"Thirty silver!"
"Fifty silver!"
"One hundred silver!"
"Oh! We got a gold for the cow! Lady Benereth really was one lucky cow!"
Keiser leaned against the cool stone wall of the alleyway, arms crossed, watching Lenko gleefully count the earnings. The boy had chosen this little nook--just behind the main road of the village--as the perfect spot to tally their gains.
Lenko sat perched on a low crate, coin pouch in his lap, eyes glittering as if every coin was a personal victory. He recited each sale aloud like they'd just looted a dragon's hoard, his voice carrying that unshakable enthusiasm only youth and ignorance could manage. Like how he managed to barter and barter against those poor folks just doing their business.
The day played out in Keiser's mind like a series of mismatched memories.
Lenko standing in the middle of the marketplace, one foot propped dramatically on the edge of a trough, holding up a goose with both hands like a sacred relic. "Purebred! She answers to the name Milady Feathers! A goose of refined taste, eats only the finest bugs--yours for forty silver!"
Haggling with a grim-faced shepherd over a ram. Lenko leaned so close their foreheads almost touched, rattling off a passionate speech about the ram's 'battlefield instincts' and 'heroic lineage.' The shepherd caved, handing over the coins while muttering something about 'mad children and their cursed tongues.'
A small crowd gathered as Lenko strode in with a piglet under his arm, declaring, "Behold! Sir Snortington, fastest pig in the eastern provinces! If he doesn't outrun your neighbor's dog, I'll give you half your silver back!" The deal closed in less than a minute, and Keiser was fairly certain the villager's dog was missing a leg.
Finally, the coup de grace. Lady Benereth the cow, paraded around the village square with a wreath of wildflowers around her horns. Lenko spun a tragic tale about her 'widowhood' after her mate was lost in a tragic mudslide--no such mudslide existed. By the end of it, a teary-eyed merchant handed over a gold coin like he was rescuing royalty.
Back in the alley, Lenko tossed another handful of coins into the growing pile with a smug flourish.
"That," he declared, "is how a man works for his supper."
Keiser just raised a brow. "You mean how a boy talks for his supper."
Lenko grinned. "Same thing."
Earlier that morning, Lenko had been the tragic hero of his own countryside ballad. Shoulders slumped, jaw tight, trudging through the field with the livestock in tow like a soldier leading his troops to a war they would not return from.
Keiser half-expected a single, noble tear when it came time to part with the horse--Sir Mckenzy, was it? The way Lenko gripped the rope, you'd think the animal was being marched to the gallows. He even gave the gelding one last pat, murmuring something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, 'Be good for them. Bite everyone else.'
Keiser hadn't planned to sell everything. Just a Chicken or two, maybe some supplies--enough to keep them fed until they found a wagon or a way to cross the next few villages on their road to the capital. Something practical.
But Lenko, apparently, had entered the day with a belief, 'If it lives, it sells.'
Keiser hadn't stopped him. Let the boy do as he pleased. This wasn't truly his life--he was still adjusting to it. Still learning the strange rhythm of this borrowed body, the tension that lived in his muscles like a permanent guest, the quiet ache in his bones that woke with him each morning. He was still figuring out where Muzio ended and where he began.
At least now they had coins. Enough to move forward.
And they would move forward.
No matter how unfamiliar the path felt under his boots, Keiser intended to walk it to the end.
Still, as they left the Sheol border that morning, he'd already felt it--the pull of the sigils carved deep into the land. Muzio's work. Old, purposeful. They clung to him like spider silk, faintly tugging him back.
Protective magic. Wards against both monsters and men.
And magic had rules. Sigils only held while their caster stayed near. The farther one strayed, the more the mana thinned, like smoke unraveling into the wind. Eventually, it vanished entirely.
Keiser knew enough from… well, mostly being yelled at during the trials. Aisha's and Gideon's magic had both ebbed with distance. One time, in the land of sand, Aisha had kept a patch of blessedly cool air around her--except she wouldn't stop moving.
People kept following her like dehydrated ducks, only for her to drift away again. The complaints got so bad Gideon ended up assigning 'temperature stations' like they were running a magical soup kitchen.
Keiser had been with Gideon then, deep in discussion about how to end the trial faster. Or--if he was being honest--how to cheat without it technically being cheating. Oh, the stupid fuck I was, he thought now, half-amused, half-bitter. Still, even without the full theory, he remembered the practical details. Not a "oh right, that was when we…" memory, but the sharper kind--"ah, right, that works like this, and I can use it against them."
If they'd use everything they could to ascend, Keiser would use everything he had to stop them.
By the time they'd crossed the last stretch of trees and stepped onto open plains--wagon ruts carved deep into the dirt--the threads of magic had slipped entirely from his skin.
That was when Lenko moved closer and pulled Keiser's hood forward, swift and deliberate.
"This is your first time here, my lord," he murmured. "Best you don't speak to anyone if we can help it. The people here are kind, but… your eyes…"
Keiser understood instantly. He tugged the hood lower, shadowing his face.
Eyes like the King's--sharp, unnatural, red as fresh blood--were an invitation for trouble. And Keiser didn't yet have answers he was willing to give.
The village appeared sooner than expected. Sweat was already soaking his collar, his chest tight. Weakness gnawed at him--not the glorious kind earned in battle, but the embarrassing kind you got from a body underfed, underslept, and fundamentally uncooperative.
Before leaving the woods, Lenko had stopped to scrawl sigils on the animals with a charcoal stick, claiming it would keep them from wandering. Then, offering the stick to Keiser:
"You should mark a few too, my lord. Just enough to keep them calm."
Keiser eyed the stick like it had just insulted his mother. He didn't want to give Lenko more reason to notice his strangeness--but refusing outright would raise more suspicion.
So he crouched beside a goat and, with his most dignified air, wrote on its flank.
'Dont-get-far.'
The goat gave him a look that was ninety percent insult, ten percent confusion.
And then the letters twisted. Shimmered. Folded into proper runes.
They pulsed faintly.
Working.
Keiser nearly dropped the charcoal. That shouldn't have been possible. He had no mana. Never had.
It wasn't him.
It was Muzio's.
The realization landed heavy in his chest. Maybe Muzio wasn't gone. Maybe he was still here--inside, watching.
Probably laughing at my penmanship, Keiser thought grimly.
"Done!" Lenko called, grinning as he shook the pouch of coins so they clinked bright and loud. "We can hire a coach to the next village now!"
Keiser frowned. That sound--the bright clatter of metal--wasn't victory's song. It was a bell.
A warning.
And sure enough, as they stepped out of the alley toward the guild hall, someone bumped hard into Keiser's shoulder.
"Whoa--careful!" Lenko stumbled back, one hand shooting out to steady a small figure that had barreled into him.
A girl. Young. Hood pulled low, head bowed. No apology, no hesitation--just a quick dip of her head and a swift attempt to slip past them.
Too swift.
Keiser's arm shot out on instinct, fingers closing around her wrist.
Pain flared instantly--white-hot, biting--racing from his knuckles to his shoulder. His muscles trembled under the strain. This body was useless, even holding a slip of a girl felt like wrestling an iron chain.
She jerked to break free, and his grip dragged his own body forward with her pull.
"Young Lord?!" Lenko hissed, leaning in with a whisper-shout. "What are you--"
"Check your coin pouch," Keiser said, voice flat, eyes locked on the girl.
Lenko blinked, baffled--until his hand flew to his belt. His face crumpled in outrage.
"Ahh!" he yelped. The pouch sagged light and half-empty in his grip.
The girl's head snapped up, fury sharpening her gaze.
Keiser didn't flinch. Even as pain gnawed at his arm, he kept his hold. Her hood had fallen back just enough for her face to emerge--pale skin flushed with heat, small mouth pressed tight with anger, eyes like obsidian glass. Jet-black hair, chin-length, curtaining her cheeks like the frame of a shadowed portrait.
Keiser's chest tightened. His breath caught.
He knew her.
Not just from passing glimpses at court. Not just from the grand halls, where she stood silent behind the First Prince like a blade sheathed in velvet. Not just from the portraits that never quite caught the chill in her gaze.
But from the trials.
From whispers.
From every warning that came with her name.
The First Prince's fiancée.