-=[Traetorius Manning, Gold City Magistrate]=-

Lord Manning sent out the final invitation letter. Tonight, almost all of the Guilds of the Gold city would meet at his estate. Tonight, the future of the Gold city would be decided based on the frenzied plans of one sixteen-year-old lowborn.

Traetorius rubbed his throbbing head. Ash Sparks was quite the headache, a true hellion if there was one, far worse than his granddaughter. She was carelessly breaking all of the rules as if they didn't matter. Whoever heard of a lowborn girl marrying a noble scion?! It was a mad absurdity and yet it was somehow happening in three days under his own authority.

Pandemonium was coming, Traetorius knew it. Soon enough the rest of the Manning family would learn of the engagement and wedding plan. He had no idea how he could pacify their rage. All he could do was sit on his throne atop the world and tiredly rub his temples. He tried opening the window to smell the future. The city smelled like hope and death at the same time, balancing between frenzied madness, jubilation, future destruction and fear of the Deathstorm’s arrival.

All of the hopes and dreams and worries of the people were seemingly aligned upon Ash Sparks - the fire at the heart of the ever-changing future. Earlier today, he tried to stamp out the flame he had himself foolishly fueled, tried to snip away the cursed memory. Alas, he had failed. Arianna had fallen in love with the fantastic tales of the Ancient and now stubbornly defended Ash with her own life. The sentient memory in the scrawny urchin was far too clever, imprudent and dangerous. No matter what the Magistrate tried, the situation had only become uglier and more complicated.

His own death inexplicably loomed in the very near future. No matter how much he smelled himself, he couldn't determine the source of it, to his own intensifying frustration. Surely, he was safe in the heart of his own estate! Nobody would dare threaten him here in the seat of his power while he was surrounded by thirty three contract-bound warriors and a thousand obedient servitors!

Perhaps... Ash would perish in the coming Convergence and he could annul the wedding after the Deathstorm passed. The girl was mortal and had no real friends with the exception of that damned demonic fox critter masquerading as a geisha. Maybe one of the many Mannings would see her as unfit and challenge her to a duel. Accidents happened. Ash Sparks had to be stopped, ended before...

Someone knocked on his door. Traetorius sniffed the air seeping underneath the frame. It was that damn girl again! What did she want now?

Something was off, terribly wrong with her scent. Ash no longer smelled like she did only a few hours ago! He inhaled again just to make sure. This was impossible. Ash smelled like a wholly different person, like she was someone else entirely, someone at least ten times as strong in terms of her Dantian! What in Ninety-Nine thousand hells?! Nobody cultivated this fast!

"E… enter!" He said, his voice trembling ever so slightly.

Ash Sparks stepped through the door, with Arianna and Avidius following behind. All three of them were wearing celesteel chainmail, taken from the castle armory. Avidius and Arianna were armed with celesteel swords, in full Manning regalia, stepping right behind Ash like a pair of two dedicated guards. The two-hundred star, master-less servitor phantom loomed behind the trio.

"Yes? ...Do you need something?" The Magistrate inquired, blinking in confusion. What were these three playing at? Why were they playing dress up?

“The Guilds are invited to the castle?” Sparks asked casually.

“Yes, I’ve sent the invitations to the Heads, let's hope they all show tonight. I expect it to be quite the debacle regardless...” Traetorius commented tiredly. “Why are you dressed up in seven-generations-old clothes? I doubt that such antiquated, clunky, battle regalia will impress the Guilders. Their servitors could tear through it like paper.”

“I'm old therefore I wear old things. Don't judge me,” Ash waved the question off.

The Magistrate squinted at her.

“Aaaaanyways…” The ironclad girl made a somber pause. “I want you to reassign the Wards of The Magisterium Citadel to me."

"What?!" Traetorius asked, blinking. Nobody sane outright demanded such things from him. Not even one of his many scions would have had the audacity for such a request! The Winter Palace was his seat of power, the heart of the Magisterium!

"You heard me, granddad," the blue-eyed girl repeated, her face askew with her mischievous, one-sided smirk. She tapped his wooden table with his emerald ring. "I have the Master Key, show me where to stick it to turn on the Deathstorm Ward."

"Are you that scared of the Convergence? The Maximum output Ward runs exactly one hundred thousand heartbeats and can only be activated once every ten years! I'll turn the Ward on myself when the time comes!" The Magistrate replied. His hand started to itch to give... Lady Sparks a good spanking. The Ancient was being far, FAR too demanding. How in the hells did she figure out that his ring could activate the Master Ward?

"No. Right now," she demanded. “I want the Citadel Ward access immediately.”

"Avidius, please take my granddaughter and her... fiancee out of my office before I lose my patience," Traetorius exhaled, glancing at the bodyguard.

Nothing happened.

"Coperpenny! Have you gone deaf?!" The Magistrate yelled. “Do your damn job!”

Avidius remained silent and still, like a shadow, standing on the left side of Ash Sparks. He didn’t even move an inch.

“Qi-ssing, senile simpleton! AVIDIUS! Obey me!” Traetorius slammed his fist into the table.

"Magistrate, listen up. You no longer own this castle. You can either tell me how to use the Master Key or I will figure it out myself without your help," Ash said.

"Of course I own my own bloody castle! What is this nonsense?!" Traetorius barked, rising up from his elaborate, wooden throne-seat. If he had to evict Ash himself out of his office, he would.

"This castle hasn't been yours for a very long time, Magistrate. You've been so over-reliant on smelling the future, you failed to notice that these walls became filled with rot. I need the Ward activated so that I can finish my job - the job that you should have done three decades ago!”

"WHAT?!" The Magistrate yelled, sniffing the words of Ash Sparks. The damn girl was telling the truth! The castle was indeed compromised in some manner. How?! When?!

"Allow me to demonstrate the folly of your talent," Ash said. "Close your eyes for just seven heartbeats… and try to predict what I am going to do."

"I don't have time for these childish games!" The Magistrate growled, feeling confused and bothered. “Tell me what’s going on so I can deal with it!”

"Please, grandfather…" Arianna asked. "You won't regret it. Trust me!"

"Fine! Seven heartbeats!" The Magistrate twitched and closed his eyes, inhaling. Ash became painted with future-ripples in his inner eye. She simply stood in one spot, smiling happily and looking quite content.

"Seven, six, five, four, three…" He counted irately.

Slap! An armored hand struck his face. What?! What the Qi-ss?!

The Magistrate blinked. He opened his eyes and rubbed his stinging cheek.

"I just killed you. You are dead," Ash said, looking straight into his eyes with her shimmering, sapphire-sky-blue ones.

"W-what?" He swallowed nervously. Ash had once again done something impossible. She hit him! He wasn’t able to foresee her moves at all!

"How?!" He finally croaked, backing away from her intense gaze. He felt, saw cimmerian shadows of death and pain intertwined with brilliant angels dancing in the depths of her pupils. Seven of them. She was haunted by seven demons of death and angels of life, seven cores. Had this girl killed, devoured seven... seven-hundred-star beasts?!

Surely, this was utterly inconceivable! Who in their right mind would give an urchin waif that much power?

[Obey or perish,] The dangerous echoes in her eyes sang. [Obey or the world will burn!]

The Magistrate gulped again, his hands shaking.

“What have you done… Ancient?!” He finally croaked out.

“I’ve done what needed to be done. I’m starting a new Legacy and my first order of business will be cleaning up the Magisterium Citadel!” The loony girl declared.

She pulled back a celesteel chainmail sleeve and revealed a gold bracelet on her thin wrist with a glimmering beast core. "This is a special servitor. It messes with your sniffer. Almost every servant in this castle was wearing one, including Avidius here."

"N..no… it can't be!" Traetorius trembled. He sniffed Avidius. The man no longer belonged to him. He belonged… almost entirely to Ash Sparks! Avidius had given up his Dantian to Lady Sparks in a completed wedding ritual, officiated by Arianna. WHAT?!

"It's all true grandfather," Arianna said dispassionately. "You were never in charge of anything. You are and have always been a mere figurehead. The Guilders allowed you to live because you didn't step out of line."

Traetorius could detect no lies in Arianna's words. He gripped his head, slumping back down into his chair. For thirty three years he wasn't even in charge. His entire rule was an illusion that was now slipping from his fingers. Nothing he did mattered.

"I'm sorry granddaughter… I have failed you," he finally wheezed.

He looked back up at Lady Sparks. “You… you can’t just become a Baroness, Ancient. The lowborn body… you inhabit…”

“Is engaged to Arianna Manning!” Ash passionately shot back. “This makes me noble enough! Tell me, dear grandfather, how old is the Magisterium Citadel?”

“Seven centuries…” The Magistrate replied.

“I’m certain that seven hundred years ago, your family had also started with nothing. They’ve warred with others for land and built this place to unite this city. You, on the other hand, let it fall into ruin after the unfortunate passing of your mother! These empty, echoing halls need people, not ghosts! I AM the Baroness Sparks-Manning and I will bring life back into this weary castle! I will awaken the sleeping giant of the Magisterium and unite the city under us!” The silver-blue haired girl announced with absolute conviction.

Lord Manning smelled her words and found no dishonesty in them. Ash truly believed that she could start a new Legacy, believed that she could change the future, unite the Guilds and reawaken the Magisterium Citadel.

“I… uh… how do I fit into this future of yours?” He finally asked, deciding if he should smite the girl here and now or follow through with her demented demands.

“You will remain as Magistrate, but I will stand as Baroness above you,” Ash spoke coldly. “You nearly killed the only truly noble girl in this world - Celes Rada. All of you spout these highborn traditions and yet none of you displayed noble behaviour! I do not forgive your crime, Magistrate. I will not forget it. You WILL stand on one knee before me and say the vow of allegiance to me, just as Copperpenny and your castle servants have.”

“I… urm…” The Magistrate struggled to output an answer, his mind struggling to wrestle with the Ancient’s outlandish demand.

“I won’t make the vow as harsh as his, mind you, you are after all a Magistrate and not a mere peon.” Ash Sparks smiled. “Nevertheless, you will do it, right now.”

“Or… or what?” Traetorius felt like his heart was about to explode out of his chest. Try as hard as he could, he could not smell the trio’s future in front of him. They were completely shielded from his inner eye!

“Oh, I don’t have to do anything,” Ash shrugged. “I’m quite certain that the Captain of the Citadel’s garrison is just as compromised as Avidius was. He will order the guard to execute you tonight or as soon as the Surgeon Barbers demand it… if they haven’t already. After all, you announced today at the market that Arianna and I are to be wed in three days. I am the most-cursed-ancient in the eyes of Clint Potatius! As soon as he learns of your support of my name, you’ll become a dead-man-walking. Smell your own future Traetorius - even if you strike me, Avidius and Arianna right now, you still die from the Barbers’ hidden hands.”

Traetorius paled. Ash Sparks had given him the answer to the question that haunted his own future-sight. He was already doomed to die tonight by the hands of the people he had trusted with his life!

“Checkmate, Magistrate,” Ash spoke and he had nothing to say in return.

-=[Ash Sparks]=-

In mere twenty minutes from his total defeat, Lord Manning stood on one knee in front of me. He had surrendered his fate and future to me, because he had no other choice. His personal, most powerful ability had been outwitted by the Surgeon Barbers. Oh sure, he could try to wrestle the ring from me, but he would most likely lose his hand in the process. I had Avidius and Arianna on my side, swords at the ready. Ludj loomed behind us, as backup, ready to bite apart any servitor the Magistrate might summon.

Traetorius had already proven himself to be quite incompetent at fighting two people at once - he was bested by Arianna wielding a mere stalactite. A celesteel sword was a much more dangerous guarantee of ending his life and Arianna was pissed off enough at her grandfather to actually strike him down.

I wasn’t able to get him to say the mercantile contract, he straight up refused to accept it, asking to be killed instead by Arianna’s hand because it wasn’t proper for a Magistrate to be a slave. I decided not to force the issue, since he could easily weasel out of such a contract anyway by pushing it onto some poor patsy just as Avidius had done.

Arianna had thrown the Oath parchment at him to study and I enjoyed the bewilderment painted on his face when he read the vows - the same ones that he was singing to me now.

“I, [Triumvirate Terminus Vanglorious Executor of Men and Order] do hereby gift my Dantian to [Ash Sparks at the Convergence of Deathstorm]." Traetorius sang.

“I, [Ash Sparks at the Convergence of Deathstorm] do hereby gift this celesteel ring to [Triumvirate Terminus Vanglorious Executor of Men and Order],” I sang, sliding a black, star-sprinkled ring onto the magistrate’s finger.

It was a simple ring that belonged to some long forgotten warrior from a bygone Manning rule era. I had found it sitting on a very dusty shelf in the armoury. I decided that the Legacy of Sparks-Manning would be bound with celesteel. Celes - the noble Kitsune Tardigrada would be painted upon the Dynastic Coat of Arms as our symbol - an undying dreamer that would watch over humanity, even if I perished to the annals of history.

“I reinforce this noble oath to you and your Legacy with all of my Qi, as your Magistrate until death do us part, Baroness Sparks-Manning,” Traetorius sang. “Let me be bound to you, let my Dantian fill yours, support and give power to you in need.”

“I reinforce this noble oath with all of my Qi, until death do us part,” I resonated, placing my hand with the emerald ring on his bowed head. “Let us be bound, let your Dantian fill mine and give power to me in need!”

“You have declared your consent before me! I witness and bind your oath with my Qi!” Arianna sang. “By virtue of the authority vested in me under the scionship of the Magisterium, I now pronounce you...” She paused with a Cheshire cat grin. “Baroness Sparks-Manning and Magistrate Manning-Sparks!”

The Magistrate’s Dantian poured into my hand via the emerald ring and the Citadel Master Key ignited with renewed brilliance.

[Ash Sparks-Manning] [Baroness LV 1]

I read the words over my hand and smiled.