tair

landed on the hem of m

iron-tipped cudgels, their eyes raking over

ly weavers and injured woodcutters being shoved violentl

with fury as I pulled my children against my ribs. "The receipt is register

on my boots!" the medic sneered, s

mmon law of the Middle Reaches. Lady Candida requires an absolute radius of pure silence and clean air to stabilize her wom

Always

glory, and now she was sending her dogs to r

wn, and you call it an heir," I

"Insolent bitch! How dare you

distic pleasure. "If you won't walk, I'll bash those nameless ru

oward the basket, whistl

icker rim, curling my spine

AC

k snapping in a gale rippe

a wall of pure, blinding kinetic force detonated above

d, look

who had tended to my chil

right hand-bare, pale, and glowing with an eerie, white-hot l

nchanted to shatter bone, was g

the weapon down or yank it back. "Do you know who I am? I represent the High Hous

man tilted

oal cowl, a pair of eyes like m

oom-not the sharp, biting pressure of a Warlord, but

reign

s simultaneously, their knees slamming into

their breath wheezing in pure, animalistic terror. They couldn't m

cultured, and deadlier than a drawn blade. "A second-tier border h

ed his

cloud of glittering gray dust, drifti

g into the stone doorframe, his face the color of

nd slowly peeled off his charcoal leat

index finger wa

arved from a single, seamless band of translucent Crown-wood, encasing a core o

rest: a golden Great Tree flanked by twin platinum sc

The seal of an im

im on the spot. A foul puddle spread across the stone be

Each of his footfalls sounded like a funeral drum. "You raised cold iron against newbo

inger and pointed it

AP

ofession, his status, and his citizenship-cracked do

. The Unmaking. His life's registry, his connection to the council's rec

bellies like beaten curs. "Drag him to the lowest tier of the penal mines. If I ever see his f

ambling to grab their former master by the collar and dr

nto stunned, ab

ng platinum ring on the man's finger. A lord of the First Tier? A Stafford of the Crown? Wh

urned back

ushing aura vanished as

filthy bed, bowing his head sl

ith a lifetime of sorrow. "Forgive your unc