---

He remained bowed toward Sekhmet and said, with the awful calm of true conviction, "I serve Master Sekhmet from this moment until my death."

That struck Mihos far harder than if Kess had wept or begged or explained himself badly.

Because this was not a weak panic. This was a decision.

Mihos stepped forward. "Stephen. Kill him."

That was the exact point where Lady Seraphiel’s patience ran out again.

"No."

Her voice cut through Mihos’s order before Stephen could breathe.

The heir turned sharply. "But aunt..."

"You said it yourself," Seraphiel said. Her tone was not raised. It did not need to be. "If he chose willingly, then he could go." Her eyes hardened. "Why are you changing your words now? Do you have no shame?"

That landed directly in front of the guards, the servants, the road, the lower branch, and everyone else Mihos would have preferred not witness such a question.

Mihos felt the humiliation immediately.

His face did not betray all of it. Good training. Bad blood. But inside, anger moved fast and poisonous.

She is crossing the line, he thought. She is insulting me in front of the low-born. In front of the guards.

And beneath that, a colder thought rooted itself.

"When I become House Master, I will remember this insult."

Not only this night. Her tone. Her interference. The way she had stopped his fight, forced his hand, and now cut him again in front of Sekhmet and others.

Good. Let him remember. He might never become the house master.

Old houses were made of such remembered debts.

Stephen, caught between order, law, and structure, did the only sensible thing.

He did not move.

Because yes, Mihos had ordered. But no violence could now be justified under the terms spoken aloud before witnesses, and Stephen was too old and too useful to stain his own judgment by obeying a command that had already become publicly wrong.

Sekhmet still had not moved.

He stood over Kess with the same calm as before, though inwardly he took note of every reaction. Good. Very good. The system’s Blood Puppet path remained invisible enough to pass even under divine scrutiny if established through the skill ranges. Useful beyond measure.

Lady Seraphiel looked at him and said, "Leave."

There was no point staying longer.

That, too, was true.

The road had given everything it would give tonight. The game was set. The judges were named. The timetable was fixed. Kess was taken from the heir. Mihos angered. Stephen was forced into silence. Seraphiel was already one breath from turning the whole camp into a sermon if anyone pushed her another inch.

Sekhmet accepted the instruction with the same economy he used in all useful things.

He looked at Kess.

"Up."

Kess rose at once. There was no hesitation in him. No uncertainty.

Lady Seraphiel continued, more quietly now, "The conversation is finished. There is no point remaining here."

Mihos said nothing. That itself was a kind of defeat.

Bat Bat, still processing that a servant had changed masters on the road without anyone seeing how, looked at Sekhmet with renewed religious enthusiasm. One of the maids at her side murmured, "Do not start talking."

Bat Bat whispered back, "I am having revelations."

Another maid replied, "Have them silently."

Sekhmet turned toward the carriage. The little group around him shifted with the same smooth precision as before, but the atmosphere had changed. They were leaving with more than they brought. More leverage. More insults. More danger. More future plans.

At the carriage, Sekhmet looked once toward Kess and said, "Sit with the driver."

Kess bowed his head. "Yes, Master."

That one word, spoken so naturally now, hit Mihos like another slap.

When Kess had been his servant, he had been made to run. Now, under Sekhmet, he was permitted a seat.

Not inside the carriage. But a seat is a seat. A place. Acknowledgment.

The symbolism of it burned far worse than Kess’s actual loss.

Bat Bat climbed in first and whispered to the nearest maid, "That was extremely dramatic. I approve."

The maid did not answer because answering Bat Bat only fed her.

Elena entered next with lady Seraphiel. Then the maids. Sekhmet entered last.

The carriage door shut. The driver clicked the reins. The wheels started to turn. And the lower Dawn carriage began to leave Mihos’s chosen ground.

For several breaths after it started moving, Mihos said nothing.

He watched the retreating shape of the carriage, the driver’s box, and Kess seated where he had no right to sit if the world were still behaving properly.

The guards around him kept their faces straight. They had all seen too much tonight already.

At last, Mihos spoke.

"The low-born is too much."

No one answered. No one dared to. Because he did not want comfort.

"When Kess was my servant, he made him run." His voice sharpened into cold disgust. "Now that he is his servant, he lets him sit."

The humiliation in that pattern struck him harder the longer he stood with it.

He turned toward Stephen at last.

Stephen held very still.

Mihos continued, "In the game, Kess dies first."

There it was. Spoken cleanly.

And then, still carried by anger hot enough to make him forget the shape of his own household for one fatal moment, Mihos added, "Send word that his whole family is to be killed as well."

The road held that sentence for one beat.

Then Stephen answered.

"Young Master."

Mihos looked at him. "All your guards are orphans."

The heir’s expression did not shift at first.

Stephen continued with the same respectful tone one might use while reminding a noble that the sun had risen.

"They have no families. The main house raised orphan stock as guards and servants so that no outside line could threaten them through blood or household leverage." He inclined his head slightly. "Did you forget?"

Silence...

Mihos remained perfectly still. Anger had, in fact, made him forget.

That realization did not improve his mood. It only made the humiliation more private.

Better, in some ways. More poisonous.

He said nothing.

The carriage continued down the western road, carrying Sekhmet, lady Seraphiel, Elena, Bat Bat, the maids, and now Kess toward the city.