The ambient temperature of the suite was controlled at a precise twenty degrees Celsius.
Yet, I was burning.
A localized heat source was pressing against the front of my body. A weight was settled comfortably in my arms.
My eyes snapped open.
The first thing I saw was the back of a blond head.
Kael.
He had not stayed on his side of the mattress.
During the night, he had migrated and crawled backward, pressing his spine firmly against my abdomen, tucking his head under my chin, and pulling my arm over his chest like a heavy blanket.
He had turned me into a heater.
I froze.
The inefficiency was staggering. The audacity was infinite.
"EXPLAIN YOURSELF," I said.
My voice was not a morning groak. It was a crack of thunder that shattered the silence of the room.
I applied a kinetic vector to his shoulder blade. Kael tumbled out of the embrace and rolled to the edge of the bed, blinking rapidly as he woke up.
"Master?" he mumbled, his voice thin with sleep.
"Stand Up!" I commanded, sitting up and buttoning my shirt with aggressive, violent movements.
The room stirred.
On the third bed, Prince Valerian shifted. He looked delighted.
He propped himself up on one elbow, his silk sleeping robe slipping off a shoulder, watching the domestic chaos with a grin that threatened to split his face.
"Morning, Father," Valerian drawled. "I see the 'Luggage' unpacks itself at night."
I ignored the Prince. My glare was fixed on Kael, who was sitting on the floor, looking up at me with wide, confused blue eyes.
"You," I pointed a finger at him. "You were in my personal perimeter. You were... nesting."
"I was cold," Kael said.
His defense was simple as if it explained everything.
"The temperature dropped. You were warm... I... migrated."
He looked at his hands, then back at me, a flicker of innocent hurt crossing his face.
"It was clinging!" I snapped. "I am not a radiator, Kael. I am your Commander. There is a hierarchy. There is a protocol!"
I stood up, walking to him. I drew an invisible circle in the air with my finger.
"Spatial Autonomy," I lectured, my voice rising. "Rule number one! You do not enter a one-meter radius of my person unless ordered. You do not touch my body. You certainly do not use me as a pillow."
He stand up, taking one step forward, "But I…"
"There is No 'But', Kael! " I raised my voice so high it felt like tearing my lungs apart.
Kael froze dropping to his knees, everyone's breath hitched.
Lowering his head, tears started to flowing from his blue eyes.
"Understood… Master." With broken voice he said.
"I do not want 'understood'," I hissed. "I want calibration. If you breach the perimeter again, You will be dismissed and never be allowed to come close to Me! Do we have clarity?"
"Yes… Master..." He sobbed.
"Good."
Silence reigned in the room for seconds; only the heavy breaths of Kael, who was trying to suppress his crying, were audible.
…
"Oh, don't be so harsh on him," Valerian whispered, swinging his legs out of bed and breaking the mood. "The boy is devoted. It's almost... touching. In a terrifying, obsession-based way."
I shot the Prince a look that would have withered a lesser man. "Do not romanticize a malfunction, Valerian."
"My Lord!" Malakor scrambled up from the second bed where he had been sleeping. "Forgive him! He is young! He does not know the sanctity of the Divine… Priest!"
"Silence, Malakor. Order breakfast."
I turned away from Kael.
My gaze landed on the corner of the room.
Eugan Aldwulf.
The noble was awake. He was still tied, huddled in the fetal position. He flinched when my eyes landed on him.
He looked wrecked. His fine clothes were wrinkled, his face stained with dried tears.
He was waiting for punishment, for orders, to be told what he was.
"And you," I sighed.
I walked over to him.
Eugan trembled. "Your... Reverence..."
"Untie him, Kael."
Kael moved slowly—maintaining the one-meter gap from me—and sliced the ropes with a small knife he pulled from his boot.
Eugan rubbed his wrists. He stayed on his knees, looking up at me with the eyes of a beaten dog waiting for a kick.
He was eager. He wanted the chains and the simplicity of servitude.
I looked at him.
Yesterday, I had planned to use him, to break him into a perfect servant.
But this morning...
I felt a wave of profound boredom.
The effort of molding a broken psyche seemed suddenly tedious. Inefficient. Why waste energy fixing a toy that was already shattered?
"Stand up," I said.
Eugan stood, shaky and uncertain.
"Go."
Eugan blinked. "Go? Where?"
"Away," I waved my hand dismissively. "I have lost interest."
Eugan froze.
He looked at the door. Then he looked back at me. A look of devastation crossed his face.
He hadn't been punished nor he had been enslaved. He had been discarded.
To a man like Eugan, who defined his worth by his place in a hierarchy—even a bottom place—being ignored was the ultimate destruction.
"I..." Eugan swallowed hard. His lip quivered.
He looked like a creature who realized he wasn't good enough to be kept.
"We will certainly meet again, Eugan Aldwulf," I said, turning my back on him. "Though I doubt you will be the same man."
"Thank you," he whispered.
The words were twisted, mangled by a psyche that didn't know how to process the rejection.
Eugan bowed—a jerky, broken movement—and fled the room.
The door clicked shut.
"Cruel," Valerian noted, watching the door. "You didn't break his body. You broke his narrative."
"I Always hated inefficient emotions," I stated boldly, walking to the window to look at the weeping grey sky.
"Why does everyone around me have such twisted feelings? Desires. Fears. Attachments. It is messy. It is Weakness."
I rubbed my temples.
Bzzt.
The air in the room shimmered.
It was a glitch.
I felt a sharp, sudden pressure at the base of my skull—not pain, but an adjustment. Like a page being rewritten in a book while I was still reading it.
The Law of Probability had heard my complaint. It analyzed the statement against the persona I had built.
The static cleared. The history of the vessel shifted slightly. I felt a memory settle into my mind—not mine, but a fabrication of the universe—of the "past" Father Mollian lecturing a deacon on the inefficiency of crying.
"You haven't changed a bit in that regard, Father," Valerian said, pouring himself a glass of water.
He nodded, his eyes distant as if recalling a memory that hadn't existed five seconds ago.
"I remember you yelling at the High Bishop during the Winter Solstice. 'Tears are just saltwater leaking from a compromised pressure vessel,' you said. The court was scandalized. I thought it was brilliant."
I paused.
The Universe was getting faster at editing. It was terrifying. And convenient.
"The Bishop was leaking," I said smoothly, accepting the new history. "It was unsightly."
Breakfast arrived.
Malakor had ordered a feast, but the atmosphere was heavy.
Kael ate standing up, exactly one meter and two centimeters away from me.
Valerian ate with royal grace, watching us like we were a theater troupe performing for his amusement.
"I must depart," Valerian announced, wiping his mouth with a linen napkin.
The Royal Guard opened the door.
"My father... the King... will likely hear of your return soon," Valerian said, adjusting his crimson robes. "And the Arch-Mage. The 'Master of Divine Archives' coming back to audit the city? It will stir the nest."
He smiled, a sharp, excited expression.
"I look forward to the chaos, Father."
He bowed deep to me and swept out of the room.
The door closed and the silence returned.
I walked to the window. The breakfast sat heavy in my stomach.
"Malakor," I said.
"Yes, My Lord?"
"I have been in the Zonia for less than two days," I murmured, watching the black needle of the Magic-Spire pulsing in the distance.
"We have acquired a sentient Ring, killed gangsters and rewritten the memories of a Prince."
I looked at my reflection in the glass. A pale priest with eyes that looked too ancient for his face.
"If this continues, In a few days, the entire Empire will be knocking on this door."
"Things have escalated out of control," I stated.