The rest of the weekend passed in a relentless blur, each hour dragging Klarion from one task to the next with barely a moment to catch his breath. Jezeri’s departure lingered in the back of his mind, a quiet unease that never fully faded. He trusted her—he had to. She had been a Sentinel, even if she didn’t have the class anymore, and if anyone could handle a mission like this alone, he had faith that she could. But trust didn’t erase concern.

  Yet, with everything that needed to be done to restore Blacksword Manor, his thoughts of her gradually faded into the background. The once-proud estate was still in a state of disrepair, its long neglect evident everywhere he looked.

  His new servants—it would take some time to get used to that—had thrown themselves into their work with an intensity that soon began to lead to improvements throughout the manor. Margaret, his new Housekeeper, had taken to the role with an iron will. With the experience she had previously managing the household of a lesser noble, she was quickly able to seize control over what otherwise would be the chaos of restoring their new home. Her no-nonsense approach made even the hardened Vileborn think twice about crossing her.

  Armed with a ledger that she had found somewhere, Margaret had set to work cataloging the state of every room, hall, and corridor. Even some that Klarion himself had not been in yet. The kobold maids —Vaila, Shaya, and Noqui—all worked under her direction, moving through the manor with a tireless energy that belied their small frames. Despite how similar his new maids looked, Klarion was gradually able to tell them apart based on the tasks each focused on. Vaila had primarily focused on all the dusting, of which there was a lot to be done given how long many of the rooms across the floors of the manor had been empty. Shaya, assisted by the Vileborn occasionally, focused on the removal of debris and unsalvagable furniture from the manor. Lastly, Noqui, was the fastest of the kobolds, and had volunteered to help coordinate the efforts of the other servants under Margaret’s direction, as well as help with fetching supplies once the Housekeeper had a running list of things needed to make the manor more livable.

  By midday on the day after Jezeri left, most of the main rooms had been emptied of dust and had their floors scrubbed free of grime. Klarion hadn’t realized until that moment how much he had begun to grow used to the faint smells of rot and mildew throughout the manor. Hopefully, with the kobold maids having opened windows as they went, the sharp tang of cleaning solutions would gradually dissipate.

  Leaving Margaret and the maids to their tasks, Klarion had then gone on to check in with Baruk, his new orc cook. Baruk had started his in-depth inspection of the kitchen that morning, and if the scowl that he had greeted his new lord with was any indication, the orc was not happy with what he had to work with. It wasn’t that the kitchen was in rough shape. Far from it. No, for Baruk, the main issue was that they were low on staples and that the wine celler had been emptied long ago. Not a single cask or bottle remained, the racks left abandoned.

  Once Baruk had grown a bit more comfortable with Klarion hovering around the kitchen, he had gradually opened up as to why he was so appalled by the state of the wine cellar. Apparently, unlike most of his race, the orc far preferred a nice bottle of red to a mug of simple beer. While Klarion had not drunk much except when he was amongst friends back on Earth, he had expressed polite interest in what Baruk had learned about wine in his time leveling up his Camp Cook class. He had assumed it would not be much, but Baruk had quickly surprised him on the depth of his knowledge. By the end of his explanation on the general process of turning grapes into wine, the orc had mostly seemed to have forgotten that he had been speaking to a scion of an Archducal House.

  By the end of the inspectation, Baruk had a long list of things to purchase to get the kitchen and the wine cellar to what he called an acceptable state for the number of people now living in the manor. Klarion had looked over the list prior to passing it along to Solivair, as his new Vileborn Steward currently had all of the money that would be used to refurbish and restock the manor, and at first he had been a bit concerned at how much everthing might cost him. But then he had tried the first meal the orc had with the few ingredients that he had been able to put together. A thick stew made from what he had been able to scavenge, Baruk had served it with hard bread that he had softened over the stove. Far from a feast fit for a noble, it was still warm, filling, and a welcome change from the dried rations the rest of the servants had been subsisting on before coming into Klarion’s service. As simple as it was, even Klarion had appreciated the hearty meal. He was looking forward to seeing what the orc cook would be able to do with more ingredients once they took care of the shopping.

  While the others had focused on the cleaning and cataloguing of things needed for the manor, Klarion had been somewhat surprised by what the Vileborn had done to keep themselves busy. Though, given their shared criminal background, perhaps he should not have been so surprised.

  Instead of focusing on the interior, Solivair and his grandchildren had turned their attention outward. In the few interactions he had with the old Vileborn Crimelord, Solivair had quickly proven himself to have a mind for organization after the years of leading a criminal organization of some sort. His new Steward had quickly gotten the ball rolling, making purchases of replacement furniture and other necessities for the manor, though he had made it clear to Klarion that there would need to be a lot more gold spent to restore the place to its prime.

  It had been in one of their later conversations over the long week that Klarion had asked some questions about the Crimelord’s past. Solivair hadn’t said much, nor had he specified what kind of organization he had led when Klarion had asked, only saying there would be time for such conversations later. While still curious, Klarion had set his questions aside as he was swept along by Solivair, who had pointed out a number of security gaps the manor had, given the lack of guards and other security.

  With his grandchildren not having consistent duties in their roles as generic household staff, the old Vileborn had quickly sent them around Blacksword Manor to try to cover some of these gaps until proper guards could be selected from the House of Bonds. Damian and Kodrian, who both had the skills of thieves despite their different classes, were dispatched by their grandfather to set up some basic traps around the perimeter of the manor. Well aware of how much traffic the manor would be seeing now that there were more people living there, this mainly consisted of making some crude but effective alarms from old wire and metal scraps to be placed in locations that no one actually supposed to at the manor would try to sneak through. Lilian, Solivair’s grandaughter who had the class of Assassin, had been sent by her grandfather to discretely see if anyone was watching the Blacksword Manor.

  While they were busy doing these tasks, Solivair and Klarion worked out a simple patrol schedule for the three younger Vileborn to stick to when not helping around the manor itself. His new Steward had insisted on it when Klarion had filled him in on everything that had happened to him since arriving at the Imperial Academy, up to what had happened to Jezeri and how she had entered his service as his second bodyguard.

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  Needless to say, none of Solivair’s grandchildren had been excited about having to patrol the manor on a regular schedule, with Kodrian openly expressing his distaste and protesting that Sentinels were all over the Imperial Academy for that exact purpose.

  Klarion watched as Solivair turned his attention to his grandson, the weight of disappointment clear in his eyes.

  “I thought I had taught you better than that, boy,” Solivair said in clear reprimand. “The Sentinels are not omnipresent guardians, nor are they the shield you think they are. Even with my limited observations so far, it is clear to me that their purpose is not to protect the scions but to prevent open conflict between them from consuming the Empire. That is not the same thing.”

  Kodrain had stiffened, clearly realizing his mistake, but Solivair wasn’t finished. He turned his gaze to Klarion, the question unspoken but understood.

  Klarion met Solivair’s stare evenly before turning to Kodrian and his siblings. “Given that the Lord Sentinel doesn’t seem inclined to do anything about what Chadwick Copperhand did to Jezeri, I’m of the opinion that we should be safe and implement a patrol schedule anyway.”

  Kodrian frowned, his confusion evident. “Who is Chadwick Copperhand? What did he do?”

  Solivair’s expression darkened. “It seems you’ve not been paying attention.” His grandson shifted uncomfortably under the weight of his grandfather’s disapproval, but Solivair turned back to Klarion instead.

  “A wise course of action. I’ll see that my grandchildren adhere to it,” his Vileborn Steward said, nodding approvingly.

  With that small issue taken care of, the rest of the day’s work had gradually come to a halt. Wanting the company, Klarion and Hatsune had joined the servants for dinner, and once he had made it clear that he did not stand much on ceremony when no other scions were around, they all settled in to enjoy the meal Baruk had made. As they finished eating, Margaret began planning the tasks for the next day, working through the ledger resting in her lap. The kobolds, exhausted, had turned in early after helping Baruk clean up the kitchen. Solivair had bid both Klarion and Hatsune a good night before returning to the dining room to discuss security with Lilian and Damian.

  Klarion had slept peacefully, knowing that Blacksword Manor was in good hands and that the servant bonds he shared with each of them prevented any threat of betrayal.

  On the last day of the weekend, Klarion decided to leave the servants to their duties so that he could just enjoy the day. To his surprise, that had quickly shifted into spending time with Hatsune.

  It wasn’t intentional at first. She had remained especially close ever since the day Jezeri had left. At first, Klarion assumed she was still upset about Jezeri’s sudden kiss and was keeping an eye on him. But when the weekend began approaching its end and she was still hovering nearby without saying anything else on the topic, he realized she wasn’t just watching. She was waiting.

  And so, slowly, deliberately, he had let himself talk.

  It started with little things—the way the seasons changed back on Earth, the cities he had traveled to, the technology that had once defined his life. He spoke of the metal towers that stretched into the sky, the humming of electricity in the air, the strange comforts that he had never thought to appreciate until they were gone. He described the glow of neon signs reflected in rain-slick streets, the quiet hum of an engine beneath his fingertips on the rare days he drove, the way people lived stacked upon one another in great, sprawling cities, never truly alone yet often feeling more isolated than ever.

  Then, hesitantly, he told her about the hospital.

  He had been dying. A sickness had eaten away at him, something no doctor could stop. For such a long time, he had lived tethered to machines, the sterile scent of antiseptic filling his lungs more often than fresh air. He had fought through pain and exhaustion, but in the end, he had started to slip. He had been ready to give up. The endless days of suffering had worn him down, and he had made peace with the fact that he would never see anything beyond those white, sterile walls. And then, he told Hatusne that, by some impossible miracle, he had been healed. But he did not tell her of his shadowy visitor in the hospital, nor of the oath.

  The doctors had called it unprecedented, an anomaly they could not explain. His parents had called it a blessing. He had called it a second chance.

  Life had been better after the hospital. He had thrown himself into it with the reckless determination of someone who had been given something precious back. He had made friends—real friends, not just the nurses and doctors who had pitied him. He had finished his schooling, immersing himself in everything he had missed while trapped in a hospital bed. He had studied, worked, built a future for himself. He told her how he had been on track to become a doctor.

  But fate was not so kind as to let him live in peace.

  He told her how a criminal organization had come for him. How they had taken him, broken him, left him covered in scars that he suspected would never truly fade. He told her how he would have died there, at their hands, if not for the servant of House Blacksword who had found him, cutting through his captors like a blade through silk. And that was how he had eventually ended up here, at the Imperial Academy, standing before Hatsune, spilling truths that he had never spoken aloud in their near entirety to anyone else.

  She listened with an intensity that surprised him, her green eyes locked onto him, ears twitching at every unfamiliar detail. Sometimes, she would ask questions. Other times, she would simply nod, absorbing the information while not interrupting.

  When he spoke of his family, the people he had grown up with, the conversations grew slower, more measured. He hadn’t spoken about them much since coming here—hadn’t let himself dwell on the ache of knowing they were impossibly far away. But Hatsune had a way of drawing things out of him, of making the silence between his words feel safe rather than empty. His father’s steady presence, his mother’s sharp wit. The way his siblings had always made him feel loved, even while they teased and picked on him for being the youngest. The friends he had left behind. The people who might never know what had happened to him.

  Hatsune never interrupted. She never told him things would be alright. She simply listened, and when the weight of his own words grew too much, she would shift the conversation just enough to let him breathe.

  In return, she gradually offered small pieces of herself as well.

  She spoke of food first—of the dishes she had loved as a child, the ones she had spent years trying to perfect. She talked about the forests she had roamed, the way the wind felt different in the open wilds compared to the enclosed courtyards of the Academy. She mentioned, in passing, that she had once gotten into a fight over a piece of fruit, though she refused to elaborate further.

  But whenever he pressed with questions of his own, just a little, she would hold back.

  He didn’t push.

  Until, late in the evening, after they had said good night to the rest of the staff after dinner and begun getting ready for bed, he finally asked, “You don’t talk about your life before the Hall of Bonds much. Apart from the small things, I mean.”

  Hatsune hesitated, staring down at the sword in her hands before setting it aside next to her armor. “…I don’t,” she admitted.

  “Why?”

  A long silence. Then, finally, she looked up at him. “I will,” she said. “But it won’t be until after we forge our swords. I’ll tell you once they’re made. Now, I’m a bit tired. I’ll see you in the morning.” She yawned. “Good night, Klarion.”

  “Alright,” he said. “Good night, Hatsune.”

  As the Leporine settled into sleep, Klarion did not think about how his next week of classes would be starting tomorrow but about the sword he would need to forge in order to finally learn more about the woman he was coming to care for. He wasn’t sure what kind of blade she envisioned for herself, nor what kind of swordsmith they would need to find to craft something truly unique. But the prospect of a weapon forged for him alone sent a thrill through his chest. The thought of such a weapon was enough to push the pull of sleep off briefly. For his part, there was no question in his mind what kind of sword he would want.

  A greatsword. Something that would define him and who he was.

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