Fomoria found a rather strange message waiting for him. One of the cities quite far west of even his westernmost city invited Yara and him to dinner to discuss their surrender.

Naturally, he had his suspicions, and he didn’t want to bring Yara, but upon reading the letter intended for her from the wife of the mayor, she felt it was genuine.

It wasn’t a special city, it was just like any other.

High walls, four gates, fields outside, tiered buildings as was the standard set during the reign of the Reinoan Empire.

The only strange things were that it flew no banners, and that they were human, not Faun or Plest, the preferred non-Cast rulers of the empire; outside of the city one could fight the smoldering remains of the Castian banners.

When Fomoria and Yara arrived by gate, there was a small panic, since they hadn’t given the city much time to prepare.

But, the couple waited, watching them scramble to gather flower pedals, alert the mayor, get trumpeters, and get the chefs started on a meal.

The mayor, Feld, his wife, Linda, and their two children, who weren’t mentioned by name in the letter, so Fomoria didn’t know them, came to the east gate to greet them.

“Emperor Fomoria, many apologies for our lack of preparedness.”

“It’s not an issue. I’m certain you expected us days from now.”

“I had heard that you can travel vast distances without a moment's notice, but it is another thing to witness it.”

“I would rather not give you time to prepare some large event. I intend to come here, have a meal, and go over folding your city into my empire. Each day I bring more and more land under my control, and I would never have time for anything else if I attended such things with every new city.”

Fomoria shook his hand, trying his best to get a reading of the man.

He had begun to have the feeling that he could sense when someone was lying to him, much like Sepul being able to force the truth from people.

He thought he had a well enough sense for such a thing before, but a tickle began on the back of his neck sometimes when people spoke to him, and it as often enough with enemies intended to fake surrenders or people who didn’t want to offend him that he couldn’t ignore the possibility that it was something more than instinct.

“Of course, I can understand that there is much work to be done.”

They walked side by side, Feld and Fomoria, Linda and Yara behind them, and then the two children, who Fomoria was watching closely with eyes in the back of his head, to make sure they weren’t actually Bijou poised to strike at Yara.

Everything went well, the food wasn’t poisoned, the knights kept their blades sheathed, there were no slaves being visibly wronged within either his sight or the range of his mental senses.

Then, finally Feld went to shake Yara’s hand, and Fomoria saw it.

Visually it was perfectly hidden, some combination of Castian technology and Aardian magic, a spring loaded blade hidden in his sleeve which attempted to shoot a thick needle into Yara’s heart.

“FOR THE-”

Feld was not a powerful man, neither martially nor magically, that was part of why he was chosen for this mission, because Fomoria’s every instinct would see this man was an ant, something beneath threat, or so Seraphallen believed.

The Hand lacked the ability to properly see things from the perspectives of others, and assumed Fomoria was like him. Yet Fomoria looked at even the children like threats, he wouldn’t let something so simple get past him.

And so Seraphallen’s plan failed, because Feld was slow compared to Fomoria.

In less than it took to blink, Fomoria grabbed the mayor’s wrist, shooting the first needle into the ceiling, then twisting to both break his arm and the weapon itself; Fomoria opened a gate to the squad of Others which were always on the ready.

The soldiers in the room were dead before they had time to swing their blades, their heads removed by the swift slices of adamant clawed hands.

Feld screamed, his perception was human, and everything had happened in a blur.

Yara hardly even had time to process any of it either, a rather disturbing sensation for her.

Fomoria stood there, unmoving, he thought of what he wanted to do.

Killing him wouldn’t be enough, so he healed the mayor and put him with the rest of his family.

The Other’s saw that Yara was the target, and they were more upset than Fomoria.

Fomoria’s eyes flashed to send orders and the Others left without a word, but fury was clear in their own eyes.

With the Others gone, Fomoria took the blade from one of the dead bodies.

“What exactly was the plan? Because even if you had stabbed my wife, I would just flay you alive anyway.”

“They said that it could kill you, a poison.”

“Hmm, let’s test that then.”

Fomoria cut the straps that held it to the mayor and removed the needle shooter.

Once he was satisfied, Fomoria pulled one of them out, and stabbed himself in the hand.

“Oh, it does have a poison.”

His hand turned purple and went limp, but the dark veins were quickly cleansed, and Fomoria regained control.

They heard some sounds outside, screaming men.

“What is that?”

“The best way to break the will of a people is with displays of brutality. But pikes with heads are so mild, the people on them are already dead. The Screams of the living do add much to the display.“

Fomoria tossed the blade in his hand, handle coated with the blood of the knight it was taken from.

“Kill your wife or I will kill you.”

Yara stepped in front of Fomoria, but before she could say a word he covered her mouth with his hand, grabbing her hands with his other so she couldn’t step back and remove it.

“Make your choice.”

The mayor picked the sword up.

“Honey, just be still, I won’t make it hurt.”

When Feld swung down, Fomoria skipped over and caught it between his fingers.

“What a heartless fool you are.”

When Fomoria laid his other hand on the man, he fell silent and to the floor.

“Yara, take the others out of the room.”

They fled as soon as they couldn’t.

“Not you, Linda.”

She froze with tears in her eyes, trying not to let her children see her fear, but failing.

“May I at least say goodbye to them?”

“No.”

“THIS IS TOO MUCH, YOU-”

Yara yelled, and he kicked toward the table, aura and wind magic reducing it to splinters, but also kept the splinters from flying back and blinding anyone.

“I WAS NOT ASKING. TAKE THE CHILDREN OUTSIDE, AND WAIT FOR ME.”

She knew that Fomoria was willing to resort to violence for sending a message, but surely there was a limit to cruelty.

He sat Linda down on one of the remaining seats.

“Apologies. I would rather not do this.”

“Please, don’t kill me.”

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“I don’t intend to. But, I also can’t let you go without some manner of loyalty being assured.

Just as I asked your husband, I am going to ask you. Kill him, and you will become the leader of the city.”

“I won’t play your game.”

“You can leave right now, but you will do so with the clothes on your back and nothing more.”

She walked to the door, but stopped before opening it.

“You’ll really let me go?”

“Yes. During our lunch, he spoke of himself, but rarely of you or your children. When I threatened his life, he did not say a word about them, nor did he ask that you be allowed to say goodbye, but when you thought that this would be the last time you saw them, you wished for a final moment with your children.

I believe he is greedy, stupid, someone who was put in place as a puppet and who abused that position in ways that I can only assume.”

“Why would you give me this job then, force me to be ruler?”

“Because you aren’t a heartless puppet. I won’t assume you to be a good woman, but when your slaves brought the food, you thanked them, and your husband could barely hold back his contempt when doing the same as a show for me. That, and I find that keeping local rulers helps to make the conquest much more peaceful. There isn’t any issue of succession or xenophobic sentiments causing undue strife because they are being ruled by an outsider. You could be an example of the benefits of not pulling nasty tricks like this.

So? And do keep in mind, he did not hesitate as you have, he decided to save himself quite quickly.”

She came back to her husband, paralyzed on the ground.

“Honey, just be still, I won’t make it hurt.”

Her form was poor, and she missed his organs, but Fomoria shot a void bolt to kill him once she failed to do so.

“Good, now that the facade is done, I will leave one of my men here, and he can help you with any questions you have. Once you give a speech, I hope that your soldiers will fall in line. I wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“But the screaming, you already-”

“Sound magic, a cantrip really, and since you and your husband clearly lack magical power of your own, you didn’t question it at all. My Others stepped outside of the room and non-lethally subdued any soldiers who attempted to enter the room. I gave them orders, mind to mind, before they left.”

“Can you tell them that you did this?”

“Of course. I understand that your children, your people, they will hate me for a time, maybe until they die, but it helps nobody to have them hate you.”

Back in Kor, Yara sat with him for tea as he explained his real plans, and why he didn’t tell her what they were.

“You didn’t need to grab my mouth so strongly. And the yelling, was that really required?”

“I thought it sold the whole thing, and I don’t know how good you are at acting. But I’m sorry.”

“That was… I hate to say that I enjoyed it, but it was… interesting. How did you come up with the plan so quickly?”

“War of the Red Roses.”

Yara racked her brain.

“Oh. I never much enjoyed the stories where they fake a break up or a fight.

Does this mean that you didn’t kill the mayor?”

“I gave Linda a choice. I believe he was so willing to kill her because he didn’t want to lose what he had, but I believe she did it because she didn’t want to lose what her children had.”

Fomoria laid his head on her shoulder.

“I hate this. I hope you know that.”

“Before you explained the plan, when you grabbed me, I was really scared. I thought that I didn’t know you as much as I believed, that your time out here made you a monster, but I didn’t see it just yet.”

“I had to make them afraid of me, make them think I was willing to do anything.”

Fomoria fell asleep there, not even taking a sip of his tea, and Yara laid his head on her lap, like she had seen Adina do for him.

After an hour, he awoke, nearly fully rested after not sleeping for two weeks.

Yet he didn’t awake of his own accord, but rather because Yara had answered his amulet and it was Eskildotter.

Yalda and Baoth were spotted, both had tried to enter Blackship and nearly lost their lives, forcing them on the run since they also refused Seraphallen’s summons, not wanting to be around any Cast that could even possibly be infected.

“I need to leave immediately.”

“Promise me that you won’t do what you thought up last we talked about those two.”

She had only heard about his last clash with the pair, and considering how he had killed two Fingers already, she knew he could win, so long as he actually fought to kill without trying to gain something else or treat it as training.

“I love you.”

Fomoria kissed her before he left.

Eskildotter’s fleet had suffered great damages already, the normal procedure when encountering a Finger was to flee, but she had been hunting the pair for some time, and sailed into an ambush near a reef.

Yet she wasn’t the real target.

Moments after Fomoria came through the gate, a waterspout came from below in an attempt to keep him in place, then a soul searing bolt crossed the sky in an instant, heading right for him.

Fomoria opened a gate when the bolt was near enough that he could feel the heat, and the bolt was sent away, giving him time to free the water around him and clap his hands, freeing himself from the pull of it.

He hardly dodged the second attack, a jet of water that cut the sea and three of the ships below him.

The storm then dropped from the sky, putting him inside of the clouds.

It hurt when the static touched him, but this energy was being built up, it wasn’t a full power bolt just yet.

The issue was that these clouds blinded his magical and mundane senses, filling his nostrils with ozone and his eyes with skittering flashes.

What he was left with was his sixth sense and his mind.

It wasn’t the same as fighting Rak, and Fomoria felt that closing himself off again would get him killed rather than be a benefit.

Fomoria cast a few spells to find out what he needed to do, then formed a ball in his hand, filling it, but also compressing it more and more.

It was not air, but a positive charge.

Xol’s explanations of magnetics and electrons had been a great boon to Fomoria, who came to understand that tall things and metal weren’t what lightning was drawn to, but that it would take the shortest path to the nearest positively charged thing.

He could try his magnetic field trick again, bending the bolt, but he didn’t want it to go away, he wanted to know exactly where it would strike without fail; the difference between it hitting his index or ring finger would be the death of his soul.

There was some margin of error to this, since magical lightning and natural lightning, though they shared many things, weren’t exactly the same.

Still, Fomoria hoped that the nature of Yalda’s magic was what he believed it was.

The pair readied their next attack, seeing that Fomoria was seemingly being turned around like they wanted.

So when the bolt was fully charged, the clouds rose again, since they needed to focus on the edge for a moment in order to strike with full force rather than hitting inside of the clouds.

Fomoria dodged Baoth’s tidal tentacles for a time, then finally, he was distracted by a call on his amulet, and one of the watery arms caught him.

The bolt arched across the sky once more, and Fomoria reached out of the water, a seemingly glass bottle in hand. The lightning was drawn to the bottle, where it became trapped once Fomoria put the cap back on.

Once it was captured, Fomoria sent out the signal.

A ball of wind crashed against the clouds, pulling them in, and through the clear sky the pair could see hundreds of Others.

The ball kept going, slamming against the water and firing up, not down, forming a large divot whlie also forcing the Fingers apart.

Baoth tried to bring water up and counter the living bullets that were coming at them, but the water was now too far away from him, it wasn’t fast enough.

The Others opened a series of gates, one after the other, making it impossible for Baoth to track them and for any of his spells to connect.

Finally, two of the Others opened gates on either side of him, hitting the Finger in the head, their adamant hands sounded like cannonfire when they made contact, their knuckles left bloody from the impact, and Baoth left headless.

Yalda was fast, but he was also panicking, and that made someone predictable in some instances.

He put up his air barrier as soon as he could after the spells from the Others tossed him away from Baoth, but he was now much slower, his barrier incapable of keeping pace with him.

When a large gate opened in front of him, he kept going, knowing that few things could get past the barrier, and that no matter what Fomoria was made from, he wouldn’t make it through.

Which, if Fomoria had been the one to try breaking through, would be true.

Yet who came through the gate was Romulus, being boosted a great deal by the spout of water that came from the divot in the sea caused by the Others casting large wind warspells.

His blade touched against the barrier and was nearly ripped from his hand, but with his absurd strength he had struck at the right spot so the swirling winds pulled the sword forward and into Yalda’s head.

Speed, strength, and the length of the blade prevented him from actually needing to get his body inside of the sphere of flaying wind, which would’ve gravely harmed him had he touched it.

Luckily, the moment his sword removed Yalda’s head from his shoulders, the barrier dispersed rather harmlessly.

What Fomoria didn’t tell Romulus, was that he couldn’t confirm if killing him would break the sigil spell apart immediately or not. But, that was neither here nor there, since what he didn’t know didn’t kill him in this case.

The Others grabbed the fingers as soon as they could, and just as soon, Xol arrived to retrieve them.

“Good, I see you also got my lightning bolt.”

“I caught it, it’s mine.”

“You wouldn’t know how to catch it without me. Besides, we are both planning to use it against Seraphallen, are we not?”

Fomoria sighed and tossed it to the Lich.

“Very good. I did tell you not to do this though.”

“Everything I did had a strong basis in both science and magic.”

“Still, how did you know how to cast the right spell?”

“You told me that lightning could be negative or positive-”

There was a splash.

“SOMEONE GET ROMULUS OUT OF THE WATER. And so I just had to develop the right spell to find out which one Yalda’s lightning was.”

Xol didn’t wear his skin for a good reason, he was not good at hiding his facial expressions.

That and after so much time, it was just what felt comfortable.

“Well, I’m impressed, but it was still a very bullheaded move. You could’ve been seriously hurt.”

“Is that why you didn’t want me to have that lightning?”

“We went over this once already. There must be some trust between us, I know don’t always explain myself, but you don’t either.”

“Sorry. Still, we are down to six remaining Fingers.”

“Have you finished the combat body?”

“Are you changing the subject?”

“That’s not what I asked. If you want to be at our side when we fight Seraphallen, your current form, strong as it may be, will not be enough. Your magic won’t make a difference, not with all of the others gathered, but physically you may be useful as a giant due to your aura techniques.”

“I have enough Nidhogger flesh for about half of the body.

I’m making each limb separately, so I’ve got one arm charged and finished, but none of the other limbs have finished soaking in mana.

If gates worked properly that far underground, maybe this would be faster.”

“I’m not giving you that information. So far as I am concerned, you don’t need to be in the battle at all, so I will offer no favors to make sure you can enter it. Also, I would like to be called next time you fight a Finger. We are free to fight them now that Jenny is on our side completely.”

“I think it is a learning experience for me to fight them. SHIT.”

“What?”

“Harlan called me, Yggdra is under attack, I can’t stay and chat.”

“The city or the queen?”

Fomoria didn’t say to answer, so Xol left with the fingers and the bottled lightning.