Ilyra Marcellis had dealt with snakes before.

  Waybound had been full of them. Starting from hormonal boys with titles who smiled while measuring if you’d make a good wife or just a time pass, to two-faced girls who complimented your dress while checking if your jewels were real. Even a few professors praised your essays as they considered whether to recommend you.

  Veric Ashton moved like those same snakes, except he was worse at hiding it.

  He came to their table with a smile that never touched his eyes, stopping just far enough to remind her he knew the rules but picked which ones to follow.

  "Lady Ilyra," he said, and his voice carried just enough warmth to sound rehearsed. "What a rare sight. Our future sister-in-law, all the way out here in my humble city."

  Ilyra set her cup down.

  She had no interest in talking to this man. All she wanted was to finish her tea, get back to the inn, and scrub the memory of the last hour from her mind – where normal people were used as shields. But she was a Marcellis. Marcellises didn’t flinch at snakes. They smiled back.

  "Lord Veric," she said. "A pleasant surprise. You should have sent word you were dining here. I'd have chosen a different establishment."

  The insult either missed him or he simply didn't care.

  "Nonsense. You should have told me you were visiting Harrowgate. I'd have hosted you properly." He pulled a chair from a nearby table without asking and sat at the edge of their booth, one leg crossed over the other. "Lothar would never forgive me if I let his beloved go without a proper welcome."

  Lothar. The Velkor’s Heir continued to harass her even in a different city.

  That was the real problem. Not Veric himself since he was just a fool with a title and too much gold, but the fact that he’d send word to Lothar before the night was out. And then Lothar would know she was here, leveling, getting ready.

  Ilyra was already Level 99; she’d been so for a few months now. She also had the item that her 7th Ascension Quest required to advance to Level 100. She was just waiting for the tournament to start when she planned to use the item to cross the threshold. In the meantime, she was gathering EXP to jump a few levels the moment she advanced.

  She’d planned for this trip to be quick. In and out, back to Maricall before anyone important noticed.

  Too late for that now.

  "That's very kind of you," she said, because the alternative was stabbing him with a dessert fork.

  Ragna leaned forward. "Sister-in-law? What's that about?"

  Veric turned his full attention to her. He took in her size, her tattoos, her red hair, and the club leaning against the booth. His smile didn't waver, but something behind it changed. Ilyra saw the moment he decided Ragna was beneath his notice. He laughed, the sound polite and hollow.

  "Lord Lothar Velkor and I are sworn brothers," he explained, as if speaking to a child. "So his future wife is my sister-in-law. Simple enough, barbarian?"

  Ragna’s face stayed blank, but her eyes fell on her club. Ilyra noticed and understood the barbarian logic – Lothar was bad, so his sword brother must be too – and Ragna was right. She felt a little touched too that Ragna cared so much. But… this isn’t good.

  Lothar would eventually have found out that she had visited the dungeons. Word traveled. But Veric would make sure it traveled fast. He’d probably write the moment he left, and by tomorrow, Lothar would know she was here, training.

  She’d hoped to finish quickly and slip away before anyone noticed. That plan was dead. Veric was still talking, every word wrapped in false courtesy.

  "Given the smell of ash, I suppose you chose Cindermouth? I'm surprised," he said, looking at Ilyra. "With your affinity, fire seems… unwise."

  "Training against weakness makes you stronger," Ilyra replied.

  "Or it makes you dead," Veric said, and his smile didn't waver. "But I'm sure you know what you're doing. House Marcellis has always been so confident."

  The word confident was said like an insult. Ilyra found that funny. Was this low-born mocking her? She kept her face smooth. "We manage."

  "Of course." Veric glanced toward Ser Harlan, who stood near the booth with his arms folded. "And you brought the old war hound. My father speaks highly of him."

  Harlan's expression didn't change. He didn't acknowledge the compliment.

  She changed the subject before he could twist the knife any further. Her gaze slid to the slaves behind his booth, letting curiosity mask her caution.

  "I couldn't help but notice your companions," she said. "That's quite the collection. Is that an Ashkari among them?"

  Veric glanced over his shoulder at the black panther woman as if he'd forgotten she was there. "Ah, Amara? Yes. A prize, that one." He turned back with a satisfied expression. "Ashkari Black Panther. Seventh Ascension. Cost me more than this building, but she's worth every coin. Strongest battle slave in the eastern provinces, I'd wager."

  The panther woman's expression didn't change. She stood behind Veric's booth like a statue carved from dark stone, gold eyes fixed on nothing.

  "Amara," Veric said, snapping his fingers without looking. "Why’re you standing there like an idiot? Come, introduce yourself."

  The woman's jaw tightened. It was small, barely visible, but Ilyra caught it.

  "Amara," she said. Her voice was low and even. "Of the Ashkari."

  She didn’t give a grand title. No proud recitation of ancestors, either. Just the name of her and her people, pared down to what the collar would allow.

  Veric didn't seem to notice the brevity. Or he enjoyed it. "Magnificent, isn't she?" he said to Ilyra, as if discussing a horse. "The Ashkari are notoriously difficult to capture. Their warriors fight to the death rather than submit. This one was... an exception. The story behind why is really interesting, let me know if you ever want to hear."

  Ilyra was interested, truly, but a pity that hearing that story would mean talking with Veric. She didn’t want that. Unfortunately, the low-born didn’t stop speaking. He kept talking. But something shifted in his tone. Still polite, but with an edge underneath. He asked after Count Severus’s health with too much concern. He mentioned ambergrain contracts with too much familiarity. He wondered aloud whether Maricall’s walls had suffered in “recent troubles.”

  The words were polite. The intent wasn’t.

  The insults were like needles, one after another, but too small to call out. Ilyra met him with smiles that didn’t reach her eyes and answers that left him nothing to chew on.

  "It must be difficult," he said. "Preparing for the Trials while your House's contracts keep… shrinking. I hear Velkor has taken on several of your old routes. Regrettable, really."

  Ilyra pressed her fingers against the table and kept her voice steady.

  "The Empire adjusts," she said. "We adjust with it."

  "I'm sure," Veric said. Then he looked at Ragna again, his smile curling slightly. "I really do wonder how you’ll adapt to the drought that is eating Erebia. Heh, will these barbarians help?"

  Ragna had been quiet longer than Ilyra expected, the way a storm holds its breath before it moves. But it was too late now. She knew before it happened that the storm was about to break.

  “Your city smells like a latrine,” Ragna said. “Maybe fix that before you talk about other people’s crops, skinny bastard.”

  Silence rippled through the booth and into the room around them. Nearby patrons pretended not to listen with the clumsy effort of people who were absolutely listening.

  Veric blinked once. Then he laughed, but there was no warmth in it. “Hm,” he said, and he looked at Ragna the way you looked at a dog that had chewed an expensive chair.

  His gaze shifted to Ilyra. The smile was gone.

  “Who allowed your barbarian slave to speak to me?” he asked calmly. “I overlooked it earlier when she asked about Lothar. This is different. Did you not train them properly? Sister-in-law, I’m always happy to help train slaves, you know that. You should have come to me if you needed tips.”

  Ilyra scowled, the insult landing.

  “They–” She was about to speak up when Veric didn’t wait.

  He reached for Ragna’s neck with the casual entitlement of a man who’d done it before, slow enough to make it clear he didn’t think there was any danger.

  “And where is her Slave Collar? I don’t see–”

  A hand closed around his wrist.

  It wasn’t Ilyra’s. It wasn’t Ragna’s.

  Thorvyn’s fingers locked down, and the pressure behind that grip was not a warning. There was no need for warning shots against dead men.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Who do you think you’re touching, fool?” Thorvyn said.

  Ragna hadn’t moved. She sat exactly where she was, looking up at Veric with a calm so flat it was frightening. She didn’t look like prey. She looked like someone waiting for permission.

  “A Valtherian,” Thorvyn said, still sitting and his voice steady. “Wearing a slave collar?”

  His eyes were red, more than they typically were. Ilyra had seen rage before, but this… this was something older than rage. Something that lived in blood and memory.

  The Mantle of Valteria erupted.

  It was like a bright explosion of power. Crimson light tore upward from Thorvyn’s shoulders and filled the booth, then the room. The air cracked with it. It hit the ceiling hard enough that wood splintered above them, the entire establishment trembled, and a jagged line ran across the tavern roof like a wound.

  Glasses shattered on nearby tables. Someone screamed. A serving girl dropped her tray and ran. Ilyra’s chair slid back from the force, and she gripped the table edge to steady herself.

  W-what?! How is he– what’s that?! She was stunned, and the thought wasn’t admiration. It was an alarm.

  Even Ser Harlan had risen to his feet, his hand on his sword, his expression sharp for the first time since they'd entered the city.

  Across the room, Amara's gold eyes were wide. There was recognition. "The Mantle of Valteria…" she said softly, and the way she said it made it sound like an old oath.

  Veric’s face had drained of color. He tried to pull his wrist free. It didn’t move.

  “To speak in such a manner toward Ragna Valteria. You are out of your mind,” Thorvyn told him, his voice the only thing that didn’t tremble in this space.

  “A-Amara!” Veric barked, voice cracking. “Stop staring and get his hand off me!”

  Amara moved. She crossed the distance in a blur, claws sliding from her fingers with a gold glow. Fast enough that Ilyra’s instincts screamed a warning too late.

  Her claws arced toward Thorvyn’s arm. The golden claws of the Ashkari were said to be one of the sharpest materials on the planet, and there were few things they couldn’t cut. Unless blocked properly, Thorvyn’s arm was a goner…!

  Ragna’s club met the claws halfway.

  The impact rang through the tavern like a struck bell. Amara’s claws scraped against the metal that Isolde’s blacksmiths had made from melting her old volcanic metal. Instead of slicing through, sparks flashed from the impact, and the two women locked in place. Gold eyes met green across the length of the weapon.

  Veric was already shouting. "Greyson! Falk! Kill–"

  Ilyra stood.

  She clapped her hands together.

  The wood in the room responded. Chairs grew. Tables twisted. The floorboards erupted upward, wrapping around arms and legs and waists. Thorvyn, Ragna, Amara, Veric, and the advancing slaves all found themselves bound in place.

  "Seriously. STOP!" Her voice echoed in the sudden silence.

  Everyone froze.

  Thorvyn's Mantle flickered, then collapsed. The pressure in the room eased. He let go of Veric's wrist, and Veric stumbled back, clutching his arm. There was a bright red mark on his skin where Thorvyn had held him. It looked almost burned.

  "What is the meaning of this, Ilyra?!" Veric's voice was high and shaking. "How dare your slaves–"

  "Do not be an idiot, Veric, you saw literally just now what happened after you used that term on them. They're my friends," Ilyra said, her voice sharp enough to cut. "You called them slaves, and so they defended that insult. They're Valtherians. Blood of Gerholt. You should be grateful they didn't break bones."

  Veric's mouth opened, then closed.

  The name Gerholt the Magmaborn did that to people. Even among 9th Ascension Demigods, he stood out. If not for his strength, then for his unique background and peculiar status as a vagabond.

  He looked at Thorvyn, then at Ragna, then at the hole in the ceiling. His face twisted with rage and humiliation, but he didn't say another word.

  He turned and stormed out, his slaves following in silence.

  Amara was the last to leave. She glanced back once, her golden eyes finding Thorvyn's face. Then she was gone.

  Ilyra let the wood recede. The chairs and tables returned to normal, though more than a few were cracked beyond repair.

  A waiter appeared, pale and shaking. "M-my lady. The damage…"

  Ilyra waved a hand. "I'll fix what I can. The rest I'll pay for."

  She shot Thorvyn a glare.

  He didn't look apologetic.

  ****

  Ilyra didn't say a word until we were outside. She walked fast, her shoulders tight, and when we reached the inn she'd rented, she turned on me like I'd stolen her horse.

  "Seriously, what's gotten into you?!" she said, and her voice was loud enough to make a passing merchant flinch. "You're typically a wise person! He was just provoking us, you know that."

  I did know. I'd known the moment Veric opened his mouth.

  But the Mantle had reacted anyway.

  "It wasn't planned," I said.

  "What does that mean?"

  "The Mantle, the red aura," I said. "It reacted on its own."

  That was the truth. I'd been ready to stop his hand. Maybe break a finger if he pushed. But the moment he reached for Ragna's neck, something in my blood had screamed.

  [The Royal Mantle of Valteria]. That was the skill’s name.

  Royal.

  Just what was so royal about a tribe of barbarians that the blood itself refused to let someone collar one of its own, to even let the idea of it remain unpunched?

  I didn't have an answer. I just knew it had happened. Ilyra stared at me like I'd grown a second head. "Your Aura activated itself?"

  "Apparently."

  "That's not how Aura works."

  "It does,” Sir Harlan corrected her. Illyra shot him a look, and he cleared his throat. “Sometimes, although usually for people who are really inexperienced. If they’re somehow pushed to their edge, they might go berserk and it might leak out. But… Thorvyn’s case didn’t seem berserk.”

  She rubbed her temple. "Whatever, I’m not interested in how you Fighter Classes handle your Aura. Ugh, this is why Mages are better. This is a disaster. Do you understand what you just did? You humiliated the City Lord's son in public. With witnesses."

  "He tried to touch Ragna."

  "And you nearly killed him for it!"

  "He’s lucky I let him go," I pointed out.

  "Stop boasting, did you see how strong his slaves were? You’d not have been able to hurt him anyway. And yet you somehow burned a handprint into his wrist!" Ilyra took a breath, then another, forcing herself to calm down. "Veric will report this. To his father. To Lothar. Ugh, to anyone who'll listen. If it wasn’t for my status, we'd have been banned from the city by morning and hunted by the guards."

  "We can always leave," I said.

  "It's not that simple. And even if it was, this is a civil land,” she said, lower now, “you could have handled it without tearing a roof open.”

  It grated my nerves how she was calling this a civil land while slaves were walking the streets outside. “Maybe,” I said.

  She waited for the apology that didn’t come.

  “I’m not going to apologize,” I added.

  Her eyes sharpened. “Why?”

  I sat on the edge of a chair and leaned forward, elbows on my knees. “Lady Ilyra, that bastard wasn’t just insulting me. Putting aside the fact that he was about to touch my companion in a demeaning way, think about the implications. He was reaching for a Slave Collar that wasn’t there, and he didn’t even see what was wrong with that.”

  Ilyra folded her arms. “You think I don’t know that? You think about it. You’re not a hero who needs to correct people’s behavior, are you, Thorvyn?”

  “I do need to correct people’s behavior, if that behavior is toward me or my people. And yes, I know you know it,” I said. “I also know you’ve gotten good at swallowing it.”

  Her jaw tensed, but she didn’t deny it.

  “When you put a collar on someone,” I started. Ragna, who’d been pacing in the corner like she wanted to break something, stopped and listened. “You don’t just hurt the person wearing it. You teach the person holding the chain that other people are tools. Once they learn that lesson, they use it on everyone. On servants and on soldiers. On rivals and… sometimes on their own family when it suits them. As time goes on, their existence is an insult to the basic rules of life, of humanity, and therefore they become monsters.”

  Ilyra’s expression tightened. She understood that part too well. “Veric isn’t some special person blessed by God who can own people,” I said. “He’s just comfortable, and I’m not someone who’d ever be scared of weak, comfortable men who happen to have some money.”

  Ragna slapped her palm on the table. “Yes! What he said.”

  Elayne blinked, and Harlan’s mouth twitched. Ilyra pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “You sound like a Waybound professor. The one that gets removed because the nobles complain.”

  “I’ll take that.”

  “It wasn’t a compliment,” she said, but her tone had lost its bite. I was glad that she at least saw my point, which meant she was different from Veric. “Fine. We’re done for today. Rest. We continue our dungeon dive tomorrow.”

  She pointed at the room. “This room is yours and Ragna’s. Elayne and I will take the one across from it. Ser Harlan beside us.”

  Ragna raised an eyebrow. “You can’t afford separate rooms?”

  Ilyra’s eye twitched. “I can. We’re not doing it. If Veric sends someone tonight, I want us close.”

  Ragna opened her mouth.

  “That was not an invitation to debate!” Ilyra said and walked out. Elayne followed, pausing long enough to give us a look that begged for peace.

  Harlan pushed off the wall and headed for the door. He paused at the threshold. “For what it’s worth, warrior,” he said, “I agreed with what you said. I respect your views.”

  Then he shut the door.

  When the door closed, Ragna looked at me. Her smile was different now. There was a soft, amused edge to it. She rarely smiled like that. "Look who got so mad," she said, stepping closer. "Seeing someone else try to touch me."

  I didn't deny it. "That wasn't the only reason."

  "Mhm, yes, I can see that. But it was part of it," she said, her grin widening. "You want me all for yourself that bad, Thorvyn?"

  What’s she trying to do? I stepped forward and pushed her back toward the bed. She laughed and let herself fall, pulling me down with her.

  We hit the mattress together, and I caught myself on my arms so I wouldn't crush her. She was still smiling, her face flushed. Her breathing was speeding up.

  "You want me for yourself that bad?" she asked again. “That was so hot…”

  I looked down at her. Her red hair was spread across the pillow like a sea of blood; it was like an art. Her green eyes were bright with challenge and something warmer.

  "Yes," I admitted. "You're mine, Ragna. And the idea of someone trying to collar you made me want to kill him. That's the truth, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of."

  Her smile faltered for half a second. Then it came back, wider. "Do you really want to kill him? For me? Well, I expected that, I’d do the same for you, but mhm… look at you saying all those words out loud," she muttered, her voice soft and still teasing.

  "Ragna," I said, and I didn't smile. "I mean it. And his escape doesn’t change it. I will kill him. Just watch."

  Her smile fell and breath caught.

  Before she could say anything and warn me it was stupid, tell me to be careful, remind me we were guests in someone else's city, I leaned down and kissed her.

  She made a sound in her throat, surprised, then her arms locked around my neck and pulled me deeper. Her mouth was hot, her hands rough, and when she bit my lip hard enough to draw blood, I didn't pull away.

  We rolled. She tried to pin me, fighting for domination like the tribe had taught her. I twisted and caught her wrists, pressing them above her head. She laughed and wrapped her legs around my waist, trying to flip us again.

  It wasn't soft. It was a fight, and we both wanted to win. The bed started to creak under us as minutes passed. The room was too hot, and we made it worse.

  Somewhere in the tangle of limbs and heat and her laughter against my mouth, I stopped thinking about collars and nobles and the careful politics Ilyra kept trying to teach me.

  At that moment, it was just me and my Ragna.

  And the bold promise I'd just made.

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