Mir was in a foul mood after hearing the story from the miller boy. He couldn't believe that his replacement, the rising Dark Lord, was something so uninspired. Just a vampire with a talent for shadow magic and a flair for the dramatic. How dare a being so mundane as that try to follow the legacy of Vladimir Grimm, the man who'd made the very air mortals breathed taste of terror. Said man was not amused, muttering darkly to himself as he sat on the stool by the front door and tugged on his boots.

  He could hear his husband and that peasant still chatting in the guest room, Lei enjoying the company. More like he enjoyed having someone to fuss over. Mir didn't require much fussing, leaving the dragon's nurturing side unfulfilled. Really, they should get a cat, several maybe, or a dog. Maybe cultivate some sprites in the garden? It wasn't as if Mir isolated the dragon, Lei was his own man who was free to come and go as he pleased. It was just the fact that, like most of his species, now that he had a comfortable place to call home and no pressing oaths to fulfill, Leifr Grimm felt little reason to leave the valley. As long as he was fed and given the occasional new inclusion for his horde, the dragon had zero urge to venture forth from their shared lair.

  Save for festivals. Lei loved festivals!

  Mir pushed open the door, watching the late-afternoon sun shimmer off his husband's honey-toned skin. It was always in moments like this, where the natural world lavished too much attention on Lei, that his mask of humanity slipped just a little. There was no way someone so impossibly lovely could have simply been human. Well, of course, the eyes were a dead giveaway. Most humans spent more time looking at the mana lenses the dragon wore than his eyes, though.

  "I'm leaving now. With any luck, I'll reach the Pot and Kettle just after sunset. Hopefully Baor's got a room I can have otherwise, I suppose I'll have to bunk rough."

  Eric piped up. "You know you're welcome to bed down in the church? Nobody will bother you in there."

  Of course, the church would be available, the empty shell with no priest could only serve as an emergency shelter. A place to rest, offered from the goodness of the villagers' hearts. The smile on Mir's face was very, very strained, thinking about it.

  "...if there's no other option..."

  Lei rose from his chair, walking over and slipping his arms around Mir's waist. He pressed his cheek to his husband's chest, making a soft noise as those arms squeezed tight. "Remember your limits, darling. Don't go too far and do something that we can't take back." He let go, fiddling with Mir's cloak clasp, his face mostly trying to look stern. "If you're not home by dinner tomorrow, I'll come looking for you. Don't make me come looking for you, Mir."

  Gloved hands reached up, covering those of his husband, a soft kiss planted on the dragon's forehead. "Stop fussing, my heart. I'm just going to go take a look around. See what, if anything, I can do." It was possible that, given his restricted abilities, there wouldn't be anything he could do for the villagers this time. He'd have to wait for that letter to make it all the way to Hell and the response to make it back. There were faster ways to ask, but Mir's paranoia required him to get that permission in writing.

  "Why aren't you going with him?" A rather innocent question from their guest, Eric's face displaying naked curiosity.

  "Because my abilities aren't as good as my husband's in this situation. My talents lie in restoration and protection. I'll be quite useful for helping the village recover and stopping something like this from happening again. But dealing with the initial problem is where Mir's skills are overwhelmingly better than mine." Lei stepped back, reluctantly letting Mir's hands go, putting a tired smile on his face. "It's complicated."

  "It's your nature." Mir's hands vanished in his cloak, and he glanced out the window. "I'm burning daylight, I'll get going now." His eye flicked to the youth still sitting on the guest bed. "Stay here until I get back. Make yourself useful. Don't try any foolish nonsense and listen to what he tells you. You've already done your part to save the village."

  Hopefully, that would discourage any attempt at heroics.

  He could have expedited his journey down the mountain. A pinch of haste, a seven-league stride, but he needed the walk to clear his head. He didn't want to be doing this. He'd retired, set up shop in this peaceful little valley near a quiet little village. After ten years here, he'd gotten very used to everything. Mir was a creature of habit, it was what had allowed him to live so long. By controlling the variables in his own routine, he was able to spot anomalies outside of it.

  All that was being ruined by the fact that, apparently, the one thing he shared with his would-be replacement was taste in remote locations!

  He knew the moment he passed into the Baron's territory proper by a weight that settled on him like a long-lost familiar. It was where the path to his home met the River Road, next to the stone bridge over the Ribbon. As soon as his boot crunched down onto that dirt track, the sunlight lost its warmth. His breath steamed in the air, the wind a bit more bitter as it clawed at his cloak. Mir had been born in the North, though. He had ruled from his keep in the Ice Waste. This? This was practically open shirt weather.

  All along the road, there were other signs. Signs of large predators moving in the underbrush of the roadside and even across it. Wolves would never have dared be so bold before. The bare branches of the trees seemed twisted and vicious now, the trunks looming. Signs of the spreading corruption. A carrion bird cawed at him, its hunched figure watching him pass near its perch. It didn't take flight, though. People always underestimate the intelligence of such animals. This one clearly understood that taking flight to report his approach would lead to certain death.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Mir didn't go straight to the Pot and Kettle. Instead, he cut through the woods and circled around, choosing to snoop around Holly-on-Green a bit first. He wanted to observe. To see if there were others like young Eric who'd been made snacks for their new lord and master. To see what sort of minions he had lurking and watching his new cattle. The carrion birds, of course. The wolves he kept seeing sign of. The invisible net he'd cast over his hunting grounds.

  Holly-on-Green was suffering for the attention.

  It had never been a wealthy village, but it had been a tidy sort of place. The central 'street' of the village had always been on the clean side, with manure picked up for fertilizer and chamber pots dumped between buildings. The buildings themselves had been cared for, their wooden parts varnished against the elements and their stones scrubbed with straw in an effort to keep down pest and plague. The village green had always been that, green, grazed short by sheep and kept clean for market days. Wood stain had even given the common house a refined air, and there had been great pride taken in its welcoming appearance.

  Now the street was full of muck, and the buildings seemed to have weathered overnight. The common house's colors had faded, and there were weeds on the green. Mir stood, reading the proclamation posted on the common house door. It was excessively flowery in its language, even for a legal document, but it had turned out to be well worth his time to read it. Every scrap of information the enemy handed him was going to become a sharp weapon in his hands.

  He sensed the stares of the villagers, peering through the cracks in their shutters and doors. Even though they recognized him, he had a rather distinctive silhouette after all, they were in no rush to be seen meeting with him. Fear hung everywhere, rich and rancid, like a fever that was killing the heart of the village. It was unfortunate, but Mir hadn't expected anyone to rush out and greet him. They were being smart. They were staying safe.

  He couldn't fault them that.

  Clouds swallowed the sky just as he pushed open the door to the Pot and Kettle, his eye sweeping around the familiar common room and taking in the changes. The first change was the way the volume dipped as he entered and then dwindled to nothing. Mir didn't recognize any of the faces gathered around the ragged tables. He recognized their energy, though. Rough. Sharp. Scented with copper, steel, and saddle oil. Men used to doing dark work for bright coin.

  Baor's eyes flashed with worry, and he leaned forward as Mir claimed his usual seat, rough voice pitched low. "...you've picked a bad time to break your schedule." A tankard was thumped down, the mead in it thinned with water. It wasn't an insult but a savvy ploy to make it look like he was serving Mir as usual while instead helping the alchemist keep his wits about him.

  Mir picked the tankard up, taking a sip and pretending not to notice, his own voice low. "The miller boy collapsed on our doorstep last night, full of fever and raving about some horror he'd seen coming home from the village green. I had to come and see what was going on."

  "The Baron and his men, that's what's been going on. Ever since he arrived, things have been going from bad to worse. I haven't seen anything like this since," he thought about it for a long moment. "Ten years ago. That was when we had all manner of horrors coming down from the north. Plaguing us."

  "I'm all too aware of what the North was like ten years ago. This isn't that. This is just-"

  "Listen to me." Baor's voice was firmer now as the murmur of low conversation had resumed. "The Baron's men are looking for you. They know we've an alchemist who sees to our hurts. The way they talked about finding you, it didn't seem friendly-like. With you being the way you are, we worried-" He broke off as a group lumbered up to the bar and paid their tab, using it as an excuse to crowd Mir a bit and leer at him.

  One even spat, the thick spittle landing so close to Mir he'd had to twitch his tail out of the way.

  "Hell spawn."

  The guttural utterance left the man, his face wrinkled up as though Mir were the one who reeked of piss and unwashed skin.

  Baor didn't speak again until the inn door had thumped shut behind them, shaking his head. "That's becoming all too common. Had another like you in last night, just a traveler. He got mistaken for you and was sent up to the Manor. Haven't seen him come back. I don't think the Baron is too friendly to your folk."

  The alchemist said nothing, sipping his weak mead in thought. If he were a betting man, he'd bet the Baron was enamored of Ley-Scarred. They usually had a bit of magic talent and were already oppressed by most of society. Because of the stereotypes, they usually fell easily into Evil, a route that was available and welcoming to them. This only perpetuated things in a never-ending cycle of oppression and harm.

  He set the tankard down, shaking his head slowly. "Well, I suppose I've confirmed most of what I was worried about. There's no fever sweeping the village. No plague or pox that needs treating. Just people and people are a problem that I can't soothe with an herbal remedy." Mir gave Baor a thin smile, glancing around the inn one more time.

  The door behind him thumped open, the lanterns in the inn flickering a bit dramatically as the newcomer stomped in from the cold. Baor went stiff at the sight of him, watery gaze flicking from the newcomer to Mir and back again. A warning signal letting the alchemist know it was too late to run and to steel himself instead.

  There was never a dull night at the Pot and Kettle for Mir.