For the first time since it had cut off his leg and hailed him, the Castellan moved. It was a slight thing, a mere tilt of its head so that it could meet his eyes. Yet the motion sent a spike of primal panic through him.

  Bronze orbs burned in its sockets, skewering him in place.

  Every single one of them tensed in an instinctive response, a burning urge to move and hide like they were mice that had spotted a hawk circling overhead. The thing of bronze and bloodlust was beyond them, Kaius knew it to the very bottom of his soul.

  With his brother’s health confirmed, he couldn’t keep ignoring it.

  They had thrown everything they had at it, their strongest attacks backed by overwhelming ferocity — only to barely scratch the surface of its gleaming metal body.

  The discrepancy in their strength only made it harder for him to grapple with its deference.

  It hailed him as master. But why? And why in all the decrepit hells did it require spilling his blood first?

  Kaius forced himself to take a steadying breath. They couldn't keep ignoring the creature, not when it seemed content to let them live. This was a chance to get some answers.

  He’d always known that his family history would be deep. Father had always said that Unterstern was old, among the oldest. They would have to be, for a legacy like their own to exist.

  A complete legacy would be impossible to gather without power, prestige and time. It was the greatest mystery of his heritage. Why was the name of Unterstern unknown? With his legacy, they should have had a pedigree greater than the Dukes of Greenseed, and the archmages of Mystral.

  Yet unknown it was. It had been why it was so easy to think they were from across the ocean. If a creation of the Empire knew him when no one else did, there was no way that simply being foreign was the full truth of the matter.

  “If you knew my name, why did you attack us? How did you recognise me?” Kaius was half surprised that he managed to keep an even tone throughout his question.

  The Castellan-Executor did not move, and once more it spoke with still lips.

  “Your blood, Master Unterstern. All automata must answer to the legal commands of a representative of a risen house or the imperial throne.” It paused for a moment, voice taking on an air of contrition, “I apologise if you have been accosted in your tour of this facility.”

  His blood? What? How? If his blood was enough for the automaton to recognise him, why had they been attacked at every turn through the ruin?

  And what in all the damned hells was a risen house?!

  Regardless of his endlessly growing list of questions, two things were clear. His house had authority, and at least part of Unterstern’s history lay with the Empire itself.

  Ianmus, it seemed, was similarly confused by the actions of the lesser automatons they had encountered.

  “If Kaius’s blood is the only thing needed to recognise his authority, why have the lesser automatons assaulted us in our passage? He is our frontline. Plenty of his blood has been spilled.”

  The Castellan stood silent and still, utterly ignoring the mage’s question as it continued to stare at Kaius with a steady gaze.

  Would it only answer to him? Did the authority he evidently held not extend to his team? Kaius gulped, his tongue dry.

  “Answer the question,” Kaius said, shifting in his seat — only to list to the side as he tried to brace himself with an absent leg.

  Right, It was missing. He could forgive himself for the lapse in judgement, considering everything.

  At his demand, the Castellan inclined its head slightly. For all that its face was expressionless and its body a recreation of the ideal physical form in all its naked glory, it carried itself with the quiet dignity of a head chamberlain.

  “Drones and centurions and other lesser automata are not thinking beings. With the active maintenance of this facility disabled, structures have begun to break down. The local network is particularly compromised. Some facilities and subroutines will have recognised you — it is the only way you would have made it to the mainframe without barriers, or even into this facility in the first place. However, that right of passage was unable to be communicated to the remaining personnel.”

  That made a sick sort of sense from his investigations into the runic networks that were set into the walls of this place. Running into broken connections had been common, and those that were degraded and malfunctioning even more so. But blood?

  “The front door, Kaius. That must have been what happened when it pricked your palm,” Porkchop said.

  Kaius straightened. Of course! That at least would explain the initial connection.

  The major outgoing runic web that had connected that front door to the rest of the facility had been a broken thing, but it must have reached enough systems to grant them access to most places. Not all though.

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  The redoubts for one. Perhaps they were sealed and isolated from the rest of the structure? It would explain why it had tried to cut them off from the rest of the facility — they hadn’t been given access yet.

  Still, that didn't explain everything.

  “Why my blood?” Kaius asked of the Castellan that stood over them. “And how would you recognise me from that alone?”

  There were bloodline seals, of course. His blade carried one of them, and how it shielded itself from inspection apart from those related to him. But those were complicated inscriptions that had to be individually keyed and linked to every aspect of a formation to work properly . It wouldn’t have worked, not in the form he knew.

  “Apologies, Master Unterstern, but the information you request requires the authorisation of the Duke of Unterstern.”

  Kaius stiffened.

  He was a fucking duke?!

  “You’re a bloody duke of the Eternal Empire?!” Kenva spluttered, looking at him like he’d grown a second head

  He had no answer for her. This was not where he had expected this conversation to go.

  “A duke? Like the leaders of the Greenseed cities that we are planning to go to?” Porkchop asked. His head tilted slightly, though he watched the Castellan with undisguised suspicion.

  “In the same way that you are like a lesser meles,” Ianmus answered, letting out a strangled chuckle.

  “I see,” Porkchop said with satisfaction, his voice clearer than it had been earlier — his healing must have nearly finished.

  Slapping Kaius with his leg, Porkchop leaned down. “Congratulations, brother, on your promotion to human patriarch!”

  Kaius nearly choked, but the joke did the job of helping him shake off his shock. Regardless of his claim to nobility, such a thing had always been likely in one form or another. And, of all things, a heritage of an Empire many millennia dead and buried had very little bearing on the present moment, beyond the access it afforded him.

  Ianmus narrowed his eyes, looking up at the Castellan warily.

  “The information is sealed by the Duke of Unterstern, not the imperial throne?”

  Kaius paused at his friend’s words. That was a good point — from the sounds of it, this was not a facility solely owned by his dynasty. Surely information of such importance would have required an imperial seal?

  A few breaths later, he realised that the Castellan was still refusing to even acknowledge Ianmus’s existence.

  “You may as well answer them,” Kaius said. “They are my team, and I trust them with my life. Anything that we discuss will be shared with them anyway, and they can still hear you just as well as I can, so it’s not like anything is being hidden.”

  “Apologies, Master Unterstern. Only those of sufficient authority in a house may name agents as official representatives. They are free to listen as your entourage, but as Castellan, I only have authorisation to speak to you alone.”

  Kaius scowled, frustrated at the automatons' rigidity. This was a thinking being who had been alive for who knew how many thousands of years. It had to be aware that the Empire was long dead. Why stick to the codes of the buried?

  Though supposed he should be thankful that it did. It was those very codes that had saved his life.

  Regardless, if the castellan demanded ducal authority, then he held the seat — and let him be damned if he would fail to learn more about his history simply because an automaton would not recognise that.

  “I am the last of my line,” he spat. “Does that not make me the highest authority of Unterstern by default?”

  The burning eyes of the Castellan flickered, and the faint glimmer of life that animated its body seemed to vanish as it stiffened to become truly statuesque. Kaius froze in turn. Had he made a mistake? Made some claim that threatened the tenuous safety they clung to?

  Life returned as it tilted its head at him. Kaius sighed in relief.

  A relief that quickly fled as the Castellan crouched. As titanic as it was, it still dwarfed him. It looked down at him with greater intensity than ever before.

  Porkchop growled threateningly.

  Kaius laid a hand on his brother’s shoulder.

  “Careful. This thing utterly annihilated us in an instant. There is no point giving it an opportunity to see us as an aggressor.”

  “An uncomfortable truth,” Porkchop replied, but he quietened down all the same.

  Kaius simply looked deep into the automaton’s eyes as it searched his own. A moment later it spoke, its words steady but slow, as if it was weighing him up.

  “By right, such a thing would make you the head of House Unterstern, and with the ongoing state of emergency, ducal authority could be passed on without undergoing the relevant oaths. But do you have evidence for your claim?”

  Kaius wanted to tear his hair out and scream. How the fuck was he supposed to have that?

  He knew nothing of his family history. He certainly didn’t have a ream of paper detailing the births and deaths in his genealogy stashed in his storage ring.

  And a state of emergency? That had to be the largest understatement he’d ever heard. The total collapse of a civilisation and utter loss of its culture went far beyond a simple emergency.

  Still, if that state of affairs provided a loophole for him to seize the title he needed, then he’d have to thank the lady of luck, Elentyr, for her blessing.

  At least it would be a blessing if he had some bloody proof.

  A thought shot through him like lightning. His blade — Father had forged it for him. Its very epigraph stated that he was the final scion of Unterstern.

  If the System wasn’t considered an objective authority, he didn’t know what was.

  “May I show you my blade?” Kaius said cautiously, keeping his hands free and visible. “It is a growth weapon my father forged for me, and its epigraph confirms my status.”

  The Castellan gave him a slight nod.

  Reaching over to where his blade lay on the ground, Kaius clutched its hilt like a lifelime. He knew the status of A Father’s Gift by rote, but it was shielded by a bloodline veil. No matter, that could be circumvented.

  Reaching through the bond he had with the weapon, Kaius suppressed the enchantment. It took him almost no effort, as his blade itself leapt to obey.

  He presented it flat across his hands.

  “Analyse it.”

  The Castellan stared at the sword.

  “Unorthodox, and against the spirit of the law even if within the bounds of the letter. Yet it will suffice. Your ducal authority is acknowledged. Ave, Lord Unterstern.”

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