Cal was riding one of the carriage’s guars as a Very Important Prisoner. Since his identity was still a secret, he was in the form of a handsome young Gadveran male who felt familiar to everyone, but no one could place.

Strangely enough, when he averaged people’s features, he got a very attractive face. It’s said that ugly people are ugly in their own way, which meant those unique uglinesses were wiped out by other people’s normal features. One person has a weird nose, but most people’s noses are ok.

One person has a tiny, underdeveloped chin, but most people’s chins are ok.

Which explained why people were currently staring at his damn-near perfect Gadveran face while he argued with Elliot.

I’m just saying most guys would kill for a situation like this. Elliot said as Cal watched Ella and Kala riding together…getting along, teaching each other the language. As a unit, they were unapproachable…unassailable.

Ella kept ogling Kala while she wasn’t looking.

And Vice Versa.

What is happening here? Cal thought, leaning low in his saddle and clutching his head. I know fighting because I got it pounded into me since birth, and I know thinking creatively to solve problems, but this is driving me crazy. How do I solve this?

It’s not a problem. Pretty sure Ella got the short end of the Guya stick, and that makes her unconsciously want what you want, and as for Kala, she’s probably just curious. Encourage the curiousity…

But not in a creepy way. I started learning that lesson when I was your age. Took me like thirty years not to be a creep, and another thirty to learn how to encourage ladies to experiment without being a creep.

Cal took his head. You were sixty years old and encouraging young women to experiment with each other?

Well, I –

Because that sounds like the definition of a creep.

You know what? Bite me. I don’t have to answer to you. I’m sitting here, taking time out of my busy day to toss pearls before swine because you’ve got the opportunity to be the meat in a princess sandwich.

Cal burst into a chuckle, drawing attention from nearby soldiers.

Sounds like fun, but Ella’s not a princess.

Uh, her dad’s the chieftan-majiggy. She qualifies. Every major girl in your life is special because her dad is important.

“huh.” I suppose you’re right.

Yep, you’re the tropiest son of a bitch I’ve ever been.

You’ve ever been?

Been in. With. Seen. Whatever.

Cal was about to pry further when he realized he could feel Kala overlooking his conversation with Elliot. Her gaze held a mixture of fear and intoxication, a sort of craving sensation.

When Cal glanced up, she had already looked away and was busily suppressing a shiver from her neck to her waist.

Told you she’d come around. That’s neuroplasticity at work right there. or maybe cognitive dissonance. I’m not really sure.

And let me tell you, being the meat in a lady-sandwich was maybe the third most fun I’ve ever done in my life, right after naked karaoke and executing the one percent.

Come to think of it, we could totally arrange a naked karaoke night with these dudes. It’s a bit of a sausage fest, but you gotta start somewhere, amiright? Maybe General Andra will show us how it’s done. She seems fit.

Executing the one percent? Cal asked.

After the Harbingers brought the Warp, it was a completely lawless era. We occasionally tried people for greed by burying them under their wealth. If they only had a million dollars or so, well, that was easy to climb out of… but a billion or more? Those people never came up. Super fun.

Maybe I’m lacking context.

You are.

Cal shook his head and dismissed that train of thought.

Anyway, back to your lessons in handling your harem.

My what!?

Elliot’s voice became slow and relaxed, like he was unconcerned with anything.

The first thing you gotta do is take a deep breath and let the urge to pressure them into making out with each other in the back of your truck float away with the exhale.

Inhale…

And breathe out all the creepy thoughts. The creepy thoughts have an appropriate time and place. They can come later, not now.

Inhale…

Exhale… let the desire to steer the conversation towards sex go.

You’re starting to piss me off. Cal thought.

Good! Anger is good. Use that to distract yourself from the creep inside while you go up there and make yourself comfortable with both of them. Step one is being truly comfortable in their presence, as in not awkward or constantly thinking about sex. I know it’s a tall order, and feels counter-intuitive, but you can do it. I have confidence in us.

You are the creep inside, and I’m not going up there. They’re doing just fine without me.

Young padawan, need I remind you that Skills require stressful, exhausting practice to improve?

No.

So get the hell up there and level your Talking to Girls Skill by facing your fear of two attractive ones allied against you at the same time! Right now you’re just wasting time riding a goddamn useless animal.

Cal groaned and ran his hands down his face.

When did you get so talkative? He thought, nudging the guar to catch up with the two girls.

When I finally woke up the rest of the way and saw how badly you were handling yourself.

“How’s it going?” Cal said as he came abreast of Ella and Kala, as calm and relaxed as he could manage.

They started giggling.

Giggling. At him.

Nope, can’t do it. Cal thought, about to let his guar fall back in the line.

Get back in there, soldier! Elliot shouted in his mind. You’ve gotta weather it!

If it’ll make you shut up.

“Do I have something on my face?” he asked.

“We were betting how long you would take to approach us.” Ella said. “I won.”

They know I like them! abort, abort!

Goddamn stick with it, or I’ll play dubstep in your head for a week.

Cal took a deep, steadying breath.

“Okay…Umm...” he looked at the two of them staring at him expectantly. “What did you win?”

Ella glanced over at Kala, then back to him and shrugged.

“We weren’t able to convey anything like stakes with our limited vocabulary, just ‘boy come here at noon’.”

Cal glanced up at the sun overhead, and back down to Kala, who was grinning at the ‘boy come here at noon’ which Ella had spoken in Gadveran.

“Could you help translate?” She asked, leaning over to see past Ella. “Learning each other’s language is way harder without someone who already knows both.”

“Oh, sure.”

“Bring your guar into the middle here,” Kala said, pointing. “So we can both see you.”

Cal took a deep breath.

Cal spent the rest of the afternoon into evening riding between the two of them, chatting with and translating for them. All the while, in the back of his head, he could feel a man giggling with a hand over his mouth.

Fucking creep. It was especially irritating because the voice in his head seemed to know exactly how hyper-conscious Calvin was of the girl’s bodies and exactly how badly he wanted to explore them.

If the voice in his head had not already established certain behavior patterns as unacceptable, Cal might have not been conscious of them and committed the exact mistakes Elliot had claimed to have done.

Which stung.

The muffled giggling intensified, just quiet enough that Kara didn’t seem to react to it.

Talking to Girls has reached level 6! 30% correction.

Talking to Girls has reached level 7! 35% correction.

Eventually the stress of the situation faded away, but not before Cal got two levels in the span of four hours on the road.

When Cal thought it was time to sleep, they kept marching on. Eventually, he had to give up the seat on his guar, allowing a trooper with less stamina than him to take his place on the giant lizard and catch a nap.

They marched through the night, by the light of Soscath’s burning scowl, trying to outpace the Ilethan pursuers. All of them made it through the night, but when Andra had them march through the next day, people started collapsing from fatigue.

Cal was more exhausted than he’d ever been in his life by noon, and he could see the strain on Ella and Kala’s faces as they trudged along, putting one foot in front of the other. Neither he nor they had any energy to chat any more, silently facing forward as they walked together. The only reason Cal was able to keep up at all was because he’d been riding the entire day before, a fact he was beginning to think was calculated by Andra.

All the available guar were carrying sleeping soldiers toward the end of the second day, their heads hanging low. The Royal guardsmen had tossed one or more exhausted soldiers over their shoulders, marching along without revealing any kind of weakness, owed to their remarkable Body.

As the sun was going down again and Cal was considering where he would like to be buried, a cry sounded from the front of the line.

“Mujenan! I see it!”

At the cry, people’s heads came up, and a tiny bit of life returned to their eyes. The end was in sight. That tiny bit of hope allowed them to gather up their last dregs of energy. They kept up the march, until Cal was at the top of the hill, looking down at the massive port city of Mujenan, biggest in Gadvera. It made Surrak look small by comparison, with towering walls that surrounded the sprawling city, and ships coming and going nonstop, even in the middle of a war.

At the top of a hill in the center of the city was a palace with marble walls and brass roofs that glittered like gold in the fading light of day.

“I feel like I’m speaking for everyone when I say that I will fall asleep the moment we step inside those gates.” Cal said.

“Look lively!” Andra said, walking up the line, trailing three Royal Guards, who looked perfectly chipper. “We’ve got to report in and stow our gear before any of you can sleep, but when that’s all over, I’ve got an entire barracks earmarked for tired soldiers coming in off the road. Feather beds, people! The faster you make it to the city, the sooner you sleep! Put some hustle into it!”

They picked up their pace an almost imperceptible amount, marching slowly down the hill toward Mujenan.

“You,” She said, pointing to Cal.

“Uh?” Cal grunted, tearing his eyes off the dirt road in front of him.

“That one, that one, and the Princess,” Andra said, pointing out the three of them. Seconds later Ella and Kala were thrown over the shoulder of Andra’s men.

“What the hell is this?” Ella demanded, but was too tired to protest much further.

“Take the Princess and the Genosian to rooms where they can sleep the trip off,” she said, before her eyes landed on Cal. “You and me are going to pay the Hash’Maje a visit.” Andra continued.

“Wha – ack!” Horas lifted Calvin up and threw him over his shoulder, then the seven of them began screaming down the side of the mountain, faster than a guar at full gallop. Faster than he thought possible.

In a matter of minutes, Cal was wobbling on his feet, his exhausted brain trying and failing to be awed by the splendor of the waiting room covered in silk tapestries and oil paintings depicting generation after generation of Hash’Maje. He was simply too tired.

Kala looks a lot like her grandmother. Cal thought idly, struggling to keep his eyes open.

“The Hash’Maje will see you now.” Andra said as she stepped through the large set of double door made of dark, polished wood.

Cal stumbled over to the door and stepped through into a cozy office with large windows overlooking the harbor far below them. The ships were nearly ghosts as the light of day faded behind the mountains.

In front of that vista was a man who looked a bit like Bekvah, but broader, more intimidating. He wore full regalia like it was comfortable and kept his spine perfectly straight.

“You must be Calvin.” He said, turning to face him. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

He did the staring out the window thing before turning to see you, that raises his odds of doing an evil monologue by forty percent. He’ll probably put you off balance by threatening you a bit, then give you a choice that will seem really good by comparison.

“Uh-huh…” Cal nearly nodded off. “I mean, yes, yes sir. Sire?”

“Sir will be fine. You may sit,” he said, pointing at the chair in front of his desk. It looked cushy.

“Apologies, but I don’t think I’d be able to stay awake, were I to sit down.”

“Indeed,” he said, looking Calvin up and down. “It’s good to see you’re alive. I’m sure Kala was thrilled. I heard from Bekvah you’ve got a talent for magic like he’s never seen before. A savant. I heard from Kala you were the sweetest boy in Deinos, until she started having those nightmares, anyway.”

“Tha-“

“I also heard from Andra that you managed to assassinate and then assume the identity of a captain, one of my cousins, actually, for a period of no less than four days.”

“Umm…”

“Were that information to be made public, I would have no choice but to have you drawn and quartered for killing a member of my extended family. Do you know what being drawn and quartered is? They hang you upside down and cut you in half from your crotch to your head. All the blood rushing to your brain keeps you alive and conscious until the very end. Then they cut you in quarters and spread you across the kingdom.”

Cal could tell by the feel of the man’s gaze that he cared nothing for his cousin and simply wanted some utility out of the young wizard.

Evil Speech, threats, called it. This is where he offers the carrot.

“But fuck Skovos. He was a waste of people’s time and money. You on the other hand, you have the potential to be of value to our country. I’d like to offer you the opportunity to realize that value.”

“How’s that, sir?” cal asked.

By joining the military.

“By joining our great nation’s military and aiding in repelling the Ilethan threat. Above and beyond fulfilling your duty to your country, you’ll be taken under Andra’s wing, with great potential for advancement. In a few short years, you could find yourself the bearer of a noble title.”

Wizard-King for life.

Wizard-King for life. Elliot echoed.

You can’t just burn down a section of unclaimed land and declare yourself wizard-king, Cal realized. You actually have to have people to claim that land for you and act out your orders…and that means I have to make a name for myself. Ugh.

“I would be honored.” Cal said, and the Hash’Maje began to sit down with a pleased expression.

“May I ask..” Cal started, hesitating as The Hash’Maje looked back up at him. “What will happen to my Genosian?”

“Ah yes, she’ll be imprinted with your family seal and returned to you.”

“My what?”

“Direct these questions toward Andra, if you would.

“Yessir.” Cal said, giving his best salute.

“The salute’s wrong, but I’m sure Andra will straighten that out.” The Hash’Maje said with a grin as he sat. “She’ll tell you the details when you’re able to walk and talk tomorrow. You may leave.”

I don’t get it, how was the salute wrong? Cal pondered as he staggered out of the office and allowed himself to be guided to a nearby bed by a helpful maid.

You saluted him as his superior. Elliot said. Pretty sure it’s a punishable offense, but the dude was cool enough to let it slide.

Oh, that. That was on purpose.

That’s my boy!