The Appalachian Range settlement was a frontier town doing its best — stone buildings, wood-smoke, a main street wide enough for supply wagons, and an inn that looked structurally committed to standing for at least another decade. It was called the Ridgeback Lodge, which was either the name of a local creature or the owner's surname, and it sat at the edge of the settlement with a painted board and one lit lantern.Marco pushed open the door.The innkeeper was a thick-necked man named Gerald who looked at the three of them — a young man in plain clothes, an elderly man in weathered robes, and a bedraggled priestess with destroyed gold trim — with the evaluating squint of someone calculating probability of payment."Full up," Gerald said."The board outside says rooms available," Marco said."Changed recently.""How recently.""Right now." Gerald leaned on the counter. "You got coin, or you running on promises?"Marco reached for his belt. The pause that followed confirmed what he alre

Sera stood with her bag in her hand and looked at this unremarkable young man in his plain clothes, lying on a lodge bed in the Appalachian frontier, dismissing her with the casual indifference of someone turning down a second cup of tea. She had been sent to dozens of men in positions of favor. Not one of them had responded like this.Pity, she realized. He wasn't being cold. He wasn't posturing.He simply didn't want what she was there to offer, and found the entire premise of her presence mildly inconvenient.She didn't know whether to be insulted or relieved. She settled on both and sat down on the couch.Marco was asleep in four minutes.Sera sat in the dark for a long time after that, listening to the wind outside and the distant sounds of the settlement settling into night, and thought about things she didn't have words for yet.Dawn came in grey and cold through the single window.Marco was already awake, sitting on the edge of the bed pulling his boots on, when he heard the s

He had pushed further along the mountain face than intended, following a cluster of Level 6 Iron Maws into territory that technically crossed from the lower zones into the mid-range boundary. The Iron Maws hadn't respected the administrative line. Marco had followed.The group of four young men he encountered there were from capital families — he could tell from the equipment, the matched livery colors of their attendants, and the way they looked at him with the specific contempt of people who had never once doubted their right to occupy any space they entered."Lower zones are back that way," the one in front said. He was carrying a sword that cost more than the Ridgeback Lodge. "You're in our hunting territory.""The boundary marker is forty meters south," Marco said. "You're also in the mid-range.""We have a registered claim on this section." The young man looked Marco over — plain clothes, no livery, no attendants. His expression settled into something comfortable and familiar. "

Father Dominic had not moved from the archway.He was a practical man — thirty-two years old, ordained at nineteen, assigned to Kensington Academy at twenty-six, and possessed of a clear-eyed pragmatism about power and those who wielded it. He had seen Giovanni lose. He had watched Marco train Sofia to Level 10 skill execution in three days. He had filed both events in the category of remarkable and continued operating.What he had just witnessed did not fit in that category.A Level 7 warrior had dissected a Level 8 knight's offense with the systematic calm of a master instructor, demonstrated Fighting Spirit control that should not exist below Level 10, and then explained the structural weakness of a Level 10 skill from memory as if reading from a text.Father Dominic walked across the courtyard.He stopped six feet from Marco, and before his brain fully finished authorizing the action, he had dropped to one knee.Marco looked down at him."Get up," he said."Young Master—""I don't

She moved toward him the way water moved — no wasted motion, each step placed with the flowing precision of something that understood bodies as instruments rather than homes.Her head tilted. The grey eyes tracked him with the specific, assessing attention of a predator measuring distance."Third Transition Peak," Marco said. Not to her. Thinking out loud. "She shouldn't be this easy to—""Isabella is tired." The thing wearing Isabella smiled with Isabella's mouth. "She's been tired for years. The emperor's visit. The political weight. The child she's protecting."Each word dropped with the careful placement of someone who had done their research. "She left a gap. We found it." The smile widened. "Don't look so alarmed. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just going to—"She was close enough now that Marco could see the edges of it — the faint wrongness at the periphery of Isabella's form, a shimmer that the lamplight caught when she moved, like heat distortion at a road's edge.Succubus.