“Tarathiel, you’re ruining everything!” Yathanae shouted in response to her brother’s threat to kill me. She was still being hugged by her parents. She had to struggle to get enough of her face free to yell at her brother.

“Don’t worry, I’ll save—wait, what did I do?” Tarathiel asked flummoxed, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

“You’re threatening Karth, you big idiot!”

“He’s the damn human who enslaved you,” Tarathiel stated, as it was obvious what he should do about me. I was watching this with a smile, I could see Yathanae’s father trying to hide a smile as well. Her mother was still too busy fussing about Yathanae, not caring one iota about dignity or propriety.

“No, he’s going to be the father of me and Emerald’s children, you dumb ox!”

“You’re pregnant?” her mother asked immediately, pushing her back so she could get a better look at her stomach.

“No, not yet,” Yathanae replied with a shake of her head. “But soon.”

“Where’s Emerald? We haven’t heard from her since she went to try and save you,” Velatha asked.

“She’s back at the Hold with my pregnant wife,” I said and got off the horse. I moved over to the parents of my—I was not sure what label to put on our relationship—of Yathanae. I bowed in front of them. “Despite the circumstances regarding Yathanae’s status is regrettable, I’m not sorry that I had the chance to get to know such a remarkable woman. Know that I’ll do everything in my power to ensure no harm is done to her.”

Before they could say anything, I presented the gift I had prepared to Yathanae’s mother. It was a piece of stone that was formed like a closed ivy morning glory. A thin green stalk, made of jade, moved up to the closed flower that was a mix of white marble and the blue lapis, spiralling upwards together. “I’d like to gift this to you.”

“A piece of rock?” she asked, disdain clear in her voice. As she spoke, the rock morning glory started to open, slowly unfurling until it was a completely open morning glory. On the petals, there were small diamonds imitating dew when the sun caught them right. Gemstones had little value since any powerful enough stone mage could make them out of thin air.

Diamonds were different though, normally. However, for many centuries the human priests had flooded the market with diamonds created with magic. With the right combination of different magics, diamonds could be produced. Nevertheless, diamonds still had some value.

“Yathanae mentioned that you and Tinesi shared a love for morning glories and that her favourite colour was blue,” I said holding out the gift for Velatha. It was not really that valuable a gift, but the best I could do on short notice. Yathanae had not been very forthcoming with details until shortly before we could see the walls.

Velatha gingerly took the rock flower. Her voice filled with awe, her eyes with tears. “Thank you.”

“It’s nothing, just a small token of appreciation for the mother of one of the remarkable women in my life,” I said with a shrug.

Tarathiel had been fuming and finally exploded, “I still want to beat this human up for daring to put his hands on my sister.”

“Weapons Master Tarathiel,” Ayda said. “You might want to rethink that. He won a fight singlehandedly against twenty of my personal guards.”

There was a huge collective gasp from the crowd around us. Funny how she did not mention she had been beaten as well. However, I could understand why not. It would not be good for morale. I turned to Tarathiel, “You’re the brother of one of the women I love, I would not wish to fight you seriously. However, since we’re staying a couple of days, we could spar a little, if you wish? Yathanae is a formidable fighter, but she tells me that you’re even better.”

Tarathiel changed from looking shocked to looking embarrassed. “Eh, sure. However, if you can win single handedly against so many of the Queen personal guards, I don’t know if I would be a satisfactory sparring partner.”

“Nonsense,” I said. “It was an unfair fight because I used magic. If it had been a purely physical fight without magic, I would have been beaten. I would love to gain some insight into the martial arts of the elves. It’s fascinating the similarities I’ve observed so far when you consider that we come from two different worlds, which supposedly have no contact.”

“Really?” he asked, a bit of interest and excitement coming to the surface.

“Indeed. The Árëkyermë has many of the same motions as tai-chi, it even has the same physical purpose, if not the same spiritual one,” I said, and then started describing the differences I had observed.

Over the shoulder of Tarathiel, I saw Yathanae send me a thankful look and she mouthed “thank you”, to which I replied with a wink. Velatha suddenly startled as if she realized something.

She turned to Ayda and bowed once more. “Your Majesty, this one apologizes for letting personal business interfere with the hospitality and protocols. This one would be honoured if Your Majesty would grace this household with her presence. Of course, the Gladelord will surely welcome Your Majesty should this humble abode not be sufficient.”

“It’ll do, my dear,” Ayda replied with a smile. She dismounted, and so did the twenty-four guards I should have been fighting. Those who joined me were much fewer, only Shenerah, Ilmadia, and Siphanien.

This was already decided on beforehand, so I had already had the loud discussion with Alan. He had been very opposed to me going in there without any protection. I had laid down the law and told him I was not meeting my in-laws for the first time and then offending them by implying I did not trust them. Of course, I did not, but there was no reason to get in their face about it. I would rely on Yathanae, and Ayda to some degree, to ensure that I was safe during the stay.

Dinner had been mostly pleasant, but still a bit awkward. The elves were not used to having a human, in their midst while talking about the state of affairs. They often stopped mid-sentence, because they were about to say something sensitive. I spent most of the dinner chatting with Tarathiel.

He had a deep well of knowledge regarding martial arts. From unarmed combat to mastery of almost every weapon imaginable. It was daunting to think that his sister, Tinesi, had been even better than him, and it was only a few years since she had died. I do not think that I would have been able to hold my own against fifty orcs or more, without the aid of magic.

Tarathiel was a likeable person, after the initial awkwardness of him wanting to kill me, we became fast friends. He would be a good brother-in-law, so to speak, because Yathanae and I would never get married in the eyes of the Gods. The elves’ and humans’ gods hated each other too much to allow such a blessed union. Absolute bullcrap.

When dinner wound down, I excused myself. I would be spending the night in the camp my troopers had put up. Not because I was not invited and only slightly unwelcome to sleep in the manor, but because I had some things to take care of.

“Ethan,” I said as I arrived at my tent. Ethan, Nathalie, Astrid, and Ainsley were waiting inside as I had asked.

“Milord, what can I do for you?” he asked.

“Can you contact Milton?”

“Yes, but why, Milord? If you need to pass a message to your wife, I can just pass it through Emma,” he asked.

“Because this is going to be official. You’ll be sending confirmation through Emma,” I answered. “I need you to pass him a proposal for the Church. I’ve managed to secure a substantial amount of gold, not through trade but through raiding during wartime. The Church is not entitled to any of that gold.”

“I know, Milord, why remind them of that fact? It’ll just make them mad.”

“If they make a line of credit available for me to spend when we get back to the capital from the Bastion, I’ll give them their normal tithe. If they don’t charge me any fees for services rendered, until I get back to my own Hold. Also the portal back to the High Hold won’t open until I’m ready,” I said. “I need you to word it exactly like that. They’ll draw up a contract to that effect, which I will sign when I come back.”

“Should I tell him how much coin it is, Milord?”

“Yes, let them know how much exactly they stand to make or lose,” I said after a moment of thinking it over.

“Anything else?”

I nodded. “Yes, tell him that Lily and Caspar need to get the coin from the dwarves. He’ll also need to send back a password given by Lily for receipt of the message. And she’ll give him a new password when they have the money.”

“And I’ll be providing Emma with these passwords?” Ethan asked, with a look of understanding in his eyes.

“Exactly.”

He bowed lightly. “I’ll go see to it at once, Milord.”

“Thanks,” I said and turned my attention back to the three ladies in front of me.

Nathalie, who had been interacting the most with me, spoke up, “What do you need from us, Milord?”

“I need you to keep me alive because I’m going to try something very stupid,” I replied and stripped down. “Ainsley, did you bring the titanium?”

“Yes, Milord, why am I here?”

“Because you might need to manipulate the titanium if something goes wrong,” I said and lay down on the cot. “Give me half an ingot first.”

“What are you going to do, Milord?” Nathalie asked, a bit concerned. My experiments had a tendency to go wrong. Well, only once. Nevertheless, the damage to Mina’s barrier on the mana pool had been significant. Almost crippling.

“I’m going to replace some of my bones with titanium, not those with marrow in them, mostly interested in my forearms,” I explained.

“Why would you do that, Milord?” Ainsley asked.

It was an idea I had gotten when I had killed, well, tried to kill, Anders. It reminded me of the comics I read as a child, and the movies I watched as a grown man. With the addition of magic, I could easily heal and maintain the bones in my forearm if they were replaced with titanium. If I put in a bit extra, I could maybe always be armed.

Of course, I did not tell them I was living out a childhood fantasy. Instead, I tried to make it sound like I had some profound reason for doing it. It was a valid reason, just a secondary one. “I often find myself unarmed, if I got titanium bones in my forearms instead of normal bones, I can easily block swords and so on. If I make them a bit bigger, there would even be enough for me to create a weapon.”

“Oh, like a cat, but with titanium claws instead?” Astrid exclaimed. Hastily she added a “Milord.”.

“Exactly,” I nodded. “Let’s begin.”

The procedure went well, I was just not so sure about the result. The entire morning I had felt clumsy. The weight of the titanium in my forearms meant that I had to retrain my body to include the new weight in every movement. When I had just replaced the bones with solid titanium, it had become three times heavier. Because of the extra titanium, it was closer to four times the weight.

“You seem to struggle,” a voice rang out, as I once again failed in maintaining the kata I was trying to go through.

“Good morning, Tarathiel,” I said and gave him a slight bow. “Yeah, I might have messed up when I made some alterations to my body yesterday.”

“Alterations?” he asked as he came closer. He looked me over. “I don’t see anything different about you.”

“I replaced the bones in my forearms, with some made from titanium.”

He looked shocked. “Why would you do that? What about health and so on?”

“I don’t know if anyone mentioned it, but the magic I got allows me to link with other peoples’ magic. Essentially, I can use every form of magic I’ve encountered so far,” I explained. “So I can easily heal anything that might crop up because of me changing the bones. With some metal magic, I can even change the titanium in my body.”

His eyes narrowed. “That’s so unfair. I don’t even have one form of magic, and you say you can use every form of magic?”

“Yup,” I replied with a grin.

“You sounded excited about changing the titanium in your body,” he pointed out.

He was rather astute it seemed. “Well, I’ll be honest, the main reason I wanted to do it was because of this.”

I put my right hand up, and with a bit of concentration, I dulled the senses in my right forearm, made sure that the titanium would not hit anything important. I then forced the titanium to change, elongate. I hollowed out the titanium bone a bit, leaving just enough so that it would still be twice as strong as a normal bone, instead of five times as strong.

Unlike the comic book character, the claws I grew did not grow from the back of my hands, but from my forearm just above the hand. The part of the claws that ran along the top of my hand, was not sharpened. It would be a waste of mana to have to heal that all the time. When they reached beyond my knuckles, they started replicating the comic book character. Becoming sharp, pointy, and shiny.

“That’s pretty awesome,” was Tarathiel’s reaction as he looked at my claws. “It takes too long to bring forth though.”

“I know, I’ve to train a bit with it first. I should be able to get it down to be instantaneous. Well, I can do that now, but then I would make all sorts of mistakes and harm myself,” I explained. “The titanium is much heavier than my bones, which is why I’m fumbling around.”

“I can understand that, if you wish to spar, it would probably be faster to get your body used to the extra weight,” he suggested.

I quickly agreed, “That would be just what the doctor ordered.”

He gave me a weird look at that, then shrugged. “But first, you’ve to tell me why you did this to yourself.”

“I kept getting disarmed. Either because I had to throw my weapon at someone, or because it got stuck in someone. I always seem to be fighting against multiple opponents at the same time. Or sometimes they were just knocked out of my hands,” I explained.

“So, your problem was that you became disarmed?” he queried.

“I just said that,” I replied with a confused look.

“Well, that’s a problem for the past now. Unless someone literally disarms you, you’ll never be disarmed,” he said with a big grin. I just stared at him. What a shitty joke, but I could not help but chuckle.

“Okay, Tarathiel, let’s get to training before you completely butcher my humour,” I said with a shake of my head.

“Then you’ll just have to replace your humerus as well,” he quipped. I groaned in reply. “And you can just call me Tara.”

“No, definitely not,” I replied immediately.

“Why not?”

“Because that’s the name of a girl that I used to sleep with.”

“Oh,” was his response. “I would rather not have you think about that when calling my name.”

“Good choice,” I mumbled. During the next few hours we sparred, and I must admit that Tarathiel was good. Very good. Even if I had not been a bit handicapped by the extra weight in my arms, he would still have wiped the floor with me. He was just that good.

He also had a very irritating shit-eating grin every time he struck at my arms. Because he seemed to go for the humerus bones, and would often spout nonsense like, “If your old humerus doesn’t help you make your friends, you should try a new form of humerus.”

Despite his poor jokes, he was a nice fellow. At one point we took a break and drank some cool water I conjured out of nowhere. It should be the same as when Saori conjured it, but I thought it tasted different. Somehow. Not sure how.

At the same time, Yathanae was showing some of the girls around in the garden nearby. Including Shenerah. Tarathiel kept sending glances her way and spacing out. We had taken the break because he had been distracted, and I finally figured out why.

“I don’t think you got a chance with her, mate,” I said, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he quickly said.

“Shenerah, she’ll not be interested,” I repeated.

“You got your hooks in her as well?” he asked a bit heatedly.

I shook my head. “Nope, she’s not the least bit interested in me. Your sister on the other hand.”

“Oh no, not again,” Tarathiel exclaimed with a groan.

“Again?”

“Growing up, Yathanae and I were a bit competitive. We’re only two cycles apart, which is very rare for elven siblings to be that close in age,” he explained. “Anyway, whenever I expressed desire or interest in a woman, Yathanae did her best to seduce her. I think she managed to steal nine out of ten girls away from me.”

“Wow,” was all I could manage.

“My sister is a bit of a slut, it wasn’t until she met Emerald thirteen cycles ago she finally settled down,” he explained. “If she had not met Emerald, she would probably have joined the Gladelord’s harem permanently.”

“Well, I’m glad that she didn’t.”

“You’re not jealous?” he asked a bit surprised.

“Of her former lovers? Not really, if we were talking current lovers of the male persuasion,” I said and then took a deep breath. “Well, I always need someone to practice vivisections on.”

“I can understand that sentiment. I’m considered a weirdo because I think one should only find one person to love and spend their lives with,” Tarathiel said with a sad smile.

“As a guy with a wife, your sister, and Emma, I’d say you’re missing out on something,” I responded. “But I can understand the sentiment. Most people where I am from think the same, yet they all seem to cheat on each other. Humans are not built for monogamy. Can’t make any statements in that regard about elves though.”

“You might be right.”

We sat in silence as we watched the women leave for another part of the gardens that we could not see. I finally asked, “Have you considered finding someone from a less promiscuous race?”

“No, never!” he exploded, sounding very affronted.

“Don’t get upset, it was just a question.”

“It’s wrong, it’s an abomination to suggest such a thing,” he grouched.

I quirked my eyebrow. “Are you calling me and your sister an abomination.”

He froze instantly. “No—I didn’t—No, I don’t think that. You seem to care for my sister, and she got Emerald. I don’t know.”

“Race shouldn’t matter if you care about someone,” I said. “It doesn’t matter if a person is tall, short, fat, or thin. So why should race? All that matters is if you care about the person that they are and that you’re compatible.”

“I—” he started and stopped a few times. “Maybe, you’ve given me something to think about.”

We left it at that and went back to sparring.