They arrived in advance of dawn, the castle rising from the mist like some monster that had grown up out of shadow. The path from the gate to the middle courtyard long and bordered with statues whose faces had been rubbed smooth by years. Torches blazed, casting thin wisps of blue flame up the stone. There was the acrid scent of cold and ancient blood, and woodsmoke that never managed to leave.
Oban's legs were heavy with lead weights. Each step was heftier than the last. The shield had cost him more than he wished to count. His hands still smarted with that hollow tingle, the sensation of emptying something of himself into thin air until there was nothing left to grasp hold of. He dressed his wounds as well as he could with a tightly wrapped cloth and pressed on.
Allisa walked alongside him, back stiff as a ramrod. She said nothing by way of gratitude. She did not smile. She didn't smile often. When she did talk, it was brief.
"You used the shield," she told him. Her voice was level, no-nonsense. "Rescued the team. If you'd faltered, we'd have been toast."
Oban winced like a man who had been shaken by truth. He wished to speak something that was equal to praise. Rather, he nodded. "I did what was necessary."
She searched him for a moment of silence. "That is not the same as being ready," she said. "You learned cost. You need to learn boundary."
He gazed at the rock under his boots. "I know."
They proceeded through the arched gate. Guards saluted spears dropped; no questions were asked. The escaped shadows had already proceeded through the gate into the private passages ahead. No names. No long goodbyes. One taken off to be cured, another to a bed, another to a chamber where their eyes would be warded and their stories told. The castle did not allow sentiment.
The trek from the gate to the council hall had never been short. It gave people time to think, if they needed to think. Oban counted his breath on the stairs. He tried to count his losses and his small victories. The Nightblade rested at his hip like a promise he had not asked for.
Halfway down the long corridor, as they went by a row of statues of death masks, something caught his eyes — the silver-blue shine that appeared out of nowhere and into view. The system was noticed, not loudly but clearly, and the air against his skull felt like the back of someone's cold hand had been pressed upon it.
[Daily Reward]
Received: Blood Manipulation — Phase 3
Coins Awarded: 1000
Note: Phase 3 unleashes further powers: use blood as energy source; use curses and bindings; create weapons and shield structures; enchant spells with blood-sealed runes. Use with care: overuse drains life force.
Oban blinked. The panel dispersed, his eyes throbbing as if he had been wrenched too violently from a dream. He was full of a new feeling running through his bloodstream — not a roar as it had before, but a constricted flow that vibrated with potential. It did not feel like a toy. It felt like a tool and a warning.
Allisa didn't let him get a chance to wonder. She kept walking, step firm. "Good," she said bluntly. "Now you have something else to contend with."
He picked up the edge in her words — not anger, but warning of peril. "I'll be careful," he told her. The words felt inadequate.
"You will watch," she said to him. "Not to discipline. To live." Her eyes slashed at him for a moment like the rasp of steel cutting through flesh. "Learn what this means before you use it out of fear or anger."
Oban swallowed. He had both, and he knew the system must have given the gift to him at the worst and best time: after he'd bled for others, before the council would ask him questions. The coin value flitted into his mind's eye — small metal pieces that would buy favors, provisions, anything the castle could not easily provide. Handy. Cruel.
They covered the last distance in a stitched silence. Great doors to the council hall had been flung open for them. The elders stood waiting outside, a ring of old faces and solemn eyes. Aijack's shadow cut the far wall like a figure that'd been carved from the darkness itself.
The guards parted. Allisa stepped forward and saluted with the neat, formal movement of one who had learned manners as a skill.
"Aijack," she said. "We have returned."
Aijack's face did not shift. He raised his hand for quiet, and the room held its breath.
"Allisa," he said slowly. "Report."
She talked like she was reading a book of accounts. She did not touch it with color or drama. She recounted who had moved, how Yuji had shown up, how the barrier had held fast, how they had used the key, how the prisoners had been restored. She recounted the mage had witnessed them vanish with laughter. Her words were tidy, each one weighing out like steps.
Oban watched Aijack when Allisa addressed them. The elder sat in silence, his face expressionless, but his eyes flicked to the younger faces when the mage's laughter was mentioned. Aijack's hands were folded, unfolded; his knuckles were white against the torchlight.
When Allisa was done, there was silence. Gentle whispers came and went like winter breath through branches. The council looked at each other. Klein cleared his throat, gravelly.
"Killing him out of hand is one option," Klein said. "If we besiege the Mage Tower, there'll be war."
"Do we want war?" another elder growled. "Once the world of the living realizes that we can no longer conceal ourselves, all is altered."
Aijack left that hanging. He looked at Allisa, then Oban.
"You used your blood as a shield," he said tightly. "That is an art of risk. It is ancient and it slices. You shed blood for it. Are you damaged?"
"No," Oban said. His voice firmed when he met Aijack's eyes. "I held. I will keep holding."
Aijack's eyes narrowed. "And yet the mage knows where we keep our people. He will probe. He will test. We must move or plug up the hole."
Another of the elders was younger and quicker with his mind. He spoke what few dared say aloud. "We can take the initiative. Strike at his laboratories. Make him know what it is to violate our blood."
Aijack raised his hand next, slow and final. "No. Not yet. We are not ready to introduce the world of the living to all of the teeth that we have." He spoke in cold tones. "We do not want a fire. We need to contain the flame."
People nodded but not forcibly. The room felt smaller.
"Allisa," Aijack went on, "you know the city and the way it stinks late at night. What do you recommend?
She didn't blink. She ordered patrols and watch postings and wards to be rotated. She suggested squads to chart the mage positions and small raids to put their mettle to the test. She spoke of quiet moves, of pawns and whispers, not swords and fire. Her plan was a spider's web — a tiny one, a close one, one that would sting and then be gone.
Aijack listened to her and then swung to Oban. "You are new," he said, not harshly. "You will not call strikes outside the walls. You will train. You will learn to restrain yourself. I need you strong, not a hero."
Allisa's jaw locked tight like a drawn bowstring. She had said the same herself. "He will learn," she said. "If he wants.".
Klein's voice broke in then. "And what if he is not? What if he becomes hungry for the ring of his own sword?
"You will see him," Aijack directed. "We will see him. He will be bonded. Allisa will take a small group into Lumeris again, quietly. Kael and Mira will go with them. Darius will provide the enforcer when needed. Seren will handle locks and seals." He was quiet and looked at Oban. "You will go with them."
Oban's gut churned. The room spun around him. His breath caught. He had not expected to be recalled so soon. He had expected to be ordered to rest, to mend what had been cut from him. Instead, the elders wanted him returned to Allisa's personal care.
Allisa inclined her head as if his presence was something to be utilized. "He will prove useful," she said. "And he will learn to hold without being lost."
Aijack's look was brief and heavy. "You will not endanger your hosts. You will not use any power after my leave." He spoke to Oban as a man who had soothed much wild stuff. "Do you understand?
Yes," Oban answered without hesitation.
Aijack's hand fell. "Good. Then we tread stealthily. We send two small contingents this evening. One to patrol the borders. The other to weave false strands to the Mage Guild and draw their eyes away. If the mage attacks, we counter. No more public arrest. No more idiotic openings."
Nods small sent ripples through the hall like a sluggish tide.
A younger elder moved forward, forehead furrowed in worry. "What of the health of the prisoners? The ones we've brought home? They speak of experiments. We cannot hand them over to menders without protection."
Allisa answered before the others could: "They are in our custody. They will be protected. Their wounds and their recollections will be tended. But we will not keep them in goggles. We will not display them."
Silence fell again, dark and unyielding. The plot had teeth. It had corners. It exacted little deaths and little trust. That was the way of ancient things.
Oban said nothing more. He was tired in a way that went beyond the body. It lay deep, under the flesh of his brain. The coin in his pocket — the thousand given to him by the system — hummed somehow empty. Goods could be bought with cash. It could not buy the things that were already hollow.
When the council broke up, humans drifted away in knotted groups. Allisa did not sleep. She stacked lists and maps and names and numbers like a spider accumulates threads. She placed a small hand on Oban's shoulder. Not a thank you. A fact.
"Pack light," she told him. "We leave at sundown. Be ready to move silently. Keep your head free."
He nodded.
He slept in a tiny room with a window shuttered that night. The Nightblade came in handy. He rolled the elders' faces around in his head — the tactics of stealth, the command to keep his new power on the down low. He weighed Aijack's demeanor and Allisa's flat commendation, and he knew the world was going to just keep on giving him choices and he was going to keep on having to decide.
As morning broke, it would be with something more than light. It would be with a test. He had his knife, the new ability thrumming at the edges of his blood, and the understanding that he could not use it where and when he pleased. He would be watched. He would be made useful. He would have to hang on.
He felt around in the dark and discovered the hilt of the sword by feeling it as a man feels the shoulder of a buddy.
"Tomorrow," he said to the sword, said to the system, said to himself, "I make good on my vow."
He had no idea how many vows.