Serenity didn’t care that he’d lost his ax somewhere in the melee; it would come when he called, and he had weapons at the ends of his fingers anyway. He clenched his right hand around the Sterath’s throat; there wasn’t chitin there, and it was the easiest vulnerable point, similar to a human. Blood had to get to the brain somehow, and both humans and Sterath kept their brains in their heads. “My claws are at your throat. Surrender.”

The “or die” was implied; it was considered impolite to actually say it. Failure to surrender meant he’d be allowed to honorably kill One. He didn’t want to, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t.

One struggled to raise his left arm to fight off Serenity’s right, but Serenity tightened his grip on the Sterath’s throat. His claws pierced the skin in two places and One stilled. “You win.”

Serenity knew better than to stop there. Admitting a loss wasn’t the same as surrender. He didn’t tighten his grip, but he also didn’t loosen it. “Surrender.”

One took a long moment to think and Serenity tightened his grip again. Not enough to dig farther in, but enough that it was obvious he could. One sighed explosively. “I surrender.”

Serenity looked over at Three. “You as well.”

Three glanced between Serenity and One for a moment before a small nod from One helped him decide. “I surrender.”

There were things to be said about a warrior culture. Serenity wouldn’t necessarily have trusted the same surrender from a human, but the Kaelitha Sterath were exceedingly unlikely to break a formal surrender, once they’d actually said it.

Serenity released his grip on One’s throat and stood, stretching out his damaged wing. The membrane itself had already healed, but the damaged feathers only healed the shaft; the damaged plumes weren’t healed at all.

He couldn’t see the damage to his back, but he could tell by feel that it was still healing. He’d have to ask someone later if the damaged scale healed, but he expected that it would. They had in the past.

One found his dagger, sheathed it, then picked up the pieces of his broken sword. When he looked at Serenity’s ax, Serenity recalled it, then replaced it and the shield on his Quick Belt.

“How-” Three started to ask a question before One smacked him.

Serenity looked at One’s injuries. Unlike his own, they weren’t healing. “If either of you can heal, you should. Other than that, sit down and wait. I’m expecting reinforcements; some of them will take you off my hands.”

“We surrendered to you, not to them.” One didn’t sound pleased.

Serenity half-smiled. He’d expected that sort of complaint. “If you surrendered to another Sterath - a Diral, perhaps? - would you expect the Diral to stay with you the entire time or to hand you off to other Diral?”

Diral was famous; they were the leading polity of FirstHome, the Sterath homeworld. They’d led the resettlement in ancient times and had a mystique that still clung to them because of it. They were warriors, of course, but they also had a lot of people with other specialties. Vengeance hadn’t had much to do with them, but he knew they existed.

One sighed. “Like the Diral? They would do that, especially if you’re too important-” He stopped himself and Serenity could only imagine the thoughts that were running through his head until he spoke again. “Shameful One.” One bowed shallowly.

“Sit.” Serenity stated. “Be at ease. Whatever you need to do to relax. It could be a while.”

While the two Sterath found places on the floor, Serenity sent a quick text summarizing the situation for his father before he called Rachel. He could easily have walked to the room they were in, but despite the warriors’ honor, he didn’t want to leave them unattended. It was easier to ask the others to come into this room.

“Serenity? Is that you?” Rachel sounded confused.

Serenity was glad he didn’t actually have to speak out loud to talk over the phone. It would have sounded silly in front of the two Sterath. “Yes, it’s me. You should be clear to come out; I’ve captured the last two. Can you put the speakerphone on? I need to talk to Ita.”

Ita released the dimness and mist spells and rose to head to her Lord. However much he scared her, she still had to do as he wanted or she would be justifying the title of Shameless and adding Honorless to it as well. So far, he’d been kinder to her than the Kaelitha, even though he was not even Sterath. It was hard to believe but seemed to be true. Who would have believed a Shameful One could be more honorable than those who still held their honor dear?

As she walked, she made sure that the irrelevance spell was still up. It saved her a great deal of pain and trouble, so she kept it drawn around herself most of the time. For its effect, it was surprisingly cheap, probably because it only cost mana when it was actually doing something.

The fog and dimness were nearly gone by the time she hopped into the hallway. A few more hops took her to the portal room. It no longer felt like a portal room; instead, it felt like a place of Death, of Endings and Peace. She stared at her Lord and his Name could not have been clearer in that moment. “The Peace of the Grave,” she muttered as she prostrated herself just inside the entrance to the room.

Serenity stood and turned to her. “Get up. Don’t do that.” He sounded annoyed. How could she have annoyed him? Did he truly not wish her to show him the respect due her Lord?

Did he think he wasn’t worthy of it? Even then, you showed the outward signs to outsiders, and the two Kaelitha in the room and the two humans coming up the hallway behind her were definitely all outsiders.

Ita followed his command and stood. What was she supposed to do now? She stared at Serenity. He hadn’t given her permission to speak, but he also didn’t have a retainer she could go to for permission or to pass a message. It was possible that one of the humans held that post; he did seem to talk directly to the brown-haired one. Yet Ita couldn’t speak to that human; it had held something and that had commanded Ita in her Lord’s Voice, a communicator of some sort.

Wait. Was she supposed to be that retainer? Ita had never held that position formally; the Unkaa were far less stratified than most Sterath and part of that was that only the Great Lords had a Voice. Still, she knew the protocols, and that was more than anyone else here seemed to know.

It would explain why she wasn’t to prostrate herself. A Lord’s Voice was an extension of the Lord and allowed to come and go at his command with less formality. Yes, that had to be it.

Ita walked across the room to an appropriate distance from her Lord and paused. When his attention was on her, she spoke in the mode of a favored retainer speaking to their Lord. “Milord, what do you wish of me?”

Serenity replied in the same modeless Sterath she’d used with him originally. “There’s no need to be so formal. I don’t require it; I’m not used to it.”

He’d used the command mode - no, the full royal dialect - when they first met. How was he not used to -

Of course! His people must be like the Unkaa! They used different modes depending on who they were dealing with. The Unkaa only used modeless between people of similar rank, instead of using all the different fine gradations she’d had to learn and always had trouble with. His people must use modeless far more, or he wouldn’t expect her to use it, but they still used the large modes with outsiders! It all made sense. She nodded sharply and replied in modeless Sterath. “I understand.”

“Good.” Serenity nodded, then seemed to look over at the two Kaelitha Sterath sitting a few feet away. “Do you know any healing spells?”

Ita shook her head. “Basic wound care only, I didn’t test well for healing.” She stopped after answering the question, then decided that this was a good time to tell him what she could do. “My strength is in contagion magic - not just portals, but anything that builds, breaks, or influences a connection. It’s an unusual Affinity but useful, with different limits than more traditional element-based casting. I’m told it’s possible to advance it into certain forms of healing, but that’s very advanced for contagion; curses is more common but-”

Ita stopped. Did she want to finish that sentence? She’d always hated being forced to study curses. They hurt to use, tainting the connection they ran over. A spell to hurt across a connection didn’t have the same oily, rotting taste.

If she didn’t tell him, he’d expect her to use curses. That made up her mind, even though it seemed like a terrible idea to tell her direct Lord that she just didn’t want to do something.

“I don’t like curses,” she confessed. “I had to learn, but I don’t like them. I’m not very good at them.”

Serenity chuckled. “That’s fine. I don’t like curses either. More importantly, do you know how to break them?”

Ita blinked. “Uh. I … don’t … know?” They’d concentrated on setting curses across a connection, not breaking them. The curses had usually been allowed to wear themselves out to show how well they were set; the few times they’d been removed, one of her two Masters had done it. “I never have?”

“Well, you may get the chance. Think about what you’d need; we’ll talk more about it later.” Serenity seemed pleased with her answer, or at least not displeased. This went better than she had any right to expect!

“We have a report back from the Stealth Scout Group looking into the destroyed portal and missing Scout Strike Group, my Lord.”

BattleLord Flameheart looked at his aide, concerned. “Already? They should barely have reached the location by now.”

The aide nodded. “I sent them with a single-use message bead, in case there was something they needed to urgently report. I didn’t want a repeat of the Scout Strike Group’s disappearance.”

Flameheart nodded. “A reasonable precaution, even if it’s expensive. For their sake, this had best be important, but it’s a good call on your part. What’s the report?”

The aide shook his head. “They weren’t able to get close. There’s a cordon of humans. Most of the humans are like that lord’s guard the recruit ran into, even with the same livery on their non-flying transportation.”

“Hmh. Sounds like the lord may be more important than we thought. Go on; I know they wouldn’t have sent a report for just that.”

His aide nodded in agreement. “There are also some humans that seem to have taken some of the rarer Paths. One in particular must have specialized in Perception of some sort; he caught the group’s Three and managed to call others to help. They lost their Three and Seven; the rest are trying to scatter and exfiltrate but they don’t know if they’ll all escape. They confirmed their orders to avoid leading the enemy back at all cost.”

That was terrible news. The temporary portal sites were meant to prevent the humans from finding any of the scattered bases, not help. The explosion must have drawn their attention. If the timing was right, the Battlelord could see just how it would happen; an explosion pulled in some of a local Lord’s guards. If they arrived right after the Scout Strike Group in numbers, they could have been missed but still surround them and prevent them from escaping. It explained everything.

It also meant it was too late. Any evidence that remained would already have been found; hopefully there wasn’t much left after the explosion.

Flameheart made certain his voice was steady as he gave the aide his orders. “No more action on the site. Shift the portal activity around; do we have enough mages remaining?”

The aide was already shaking his head. “Not after the loss of the two best. We can keep half, maybe two-thirds of the influx moving through portals, but the rest will have to move on foot.”

Flameheart was already shaking his head. “I don’t want a repeat of the incident with the no-rank. Send the Stealth Groups on foot; they can make it. Everyone else still has to travel through portals. Slow the influx down if you have to.”

Why was this conquest so difficult? Everything just kept going wrong!