“Hah! There you are,” Gatei said with a grin that belonged nowhere near diplomacy. He kicked the dirt again, and this time, the ground answered. The air thickened, and something tore open, reality folding in on itself with the reluctant groan of a rusty door. Then, someone materialized. Not walked. Not appeared.

  Manifested.

  “You dare to summon me, mortal?” the voice boomed, not from the throat of the figure now rising from the fractured earth, but from everywhere. It vibrated through my bones, whispered under my skin. The same way Sera’s voice carried presence, but this one was... worse. Like swallowing French whiskey and choking on it.

  And yet, unlike my god, distant and invisible, this one stood in plain sight.

  Towering. Cloaked in plate armor that bled dark yellow light from the cracks. Every inch of him screamed ancient power and his presence twisted the surrounding space as if gravity had a poor opinion of him.

  And Gatei?

  Gatei did not care.

  “Don’t call me mortal, you mortal brat,” he said, with his mouth full of suspiciously old cheese he’d apparently been storing in one of his plate armor’s side compartments. I could smell it from here. The god’s eyes, if you could call those burning wells of divine pressure eyes, swept the battlefield with disdain, his voice a knife dipped in judgment. “Why did you summon me?!”

  It wasn’t a question. It was a verdict. And in the blink of a thought, he moved.

  One instant, he was across the field. The next, he stood inches from Gatei, his shadow swallowing the ground, a sword larger than Katherine’s raised high enough to cleave through the Twir.

  Gatei, utterly unbothered, gave the god a lazy grin, then stuffed the rest of the moldy cheese into his mouth like a man preparing for exactly the kind of mistake he enjoyed. “No reason than…” he said, around a mouthful of dairy doom.

  Then he kicked the dirt one last time.

  With a deep whump, the earth spat out his hammer, some weird one. Massive, scarred, glowing faintly at the edges like it had recently been in an argument with the laws of physics. He caught it with one hand, twirled it once, then slammed the butt against the ground.

  The very air shivered.

  “Come and get me,” Gatei said, grinning like war was a personal hobby and God Of War forgot to pour him.

  And just like that, we were all very aware this battlefield now had two lunatics with mythic power and zero adult supervision.

  We exchanged a glance, me and always-fifteen-steps-ahead Irwen.

  Except this time, she wasn’t composed. Irwen looked as if someone had rewritten her script mid-performance. Her spine stayed regal, her gaze determined, but I could see it: the tightness in her jaw, the stiffness in her fingers.

  She was off-script.

  I was willing to bet very good gold that none of her plans included a God of War squaring off with a Twir whose hobbies included chaos, snacks, and accidentally leveling cities.

  Time to end this.

  “Alright, you two.” I stepped forward, deliberately striding into the tension like it was a ballroom and I was due a dramatic entrance. The space between Gatei and the god felt like a fuse mid-spark. My heels clicked against the now frozen dirt with just enough finality to announce I wasn’t here to babysit gods with territorial issues. “We’ve got a war to declare,” I said, planting my hands on my hips, “and then you can go explode each other. Sound fair?”

  Gatei let out a delighted snort and promptly snapped his hammer in half like it was a twig. Both pieces spun lazily behind him… and vanished into nothing, as if reality itself agreed it was better not to ask questions. Then he sat back down on nothing, I might add, and began munching something new. Possibly dried squid.

  The god, meanwhile, hadn’t moved. His face remained hidden behind that large angular, blackened armor, but his burning gaze pinned me in place. Twin stars. No flicker. No blink. Just pressure, steady and searing. Like being judged by an ancient furnace.

  “Very well,” he said finally, voice rumbling. His chin dipped almost imperceptibly. “Sera?” He flicked a hand toward the angel beside us. The motion was small, but it sent a gust through the air like an imperial order had just been issued.

  Sera was already in motion, heels clicking with military efficiency. She bowed low, strategically low, because of course she did, just enough to offer the god a calculated peek inside her silvered neckline.

  Probably his orders about how to bow.

  “I serve,” she intoned smoothly, her voice syrup-thick with protocol. “I’ve monitored this conflict closely. While the political complications are present, in my assessment they do not override the grounds for formal war.” She straightened. “Queen Irwen’s forces, bolstered by demonic entities, hold overwhelming superiority. Barring… Twir involvement.” A quick pause. “The daughter, Princess Charlie, is technically a minor noble acting counter to imperial interests.”

  Minor noble. Ouch. I let that one roll off me like morning dew. And it was true, I wasn’t a countess. Yet.

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  The god turned his attention back to me. Not his head, his presence. It pressed down like the weight of law itself, a force that demanded truth whether I was ready to speak it or not. “You value your mother more than the Empire?” he asked.

  But I was ready for this.

  “With all due respect,” I said, drawing myself up, “no. My heart lies with the Empire.” And it was true. Since the first playtest, since my earliest dive into Rimelion, I’d thrown everything behind this grinding machine of state. I’d chosen it and loved it all the way.

  “I have no interest in fighting the rebellion,” I added, voice calm. “But I will stop the demons.”

  “Hmmm,” the god murmured, a sound so low it felt like a tectonic shift beneath my feet. “Convenient for your mother, isn’t it?”

  I met his gaze head-on, not flinching. “I won’t lie,” I said plainly. “It is. She benefits far more than I do.” I inhaled, steady. “But this move? This declaration? It’s my risk. If I declined, and you still judged it worthy of war, she would have the attacker’s advantage, and I’d be the one scrambling.”

  The god gave a single nod, crisp and absolute. “Sera, I approve.”

  Then, without preface, he turned his head, and a sword, impossibly fast and wide as a tree trunk, slammed into Gatei. The impact cracked the air like lightning striking stone. The ground beneath them rippled from the force. Dust surged outward in a rolling wave.

  And yet…

  Nothing happened.

  Not a scratch. Not a wince. Gatei remained exactly where he was, still seated on nothing, legs crossed now, gnawing calmly on what looked like a roasted chestnut.

  Despite the blade currently embedded in the reality just above his shoulder.

  He chuckled, the sound raspy and too pleased with itself. “Brat,” he said, grinning up at the god like a misbehaving uncle scolding a grown-up nephew. “Already forgot, huh? When you were a snot-nosed little boy, it was me who kept your stick safe. Your mother made me promise.”

  “…Gatei?” he asked, voice hitching slightly. Surprise cracked through his composure like my ice under pressure. “You are not dead.” It wasn’t quite a question. Not quite an accusation. “If you help her, I will not allow a declaration. You can end the rebellion in an instant.”

  Gatei just shrugged, as if being not dead was the most boring state to be in. “Hey, if she’d called in her favor, as an eternal friend of the Council? Sure. I’d have wiped out anything she pointed at. One time. No repeats.”

  Then he turned to me.

  His voice lost its mirth, stripped of madness, grave as a mausoleum. “Never do it, Princess,” he said, and for the first time, I felt the weight behind his smile. The danger behind his kindness.

  “I won’t,” I said, quietly. I meant it. The Twir weren’t meant to be controlled. Even the favor they gave was more curse than blessing if misused. “You have my word.”

  That earned me a grin. Not the mischievous kind, but something more primal. Older. “Then I’ll fight as my old self,” he murmured, almost giddy. “Been a while.”

  The god didn’t respond with words. He simply… vanished. No sound, no flash. Just gone. As if the very concept of him had been momentarily erased.

  That’s when I felt it, a hand resting on my shoulder.

  My mother.

  “You have the eternal friendship of the Council?” Irwen’s voice was soft, but something coiled beneath it. Caution, curiosity, maybe even… awe?

  “Yup,” I said with a shrug. “But don’t worry, I won’t call in help for any fight.” I glanced down at my hand, where I’d just accepted a rock that screams when thrown. “Or for… snacks.”

  Gatei let out a wheezing cackle that sounded like it hadn’t seen daylight in a century.

  Mother, in a move that would’ve shocked the entire war council had they been here, smiled. A real one. Pride flickered across her face, and then, with a casualness my soul definitely did not inherit from her, she ruffled my hair.

  My hair.

  “Wh—hey!” I flinched, too late.

  She was already turning. Regal once more, cloak sweeping behind her like the beginning of a storm. “We attack in one hour,” she called over her shoulder. “Once the contract is signed.”

  “That’s it?” I blinked after her, still awkwardly standing there with hair sticking out in new and exciting directions. “That’s how you declare war?”

  “Yes,” she replied coolly, eyes already on Sera. The angel was standing off to the side with her quill scratching furiously. Ink glowed as it stamped itself into the enchanted parchment.

  Gold, of course. Nothing less. I stared at the paperwork. Then groaned. “Oh no. Bureaucracy.” And with that, the battlefield officially transitioned… into a waiting room.

  —

  On the other side of the river in a far distance…

  Dmitry hated his skeleton horse.

  It obeyed flawlessly, silent, obedient, and utterly devoid of initiative. Just how he liked it. And yet, it infuriated him. Every ridge, every rise in the road, every pitiful, pebble-strewn decline had to be micromanaged. It wouldn’t so much as twitch a femur unless commanded. Like a servant with no spine, no initiative. Just bones and obedience.

  Pathetic.

  Around him, his hand-picked elite surged forward with cold precision. The Vainqueurs Imbattables. Of course, he’d named them himself. Who else could be trusted with something so essential? Victory, invincibility, grandeur. Everything he was. Or would be.

  They sped through the barren fields like a blade, clad in iron and shadow, leading the demon cavalry, the Queen banners streaming behind them.

  To his right, keeping pace like an overeager dog, was Ian, his new project. Dmitry thought that burning the boy alive might sharpen him. Forge him like steel. But all it had done was leave the idiot with new skin and old ideas.

  Still green. Still wide-eyed. Still unfit. But moldable.

  “All about respect, right? You said that,” the fool piped up.

  “Respect,” Dmitry said, voice like tempered glass. He directed the skeletal reins left to avoid a shallow incline, and the horse jerked, bones grinding like distant whispers. “They must respect your power. As you must respect theirs. But never, never, should someone hold more power than you… unless they are already kneeling.”

  Ian furrowed his brow, trying to think, an exhausting thing to witness. “Well, you’re old, so—”

  “I’m thirty!” Dmitry snapped. Rage flared in his gut like kindling catching flame. “My body betrayed me, not time. It withered, crumbled… and I conquered it. I wear it like armor.”

  Ian shrank under the weight of his gaze. “Sorry,” he mumbled. At least the boy could grovel. That was something. The best tools were the ones that bent easily. “She isn’t half your age then,” he muttered, trying to salvage his thought.

  “No, she isn’t.” Dmitry allowed a slow breath through his nose. “But she wouldn’t have agreed to the wedding if I didn’t hold power in both hands. You said you wanted women, didn’t you?” Ian gave a dumb nod and looked away like a beaten cur. “Then learn this: Women are drawn to power, to wealth. Not words. Not pretty faces. If you stay with the Vainqueurs Imbattables, you’ll have both.”

  Across the river, the horizon split with a column of red smoke. Signal five. A wave of arcane curses bloomed into the sky like infected fireworks.

  Dmitry smiled.

  For the first time that ride, a real smile. Cold and thin and without a hint of joy. “Your little friend Charlie accepted the war.”

  “She isn’t—”

  “Don’t interrupt me!” Dmitry barked, fury boiling over like oil on fire. His voice burned the air like a whip, and even the skeletal beast beneath him flinched. This, this was the kind of insolence he hated the most.

  “Listen!” he yelled. “We flank them. We kill them. Then we ask for surrender. In that order. March, Vainqueurs Imbattables!”