Published at 6th of November 2026 8:04 am

Chapter 185: Insufficient Consequences

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I stare at the woman pinning me to the wall, trying to place her angular, predatory face and steely eyes, but coming up with nothing Shes nearly as short as I am, though in her twenties. I think I would remember that. Shes clearly a knight, and a strong one at that. Most knights can penetrate my shield with a magic sword; very few can simply shatter it with a single, barehanded punch, and she didnt seem to strain herself.

Who are you? I gasp through the pain and her grip on my face, by which she painfully lifts me up a foot off the ground.

Unstrained from restraining me, she grins, showing a toothy, too-wide mouth. A mouth that looks like its meant to bite through living flesh, rather than calmly chew the grains of civilized life in reasonable portions. Going with the classics, are you? Let me respond in kind. You dont need to know that. She says in a condescending, lilting voice, strangely drawing out the word know. Her grin shifts to a half one, as if laughing at a private joke. Well, I guess associations might be helpful. Ill give you a hint: You killed one of my colleagues and sent him to Anar.

Does she have any idea how little that narrows no wait, it does. Perhaps a dozen living people know my real name, very few with associates that Ive killed, and I doubt she was friends with Tallow with the way she said Anar with contempt. The Mynharran, I spit out, not out of rage or indignation, but because its required to speak through her grip.

Correct! she says with flair. Now! What should I do with you then? Hmm? Maybe gouge out those pretty eyes of yours? Her eyes widen with relish at the thought, her grin never faltering.

My mind goes to when I last saw him in Anars orchards, staring at me with those vacant eyeholes. She said it with purpose, yet how could she know that? He wanted me for something. You do too. Cant kill me.

She leans her face closer, her grin widening into a full smile with her eyes inches from mine. I get the impression that shes imagining ripping through my throat with her teeth. I think she could do it, even through the enchanted gambeson covering it. I can hear my heart pound, smell my fear, and I know that she can too.

Yes, she hisses as if she just made some cunning point. Yet he was wont to treat you with velvet gloves Im not. Now, I do want to break a few things those dainty hands that did the deed to start but it would delay things after youve already gotten here so late. So, Ill give you one chance; promise me youll behave, or Ill start having fun.

I breathe heavily as much out of necessity as to convince her I need to and buy some time to think. Ive killed knights before, yes, but none like her. Knight is an open ended title. It doesnt matter if youve barely earned it and plateau for the rest of your life, like most do, or keep growing by leaps; the title remains the same. From the way she moves and punched through my shield with casual indifference, I would put her among the strongest Ive ever seen. Even with her guard down, Id have no chance of killing her without dying too at least at this distance. So, I might as well play along. Get some information out of this, and maybe bide my time for an opportunity.

I promise, I spit out.

Pity. She frowns, then tosses me face down onto the bed. Not to cushion my fall, no doubt, but because sending my face into the months old, mouldy thrushes is more unpleasant than if she threw me through the wall.

I gasp for air, forcing myself not to vomit from the smell as I roll on my back to regard her. Ive smelled worse, but it seems my life of luxury has made me more susceptible. Either that or the combination of pain and sudden immersion.

What do you want? I ask, pushing myself up to lean against the wall in a sitting position.

Yes, very good. Like a loyal dog asking how to please their master.

I scoff. Is that all you came for? To establish some strange master/servant hierarchy?

In general? Yes. In specific? I want you to listen. Calm down and ignore the pain, empty your mind, disregard your senses and listen within.

I look at her side-eyed, but try to do what she says. Ignoring pain is the easy part I do that all the time. But my mind? Its racing, and my senses are very sharp. Hard to ignore. But I try, closing my eyes and trying not to focus on every little sound in the still busy city. I try, and I hear it a whispering voice.

Calm stay listen be as you are, as you always were. There is nothing to worry about. Everything you need is here and everything is as it always was. Calm stay

I snap open my eyes, breathing hard and not from the pain. It sounded like my own voice, though it obviously was not. My own mental trickery used against me against a whole city.

The looming knight grins. You heard it. Good. Now recast your shield with the mental component. The pain can only delay and mutate the message. A useful defence, but Im sure you dont wish to become the subversion. Not after seeing how they are.

So, she knows about the thugs I met when I first arrived, yet how? My landing spot was fully random, even to me, and was covered by a series of complex counter-divinations. For that matter, how does she know I learned a mental addition to my shield spell? Still, I do as she says before questioning. If shes allowing me to add a defence, as flimsy as it is before her, I certainly wont hesitate.

Youre claiming information from far prophecy then? Like your colleague? Are you another follower of Mynharra?

She laughs. Do I look like I belong to that fool god?

I didnt realize they had a dress code.

Just in the absence.

Still, youre claiming some sort of prophecy. Otherwise, how could you repeat the trick of knowing where I landed, which place that I would squat at and the fact that I have a mental component to my shield.

She grins. We know about your shield because we were the ones to plant the idea to learn it in your head. Youre not the only one who had the idea of using your whisper spell to subtle effect.

I trace back memories. Why did I learn that spell again? Was it just to avoid concealment based ambushes? But why would I think it would do that? If it could, Count Vithal would have used it against me long ago. So, concealment must work through mental barriers. After all, shutting out its vector would shut out the general environment, including the thing youre trying to find. So yes, I am buying that my thoughts were somehow muddled by an exterior force.

But why? Why suggest to me to gain the means to block your further suggestions?

Because we knew youd be coming here, and we have a task for you: That voice you heard just now? We need you to kill it.

What is it? I ask, feeling dread at the notion.

She shrugs, casually. A daemon.

I wince at her indifference at referencing a deadly entity only rumoured to exist. A nightmare of divine wrath, inexorable in its meting out alleged justice. An absurd claim, yet it would make sense. Daemons are supposed to be spectres sent to punish creatively for breaches of major divine contracts. If someone of sufficient authority say, the governor of an island (it would have to be them, no one else would have power over the whole city save for the Empress) broke a major contract, then perhaps repercussions might be visited not just onto them, but onto those under them as well. Or at least that the bonds of authority might allow the catalysing effect which enables the efficient punishment of the oath breaker to spread out like a web to others as if they belonged to him and thus had some symbolic overlap of identity. Likewise, by having the divine intervention be carried out by an agent at least temporally fully in this world, the cascading disruptions to the various divine plans are mtigated perhaps making it a matter of arbitration rather than outright war.

And yet

Thats absurd, I say with more conviction than I feel. Daemons arent real. Theyre metaphors. Or if they are real, theyre a product of an outdated divine political environment. Too many gods now who might take umbrage at the disruptions, however mitigated. Power is spread too thin for any one to risk the expenditure to make such an agent. No, some overly designed chimaera is much more likely.

Unless the disruptions were further mitigated by occurring on an island. She counters, strangely smug at pointing out my flawed reasoning, looking down at her superior position.

A major port island. I counter back.

That matters less than you think. Ships are the only path out, and all the ones that left were intercepted. So the disruption was mostly negative. But really, Malz, Im surprised at your disbelief after all, youve met a daemon in the flesh.

What? I certainly have not. Not unless their descriptions of horrific forms are gross exaggerations. But before I can press her, she continues.

But it doesnt matter whether you believe me, because whether spirit or hobbled, malformed beast, you cant leave this place until you kill it.

Cant you kill it?

We dont have the tools, she glances at the Empresss dagger still on my waist, and taking it from you would diminish it. Besides, we dont want the daemon dead; we want you to kill it.

Why? I ask, growing the most minutely forceful at her dancing around the point.

You dont need to know. But lets just say that it relates to the second task we have for you here. Your friends cannot gain the orb in this city. You are to get to it first, and arrange for their competition to gain it.

My stomach drops into a pit. Shes telling me to betray Terry. The man who I think Im happy with him. Could I be after this? What choice do I have?... Now that I think about it, she did draw attention to a tool I have that might kill her before she can kill me

She stomps on the hand inching for the dagger, and I hear bones crunch as she puts her whole weight on it to lean close to me and whisper in my ear. Listen, rat, Im not just the best knight youve ever encountered. Im also the favoured of a god. A god who has granted me boons beyond your comprehension. Any attack you make, Ill see coming before you even think it up. Suddenly, she stands up and relieves the pressure with a wide armed, grinning gesture. But by all means, try, try again. You have plenty of parts to break before you become inoperable for our goals.

I gasp in pain as she backs off, rubbing my hand with the other to assess the damage. Multiple breaks shattered small bones, my dominant hand too. Still, Im not that much worse with the other. The damage is too complex to heal quickly, even with my upgraded healing spell and passive boons. Hours, maybe more than a day, though there are things I could try to speed that up. I wont be helpless in the meantime, but I will be if she crushes the other one. The warning is well received.

Yet what did she mean by it? Is she claiming some non-divinatory future sense? That would narrow down the gods she could be favoured by some god of time, perhaps (there are many). But that cant be right. She said its beyond my comprehension, and sensing the future is something I do all the time, albeit with instruments.

She smirks as if reading my mind. But it doesnt matter, rat, because even if you killed me, even if you arranged for your friends and lover to gain their goal, my friends back in the capital will make sure there isnt a place for you to return to.

Allan. Are they threatening him or No, they dont need to. All they need to do is reveal my secrets, and Allan will suffer for it. Ive already caused his mind to unravel so much. How much worse suffering can my association harm him when the truth of it is made public? No doubt theyll reveal that he knew about me rather than merely playing host to one he thought was his cousin.

But does that even matter in the face of the much worse consequence of failing my mission? It shouldnt, yet it feels like it does. Either way, Im trapped. The price of sacrificing the Mynharan, and the power I gained from it No, constant mortal divinations screw up causation too much for there to be any sort of universal mechanism of balanced reprisals. Fate exists only in the meddling of gods, and usually not even then.

Perhaps it was hubris for me to think I could kill all of the Mynharans companions, and that they wouldnt find some way to retaliate within their plans for me Actually

I dont believe you, I say, creeping up the wall, legs slowing pushing just with the traction of the filthy floor.

She sighs and rolls her eyes. About what?

That you would expose me. You want something from me Something prophetic. I may not know what it is, but I find it hard to believe that thered be anything I could do of import on two such disparate paths as one where I stay a student and one where Im the run again. After all, theres no such thing as a fated action, and if there was, you wouldnt need to manipulate me into it.

She grins and leans closer. Youre right, you dont know what we want. But lets just say that whether you stay in your comfy life or not, youve already met more criteria than anyone else alive. So, thered be less disruption than you think. Besides, I didnt say wed expose you. I said there wouldnt be a place for you to return, and there are many ways one can do that. Many ways to discipline you. Tell me, do you care for your clients? Your little gang? Your cult? Your dear host? So many toys to take away from you should you misbehave.

I feel like theres a weight on my lungs as I try to force air into them. I glare at her with increasing hate Whens the last time Ive really felt hate? What I feel for the empire I dont know what it is, but its not this.

Ha! Dont look at me like that. Whatever we do to you, it would be just, and you know it. Even if we kill others to discipline you, it wouldnt be a fraction of what youve done of the worth of our aims. So just be a good little boy and do what we tell you, then we wont need to punish you and maybe, just maybe you can balance out a small fraction of the horror youve caused.

I seethe. Ive only ever done what needed to be done to fight against an overwhelmingly superior foe.

No you didnt! She grabs me by the throat and slams me against the wall, busting me partly through it. She presses her face inches away from mine, for the first time breaking her smug grin into a snarl of rage. You didnt. I know you, Malz, better than you can imagine. You justify sacrificing to Anar by fighting for Caethlon, and you justify fighting for Caethon the act of a rube, to futilely bloody a defeated kingdom with no hope of victory by the opportunity for power and pleasure it affords you.

Who are you? I whisper in astonishment. Its all absurd, of course, but to twist things around so familiarly Prophecy or not, even inaccurate, such a precise accusation requires personal knowledge of me, and I have never met her in my life.

She wheezes out a protracted exhale of frustration, letting go of me and backing off with eyes closed towards the ceiling. I consider trying to strike again, but something stops me besides fear. You wouldnt understand even if I told you. She looks at me with eyes that are hurt? It doesnt matter anyways. Fine, rankle all you want at our coercion, but do it anyways. Because this city is damned, Malz. The god who did this intends to suck it dry for all the power they can get from it, and youre the only one who can kill its agent at least without causing even more harm. So, you have an opportunity, after doing so many horrid things, to finally do something good.

I stare at her, measuring the strange hurt in her eyes, mixe with the ever-present hate. Somehow, something in her tone maybe, with her voice faintly cracking, I want her approval. For her to say I did good. I do still hate her, especially her second command and yet there is one element that stops me from hating her fully. One forbearance on her part that otherwise would have made me rebel with no heed of consequences. Of all the people she was threatening, Terry was not one of them. Until he joins that list, I think I can stomach doing as they say.

Fine, I say, not lessening my glare. Ill kill this thing, whatever it is. Though youll have to tell me how.

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