Zu Mari stood awaiting his fate. A prisoner still, even if unbound for the moment.

He half expected Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death to say something annoying and pointed before remembering that his sword wasn’t here.

Kia whimpered and collapsed, falling to her hands and knees. A handful of other prisoners staggered, most stayed upright, but a few fell. The pressure in the air had increased, the spiritual weight that oppressed them from a distance growing stronger as it neared.

The mysterious unknown Master.

Nira shook her head pityingly as the prisoners swayed and stumbled out of line. She and Menya hurried to drag the stumbling captives back to their feet, shoving them into their places with either a harsh word or a brief reproof.

“Stand, kevris, if you wish to live,” Menya snarled at a young woman with pale hair who’d fallen to one knee.

Zu caught Nira’s eyes settling on him, as one of the few still standing without so much as shifting. Kia’s dark-eyed protector was another of these, and four women near the front of the line. Most only stumbled, able to return to their upright position without much difficulty, while those like Zu felt the strain intensely but resisted it through sheer strength of will.

“A good batch this time,” Nira murmured to Menya as she helped Kia to stand. The girl trembled and her breath whined like a barely-contained scream with each rapid breath, but she did not fall again. She gripped Zu’s hand tightly.

“If they learn their place,” Menya replied in an equally low tone as they walked away. “I wager… three will last the day.”

“So few? I think at least six.” Nira glanced over the line again. “Perhaps eight or nine.”

Menya scoffed. “Only if you count the…”

The rest of their conversation was lost as they moved further away, and Zu could no longer make out their words. He glanced quickly up and down the line. Easily fifty people were gathered here.

Even Nira, who seemed more empathetic and optimistic, thought less than one in five of them would survive a single day.

Zu wondered if his initial instincts had been correct. Perhaps he should have fled, leapt off the building before he got in any further.

He squashed the cowardly thought. Zu Mari did not back down from a challenge! Even if that challenge was ‘pretend to be a weak and stupid slave’, he would conquer it and emerge triumphant and stronger on the other side!

Already Nira seemed less antagonistic toward him, her coldness from the city fading. If he stayed long enough, he could convert them into allies.

Then someone floated down from above, pale green robes fluttering gently in the wind, giving an impression of an early spring leaf drifting from its tree. The mental pressure immediately redoubled, and Zu gritted his teeth with the effort of remaining upright. Kia gripped his hand so tightly his fingers went numb.

Two others failed to maintain their stance and collapsed to the ground. Zu recognized one as the pale-haired woman who’d fallen before. This time she’d passed out completely.

Without a gesture or any motion from the descending figure, the two unconscious prisoners ignited in brilliant green flame. So fast Zu might have missed it if he’d blinked, they were incinerated in an instant, the ashes turning to green light which flickered and vanished, leaving no trace of their existence.

Zu felt Kia trembling beside him, but he could do nothing to aid her. It required all his strength just to stand upright himself. He squeezed her hand with numb fingers to relay what solidarity he could.

Many of the prisoners trembled with the weight of the attention directed against them, but none let themselves fall.

The drifting-leaf figure finally reached the balcony, alighting gently with perfect balance on the railing.

Zu had expected a mighty patriarch, or an ancient and wise ruler.

Instead, he saw a young child. No more than seven years old, too young to be sure if it was a boy or girl.

As one, Nira and Menya bowed deeply. Zu immediately did the same, remembering their earlier admonitions.

Though the Master appeared like a child, the power pouring off him was unmistakable. Viha Cougar as the Chartreuse Cougar patriarch might have been able to face him in a fair fight, but certainly no one else Zu had ever encountered could have matched him.

When Zu raised his head he saw six more gaps in the line. He wanted to stare into the Master’s eyes, see what kind of person he was, defy him to the last… but he dared not. The memory of Viha Cougar crushing Zu’s life from him with presence alone warned him very vividly that some enemies could not be attacked straight on.

Perhaps he could befriend this Master, as he had made an ally of Viha. It may be his only chance.

“Master Elvanis, we present your new supplicants,” said Menya, her voice so thick with fawning adoration that Zu double checked to be sure she was even the same person.

“Go, prepare the trials,” said Master Elvanis, and Menya and Nira bowed again and disappeared into the tower. “Step forward.”

For a moment Zu froze, uncertain to whom the command was directed, but he had no desire to be flash incinerated. He stepped forward.

“Swear to serve me until your dying day.”

Zu was pretty sure his dying day had come around quite a few times already. He repeated the words with a smile in his heart. They meant nothing, and would not bind him.

“Look at me.”

Zu raised his eyes and noticed the people remaining were spread a whole lot further apart now than they had been a moment before. Maybe Menya and Nira weren’t so pessimistic in their assessments after all.

His heart pounding, Zu met the gaze of the child-man who held all their lives.

“You are now Acolytes of the Green Flame,” Master Elvanis said, meeting each of their eyes in turn. “I will return for your first assessment in one month.”

Without another word, he turned and stepped off the balcony, disappearing from sight almost at once. Zu couldn’t even follow in which direction he had flown.

The pressure eased, and several of the remaining prisoners - or, acolytes now - finally stumbled or sank to the ground with the relief of tension.

Kia slumped to her knees, still clinging to Zu’s hand.

The young man ran over and took her other hand in his. “Kia, thank the phoenix, are you well?”

She nodded, gasping for air, then let go of Zu to throw her arms around the man’s neck.

He looked up at Zu, nodded. “Thank you. I am Lukas, this is Kia. If ever you have need, you may call on me.”

“And I am Zu Mari. I was sent to end a war by the goddess Serena. Do you know what war, or how I may end it?”

“There is only one war. The War of Powers. The Green Flame seeks to consume the world, and now only Lightwall stands against them.”

Zu smiled. “Then perhaps I’m in the right place after all.”

If he wasn’t mistaken, this looked an awful lot like the Green Flame’s central home base.

The right person could do a lot of damage in a place like this.

Zu would burn it all to the ground. He just had to find the right way to go about it.