“Will you agree to an armistice, Lord Thale Feldrast?” Alexander asked.

  “Now, why would I do that?” Thale said, leaning against his staff and shooting a cruel smile in the Blue Mage’s direction. Though Thale’s voice was dripping with hostility, no one moved to attack.

  “Because we’ve reached a stalemate,” Alexander said. “As things are, I won’t be able to kill you, and you won’t be able to kill me.” He switched to English. “We might as well share some parting words.”

  “Stick to the Common tongue,” Thale said in a tone of mirthful cruelty. “I don’t speak your inferior, ugly language.”

  “What are you…?” Alexander began to ask, but he stopped himself mid-question. “Oh, I see. I’m talking to someone else right now, aren’t I?”

  Don’t give him information he doesn’t need to know!

  Shock on their faces, Beltane and Kinro looked over toward me, waiting for Thale to respond.

  “That’s right,” Thale said through a smirk. “I am a far greater mage than the fool who was controlling this body moments before. You see, I am…”

  Forcefully, I began to exert control over my body once more. This time, however, Thale resisted. That had never happened before. Previously, I had been able to control Thale’s consciousness completely. I was not immediately able to regain control of my boy. It was a terrifying sensation. It felt like I was submerged in water and, when I swam to reach the surface, I found that I was far deeper than I originally thought.

  My neck and face muscles spasmed as I sent pulses to the nerve endings there. After a few seconds of mental grappling, I was pushed back, and Thale remained in control of my body. An acute feeling of lethargy pervaded my senses, as if the mental battle had weakened me. Was that what it felt like on the losing side? It was certainly unpleasant.

  “I see,” Alexander said with a slight head tilt. “You must be a daemon of some kind. Either way, just assume I’m speaking to whatever version of Thale Feldrast has been dominant for the past decade.” He switched to English once more. “You and I are the only people in this world that matter. All the others are just NPCs with preset fates in a stagnant world. Yes, even Haydith and David. We can be each other’s greatest enemies or greatest allies. We don’t need to fight, you see, because…”

  Alexander switched back to the common tongue. “I’ve already won.”

  In a demanding voice, Beltane asked, “What do you mean? The King is still alive! Your plan has failed!”

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  With a cruel smirk on his face, Alexander said, “Check the back of your hand.”

  I felt a knot form in my stomach.

  “The dagger…” Thale muttered, and I could feel him use my lips to frown.

  “What?” Beltane gasped in shock as he looked down. There on his hand, like a newly-formed birthmark, was a splotch of discoloration in the shape of a skull.

  No! That’s impossible!

  “Death Blight,” Thale growled through my teeth. “Where did you find it?”

  “What is Death Blight?” Beltane said, clenching his teeth to prevent fear from affecting his tone or expression. With his free hand, he grabbed the holy symbol of the God of Death that hung from his neck.

  “I see you’ve heard of it, daemon. How strange,” Alexander said with an appraising look. “I found it in Caligo, of course. Unfortunately, I was only able to find the blood borne variant. As for your question,” he turned to Beltane, “Death Blight is the only incurable disease in this world. It is nothing less than the very blood of Thanatos the Death God suspended within the mortal world. Anyone infected with Death Blight will die within a year, no exceptions.”

  “And you…” Beltane said, looking at the back of his palm in fear. “No… the King.”

  “That’s right,” Alexander said. “King Theophrastus will be dead within a year. I will have to wait longer than I initially planned, but I still completed my mission. The domino has already been pushed, and the world order of Ferrum will be overturned. There’s no longer any reason to resist. Join me, Thale. The peace of this world can no longer be maintained, but it can still be saved.”

  The Blue Mage held me in his steady gaze as he spoke. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the last of the enemy undead fall to the King’s sword. From the other direction, David came sprinting toward us, his armor covered in blood. One way or another, this brief moment of peace would not hold. Fighting would resume in seconds.

  What do you think, Johan?

  He might have just condemned hundreds of millions to violent death. What could possibly make me want to work with him?

  When the initial flash of anger subsided after a second, I realized that it was not the time for an emotional outburst. My relationship with Alexander was a chess match, and his words were just a provocation so that he could gain more information about me. He wanted to know how much of a threat I would be to him and would alter the amount of force he would bring to bear on me in the future depending on how I reacted to his request.

  Tell him I’ll think about it.

  Thale grimaced, saying, “The other guy says he’ll think about it.”

  “Tell him he can find me in Sondrith,” Alexander said.

  “I don’t think he will,” Thale said as he stepped forward and the flame surrounding my body flared with his building anger. “I think you and him have been operating under a false assumption. Everybody seems to be taking it for granted that you’ll escape and we’ll clash again some time in the future. Maybe that would be true if the other guy was in control. None of that matters, because I’m in control right now, and I am going to kill you with my own two hands here and now.”