Free Web NovelChapter 7: Warning
The lady behind the desk looked at Ethan with a relaxed stare, taking him in fully without any hurry. Her expression gave nothing away. She simply looked, as if peering into his soul.
Ethan stood where he was and let her not moving.
A few days before, she had been beyond the walls on a mission. She had returned to find her twin daughters in the middle of a fight that had no resolution.
The customs of the White Tower were what they were. Women who were virgins couldn’t actively participate in missions. The same applied to men, but for a woman it was a more delicate matter. There were implications that followed her through the rest of her life, in how she was seen, in what she was allowed to do, in what doors opened and which ones stayed shut.
Both her daughters were young. Both were inexperienced.
But one of them had gone to a brothel house to settle the matter herself, and was now standing before her mother demanding the right to join the White Tower fully.
The High Regent had come home from a failed mission to this.
"You’re the one they call Ethan?"
Her voice was cold and even, filling the room without effort.
Ethan nodded without wasting time. His eyes moved briefly to the back corner of the room. A pair of eyes lingered there in the shadow, watching.
The High Regent sent the receptionist out with a gesture. The door closed quietly behind her, then She beckoned Ethan forward, a frustrated look crossing her face, not directed at him specifically, but at the entire situation.
"Ella was impulsive." She said. "She made a mistake coming to you. But what is done is done. She is not pregnant, so I will not hold you accountable. However, word of this must not get out."
She stood up.
Her body moved through the space with an ease that was unsettling. She didn’t looked hurried, but She crossed the room toward him the way wind moved through a gap in a wall, like the air simply made room for her.
"From your aura I can tell that you are a summoner, so I will help you." She stopped a few paces from him. "But after that I do not want you coming close to my daughters ever again."
She didn’t wait for a response.
Without thinking twice she threw a ring toward him.
Without thinking twice He caught it and inspected it.
The surface was smooth, with magical engravings worked into the interior band, fine lines with precision that didn’t come cheap.
The truth was that she had more pressing concerns than Ethan.
She had come to this stronghold to stop a beast horde that was moving toward the walls. She had failed. The horde was still out there, still advancing. She had already sent word to the kingdom, informed the relevant parties, requested evacuation protocols be put into motion.
No one had moved yet.
Ethan and whatever Ella had done in a brothel house was genuinely the least of her concerns. She was handing over the ring so she could close this matter and turn her attention back to what actually mattered.
"It’s just business, madam." Ethan responded after briefly scanning through the ring. "I have no need to come close to your daughters." freёwebnoѵel.com
He meant it.
He understood why she cared. Daughters, reputation, the customs of an institution she had built her life inside. All of it made sense from where she stood. But his interest was simple.
Resources. Power.
The ring alone was already more compensation than he had expected to walk out with.
"It’s not Ella I’m worried about." She said.
She sighed and looked at him directly, something in her gaze settling into a more serious light.
She could already smell traces of her other daughter on him. The girl was probably already circling him. That one had never needed a brothel house to make up her mind about anything.
She said nothing about it directly however, but she feared more for this young man’s safety than hers.
"Try your best to leave the stronghold after the tournaments." Her voice carried the weight like someone who had watched too many people with potential let the wrong place swallow them whole. "I can see you have some talent. Don’t let this place tie you down."
After that she turned and walked through the back door.
A sigh followed her out.
The door closed.
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Outside the White Tower, Ethan walked into the open air with his thoughts still moving.
Confused. But also quietly excited.
He opened the ring’s storage while he walked, taking stock of what was inside.
Water storage boxes. Dried meat strips. Tools. Two spell books, possibly three. He moved through each item without stopping, cataloguing as he went.
Then he found it.
An enchanted armor set. Human-fitted, built for a human frame
Typically these were made for human mages, which meant the sizing and the structural logic behind the enchantments assumed a human body.
Vlad was human.
Ethan paused for half a step.
(It could be fitted for him.)
His smile broadened without him fully deciding to let it. Thoughts of the path ahead moved through his mind, the forest, the bear still waiting somewhere in the denser parts of the trees, the next stage of what he was building toward.
’Looks like my trip back into the forest has been pushed forward.’
The resources in the ring changed the equation. He had more to work with now than he’d had this morning.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
But somewhere deep in the wastelands, moving steadily toward the stronghold, something else was already in motion.
An army of beasts pushed through the open terrain.
Atop a large cow beast at the rear of the mass sat a young beast kin. His eyes glowed faintly, an invisible current running outward from him and threading through the horde like a whip no one could see but every beast in the formation could feel.
They moved at his pace.
They stopped when he willed it. ƒreewebηoveℓ.com
The stronghold sat ahead in the distance, its walls small against the horizon.
Getting smaller with every step.
