Update for those of you who care: I've transferred from Heaven Official's Blessing to Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation and the fandom high has only gotten worse. On top of having an utterly ridiculous amount of work for this ONE WEEK of my ONE college class, I've managed to binge all the books for both series, all the anime, one of the live actions (Bless the Untamed on Netflix, it's hilarious), started gathering a playlist of amazing music I couldn't sing along to with proper pronunciation if my life depended on it, and dived into the fandom head-first. I'm not okay. Please send help.

Anyway that's how I came up with this chapter name. The donghua WangXian is my current lullaby to go to sleep so

Waking to an ambush you knew was coming was no easier than it had been the first time. This one was a little more direct than the soldiers trying to find us in the inn in Nesson.

Laurent, who had been on watch, was standing a few feet off, a clan rider's hand gripped hard around his bicep. His blue eyes were narrowed, but he was not making any of his usual enunciated remarks. We all learned the precise number of arrows Laurent needed to have trained on him in order to shut him up. It was six.

Probably because I had greeted them with a simple, "Hey there," and earned an arrow point-blank through the shoulder.

Damen was the last to wake, a man standing over him with a crossbow and demanding in Vaskian, "Get up."

I let Damen process the situation, to make sure the Vaskian clan knew he didn't speak their language. If he couldn't understand their orders, he couldn't be blamed for not obeying.

"Get up," I told him in Veretian, since I was already injured. My injured shoulder was squeezed by a deliberately rough jerk, before I was forced to my knees.

Laurent wasn't spared any mercy either, the rider restraining his arm twisting it brutally behind his back. Both of us were restrained with our wrists lashed behind our backs using strips of leather. Wider strips were then fitted over our eyes as blindfolds. They were Vaskian all right.

Damen was restrained as well, but unlike Laurent or I, he exclaimed at a cloth shoved into his mouth beforehand.

It was a long trip lashed hard to one of the horses. We were heading uphill into the mountains, blinded, bound, along narrow paths with vertigo-inducing cliffs that I could hear and even feel. The pain of the arrow stuck in my shoulder was keeping me distracted from the risk of each step of the horse ending in a deadly tumble.

The thing about being a paranoid girl in my world: I also followed YouTube videos about escaping bindings. Zip ties were comically easy to escape. Tape over your mouth was as easy to dislodge as using your tongue to overpower the adhesive. Even the best ropes could be defeated by a little shaking and twisting. To free your legs, cross your feet and try to sit criss-cross from a jump.

The worst situations would be when the bindings were tied so tight that your blood circulation was cut off. Having small wrists as well as a watch beneath my sleeve gave me enough wiggle room not to lose feeling in my left hand at least, and a little room to flex and help my right hand breathe as well.

Damen was more threatening, and they didn't need him alive like they did Laurent. They would have bound him tighter. He was behind me, focusing his efforts on balancing us both when the horse plunged beneath us and then pushed with its hind legs up a rise. Attempting an escape on the horse would help none of us, least of all Laurent.

I was really getting tired of having to live through all the downtime that the book had taken barely a few sentences to skim past. It was hours before we arrived at our destination! Okay maybe not hours, but it felt like it.

When the horse finally came to a stop, Damen and I were pulled down roughly and together, nearly crashing into one another and definitely landing badly. My ankle flared with a dull throb. But the blindfolds were removed, along with Damen's gag, so there was that.

The large central campfire was as blinding as it had been with the other Vaskian camp after being under binding darkness. We were outside the fire's circle of heat.

Damen looked around like his worst nightmares had been confirmed. The clans were stateless riders without settlements, fringing the hills. Run by women, as most Vaskians were, living off wild meats, fish from the streams, sweet roots, and for the rest, they raided the villages.

These men were not that. They were entirely masculine, who clearly weren't a new or novice force. They had been riding together for some time, and knew how to use their weapons. The men who had destroyed Tarasis — the men we had been seeking, who found us instead. As it had been in the hills of Nesson: it was easier to draw the enemy to you rather than waste time seeking all the places they could be.

How long until Laurent's Vaskian allies arrived? Damen had to get beaten up, but how long did that take? How bad could this possibly get?

Laurent was dragged forward by the same man who ordered him bound, and he hit the ground as we had done, shoulder-first. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, and from there — with the slightly altered balance of a man whose hands are lashed behind his back — to his knees. He shot a sideways blue-eyed glance towards Damen as he did so. This time, don't get up.

Damen couldn't draw attention to himself, but he would. He would when Laurent was hurt.

Laurent rose to his feet, calling out, "Hey! You there!" to the leader of the clansmen in Vaskian. "You will speak to me as a man. I am owed at least the reason for such rough treatment. You know who I am — and who paid your bribes!"

The clan leader didn't want Laurent on his feet, and strode forward. "On your knees, pretty boy. Unless you're eager to be used before you're returned."

The insult wasn't as nice in real translation, but all one really needed to know was that these men had no respect for Laurent — not even as the prisoner they needed alive. Laurent didn't comply, as his normal haughty arrogance demanded.

"If you think —"

For once in his life, Laurent got only two words (in Vaskian, that is) out before the man simply did what most people wanted to do when speaking with Laurent: he hit him.

Laurent staggered back a step, then returned his glittering gaze to the man. "How cute. You hit like a pansy and talk like a virgin. Have you ever fucked a man before? That's right, you couple with women in your country — clearly you've never had one, looking at your company. They call me cold because I refuse my offers, but you obviously never had any. Does it hurt, knowing even bound and beaten, I will always be better than you?"

His insults had the intended effect, causing several of the onlookers to snicker — and a couple even doubled over with laughter — clutching each other's shoulders. "The tiny prince has a bite to him." "He's telling you off!"

"Silence!" The clan leader rounded on them, and the divide began. He insulted them in a way leaders did when they wanted to put the men down.

It almost worked. The other men stopped laughing. They started shouting back. Attention shifted. Bows lowered. Not all the bows. But given a day or two, Laurent might have had these men at each other's throats. We didn't have that long.

The tension threatened to burst into violence, but there wasn't quite enough energy to push it over.

Damen glanced at Laurent, if this was to be their only opportunity. But Laurent, knowing what he did and also just judging the current situation, minutely shook his head. I shook mine as well, a little less subtle, but playing it off like I was just dizzy from the bloodloss of the arrow still in my shoulder and trying to focus.

The moment was over soon, and the clan leader swung all his attention back to Laurent. He stood alone and vulnerable.

"Bring the girl."

"What?" The word escaped Laurent at the same time it did me.

Two hands grabbed me by the elbows on either side and hauled me to my feet. I barely weighed anything compared to them, so any amount of flailing was useless.

I was pushed down to my knees, and the clan leader held a knife to my throat. "I hear Veretians find the coupling of men and women sacrilegious. You take her, or I will. Then we shall see who is better."

"Oh, you piece of shit, garbage, fuck-face, goblin, bastard, ass, cunt —!" I didn't have a lot of other curses, but I laid out every one that I had. He pressed the knife harder to my neck, hard enough that I could feel it piercing the flesh, and it became hard to breathe.

Laurent and I met each other's gaze.

'I will kill someone. Most of them. Let me kill someone right now.'

'Not yet. Can you endure it?'

"Too weak, then, to face me, and instead resort to petty little games? It's cute how hard you try to be a man in front of your troops." Laurent's haughty air made even the tiniest of his provocations into something scathing. "We both know better. I doubt you even know how fuck at all. I would rather bend you over — I bet you're far more submissive than even the little girl."

A sharp order and Laurent was restrained by two men as well, their arms interlocking around his arms, which remained tied behind his back. Laurent was not forced onto his knees like me, but he didn't fight to free himself. He just waited for the oncoming blow as the clan leader ignored me and approached him.

"I wonder if you're speaking more of yourself."

He stepped in close, too close to hit Laurent — close enough that he was breathing all over Laurent when he slid his hand slowly down over Laurent's body. I didn't remember this. Did this happen originally? Was he going to take Laurent up on that offer? Fuck. Wait, no fuck — no fucks at all, please!

"Laurent —!"

Damen went berserk in that moment. He rammed his body into the nearest man and kicked him hard once he was down something that was either his ribs or his spine cracked. Two clansmen at a time charged to restrain him, but Damen shook one off with just a restrained elbow to his gut, and he bit the fingers off the other one reaching for him. The next wave drew their swords when they approached, but Damen was furious. He wasn't thinking about tactics. That man had laid his hands on Laurent, and Damen was going to kill him.

This part in the book, Damen had literally seen red, to the point that he never described what he'd done. It was a gruesome fight from a Damen who had nothing to lose and nothing to stop him.

He didn't take time to hesitate or plan a strategy, and that took his attackers off guard. He charged like a bull at one man who was so startled that he just stood there and got hit. Another made a move to stab Damen, but he snagged the first with his teeth by the man's clothes and threw him into the path of the sword. He shouldered another into the ground and slammed his foot down onto the man's throat.

He never broke the bonds on his wrists, and yet his shoulders, legs, and mouth were enough to tear through half a dozen men at once from his hard strikes and eventually just his enraged flailing. He knocked one out with a kick even when he fell to the dirt.

By the time four men had managed to hold him down, two of the men were definitely dead and not getting up. No one was paying attention to Laurent or I anymore.

"Why bring the brute here in the first place?" "He serves no purpose." "Why not simply kill him now?"

Damen didn't have to understand the language to know they were discussing his death. He struggled in vain, bound and held down by the weight of multiple men using all their force. Damen truly believed he was going to die here. It was coming incredibly close. A blade was unsheathed and touched the back of his neck, then lifted —

"Stop!" Laurent shouted. The first hint of desperation laced his voice, the only hint of weakness that has the clan members listening. They wanted him to beg and plead. "My slave just slaughtered two of your men — don't you want to make it hurt? But you show him the mercy of a fast death. A fast death doesn't hurt. He is Akielon. Make it hurt."

I only saw the beginning of Damen's brutal punishment. They swung clubs at his ribs and head, his left taking the first massive hit. When the prisoner's brutalization began distracting the other men from their duties about the camp, the clan leader ordered the business end of things be taken elsewhere. Damen, surrounded by a camp of fifty men and other captives to worry about, was a lot different than the four men who dragged him off with little more than his bound hands and his supposedly weakened state. He would be out within a few minutes and wrecking house.

Laurent and I were left together to deal with the center of attention. Laurent was no passive virgin trembling at the thought of his own deflowering. I did my best to follow his lead.

It was chaos. A rain of death from the darkness, then the sound of hooves. The men had no warning, but that was the way in clan warfare. It wasn't honorable battle and official wars with horns and formations.

Arrows took out the men behind me, along with many others. Laurent got free first, one of the men restraining him toppling from the initial attack and the other overpowered by Laurent shoving his elbow up into his nose, then free to knee him between the legs, repeatedly.

It took effort to activate my Prime, probably because of my injuries and how I had to use so much healing for such bad wounds in such a short period of time. I pulled on my restraints, my strength growing further and further beyond anything natural.

I got distracted by one of the men grabbing me by the arm and pulling me somewhere, but wherever he intended to take me, I would never know. I was pissed off right now. One shove using his own grip on my arm and he staggered from the unnatural strength. Then, I bit down hard on his neck, feeling flesh and bone give way between my teeth and the metallic taste of blood fill my mouth. I shoved him away like a hound, spitting out a chunk of what had been his throat as the blood dripped down my bare chest.

"Fuck! You!"

Laurent's backup were women, the traditional warriors of the clans, riding ponies that could leap like chamois and dart about in formations like fish in clear stream water.

The men were familiar with these tactics, being of the clans themselves. Instead of dissolving into panic and disorder, they only scrambled briefly before several of them peeled off, and made for the rocks and the surrounding dark, slashing and searching, to cut down the archers. Others made for the horses, and with a leap were astride.

It was very different than the fighting of Laurent's troops. The cuts and swipes came at different angles, the horsemanship was wild, the uneven ground made for an uneven battleground, and the twisting tactics using the darkness was more than a little annoying. Clan warfare at night, they who knew more about mountain fighting than anyone alive. The Veretian and Akielon troops would be overrun in an instant under these conditions.

Laurent was easy to pick out with his pale hair. He and I moved together to the fringes of the camp, into the darkness where it was easier to let others do the fighting for us.

"Have a nice snack?" he said.

"If you want ro keep that pretty face of yours, I suggest you shut up."

Laurent shut up. He turned his attention to calming looking about himself for a way to untie his hands.

"Damen should be here any —"

Damen emerged from cover, spun Laurent around, and took a knife to cut his hands free. He did the same with me moments later. I felt a layer of fabric thrown over my bare torso and realized Laurent had given me his jacket. I had barely processed that he had managed to put it back on before we'd been captured. It hadn't been tied up properly, but he had managed to keep it all this time.

"Are you okay?" Damen asked.

"Fine."

"What took you so long?" Laurent said with not a hint of urgency.

"You planned this?" He shook his head at the absurdity of his own question. Of course Laurent had planned this. "You arranged a counterattack with the women, then came out here as bait to draw out the men. If you knew we were going to be rescued —"

"I worried evading the Akielon troop drove us too far out of our way, and that we'd missed our rendezvous with the women."

"You worried about something when Leon wasn't panicking?"

"He did hit me too."

"Once."

"You think I wasn't panicking?" I hissed.

He frowned down as I pulled some of the ties on Laurent's jacket closed into a hasty knot. "Did they…?"

"Can I kill someone now?" I snapped.

Damen swept up his sword in the way of the man coming towards us. The man, expecting a kill, was startled to find his slashing blow met. Then he was dead. Laurent withdrew the point of the knife from the man's ribcage and did not argue further, because by now, the fighting was on us.

Laurent handed me the knife and traded it for the fallen man's shorter clan sword. "Let none escape."

"Wasn't planning on it."

I knew Laurent would insert himself at Damen's left, so I moved to have his back and close off a circle so none could take us from behind. Laurent had positioned us on the northern path out of the camp, the same route that Damen had been taken for his beating and the route that allowed him to so easily regroup with us. It also happened to be the only way out of the camp that was not defended by women. A win-win-win situation.

Men trying to flee came in small groups, ones, twos, sometimes even threes. Better that no men escaped to tell their tale to the Regent, and so the three of us fought with efficient purpose and the desire to kill.

It was all going well until a man came galloping towards us on horseback. Laurent was appraising the situation like a mathematical problem, taking too long for something so simple. Damen took a fistful of his shirt and pulled him hard out of the way while I focused hard on my Prime and charged the horse in return.

I rammed it shoulder-first, hard enough to stop the momentum of the steed and knock it completely over, rider and all. Then, like the Akielon man from earlier, I took my blade and attacked the man before he could even think of recovering. He had a knife through his throat in a rather unprofessional kill, but he was dead all the same.

The horse was flailing madly, but it didn't appear too injured, so I dropped my knife and lifted it upright. It had a bit of a stagger at first, but eventually it returned to a normal trot before slowing to a stop without a rider.

"We done yet?" I grumbled, taking up my weapon again.

The tents had burned down almost to nothing, but there was enough light to see that victory was emerging. Of the men in the camp, half were dead. The other half had surrendered. Surrendered wasn't the word. They had been subdued, one by one, and were being bound as prisoners.

A new woman had arrived on horseback, flanked by two attendants, and was being led through the camp towards us.

"One of us needs to view the dead and the prisoners, to make sure no one escaped," Damen said.

"I'll do it," Laurent said, "later."

I was already lowering to a kneel as Laurent took Damen by the bicep and pulled him down. While Laurent remained standing, he laid puncturing fingers on Damen's shoulder to keep him there.

The new clanswoman swung down from her stocky horse. Her great cloak of fur showed her status, older than the other women by at least thirty years. It took me a moment to recognize Halvik. She spoke in her heavily accented Veretian. "We will re-light the fires. We camp here tonight. The men will be guarded. A good fight, many captives."

"The clan leader is dead?" Laurent asked.

"He is dead." She addressed Laurent specifically. "You fight well. It's a shame you do not have the size to breed great warriors. But you are not malformed. Your woman may not be displeased." She nodded towards me. I didn't even have the strength to be offended. Halvik slapped him encouragingly on the back. "Your face is well balanced. You have very long eyelashes. Like a cow. Come. We will sit together, drink, and eat meats. Your slave is virile. Later he will service at the coupling fire."

"The slave lies in no bed but mine," Laurent said in a hard, unyielding voice.

"You couple with men, in the Veretian style? Then he will be taken and prepared for you; he will be given good cuts of meat, and hakesh, so that when he mounts you, his endurance will bring you great pleasure. You see? This is Vaskian hospitality."

"Here." Laurent handed me a pile of Vaskian furs. "They should be in your size."

"Should be?" I didn't argue, untying the hasty knots in Laurent's coat and changing into the clothing. Luckily, Vaskian clothing was equipped with bindings and ties to help fit my small frame perfectly in the waist, chest, and hips. The hides and furs were comfortable, and Laurent had specifically requested proper warrior garb rather than bedclothes. Laurent respectfully turned away, but I didn't mind when it came to him. I wasn't afraid he would do or think anything uncouth, and he wasn't one to gawk at a feminine body.

"Show it to me."

I handed him his jacket back. We had been washed by the Vaskian women — tossing buckets of water upon us, scrubbing off the dirt of days' worth of riding and getting thrown to the ground several times, before drying us swiftly. When Laurent sensed I was getting irritated by their company, he dismissed them and had them bring us our clothes — saying I would attend him. I did my best. I wasn't familiar with Vaskian clothing, but it wasn't as difficult to figure out on my own as Veretian clothing.

He had been given bedclothes at Halvik's request, and so it would be rude for him to deny them. It was just a tunic and pants of very fine white linen, with a series of loose ties in front. He also got a big Vaskian cloak of fur, like the one Halvik had worn.

I reached over to my old Veretian clothing and produced the leather bindings that had been holding me since we were taken by the clansman. He took it with care, his brow tightening as he studied it up and down. Then flipped it. I grabbed a knife from my supplies and cut the leather open. A small yet hefty trinket fell free from a thin pouch sewn in to be almost invisible. A ring had fallen into my palm.

"You recognize it?" Laurent asked.

"It's from my world, for sure." It was a graduation ring. It wasn't a thick foot-ball type ring, just a centimeter-wide band with carvings along the outside. It was from the year 2020, a silver lotus in one of the panels, and the other had the school Faulheit High. There was a square ruby gem between the year and the school.

I tugged on my necklaces, revealing one of the rings on my necklace. It was a near identical ring, also from 2020, with an infinity heart instead of a lotus, and Acedia High for the school. The gem was a blue zircon.

"Any idea who it might belong to?"

I turned the ring in my hand, trying to see the carving on the inside. My name was in my personal ring, along with the quote "Lex Malla, Lex Nulla" beneath it. This one had some random name that I had never heard of: Gabriel Chase. And below it, "Ave Atque Vale."

"Hail and farewell," I translated. "Whoever this belonged to, it can't be coincidence they were brought here. But I don't recognize the name. Someone I don't know, from a different school…"

"The name?"

"Gabriel Chase. Gender neutral, technically. Gabriel is the name of an angel from one of the religions of my word, portrayed as both a man and a woman depending on the artist. But I didn't give you my true name, so perhaps they use a different one as well."

"If the ring was indeed deliberately placed, knowingly within the bindings that you failed to escape on your own, and resulting in the failure of a great deal of your luck —"

"We were right. There's a person out there with a curse to counter my luck. And even artifacts of their existence can carry the curse. I suppose that also means your messenger was quite safe thanks to your gamble."

Laurent held out his hand. I dropped the ring into his palm, and he twisted it between his delicate fingers. "To be fair, it was more like your energies canceled one another out. You were put at risk, but in the end, we endured."

"Maybe. But this is just a fraction of their power. It was enough to cause this much trouble…what will the person themself cause with their presence?"

He held out the ring to me again. "Do you want to try?"

"Try what?"

"Wear the ring, adjust to the curse impeding you, and perhaps even overpower it. Then, when the owner does appear, you won't be taken completely off guard."

I stared down at the ring, it was a little bigger than my own, made for a bigger finger. I reached out to take it between my fingers. "If your uncle sent these clan raiders, and they knew to use this on me specifically —"

"I know."

The Regent had something on the level of a Mary Sue — either working with him or held captive by him. I reached up to unlatch my necklace and placed the ring next to my own. "Well, I'm certainly not going to leave it to some unknown fate. Something this powerful could definitely ruin the story if fate can take it wherever she pleases."

"Are you really okay?" Laurent asked again.

"I'm fine."

"See, that right there tells me that you're not."

I shrugged in my new furs, warm against the cold night. "What do you want me to say? It's over, the man's dead — most of them. It was bound to happen eventually, in this world."

Laurent just stared. That unreadable expression that came from him thinking about something he knew too well, deciding how to approach a situation even though he already knew what to do. "I'd like to be comforting, but I can't," he confessed.

I snickered. "I know, Laurent. You forget that I know that part of you. To my own amusement and detriment. I just need some time, okay?"

"Time is something we don't ever seem to have enough of."

"We have a night. More than enough for me. After that, I need something to do if I want to move forward."

Laurent could understand that, surely. And he did. He gathered up our other supplies, piled them into the hide bag we'd been given, and handed it to me. "I have to speak with Halvik. Formalities and such. She expects me to bed Damen, so she won't keep me long."

I smiled, remembering Damen's unfortunate situation — his outfit (or lack thereof), the tiny tent. "Good luck with that. I don't think I should join you."

I didn't think I could fit into the tent even if I wanted to. Besides, though Laurent would be able to tolerate Damen's basically-naked state, I certainly wasn't in the mood. My tolerance for men right now was at its threshold. Not Laurent, though. He wasn't like most men. Damen wasn't either, not intentionally, of course. But I needed a break from both of them.

"Stay with me. I'll have Halvik set up a tent for you alone — if she hasn't already. No one will disturb you tonight."

Laurent indeed had many important things to discuss with Halvik. She and her riders would escort ten of the clansmen back to Breteau and Ravenel to hopefully expose the Regent as their sponsor and stop the border deadlock. The rest of the men and weapons would be hers.

We were given a quick meal, and I observed the camp being cleared and the new tents being pitched to look like softly glowing globes — the light from lamps inside turning the tent skins to warm gold. The prisoners were placed under guard, the campfire was re-lit, and the dais for Halvik erected. He thanked her, went over the details of how we would proceed forward (things I was already aware of, so it wasn't like Laurent had to be discreet), and then eventually he was dismissed. As he said, Halvik didn't want to keep him long.

Halvik called for one of her servants to retrieve something, quickly having it delivered to Laurent before we could depart. Laurent nodded in thanks, having requested it previously — since the servants had to bring it from further up the slope. He pulled it into the cloak, setting it into an inner pocket.

The tent for me was beside Laurent and Damen. Damen's figure could be made out as a large shadow within, still shifting around to try and find a place for all his limbs. He finally came to a halt, perhaps trying to fall asleep, while Laurent paused with me in front of my tent.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"For what? And don't say for not being prepared or seeing it coming. We both know you did what you had to, and everything worked out in the end."

"I can still feel sorry, even for things that were never within my control. It's…It's everything." Laurent tugged on his cloak, like he was hot beneath its thick layer. Or cold, somehow. "I'm sorry some god or force of the universe decided to bring you here, force you to get caught up in our mess."

It was so out of character for Laurent to say. He wouldn't normally apologize for things he couldn't change — at least not until after he and Damen got together and he was able to just…be himself. I wondered if me, the ring, or both were affecting him.

"Thank you," I said, hoping he understood how much I meant it. "But it isn't all bad. The trope of a Mary Sue started long ago by women who wanted to insert a character they could embody into a tale, to experience the adventures of their favorite stories from within. They were just poorly written, obliterating and warping the original story with their insertion. But…I can understand why they did it. This world isn't…the nicest place to have been dropped. It's a world without any sort of supernatural magics. I'm at risk of ruining everything just by existing here — hence, Mary Sue. But meeting you both, journeying with you, watching you rise to power and overcoming the odds…it's a wonderful journey."

"Not quite how I would describe it," Laurent murmured, almost to himself.

"For all the pain it might bring, the uncertainty and fear, it also brings growth and beauty that I wouldn't trade for anything. If and when I get home, I'll always hold this part of my life within me…and I'll never be the same. Part of me might even miss it. I'll read your tale all over again, and it might not be enough, anymore. It might be painful to read the original world that I was never part of. In the end, I can only hope that you find happiness in the aftermath, despite everything you've lost…and will lose. Every happy ending glosses over the fact that life goes on. It will go on for you, and for me. But I wouldn't wish I had never witnessed a miracle like this just because it held some danger. It hasn't gotten bad, that's for sure. And I'm not here to wait for everything to be handed to me and kick up a fuss the moment my luck runs out."

Laurent shook his head. "That'll teach me for trying to apologize. I'll avoid it in the future."

"You do that. Stay the way you are, Laurent. For my sake, for your own. And go harass Damen, will you? Tell him he looks foolish, traditional garment or not."

"It's the least I can do for you," he agreed. He reached up to unlatch his cloak and then tossed it over my shoulders. It was enormous on my small frame, but it had been rather big on Laurent too, so I didn't feel that awkward. It was indeed warm and quite comfortable, all things considered.

"What's this?"

"It's a cloak of fur."

I actively rolled my eyes. "Don't get cute with me. It's unbecoming of you."

"Call it a…favor. You saved my life as much as Damen did. And…even if I am following the same path as your story, you haven't been an unwelcome distraction."

I wasn't good at receiving gifts. Like, what were you supposed to say? Thanks! The thanks was implied, surely. Was I supposed to get excited or flattered? Was I supposed to break out into smiles and hug him and thank him? It was a great cloak…

"I…guess it works?" That sounded too uncertain. "I mean, thanks. It's great. Really. I'll be sure to use it. We can keep up the whole Vaskian front for me. I do like their clothes better than the Veretian style, I admit."

Laurent offered a light smile. "So long as you are accommodated, even for just a night. Get some rest. Things will not get easier from here."

"I'm probably the one person you don't need to tell." I reached into the inner pocket of the cloak, handing Laurent the cloth filled with ice. "Hurry along, before it melts."

"Thank you." He clearly hadn't forgotten about the ice, amused that I hadn't either. It wasn't often you got to interact with someone who could predict and know almost everything about your story.

Then, to my surprise, Laurent leaned down to kiss my forehead. Before I could react, he had already turned away and disappeared into his tent shared with Damen. I could hear them speaking lightly. Laurent sounded like he was passing on my message to Damen about his dumb loincloth.

I slid into my tent, lying down on the soft furs I didn't quite recognize. With Laurent's cloak over me, I was surrounded on all sides by warmth and comfort. It was almost enough to distract me from the ache in my chest and the bitter taste of blood still on my tongue.

"It's lucky you do not have the size to breed great warriors," Damen was saying. He was feeling it too, surrounded by a warm, amenable mood, even with Laurent, chaste as an icicle. Closer than even Damen wanted to admit.

"My size," Laurent said, "is the usual. I am not made in miniature. It's a problem of scale, standing next to you."

I pulled the cloak over my head.

"I told the clansmen to make it hurt."

"It saved my life."

"…since I can't throw a sword."

I tossed and turned, trying to find a way to rest. I missed home, where I could help knock myself out with melatonin. Extra doses of it.

"Tomorrow will be a long day. Thirty miles of mountains, with prisoners. We should sleep."

I wouldn't be able to follow such advice.

I wondered why Jord even bothered sending out scouts whenever Laurent went missing for a night. I mean yes, it would be disastrous if Laurent actually went missing, but soon Jord was gonna start seeing a pattern. Poor Jord and Nikandros, dealing with the questionable decisions of their princes.

Twelve whole hours. Thirty miles of mountains, with prisoners. I fell asleep behind Damen to the sound of our slow plodding trip, with the prisoners swaying and struggling in the saddles and occasionally being clubbed into stupefied obedience by the woman. Laurent had managed to get Damen's clothes back, as well as his own, thank the gods. And no ambushes or interruptions the entire time! Huzzah!

We arrived at nightfall. The horses were exhausted. The prisoners had long since stopped struggling.

The men were happy to begin retelling the story. The Prince had ridden out, with only two soldiers, chased down the rats responsible for the killings. He'd ripped them out of their hiding holes and fought them, thirty to one at least. He had brought them back thrashed, lashed and subdued. That was their Prince for you, a twisty, vicious fiend who you should never, ever cross, unless you wanted your gullet handed to you on a platter. Why, he once rode a horse to death just to beat Torveld of Patras to the mark.

Wait, was that last bit about the poisoned horse during the hunt in Arles? Well shit. Learn something new about the book you're stuck in every day.

"Look at you, with an upgrade." Orlant's eyes roamed up and down my new cloak.

"It rather fits me, no? Perks of the Mary Sue plus meeting a Vaskian clan. How'd our little experiment go?"

Orlant shook his head. "Lazar looked me right in the face and didn't think it was me. A sort of déjà vu, he knew I was familiar and part of the troops, but couldn't name me."

"Once this is over, I'll see what I can do about making your presence known again."

"I appreciate it. For now, I suppose I'll enjoy wringing things out of the boys now that they don't recognize me."

"Well, let me warn you about what else we found on our little excursion." I showed him my new ring and explained the situation as best I could. "For now, we should be more careful. I'm going to practice my Prime tonight, see if I can build a resistance and control this luck of mine to be able to combat my counterpart."

"What might your people call the opposite of a Mary Sue? A…Darry Sue?"

"For your information, a male Sue is called a Gary Sue. But the opposite of a Mary Sue is just called an Anti-Sue."

"Well that's boring."

"Fine, how about a…Magat-Sue."

"Much better. What's that mean?"

"Well, a Magatsu is a term for Calamity and Chaos. And completely unrelated to a Mary Sue."

"But you must admit, it fits."

"Magatsu Mary Sue…" I tested the word on my tongue. "Okay, it sounds cool, I confess. Come on. Time for one final training session before hell breaks loose and we take Ravenel."

Laurent and Damen talked geography while I helped keep the men from the women while we circled the guard on the prisoners.

Orlant seemed to agree that my Prime was working as it should after a few hours of struggling to get it back to full strength. It had started far weaker than it had been, and I could feel the resistance of a force fighting back. But like building a muscle — except in fast-forward — I tried, rested, tried, rested, until it was becoming easier and easier again.

"Getting tied up leaves an impression," Laurent was saying as I approached the tent. I simply stood outside, as though I were but a guard, protecting anyone from disturbing this. "I didn't realize being captured was so uncomfortable."

"Well, it is."

"I promise I'll never tie you to the back of a horse." A pause.

"That's right, I'm still captured."

"Your eyes say, 'For now'," Laurent said. "Your eyes have always said, 'For now'. If you were a pet, I would have gifted you enough by now to buy out your contract, many times over."

"I'd still be here, with you. I told you that I would see this border dispute through to its finish. Do you think I'd go back on my word?"

"No." Laurent seemed to be realizing it for the first time. "I don't think you would. But I know you don't like it. I remember how much it maddened you in the palace, to be bound and powerless. I felt yesterday how badly you wanted to hit someone."

"The man who did this to you."

I reached up to my jaw, as though I could feel Laurent's bruise. Laurent had managed to miss it: in the first book, Damen had been maddened by his powerlessness not for himself, but because he couldn't help anyone else.

Poor Damen had been through a lot in the past few days, so much that he missed how much he himself cared about Laurent's wellbeing. It was difficult for both of them, falling in love with the one you hated, the one you would be leaving and who would leave so that you stood on the opposite sides of the biggest warring kingdoms in the realm.

"I'm sorry," Damen said, pulling himself back. "I…know better than that. I think…I had better report to the watch. I can take a shift tonight."

Damen made it all the way to the tent entrance before Laurent's voice called out, "No. Wait. I…wait."

He did. Laurent tried to gather his words, and Damen let him. I don't think either of them quite knew what they were expecting.

I waved away Jord, who approached Laurent's tent with a report. He handed me a parchment and I dismissed him quickly.

"What Govart said about my brother and I…it wasn't true."

"I never thought it was," Damen said, uneasily.

"I mean that whatever…whatever taint exists in my family, Auguste was free of it."

"Taint?"

"I wanted to tell you that, because you…you remind me of him. He was the best man I have ever known. You deserve to know that, as you deserve at least a fair… In Arles, I treated you with malice and cruelty. I will not insult you by attempting to atone for deeds with words, but I would not treat you that way again. I was angry. Angry, that isn't the word."

Laurent was pushing the words out, painfully, but steadily.

"I have your oath that you will see this border skirmish through to its end? Then you have mine: stay with me until this thing is done, and I will take off the cuffs and collar. I will release you willingly. We can face each other as free men. Whatever is to fall out between us can do so then."

Damen didn't reply, almost too stunned to process what Laurent was offered. Damen's initial plan had been to finish things at the border and then escape back to his country. Any blacksmith could take off the cuffs and collar, and the gold could buy the beginning of his journey to take back Akielos. He would find Nikandros and rally Delpha behind him, then move his way south to Ios. After that, it was a matter of whether he could win his kingdom with just his presence, or if he would have to fight a civil war against Kastor. In the meantime, Laurent would be winning Vere back from his uncle. And one day, they would have to face one another as kings of Vere and Akielos respectively, continuing the age-old war between a nation that had once been one.

"It's not a trick," Laurent said.

"You'd let me go." Damen still didn't seem to understand how Laurent had been affected by him just as much as he was affected by Laurent. Even after the confessions, the trust, and the life debts between them. "And…until then?"

"Until then, you are my slave, and I am your Prince, and that is how it is between us." Even though Laurent knew who he was, he was willing to pretend. He wanted to pretend, for just a little longer, that that was all they were to one another. "And you don't need to take watch," Laurent said, returning to his usual tone. "You sleep prudently."

I felt bad for the men who thought we would ride to Ravenel and be greeted with the same cheer and triumph that happened here at Breteau. The border lords would not be so happy that Laurent had brought an excuse to stop this war — not to mention the Regent turning the narrative around to accuse Laurent of causing the attacks and training our prisoners to claim otherwise. Aimeric's treachery would be revealed as well.

Laurent already knew about Aimeric, but he needed to play things out as before. He wanted Jord to see Aimeric's treachery first-hand, to make sure Jord believed it.

Damen apparently got caught over at the Vaskian camp, though he hadn't been the first. However, Laurent and I both knew he wasn't one to be driven by his dick like the other men in Laurent's company. It didn't mean we couldn't joke around, even Laurent.

"I'm afraid you don't have time," he said in a limpid tone.

"Thank you, but I came because I heard the horses."

"Lazar said he came because he took a wrong turning."

"I still don't understand you men," I sighed.

"They could say much the same of you."

Damen was thinking hard about his next words, discarding several replies, and then matching Laurent's tone when he finally did speak. "I see. You prefer privacy?"

"I couldn't if I wanted to. A batch of blond Vaskians really would get me disinherited. I've never…with a woman."

"It's very pleasurable."

"So you say," I hummed.

"You prefer it," Laurent recalled.

"For the most part," Damen concurred.

"Auguste preferred women. He told me I would grow into it. I told him that he could get heirs and I would read books. I was…nine? Ten? I thought I was already grown up. The hazards of overconfidence."

"To be fair, Damen's older than you and still had to learn some lessons after getting shipped to Arles in chains," I pointed out.

"I suppose we have both learned lessons. But there is always more to come."

Damen almost replied, but then realized what Laurent was actually saying beneath such a normal topic. Laurent didn't talk like a normal person. "You can rest easy. You are ready to face Lord Touars."

Laurent was eventually going to get used to it, Damen surprising him, Damen seeing him as he was, in a way no one else did or bothered to try.

"I don't understand how your uncle has you backed this far into a corner. You can outplay him. I've seen you do it."

Laurent was stiff, careful with how he phrased his response. "Maybe it seems that I can outplay him now. But when this game began I was…younger."

"You're still young," I confessed. "But you're not alone, and you've worked hard. We got a plan, and backups. Let's get this over with."

"Such enthusiasm," Damen sighed.

The field was called Hellay. We moved before dawn, in the darkness, but the sun was shining down when we finally met Ravenel's troops.

I admit, I wanted to dissociate this part. This, one of the most terrifying and sad parts of the book. I rode behind Laurent, Jord and Damen flanking either side so we formed a diamond.

It was a rather short conversation, accusation, and revelation. Aimeric was the key to this whole thing. He could accuse Laurent of treachery and his word would hold firm over even Laurent. It was truly sickening to watch, but most of all, heartbreaking. Especially when Laurent, unsurprised, waved his hand to Jord and demanded, "Rejoin the troop. Now."

His face, stripped with raw betrayal and stricken with guilt as Aimeric paid him no special attention. Then, his eyes moved to Laurent, who turned his head only slightly to meet Jord's gaze. Laurent's cool demeanor was terrifying, for not even this betrayal had shaken him. He had known, and Jord had been covering for Aimeric for who knows how long, through a sense of misplaced loyalty.

Jord made no excuses. He made no protests. He simply turned his horse and did as he was ordered, in silence. I moved to take his place, Laurent still flanked by support on either side, and it was making Aimeric nervous. Because now, he knew Laurent well enough to spot the signs of his premeditation. Laurent had something planned, and his own revelation was not a revelation.

Laurent was buying time. He accused Aimeric, Aimeric accused him. Though Laurent's flat tone and cold stare gave nothing away, it also gave everything away. To Aimeric, at least. He was nervous, flinging taunts and lies that bounced off Laurent like water on duck feathers.

Guion and Touars too join in next. The Regent was merciful, Laurent was scornful and negligent.

"You show no remorse at all," Guion said.

"Speaking of negligence." Laurent lifted his hand. Two of the Vaskian women detached themselves from his troop and began to ride forward.

Touars allowed them to approach; two women would hardly make a difference. At the halfway mark of their approach, you could see that one of the woman's saddles was lumped, and then you could see what it was lumped with.

"I have something of yours. I'd chide you on your carelessness, but I've just had a lesson in the ways that the detritus of a troop can slip from one camp to another." He swapped to Vaskian to order the woman to dump the bundle from her horse onto the dirt, as one shaking unwanted contents from a pack.

It was a man, brown-haired and lashed at the wrists and ankles like a boar to a pole after a hunt. His face was caked in dirt, except near the temple, where his hair was clumped with dried blood. He wasn't a clansman. We had four of them, actually. Fourteen prisoners, where we had ten from the clansman yesterday. Damen had heard horses this morning.

"If you think," Guion said, "that a fumbling final play with a hostage will stop or slow us from delivering to you the justice that you deserve, you are mistaken."

"It's one of our scouts," one of the important dudes who I didn't quite remember the name of. Something with an E.

One of the soldiers leapt down from his horse and went down on one armored knee beside the prisoner, as Touars frowned towards E-guy said, "The reports are delayed?"

The soldier sliced open the bindings on the prisoner's hands and feet, and as he pulled at the gag, the prisoner lurched into a sitting position with the stupefied movements of a man fresh out of harsh bindings.

His words were thick-tongued from his gag, but he did his best. "My lord — a force of men to the east, riding to intercept you at Hellay —"

"This is Hellay," Guion said, impatient.

"What force?" Aimeric's voice was thin and edged.

"Your rabble of clan alliances, or Akielon mercenaries, no doubt."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Laurent said.

The scout was still going, "— carrying the Prince's banners alongside the yellow of Patras —"

An ear-splitting note from the horn of one of the Vaskian women drew a returning sound, like an echo, a distant, mournful note that rang out once and then again, and again, from the east. And cresting the sprawling eastern hill, the banners appeared, along with all the glinting weapons and livery of an army.

Laurent alone didn't lift his eyes to the hilltop, but kept them trained on Lord Touars. "I have a choice? Did you think, if you threw down a challenge to fight, I would not accept it?"

The Patran troops filled the eastern horizon, bright under the noonday sun.

"My scorn and contempt are not in need of your leniency. Lord Touars, you face me in my own kingdom, you inhabit my lands, and you breathe at my pleasure. Make your own choice."

"Attack." Aimeric was looking from Touars to his father; his knuckles, clutching the reins, were white. "Attack him. Now, before those other men arrive, you don't know him, he has a way of — twisting out of things —"

"It seems even now, you don't know him that well after all," I said. "Raise your arms here and now, Aimeric, and lose your head."

"Your Highness," Lord Touars interjected. "I have received my orders from your uncle. They carry the full authority of the Regency."

"The Regency exists to safeguard my future," Laurent countered. "My uncle's authority over you is dependent on my subsequent authority over him. Without that, your duty is to break from him."

"I need time to consider, and to speak again with my advisors. An hour."

"Go."

An order from Lord Touars, and the greeting party streamed back over the field towards their own ranks. Laurent whirled his horse to face Damen.

"I need you to captain the men. Take the command from Jord. It's yours. It should have been you from the start." He didn't have to indicate back to Touars to let us know who he spoke of. "He is going to fight."

"He was wavering," Damen said.

"He was wavering. Guion will hold him firm. Guion has hitched his cart to my uncle's train, and he knows that any decision that ends with me on the throne ends with his head in the block. He will not allow Touars to back down from this fight. I have spent a month playing battle games with you over a map. Your strategy in the field is better than mine. Is it better than that of the border lords of my country? Advise me, Captain."

Damen looked again at the hills. Laurent, with his Patran troops flanking from the east, had equal numbers and superior position. Ultimate ascendancy was a matter of holding these positions, and not falling to overconfidence, or any one of various reversal strategies.

"I can win you this battle. But if you want Ravenel…" His Akielon instincts, to take a Veretian fort, beat hard within him. Touars was here, in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, split from his fortress and exposed. "If you want to take Ravenel, you need to cut him off from the fort, no one in or out, no messengers, no riders, and a swift, clean victory without the disintegration of a route. Once Ravenel gets word of what's happened here, the defences go up. You will need to use some of the Patrans to create a perimeter, depleting the main force, then break the Veretian lines, ideally those closest to Touars himself. It will be harder."

"You have an hour," Laurent said, without hesitation.

"This would have been easier," Damen said, "if you had told me earlier what to expect. In the mountains. At the Vaskian camp."

"You weren't allowed to know who it was, and my dear Oracle ensured me we could win — you could win this for me." He spared a single glance back towards where Aimeric had chosen his father's side. "You were right about him from the start. He spent his first week here starting fights, and when that didn't work, he got in bed with my Captain."

"An hour," I told Damen, before he got lost in his thoughts. "We have to hurry. You've got this."