It was, as it so happened, the last bastion of trust he had for anyone, and with that he dispensed it to a stranger—a servant of them, no less. Perhaps Fang Lai did beat the intelligence out of him; the other Grisla would’ve been halfway out of the Northern Wilderness and coming near Orlith Pass around this time. He and the worthless threat of reprisal, from a complete stranger to her notwithstanding. That confidence—or lack thereof, but there’s no reason to say that aloud—carried meaning more than a result.

Time had passed. Too long, and doubt beset him. He did have to remember this plan of his… wasn’t too prepared, in fact it’s gone so smoothly it almost convinced him otherwise. The final stage left to a servant girl of all people. Alone in these hallways, sucking light and driving it letting shadow claim. Hearing wasn’t as refined; but he threw buckets and a little extra of his Juva to enhance it as well as he could. The way back was remembered nearly as good as his own name, branded as his life depended on.

Minutes crawled, but the girl didn’t come. Must he kill her? That was silliness heightened with fear, from the start he’d be bluffing, but, somewhere, in a corner of his heart he had to admit the desire was there. It would’ve been so easy, losing control, snapping her neck and getting away with the pettiest revenge he could. That thinking was absolutely pathetic. It must’ve been the influence of the Gates. While his doubt filled, the other voices whispered.

Around this time, the Great Lion star would be beaming. In a couple months, winter’s touch would return, and grain would be shelved and clan warriors begin isolating themselves much like the wilderness; instead for training. Grisla stared back. Fang Lai’s beautiful door stayed shut.

And the whispers grew.

But suddenly, he heard something while he was in an aggressive-but-silent half-step away. The door reopened. She gazed at him, a silent farewell without a thing done to be deserving of. He ruined her life as fast he entered it; yet she did so at her own behest, no matter what kind of threat he could make, real or fictional her hand carried out his will. He bowed—the deed was done. Going off what he knew, personally, the effects should be nearly immediate.

Grisla didn’t get to see her off in his rush inside.

She’ll never show her face in Leimuth again, likely in all of Grittus controlled lands and vassals under, all because she poisoned her employer off a single meeting.

Perhaps, I underestimated the human spirit. Not everyone lives under fear as I or think as much of their masters as I assume.

She detailed to him of the abuse suffered under her master. Rendering it once more in his head made him even more certain about this plan, if only a little. He gave an excuse and a way out, and the means to exact her own revenge.

Inside, his quarters were as much of a young master’s and second-in-line of Chosen as he’d imagined; wealth matched to station. But that wasn’t what drew his attention. Chosen Two gasped back awake, after sipping the medical concoction that he believed would help. Chest bare and breaking out in sweat, the memories flashed back.

Amid his panic… he noticed a presence in the room. Stares that could meet from opposite worlds. Spell broken, Fang Lai started for a cry—but a hand interrupted. Grisla wouldn’t mind welding his hand to Fang Lai’s mouth if that’s what it took; the servant was leaving, and his time was limited.

Irony hits the hardest when least expected, or so Grisla assumes that was what Fang Lai had going for him, though, it would take a shred of introspection and empathy to realize. What’s coloring his features wasn’t that, not a hint. If, Grisla had the time, to write it down, surely there would be about… fifteen different emotions flickering on him, the strength of each colored his face like an artist doing touch up work.

Grisla’s sardonic grin flashed its might. “Shh. Be considerate, people are sleeping.” He wasn’t listening, not at all for the man ignored his words as he would for the city’s backdrop noise. Fang Lai’s hands spoke for him, instead.

A hidden blade—a spare kept from Fang Lai’s swarm—was blocked with his forearm, but the man’s scornful glare which desired to burn anything in creation that displeased hadn’t faltered in the slightest from the man who brought him near death’s brink, hours prior; for Grisla’s own heart crinkled remembering what the Fang specializes in!

It mattered not if he blocked the stab, he was going to cut him anyway! A poison tip was a trivial addition to their offense, and so Grisla at a breakneck defense slapped the steel away to clatter on the floor.

Doubtless, a Chosen and especially a Fang was too dangerous to be left as he was. How foolish, he thought. He wasn’t a docile maid with as much fight as a kitten; assuming he would listen almost cost him everything. Why must everything concern with life and death?

Besides that, he was supposed to be crippled. No, Grisla corrected, I can sense it. His cultivation’s dropping like a stone. In the meantime, he can still summon whatever strength he has left in him to deal with me. I was working on the confidence that the effects would be immediate. He remembered: It was immediate. To him, that woke up, after the plummet. He had lost hours of time while being carried back home after the father-son duo poisoned him.

Did he make a fatal mistake, here? Now?

If he must, he’ll subdue Fang Lai until Mortal Reminder afflicted all his specialness. How audacious the thought; Chosen Two, although his cultivation (even now his aura was still a colossus in comparison) to his estimation fell somewhere between First Step Houtian to possibly, half-step, Fang Lai under duress can overpower him.

Fang Lai muffled something. Say that there was no risk of discovery, he couldn’t be persuaded to let the hand go; he’d probably cursed the very first man that was named Orlith and swore to find that mans grave if it took him centuries. Fist replaced dagger, and a second followed. Powered by a deluge of fury and eroding cultivation, Grisla’s everything screamed at him. But…

…In their world, there was no such thing as cheating.

His weakening target muttered again—this time it was paired with widened eyes.

There’s no way he could stop both and keep Chosen Two’s mouth shut, lest his scream pierce the dreams of every man, woman, child, and an infuriated Matriarch. Grisla whispered, “I’d like to thank you. If it weren’t for you stirring up that evil, I would be hard-pressed to pull it out on my own, were I willing.” Talk is cheap, but he’s not looking to out himself. Darkness wanted to close his sight, and he felt himself slowly slipping away and a second grip the reins. No! I’ll hold on! Until his strength slips away, I can’t close the Gate.

He’s never felt so much power in his life; all his, if he gave himself to it. Power that allowed him to match a Chosen’s strength, albeit temporarily. Even the fist he couldn’t block had to be endured. A split lip was nothing.

“How about, till the deed is done, I sing you a lullaby? No? How about a story,” Grisla said. Silliness, he thought but anything that would keep his concentration anchored and his consciousness seated wasn’t to be mocked. Though Fang Lai might somehow find it in his heart to hate him even more, if it was possible.

A proverbial tug-of-war between Grisla and him ensued. Would Grisla’s sanity slip, or Fang Lai’s strength first? They stayed within each other’s presence so long, in a man’s room near to silence and close enough in a tussle to catch every bout of change, that Grisla figured, if the woman knew the gravity of what she’d done, she would’ve been beyond their checkpoints by now.

Things he’d done, and, in a grim foreboding, what would be required to do next against people beyond his measure was an accepted fate. How pointless it was, stitching his cuts, Grisla thought. Pillmaker would have enough words to kill; but in his bloodied state, a child would find a tree more challenging.

Yet he held on. Enduring a second beating on the same day. Blood on Fang Lai’s fist and chest like splattered paint. Finally, Grisla noticed, but whether the darkness coating his periphery was due to the Gate or the suffering bruises shutting his eyes kept him questioning; however, the fist beating his face was weaker, slower.

Grisla this time jerked his head. And with that, settled it. A slow, weak fist like that’ll never touch the likes of even Grisla Orlith the Untalented. Chosen Two’s eyes said so already, but his mouth was yapping off independent of it; surprise, shock, or terror? He didn’t care. He wasn’t here for that. Seeing it for himself was as terrifying as being a recipient, but now without lifting a finger, Fang Lai was dying inside.

“Enough,” Grisla said, “it’s pointless.”

To nobody’s surprise his very lips recoiled under Grisla’s hand. With his right seized and his left all he had, the rabid swings made Grisla suddenly feel like a man at the mercy of a enraged wife. Surprisingly, he didn’t do much in the way of retaliation or defense—just what could the cripple do to him now?

“So, you may live to see the end of this night. But, of course, for that to happen two minds at a junction must come to an understanding, you get where I’m going, Honorable Chosen Two,” Grisla said, slightly amused. “Earlier, there was words about someone being a slave, yes?” At that moment, Fang Lai’s worthless kicks at his back were pebbles hitting steel.

“It’s not very fair you know…” Shaking his head, Grisla’s voice turned mockingly soft, “I was a cooperative mutt under your thumb, but with the turning of fate you couldn’t give me at least a shred of that respect. You wound my heart, Fang Lai.”

He was almost there, making him submit—until fingers aimed like swords shot for his eyes. Grisla caught them, both of them. Then Grisla, realizing his mistake, Fang Lai savagely grinned.

“MOTHER! PLEASE SAV—”

Teeth flew.

And, Grisla Orlith tossed a freshly crippled man to a wall almost as hard as he could, making furniture shriek and a shattered mirror to rain over him. Despite everything being ruined, a relief came to assuage his feelings over an imminent death finally—he has a full justification for beating Fang Lai to mimic a broken instrument, not that he hadn’t one before, but—touching someone as defenseless as he was initially didn’t sit right. But rage didn’t care.

He won’t be able to get properly buried. “Fine. Have it your way,” Grisla said. It was all he could think about. With a fishing net called his Spiritual Awareness out he’ll know the moment his rescuers come near.

Heh, he really pissed you off didn’t he? Don’t burst a vein, my little student. I’ve isolated the room. Scream all he likes, no one’s coming, Seri said.

Stopping, Grisla’s heart backflipped.

…Do I owe you for this?

Thought about it, but nah. The Four do have words with you, but, well, you’re busy so, we’ll catch you later.

Thank you, Seri.

The sting of his plight was always alleviated by a person whom now he could name friend, and now she guaranteed him that which was to be denied, so now—there’s no shame to be had indulging himself just this once. I’ll find a way to make it up to her, later.

“You’re dead…!” Fang Lai shrieked. “You heard me? Dead! What did you do to me?”

Grisla looked at him as an idiot. “Why do you need what you already know?”

“How does it feel? You know, I cried for days after—”

“Shut your mouth! Mother’ll come, and the guards! When the Elders get their hands on you Orlith filth you’ll wish that—”

This time one could tie a knot through his teeth. Grisla overestimated how much strength to use. If he kept on it’ll be impossible to understand a word after.

“Go on. I won’t hit you,” Grisla said, falling into an open seat with no permission, of course. “Yell. As loud as you can.”

Fang Lai’s furious eyes visioned agony in Grisla’s future; despite the malice brooding and a guarantee he said nothing. Possibly assumed Grisla was like him, no obligation to anything on their word. Grisla shrugged. Getting on with it should be his priority. But his nature just couldn’t help teasing. Just a little.

Grisla blinked. “What, did a rat crawl into your mouth?”

“Okay, I’ll do it for you.”

And he did. Exhausting his lungs like on a dangerous run but he was sitting in a comfortable chair cushioned by exotic beasts just for one individual. He sung a song, clapped his hands and recited the twenty-two stanza’s of The Warrior’s Way. All the while Fang Lai waited for the door. All the while slowly coming to a terrifying, but confusing, realization.

“Get it? No one’s coming,” Grisla said, as a fact.

“That being said, I have questions for you. You’ll speak on each one, truthfully as you can, for I know you’re a liar. ‘Course, I’m helpless to prove whether you’re lying or not, but, I suppose I could think you’re lying and punish you accordingly. How ‘bout that? Sounds good?”

Fully at Grisla’s mercy, Fang Lai was as terrified as a stone. Admittedly it irritated him. So, he wasn’t the only Chosen—former, but—that had an iron will. A consequence of their specialness? Possibly. Breaking him would take time he didn’t have. Though, he could send him into Limbo with him, but that was just wasn’t necessary, not at all, for the medallion itself is a secret he’ll need to die with.

If he brought him into Limbo—Fang Lai would have to die.

“We’re busy men, aren’t we? Let’s talk. Cripple to cripple,” he smiled.

It mattered little if he was unbreakable or malleable taffy; he was here to get answers.