Snapping his arm sideways, Harlan released a burst of kinetic force, ripping Duke Ribera from his leather chair and sending him careening into a bookcase. This creaked, books falling intermittently at first before becoming an avalanche, thumping down on Aleister.

As if to compound his humiliation, the case itself then buried him.

The fat bastard groaned, and I gawked.

“Um, should…” — Shia hesitated, rubbernecking between me and Harlan — “should we stop him?”

I raised a hand, catching Hana’s inquiring gaze and responding with a nod.

He’s not a danger to us yet. By now, I’d used [Command Centre] enough that I could flip to it from Ruler View in a fraction of a second, as long as I already knew where my friends were.

In other words, I wouldn’t fall down like that time in the kitchen.

“Easy, now,” I said, trying not to look threatening. This was, admittedly, a bit difficult when I had two of the kingdom’s strongest fighters at my side, as well as the wife of the man he’d just obliterated.

“Easy.” Harlan’s voice was quiet, and breathy, like he wasn’t used to using his vocal chords. “Yes, it’s always been so easy. Kill, kill, kill for him, since I could hold a knife.” He thrust his hand toward Aleister again, his droopy eyes suddenly wide and frenzied.

“Stop!” Without thinking, I surged toward him and grabbed his wrist. As his head crept robotically to face me, I felt eyes boring into me from behind.

What in the Pits are you doing? thought Shia.

Quite frankly, I don’t know. I had every reason to want Aleister dead. After the things he’d said, the atrocities he’d committed, I loathed him with every fibre of my being. If left unchecked, he’d go on killing my people just to fucking spite me.

But something inside wrenched at me, urged me not to let this happen. He wasn’t a threat anymore. What good would it do?

I fought not to tremble under his glare as he ripped his hand away.

“Listen,” I said, “I get that you hate him. Hell, me too. But that doesn’t mean you have to let him drag you down to his level! You can be better than that. You can—”

“His level.” Sniggering, Harlan grinned, his yellowed teeth flashing dangerously. “My level. I’m better than my ilk, he says. But above them, below everyone else, where am I?

“Just words.” He whipped around to face me, his shoulders tensing as he growled.

I staggered back, a cold weight encasing my very being. “Words can change the world.”

“Pretty things,” he said, “but they mean nothing!”

A force slammed into me. It drove me through the air, the floor blurring beneath me. Bile pushed its way up my throat, and acid coated my tongue as I swallowed and waited to crash into the wall.

Instead, I flew through a cloud of collapsing rubble, a tearing, crashing sound stinging my eardrums. A second later, I hit the hallway wall, feeling it crack beneath me as a sharp pain exploded in my ribs.

Another pair of meaty thumps resounded either side of me. Painfully, I glanced each way to see Hana—who was already struggling to her feet—and Shia, who twitched, slumped down against the wall.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Fuck.

I heard groans from beneath piles of stone and cement littering the lush carpet. Some of it shifted, Duke Kalvin’s arm emerging before going still. Cannara was similarly buried, but she made no noise. No movement.

A whine climbed out of my mouth. Body Mages could heal them, but they’d have to get there in time. After taking such a beating from Roxina, this could be the straw to break the Specialists’ backs. How long did they have?

Harlan strode toward us, giggling erratically. I tried to stand up, but my legs wouldn’t respond, and all I could do was tremble and clench my jaw.

I panted, each breath driving a stake through my ribcage.

He pointed his palm at me. “You’re all the same. You hate him, but you save him. Why? Why does he get to be saved?!”

Screwing my eyes shut, I turned away and waited for the end.

…

It didn’t come.

When I opened my eyes, I saw Hana standing across from him, her blade raised above her head. She was quite the sight—trembling, covered in bruises and lacerations, her sword edging down painfully slowly. Even so, her face and posture held a serenity that gave me hope.

In that moment, she looked like she radiated angelic light from every pore, though I may have just been concussed.

She fought against Harlan’s magical grip, forcing her sword down toward his head. Sweating, he tensed his arm further, but the blade jerked closer. Then, it stopped dead, and Harlan thrust out a hand, sending her rocketing down the hallway.

Whizzing and tumbling, she soared in an arc that completed with her landing and bouncing along the floor, the fleshy sound of each impact resonating off the walls. The smell of blood and dust assaulted my nostrils.

“You first.” Harlan stalked after her. She quivered, curled up on all fours, and moaned.

I had visions of her dead body. Covered in blood, her bones jutting out at unnatural angles. I almost vomited.

Memories flashed across my mind. One of the first two faces I’d seen in this world. Me and her hacking down the statue. Saving me from the assassin. The time she’d opened up to me in the Council Chamber. Her reassurance after I crawled into my shell.

All the quiet moments we’d shared together, where each other’s company had been enough to breed contentment.

She’d done so much for me, and what could I do for her? Why was I so useless?

But I wasn’t, was I?

Every time I’d inspired people, I’d done it with words, but those had always held meaning. An appeal to the desires of those they were aimed at. Sometimes, values worked, but others, they weren’t enough.

Maybe my ideals were right and good. But they weren’t all there was.

They certainly hadn’t been to Bartra. My gut twisted when I thought of the boy, his hateful eyes as he lamented the loss of his father. A loss I’d caused by blindly chasing my ideals, ignoring finer details like the difference between soldier and civilian. Ignoring the price of their agency.

They hadn’t helped Konstantin either. He sat back in Larm, and I had no idea what maelstrom whirled inside him after his family’s execution. I’d made him suffer. I’d made Bartra suffer.

I’d made Harlan suffer. If I’d explored different options, gone after Aleister earlier, maybe it wouldn’t have come so far. Maybe this would never have happened.

As he advanced on Hana, I forced myself to my feet, my body screaming at me to stop. Pain meant nothing. Adrenaline surged through me, and I roared, taking off in a sprint.

Harlan turned just in time to see me tackle him, agony spearing from my shoulder into my chest.

He stumbled, but I just sagged down his legs.

“Let. Me. Go!” Staring at me, he shuffled further, but I was dead weight. He couldn’t move faster than a crawl.

“Take me instead,” I groaned. “You want… revenge, right? On the kind of people who made you like this? The people who fostered the hate burning away at your insides.

“That wasn’t her, or any of the rest of them. It was Aleister, and it was me, for letting this go on as long as it has.”

Though my grip was as tight as I could manage, he wrenched free, curling his lip and wordlessly aiming a hand at me.

I shut my eyes. It was fine like this. I didn’t want to die for them—I wanted to live for them. Struggle, strive, and prosper with them.

But none of it was possible without them. Sure, I was decent with economics, and I could come up with grand ideas and half a plan, but they were the ones who made it happen. This was a pyramid, not a tower. They supported me, not the other way around.

So if this was how things had to be…

It was the cost of progress.

Strangely, a sense of calm washed over me. If it was for them, I could stomach it.