The rest of the week passed peacefully. It was nice to just… go to class, study, and practice without an imminent threat hanging over my head. Twice during the evenings I went to visit Lea, and enjoyed some more pleasant dinners with her uncles. I also started Lea on her very first combat spell, the most basic possible shield I knew. It just summoned a simple disk of force that could block many types of spells and projectiles, though it would fall quickly to any serious attack. Still, it wasn’t nothing and she was starting to get the hang of it by the end of our second session.

Of course, just because it was peaceful didn’t mean I didn’t do anything productive. I ‘bumped’ into Briella and her friends and, after a short conversation, she formally asked me to help tutor her. I of course accepted, as we’d planned. The exchange served several purposes. First of all, it was a good reputation boost for both of us and would hopefully serve to at least partially protect one of my assets. After all, it was one thing to go after someone with a far off power base that couldn’t reach you within the walls of Avalon. It was something else entirely to risk the wrath of an older student that could cheerfully punch down at you whenever they liked.

More importantly however, it gave us a very public reason to start interacting. Briella had good reason to want some additional instruction, after all as far as anyone knew she had nearly died in an attack only a few weeks earlier, and after my very public confrontation with Kwesta, I was a very obvious choice of trainer. In all honesty, it wasn’t even entirely a front. I did plan to make sure the two second years brought their skills up to a passable level.

It would be good to reconnect with my newest subordinates. With things going the way they were, I hadn’t yet gotten much of anything out of my investments and that just wouldn’t do. I was certain the two had a lot to offer me, but we just hadn’t yet had time to figure out what exactly that might be.

I also spent a lot of time around Brenda, who had somehow gotten even more clingy than she already was. She spent all the classes we shared hanging off of my arm and would inevitably appear beside me whenever I went anywhere public, like the library or cafeteria. I couldn’t wait until I was ready to give her a proper attitude adjustment, and maybe do something about her vocal cords. By all the gods real and fake, her voice grated on me like nothing else.

Eventually the next weekend came, and with it a task that I should not have put off for nearly as long as I did. It was finally time to deal with Miranda properly. She was too valuable to keep using the same slapdash binding I’d thrown together with barely two months worth of instruction under my belt. I’d been putting things off primarily because I just didn’t really know what I wanted to do. Initially, I hadn’t known any oaths strong enough to replace what I was using. Later, I was worried about the mental effects, I wanted Miranda for her mind and something like what I’d done to Rea would ruin that.

The solution had come to me while I was figuring out the mess with Clarient. Why should I bother with a clunky ritual at all? Those were most useful for half-broken prisoners and when discretion was necessary. A lot of the power in those spells went towards ensuring the initial binding held firm despite the rather dubious consent involved during the experience.

Instead, I could simply have her swear a binding oath of her own free will. If there was no coercion involved, even the fourth circle oath I knew would be sufficient to bind her for the rest of her life, growing in strength and rooting itself further in her soul as she too grew in power. It would neatly fix all of my problems with her and I could always still just disappear her into my room if she ever seemed at risk of falling off the demanding pace Avalon demanded of its students. Unfortunately, I probably should have explained the plan to Miranda in greater detail ahead of time.

Miranda was shaking. Under the firm grip of my hand on her shoulder, I could feel her entire body trembling, the quiet clicking of her teeth sounding unnaturally loud in the near silent corridor. As we quickly approached my room, her shaking got even worse, until I finally decided this was completely unwarranted.

“Miranda,” I said quietly into her ear, “calm down. You’re going to be ok. This will all be over soon.”

That was clearly the wrong thing to say, because her trembling only got worse. I took a moment to think about what I’d just said and then promptly wanted to slap myself. Well no duh that wasn’t going to reassure her.

I tried again, “I promise nothing is going to happen to you. We’re just going to discuss some things in private. As long as everything goes well, you’ll be out of here by the end of the day feeling much better.”

For once, my words seemed to have some of their intended effect. Miranda slackened slightly, some of the tension leaving her shoulders and her teeth finally stopping their chattering.

“Good. Let that tension flow out of you, it's only going to make things harder than they need to be.”

I let my own grip loosen as well, no longer having to nearly push the terrified girl forward. Hopefully once this was done, I would no longer have to deal with this sort of thing. Her current oath enforced obedience and loyalty, but it did nothing to help her mentally adapt to things. As long as we worded things correctly, the new binding would hopefully let her better understand what I wanted from her and eliminate a lot of the confusion and misunderstandings between us. Soul magic was handy that way.

Miranda froze as we stepped into my room, and this time I could well understand her fear. It had been three years since she’d been inside after all, and a lot of things had changed since then. I followed her gaze towards the limply hanging bodies of Mistletoe and Verdan. Last time, it had been her that was bound in metal.

Miranda turned her head towards me and I could see tears gleaming at the corners of her eyes. “Please Orion! I’ll do better! Anything you want. I’ll–”

I cut her off with a finger pressed against her lips. “Don’t mind them, they don’t matter. Filthy elves don’t deserve any better. You though…”

I gently led her to the center of the room, where I’d set up a small table flanked by padded chairs. I had to press on her shoulders until she sat down shakily, then stepped around the table and sat down facing her. “Rea,” I called out, “Some tea please.”

My lavender-skinned pet stepped into the room carrying a small tray with two cups and a tea kettle. She was dressed in one of the thin gowns I’d helped her make, with her hair tied back in a pair of tight buns. The color was starting to fade, I noticed, artificial blue and pink giving way to the natural silvery-white around the roots. Holding the tray with one hand, she carefully set the cups down in front of us and poured the tea, then stepped back and knelt down beside me.

I honestly thought the entire thing was far too dramatic, but Rea had insisted that it was only fitting and I’d felt like humoring her at the time. In particular, I felt that having her wait inside the bathroom was just rather silly, but this was her first time in a while getting to interact with someone other than me and she wanted to make a good first impression. From the even more fearful look than before on Miranda’s face, we hadn’t really succeeded at that.

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I picked up my cup and took a sip, trying to hide how awkward this all felt. I really hadn’t presented this well at all, now that I thought about it. I thought making it a bit of a surprise and all fancy like would help make Miranda feel special and appreciated, but it had only made her nervous.

“Sorry about this,” I saw after a moment, “I thought you’d like it.”

“It's… it’s very nice, sir.”

Yeah, I wasn’t buying it. I had planned to try and do some small talk, but I had a feeling that was the wrong choice here. Instead, I decided to just jump right in. “You’re probably wondering why I brought you here today,” I said, setting my cup down on the table. Seeing her untouched cup I added, “Drink your tea, it's very good. Rea did a great job today.”

Rea preened silently at the praise, but Miranda seemed to interpret my suggestion as an order. She looked suspiciously at the small steaming cup, screwed her eyes tightly shut, and threw back the entire thing in a single swallow. She gasped as the scaling liquid burned down her throat, and I remembered that she probably didn’t maintain many of the circulations I used on a day to day basis, such as the ones that made me less sensitive to extreme temperatures. She probably hadn’t thought the drink was quite so hot.

Miranda coughed painfully, then raised a hand to her throat and cast a healing spell. “Sorry,” I apologized, scratching the back of my neck in embarrassment as Rea refilled our cups, “I should have warned you.

“It's fine.” Her voice was still a touch hoarse, but it didn’t sound painful. “What do you want from me, Orion? Is… is it time–” her voice cracked and she swallowed heavily, her eyes drifting back towards my sleeping cows.

“I told you, don't worry about them,” I said, my voice coming out harsher than I had intended, “you’re much more precious to me than they could ever be. Whatever else, you are mine, and I protect what is mine.”

“Okay. Then why… what do you need me to do?”

I didn’t respond for a long moment, considering how best to say it. I’d already made enough of a mess of things today. “I think it's time for us to… rework our… agreement,” I said finally. “You’ve been invaluable these past years, even if we’ve had some troubles between us, and the binding I used back in our first year has its own issues.”

“Oh?” she asked, cautiously curious.

“Yes,” I nodded severely. “It was very poorly done, cobbled together out of scraps. It's a miracle that it worked as well as it did, but I can feel the bond starting to fray. It's not going to last for much longer, and I’m worried that when it goes, it’s going to take you with it.” I was exaggerating, it would definitely be very painful, debilitating even, when the bond snapped, but she would have recovered without issues as far as I knew. Still, I felt that phrasing it like that would make her more amenable to swearing a new oath.

“Oh. That…”

“Would be bad,” I finished for her. “Fortunately, I’ve gotten much better at magic since then, so I believe I can fix things, but it will be much easier with your cooperation.” Patting Rea’s head affectionately, I continued, “If you try to resist, you’ll probably end up like my darling Rea here, or like Briella and her friend. I don’t think either of us want that. You’ve got a lot more to offer me than just your body. I value your mind just as much as the rest of what you bring to the table.”

She shook her head rapidly, “Anything would be better.”

“I’m glad to see you agree. Now, the easiest thing to do would be to just break the bond. I could do it, it would be tricky, but perfectly manageable.” I saw Miranda’s eyes widen hopefully, right before the expression was replaced with pain as the bond punished her for imagining her freedom. “Sorry about that,” I said sheepishly, “but I’m afraid it's unavoidable. Very crude magic.

“Anyway, I’m afraid that's never going to happen. I like you Miranda, I really do, but I don’t trust you. Perhaps in a different world we could have just been friends, but you started us off on the wrong foot.” Possessiveness rose up inside me as I imagined losing my Miranda and I added, “The only way you are ever leaving me is in pieces, and whoever took you will soon follow.”

She opened her mouth, winced, then closed it again. I jerked my head at Rea and she stepped forward and dripped several drops of pain-relieving potion in Miranda’s drink. I’d had a feeling something like this might happen throughout our discussion. “For the pain,” I told her, gesturing at the cup. “Drink, slowly.”

She took a tentative sip of the tea and her shoulders sagged slightly almost immediately. I hoped the potion hadn’t ruined the flavor, it really was excellent tea and the only pain-relief potion I knew how to brew tended to taste like burnt meat.

“Anyway, that brings us to our second option. Instead of using something so mind altering, you can instead swear a tightly worded oath of loyalty. I will cast the spell and act as our binder, but the magic will be entirely self directed. That way, even a fourth circle spell will last.”

She looked confused for a moment, then realization spread across her face. “It wouldn’t be a foreign spell effect that way.”

“Exactly.” Souls naturally resisted foreign influences, even if the target didn’t want them too. However, just like with shape-changing spells, if you cast the magic on yourself your soul would not resist, allowing even lower circle spells to have the same impact as something much more powerful. It was why casting healing spells on yourself was so much more effective than doing it to someone else. If I had used the same spell that Miranda had just cast on her throat, I would have had to burn three or four times as much mana and spend much longer casting to achieve the impact she’d managed after just a few seconds.

“And you would accept that?” she asked skeptically. “We wouldn’t be bound directly anymore.”

“A small price to pay. I won’t be able to feel you anymore, nor cast spells through your binding, but it will leave you intact and I trust my magic. As long as you give the oath in good faith, it will be sufficient for me.”

“And if I don’t?” she asked, a small quiver in her voice.

“You will. I think you know what will happen if you don’t.”

She couldn’t hide her shudder and I smiled internally. Despite my best efforts, I knew that Miranda was still terrified of me. She would think up much more horrible punishments for herself than anything I could come up with.

“I understand sir.”

“Good. I’m glad we are on the same page here. Now then,” I slid an open notebook towards her across the table, “This is the preliminary oath I am considering. You will help me refine it into something airtight. That is an order so don’t try anything. The oath I plan to use will enforce the spirit of our contract just as much as it will the letter, but it is always best to be thorough.”

“Yes sir. I understand.”

“Good.” She leaned over the table and began to read. “And Miranda?”

She looked up, “Yes?”

“I want this to be as painless a process for you as I can make it. If there are any conditions you want to add to the oath, ask. Even if I do not include them in the end, I will consider them all the same and not get angry. I promise.”

“Okay sir. Thank you, Orion.”

Miranda went back to the notebook, and I gently patted Rea on the head. She looked up and I held my cup out towards her. She refilled it silently, then knelt back down and laid her head against my thigh. I took a small sip of tea and hummed in satisfaction, my hand idly stroking Rea’s hair. This was not going quite as smoothly as I had hoped, but still well within expectations. Hopefully it would continue that way.