Paranoid Mage - cChapter 10: Cracks

“I really don’t care,” Archmage Hargrave told the House Fane flunky who was blocking his path into the House proper. He wasn’t well disposed toward House Fane on the best of days, and even less so now. Some of them had been sniffing around his House grounds and it had been a pleasure to send them whimpering home to their master.

Minus a few of their number. There were consequences for trespassing, and it would do to remind House Fane that not everyone was cowed by their wealth and near-monopoly on healers. Open conflict between their Houses was hardly likely from such a minor clash, especially due to the video he’d been shown.

“It doesn’t matter what the Archmage is doing. He has a lot to answer for,” Hargrave continued. It seemed every House had received an email from someone inside House Fane with a recording of the Archmage trying to recruit Callum Wells. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad idea, but Fane obviously didn’t realize both that he was being filmed and that Wells was not amenable to pressure.

Hargrave hadn’t thought of such things himself, and had been forced to have the House swept for listening devices. They had even found a few, though after some very pointed inquiry he’d found it was all internal. Just younger mages trying to get one over on each other. He’d stopped that quickly enough, and handed down mandates to make sure his people kept an eye out for any new surveillance.

It wasn’t comfortable, but there was obvious value to what mundane craft could accomplish. Thanks to the video it hadn’t taken more than a few hours to put together a coalition to hold Fane to account. Hargrave wasn’t exactly the most interested in the inter-House politics but this was so blatant that even he couldn’t ignore it. Besides which, he’d never turn down an opportunity to turn the screws on Fane.

“I will inform Master Chen,” the House Fane man conceded, withdrawing from the vestibule. Hargrave didn’t much like being in House Fane, but their greatest power – their negative healing – wasn’t a threat to him, nor was it a threat to Archmages Janry and Elroe at his back. Hargrave glanced back at them and snorted, swaggering forward out of the vestibule into the main room.

House Fane was excessively luxurious, to the point of being garish. Not just silk and gold, but polished banic filigree carrying protective enchantments and wards. Hargrave didn’t exactly hate his luxuries, but there was a big difference between comfort and whatever Fane was doing.

“I say give him ten minutes and then we just start smashing,” Archmage Elroe muttered. Hargrave raised an eyebrow, irked by the implied instruction. It wasn’t like Elroe would do any smashing, since his aspect was fire and he’d just melt everything. It was Hargrave and, especially, Janry who would do the smashing with force and earth. Even the best shielding wards couldn’t stand up to Archmage strength.

Between the three of them, they represented more than enough power to deal with whatever nonsense Fane wanted to put forth. Not that Hargrave expected all that much trouble, at least not physically. Fane was more than slippery and underhanded politically, but Hargrave wasn’t going to give him a chance to weasel out of this.

“Apologies, Archmages,” said an obsequious-looking man, pencil thin and slightly greasy, hurrying up to them. “I am afraid there is a problem. We…” He trailed off and licked his lips. “We don’t know where Archmage Fane is.”

“What the devil do you mean?” Hargrave demanded. “Is he in hiding?”

“No, Archmage,” the man said. “He never returned from Beijing. He went through the teleporter there but didn’t return to the House.”

A faint alarm rang in Hargrave’s mind. He didn’t know Fane well, not personally, only as much as he needed to thoroughly detest his fellow Archmage. But he knew enough to realize that simply vanishing to who-knew-where was not something Fane would do. That it occurred directly after his discussion with Wells was beyond suspicious.

“If you’re covering for him, there will be consequences,” Hargrave said, flexing his force armor just a touch. The lackey went white-faced and started babbling.

“No! One would never give such an insult to such an illustrious person as yourself. We have no idea where our Patriarch is! The House has been in an uproar, he has been missing for almost a day⁠—” Hargrave stopped listening, turning right around.

“The hell is he playing at?” Janry muttered. Elroe was quicker on the uptake.

“That bastard. This changes things. No idea how he did it, but considering what happened to everyone else that’s dealt with Wells—” Elroe cut himself off. “We have to check with the China GAR branch. Maybe they know something.” Hargrave nodded agreement. Considering that China had only the Fanes and their cadet Houses, that would require some flexing of authority, but he wasn’t worried about that. He was worried about what they might find.

Or rather, he was looking forward to it.

He marched over to the teleporter and ripped out all the framing to expose the enchantments, ignoring the protests of the House Fane man. It looked fine, but there was only one way to test it. Maybe it wasn’t necessary, but he had a sudden suspicion.

“You, teleport to the China GAR branch and back,” he ordered the House Fane man. The idiot gawped at him, but considering that it was Hargrave he hurried to obey after a few moments. Only after he returned did Hargrave go through the teleporter himself, floating up and into the switchboard balcony the moment he was on the other side. His companions were only a few seconds behind him, and knew enough to go start securing the higher-level personnel before they could rabbit. Hargrave could see Janry’s vis flickering out as he secured the exits.

“When did Archmage Fane come through here last?” Hargave demanded. The switchboard operators just looked at him with blank and terrified expressions, and he sighed. They probably didn’t speak English. This was going to take longer than he wanted.

After several hours, they did finally get the answers they wanted, though most of that time was spent dealing with language issues. Records were gone through and times compared, though in a way they need not have bothered. Everyone agreed that Fane had gone to Beijing, but hadn’t returned from it.

He’d disappeared between one teleport and the next.

That changed everything. Wells was more a threat to legitimacy than to actual people, or at least he had been. A danger that would pass the moment he was stopped. Killing Archmage Fane brought him into another realm entirely, and Hargrave had no idea how the powers of the supernatural world would react. Some would lend their own agents to help GAR scour the world for him, but others wouldn’t care at all. Houses with no holdings on Earth were completely distant from Wells’ activities, so to them he was very much someone else’s problem.

No matter what others thought though, Wells was now a real threat to real people. More, he was a threat by way of the very tools the entirety of supernatural society relied on. This had pulled back the veil on a very ugly door indeed.

“This is an issue for Duvall,” Hargrave said. “In fact, if Wells can suborn the teleportation system, Duvall certainly can. I don’t know about you gentlemen, but I am rather leery of stepping into one of these transporters now that we know what can be done.” There was very little that could threaten him, but that didn’t mean there was nothing.

It was well worth remembering that they had not fully plumbed the depths of the portal worlds, and the powers that the greatest of the fae held could rival what an archmage could do. So far Wells had attacked from unconventional vectors, and Hargrave didn’t want to get blindsided again. Elroe nodded grimly, and even the perpetually sleepy and bored Janry looked more alert.

“We’ll fly,” Elroe said, and Janry shrugged.

“I’ll just go by ground,” he said. Nobody but Janry liked the frankly claustrophobic confines of his earth vessel, despite the fact that it could shoot almost completely straight to any point on Earth. Assuming Janry’s aim was good, anyway.

“We’ll meet you by Portal World One,” Hargrave confirmed. “Then we’ll pry some answers out of Duvall.” It really didn’t matter how much Duvall threatened to restrict the teleportation network. Not when the network itself could no longer be trusted.

***

“This is really blowing up, big man,” Lucy said, wide-eyed as she looked at her laptop screen. “It’s like, practically war. I’m only seeing the low-level chatter and people are fighting and clawing about House Fane and the teleporters.”

“Definitely a good time to keep our heads down.” Callum was actually feeling a little weird about what they’d pulled off. Taking out the person pointing the gun at you was one thing; taking out the person giving the orders to the person pointing the gun at you was another. Better, and worse, simultaneously.

Lucy seemed to be taking it okay. She had been at least as incensed by Fane’s casual threats as he had, that same gut-level emotional boiling, and he knew how destructive that could be even after doing something about it. Drinking worked, sometimes, but that was a bad habit he didn’t want to start so he had given her some quiet advice about channeling it into something productive.

After all, there was still more to do: he wanted Lucy to investigate the Department of Acquisitions and the fae king that had laid that geas on her, Ravaeb. The former was obviously evil and the latter probably had more sins to his name if he was willing to do something as nasty as the geas, but he didn’t want to move without more information.

They needed a break, too. Everything had been work, work, work for weeks, so while he wasn’t going to rest on his laurels he wasn’t going make any immediate plans. There was plenty enough to do just with practicing his magic, reading through whatever Lucy pilfered from the magical internet, and trying to catch up on sleep.

There was also upkeep to do on the bunker. A little more gold to pay Miguel, and some yelling to do at people putting together substandard plumbing. He rather wished he’d had his perceptive sphere when he was doing architecture. Not that he was ever a supervisor or anything, but when doing walkarounds it would have been nice to spot some of the problems before they started. In a way it wasn’t like any of the buildings were his responsibility after the plans went through, but at the same time there was a certain amount of pride in workmanship.

“If you’d had it before, you probably wouldn’t have gone into architecture,” Lucy pointed out. “You’d do, like, prospecting or treasure-hunting. Pull gold right out of the ground.”

“I’ve thought about that, but most ore is just, you know, rock. You have to treat it with stuff and I can’t really tell one rock from another.” Callum shook his head. “Treasure hunting, well, maybe. Even with my range though there’s an awful lot of land to try and inspect.”

“Better than a metal detector,” Lucy observed. “Besides, wouldn’t it be super cool to dig up some old gold coins from somewhere?”

“It actually would be,” Callum admitted. “I just don’t know where to look.”

“You know there’s plenty of shipwrecks and things nobody’s scavenged ‘cause they’re deep and it’s the middle of nowhere so it’s not worth it. But your little portal anchor thing means you could just snatch anything you wanted.”

“Huh,” Callum said. “I didn’t know that.”

“Aw, c’mon. You never dreamed of digging up pirate treasure when you were a kid?” Lucy pouted at him. “I grew up in a mage House and I still wanted to be a pirate!” Callum laughed.

“Okay, you’ve convinced me. We can go treasure-hunting. Considering we have no current income, that’d actually be fantastic, assuming we can move it.”

“Ask Chester,” Lucy suggested. “Like, collectors want to know where it came from, and I bet he can get together a diving team for cover.”

“And it’s all normal money, nothing supernatural about it,” Callum mused. “Nobody would be looking for it, and there’s plenty of ways that we could get access to the proceeds. I like it.”

“That’s why you keep me around,” Lucy said in a singsong voice.

“If you’ll find the places you want to go treasure-hunting, I’ll run it by Chester.”

“They’re mostly out in the middle of the ocean, but some are around the Caribbean,” Lucy hinted.

“Sure,” Callum agreed. “Let’s hit the beach.”

It was easier said than done, but Chester was more than amenable to assembling a front for them. Callum really disliked how dependent on Chester he was becoming, though he could have liquidated his finds on his own. It was just faster, easier, and honestly safer to do it through the shifter’s contacts.

“Now, I’m the Midwest Alpha, not the beach Alpha, so my personal expertise on this isn’t great. But I have a team based out of Oklahoma that’s willing to take the credit. They’ve got a sub drone so you can get pictures to verify the wreck you’re salvaging.”

“That works for me,” Callum said. That meant they could really only salvage one location, since it’d be incredibly suspect for some diving team to salvage multiple ones in close succession. He didn’t even know what the best prospects were. Sure, there might be ships loaded with gold or silver that had sunk, but there were plenty of historical artifacts that were worth just as much to the right collectors.

He was glad Lucy had brought it up, because he’d gotten as far as realizing he couldn’t distinguish ore from other rock and how big the world was, and more or less written off the idea of cheating out hidden resources. In hindsight it was obvious, but he wouldn’t have thought of it himself. At least not anytime soon.

The drone portal setup meant he didn’t have to worry about hitching discreet rides on airplanes anymore, for which he was glad. It also practically invalidated the van, except he still liked having bulletproof surroundings if he was wandering around somewhere. While he could just teleport from place to place, or even make portals for himself and Lucy, that required a lot more finesse than just driving like a normal person. He had to teleport out of sight, but nobody thought twice about a van.

Unfortunately the van would have been out of place in Barbados, but neither he nor Lucy were. Tourists were all-season, and merely walking the beach was an ordinary activity. Well, Lucy did most of the beach walking. With his bum knee and his cane there was only so much sand he could take, but he kept himself active in other ways. With the injury and being holed up as he’d been, there were some excess pounds to work off.

He felt a little odd to be off enjoying himself with Lucy, hundreds of miles from where there was a lot of supernatural drama happening. Drama that he’d directly caused. But it was for the best. He couldn’t keep up with everything that was happening to begin with, and trying would only create more stress and he’d probably do something stupid.

Callum really needed a vacation.

***

“They were here for me?” Gayle reflexively reached for the focus band around her wrist. After her run-in with Mister Wells at Garrison Two she’d gotten with her mother and started practicing with her defenses more seriously. If she’d had proper reactive shields and more advanced offensive options she might have been able to do more, even if Wells hadn’t actually been a true threat to her.

The sumptuous surroundings of House Hargrave made her practice seem maybe a little quaint, but that had never stopped her mother. Or her father. Or her grandfather. The least she could do was follow in their footsteps.

“It seems House Fane doesn’t want to take no for an answer.” Her father shrugged, leaning back in his armchair. They were in her father’s den, where he conducted real business, a place she’d been forbidden as a child. Now he was treating her as a full adult, and it was profoundly satisfying. “We already knew that, though, so it’s not much of a surprise.”

“Even though House Fane is, well. In trouble?”

“A House is more than its Archmage. True, House Fane’s power was mostly in Archmage Fane, but it still has the wealth, the contacts, all of that. They still want you under their control.” He sighed. “Normally GAR would have something to say about that, but under the circumstances? They’re not saying anything.”

“What circumstances?” Gayle shook her head. “I mean, there’s so much going on, what specifically is it?” Before her argument with Wells, she would have guessed they were simply overstretched dealing with something that hadn’t happened for over a century: the death of an Archmage.

Now she had a few doubts. That maybe her grandfather’s defiance of the GAR requirements – requirements that she’d also found a little objectionable – was the real reason. That maybe House Hargrave was being left on its own as a punishment.

She didn’t want to believe that, but her faith in the simple and straightforward world presented by The Academy had been shaken by the events of the past year. There might be good reasons to break GAR’s proscriptions other than selfish malevolence, and there might be reasons for GAR’s laws other than the good of all mages. Not that she had been quite so naïve before, but GAR had always seemed to work pretty well.

“GAR’s charter was originally from the Archmages. So the Archmages could focus on their own work and their own Houses without either coming to blows or being pestered all the time. With all that’s going on, well. GAR isn’t interested in helping out a House that’s not well disposed toward it. Especially not when they are having issues with their own relevance.”

“Who makes that sort of decision?” Gayle asked, her nose wrinkling. “Who’s sitting there going, ‘oh, Hargrave’s being annoying, don’t help them?’”

“You’d be surprised.” Her father suddenly grinned wide. “House Hargrave made a lot of enemies breaking with the old Houses when we moved to America. Rebels like us always have enemies among the old guard.”

“You’re a rebel?” Gayle asked in disbelief. “You work for GAR!”

“Maybe not anymore,” he said, the grin fading. “We’re all on indefinite leave thanks to everything going on. Portal World research isn’t all that important in an emergency, and Archmage Hargrave hasn’t had a chance to try and get it reinstated.”

“So how much of what I was told about GAR was a lie?” Gayle mused. “It’s certainly more partial than it’s supposed to be. All that was supposed to be behind us.” She’d learned about the Silent War, and the struggles between the mage Houses before GAR had been established. The grudges created back then still existed, since most of the mages involved were still around, but they were supposed to be buried.

“I don’t think there were very many lies, really. But a lot was probably left out, and I admit it’s more fragile than I thought.” He pursed his lips, looking out the window of the drawing room. Gayle followed his gaze, seeing the flare of the full alert warding out at the edge of the property. They weren’t quite in fortress mode, but they weren’t far from it either.

“I think we’re going to have to prepare for all-out war again. Though with Archmage Fane gone, we are in a far better position than we might have been. Fane was one of the only people Harold needed to worry about. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but it might.”

“I wish Mister Wells hadn’t started all this,” Gayle said, but she couldn’t help think about the arguments he had made. That they wouldn’t leave him alone. Of how everything he’d done was to defend people. She wasn’t sure she entirely believed that, but none of the official story really contradicted him. If that were true, how long would it have been until someone started breaking things?

“You can wish in one hand so long as you do something in the other,” her father said. “We need to start making long term plans. You’re one of the few healers that isn’t part of House Fane, so if things start falling apart a lot of people are going to need you.”

“Oh! Of course.” Gayle nodded firmly, glad to have something concrete to consider. Something that she actually wanted to do. “You think House Fane won’t let their healers help people?”

“I’m not sure House Fane is going to exist soon enough,” he admitted bluntly. “They made a lot of enemies, and without an Archmage to protect them, nothing GAR says is really going to matter much. There aren’t even any other supernaturals who’d be on their side.”

“What about us?” Gayle asked, suddenly worried. “We don’t have to worry about Jameson or anything, do we?” Their shifter butler had been with him since before Gayle was even born, and she hated the idea of mistrusting him for any reason.

“No, fortunately. We’re on good terms with our neighbors, because we still actually live here. A lot of the Houses in the Portal Worlds, though, they only have support of one of the other races.”

“Alright,” she said. “Family meeting?”

“Family meeting,” he agreed.

***

Ray hadn’t dealt directly with any dragonblooded in the past. There weren’t many around, and they actually didn’t get into too much trouble. When they did get into trouble, it usually required Archmages to intervene. He was only vaguely aware of why they were allowed to stay, but he was pretty sure the unofficial reason was bribery.

Scaletooth – or Shahey, as he styled himself – received them in a basement underneath Tanner that would make Midas himself sweat. Everything, from the carpet to cups and bowls to the beverages on the walls, was as mana-dense as any bane material. He wouldn’t have imagined that level of opulence existed from the outside, since there was no indication of it when arriving in Tanner.

Clearly they were in over their pay grade, and he was beginning to regret pulling the strings he had to get himself and Felicia assigned to interview Shahey. Properly speaking, Wells wasn’t their business, and there wasn’t exactly a case. But Felicia had wanted to go, and it was hard to say no to her when she used that particular pleading tone even if he was immune to her magic.

“Thank you for agreeing to speak to us,” Ray said politely, settling into a chair that was worth probably as much as his glider. Maybe more. “I admit I was surprised that you reported the incident yourself.” Someone had to have known Fane was messing about in Tanner, trying to get ahold of Wells, but apparently it hadn’t been done through proper channels. Which had resulted in a number of dead mages.

They were all House Fane’s, so there was nobody to really press any sort of complaint under the circumstances. But there had to be some accounting for it, even if it was just to write them off as being incredibly stupid. It was not a good idea to engage a dragonblooded in his own territory. What Ray and Felicia were mostly interested in was whether Shahey really was connected with Wells.

“I suspect if I hadn’t, nobody would have noticed,” Shahey told them, relaxed and at ease. While the dragonblooded was not overly large, he was extremely well muscled with sharp, intelligent eyes. In the privacy of the basement he had dispensed with his glamour, revealing polished scales that gleamed in the light. It wasn’t too hard to imagine him outflanking a bunch of mages who were looking to start trouble. “They weren’t supposed to be here, and with Fane gone, who would even know?”

“A fair point,” Ray conceded, sharing a sidelong glance with Felicia. “I suppose I should start with asking whether or not you had contact with Wells during this incident.”

“I did,” Shahey admitted easily, which was a bit of a surprise. There were consequences for dealing with someone like Wells, though only if GAR could apply them. Or possibly the Guild of Enchanting, if they were so inclined. Either of which was far from certain at the moment. “He asked me to take care of the mages here in case they decided to get restive. It is, after all, his hometown.”

“True enough,” Ray said. “Do you have any insight on what exactly happened to Archmage Fane?”

“Callum didn’t tell me what he was doing, only that he might be taking care of Fane. Certainly, I had no objections.” Shahey smiled, wide and toothy. It was not a human smile, and there was no humor in it. The disagreement between the dragonblooded and House Fane was an old thing, but nobody really paid it any mind since it mostly came down to a spat now and then. At most they needed a few glamours and maybe a compulsion to deal with the fallout.

“Are the dragonblooded taking sides between GAR and Wells?” Ray asked. It was a blunt and leading question, but it had to be asked. The dragonblooded didn’t much like dancing around, as far as he’d been told, and a solid no would relieve both his mind and that of others. A solid yes would certainly relieve nobody’s mind, but would clarify matters.

“We don’t take sides,” Shahey demurred. “Your internal affairs are internal, and we will only act in proper defense of territory. You should know this; our agreements are hardly secret.”

“Some would say that dealing with Wells at all is taking sides,” Ray pointed out. Felicia shifted uncomfortably as she took down the conversation. That sort of logic was endemic in Fae circles, and didn’t tend to end well for the people on the receiving end. Ray himself didn’t believe it, but he knew how the people who would actually read his report thought.

“Everyone has a vision of how the world should work,” Shahey said. “It’s no business of mine if someone else thinks I should be doing their job. Unless they try to make me, of course.”

“I see,” Ray said. Felicia took notes. “Do you have the capability or willingness to put us in touch with Callum Wells?”

“I advise you give that one up.” Shahey shook his head. “I’m not saying you couldn’t catch Callum, because he’s only human, but I think you’re past the point where it matters. How many suppressed conflicts have flared to life with GAR preoccupied as it is? How much mischief are the fae making, and the vampires? They’re only barely bothering to conceal their spats from mortal eyes.”

“So you’re anticipating GAR’s collapse?”

“Let’s just say that change is happening, even if the destination is uncertain.” Shahey regarded the pair of them. “Some advice for the both of you. You’re still stuck on the idea that this is an investigation about Callum Wells.” He nodded in Felicia’s direction, which meant he knew about her particular issues, in fact. “It might be better to consider this an investigation into GAR, where Callum is merely one of many incidents. Unravel the causes, find the principal actors. Then decide what to do.”

“You’re suggesting GAR is at fault?” Ray asked, not entirely certain what to make of Shahey’s words. He could see the value for turning Felicia’s fae nature in a different direction, but there were more layers to it than he could pick apart at a bare glance.

“You’re smarter than that, surely,” Shahey said. “It’s not for me to proclaim who is at fault, only that it deserves a closer look than it’s being given.”

“I see.” Felicia didn’t take notes on that. “The actual incident, then — do you have the remains available to us?”

“Certainly.” Shahey stood and glanced at the wall, which dissolved. There was no hidden door or compartment; the wood paneling visibly evaporated into air. They followed him into the room beyond, with bodies on stone slabs. It was freezing, yet no cold spilled out into the main room and there was no visible circulation or even enchantments to make it so.

Ray’s mana-sight could only catch a little bit of what Shahey was doing, though clearly there was a lot of work invested in the makeshift morgue. There was a reason mages were wary of dragonblooded. In their lair they had incredible power.

The corpses appeared to have been savaged by something with claws almost a foot long, which was not much of a surprise. Ray had taken the time to familiarize himself with the few dragonblooded-mage clashes and found that they were generally settled physically rather than with an application of vis. At least, when it was settled in the dragonblooded’s favor.

Felicia stepped forward and touched an exposed hand with one finger, black veins crawling over her skin as she exercised her unique talent. Then she stepped back, glanced at him, and nodded. No surprises. She repeated the process with each corpse, writing down the names of the dead on her tablet. Once she was done she stepped back, taking a wet wipe from her pocket to clean her hand, and Ray took the tablet from her.

One of the names was Fane Sen, which made the connection between House Fane and the Tanner incident more than just hearsay. Not that Ray doubted, but there was a difference between knowing and proving. He’d get the details from Felicia later, but she would have given him a different sign if it had seemed Wells was himself involved anywhere.

“Very well, I’ll send someone by to collect them,” Ray said. He’d get the full report of the memories from Felicia later, but there really wasn’t any doubt that the mages had attacked a dragonblooded. Or at least, refused to leave a dragonblooded’s territory, which was about the same thing. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

“You’re polite,” Shahey said, ushering back out. “I appreciate that. I would more appreciate if nobody else tries to mess with my town.”

“I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’ll include that in my report,” Ray said.

“And keep in mind what I told you,” Shahey admonished them.

“We will,” Ray said, sharing a look with Felicia. They’d need to have a long talk after work when they got home.

***

King Ravaeb inclined his head ever so slightly to his latest petitioner. While it was off season, there were still enough human tourists that Yellowstone claimed the occasional victim. When it did, he would receive a gift of fine leather or carved bone in exchange for a modicum of the power he could tap from the enormous sprawl of geysers and bubbling springs.

Normally, that was all. He would not actively seek anything further, hemmed in as he was by vampires, mages, and shifters. But the vampires were gone, the mages were distracted, and shifters were grappling with the imposition of GAR. It was the perfect opportunity to push.

There were some shifter families located along the periphery of Alpha Chester’s territory that were isolated enough that they could be cut off and eliminated. Chester’s watchdogs were tiresome and overzealous, and Ravaeb could do without them. The restrictions on how obvious he could be had some logical basis, but there were too many of them and they were too stringent.

Now he had the chance to expand. To remind people of the fear they should have of the wilderness. To make sure he wouldn’t be pushed back again. He signaled his stablemaster and stood, just as the last petitioner left his halls. His nobles gathered around.

“We hunt,” he said, and they shared dagger-toothed smiles.