Not every day you got pursued by a flying mage, and whenever that happened, nothing good came of it.

  The woman gained altitude with an ease that made my teeth itch. She flew the way veteran battlemagi did, by leaning into the air and keeping her aether flow sticking to disciplined vectors beneath her boots and palms.

  “Left!” Anabeth shrieked.

  I didn’t ask why. Silvermane and I were already moving.

  “Stop running so I can catch you!” The woman screamed. At no point in the history of mankind had that sentence ever produced the desired result.

  I guided my mare into a narrow market ne just as the crowd realized something expensive and violent was about to pass through. I leaned low, knees tight, reins sck but present. People scattered with remarkable survival instincts, and Silvermane took the turn at speed. I had learned early that survival favored those who trusted momentum.

  “Lady Anabeth!” The woman screamed, louder. “Brave of you to show up in Aurelienth again. The Lord requires your presence immediately!”

  “I’m not Anabeth!” Anabeth screamed in return.

  Green lightning shed down, scorching cobblestone where we’d been a heartbeat earlier. The impact sent up sparks and a shockwave that rattled shutters.

  “Don’t worry, Sir!” Anabeth patted me. “That beam is non-lethal. It only paralyzed me for three days once.”

  Yikes. I kicked Silvermane faster so she could reach top speed.

  Silvermane tossed her head, flicking her ears back in sharp, offended angles as I urged her harder.

  I begged, “No, this is not a discussion.”

  She snorted, a low, reproachful sound.

  “Silvermane,” I said through clenched teeth, leaning forward, voice pitched low and earnest. “I will get you the nicest plum apple you have ever eaten. Please, girl—run.”

  She huffed once, loudly, then finally galloped.

  We burst through a produce crossing where panniers hung from overhead beams, fat with apples, oranges, and something purple that bled when struck. Silvermane lowered her head without prompting. We clipped through them in a controlled explosion of fruit and wicker, sticky sweetness bursting across my chestpte.

  I ducked, rolled a shoulder, felt an apple burst against my helm.

  The woman simply banked between falling baskets with predatory grace. She must’ve been so used to this. She barked, “Anabeth! Your past deed has been forgiven. I assure you will return without punishment!” She then whipped another green bolt of lightning just behind Silvermane’s feet.

  “What did you do, witch?” I snarled.

  “Nothing,” Anabeth ughed nervously.

  “Why does she sound offended?” I asked.

  “She is offended!” Anabeth yelled back. “You’re running away successfully!”

  “Lady Anabeth, I demand you halt at once!” the woman screamed.

  Anabeth leaned around my shoulder and fired something. I turned back to see a narrow nce of ionized air slicing through the air where the woman’s head had been a moment earlier.

  The flying mage twisted aside with a hiss, green light fring as she rebanced midair. “You—!”

  “Oops,” Anabeth said.

  The woman’s expression went from murderous to personally wounded.

  “Anabeth!” she roared. “You dare raise a hand against your Private Instructor?”

  Ah.

  That expined the confidence. And the familiarity. And the fact she was chasing us through a city instead of simply bsting the street apart.

  Anabeth clutched her shawl tighter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! I am not Anabeth! The real Anabeth would never do something so rude. She’s probably very polite. And responsible. And has never—Eek!” A beam of green aether clipped her shawl. It ceased to exist.

  Anabeth patted her choker, and it morphed into a… makeshift shawl, covering half her face again.

  We swerved into a pedestrian choke point, threading through bodies that leapt aside at the st second. I tried to keep my path to a practiced zigzag that forced pursuit vectors to widen, making aerial tracking expensive.

  Silvermane danced through chaos like he’d been born to it.

  [RIDE Check: 66 > 60] → [Success!]But now came the real test. Ahead, the street opened, and id in the middle for some inexplicable reason was a loaded cart, broad and overbuilt, piled high with stone amphorae shed together with iron bands. No room to slip past. No time to stop.

  I calcuted automatically.

  If I hit it, the cart would shatter.

  If the cart shattered, the amphorae would break.

  If the amphorae broke, I would be liable for at least 500 Kohns in damages.

  “No,” I said aloud, then refused reality.

  [Motivational Trigger Identified: Financial Catastrophe Avoidance]

  [Status Effect: Extremely Motivated – +10% RIDE]

  [Duration: 15 seconds]

  I leaned forward, hands loosening the reins by a fraction, and growled into Silvermane’s ear. “Now, girl!”

  She unched, forward and across, hooves striking the cart’s edge just long enough to redirect, not collide. I rose from the saddle. Anabeth clutched me tightly.

  [RIDE: 73 > 70] → SuccessWe nded running.

  And at the far end of it, I saw iron and stone rising above the rooftops—the eastern gate of Aurelienth.

  Anabeth spped my shoulder hard enough to sting. “Sir! Towards the gate! Our pursuer is legally discouraged from leaving the city!”

  [-1 HP] (Spped)[Warning: Silvermane’s Stamina: 49%]

  [Estimated Time Until Fatigue: 52 seconds at current exertion]

  “Have you not eaten?” I growled at Silvermane.

  She snorted. Of course. She only made a point of eating when I was starving. If I was full, naturally she wasn’t.

  A sudden shriek tore through the air behind us—high, indignant, and avian.

  I risked a gnce back.

  The flying mage had veered sharply off our line as a flock of pigeons or gulls—something with far too much confidence for its size—had erupted from a nearby rooftop in a chaotic spiral.

  “Unacceptable—! Shoo! Begone—!” she shrieked as her spellwork colpsed into improvisation.

  The distance between us widened.

  I exhaled for the first time. The eastern gate loomed ahead now. I could see the road beyond it. I could taste freedom.

  And then—

  Someone stepped into the gate.

  A tall figure in a dark coat emerged from the shadow of the archway, boots striking stone with measured calm as if he’d been standing just out of sight, waiting for the exact second we would see him. Crystalline pnes formed zily around his raised hand, precise and already finalized, like paperwork manifesting in physical space.

  Chief Investigator Vaalor.

  “Mr. ‘Knight’,” he said. “You are suspected of abduction of a young dy of an affluent house. You are required by w to yield for further investigation.”

  “Oh no,” Anabeth whispered, suddenly very small behind me. “He’s an Exempr-tier Mage. He will slow you down if you keep concealing your true strength.”

  I didn’t know what an Exempr-tier Mage was, but that sounded powerful.

  There was only one thing I could do.

  [Intimidation Aura Engaged]

  [Commanding Gaze Engaged]

  “CHIEF INVESTIGATOR VAALOR,” I boomed. “If you do not step aside, I will continue forward, and when I do, the consequences will not be immediate. They will be procedural.”

  Vaalor did not flinch. He simply regarded me, one uncovered eye steady, the crystalline pnes around his palm adjusting by a fraction—not defensively, but administratively. “Your tricks no longer work on me, ‘Knight’. I do not fear inconvenience.”

  [Intimidation Aura — Diminishing Returns Detected]We were too close now. Silvermane would crash into him in ten seconds. There was no alternative. I must try again.

  “Then understand this, Chief Investigator: if you stop me here, you will not be remembered as the man who enforced the w, but as the footnote that caused it to be rewritten—quietly, retroactively, and with your name attached in every draft no one ever admits to authoring. Step aside, Vaalor, or become a footnote in history. You will be referenced.”

  Vaalor gritted his teeth. “I have told you, ‘Knight’, I am immune to—”

  [Thunderous Edict Activated]The sky answered.

  Thunder detonated across the gate like the city itself had been struck with a gavel. Lightning tore through the air above us—branching, blinding, deliberately excessive. It hit nothing.

  Vaalor hunched his shoulders and clutched his head in absolute fear. “Ah! Lightning!”

  Thunderous Edict! The best skill that had ever been invented in the history of mankind!

  That half-second was all the w ever got.

  Silvermane jumped past him in a blur of hooves and wind. The gate vanished behind us. Thunder boomed once more for effect.

  We were through.

  [Seduction Successful]Anabeth physically shook as she whispered from behind me, “Ooooh... that was so hot.” Then she whipped her head around to see the flying mage still in pursuit. “Please don’t tell her I just said that.”

  I sighed.

  However, the mage had gged too far behind. The eastern gate shrank behind us, its iron silhouette swallowed by distance and dignity hastily recimed. Whatever wards marked the city’s legal boundary hummed once as we crossed them, then fell silent.

  This was the right gate, too. The Mistveil Peaks y ahead, a hundred miles to the East.

  Behind us, the flying mage’s voice carried, raw with fury. “Anabeth von Silberthal! By the Twelvefold Fmes, I will find you, and I will drag you back here!”

  Anabeth cupped her hands around her mouth. “Don’t! I’ll be back for the second semester anyway!”

  There was a beat.

  Then footsteps thundered from the gate. Vaalor burst out onto the road, coat snapping, composure held together by pure spite.

  “Mr. ‘Knight’,” he shouted. “Do not mistake this escape for absolution. I will find you, and I will drag you back here!”

  Anabeth leaned closer to my ear. “... Do you think they coordinate threats, or is this just a citywide style guide?”

  They could keep their empty threats. Our journey continued.

  [Pathway Task Completed: Echoes Beneath the Charter]

  Objective: Find the next clue to Mostenstein in an adjacent town.

  Reward: 500 EXP (x2 from Path of the Earthen Aegis)

  Path of the Earthen Aegis — Boon Unlock

  [Bonus Objective Completed: Break Encirclement]

  Condition: Exit the current engagement zone without suffering damage or incurring infamy.

  Reward: 200 EXP (x2 from Path of the Earthen Aegis)

  [Task Completed: Flight Through Aurelienth]

  Objective: Outrun the pursuer from House von Silberthal.

  Boon: +1600 EXP (x2 from Path of the Earthen Aegis)

  +1 RIDE

  EXP: 6495/7500

  [Congratutions! You have reached Level 7]

  Features Unlocked: Fame & Legitimacy