Page 36 of His Emotional Support Snack

Jarek fights his way to my side, his eyes blazing, his armor coated in gore.

"They brought dampeners, my lord!" Jarek shouts over the din, parrying a vicious thrust from a Serpent captain. "The green smoke!"

I narrow my eyes, scanning the perimeter. Small, metallic canisters roll across the un-melted sections of the courtyard, spewing a thick, bilious green vapor into the air. It is a forbidden alchemical compound designed specifically to choke magic. Wherever the smoke settles, the purple static of my power flickers, sputtering like a dying candle. The molten glass begins to cool, hardening rapidly back into jagged, uneven stone.

Zatori’s captains exploit the shift.

They do not press the attack on the main line. A specialized strike team, wearing heavy iron rebreathers to filter the dampening smoke, breaks away from the main skirmish. They move with terrifying, coordinated speed, bypassing the Miou phalanx.

They drive a direct, aggressive wedge toward the western residential wing.

Toward the reinforced cellar. Toward the human and the boy.

A cold, catastrophic fury banishes the heat of battle.

I abandon the front line, sprinting across the cooling glass. The green smoke burns my lungs, tasting of sulfur and rot, dragging a sharp, stinging drag on my restored magic, but the silver blood pumping through my veins pushes back. I tear through the haze, intercepting the strike team just as they reach the heavy oak doors of the western wing.

The lead captain raises a massive, two-handed battleaxe.

I do not slow my momentum. I duck beneath the sweeping arc of the axe, the iron blade whistling inches from my scalp. I drive my shoulder into his breastplate, knocking him off balance. Before he can recover, I thrust my longsword upward, sliding the steel through the narrow gap beneath his chin, up into his brain pan.

I rip the blade free, spinning to meet the remaining four captains.

My hair clings to my cheeks, slick with the blood of my enemies. The civilized, arrogant lord of the high council is gone. The raw, primal beast of the Khuzuth caste takes over. I fight with a desperate, unhinged savagery, using the hilt, the edge, and the armored plates of my gauntlets to batter the strike team into the stone.

The final captain falls, his throat opened, his green blood pooling around my boots.

I stand before the oak doors, my chest heaving, my sword dripping. The western wing is secure. The cellar remains untouched.

Then, the pain hits.

It is not the jagged, internal burning of the Marrow-Rot. It is a sharp, psychic tearing that strikes the center of my skull, a violent snapping of an ethereal tether.

I stumble, pressing a hand to my temple.

The defensive chaos wards I placed over the glass archways in the high tower—the wards shielding the nursery—just shattered.

The realization drops my core temperature to freezing. The attack on the courtyard, the dampening smoke, the strike team pushing toward the cellar—it was all a calculated, bloody distraction. A classic maneuver of the Deceiver’s own playbook, orchestrated by my uncle. Zatori never intended to breach the lower levels. He knew I would send the boy to the deepest, most secure vault.

He didn't want the boy.

He wanted the cure.

Esmeralda.

The strike team didn't push toward the cellar to capture the heir. They pushed to force me to defend the ground floor, drawing me away from the true target. Zatori bypasses the defenses entirely, using the chaos of the siege to slip into the high tower. He knew the alchemical dampening smoke would back-draft into the subterranean levels, forcing her to flee the cellar and retreat to the master suite to protect the boy.

Panic, raw and paralyzing, grips my throat.

I do not turn back to Jarek. I abandon the courtyard, leaving the Miou to hold the line against the remaining Serpent forces. I tear the oak doors open and sprint down the western corridor.

The air pressure inside the estate is wrong. The familiar, protective hum of my own wards is gone, replaced by the cloying, putrid stench of crushed lilies and Serpent magic.

I take the spiral stone staircase three steps at a time, my boots hammering a frantic, desperate rhythm against the marble. The silver blood in my veins burns, demanding I move faster, pushing my physical limits until my muscles scream.

If Zatori touches her. If he spills the blood that keeps me breathing.

I will tear this entire continent apart, stone by stone, until there is nothing left but ash and silence.