A trio of guards had to run out and surround Lucius with spear tips pressed to him. He wiped some blood off his chin and stood up from the broken body of the prince. As he put up his hands and surrendered though, the body of the stigmata-created twin dissolved back into the nothingness it had spawned from.

The toll was immense on the real Gabriel. It sapped his strength and mind and left him collapsed on the cobblestone, but not injured in any direct sense. To those privy to his stigmata, it was hardly a big deal. To the crowd however…

“Lucius von Solhart, the Undying!” they cheered. The low born, the desperate, those holding issue with the royal family. That’s the nature of betting, there’s always people on both sides. None of the nobility had dared to wager against the prince, lest their earnings cost them in political capital, but the working class had no such hold up. Lucius had just made a great deal of people quite a bit of money, and had shown them the human weakness of the royals.

While the guards kept him at spearpoint, Kassandra and some servants rushed to the prince’s side. They fussed and shouted and tried to rous him. Even Acheliah walked over and straightened out his broken hand, but that was to appease Kassandra and keep the young girl from bawling.

King Arandall ignored his son and marched to Lucius, his hands clasped behind his back. “Impudent, aren’t you?”

“I have been called that lately, haven’t I?”

“You just humiliated your prince,” the king said, his face a mask and his voice too low for any but the guards to hear.

Lucius nodded. “Better he learns the lesson here than at war, don’t you agree? He lost the fight then challenged me again. That would be like throwing the last of his troops into the same meat grinder he just escaped.”

“That’s what military advisors are for,” the king said.

“And maybe now he’ll listen to them.”

“You’re trying very hard to make it seem like you did me a favor, Solhart.”

Lucius grinned. “That’s the name of the game, isn’t it? Everything is upside, no bad news exists.”

“You’ll regret that,” the king said, and marched off. He raised his voice so all could hear. “Lucius von Solhart has won, a veteran of the south, loyal retainer to the Raymi family, in turn loyal retainer to me. What we have seen today is proof of the strength of Vassermark, like tempered steel he has returned to us forged hard by war. As my father used to say, if you look away from a boy for a month, you might find a man… A reward is in order, don’t you all agree?”

The crowd cheered, some laughed at the absurdity. Lucius couldn’t pick their words from the noise, not as sweat dripped off his brow and fatigue caught up with him. Then arms wrapped around him from behind. Soft and smooth, strong as iron. It was her chest pressed against his neck that revealed Acheliah’s identity. “You did not disappoint,” she whispered into his ear as she slid a hand down his chest. “What a lovely ability… regeneration, is it?” she asked, stuffing a finger into the wound Gabriel had given him.

Pain shot through him like lightning. He gritted his teeth, back arching against her as she prodded deeper. “Eager to get inside me, is that it? Isn’t it normally the other way around?”

Acheliah huffed and pulled her finger out of him. “Is that how you talk to your woman over there? No, who am I kidding. I’d smell her on you if you did. You’re lucky you’re more interesting than you are insulting.”

“Only by a hair.”

The king made no notice of them. “A reward is in order, but not just a reward for the young Solhart. The noble duty is to serve the people of Vassermark, to make his victories into victories for the realm. To that end, I hereby assign him governor of the Misty Isles, and charge him with stabilizing the ports, charting the sea lanes, and staving off the Aillesterran raiders. He just came back from Rackvidd, so I’m sure he will do splendidly in his return.”

At once, I departed the festivities. I had preparations to make, research to find, plots to scheme. What a wonderful opportunity. A death sentence for a normal man, but not for Lucius von Solhart, the Undying. The upper nobility hardly knew what to think of that. He wasn’t to be sent to the north, to slam his skills up against Skaldheim and the trolls. Had that been his fate, he would have been merely absorbed into Duke Ashe’s faction. Nor was he given any say in the looming war to the east, the subjugation of the central kingdoms. That honor would presumably remain with Prince Gabriel. Instead, they sent him to a distant throng of islands ruled in name only, festering with disease and betrayal. Some of the islands were said to have demons living there, and if none of that killed the impudent boy, any fierce attack from Aillesterra would result in a naval siege and his defeat.

If he were a normal man.

King Arandall departed with the summoned physicians and saw to his son’s treatment personally. I suspect it had nothing to do with Gabriel’s health, rather than giving him a stern lecture and punishment. With the king’s departure, the town guard took it upon themselves to break up and disperse the crowd. They shooed people away and drove them to the other streets.

And then Kassandra vi Arandall stepped in front of Lucius, dismissing the guards who still had him detained with a flick of her wrist. “You didn’t have to do that,” the blonde said, planting her hands on her hips, right where her embroidered dress transitioned from a leather corset to skirt. She had on the kind of puffy skirt that used whale bones to spread her skirt about her petticoat, giving her a more childish appearance that belied her frustration.

Acheliah grinned, planting her chin on Lucius’ shoulder. “But it was entertaining, wasn’t it, Kassie?”

“On the contrary,” Lucius said. “Honor demanded it. He challenged me twice. Had I gone easy on him, it would have been worse.”

She crossed her arms and frowned. “War changed you, Lucius. More than the sun bleaching your hair like that.”

That stiffened my pupil’s back more than the angel’s assault, and Acheliah noticed it too. Our research had indicated that the original Lucius had not been to court in nearly a decade, he shouldn’t have been remembered well by anyone. “Well,” he said, scratching at his newly regrown eye. “I did get my head cut off.”

The angel grabbed him by the chin and twisted his head, inspecting for a scar and finding none. “You wouldn’t be lying to the princess, now would you?”

“Stop harassing my champion,” Felicia vi Raymi ordered as she and Aisha approached. “He did what any chivalrous idiot would do, he just happened to be very good at it.”

Lucius nearly fell to his knees when the angel finally let go of him. Blood had been dribbling out his chest and back the whole conversation, leaving him ever lighter in the head. “Thank you, my lady.”

Felicia’s composure lasted until she looked at the puncture wound. The girl paled and stepped back. “Are you alright?” Only Aisha was unfazed by it.

“Oh, come here,” Kassandra said with an exasperated sigh. She took out a handkerchief and wiped off the blood. It took a good deal of my penmanship with it, exposing the true shape of his stigmata. “Don’t let it fest. Get a surgeon to stitch this shut.”

“I know just the man–” Lucius trailed off as the princess put her hand to his chest and did something that could only have been the work of a stigmata. Light glowed out from her palm, saturating through his chest and skin until he seemed to glow red as though fire were within him. It tickled somewhat, and when she took her hand away, a mark remained. Faint, but his skin and bronzed, leaving the imprint of her hand where she had touched him.

“I suggest you find somewhere other than the castle to stay tonight,” Kassandra said as she wiped her hand off.

She left him in a daze, and Felicia went with her after saying her thanks once more. He found himself pondering what had just happened all the while as Sammy arrived with his surgical kit and sat him down to knit his skin back together. When the young doctor tied off the stitch at last, Lucius said, “Well at least I made an impression.”

Aisha rolled her eyes. “You got assigned a suicide mission. You got sent to the edge of the world to never be seen again. I bet you that the prince is going to send assassins after you.”

“Then it’s a good thing I can’t be assassinated,” Lucius said, absentmindedly watching workers tear down the palanquins and raised seating.

“Maybe that works for you, but they could also come for me, which is just lovely. Can’t you make people like you?”

“I did,” Lucius said.

Aisha snorted. “I meant people with power.”

“Give it time. I just have to come back and people will snatch me up. This is… a good thing. Yeah, this is good. This worked out.”

Sammy looked up from cleaning his tools and asked, “If we’re leaving immediately again… can I bring my better half this time? I had to leave her behind for the expedition…”

Lucius and Aisha both turned to him and asked, “You have a lover?”

The young boy grinned and blushed. He scratched at his cheek, and said, “Yeah. She’s really great. Though, it might be a little difficult, maybe? I’ll have to talk to her about whether she’d be allowed to come with us. It should work out though. You’ll like her.”

Lucius frowned, part of him worrying what he might be saying between the sheets. “Sure, bring her along if you can. If you trust her.”

“Definitely.”

Lucius stood up and turned his back to the castle. The plaza, now almost devoid of people, had a view out to the sea, tight between the overflowing city. Beyond, there were storm clouds. Dark, roiling, and ominous. A storm fit to sink a ship, drown a city, or perhaps wash away a civilization.

Vassermark had weathered storms before, for hundreds of years, but for all of King Arandall’s weakness, he was right in his intuition. The times were changing. The underlying principles had shifted, and where once there had been firm ground, now water eroded it away like sand. He wanted desperately to stay on top, to keep his head above the water, and had grasped that ley was the future. Stigmata such as his son’s could not be relied upon, the divine institutions even less so.

That storm was still on the horizon, and everyone still had time to shore up their defenses against it. While the islands reaching up towards Rackvidd would provide little protection, they were also far from the heart of the storm barrelling straight at Hearth Bay, and if Lucius could succeed in his southern governance, he would be in the best position to return after the storm passed.

But, only if he did not mistake the eye of the storm for its end.