'I won't stand you making my whole family suffer nor will you force my daughters to spend the rest of their lives in hiding. You're about to discover that you're not the only one who made good use of these last few months.

'I've spent countless hours planning how to take you out once and for all, preparing for every possible contingency. I would have liked to have a bit more time, but I can't delay it any longer.

'I must act before Orion does something stupid. Your act of defiance at the cemetery forced my hand, Deirus, and now you'll pay the price for your foolishness.'

She had entered from the most recent and also the least protected wing of the house, moving towards the most secure areas only after scanning the arrays surrounding her with devices that Jirni was supposed to use solely as an Archon.

Between her Featherwalker armor and the many weapons she wore, Lady Ernas was confident in taking down even an Archmage, but she needed to play it smart. She couldn't afford to be detected nor letting Deirus understand what was happening until it was too late.

Killing someone as powerful and influential as Deirus was akin to setting up several domino tiles. She needed to make sure that they would fall in the correct sequence so that the ensuing investigation would clear her household and have no long-term consequences.

Any other outcome would have led the Ernas Household to fall soon after the Deirus and that Velan's death would have been a hollow victory.

The Deirus Household was already on the decline, with his ties to the Royal Court severed, no heir to take its reigns, and its lands ready to be redistributed the moment the current Lord died.

Archmage Velan Deirus had nothing to live for, except for his revenge. He was a dead man walking, ready to drop his own corpse in the Ernas's well to poison their waters and bring them down with him.

Jirni, instead, had a thriving Arch Duchy, several children with a bright future ahead, and a husband she loved that she wanted to die of old age. So, unless she perfectly completed her task, it would have been Velan's victory.

To make matters worse, Jirni had to act quickly, before grief drove Orion mad and he ruined everything she had prepared. It was one of the reasons why she had been forced to hasten her plans.

It was only a matter of time before her husband killed Deirus and got executed for treason. Jirni Ernas had several Royal Pardons saved but they couldn't be used to clear crimes punishable with the death penalty.

Thanks to the night goggles Orion had crafted for her, Jirni moved quickly through the empty corridors and servants' passages, stopping solely to avoid patrolling guards or to let her device scan her surroundings for traps and arrays.

Yet it took her over one hour to cover the few hundred meters that separated the window from Velan's living quarters. Once she finally lay eyes on his familiar gold-painted double door, Jirni made the device perform a triple scan while she double-checked her equipment and prepared for the worst.

'I wish I could have brought Dyta along, but I'm the only person for whom Orion violates the Kingdom's rules about Royal Forgemastery. He crafted for me artifacts meant solely for special ops units that should require the Royal seal even to be used.' She thought.

Once everything was ready and charged, she moved to the door and touched it with a small sphere that unleashed the tier four Forgemastering spell, Clean Slate. The mixed pulse of light and darkness opened the magical lock while also disabling all protections on the door.

The spell caused any artifact to temporarily lose its imprint, making Jirni's hand akin to that of their master.

She slowly turned the handle that opened with a soft click, stopping for a few seconds to make sure that no one moved, talked, or even breathed nearby the door. The devices Orion had prepared for her were beyond illegal, but neither spouse cared.

Once Jirni made sure that no guard nor concubine was inside the room, she slipped in and closed the door before its enchantments started to work again and detected the intruder.

Her black suit covered her from head to toe, leaving exposed nothing but her eyes. To be safe, she had even shaved her hair and eyebrows to make sure that she would leave no trace of her passage.

It wasn't just Jirni having no care for appearances, but she could also always ask Manohar to regrow them later. She had taken four gods of the Kingdom as allies and each one of them played an invaluable role in her plan.

Jirni reached Deirus's bed, where he slept alone with an obnoxious smile on his face, probably dreaming about Quylla's death and her funeral. Yet she bid her time, letting the device scan the arrays in the room, her target, and even the walls for hidden passages or reinforcements.

Only once Jirni made sure that no one was around and that the person in the bed really was Velan Deirus, not just a body double, did she move to the bedside.

Her left hand covered Deirus's mouth while the right held an enchanted poisoned knife that pierced both of his eyes and heart in quick succession. A skull was hard whereas eyes were soft and led straight to the brain.

She took no pleasure in such a quick and painless job but family came first.

Her gloved hand muffled Velan's yelps of agony as the knife kept moving non-stop with ruthless efficiency.

'What the fuck?' She thought as Velan's hands grabbed her own and a huge smile appeared on his face.

"Jirni, it's a pleasure to see you." His pajamas shapeshifted into a deep blue Archmage robe as his eyes and chest regenerated at a speed visible to the naked eye, making his words more than a pun.

"You're a bit late, though." Velan only needed a small flick of his wrists to break both of her arms and make Jirni drop the knife. "I was starting to worry that you wouldn't come anymore and that I had to poke that big dumb oaf of your husband again."

She tried to activate some of Orion's emergency measures, but the arrays of the house obeyed their master and suppressed her artifacts with the sheer pressure of the world energy coming from the hundreds of violet crystals that fueled the magical formations.

"How did you know I would come and how can you still be alive?" Jirni replied while kicking him square in the chest with the strength of a mule.

Deirus crashed against the wall yet he suffered no damage. He moved as lithe as a cat, returning in front of her so quickly that all Jirni managed to see while his punch cracked her sternum and ribs was a blur.

"You mean, how could I not know? I paid the Night Court an insane amount of money to make sure that you witnessed the death of your beloved daughter just like you did for my Yurial!" Velan kicked her hard in the chest, turning the cracks into fractures and making Jirni cough out a mouthful of blood.