The last full day before Kael’s return dawned gray and windless.
Blackthorn Keep felt different. Servants moved faster and spoke less. Guards double-checked the gate mechanisms without being ordered. Even the horses in the stables were restless, as if they could smell the approaching storm on the air. Everyone knew the northern warlord was coming back. Everyone understood that the next conversation held in these walls would decide whether the duchy bent or broke.
I spent the morning in the abandoned training yard, forcing the three stolen systems to work together.
Flame answered first — a small, obedient tongue of fire above my palm.
Shadow followed, dulling the edges of my presence until even the system noted reduced visibility.
Iron came last, coiling around my bones like rusted wire, muting pain and lending a temporary, brittle strength to my limbs.
[Combined output: Stable at low combat threshold]
[Estimated effectiveness against ordinary knights: Moderate]
[Estimated effectiveness against Warlord Kael Draven: Negligible]
[Time remaining: 1 day, 6 hours, 44 minutes]
I extinguished the flame and let the other two powers settle. Sweat ran down my back despite the cold. The gap between what I had become and what I needed to be was still a cliff.
When I returned to the main keep, a servant intercepted me in the corridor.
The words were polite. The timing was not.
Seraphine’s office was the same room she had disappeared into with Kael on the first night. The air still carried a faint trace of old smoke and something darker underneath. She stood behind the heavy oak desk, a map of the northern border spread across its surface. Small wooden markers indicated clan movements, supply lines, and the narrow passes that Blackthorn controlled.
She did not look up when I entered.
“Close the door.”
I closed it.
Only then did she raise her eyes. The high collar of her dress was impeccable. The bruise was invisible. But the way she held herself — too straight, too controlled — told me the mark was still there, under the fabric, under the powder, under the performance.
“In one day Kael will ride through those gates again,” she said. “He will expect me to already have prepared the household for his demands. He will expect you to remain silent, the way you did before.” Her gaze sharpened. “Can you do that?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.
Something complicated moved through her expression. She looked down at the map again, tracing the line of the northern road with one finger.
“He left more than a bruise, stepson.” Her voice dropped. “During the years I was his… guest… he used a method common among the stronger northern clans. A binding brand placed deeper than skin. Most of the time it sleeps. But when he is near, or when he calls it, the body remembers who it belongs to. Even if the mind refuses.”
My system reacted instantly.
[New Information Acquired]
[Effect: Temporary spike in submission and physical responsiveness when activated by the brand’s creator]
[This explains the Residual Submission Flag]
[Warning: Host has no current method of interfering with the brand]
Seraphine finally looked at me again. Her eyes were calm, but there was a raw edge beneath the calm that she had not allowed me to see since the night in the solar.
“If he activates it during the negotiation,” she said quietly, “I may not be able to speak for this duchy the way I should. Do you understand what I am telling you?”
I understood.
She was telling me that the woman standing in front of me might not remain fully herself once Kael returned.
The system displayed the countdown in cold, merciless silver.
[Time remaining: 1 day, 5 hours, 59 minutes]
One day.
After that, the warlord would be here.
And the brand he had left inside my stepmother would wake.