Kain walked out of the changing room feeling refreshed. While the bath played a part in relaxing him, it was the return of his pupils that truly soothed him.

While he was lounging in the warm water, Kaige gave him a lesson on how sahir flowed and changed form constantly. While he could understand some of the basic principles, the bulk of what Kaige said went right over his head. Nevertheless, he still figured out how to stop leaking sahir out of his eyes. So he did. At least Kaige said he did, he couldn’t sense sahir and there were no mirrors in the bathroom. There was a separate changing room next to it for that. Kain was tempted to quickly run too it to check, but he controlled himself. He was in too nice a home to be moving around wet and half naked. He instead settled on filling a large bucket with water and trying to see his reflection that way. It was muddled, but he’d seen all he needed to see. He had his pupils back. They were lighter than he remembered his dark brown eyes being, but he didn’t care. They looked normal. He jumped back into the bath ecstatic.

Glacia clearly noticed the change, but she didn’t bring it. She just asked if he was ready to see the madam and lead the way when he said yes. The journey was significantly longer than Kain expected. It wasn’t unbelievably long, but walking for two minutes without reaching your destination was a bit much to him. Especially considering he had to walk up two different flights of stairs.

Arriving at a pair of double doors with arberdirs on both sides, Glacia turned and addressed him, “This is the Madam’s private study. Please be respectful, do not touch anything unless prompted to, do not speak unless spoken to. Do you understand?”

Kain’s right eyebrow creeped upward. He didn’t recall the Fortems being nobility. He was thankful that they were taking care of him, but asking him to treat them like nobles was excessive. He had just spoken to her husband with no problem, he wasn’t given a ‘be respectful’ speech then. He didn’t like it.

“I understand.”

Glacia lightly nodded, “Good.”

Turning back around she informed one of the arberdirs that Kain was ready. They turned to him and looked him over. He didn’t appreciate it, but there was no point being worked up over nothing. The arberdir then knocked on the door four times. Within a few moments the door was quickly opened and closed. Another arberdir had emerged, this one was a very dark Imurian.

Goddamn. How many do these guys have?

At least 21.

What? How do...you sensed them?

Yeah. Which leads me to say, be careful. That room is actively repeling sahir. I can’t see inside it.

Fun.

While Kain was processing the information Kaige just provided him, the arberdirs were wrapping up their conversations with one another. The ‘extra chocolate’ arberdir, as Kain thought of her, instructed him to follow her inside. He thanked Glacia for guiding him and followed her into the study.

The door was immediately closed behind him, but Kain was too stunned by what was in front of him to notice. There were many potential scenarios that Kain could see occuring when he entered the room, none of them were even close to reality. The reality in front of him was so far from what he imagined it almost felt like his imagination. He wanted to say something, to ask if they were messing with him, but there were five arberdirs in the room and they didn’t look like they’d react kindly to it.

Madam Fortem spoke instead, “Kain. I’m glad to see you are well.”

Kain’s eyebrow threatened to resume its climb up his forehead. She wasn’t facing him. In fact, he was looking directly at her back.

She continued, “I hope they’ve served you dinner?”

Kain took that as his que to respond, “They have. Thank you very much for the hospitality.”

He could see out of the corners of his eyes that some of the arberdirs were staring daggers at him.

Hmph.

There was no need for that.

Kain had ‘forgotten’ to address her as madam. If done in the presence of a true noble, it could very well be grounds for an execution. It would be a reach, but its been done countless times before. Customs and traditions were very important to nobles. To not appropriately address them was a grave insult. If they were nobles.

Madam Fortem paid it no mind as she continued on, “Think nothing of it. What kind of people would we be if we didn’t help a fellow Imurian in need?”

She stopped what she was doing and stood. Turning to face Kain, she smiled. Kain stopped himself from showing a reaction, she was far better looking than he thought she would be. It would be unnecessarily rude to appear shocked by that though. Kaige’s whistling in his head didn’t help.

She gestured to one of the arberdirs, “Teresa, show them out for me. Oh and call the children. I’ll be in my living room.”

Children?

The arberdir bowed, “Yes, madam.”

Madam Fortem then turned her attention back to Kain. She didn’t approach him though. She instead walking away, towards a door.

“Come Kain, we have much to discuss.”

—————-

Outskirts of Arkthur, Alden Empire

Saber looked at Arkthur’s walls in contempt. They were pathetic. The men who guarded them were lazy and untrained. Their swords were dull and their guns were dusty. Peace had made them weak. Compared to him and his men, who trained in the fiercest of environments, against both men and beasts that would like nothing more than their deaths, they were merely children holding toys. Still, he couldn’t act rashly. The men who guarded Arkthur may have been weak, but their reinforcements wouldn’t be. The largest military academy in the Alden empire resided in Otger and Arkthur was in constant communication with them. If anything happened here, they would come running over immediately. Taking Arkthur would be a short lived victory.

It was Saber’s biggest frustration. Arkthur, and all the resources it provided, had been so close yet so far for years. He could only ever gaze at it from this very spot and wonder what could be. Knowing full well, he didn’t have the power to truly take it. That was, until now.

He smiled the widest of smiles. The fall of Arkthur was at hand.

“Aye, Sabe. Wolf’s calling. There’s a meeting going on.”

Someone had come to ruin his fun. He sighed. It couldn’t be helped, he wasn’t taking the city with his own strength. He hopped down from the rock he was standing on and followed the man back to where he left his horse. His horse was a type of magical beast called a leqot. They were short, light brown horses found in the eastern section of the Imuru Republic. They were useless for long distance journeys, but nothing was better for sprints. At least if you valued you safety.

Arriving at camp he could see there were a lot more people than before. When he left there were around 50 thousand people, now it looked like there was 100 thousand. Things were progressing smoothly. He left his horse at the stable for high ranking officers and headed for Wolf’s residence. They had based their camp around a village, so many of the buildings were being repurposed for their use. He casually walked through the security checks and arrived at the conference room. Everyone else was present, they didn’t look too pleased.

Wolf especially, “Wasting my time again Saber?”

Saber sat down, “How many months have I saved of it?”

Wolf didn’t like that response, but he also had no reply for it. He instead began the meeting.