The morning after meeting Tamrie’s mum, I was feeling surprisingly peppy. More than once, I found myself a few inches off the ground even when I didn’t mean to be. Definitely not related to how we ended our evening.

I wasn’t the only one having trouble obeying gravity that morning, since Bevel was floating over the breakfast table, siphoning a stream of dried fruits and granola up and around her into her mouth.

“You know, I feel like I should probably be asking you not to do that,” I said even as I joined her for breakfast. “Though I can’t say exactly what about it is wrong.”

“Morning Papa,” Bevel said, the next few bites of her food left orbiting above and below her as she stopped chomping it down long enough to greet me.

I chuckled before tucking into my own gravity bound food. Over breakfast, Bevel revealed that she was going to be working with Inertia and Equilibrium for the day. “Tresla feels bad for Oltras. She said he had a nervous breakdown yesterday. So, they want my help to fix up his Peace blade, on account of me being so good at feeling the smoke.”

“Equilibrium, huh? So that’s the big one’s name?”

“It’s more like ‘the ever shifting equilibrium that leads to balance produces strife as a natural result’,” Bevel clarified in between mouthfuls of her orbiting breakfast. “He’s super nice! It was his idea to make the Powerful Artifact of Peaceful Annihilation.”

“Uh… that sounds like a bomb. You didn’t mention making a bomb,” I said, giving her another look over. And nope. Nothing bomb-like.

Well, other than Bevel herself, but that didn’t count.

“It’s the name of my blade,” Bevel explained, cheeks red.

“That… okay,” I said, chuckling softly. “Powerful Artifact of Peaceful Annihilation, huh? Good name. Like the juxtaposition.”

“Thanks, Papa,” Bevel said with a smirk, making me wonder what I was missing. Dismissing it, I went back to my breakfast as we chatted about what she might change when we did a redesign of her ‘Powerful Artifact’.

Tamrie joined us a short time later, leaning contentedly against my side, stealing from my bowl while listening to us talk. I quietly refilled my bowl knowing there was no point getting her a bowl of her own.

After breakfast we left Bevel with Tresla, who promised to keep an eye on Bevel and Inertia while the rest of us went to meet the Vox Knights.

Our meeting was in a little taverna in one of the middle holds. It was the most Earth-like restaurant I’d been in on Ro’an, with printed menus, condiments on the table, and even a patio for watching the street. It felt almost exactly like the diner down the street from the old shop, Smiley’s Steaks.

The steaks were terrible, but the rest was good.

Had only ever gone there after the old man had passed, but it’d quickly become one of the few places I felt comfortable spending time outside the shop.

At first, I thought we’d beaten the Vox Knights to the meeting. Then I saw a pair of people sitting towards the back of the room.

The man I didn’t recognize, but the woman was unfortunately familiar. Didn’t bode well that they’d sent the same woman who’d taken part in Kallum’s assault. While she hadn’t killed any of our people herself, she’d certainly set up many of them to die.

She was still dressed in the same ensemble she’d been wearing when I first met her, though I realized the wide brimmed hat, leather gloves and neatly tailored suit were actually a very deep burgundy instead of the black I’d thought they were the first time I’d seen her.

Calbern led the way through the taverna, though Tamrie and I were only a step behind.

“By the thirteen, you’re actually serious about this,” the woman said as we approached, her dark eyes sweeping over us. “Thought for sure this one was pulling our legs, as a way of tugging our chain.”

“Vexna,” the larger man said, his tone flat. He was also wearing a deep burgundy suit, leather gloves and a wide brimmed hat. And he was a big man. At least a head taller than me. “We agreed I would handle this.”

“Ah Vexith, it’ll be fine. Not like they’re gonna be scared off by my tongue wagging at this point,” the woman, apparently Vexna, replied.

“She’s right about that, at least,” I said, keeping my gaze locked with his.

He had dark eyes in a surprisingly weathered face and a nose that looked to have been broken repeatedly, then left to heal without any magic to ensure it’d set right. There was also a jagged scar running along the underside of his throat. Considering how easily both could be removed for a few Waves, it was obvious he was attached to his scars.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

“Well, you’ve sought us out, you should at least sit,” the man said after a couple seconds. “I am Vox Knight Vexith, commander of the first chapter of Vox. My companion, whom you’ve already had the displeasure of meeting, is-”

“I can speak for myself, old man,” Vexna interjected, shooting us a smirk and earning a long suffering sigh from Vexith. “I’m Vox Knight Vexna, commander of the thirteenth chapter. And I’m also curious. Why did you choose the Vox Knights to train your guards when you have a Knight Exemplar?”

“I’m afraid my skillset does not extend to the training and building up of mortals,” Calbern said, inclining his head in the direction of Vexith. “It is well known that the Vox Knights have a great deal of experience in this field.”

“Since we take in every battlefield orphan that crosses our paths, you mean?” Vexna asked, leaning back and pulling free a dagger etched with red runes from her belt, using it to pick at the edge of the table.

“Just so,” Calbern replied tightly.

“How many do you wish for us to teach?” Vexith asked while gesturing to the seats across from them.

I accepted, Tamrie silently slipping into the seat on my right while Calbern sat on my left. Before we’d even settled, a server came by, dropping off wooden cups filled with water and the plastic menus I’d seen at other tables.

The water was faintly citrusy, though not lemon. I set my cup back on the table after taking a single sip, answering Vexith’s question with one of my own. “That depends. How many people are you willing to train?”

At that Vexith’s face split into a wide smile. “Well, the first company is quite capable. We will have no trouble training a hundred men over the next six months.”

“Only a hundred, huh?” I said, leaning back.

His grin cracked, and Vexna slammed her dagger into the table, pointing at me. “Ha, Vexith, I told you not to underestimate them. They took down a Pegasus Shaper and stopped his boss from resurrecting him.”

“We could train more,” Vexith said, ignoring Vexna. “Though I would not be able to guarantee their quality. And this I will not do.”

“On that, at least, we agree,” Vexna said, her humor suddenly gone. “Even if you were to get all thirteen chapters involved, we’d barely be able to train fifteen hundred every six months.”

“And you will not be able to do that much,” Vexith clarified before I could say that’d be more than enough, shaking his head. “In three months, we may be able to get another chapter to join us, but the others… they have their own problems to attend to, with the war as it is. Very few would survive the trip from the west.”

“So, between the two of you, that’s two hundred trained guards every six months? What sort of cost are we talking?”

“Normally, we would ask for Waves,” Vexith said, spreading his hands wide. “But we have heard that High Shaper Thozgar has taken a personal interest in you.”

“That’s not a common thing, much as he likes to walk around his city and play pauper,” Vexna said, pointing her dagger at me.

Both Calbern and Tamrie shifted, but I just crossed my arms. Wasn’t like she was actually threatening me.

Vexith shot her a glare, then continued, “As I was saying. The old man’s taken a personal interest. Which means he doesn’t think you’re as doomed as the rest of the rabble scrabbling to find their own piece of land. If we do this thing, we want a place of our own. An academy to teach Vox Knights, not guardsmen.”

“That is…” Calbern trailed off, looking between them. “Do you have enough resources to help so many ascend?”

No reason to tell them that thanks to Tender, we had more than enough resources ourselves. Before we’d left, there were over two hundred Tethered who were more than ten percent of the way to their second tier of body reinforcement.

And Nexxa should’ve been marching them down while we were gone, so by the time we got back, it should be up to fifteen percent.

“That isn’t something we share with-”

Vexna cut him off, tapping the edge of her dagger on the table. “For the first rank, yeah. A hundred every six months, as we said, for the next two years. Longer, if we can get the flowers to bloom. Heard you’ve got greenhouses that might help with that.”

“You aren’t just promising to train our people. You want to make them into Vox Knights,” I said, leaning back in surprise. “That’s… not sure how I feel about that.”

“It is… rather unusual,” Calbern said, his eyebrow tilted up by a degree.

“We lost a lot to those damned Bladesingers and their Final Refrain,” Vexna said, slamming the dagger into the table again. I noted the earlier damage she’d caused had already faded. The enchantment to repair the table must’ve been buried deep, cause there was no external sign of it, despite its effects being highly visible.

“Even so, I thought the Vox Knights maintained no more than twenty per chapter, and even that was at your upper limits,” Calbern said, looking between the two of them with a flick of his eyes.

“There are… extenuating circumstances,” Vexith said, flexing his large hands.

Vexna tapped her dagger against the edge of the table as she added, “What the big guy’s not saying, is that we can’t afford to wait. We’re not gonna haggle on the price. We need that academy, and we need it last week.”

“A building and the land it goes on,” I said, looking towards Tamrie. She nodded. It wasn’t exactly a difficult task, though it would’ve been easier to pull off back when I had near-unlimited mana. “And in exchange, you’d train a hundred of our people to become Vox Knights, each.”

“That’s the deal,” Vexna said, smiling.

“That’s the deal? So no negotiating at all?” I asked. They shared a glance, then shook their heads. “Well, in that case, I’m going to have to refuse.”

While the looks on their faces was somewhat amusing, I hadn’t declined their offer for anything so petty as the price.

It was much simpler than that. They wanted to train Vox Knights.

Vox Knights were mercenaries.

They weren’t guardsmen, not defenders.

They might be honorable ones, but that just meant you’d see the blade coming after they’d been bought.

“Wait!” Vexna cried, moving so fast I could barely track her.

By the time she was standing in front of me, Calbern had drawn his blade. Not only had he drawn it, he was holding it to her throat.

A fact that clearly alarmed her, by the way her brows shot up. Still, she managed to push past her shock. “Maybe… maybe there’s a little room to negotiate.”