it was the mask upon his face.

  The familiar, snarling visage of a wolf greeted my eyes. I recognized that mask. More than that, I could recognize this particular Elf. He had been one of my handlers for a very brief, trauma-filled week.

  This…was one of the Elves who had captured and sold me into slavery.

  They were the raiders now active in Rhoscara.

  That…changed matters.