Chapter 76 — The King's Toys
The silence in Zordis's royal chamber had texture.
Not the empty silence of an unoccupied room — the dense silence of a place where many people are present and none of them speak because each one is evaluating what the others will do first. The tapestries on the walls absorbed the sound of footsteps. The torches burned without noise. Light entered through the tall windows at angles that warmed without blinding.
Kuto stood to one side of the room with the posture of someone who is present without being fully there — his gaze fixed on the three visitors with an attention that didn't seem like attention because it didn't move, didn't blink, didn't betray itself.
Garrett took a step forward.
His eyes swept the room with the assessment that Kuto had correctly classified the night before — not a diplomat reading the political atmosphere, but a warrior identifying exits and threats. When his gaze met Raimi's, he inclined his head in a reverence that had the correct form but lacked the fluidity of regular practice.
"The Church of Nellis has a political request for the kingdom of Zordis."
---
Raimi straightened on the throne with the posture of someone born to receive uninvited visitors but who had learned to manage them.
"You may present your request," she said, her voice controlled but carrying that specific firmness of a person holding something larger beneath the surface.
Garrett advanced another step. Behind him, Marcus maintained the motionless posture of someone trained to be an extension of the leader — present but silent. Cassandra stood slightly apart, the fingers of her right hand moving subtly along her staff, the gesture of someone calibrating available magic out of habit.
"We have observed magical instabilities in villages near Zordis," Garrett said, his voice deep and measured. "Attacks carried out by Fear Mages of increasing intensity. We need to determine the source. The Church requests that a member of the royal family accompany us on a field investigation."
The air in the room shifted.
Not dramatically. Just that specific quality when a seemingly neutral statement contains an implication that wasn't spoken but which everyone in the room heard anyway.
Raimi remained silent for a second that was clearly processing rather than hesitation.
"Are you implying that Zordis is involved in these attacks?"
Her voice didn't exactly tremble — but it came close enough that people who knew her well could see the difference.
"What kind of judgment is this?"
Marcus spoke for the first time. His voice came out calm — too calm, with the deliberate restraint of someone visibly managing their own tone with effort.
"The Church has not determined Zordis's involvement. The goal is situational reconnaissance. But it is necessary for a member of the royal family to be present. Nothing more."
Raimi took a deep breath.
"Very well. I will go personally."
The silence that followed lasted exactly as long as Kuto needed to stand up.
"I will go in the princess's place."
The words fell with the specific weight of a statement that does not invite discussion.
The advisors exchanged glances. Marcus narrowed his eyes. Garrett remained completely still — in the specific way of someone trained not to show unplanned reactions.
It was Garrett who responded, his voice gaining an edge it hadn't had before.
"We specifically requested members close to the royal family. Not just any representative."
Kuto took a step forward.
His gaze met Garrett's and didn't let go.
"I have become king of Zordis. I have the right to involve myself directly in the kingdom's affairs. If it is a member of the royal family you require — it is me."
A long second.
Garrett breathed in deeply through his nose. His teeth clenched slightly — a small but visible movement for anyone watching with sufficient attention.
"In that case," he said, controlled, "nothing prevents your participation."
Marcus added, formally:
"We depart in two hours. Prepare yourself."
The three of them left.
---
Raimi descended from the throne before the door even finished closing.
"Kuto." Her voice came out low but with urgency that wasn't anger — it was genuine concern. "What have you done? You didn't need to impose yourself like that. You assumed the throne only recently, you don't know the territory, you don't know—"
"It's not safe here," Kuto said, without looking at her.
Brief silence.
"What do you mean?"
"The timing." His voice came out factual, without drama. "Zenk leaves. Hours later, representatives from the Church arrive with a request that requires the presence of royalty. That is not a coincidence."
Raimi remained silent for a moment.
"So you think…"
"I don't know what they are. But I know I'd rather be the one to find out than you."
He didn't wait for a response. He turned and left.
---
The corridor had that quality of Zordis that Kuto had learned to recognize — the runes on the walls pulsed faintly with the right temperature, the light was soft without being weak, the air had the freshness of a place that didn't need forced ventilation because it had been built to breathe.
Haru was leaning against the wall six meters from the door of the royal chamber.
Not by accident. The position guaranteed a view of the corridor in both directions and of the entrance to the chamber. An assassin's position for monitoring the environment. Kuto noticed it and said nothing.
"Brother," Haru said, straightening up. "I heard you have a mission."
"Stop calling me brother."
"Can I go with you?"
"No."
"Why?"
Kuto stopped. He turned partially — not completely, just enough for Haru to see that he had attention but not all of it.
"The mission involves only me. You stay."
"But if there's danger—"
"Stay."
The word came out with that specific finality of a decision that has no entry point for discussion.
Haru closed his mouth.
Kuto resumed walking, leaving behind the specific silence of Haru watching his back with that mixture of frustration and admiration that Kuto still hadn't decided how to process.
---
The royal chamber was too large for one person.
Kuto had reached that conclusion on the first night and hadn't changed his mind since. The bed was three times what was necessary. The wardrobe contained enough clothes for a week without repetition. The windows faced the city at an angle that deliberately captured the morning light — architecture in service of an aesthetic experience he recognized as intentional but didn't feel as relevant.
He sat on the edge of the bed.
His hand went to his pocket in an automatic movement that required no conscious decision.
The photograph.
Small. Already creased from the times it had been folded and unfolded. His mother with hair that was longer back then. His sister with the smile she had when she was genuinely happy and not when she was being polite.
He stared at it for a time he didn't measure.
*Family kidnapped. One billion dollars. Level one hundred. Return.*
*Everything else is context.*
He put the photograph away. Stood up. Went to the wardrobe with the criteria of someone choosing equipment for a mission rather than clothes for an occasion — a long black coat that didn't restrict movement, a shirt that didn't pull at the shoulders, pants that allowed full range of motion. Dark shoes with soles that didn't slip.
He looked in the mirror.
The king of Zordis who had never asked to be king looked back.
---
The bar was on a secondary street in Zordis — the kind of place that exists in every city without being characteristic of any.
Garrett sat with his back to the wall.
Habit. Always with his back to the wall, always with a view of the entrance. Twenty years of missions for Killvis had turned precautions into reflexes that worked regardless of will.
Marcus was to his right, the glass in front of him but untouched. Cassandra was to his left, her fingers tracing a pattern on the tabletop without realizing it.
"What do we do now?" Cassandra said, her voice low but with the poorly contained urgency of someone who had been asking the same question internally for hours and had finally let it out. "We were sent to bring Princess Raimi. With Zenk absent, it was supposed to be simple. But now…"
"Now we have the king," Marcus said.
"A king who only recently arrived and whom we don't know." Cassandra looked at Garrett. "We need to report to Killvis."
Garrett remained silent for a moment.
Then he nodded once.
Cassandra closed her eyes.
Her hands lifted slightly from the table — a small, almost imperceptible movement for anyone who didn't know what they were seeing. Her fingers traced a pattern in the air with precision born of repetition — not a spell of attack or defense, but of transmission. Communication magic was more delicate than most and required concentration that tolerated no interruption.
The channel opened.
"My lord," Cassandra said, her voice coming out in a tone different from her normal one — flatter, more formal, with that specific quality of mental communication where emotion is lost in transmission. "There has been a change of plans."
The response didn't come immediately. It never did with Killvis — a deliberate pause that Garrett had learned to recognize as the trait of a man who never answered before fully processing.
"Explain."
"Magus Zenk is not present in the kingdom as planned. Princess Raimi has been replaced by the consort king — Kuto. He is the one accompanying us on the expedition."
Silence.
Then a laugh.
Not loud — low, contained, the kind that escapes when something genuinely surprises in a pleasant way. Killvis didn't laugh often. When he did, it was worse than when he didn't.
"So it's true she already got married. Sometimes I forget."
Pause.
"Very well. Proceed. I want to meet the new king of Zordis personally."
The voice carried that specific curiosity of a child who has found a new toy — and Garrett knew exactly what that curiosity meant. He had been six years old the first time he heard it.
The channel closed.
Cassandra opened her eyes.
She remained silent for a second — the kind of silence that forms when there is something to say and the person is deciding whether to say it.
"Garrett."
He looked at her.
"This is our chance." Her voice came out low but with an intensity that didn't need volume. "We're far from Killvis. Without direct supervision. We could simply… not return."
Marcus lifted his eyes from the glass.
Garrett didn't answer immediately.
The fingers of his right hand moved to his left wrist — an unconscious movement, the kind the body makes without consulting the mind. The sleeve rose slightly.
The mark was there.
Not visible under the normal sleeve but he knew exactly where it was — he felt it in a way that wasn't pain but was presence, like a scar that had never stopped existing just because it had stopped bleeding.
Geometry of slavery engraved into the skin by the hand of an eight-year-old child who had looked at three six-year-old survivors as if they were an interesting acquisition.
*So these are my new toys.*
The memory came without warning — as it always did when the mark was touched, even if only mentally.
---
**[20 YEARS AGO — KILLVIS'S PALACE]**
The throne room had been the first large thing Garrett had ever seen.
Six years old. The village where he was born had nothing taller than two stories. Killvis's palace had columns that disappeared into the ceiling. There were carpets covering the entire floor. The torches burned in metal holders that gleamed.
He saw none of that at the time.
He saw the soldiers in front of them. The door closed behind. And Cassandra and Marcus beside him — Cassandra gripping his hand with a strength that left marks, Marcus with eyes red from hours of crying that had simply run out without producing results.
The soldier had said to the king:
"My lord. We brought survivors from the village destroyed by monsters. We rescued these three."
The king was eight years old.
Garrett learned that later. At the time he didn't recognize the difference between a child with power and an adult with power — both were unreachable, both decided over lives that weren't theirs.
The king stopped eating.
He looked at the three with an expression that Garrett had spent twenty years trying to describe to himself and had never found the completely correct word for. It wasn't exactly cruelty. It was absence — absence of any recognition that what he was looking at had an interior.
And then the smile.
False wasn't the right word because false smiles still refer to a real feeling they try to simulate. That smile was something else — a social construction executed by someone who had learned that the expression was expected in certain situations but didn't have the content that the expression normally carries.
"So these are my new toys."
Garrett was six years old and still didn't fully understand what he had just heard.
But he stood up.
"We thank Your Majesty for saving us," his voice came out small but direct. "But we ask that you grant us our freedom. To me and my siblings."
Killvis tilted his head.
"Your village was under the protection of the Church of Nellis. Is that correct?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"And when the monsters attacked—" his voice was completely flat, factual, like a man presenting an argument in a debate "—the Church did not come. They ignored you because you lived with beastmen and considered you impure."
Pause.
"You are alive now thanks to my forces. Therefore you belong to me."
Cassandra let out a small, involuntary sound — the sound that escapes when the body processes information the mind hasn't yet managed.
Marcus began to cry. Silently. Tears sliding down without his face doing anything else.
Garrett didn't cry.
"If you do not accept serving me," Killvis continued, with that specific casualness of someone stating an obvious fact, "I will order your immediate execution. You will join your parents sooner."
Behind them came the sound of swords being drawn.
Garrett heard Cassandra swallow hard. He felt her hand squeeze his harder.
"We accept," he said. "We will serve Your Majesty in exchange for our freedom."
Killvis rose from the throne.
He walked to the three with the steps of a child but something in the steps that wasn't childlike. He took Garrett's arm. Then Cassandra's. Then Marcus's.
He returned to the throne.
He sat down.
He snapped his fingers.
The pain was instantaneous and strange — not the pain of a cut or burn but the pain of something entering, installing itself, becoming part in an irreversible way. Garrett looked at his arm.
The mark.
Black geometry that pulsed once and then stayed.
"This will prevent any action against my orders," Killvis said, returning to his meal as if what he had just done was administrative and not the end of three lives that had barely begun. "Your first mission will be to infiltrate the Church of Nellis as knights."
---
**[PRESENT — BAR IN ZORDIS]**
Garrett lowered his sleeve.
"Don't talk nonsense," he said, his voice coming out more tired than harsh. "Look at your mark."
Cassandra looked at her wrist.
She didn't need to raise her sleeve. She knew where it was. She knew what it did. Twenty years of knowing.
"He promised," Garrett said. "Even after Kend. The mission is still active. We take Kuto to the meeting point and the debt is paid."
"And if he doesn't pay?" Cassandra said. "Like he never paid before. Like he always found one more reason, one more mission, one more—"
"Cassandra."
Her name came out with that firmness that wasn't aggression but that closed doors.
She fell silent.
Garrett looked at the mark on his own wrist through the sleeve — not seeing it, just knowing.
*Twenty years.*
*One more mission.*
*Then freedom.*
He had said that before. In different places. With different missions.
But this time it was different.
It had to be different.
He stood up.
"Let's go. We can't be late."
---
The group was gathered at the palace entrance when the three arrived.
Kuto was ready. Long black coat, sword at his waist, posture of someone who had trained in the morning and spent the rest of the day processing information and had come out the other side with a decision made.
Haru stood three meters behind — outside the formation, clearly there without formal authorization.
Jack was leaning against a column with his arms crossed, expression of someone who agreed with the expedition but didn't completely agree with anything.
Raimi stood at the entrance — not equipped for a mission, dressed for the palace, with that specific expression of a person who is about to let someone leave and doesn't want to fully show what it costs.
Garrett assessed everyone in a second and a half.
He looked at Kuto.
"We see you are prepared, Your Majesty." The title came out with that controlled neutrality of someone saying what is protocol and not what they think. "We depart for the village of Zef. Twenty kilometers from Zordis's borders."
Kuto nodded once.
He looked at Raimi.
She looked back.
There was no speech. There was nothing to say that wouldn't sound like less than the moment deserved or more than the situation asked for.
Kuto turned toward the exit.
Garrett, Cassandra, and Marcus took positions around him — not as an escort, but in a tactical arrangement that anyone with sufficient training would recognize as exactly that.
Kuto recognized it.
He said nothing.
They left the palace.
The streets of Zordis opened before them with that late-afternoon light that the runes made more golden than should have been possible.
Kuto walked in the center of the three without looking at any of them, eyes forward, his mind registering every detail — positioning, step rhythm, weight of weapons, where their hands stayed when there was nothing to do with them.
*They are not knights of the Church.*
*I don't know what they are.*
*But I will find out.*