"She brought a useless person. We have to kill him."
"Do not be hasty, my child." The pastor's voice was unhurried. "He is useful, Joseph. My spy placed him in the princess's embrace with his own eyes."
Joseph grabbed my right wrist and poured mana into the bracelet. "Vinculum aeternum, meus servus." The band tightened.
[SOMEONE IS ATTEMPTING TO BIND YOU TO A SLAVE CONTRACT]
[ENABLE OR DISABLE]
Disable.
He released my hand and looked at me with the flat expression of a man reading a deed of ownership.
"From this moment you serve two masters absolutely. Me and the pastor. Every command we give, spoken, written, or gestured, you carry out without hesitation, question, or delay. This covers everything. Self-harm. Killing others regardless of age, gender, status, or number. Surrendering your body, your will, your possessions, your secrets. No law, no instinct, no god, no attachment overrides this. You cannot resist, warn anyone, escape, or find a way around it. There are no loopholes." He let that sit for a moment. "Affirm it. Say: I am yours, masters."
"You are my masters," I said.
The pastor turned to me. "What is your relationship with the princess? And why were you brought into her household?"
"I am her lover. And her advisor. She needed my help preparing for the sovereign trials."
Joseph and the pastor exchanged a look of disbelief. Then a slow smile spread across both their faces.
"Maren," the pastor said, "you have outdone yourself."
Joseph leaned back. "We were already planning to poison her, but having her lover under our control is cleaner. No suspicion. No mess."
Just say the name. Say whose idea this was.
He reached into his coat pocket and produced a second bracelet, placing it in my palm. "Get close to her. Put this on her hand."
"She is quite powerful. Will this work on someone like her?"
Joseph's expression shifted. He stepped close to the pastor's face. "Do not doubt my craft." His voice dropped. "I have bled for this. I have wept for this. This is my family's art, brought back from nothing. If I can enslave her with my own invention, my name rises again." He held the thought for a moment, then turned to me. "Do you understand your task?"
"Yes."
He looked at Maren. "Once it is done, inform the pastor immediately."
–-_—
Maren had become cooperative and willing in everything that concerned helping the princess. I kept her in the dark about most of the plan, but a small doubt about her stayed with me regardless.
She relayed to the pastor that I had successfully placed the slave bracelet on the princess.
The three of us, me, Kierra, and the princess, worked out a plan together. Maren told us the pastor would come to the estate personally and move us to a remote location. That was the limit of what she knew.
After persistent use of my skill Vital Resonance, an upgrade option appeared. I spent 200 coins to unlock Healing Finger, which allowed me to clear the princess's mana blockage entirely. She could now use limited magic. It would have to be enough.
A large carriage rolled through the estate gates. One person stepped out.
The pastor.
Maren went to receive him.
"Stay composed, no matter what he does," I said quietly. "That goes especially for you, Rivena."
The pastor inspected both bracelets on the princess's wrist. Hers carried mind magic imbued into the band. Fortunately, when I had worn it first, the system had already disabled that effect.
"Where is the fox girl, Maren?" he said.
"A family matter pulled her away this morning. She will not be back until tomorrow night."
He made a sound of agreement. "We are short on time. Let us move." He turned and looked at Rivena with the kind of calm that carries a threat inside it. "I trust you are smart enough to understand that if you try anything, neither she nor her lover will be walking away from this."
Rivena did not react at all.
–-_—
The princess and Rivena sat beside me in the carriage, composed and unreadable despite everything. The pastor had taken a seat beside the coachman and was directing the route himself. Maren stayed behind at the mansion to handle whatever came up in our absence.
We passed through the city's outer gates and into the forest. The world narrowed around us, tall trees pressing in from both sides, the road turning rough beneath the wheels. The carriage jolted hard over roots and stones, each lurch throwing us against the wooden frame. What must have been only a few minutes stretched out uncomfortably. My back ached and my patience was wearing thin.
Then the wheels slowed.
We stopped in front of an old house half-eaten by the forest. The roof sagged. The walls were grey and weathered. Vines had worked their way up the stone like they were reclaiming it. We stepped down and walked toward the door. The forest around us had gone completely quiet.
Inside, a path led down to a basement. A man waiting at the bottom put shackles on our wrists.
[YOUR MANA HAS BEEN BLOCKED]
I leaned toward the princess and kept my voice low. "Are you certain this is your brother? Is there any enemy you may have overlooked?"
"I do not leave my enemies alive," she whispered back. "This one must be new."
Every step down felt heavier than the last. The princess and Rivena moved with the ease of people who had been in dangerous places before. I was not that person.
I leaned in again. "We have already seen their base. Can we not slip out, regroup, and come back with reinforcements?"
She glanced at me with a small, dry smile. "Someone is getting cold feet?"
"Stop talking." The pastor's voice cut across the room.
I waited until the man behind us shifted his gaze away. Then, keeping my hands low, I tried to push the shackles into my inventory. Nothing happened. I tried the gun next.
It worked.
I loaded it quietly with metal shot.
The small mechanical click was louder than I wanted it to be. Every head in the room turned toward me.
I pushed the gun back into the inventory.
The pastor's eyes dropped to my hands. "What was that?"
"Nothing," I said.
We kept moving.