Flowers were blooming along the slopes of Mount Fate. One could argue that they were weeds. Fine. Weeds still had flowers.

  The name change for the mountain had felt appropriate. Fate meant the same thing as doom, just without the negative connotations. Zareth had approved.

  I stood atop the cube, the vast, ugly structure I’d thrown together to hold Kevin and his spawns, thinking about what the building might become. We checked the golden compass every day, and it told us that there were only four heroes in this world. There was no longer a need for a diamond cell.

  After the kaiju clash, breaking the cauldron at Gundurgon had been a vacation. We’d fought a couple more demons, but hardly any were left now. The skies over Dargoth were clear, and Gastard would hunt the remaining few.

  After his honeymoon.

  “My lord?” A boy had ascended the ladder to the top of the cube—page livery. I recognized him vaguely, but it was getting harder and harder to tell humans apart.

  “What's up?” I asked. A lot was happening around the fortress, most of which didn't require my direct attention. Maybe Esmelda was looking for me.

  “Apologies,” he said nervously. My subjects didn't fear me, exactly, but it was hard to find anyone outside my inner circle who would look me in the eyes. “The emissary from Thalasso has arrived.”

  Already?

  “Thank you. Be careful getting back down that ladder, okay?” The boy bowed, and I stepped off the edge of the cube. My slippers, silk enchanted with Unbreaking and Featherfall IV, allowed me to float down gently.

  I hadn't worn armor in weeks.

  A guard hailed me in the courtyard, and I made my way to the great hall. It had undergone a makeover—it was brighter, with more windows and a host of colorful banners. Instead of an obsidian Throne of Shadows, the dais housed a pair of eminently comfortable wooden ones so Esmelda and I could sit side by side, doing the Lord and Lady thing.

  Destroying the throne hadn't lowered my Sheltered Achievement. It had actually given me a new one.

  [[[Achievement: Sheltered (7)

  You sit at the head of a nation, and this realm has become your home. While your influence is strongest in the seat of your power, your status will benefit you wherever you go within your Domain. Followers and champions will seek to enter your service.

  Presence is boosted by two steps within your stronghold and one outside of it.

  Only one rank remains in this achievement tree.]].

  Achievements hadn’t come up much after the “tutorial” phase, though there were still a couple for me to fill out for the sake of completionism. I didn't have to rush anymore. What would the next Sheltered be anyway, taking over the world?

  I took a back entrance to the hall so I could come in from the throne side instead of the big doors. Zareth was waiting for me in the corridor. He always seemed to know exactly where he needed to be.

  “Good morning,” he said, one hand absently stroking his goatee.

  “Morning,” I said. “Where's this Thalasso guy?”

  “In the hall. He appears amiable enough. A strange name, Jesse Pinkman.”

  Why did that sound familiar? It certainly didn't fit with the language pattern of a place called Thalasso.

  I didn't think much of it until I saw him in the hall, standing at the foot of the dais and speaking with my wife. Esmelda was already in her seat.

  “Everybody out,” I said.

  “What is it?” Esmelda remained seated. She wore a green silk dress and a golden circlet I had made for her, looking every bit the Lady of Dargoth.

  “Lord?” Zareth questioned.

  “You too. We can talk after.”

  He bowed and swept away. After some initial hesitation, the guards stationed along the hall saw themselves out as well. The great doors closed behind them with a note of finality.

  “He’s not who he says he is,” I told Esmelda, before shifting my gaze to the entity. “What are you doing here?”

  Prem, adopted son of Calcion, gave a dramatic bow. He wore a simple grey cloak and a shirt of silver chain, bearing no weapons I could see. A handsome face, though also somehow indistinct. He looked both familiar and unfamiliar—as if his visage slipped from my mind as soon as I looked elsewhere. His eyes, however, were just like Fladnag’s. Blue and oddly old-seeming in his youthful face.

  I didn’t sit.

  “Acting as an emissary,” he smiled. “Did your castellan not inform you?”

  Seeing my face, Esmelda rose and picked up the sheath of the atreanum blade beside her chair.

  “If you have come to us under false pretenses,” she said, “I’m afraid we cannot deal in diplomacy.”

  “My pretenses are anything but false,” Prem’s smile did not falter. “I have come as an emissary all the way from Thallaso.”

  “What do you have to do with them?” I said. “And what in the name of the god of dated pop culture references inspired you to use that name?” As soon as I had seen him, I made the connection. Jesse Pinkman was Walter White’s student in Breaking Bad. Prem shouldn’t have even been capable of making that reference. He’d never been on Earth.

  “It was Kevin’s idea, he found it amusing.”

  “Is he here?” My hands clenched into fists.

  “No. As we told you, the former Dark Lord will not be returning to this world. He is undergoing a sort of rehabilitation. My father intends to make him useful, and he has many failures to account for.” Prem’s eyes wandered casually, taking in the thrones and the light streaming in from high windows. “You’re doing well for yourself, as well as we expected. My father’s gift suites you.”

  “Your father?” Esmelda asked, growing pale.

  “This is Prem,” I said, confirming her suspicion. “Calcion’s right hand.”

  She paled but held steady. The eye, naturally, refused to give me any reading on him.

  Esmelda recovered quickly. “You haven’t explained yourself.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” he agreed. “If you can believe it, my arrival here is a favor to you.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Still so little trust. You’ll find that an entity like my father is very attached to oaths and honesty. Words can be twisted, yes, but not broken. At a certain point in our evolution, abiding by rules of one’s own making is all that separates us from the madness of the lower realms.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “Words can be twisted,” I said, “as in, you came from the direction of Thallaso, and you are an emissary, but not theirs.” We’d sent several letters to the island kingdom, hoping to open communications, and the only response we’d gotten was that someone would be arriving when storm season was over. Whatever that meant. This was not that someone.

  “Precisely. Now as to the favor, it is twofold. I am to inform you that Calcion will not seek to enter this realm again for a century under the condition that you do not forsake his gift.”

  “And if I do?”

  “Then Plana will have his full attention,” the statement was quiet, but it carried the weight of the end of the world. “As to the second fold, it is merely a warning. Another great entity has recently taken an interest in this realm. They will likely begin attacking the veil in the eastern sea within the year.”

  “And that has nothing to do with Calcion?” Esmelda snapped. “That’s difficult to believe.”

  “They are not aligned,” Prem tilted his head as if something had suddenly occurred to him. “Though he may have had a hand in its release.”

  “Release?” I said. This conversation was infuriating on several levels, but it wasn’t as if I could beat the answers out of him. For all I knew, Prem was every bit as significant a threat as the kachua had been.

  “I’m told you have encountered it before; an Elder Kulu trapped in a pocket of still time.”

  It had taken the intervention of a goddess to get me out of that mess, and just thinking about it made my heart beat faster. The monster itself, though, had simply been a Kraken, and I’d been much weaker at the time, without allies. How much of a problem could a Kraken be?

  Two pairs of light footsteps drew my attention. Leto and David had entered from behind the dais.

  “You can’t be here,” I told my son.

  “Why?” He complained. “You said I can go anywhere as long as I’m with David.”

  The young-appearing shapeshifter in question stepped forward. His eyes were gold, and he was dressed much like Leto—in a simple vest and comfortable trousers. But he didn’t need armor or weapons. He was a weapon.

  “I don’t like you,” he said to Prem. “You smell like the void.”

  “I’m not here for violence, good Captain,” Prem responded. “We are having a discussion.”

  “Too bad.”

  While I didn’t feel anything from Prem, David’s Presence bloomed suddenly and forcefully enough to make me stagger. Esmelda gasped, but Leto was unaffected. David’s control was fine enough to stop him from accidentally crushing people with the force of his will. He just didn’t bother to coddle heroes.

  The shapeshifter lunged, doubling in size in an instant, his skin turning gray and leathery as claws formed on the ends of his fingertips.

  Prem made a cutting motion with his hand and ripped a portal open behind himself, slipping into it before David could get ahold of him. David slid to a stop at the portal, a slit in space that opened onto swirling green chaos. It closed a moment later.

  “He was going to tell us more,” I said.

  David went from looking like a lithe troll to his original childlike body in a breath. “You shouldn’t talk to him. He’s bad.”

  “I’ll talk to anyone who has information I need.”

  “Nope. Mizu said I’m your mentor, and I say you can’t talk to him.”

  I sighed.

  “Understood.”

  “Great.” David grinned at Leto. “Wanna chase harpies?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Please don’t harass the harpies,” I begged.

  “Justgonnatugontheirfeathersdon’ttalktoevilpeoplewhileI’mgone—” The words were almost as fast as his feet as Leto and David exited the hall.

  “I like that Leto has a friend,” Esmelda said.

  “His friend is hundreds of years old.” On the one hand, I was excited to finally have a mentor, especially as I was approaching a rank-up for my entity status. It was also comforting to know that Mizu hadn’t given up on me, cursed right eye and all. But did it have to be David?

  “He is and isn’t,” Esmelda’s expression sombered. “Regardless, we have had good news today.”

  “How was any of that good news?”

  “A century of peace.”

  “And a Kraken.”

  “Yes,” she laughed. “But you have faced Krakens and worse than Krakens before.”

  “And I’m literally cursed. Calcion wouldn’t give us this grace period if he didn’t think I would become what he wanted on my own.”

  Esmelda set her sword down and took my hand, looking up at me. “You will not be Kevin. You will not be anything they want you to be.”

  “It hasn’t…not affected me.” How I looked at my family and those close to me hadn’t changed. But the eye altered my perspective in ways more subtle than throwing up System screens. Though it was better than having intrusive thoughts about eating people, it was more insidious. Where the corruption of Bedlam had before been like a sickness and a fire, now it was a coldness in my heart that threatened to spread to every part of me.

  “Kevin was alone,” Esmelda said. “He didn’t have anyone because he chose not to have anyone. You have not made that choice. And even if you tried to push me away, I would not go.” Her hand was small and cool in mine.

  My throat tightened. “I’m okay now. I don’t know that I will always be okay.”

  “Whatever comes, we will face it together.”

  Soon there would only be one demon left in Plana. Astaroth was currently recuperating in what had once been Bael’s tower. He’d used up a great deal of his essence in his contest with the kachua, and he might never be as powerful as he had been when I first encountered him. Regardless of his capabilities, I had no doubts about his allegiance, and even Gastard had gravitated toward a reluctant acceptance of the reformed phoenix. David had been dropping hints about obliterating him on principle, but so far, he hadn’t drawn any lines in the sand about Astaroth.

  Even with the demons gone, however, there was work for us to do, and a Kraken was just one more thing on the list. With magic compasses of every variety, I could find every cache and base my predecessors had left behind, providing me with meta-material to work with without returning to Bedlam. There were skills to grind, monsters to slay, and a kingdom to unify.

  What I wanted was to slow down. To stop fighting. To be with my wife and son. And for once, I could be.

  Thallaso was still an open question. They’d quarreled with Kevin and might still see Dargoth as a threat. Torgudai wanted a land grant to compensate for his losses fighting the demons, and King Egard still saw us as enemies. I didn’t even know who the leaders of the other Free Kingdoms were. My eye could make me into a villain, and now I knew Calcion would treat any attempt to remove it as a declaration of war.

  But I had time. Gastard had gotten married and taken Johanna on a wilderness retreat that I could only assume was a less-than-ideal wedding present for a noble’s daughter. She seemed nice, though, and I was happy for them. Godwod was stuck in a gaol somewhere in Drom, and would likely be executed. Not that I was going to spare any sympathy for the former Margrave.

  I took Esmelda into my arms and held her against my chest, grateful that there was no longer armor between us, that I no longer felt the need to live in constant readiness for an attack.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “For what?” Her voice was muffled against me.

  “Everything.”

  A long time ago, in another world, I had made choices that had landed me in a cell. Being separated from normal society and isolated from the people I cared about had changed me. Unsurprisingly, not all those changes had been for the better.

  But I wasn’t in prison anymore. And for all the challenges ahead of me, I was not alone.