They’d made it all the way to the city when Sachi dropped down from atop a nearby building. “Darion is safe, lord. Raylan is tending to him while Nicole and Valentia stand guard. Cresh and a small vanguard now escort them back to the temple.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Drake said. “Are they being pursued?”
“No.” Sachi tauntingly bared her sharp teeth. “But you are.”
So his plan to work as a decoy had worked better than he’d hoped. “Figured that might happen. How many are after us?”
“Four mercenaries led by the Asp.”
Only four? The rest of her mercenaries must have cut and run instead of tangling with a manor lord and his zarovian army. That was good since it gave him numbers, but also bad, because these four were likely the Asp’s most committed followers.
The Asp hadn’t been willing to cut her losses after all. On another day Drake would have relished the chance to teach her about a sunk cost fallacy, but today, he’d be happy just to suck her blood out through her eyes and leave her twitching in the street.
Drake looked around and found someone missing. “Where’s Robin?”
The young woman came into view at that moment, hopping “down” from the rooftop with three well-placed air jumps. She landed in front of him. “You can’t let her escape!”
“Not letting anyone do anything,” Drake said. “I just sank her boat.”
Robin gripped his bow and stepped forward, eyes desperate. “Let me kill her.”
“Not yet.”
“I can beat her!”
Drake stared at her. “Real talk, Robin, and I don’t want you to disappoint me here. What’s more important to you? Killing the Asp? Or seeing her brought to justice?”
She frowned. “Is there a difference?”
“Do you need to kill her yourself? Or will you simply be happy if she gets arrested for what she did to the people in your village?”
She stared coldly. “I will not rest until the Asp no longer draws breath.”
He’d been afraid of that. Still, he’d play this encounter by ear. He raised a fist to halt his vanguard and then turned to face his pursuers. “You told me you wouldn’t fight her yet.”
“That was then! This is now!”
“Let me handle it,” Drake ordered. “If I fail, you’ll get your chance to take her out.”
He still had no plans to actually kill the Asp, and not because he didn’t want to. She was an asshole. Yet killing her would just lead to endless complications, and he didn’t need more complications with everything else he was dealing with right now.
If he murdered their leader in front of them, the Asp’s mercenaries might never stop coming after him. Especially if they were in love with her or some bullshit like that. Worse, her mercenaries wouldn’t simply target him.
These were the type of folks who’d take any opportunity they could to kill his blood thralls, or even his thrall’s families, to get to him. Simply murdering the Asp in the street would lead to someone murdering one of his people in revenge, but defeating her and sparing her life? That would teach them some manners.
Word would get around that Lord Gloomwood had defeated one of the most feared mercenaries in the land. His reputation would grow. Some would call him weak for sparing her, but not all of them. And as for Drake... he would simply call it funny.
His zarovians formed a wall of armor at the same time a whole contingent of capital guards in ferrocite marched from the alleys on either side of the street. So the noble court had been watching the confrontation. There were only eight of them, but eight people in full ferrocite were intimidating even without the weight of the court and Judge at their backs.
“Halt!” the leader shouted... but not toward Drake. She was a tall woman, and she directed the order at the Asp and her people. “There will be no bloodshed in this city!”
“He sank my boat!” the Asp roared. “He stole my property!”
“If you have a complaint against a manor lord, you may lodge it with a clerk at the city center,” the female captain said calmly. “You will not assault Lord Gloomwood on the streets of Korhaurbauten. Do so, and you will face the noble court.”
“Lord Gloomwood!” the Asp yelled over the guards. “In sight of all of Korhaurbauten, I call you an enfeebled coward! I demand satisfaction! I challenge you to a duel!”
Drake wanted to chuckle at this lady’s naked desperation to fight him, but he wasn’t going to turn her down. A manor lord was under no obligation to accept a duel from anyone, especially a powerful mercenary. Few ever did unless they were brash and stupid.
Drake wasn’t sure which one of those he fell under. He did know the Asp needed a good thrashing before she’d back off. Her mercenaries needed a clear sign to back off as well, and it just so happened he had a rarity that would give them all pause.
As he turned around, Lydia gripped his arm. “Lord,” she said warningly. “This is not a good idea.”
He grinned at her. “When has that ever stopped me?” He brushed off her hand and walked to his clustered zarovians.
“Okay!” he shouted over the crowd.
The armored female captain turned to him in alarm. “Lord Gloomwood?”
“I said okay!” Drake shouted. “I’ll duel the Asp right now!”
The way the noble court captain stared at him was almost... pleading. “You are under no obligation to do this.” Her eyes practically screamed Please don’t do this. Drake doubted it was because she liked him. She almost certainly didn’t want to handle the paperwork.
“Captain! Clear a path!” Drake ordered. “The rest of you! Back off unless you want my zarovians to shove their pikes up your asses! And Asp? You and me need to talk first.”
Drake glanced back to find Lydia watching him with a visibly pained expression. Emily also looked ready to charge into the fray and chop everyone in the vicinity. Yet none of them would attack until he ordered it. They’d all grudgingly agreed to let him try this his way.
If the Ash was using doublespeak to draw him into an ambush, she would be killed by the capital guards, knifed in the back by a flutterstepping Lydia, and clawed to pieces by a snarling Sachi. If this was a trick, the Asp and her people would pay for it.
Ahead of him, still muffled by her silverweave hood but visible, the light inside the Asp’s head—evidence that Suck’s burnished rarity could still target her even through silverweave—glowed. Her mercenaries backed off as the capital guard captain, who was still clearly not on board with this idea, had her soldiers push back the onlookers to form an open ring.
The Asp stepped right into the ring of capital guards. Drake stepped in from the other side. And as she raised both hands and summoned globs of acid, he raised a palm straight up.
“Hold up. I said talk first. I need something before we duel.”
The Asp glared from across the ring as the globs of acid on her hands fell to the ground. Tile hissed and burned as they melted through rock and dirt. That was powerful acid.
“Now you beg for your life?” the Asp demanded. “You are craven and a fool.”
“I’m not begging. I’m negotiating. You asked for this, so I’ll duel you under one condition. If I defeat you in this duel, your mercenaries can’t ever come after me or my people. And to show you I’m serious, I’ll say the same for my people.” He looked back to his soldiers. “If the Asp defeats me, none of you will seek reprisals against her or her people! That is my order!”
His orders didn’t compel his people, but they couldn’t reveal that without raising questions. He also wouldn’t need them to avenge him. Given how hungry Suck’s rarity felt at the thought of battle, he was fairly confident of that.
He looked back to the Asp. “I told mine. Now tell yours. Or the duel’s off.”
To her credit, the Asp didn’t even hesitate. “After I kill Lord Gloomwood or he kills me, you will not seek reprisals against him or his thralls! That is my order! Agreed?”
A chorus of assents came from her gathered mercenaries. Drake glanced at the capital guard captain. “So you heard all that, right? No reprisals on either side? We duel, someone loses, and everyone moves on with their lives?”
“I did hear it,” the guard admitted. “But dueling in the streets of our city is frowned upon, Lord Gloomwood, even for manor lords. I must tell the Judge about this.”
“That’s fine,” Drake said. “You do that. And remember, the Asp challenged me.” He turned to the evil acid lady. “Your move, assface.”
She bared her teeth as acid once more gathered around her hands. Before she could toss it at him, Drake raised his own hand... and focused intently on the glow inside her head.
Her stance wobbled. Her hands dropped as her acid balls slid off and once more slapped into the earth. They hissed loudly as they burned up the street. Meanwhile, the Asp stumbled on her feet like a drunk, visibly trembling. All of that was great, but she didn’t bleed.
Drake ground his teeth and increased his focus, but her blood wouldn’t come. What was he doing wrong? Why wasn’t he sucking blood out of her eyes and mouth? Suck had done it through silverweave, so he could do it through silverweave. He’d absorbed the rarity from Suck’s blood and burnished it. The glow assured him of that.
He just had to suck enough blood out of her to drop her. He wouldn’t kill her, but he’d leave her anemic and famished. Yet the blood... wouldn’t... come!
The tableau held like that for another moment until Drake heard a loud, wet pop. It sounded like a watermelon exploding in a microwave. A huge glob of warmth hit Drake directly between the eyes. It splattered across his face and blinded him as wetness flooded his nose.
As he stumbled backward, clawing at his eyes and coughing like he’d just inhaled a whole shaker of pepper, he was pummeled by what felt like a storm of wet hot chunks of Jello. Was that acid? Was he dead now? It didn’t burn. It was just... warm.
“Gods,” someone whispered. “Gods!” It was the capital guard captain, and Drake heard several people audibly retching nearby. Had she poisoned them?
“Lord, stop thrashing!” Lydia shouted. “You’ve won the duel! Let us... clean you!”
Drake trusted Lydia. He listened to her. He stopped thrashing, and he felt arms on his side and then hands and what might be handkerchiefs cleaning off the... hot wet Jello. Finally, he felt like he could pop open one eye. He glanced down at himself and gasped.
He was absolutely covered in blood, and worse. Brown chunks, gray chunks, and... oh, fuck. That was an eyeball. There was a fucking eyeball dangling off the gunk on his chest. It was halfway embedded in what looked to be a piece of rolled-up intestines dripping with brown. He reflexively peeled it off his chest and noticed a lot more intestine came with it.
When Drake looked to the Asp to see how she was faring, he didn’t see her. What he saw, instead, was the bottom two-thirds of a corpse in bloody silverweave. She still had legs, and hips, and most of her stomach. He could see the remains of part of her ribcage. A couple of arms severed below the shoulders sat in pools of blood on either side of the mess.
But her chest? Her head? The rest? That was apparently glued to his hair, face, and body like sticky mud splashed up from a big puddle. Drake urked loudly and fought the urge to lose his lunch in front of witnesses. That wouldn’t be very intimidating.
So, he hadn’t just defeated the Asp using Suck’s burnished rarity. He was wearing her.
“Ugh,” Drake managed as his stomach burned. “That smell. It’s bad!”
Lydia shook her head as she continued to dab at the carnage. “You’re going to need a bath, lord. Or... several of them.” She glanced at the half-blown up corpse in the street and then at the space beyond the capital guards. The Asp’s mercenaries were long gone.
Drake dabbed futilely at his eyes with the back of his wrist, taking shallow breaths to minimize the stench. “Anyone got eyes on her buddies?”
“Sachi does.” Lydia’s expression remained solemn. “I doubt we’ll have any more trouble from that quarter. Still, I wish you hadn’t risked yourself.”
Drake wiped gunk off his chin. “And I wish I didn’t have brains up my nose.” He sneezed. “Consider this a win. None of those assholes will ever bother us again, and Robin must be happy now that her evil enemy is... all that.” He looked around. “Where is Robin?”
“She left the moment you defeated the Asp, lord. I didn’t see where she went.” Lydia grimaced. “Shall I order someone to pursue her?”
Drake considered and immediately discarded the idea. “No. Let her roam. Killing the Asp was a real big deal for her. A walk will clear her head.”
“Of course, lord.”
“Also, I know what I’m going to call this rarity now.”
As Lydia led him back to his people, he ignored the squelching sounds from his now disgustingly red boots. She focused her eyes on the road ahead instead of glancing back at him. “What name have you chosen?”
Drake picked something gray and squishy out of his hair and tossed it on the road nearby. “Given the results of today’s duel, we’re going to call this one mindblow.”
“That’s terrible,” Lydia said.
Drake sneezed again. “Isn’t it?”
After that horrifying conversation, all that remained was to return to the Temple of the Eidolons with his people. Drake spent the rest of the morning in several successive baths as he waited for Raylan to help Darion heal from the acid wounds he’d received. He also worked to scrub the feeling of having brain up his nostrils from his short-term memory.
Mindblow was powerful. That was true. But it was also fucking gross, and Drake didn’t want to end every battle covered in the brains, bowels, and eyeballs of his enemies. Once had been enough for the time being, and with the cabal ended, the Asp dead, and all her mercenaries terrified of him, he’d likely get a break from assassination attempts.
Still, better safe than sorry. He had Samuel give him a vial of blood and mixed it with his own as he lounged in the bath. He’d considered trying to collect the Asp’s blood, but given all the other stuff it was mixed with—her bowels had exploded—he’d decided he didn’t want that in his body. Plus, if he dropped a burnished acid glob on accident, it might burn a new well.
He still had at least six more treatments of mindblow left in the vial if he wanted to use it again... but it was going to remain his last resort. And if he used it again, he’d be sure to wear a mask or a full-face helmet or... something. Maybe a poncho. A really big, thick poncho.
Yet Darion was alive, and with Raylan’s help, he’d recover from his acid torture with rest and regeneration. Word from Lydia had assured him that Lark was safe as well, thrilled and grateful, which was fine and not something he was going to let go to his head.
Or any other parts. He still wasn’t that kind of manor lord.
By the time morning rolled around Drake was already over making a woman explode... on accident. Darion was safe, his people were alive, and he was clean, relaxed, and satisfied with how the day had gone. He’d fucked over Lord Redbow, he had a new healing thrall for his manor, and the mercenaries who’d challenged him would spread the tale of his victory.
All in all, he’d had worse days as a manor lord.
Author's Note: Next week, Drake makes a deal he shouldn't and takes a risk that's too dangerous. In other words, it's Tuesday.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Patreon Note: My Patreon is three weeks ahead, and as such, "Book Two" has ended there, and I'm currently on a two week break before diving into Book Three, which I'll start posting on the Patreon 10/17. Because RR is three weeks behind, the story will go on break on 10/25 and resume (with Book Three) in early November. Just wanted to keep everyone in the loop!
Read Ahead on the Patreon
Chat on the Discord
They’d made it all the way to the city when Sachi dropped down from atop a nearby building. “Darion is safe, lord. Raylan is tending to him while Nicole and Valentia stand guard. Cresh and a small vanguard now escort them back to the temple.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Drake said. “Are they being pursued?”
“No.” Sachi tauntingly bared her sharp teeth. “But you are.”
So his plan to work as a decoy had worked better than he’d hoped. “Figured that might happen. How many are after us?”
“Four mercenaries led by the Asp.”
Only four? The rest of her mercenaries must have cut and run instead of tangling with a manor lord and his zarovian army. That was good since it gave him numbers, but also bad, because these four were likely the Asp’s most committed followers.
The Asp hadn’t been willing to cut her losses after all. On another day Drake would have relished the chance to teach her about a sunk cost fallacy, but today, he’d be happy just to suck her blood out through her eyes and leave her twitching in the street.
Drake looked around and found someone missing. “Where’s Robin?”
The young woman came into view at that moment, hopping “down” from the rooftop with three well-placed air jumps. She landed in front of him. “You can’t let her escape!”
“Not letting anyone do anything,” Drake said. “I just sank her boat.”
Robin gripped his bow and stepped forward, eyes desperate. “Let me kill her.”
“Not yet.”
“I can beat her!”
Drake stared at her. “Real talk, Robin, and I don’t want you to disappoint me here. What’s more important to you? Killing the Asp? Or seeing her brought to justice?”
She frowned. “Is there a difference?”
“Do you need to kill her yourself? Or will you simply be happy if she gets arrested for what she did to the people in your village?”
She stared coldly. “I will not rest until the Asp no longer draws breath.”
He’d been afraid of that. Still, he’d play this encounter by ear. He raised a fist to halt his vanguard and then turned to face his pursuers. “You told me you wouldn’t fight her yet.”
“That was then! This is now!”
“Let me handle it,” Drake ordered. “If I fail, you’ll get your chance to take her out.”
He still had no plans to actually kill the Asp, and not because he didn’t want to. She was an asshole. Yet killing her would just lead to endless complications, and he didn’t need more complications with everything else he was dealing with right now.
If he murdered their leader in front of them, the Asp’s mercenaries might never stop coming after him. Especially if they were in love with her or some bullshit like that. Worse, her mercenaries wouldn’t simply target him.
These were the type of folks who’d take any opportunity they could to kill his blood thralls, or even his thrall’s families, to get to him. Simply murdering the Asp in the street would lead to someone murdering one of his people in revenge, but defeating her and sparing her life? That would teach them some manners.
Word would get around that Lord Gloomwood had defeated one of the most feared mercenaries in the land. His reputation would grow. Some would call him weak for sparing her, but not all of them. And as for Drake... he would simply call it funny.
His zarovians formed a wall of armor at the same time a whole contingent of capital guards in ferrocite marched from the alleys on either side of the street. So the noble court had been watching the confrontation. There were only eight of them, but eight people in full ferrocite were intimidating even without the weight of the court and Judge at their backs.
“Halt!” the leader shouted... but not toward Drake. She was a tall woman, and she directed the order at the Asp and her people. “There will be no bloodshed in this city!”
“He sank my boat!” the Asp roared. “He stole my property!”
“If you have a complaint against a manor lord, you may lodge it with a clerk at the city center,” the female captain said calmly. “You will not assault Lord Gloomwood on the streets of Korhaurbauten. Do so, and you will face the noble court.”
“Lord Gloomwood!” the Asp yelled over the guards. “In sight of all of Korhaurbauten, I call you an enfeebled coward! I demand satisfaction! I challenge you to a duel!”
Drake wanted to chuckle at this lady’s naked desperation to fight him, but he wasn’t going to turn her down. A manor lord was under no obligation to accept a duel from anyone, especially a powerful mercenary. Few ever did unless they were brash and stupid.
Drake wasn’t sure which one of those he fell under. He did know the Asp needed a good thrashing before she’d back off. Her mercenaries needed a clear sign to back off as well, and it just so happened he had a rarity that would give them all pause.
As he turned around, Lydia gripped his arm. “Lord,” she said warningly. “This is not a good idea.”
He grinned at her. “When has that ever stopped me?” He brushed off her hand and walked to his clustered zarovians.
“Okay!” he shouted over the crowd.
The armored female captain turned to him in alarm. “Lord Gloomwood?”
“I said okay!” Drake shouted. “I’ll duel the Asp right now!”
The way the noble court captain stared at him was almost... pleading. “You are under no obligation to do this.” Her eyes practically screamed Please don’t do this. Drake doubted it was because she liked him. She almost certainly didn’t want to handle the paperwork.
“Captain! Clear a path!” Drake ordered. “The rest of you! Back off unless you want my zarovians to shove their pikes up your asses! And Asp? You and me need to talk first.”
Drake glanced back to find Lydia watching him with a visibly pained expression. Emily also looked ready to charge into the fray and chop everyone in the vicinity. Yet none of them would attack until he ordered it. They’d all grudgingly agreed to let him try this his way.
If the Ash was using doublespeak to draw him into an ambush, she would be killed by the capital guards, knifed in the back by a flutterstepping Lydia, and clawed to pieces by a snarling Sachi. If this was a trick, the Asp and her people would pay for it.
Ahead of him, still muffled by her silverweave hood but visible, the light inside the Asp’s head—evidence that Suck’s burnished rarity could still target her even through silverweave—glowed. Her mercenaries backed off as the capital guard captain, who was still clearly not on board with this idea, had her soldiers push back the onlookers to form an open ring.
The Asp stepped right into the ring of capital guards. Drake stepped in from the other side. And as she raised both hands and summoned globs of acid, he raised a palm straight up.
“Hold up. I said talk first. I need something before we duel.”
The Asp glared from across the ring as the globs of acid on her hands fell to the ground. Tile hissed and burned as they melted through rock and dirt. That was powerful acid.
“Now you beg for your life?” the Asp demanded. “You are craven and a fool.”
“I’m not begging. I’m negotiating. You asked for this, so I’ll duel you under one condition. If I defeat you in this duel, your mercenaries can’t ever come after me or my people. And to show you I’m serious, I’ll say the same for my people.” He looked back to his soldiers. “If the Asp defeats me, none of you will seek reprisals against her or her people! That is my order!”
His orders didn’t compel his people, but they couldn’t reveal that without raising questions. He also wouldn’t need them to avenge him. Given how hungry Suck’s rarity felt at the thought of battle, he was fairly confident of that.
He looked back to the Asp. “I told mine. Now tell yours. Or the duel’s off.”
To her credit, the Asp didn’t even hesitate. “After I kill Lord Gloomwood or he kills me, you will not seek reprisals against him or his thralls! That is my order! Agreed?”
A chorus of assents came from her gathered mercenaries. Drake glanced at the capital guard captain. “So you heard all that, right? No reprisals on either side? We duel, someone loses, and everyone moves on with their lives?”
“I did hear it,” the guard admitted. “But dueling in the streets of our city is frowned upon, Lord Gloomwood, even for manor lords. I must tell the Judge about this.”
“That’s fine,” Drake said. “You do that. And remember, the Asp challenged me.” He turned to the evil acid lady. “Your move, assface.”
She bared her teeth as acid once more gathered around her hands. Before she could toss it at him, Drake raised his own hand... and focused intently on the glow inside her head.
Her stance wobbled. Her hands dropped as her acid balls slid off and once more slapped into the earth. They hissed loudly as they burned up the street. Meanwhile, the Asp stumbled on her feet like a drunk, visibly trembling. All of that was great, but she didn’t bleed.
Drake ground his teeth and increased his focus, but her blood wouldn’t come. What was he doing wrong? Why wasn’t he sucking blood out of her eyes and mouth? Suck had done it through silverweave, so he could do it through silverweave. He’d absorbed the rarity from Suck’s blood and burnished it. The glow assured him of that.
He just had to suck enough blood out of her to drop her. He wouldn’t kill her, but he’d leave her anemic and famished. Yet the blood... wouldn’t... come!
The tableau held like that for another moment until Drake heard a loud, wet pop. It sounded like a watermelon exploding in a microwave. A huge glob of warmth hit Drake directly between the eyes. It splattered across his face and blinded him as wetness flooded his nose.
As he stumbled backward, clawing at his eyes and coughing like he’d just inhaled a whole shaker of pepper, he was pummeled by what felt like a storm of wet hot chunks of Jello. Was that acid? Was he dead now? It didn’t burn. It was just... warm.
“Gods,” someone whispered. “Gods!” It was the capital guard captain, and Drake heard several people audibly retching nearby. Had she poisoned them?
“Lord, stop thrashing!” Lydia shouted. “You’ve won the duel! Let us... clean you!”
Drake trusted Lydia. He listened to her. He stopped thrashing, and he felt arms on his side and then hands and what might be handkerchiefs cleaning off the... hot wet Jello. Finally, he felt like he could pop open one eye. He glanced down at himself and gasped.
He was absolutely covered in blood, and worse. Brown chunks, gray chunks, and... oh, fuck. That was an eyeball. There was a fucking eyeball dangling off the gunk on his chest. It was halfway embedded in what looked to be a piece of rolled-up intestines dripping with brown. He reflexively peeled it off his chest and noticed a lot more intestine came with it.
When Drake looked to the Asp to see how she was faring, he didn’t see her. What he saw, instead, was the bottom two-thirds of a corpse in bloody silverweave. She still had legs, and hips, and most of her stomach. He could see the remains of part of her ribcage. A couple of arms severed below the shoulders sat in pools of blood on either side of the mess.
But her chest? Her head? The rest? That was apparently glued to his hair, face, and body like sticky mud splashed up from a big puddle. Drake urked loudly and fought the urge to lose his lunch in front of witnesses. That wouldn’t be very intimidating.
So, he hadn’t just defeated the Asp using Suck’s burnished rarity. He was wearing her.
“Ugh,” Drake managed as his stomach burned. “That smell. It’s bad!”
Lydia shook her head as she continued to dab at the carnage. “You’re going to need a bath, lord. Or... several of them.” She glanced at the half-blown up corpse in the street and then at the space beyond the capital guards. The Asp’s mercenaries were long gone.
Drake dabbed futilely at his eyes with the back of his wrist, taking shallow breaths to minimize the stench. “Anyone got eyes on her buddies?”
“Sachi does.” Lydia’s expression remained solemn. “I doubt we’ll have any more trouble from that quarter. Still, I wish you hadn’t risked yourself.”
Drake wiped gunk off his chin. “And I wish I didn’t have brains up my nose.” He sneezed. “Consider this a win. None of those assholes will ever bother us again, and Robin must be happy now that her evil enemy is... all that.” He looked around. “Where is Robin?”
“She left the moment you defeated the Asp, lord. I didn’t see where she went.” Lydia grimaced. “Shall I order someone to pursue her?”
Drake considered and immediately discarded the idea. “No. Let her roam. Killing the Asp was a real big deal for her. A walk will clear her head.”
“Of course, lord.”
“Also, I know what I’m going to call this rarity now.”
As Lydia led him back to his people, he ignored the squelching sounds from his now disgustingly red boots. She focused her eyes on the road ahead instead of glancing back at him. “What name have you chosen?”
Drake picked something gray and squishy out of his hair and tossed it on the road nearby. “Given the results of today’s duel, we’re going to call this one mindblow.”
“That’s terrible,” Lydia said.
Drake sneezed again. “Isn’t it?”
After that horrifying conversation, all that remained was to return to the Temple of the Eidolons with his people. Drake spent the rest of the morning in several successive baths as he waited for Raylan to help Darion heal from the acid wounds he’d received. He also worked to scrub the feeling of having brain up his nostrils from his short-term memory.
Mindblow was powerful. That was true. But it was also fucking gross, and Drake didn’t want to end every battle covered in the brains, bowels, and eyeballs of his enemies. Once had been enough for the time being, and with the cabal ended, the Asp dead, and all her mercenaries terrified of him, he’d likely get a break from assassination attempts.
Still, better safe than sorry. He had Samuel give him a vial of blood and mixed it with his own as he lounged in the bath. He’d considered trying to collect the Asp’s blood, but given all the other stuff it was mixed with—her bowels had exploded—he’d decided he didn’t want that in his body. Plus, if he dropped a burnished acid glob on accident, it might burn a new well.
He still had at least six more treatments of mindblow left in the vial if he wanted to use it again... but it was going to remain his last resort. And if he used it again, he’d be sure to wear a mask or a full-face helmet or... something. Maybe a poncho. A really big, thick poncho.
Yet Darion was alive, and with Raylan’s help, he’d recover from his acid torture with rest and regeneration. Word from Lydia had assured him that Lark was safe as well, thrilled and grateful, which was fine and not something he was going to let go to his head.
Or any other parts. He still wasn’t that kind of manor lord.
By the time morning rolled around Drake was already over making a woman explode... on accident. Darion was safe, his people were alive, and he was clean, relaxed, and satisfied with how the day had gone. He’d fucked over Lord Redbow, he had a new healing thrall for his manor, and the mercenaries who’d challenged him would spread the tale of his victory.
All in all, he’d had worse days as a manor lord.
Author's Note: Next week, Drake makes a deal he shouldn't and takes a risk that's too dangerous. In other words, it's Tuesday.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Patreon Note: My Patreon is three weeks ahead, and as such, "Book Two" has ended there, and I'm currently on a two week break before diving into Book Three, which I'll start posting on the Patreon 10/17. Because RR is three weeks behind, the story will go on break on 10/25 and resume (with Book Three) in early November. Just wanted to keep everyone in the loop!
Read Ahead on the Patreon
Chat on the Discord
