Adriana let Mattiew enjoy his immunity the evening after the Trial of Cooperation. The healers had made him well enough to move on his own. Though they weren’t able to get rid of that horrid scar across the right side of his face. Well...she’d learn to love it eventually.

He and his crew needed to spend some time together anyway. After she congratulated him and helped him pick out a bottle of hard liquor, Adriana left to attend to other matters of importance.

This was her leg of the tournament. She still had the house staff to deal with. And she was done playing games with them.

As Adriana walked through the halls of her family’s estate, she composed herself. She drew out the cold and ruthless politician that her parents had wanted her to be. Despite everything, Adriana refused to shun it. Nor did she accept it as a part of herself. It was a weapon. Her equivalent to Mattiew’s strategic mind.

She glanced up from the ground as Kalai was about to walk past her. She grabbed the ancient hero by the arm.

“Kalai,” Adriana said, “You’d be good for this job I have to do. Come with me, won’t you? I’m in need of your skill set.”

Kalai frowned, “What for?”

“To take steps in releasing my husband from my father’s grip. We share that desire, yes?”

Kalai narrowed her eyes but nodded.

“Good.” Adriana let her go, “Follow me.”

Her reasons for bringing Kalai with her were layered. On the surface, it was for mere intimidation. Beyond that, Kalai was old and wise. Her perspective would be invaluable.

The two women slipped into the stairwell that led to the wine cellar, where Adriana ignited a dim torch on the wall with a flint, illuminating the cellar. The heat only amplified the ambient scent of alcohol.

“Be sure to close the door behind you.” Adriana said, as she pulled up the sleeve of her garments and took the torches.

She approached a flat stone wall and muttered an incantation that caused the bricks in the wall to fold in on themselves, opening into a dark tunnel.

“What is this?” Kalai asked.

“The city of Veyshtar is rampant with secret passages and unknown networks of tunnels.” Adriana said, “This is the entrance I had made to access them.”

“Hm. Would’ve been useful to know when I tried to besiege this place.” Kalai huffed.

“Why do you think they kept it a secret?” Adriana asked as she and Kalai started to make their way down the tunnel, the queen forced to crane her neck and hunch over to fit.

Adriana muttered her incantation in reverse. The wall folded back into place behind them.

Sometime later–Adriana never cared to count the seconds whenever she made the journey–they broke into a network of tunnels with far more advanced construction techniques.

She took a right and continued down her path.

As they walked, Adriana began to whistle to the tune of Tiamat’s Descent, an old lullaby from times before the Empires. She stopped as the tunnels met the entrance to a taller, more open chamber. She tapped her foot three times, the sole of her boot clacking against the stone.

The creaking of bows being undrawn accompanied a movement of shadows that quickly gave way to a newly lit chamber.

Callione—or rather, Nikoliades operatives, wrapped in black cloth and faces obscured by clay masks, all knelt before their mistress as she entered the chamber.

“Whatever you’ve got going on here is certainly...secure.” Kalai muttered.

“I doubt I need to explain why.” Adriana muttered.

“So...what do you need me for?”

“Is he ready?” Adriana asked her agents.

“Just about waking up, Lady Ca-Lady Nikoliades.” Many of them were still getting used to calling her that.

“Good. Bring him in.” Adriana ordered.

Two operatives emerged from the shadows, dragging the form of a struggling man. They forced him to his knees before her and ripped off the sack over his head.

“Dymnos? Have you woken yourself up enough to have a coherent dialogue?” Adriana asked.

“M-Miss Adriana?” The man tore his eyes from the ground, wide as a startled deer’s gaze. Dymnos was a Syrytite man with scruffy, straw colored hair. He was a personal butler to her father and, while one among many, had significant sway over the house staff that the others lacked.

“That’s Lady Nikoliades.” Adriana emphasized.

“What in Irkalla is happening? Where am I?’ Dymnos exclaimed.

“This isn’t a back and forth, Dymnos. I’m going to ask questions. You’re going to respond. If I like your responses, you get to leave and forget this ever happened.” Adriana scowled.

Dymnos’ face showcased a failed attempt to steel his resolve. Why were these butlers and maids so damn stubborn? What did they like so much about her father? What was there to like?

“Here’s the bottom line. All I need you to do is keep silent and allow whatever happens to my father to happen to him.”

“Is it not the purpose of a life debt to live out one’s life in the service of one’s rescuer? Kill me if you wish, you psychotic wench. I will not bend.” Dymnos snarled.

Adriana raised her eyebrows, “Psychotic wench? I hope the irony of defending my father while calling me that isn't lost on you.”

“Please. If anything has driven you mad, it’s that common pig you whore yourself to.” Dymnos sneered.

Adriana’s fist clenched, eager to break Dymnos’s jaw right off his face, but she let it go with a sigh, “Kalai, what do you think of this man’s life debt to my father?”

“I’m sorry?” Kalai asked.

“I want you to tell us what you think of his poor decision making. Surely someone as wise as yourself will be able to get through to him.” Adriana huffed, “Not that he doesn’t deserve a bit of pain for insulting me and my house.”

Kalai sighed, “I...commend you on attempting to resolve this peacefully. Though if you were going to kidnap him, I would’ve just followed through and killed him. Fine. I’ll handle it.”

“Hah!” Dymnos spat, “You think this she-giant can talk me into submission? Well, it’s not like she has any other options, considering she’s the weakes-”

Kalai socked Dymnos across the jaw, leaving him sputtering.

“That was for two and a half poorly chosen insults.” Kalai muttered, “Now then, about this life debt thing-”

“Perhaps you are going about this the wrong way.”

Adriana almost jumped as she looked for the source of the voice in the shadows.

Abil revealed himself. Her agents flowed out from the shadows, placing ten blades at his throat. He seemed unphased.

“What are you doing here?” Adriana growled as she drew in mana.

“Who’s this?” Kalai asked.

“Wish I knew.” Adriana glared at the spymaster of the Sunkiller.

Abil sighed. “I think you have better chances at gaining information than changing this one’s will. Said information may help your cause more than this man’s neutrality.”

Adriana lowered her guard, but only slightly. “What information do you think there is to gain?”

“Many things. Such as your father’s true motives in forcing your husband to fight.”

Adriana considered for a moment. Each time she or Mattiew had asked why Andar chose him to fight on his behalf, her father found a way to avoid the question or reached some approximation of ‘I see strength in your weakness’.

Perhaps there was an underlying motive. And those guardsmen that had come to them in Kellas claimed her father was investigating something sinister. There could be another avenue there. A road to freedom that didn’t require the cooperation of hundreds of people.

“Lower your weapons.” Adriana commanded. “But not your guard.”

The agents slinked back into the darkness.

“You heard him, Dymnos.” Adriana turned to her captive. “What’s my father been up to?”

Dymnos laughed. “Are you going to try talking me into spilling our lord’s secrets?”

“Does that man happen to be a sorcerer?” Abil asked.

“He’s common born. Why?” Adriana said.

“Allow me to offer some meager assistance.”

Adriana’s brow furrowed as Abil’s hands came out from underneath his billowing cloak. He wore ten jeweled rings on each finger. But that wasn’t the strange thing.

The ambient mana density around his body was thin, especially around the rings. Perhaps they were sorcerous items that gave him protection. But what sort of item would consume that much mana?

Abil approached Dymnos. As he did, he took one thumb ring off his finger.

An explosion of mana rocked Adriana’s vision. She and every other sorcerer in the room stumbled as gold blinded their vision like voracious fires eating at the air.

Adriana scrambled up against a wall as the air going down her throat seared her insides like acid with crackling power.

The commoners even started to whisper about seeing an aura.

Adriana stared in a mixture of terror and awe, paralyzed by the impossibility of the sight before her.

It took every inch of mental fortitude to unfocus her sight from the mana around her.

Abil looked down at Dymnos, who was frantically trying to divine what was going on by the reactions of others.

The spymaster grabbed Dymnos’s face, holding his head in place, before pressing the ringless thumb against his forehead.

Dymnos’s breath picked up in pace until it became rabid panting.

He screamed as though his fingers were being torn off, eyes watering. But nothing happened.

“What is Andar Callione’s plan?” Abil demanded.

“I, I….I don’t know!” Dymnos cried.

“Lies.” Abil said. “What do you know of Andar Callione’s plan?”

Dymnos could barely speak through whatever torment was being inflicted on him.

“H-h-he’s afraid of the Tammuz...Diamedes alliance! Hee...He wants to s-strength his sorcery! There’s...a relic he wants from them! From the Wild Age! S-s-something about a...a second...rrrraaaagh!” Despite all his wailing, Dymnos never once moved his body to try and struggle against his bindings. “A second level of sorcery or something, I don’t know!”

“What other commoners know?” Abil asked.

“M-me! Only me! I’m the only commoner!”

“Sorcerers.” Abil demanded.

“O-other Calliones! The House Archivist! I-I’ve seen Lord Callione with the Sunkiller before! Discussing this!”

Abil took his thumb from Dymnos’s head. As he did, the screaming stopped and Dymnos fell over, unconscious. Abil put the ring back on his finger, causing the massive amount of mana to vanish.

Adriana could only stare, eyes wide as dinner plates. What had she just witnessed?

“The Sunkiller?” Adriana murmured.

“There are your answers, Adriana.” Abil said. “Go find them. I will do my part in investigating my liege.”

“W-what...what are you?” Adriana stammered.

“An intruder taking his leave.” Abil’s voice echoed as he walked back into the shadows of the room. Not a footstep was heard, but Adriana knew he was gone the instant he was out of sight.

“By the Eightfold Pact…” Kalai murmured.

“What?” Adriana asked. “Do you know what that was?”

Kalai shook her head. “The only answer I could offer is...it’s impossible.”

Adriana looked at the shadow he had vanished into, her fingers numb with cold fear.

She tore her eyes away, refusing to linger. There was new work to be done.

***

It had been too long since Mattiew was able to enjoy himself with his old friends like this. With half a bottle of wine in him and chasing it with Veyshtari beer, he was able to relax around his crew for the first time since getting them out of Alazar.

The familiar setting of a bar, despite being classier than what Mattiew was used to, really helped the tension dissolve between himself and the others. It also helped him forget about the nasty scar that now ran from the corner of his lip to his ear.

“So we all wake up to a buncha screaming in the night, and turns out a rat’s jumped atop Nilas’s head and bit his fuckin’ ear clean off!” Aram, a Veyshtari beast of a man, exclaimed, eliciting a room full of laughter.

Several of the bandits had devoted their time to telling stories about their time in various Alazarite prisons. Mattiew had missed out on a lot. Like finding out that Ladona was no longer a fan of men and that Sedis met someone with an identical face to his, who turned out to be a long lost cousin.

“So what’ve you been up to, Captain?” Aram asked.

“C’mon, Aram. I haven’t been your captain in seven years,” Mattiew said. “And I think we all know what I, or more accurately, we have been doing.”

“And you still don’t got a kid,” Dakkar scoffed. “Looks like Matty’s drier than me down south.”

Mattiew laughed with the other bandits.

“There are some things I miss, though,” Mattiew sighed, letting his speech fall into the slumly cadence he had grown up with, “Let me tell you, bein’ a citizen ain’t all it’s talked up to be. The tax people are bigger criminals than we are. Makes me think about takin’ to the sea again every season. One day I might do it. I’ve always wanted to try hijacking The Hangman’s Revenge.”

That got a few whoops.

“So what, you can chuck your wife out the window and then do it to us again once you get bored?” Dreya’s raised voice pierced through the room.

Mattiew glanced over at her. He remembered when she was just a recruit. One of his most loyal crewmates. But the years had made her sour.

“Don’t be so bitter, Drey.” Sedis said between hiccups.

“Go get a whore to clean you up, Sedis. You’re drunker than all the gods,” Dreya said. “And all I’m sayin’ is our boy Matty here doesn’t exactly have a reputation for commitment with us.”

“I was your leader for eight years. You call that noncommittal?” Mattiew asked.

“You’re comin’ up on eight years with your woman there, right? Who knows, that might just be how long it takes.”

“Boo!” a drunk bandit shouted.

“Matty’s back with us!”

“Well, she ain’t wrong neither,” someone said.

The bandits murmured and shrugged as though they agreed but didn’t want to say it. Mattiew had expected this sort of thing. During his time with the Scourgers, they loved him as their leader. But they were still hurt.

“Look,” Mattiew sighed. “I get it. You have a right to be hurt. A right to be mad, if you wanna be. No one is gonna tell you what you can and can’t feel. But I can’t change the past, ‘right? So that’s why I’m here. I’m here for you all. If you don’t wanna help me, I get it. But I’d really appreciate it if you would.”

Mattiew’s words made him almost believe he was telling the truth. But the fact that he wasn’t hurt even more.

Mattiew held up his mug, “To the shitstorm the Black Tongue left in his wake!” He opted to try and wash the guilt down with another mug of beer. Or at the very least, replace the weight on his chest with burning.

“Here, here!” most of the Scourgers followed in his toast.

Dreya scoffed and let the issue go for now.

“So that’s why you're here, is it?”

Mattiew glanced to his right as a man of medium stature, dressed in colorful Veyshtari robes and glittering jewels approached him, followed by an entourage of wealthy-looking warriors. Mattiew recognized his face. He was a competitor in the Bellirex. What was the name they gave him?

Oh, right...

The ‘Omniscient Overlord’ was a young, tan faced man, though he tried to mask those features behind a well-kempt black beard.

“Can I help you?” Mattiew asked.

“I always wondered why they would let someone from among the rabble in.” the man said. “I get it now. A gripping story. Even if it is a sham.”

Mattiew furrowed his brow, “Now those are some serious accusations.”

“Your mind’s impenetrable. Clearly there’s something in there you don’t want anyone seeing.”

Mattiew scoffed, which turned into laughter, “What you think I’m a liar ‘cause you can’t peep on my wife through my eyes? Boy, I spent three days getting a giant ward tattooed on my back. Are you saying you’ve never encountered that before?”

“I am not a boy, peasant.”

Mattiew looked around at his Scourgers, an expression of amusement plastered to his face. “If you say so big man.”

“You are speaking to Cyrus II, Lord of Ashur. You will show me the respect I am due. If you were under my jurisdiction, you would already be dead.”

Mattiew raised his eyebrows in faux surprise, “Would I now? Well, Cyrus, I think you oughta know who you’re talking to. Mattiew Nikoliades. Lord of the Central Sea and Scourge of the Gods.”

“That’s what you were before you washed up on the Gozari beach with your embarrassment of a woman.” Cyrus scoffed.

Mattiew wasn’t going to be provoked that easy, “See? You can root around in there a little.”

“Hol’ on!” Aram exclaimed, “Lord of Ashur. Ain’t that the second prince’s title? The boy still suckling at the teat of the Empress?”

“Right!” Dakkar chuckled, “We have the Lord of the Silver Spoon in our presence!”

“Fuck off and dig up your whore daughter!” Cyrus snapped.

All the bandits fell silent.

Dakkar had a family before joining the Sea Scourgers. Without the funds to support themselves, Dakkar’s daughter started selling her body to help make ends meet. Until she was hired as an escort for an underground trafficker’s dealings. The deal went sideways and ended up with five dead. His daughter among them.

Mattiew and the other Sea Scourgers stood and started approaching the Imperial prince. His entourage put themselves between him and them.

Mattiew didn’t try to breach the line, but he stared at Cyrus with a glare that could kill.

“It doesn’t matter who the fuck you are, boy,” Mattiew muttered. “You come up to me and call me a liar? Fine. I’m your competition. Call me a filthy criminal? Commoner filth? Fine. You call my wife an embarrassment? She won’t give a shit. But you walk in here and defile the name of my friend’s dead child? We don’t take kindly to that.”

“Yeah? And what are you going to do about it, scum?” Cyrus asked, “You wouldn’t want to cause an incident with the royal family, would you?”

Mattiew scoffed and backed away, “Can’t really be called an incident if it happens in the Gridiron. I hope to see you on the bracket someday.”

His Scourgers were still angry. They wouldn’t get any catharsis, so Mattiew decided to fabricate some.

“The little shit’s not worth it,” Mattiew said. “I mean honestly. What kinda coward has to root around in your head for dead family members in order to pretend he’s got a sharp wit? Sad, ain’t it?”

That got them to lighten up. Those who weren’t checking on Dakkar scoffed and flipped half a dozen signs that all told Cyrus to go fuck himself.

“So long, boy. You’d best scurry off if you know what’s good for you.” Mattiew said.

Lucky for both parties, Cyrus fled the bar with his guards shortly after.

That was another thing he missed. The strength that came with protecting your own. It was the same feeling he got each time he entered the sand pit for Adriana. The same feeling he got from being both Mattiew the husband and Mattiew the Sea Scourger.

Why did he have to choose between the two? Why wasn’t there a way to be both?

If he wanted to be Mattiew the Sea Scourger, Adriana would die. The Scourgers wouldn’t die if he wanted to be a husband. But under these circumstances, he would die.