Damon came away from the brief meeting with Nysari Keresi not nearly as pleased as he’d expected.

It should have been satisfying for once not bending to the whims of men and women he shouldn’t need to placate. Perhaps it had been how utterly unperturbed that woman had seemed despite his attempts to aggravate her. Or perhaps it was how little he had gleaned from the brief interaction—his main goal in the first place. But since something had itched at his instincts, he’d dismissed the woman early, and not pushed her as hard as he’d intended.

Most likely, it was that he knew he was being childish. There had been little reason not to accept the bribe, and plenty of reasons to avoid irritating a Titled of unknown strength and personality. Especially so near his plans coming to fruition. He had simply been vexed at the unnecessary complication, and for the first time across a long career, had been in a position to dismiss an arrogant woman who had no doubt expected him to bend over to accommodate her.

Ultimately, the disrespect he’d shown wouldn’t result in meaningful consequences. While he might have offended the Keresi family and Nysari in particular, their response wouldn’t come immediately, and thus it wouldn’t matter. In two days—the same deadline he had given Nysari—his venture would either succeed or fail. And failure in proceedings such as these didn’t end with disgrace or embarrassment. Only ruin. One of two extremes: that was what awaited him.

And, on reconsideration, maybe that was the reason he had come away from the meeting annoyed. Despite knowing that the odds were nearly nonexistent he would face consequences for insulting the Keresi to her face, he had hedged his bets. He should have told her that her coin was unwanted, and her presence as well, and thrown her from his guild. Called her apprentice a mongrel as well, simply to goad. Instead, he had gone so far as to leave the door open to accepting her offer. Just in case. That he would give his response in two days, after his fate had been decided.

As much as he wished to put the Keresi woman out of his mind and focus on final preparations, something about her, and the situation, didn’t sit right with him. She had been too taciturn to deduce much, and something had stayed his hand from pressing too hard. He did not, actually, want a furious high-Titled mage storming through his guildhall when a ritual to make the Shattered Oracle shiver in delight neared its finalization deep within the Wardens’ vaults. Too much was on the line. His plans were too important to risk ruining in even the most unlikely of ways.

Unlikely, though? Was it truly a coincidence an unknown Titled had appeared to entangle herself in his business so near the final moments of decades of planning? And through such an unimportant and unrelated loose thread—that beastkin girl that had been nothing but a pointed lesson to his mawkish and wayward daughter.

Perhaps. But perhaps not. The uncertainty, however small, was what set him on edge. A grain of sand could ruin the internals of delicate machinery, and an unknown Titled was no mere grain of sand. Nothing should be beneath his notice at this crucial juncture. It was worth looking into further. Hence he had. Both through meeting the woman herself, and arranging a scrying session with the head of the Keresi family.

Nothing demanded his attention regardless. He was awaiting the Fell Apostate’s work; Damon himself had little role to play until the ritual’s preparations were complete.

Striding out from his office, he tracked down his steward. “The Keresi scrying?” he demanded tersely upon finding the man.

“Primus Mizar Keresi will be available no later than an hour, I was assured,” Archibald responded smoothly. “The scrying table is ready for my lord’s usage. You were requested to make yourself available at your earliest convenience.”

Annoyed, Damon nodded. He had requested the scrying, so it was reasonable that he would be the one to idle near the table until the head of the Keresi family could speak. Still, he disliked waiting upon another person. It grated. Even after so many decades, so much effort, there were seemingly endless figures he had little choice but to bow and scrape to. For all the height he had climbed, he remained so low.

But not for long.

Damon supposed he was fortunate that the demon was present at his estate at all. Mizar Keresi, like nearly all demonic high nobility, often excused himself from his responsibilities for weeks if not months at a time, delving deep in the wilderness pursuing level advancement.

He wrinkled his nose at the idea. There was a reason demonic society was so chaotic and disorganized, always at one another’s throats, and it wasn’t simply because of the deadliness of their lands. A noble could make for a fine warrior, but not all fine warriors made for proper nobility. Calling down heaven’s wrath or cleaving a building in two did not, somehow, grant the ability to manage an estate, levy taxes, or organize a functioning society. Administrative tasks could be delegated, yes, but a head of house needed strong judgment to determine who was worth delegating to. A lord needed skill in leading men, not simply into battle, but in all matters. That those savages survived at all was impressive considering the battle lust and lack of political savviness—except in the bloodthirstiest sense—that so many of their high nobility possessed.

Striding through the guildhall—his irritation growing that he needed to deal with this unwanted development at all—he descended into the vault and headed for the scrying table. As Archibald had promised, the smooth, liquid-silver surface had adopted the image of the interior of some opulent waiting room within the Keresi estate. A demonic woman on standby noticed him, and they exchanged the necessary frivolities. He was assured that Primus Mizar Keresi would be there shortly.

A lie, he discovered. He waited for nearly an hour. He was seething when the man finally appeared. The emotion touched neither his face nor voice. He had long experience masking his true thoughts.

Primus Keresi strode into sight, and the first thing Damon noticed, as anyone would, was that the man was shirtless and his torso, arms, and face were smeared with blood.

“Apologies, Duke Caldimore,” the tall, bone-white man boomed, uncaring that he was presenting himself in such an indecorous manner. “The duel went longer than expected. Tenacious boy. Wouldn’t stay down. Perhaps I’ll consider that promotion after all!” He laughed raucously.

If this had been a lord from the human lands, Damon would have assumed the display a calculated way to throw him off, or intimidate him. In reality, Primus Keresi likely found nothing strange about meeting a high-ranking foreign noble shirtless and covered in blood, laughing about beating one of his subordinates to a pulp. That whole continent was insane. He was glad he’d never visited.

“It is of no concern, Primus,” Damon lied. “I thank you for meeting on such short notice. As I’m sure you’re aware, I wouldn’t have reached out if I didn’t find the matter of sufficient importance.”

Primus Keresi paused, amusement slipping from his face and morphing into concern. As if only now realizing: of course. A human Duke would only contact a demonic house so suddenly for events of rather significant substance. Along with being insane, the entirety of demonic society—from what he’d seen and heard—was as intelligent as the ground they tread upon. Damon could only assume it came from the repeated head trauma spawned from their systems of constant dueling, and their expectations to be ruthlessly climbing ever higher the ladder of advancement.

“I see,” Primus Keresi said, expression much graver now. “What is it I may aid you with, Duke Caldimore?”

Despite how the man was ostensibly taking the meeting more seriously, he continued idly wiping himself down with a towel, staining the white linen red. Cleaning himself while discussing potential matters of state with a foreign Duke…Damon suppressed a look of disgust. The Primus didn’t seem to find the behavior inappropriate in the slightest.

Savages. That their ruling class called themselves nobility rather than the reality of warlords offended his sensibilities. Official source is novel fire.net

Nevertheless, he held some amount of respect for the man. Demons held by far the highest average level among the common races. Though dwarfed twenty times over or more by population, humanity barely equaled their numbers in Titled. Savages they might be, Damon acknowledged Mizar’s—and his people’s—strength.

“A member of the Keresi family appeared in Meridian earlier this week,” Damon said, launching into the explanation without preamble. “And by happenstance we were forced into minor conflict. Of course, I saw fit to reach out to the head of your esteemed house to confirm that this woman is who she says she is—she did have a seal, and it did not appear to be a forgery—and to assure you I am taking steps to come to an amiable conclusion. I would not want to offend a house of the First Blood, especially one I have had cordial dealings with in the past.”

Obviously, those weren’t Damon’s true intentions for scrying the Primus. He was fishing for information on a matter that had raised his proverbial hackles. Mizar Keresi could choke on his own blood for all he cared.

The demon paused. “A Keresi? In Meridian?” He looked confused, searching his thoughts. That a member of high nobility would wear his emotions so plainly provoked another wave of revulsion, and naturally, not so much as a muscle in Damon’s eye twitched. He, after all, knew how to hold himself in the manner of someone deserving his title.

“Indeed. A woman that has not been seen for some time, by my understanding. On a long training sabbatical. Nysari Keresi. Third daughter to your brother, yes?”

All expression melted off Mizar Keresi’s face. His red eyes snapped to Damon in pure, unbridled shock. He froze with an arm halfway raised in the process of scrubbing it of blood, and it would have been an undignified enough position to bring forth even more disdain from Damon, but not now. Because the Primus’s reaction went far beyond what he had expected. Why did he look so utterly dumbfounded?

“Nysari. Nysari Keresi is in Meridian?” the man demanded. “You are certain of this? Her seal was verified?”

“By my own assistant,” Damon said slowly, caught off guard by the intensity of his tone.

The demon stared at him. Only after several seconds of his mouth working soundlessly did his arm drop.

“I see.” His eyes sharpened on Damon. “And you are in conflict?” He nearly growled the words. “How so? Explain yourself, human.”

The idle, uncaring Primus in an ostensibly humorous mood was gone. His voice, and posture, signaled nothing but intense aggression. He’d tossed aside the towel to stomp up and grip the edges of the scrying table.

It was a telling reaction. But telling of what? Damon had no idea. Had Nysari been assumed dead, and thus this was far more significant news than he’d thought? Was she a favored scion of the Keresi household? That felt fitting to the reaction. A favorite of Primus Mizar’s specifically? Sentimental of the man if so, but hardly strange.

But even that didn’t seem to fit perfectly. The shift in attitude suggested something else—or something more. Mizar hadn’t seemed overly bothered that he was in conflict with a Keresi until he’d specified Nysari. Why?

“A minor matter, and only through proxy, not with the woman herself. I assure you,” Damon said, internally frowning as his thoughts rushed forward. “She has taken an apprentice, apparently, and that young woman is the source of grievance. We are not at odds ourselves, so to speak.”

Mizar reeled back, and, bizarrely, focused on what Damon would have thought was a rather irrelevant detail. “She’s taken an apprentice? Who?”

What were these reactions? What did they mean? Damon understood that Nysari had been a promising member of this house, and had recently climbed even higher, to the point she might rival Mizar himself in level now. But even with that context, he was missing something. Why would this man be so shocked that Nysari had taken an apprentice? He seemed genuinely floored. Astounded. Had seemed so at just the mention of Nysari, too.

Damon considered his response. Normally, he would avoid lying to foreign high nobility for such an inconsequential matter. But with his plans coming to fruition, recklessness on such a small scale fazed him little. He would have lied if he thought it useful.

In this instance, however, a truthful answer seemed like it might yield more information. “A young woman who was expelled from the Institute for assaulting my daughter. They met in the north and traveled to Meridian together.”

“Who?” the man demanded. “Her name, human. What is her name?”

Damon stopped his eyes from narrowing. “Some orphaned commoner of moderate talent and irrelevant family name. I assure you that neither you nor any other would recognize her.”

“An orphaned commoner?” His brow furrowed, and finally he remembered what Damon had said earlier. “One who…assaulted your daughter?” He sounded bewildered.

“Indeed.”

The Primus stared at him through the scrying table for a long moment. Finally, he shook his head to clear it. A serious, unyielding expression settled on his face, and his jaw tightened. “I am unsure how Nysari has been occupying her time recently. But in all matters, House Keresi stands behind her. You will accommodate her, or face the full might of our collective ire, Damon Caldimore. I swear this on my honor.”

Damon passively watched the man. In another circumstance, he might have been intimidated. That was a significantly harsher rebuke than he’d expected. Even for a famously blunt and hotheaded demonic house, it was disproportionately aggressive.

“We have all but settled matters amiably already, Primus,” Damon lied. “I merely contacted you to confirm that she is who she says she is, and, as an act of good faith, to keep the head of the Keresi family informed.”

The demon relaxed slightly, though seemed far from pleased. “She is, so long as her seal identified her. And good. You are wise to act in such a way. That is all I will say on this matter. I—must go. I have business to attend to.”

Damon got the sense that said business had come about because of what he had just revealed to the man. Clearly, Mizar hadn’t known Nysari was in Meridian…or perhaps alive at all? Did he know that she had ascended several hundred levels since leaving the demon lands at the end of the Cataclysm Wars? That she was likely high-Titled now, or certainly well beyond the thousand-level-mark?

He was pleased, at least, that he had listened to his instincts and scried the Primus. Knowing that he lacked information was many times better than being clueless about such. He could account for the fog of war; ignorance of one’s ignorance, however, spelled doom.

“Thank you for your time, Primus.”

“You as well, Duke Caldimore.” The demon’s words were curt, despite Damon’s repeated attempts at friendliness. He noted that quite pointedly. The demonic man was frowning at him as he cut off the scrying spell.

The mere implication that Damon had been at odds with Nysari had offended the Primus. Deeply. Why?

Before, Damon’s instincts had merely suggested that something was off—a slight prickling of unease. Now, his skin all but crawled.

Perhaps he would be accelerating his plans. He no longer felt like he was on steady footing.