The Grand Army Coalition was cheering. Men covered in soot, dragon blood, and melted tar were jumping up and down on the cashmere hills, which bounced them back like giant trampolines.

  I sat on a pristine, unburned patch of Merino-Moss, doing what I did best: counting the inventory.

  Sitting in a massive, depressed circle in front of me were roughly 900 Bladeblood Soldiers. They had been stripped of their weapons and bound with heavy, triple-knotted silk ropes (courtesy of the Whitefield tailors). They looked miserable. I looked at them and saw giant bags of gold with faces.

  "Nine hundred prisoners," Baldur Stormsong stated, marching up to me. His jaw was clenched so tight I could hear his teeth grinding. "Military protocol dictates we execute them. Or feed them. Feeding them will cost 450 gold per day. They are a logistical drain. I have sharpened my sword to save us the expense."

  "Baldur, Baldur, Baldur," I tutted, waving a finger at him. "You don't execute inventory. These are Bladeblood elites! Their families back in the Firelands will pay a fortune for them. We don't have prisoners. We have a highly motivated hostage portfolio."

  Baldur scowled. "They require guarding. And our forces are depleted."

  I tapped my HUD. The golden high of leveling up faded slightly as I looked at the faction overview.

  "Mother of depreciating assets," I choked, clutching my chest. "We lost eighty million SP?"

  "Not lost. Damaged," Dr. Fenris Vulpine Walked over, leaning heavily on his cane, a blood-soaked towel thrown over his shoulder. "Most of your idiots aren't dead. They’re just suffering from third-degree burns, broken bones, and whatever psychological trauma comes from being stepped on by a dragon. If I can heal them, your little SP number will bounce back to over a hundred million. But I can't do surgery on a bouncy castle, Wilhelm. I need beds. I need a hospital."

  "A hospital," a quiet, unsettling voice echoed.

  Morvin Whitefield strolled out from behind Baldur. The nine-year-old had a lollipop in his mouth and his hands in his pockets.

  "The Merchant needs a hospital," Morvin mused, sucking on the candy. "And Woolhaven has an excess of empty real estate. The southern district of Woolmere Love is completely vacant. I could arrange a lease."

  "A lease?" I narrowed my eyes. "You want to charge me rent to heal the army that just saved your fluffy country?"

  "Gratitude is an emotion. Real estate is a business," Morvin replied smoothly. "But why stop at a hospital? You are the Crimson Broker now, yes? You shouldn't just be operating out of a gloomy castle in Kynoboros. You need a multinational conglomerate."

  He pulled the lollipop out of his mouth and pointed it at me.

  "Found a Guild, Wilhelm. A construction and medical Guild. Register it here in Woolhaven. I will bypass the zoning laws and the 'Aesthetic Committees' for a 10% stake in the profits. You build your hospital, heal your army, and charge the locals exorbitant fees for medical care. It is a perfect monopoly."

  I stared at the child. He was nine. He was talking about corporate monopolies, zoning laws, and equity stakes.

  "You," I whispered, pointing a trembling finger at him, "are the most terrifying creature I have met in this world. And I just fought two dragons."

  "I'll draft the paperwork," Morvin smiled, popping the candy back into his mouth and wandering away.

  A few yards away, a much louder, much more absurd scene was unfolding.

  Livia Whitefield lay on a makeshift stretcher made of overlapping silk pillows. She was covered in white bandages, her face still smeared with the black soot she refused to let the medics wash off.

  Pontifex Malachia was hovering over her, poking Livia’s bandaged shoulder.

  Poke.

  "Stop it," Livia rasped, batting the glitching hand away.

  Poke.

  "I'm just checking the hitbox!" Malachia giggled. "I can't believe it! The squishy cosmetic princess actually face-tanked a dragon! You specced into a tank build! You’re a meat-shield!"

  "I am a Martyr," Livia corrected weakly, though a small, proud smile tugged at her cracked lips. "There is a difference. A meat-shield takes damage because they are slow. A Martyr takes damage because it looks incredibly dramatic and heroic."

  "It does look rather spectacular, darling," Bastian Stormsong chimed in.

  The Velvet Strangler was sitting next to the stretcher, using a small silver comb to arrange Livia’s soot-stained hair so it fell just right across her bandages.

  "You’ve completely redefined the season’s aesthetic," Bastian cooed, holding up a silver hand-mirror for Livia to see. "The 'Clean and Perfect' look is out. The 'Tragic, Burned, Heroic Survivor' look is in. Half the Whitefield court is already rubbing dirt on their faces just to copy you. It’s a political masterpiece."

  Livia looked in the mirror. She saw the burns. She saw the jagged cut on her cheek.

  She smiled. A real, genuine smile.

  "It does bring out my eyes, doesn't it?" Livia whispered.

  Gutrum Falken stood nearby, watching this bizarre vanity session with absolute bewilderment. He looked at me, pointing at Livia.

  "She almost died for my daughter, and now she is... styling her trauma?"

  "She's a Whitefield, Gutrum," I sighed, walking over and patting the Wolf on the shoulder. "If she's going to bleed out, she's going to make sure the lighting is right. Just let her have this."

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  "Hey, Merchant!" Astrid Falken called out. She was sitting on a dead Bladeblood soldier, using his armor to sharpen her needle-sword. "Are we going to sit on these pillows all day, or are we going hunting?"

  She pointed her blade toward the distant horizon.

  Miles away, nestled in a valley of violently crushed cashmere hills, a thick plume of black smoke was rising into the sky.

  The Obsidian Dragon. And Queen Helga Bladeblood.

  "The beast went down hard," Baldur noted, stepping up beside me. "If the Queen survived the fall, she is stranded behind enemy lines. Veratrix left her to die."

  I looked at the smoke.

  A crippled dragon. A betrayed Queen.

  "We are not going hunting, Astrid," I said, a massive, capitalist grin spreading across my face. "We are going to conduct a hostile acquisition."

  I clapped my hands together.

  "Pack it up, people! Leave the severely injured with Dr. Fenris and our new Corporate Hospital! Take the hostages! We are marching to the crash site!"

  I climbed onto Coin-Biter, feeling the heavy, muffled jingle of my 486,000 Gold.

  "Let's go see if a Queen needs a rescue," I shouted to the cheering army. "And more importantly... let's see how much she's willing to pay for it!"

  The trail of destruction was easy to follow. A jagged, black scar cut through the pristine, fluffy hills of Woolhaven, leading to a massive crater where the earth had literally caved in under the weight of a falling Mythic beast.

  We arrived with a vanguard of three hundred soldiers, moving cautiously through the smoke. The smell of burnt cashmere and melted dragon-scale was suffocating.

  At the center of the crater lay the Obsidian Dragon.

  It was a mountain of black muscle and shattered armor. The green plasma from Veratrix’s betrayal had eaten through the membrane of its left wing, leaving a horrific, bubbling wound. The beast was breathing in shallow, rattling gasps, its massive head resting in the ash.

  And standing in front of the beast’s snout, shielding the monster with her own broken body, was Queen Helga Bladeblood.

  She was a vision of tragic majesty. Her heavy red-and-gold plate armor was crumpled on the left side from the impact of the fall. She had removed her helmet; her dark hair was plastered to her face with sweat and soot. Blood trickled from a deep gash on her forehead.

  She held a shattered dragonbone lance in both hands. Her arms were shaking, her knees buckling, but she stood planted firmly between us and the dying dragon.

  "Hold your ground!" I commanded the Moonclaw soldiers, holding up a hand. "Do not attack. Secure the perimeter!"

  I looked at the dragon. My Merchant brain immediately began calculating. "Bring up the heavy silk ropes!" I shouted to the quartermasters. "Bind the jaw! Pin the wings! But do it gently! If you break another scale on that beast, I’ll deduct it from your pay! That is a Mythic-tier aerial asset!"

  The soldiers moved forward with massive coils of Whitefield silk.

  The dragon let out a low, rumbling growl, trying to lift its head.

  "No!" Helga cried out, her voice cracking. She didn't raise her lance at my men. She turned to the dragon, dropping her weapon completely.

  She pressed her bare, bloody hands against the beast's massive, terrifying snout.

  "Shhh, Ignis," Helga wept, leaning her forehead against the dragon's scales. "Shhh. Do not fight them. You are too weak. Just breathe, my old friend. Just breathe."

  The dragon whimpered a sound so pitiful coming from an apex predator that it made the surrounding soldiers hesitate. It closed its giant yellow eyes, nuzzling gently against her hand.

  She wasn't treating it like a weapon of war. She was treating it like a dying dog.

  Helga turned slowly to face us. She didn't look at me. Her eyes locked onto the massive figure stepping to the front of our line.

  King Brandan Stormsong.

  Brandan carried Thunder-Fall on his shoulder. He looked at the broken Queen. For a man who had just won a war, the Bear looked incredibly tired.

  "Helga," Brandan rumbled, his voice devoid of its usual booming thunder.

  Helga let out a shuddering breath. She didn't look angry. She looked empty. The betrayal of her sister, the fall of her dragon, the loss of her army it had hollowed her out.

  "Have you come to finish the bloodline, Bear?" Helga asked, her voice quiet but echoing in the crater. "Have you come to take my head, as you took my father's?"

  Brandan planted the head of his hammer into the dirt. He leaned on the handle.

  "I did not shoot you out of the sky, Helga," Brandan said heavily. "Your sister did that."

  "My sister is a viper who found a crown in the mud," Helga whispered, fresh tears cutting through the soot on her cheeks. "But you... you are the Storm. You crushed my father, Harmut. I know what he was. He was a tyrant. A monster who burned your family. I made my peace with his death."

  She took a step forward, clutching her broken ribs.

  "But Vylas?" Helga’s voice broke into a sob. "Vayla? They were the pride of our house, Brandan. They rode out to the Bridge of Tears not to kill you, but to end the madness! Vayla... she wore that cursed Black Armor because our father forced her. She wanted to show you her face. She wanted to bring you peace. Why? Why did your hammer have to find them anyway?"

  The silence in the crater was absolute. The Moonclaw soldiers stopped moving. I stopped calculating.

  Brandan closed his eyes. The massive King, who could crush a man's skull with one hand, flinched as if he had been stabbed.

  "I didn't know," Brandan whispered. His voice was thick, choked with the guilt that had haunted him since that bloody day. "The fog... the Black Guard Plate... I thought it was another of Hartmut’s butcher squads. I thought they were coming to finish what was started at the keep. I didn't see the woman behind the visor, Helga. I only saw the monster I was trained to kill."

  Brandan dropped to one knee in the ash. The King of the Realm, kneeling before a defeated, hostage Queen.

  "I saw her eyes only after the helmet shattered," Brandan confessed, his voice breaking. "She didn't look at me with hate. She looked at me with... mercy. I have carried that look in my soul every hour since. I am sorry, Helga. If I could give my own life to take back that swing to see Vayla stand in the sunlight without that armor I would do it right now."

  Helga stared at him. She saw the genuine, agonizing remorse in the Bear’s eyes. She realized now that they were both victims of her father’s cruelty; Hartmut had turned Brandan’s own hands into the weapons that destroyed his own heart. The hatred she had carried for the Stormsong King flickered and died, leaving only the crushing weight of grief.

  Helga stared at him. She saw the genuine, agonizing remorse in the Bear’s eyes. The hatred she had carried for the Stormsong King flickered and died, leaving only the crushing weight of grief.

  She looked back at her dragon, bound in silk, bleeding into the earth. She looked at her shattered lance.

  "I am so tired, Brandan," Helga whispered, sinking to her knees in the ash, mirroring the King. "I am so tired of the fire. I am so tired of the blood."

  She unclasped the heavy, golden Bladeblood Coronet from her brow. It was dented and scarred. She tossed it into the dirt between them.

  "I surrender," Queen Helga said, bowing her head. "I yield the Firelands. I yield my life. Just... please. Have your healers save my dragon. He was the only one who didn't betray me today."

  I felt a tight knot form in my throat. I looked at the gold in my inventory. I looked at the stats. None of it felt important right now.

  I stepped forward, pulling off my leather gloves.

  "Dr. Fenris!" I shouted, my voice cutting through the gloom. "Get a medical team down here immediately! I want this dragon stabilized, and I want Her Grace treated with the highest honors!"

  I walked up to Helga. I didn't draw a weapon. I knelt down and picked up the dented crown, wiping the ash from it with my coat.

  "You are our prisoner, Queen Helga," I said softly, handing the crown back to her. "But you are not our enemy. We will save your friend."

  Helga looked at me, her dark eyes swimming with tears. For the first time, she offered a small, broken nod of gratitude.

  "Thank you, Merchant," she whispered.

  We had won the battle. We had captured a Queen and a Mythic Dragon. But as we carried the weeping, honorable ruler out of the crater, I realized we had gained something far more valuable than SP or Gold.

  We had gained a reason to completely obliterate Veratrix Bladeblood.