“So,” said the not-at-all-creepy snake lady. “I understand you somehow bypassed all our guards and got into our south-wing.”

Despite the split tongue peaking through her lips, she spoke with perfect pronunciation. Ranvir couldn’t detect any sibilance in her words, neither translated nor original.

He shook his head and glanced at Frija and Vasso sitting on a small couch against the wall, Menace crouching across both their laps. All three of them were staring at the guardsman standing next to them. Two more stood at the door, their heavy bulk overly emphasized in the small office.

“Could you get him to step away from them, please?” Ranvir asked, pointing at the guard next to the couch. “They’re kids. They won’t hurt anyone.”

The snake lady peered at him before nodding once to the guardsman. He took a single step away, which did little to alleviate the issue. Ranvir glared at him, but turned to the magistrate.

She wore fine cloth robes with little detailing on them. They hung loose on her lithe frame, her thin neck rising from the collar like an actual over-sized snake had been welded to a human body. The only thing speaking to the intention behind it was the scale and pattern continuing onto her thin fingers.

“I was guided by the beacon,” Ranvir said, gesturing with his hand to the plate sitting on her desk. “I didn’t intend to infiltrate this…” please say we’re not in a palace. “Place. I intended to return to the park, where I buried it.”

She breathed in slowly, a slight rasp to the sound as she examined the beacon. “Well, sir, you broke into our facility, willingly or not.”

“Can’t you just let us go? Maybe give us a warning?” Ranvir asked, already tired of this foolishness. Perhaps he should just start fighting. He already scoured the local area. He doubted anyone could match him mote-for-mote. “We didn’t mean to break in. I’ll just return my beacon to the park. You leave it alone and it will never happen again.”

“Sir,” the snake lady did some odd twists with her nostrils and her eye-slits flared once. “I hope you understand that this isn’t something we can so simply ignore. If you can do it here, what’s stopping others from entering the Lord King’s private chambers?”

“Are we in the palace?” Ranvir asked.

“Daddy…” Frija’s worried voice sounded. Ranvir turned to glare at the guard.

“No, you’re in the Ministry of Law’s main office,” the lady said. Something in her voice, even translated, caused Ranvir to turn back. Perhaps she was starting to believe him.

Ranvir sighed. “What would I do here? What’s the point of breaking into this place?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out, sir. If I accept that your… metal can transport you to it, then what about the stone around your neck? Where did you get that? You claim it’s what translates our speech from one language to another.”

“It’s a translation stone,” Ranvir said. “I got it from home, Korfyi, it’s a different plane… Like the orbs in your sky, but more distant,” the words hurried out of his mouth as Ranvir remembered the strange spheres of landmass he’d seen in the sky on his last visit.

Snake lady sighed and looked down at her desk for a moment. A slight whine came Menace. Ranvir turned in his seat to see the guard having returned to his post directly next to the couch.

Red lashed forward within Ranvir, boiling fire that seared his blood as roared to life. With a deep breath, he gently placed his hand on the desk. A droplet fell off it and onto the wood. “Tell your guards, please,” he added that last part as an afterthought, “to be mindful of my children. Do they really need to be in the room?”

“Sir, they are here for both of our protection,” she gave him a long look, her dead reptilian eyes searching his purple. “But perhaps the children do not need a supervisor.”

“Thank you,” Ranvir said as she spoke to the armored man. He grumbled something quiet and so deep it rattled the water on the table. “I understand that we’re weird company. I get it. We’re all appear and look different from what you’re used to, but I really don’t want to cause any trouble.

“We’re just visitors, I swear. I’m here to see how your powers work while also entertaining the children.”

“Our powers?” the snake asked. “Could you elaborate on that?”

“Examine your people before, during, after you bond with an animal,” Ranvir explained. “Perhaps find someone whose lost a limb before and after bonding and examine them.”

Snake’s eyes glanced not so subtly at Ranvir’s arm.

“Exactly,” he said. “I’m just trying to figure out if this world might work to replace my limb.”

Snake’s expression was impossible to read. The slight twitches in her lips, the vibrations in her nostrils, the way her eyes slitted and widened, even the slight sway of her head followed patterns. Ranvir just had no way of recognizing what they meant. “Would you be willing to attest to with a soul-exchange?” she asked finally.

Ranvir thought back to his encounter with the merchant the last time he’d visited, when he’d traded metals for coins. His reaction to Ranvir’s spirit had been extreme. At the time, he’d suspected the merchant’s reaction was to Latresekt. Except, Alexis had also noticed something off about him and Latresekt had called him stupid for thinking she could sense it while hidden as it was.

If it really was Latresekt they were sensing, then this ‘soul-exchange’ might help their relations. But if it wasn’t. If the thing that freaked them out so was Ranvir…

“I’d prefer not to,” Ranvir admitted, tapping his fingernail on the table. “People have had… adverse reactions in the past.”

That, unsurprisingly, did not put Snake Lady at ease. “You will not commit to a soul-exchange, you will not tell us where you are from, why you are here, and how you got into the building.

Ranvir raised his hand to his temple and rubbed it. He heard the guards taking a step forward and the children gasp at the move. The clank of metal painted them standing in their armor, hands on weapons.

He lowered his hand again, slowly and deliberately. “I don’t want to be here. I will leave. Do you understand me? In another quarter flare, I’m going to be walking the streets of your pretty little city and you will not come looking for me. You can help me find the things I want, or you won’t. I don’t care.”

The snake lady stared at him for a long time, her eyes blinking irregularly. “Sir, I understand you must feel frustra-“

“No, you don’t,” Ranvir interrupted and got up from his chair, eyes burning. “You don’t understand. I am not frustrated. I am angry. You’ve spent half this meeting acting like I’m in the wrong while threatening children. My children.”

Snake nodded to the guards behind him and they both stepped forwards maces drawn. Ranvir tapped Amanaris. Mana, the color of rich yellow sand, coursed through Ranvir as he heaved with all of his ability.

Yellow light burst from his body, coloring the room in the lights of a bright fire. Power welled up so strongly it burst from his physical form to float as an aura around him. Burning so intensely, they coalesced into tiny grains. Some slowly drifting downward, others sticking to his wet skin.

The guards fell back from him, their own meager unfinished power unable to withstand his presence. The snake lady too fell back, actually rolling off her chair to crawl over to the wall.

All throughout the building and nearby area, Ranvir sensed people moving. Fleeing or approaching, it didn’t matter. Ranvir’d fought an entire company of people who were stronger than these buffoons.

“We are done,” Ranvir growled. “Help us or ignore us, but you will not stand in our way.”

“I’m sorry!” Snake Lady hissed, tears in her inhuman eyes. “I didn’t recognize your divinity, please!”

Ranvir narrowed his eyes, but turned to the guards. In the movement, he glimpsed his children. Menace was standing, back arched, fur splayed and hissing. Frija had a distinct look of chagrin on behalf of the guardsmen. Vasso, however, had a quiet, wide-eyed look as he observed Ranvir.

“Out,” Ranvir commanded the armored men.

“Your divine will shall be,” they both agreed and ran out.

Again, Ranvir caught that word. Perhaps it means something else to them, Ranvir argued as he turned back to the Snake. Maybe revealing his power had been a mistake.

“Your divinity be blessed,” the magistrate said, still on the floor. “I did not think there was another who could speak. Only the Lord King has the tongue of our people. We will, of course, do our best to make sure you can see all that you desire.”

Ranvir nodded. “Good.”

“I will have my assistant take your to your quarters. Please forgive my impudence.”

Ranvir sighed. It had definitely been a mistake to reveal his powers.