Chapter 27 (Patreon)

The private room off the potion hall was cooler than the rest of the building, the stone holding the night even as the furnaces in the main chamber pushed heat into the corridors. A narrow worktable had been set against the far wall beneath a slit window, just wide enough to vent the vapors that rose in thin, controlled threads from the necks of the flasks.

Harold stood over a small, steady flame, light glinting on the glass as he rotated it over the flame. The liquid had shifted from dull, cloudy green to almost clear, shot through with a faint silver current. His eyes never left the potion as he manipulated the ingredients. It demanded more control than ever. Without the perks of his previous life, he had to do all the work himself.

Behind him, the door opened and then closed again with care. He ignored the commotion and sank deeper into the techniques he used to manipulate the ingredients, ones he had to relearn as his mana grew and mind recovered.

Margaret stood at the threshold, never crossing into the workspace while the heat was on, wary of disturbing his work. The sharp, mineral tang of something simmering and something faintly sweet—mint, she realized. Hands clasped, eyes scanning the shelves, she settled on Harold’s shoulders. His head was down, one hand steadying the caldron, the other adjusting a glass valve.

Kess had come with her. The falconer stayed near the outside wall, the heavy glove tucked into his belt, a hooded shape perched on the stand he had carried in and set down by the door. The bird shifted once, talons rasping softly against the wood, then went still again.

Rimi waited beside him, a wrapped bundle of fresh glass cradled in both arms. He waited patiently as he glanced inside, watching how his glasswork was being used. Margaret watched the flame with the fixed attention of someone who didn’t understand what he was doing, but understood that a lot of work went into it.

Harold lifted a rod from one mixture, let a drop fall into the other, and counted under his breath. When the liquid stilled, he drew it off the heat and placed it in the stone rack. Only then did he wipe his hands and turn to Margaret and the others.

Margaret had that particular stillness he had learned to read—information already sorted, decisions waiting.

“What’s the news?” Harold asked.

“Our new diplomat reached Arjun’s town,” she said.

Harold tensed. “He got in?”

Margaret nodded. “No one stopped him. They saw no scouts and he arrived at the gates unannounced.”

A pause. “Arjun has upgraded. The lord’s hall is bigger now. New wooden palisade around it.”

She hesitated, then added, “The town itself has a wall, built by humans. Our man announced himself right outside.”

“They disarmed him at the gate,” she said. “Took everything—including the signet knife you gave him. He and his escort are in a separate building under full guard until their Lord decides what to do with him.”

“But they are alive,” Harold asked.

Margaret noticed signs of mana exhaustion on his features.

“They are alive, for now.” She stressed, “and not being mistreated.”

Harold rubbed his forehead in frustration…”I fear this is the result of our Phase 1; Arjun may be reacting more decisively.”

Margaret replied, “That was my read as well. I suggest we activate our contingency and withdraw the diplomat. Lord Arjun is unlikely to reply diplomatically.”

Harold paused, glancing at the dual potions. "That’s a card we can only play once before others notice." He lifted his gaze to Margaret, his jaw tense. "If we play it now, we lose any chance of using it when it's truly necessary."

"They'll become aware of it, so it's better we use it now while we can. Eventually, countermeasures similar to ours will be emplaced," Margaret replied at once, her voice cool and certain. She stepped closer to the table, meeting his eyes. "Hesitating could mean losing our only leverage. Arjun won't give us another opening."

Harold’s frown deepened. "Or maybe he will. If we keep our response measured, we have more room to maneuver later. We're not just sending a message to Arjun, we're teaching everyone how we act under pressure."

"You want to wait?" Margaret asked, voice even. "That’s a risk too. Delay too long and our people will pay the cost. There is proof already of a Henri, Arjun faction against us."

Harold moved over to the small stool, took a seat on it, and leaned against the wall. He rubbed his brow as he closed his eyes for a second, thinking through some of the possible ramifications.

Margaret watched silently for five minutes before Harold opened his eyes, a bit of his aura leaking before he contained it. Rimi flinched as it happened. Margaret trusted both not to repeat their conversation, as restrictive oaths bound them from their work with Lord Harold. His exhaustion showed in that slip.

“Alright, let’s do it. If we are going to activate it, let's make sure the impact is felt. I want an appropriate reply sent from our contingency. Don’t mess with our citizens.”

"I’ll make sure it’s done," Margaret said, starting to leave, then stopped. "Harold…"

He looked up at her hesitant tone.

“You should be at the scout encampment tonight to greet your sister…I saw Garrick's report. Their mission didn’t go well.”

He nodded tiredly. “I’ll be there. Send in Rimi and Kess.”

Margaret nodded and left to deliver the orders.

Kess used his heel to ease the door shut behind him. He stood with his boots precisely at the line where the stone floor met the threshold, making no move to cross, as if he waited for explicit permission. The hooded hawk perched on his portable stand shifted slightly, leather jesses creaking as the bird settled once more.

Rimi stepped in without waiting, glass bundle still in his arms, stopping as Harold rose from the stool and crossed the room in three quick strides.

“There you are,” Harold said, and the weariness that had been sitting on him a moment ago slipped loose for the first time that day.

He caught Rimi by the shoulders and pulled him into a rough embrace, one hand coming up to thump between his shoulder blades with enough force to make the glass in the rack tremble.

Rimi laughed into it, the sound breaking against Harold’s collar. “Careful, Lord, you’ll crack your own equipment.”

“Let me see,” Harold said, already holding him out at arm’s length.

Harold took Rimi’s hands, turning them palm up, then over. The skin was whole, burn seams faded to a faint shine. Harold ran his thumb along the base where the worst had been, the gesture lingering.  For a heartbeat, he remembered the sharp edge of pain, remembered working through burned nerves when he had first met Harold out by the creek. The care in Harold’s touch settled something old in Rimi, a kind of earned trust mixing with a stubborn flicker of doubt: was this new life truly so different from the last? Still, as the thumb passed over the once-raw flesh, loyalty won out. Harold had changed things, after all.

“And the arms?”

Rimi pushed his sleeves back with an exaggerated patience, still smiling. “Gone,” he said. “All of it. Your last batch did the rest. I told you it would take time.”

Harold’s grip tightened once in something that was not quite professional. “Good,” he said quietly. “You should not have to work around injuries that came from neglect.”

“You built the salves, My Lord,” Rimi replied. “I only melted the sand.”

“Ah, none of that. Here, we are just craftsmen.” Harold said, and then the practical part of him took over, and he nodded toward the wrapped bundle on the table. “Is that the new run?”

Rimi peeled back the cloth; the new glass sparked Harold’s interest. “Necks thin as dragonfly wings for a tighter seal—should hold the vapors now. The valve housings finally seat true. No more blaming the equipment for a scorched batch."

Harold huffed a tired laugh and leaned in to look, the fatigue still in the set of his shoulders, but the interest sharpening his eyes. “You worked with the smiths on the collars?”

“All week,” Rimi said. “They think they’re glassmakers now.”

“Well, no one can compare to you. Do you know how hard it was to find a glassmaker with your knowledge last time? Took me years to figure out why some of my potions failed in the vial.” Harold answered. “And anyone who can make this hold pressure without warping is good in my book.”

Behind them, Kess cleared his throat once, not loudly, just enough that it did not sound like a bird.

He had not moved from the wall. The perch remained in his hand, the hawk angled toward the slit window's light as if feeling its warmth through the hood. He watched the two with the patient stillness of one used to waiting for the weather.

Harold turned then, as if remembering him.

“Kess,” he said, and there was a different note in his voice—less familiarity, more the directness he used in the field. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“I want to talk to you about a project I want to start, but I need to know the viability of it. To be clear…I know it can be done…But I want to know your opinion of doing it without hurting your birds.”

​

Kess stepped forward hesitantly as if he was stepping into a fearsome sanctum, “I’m not sure what you mean, My Lord.”

​

Harold stepped away from Rimi briefly before reorienting on Kess. “One of the hardest parts of ruling an area here is the inability to communicate complex messages over long distances. The technology in my world doesn’t exactly match up, or I would love to make radios. The mana that infuses everything here interferes with it somehow, anyway, I digress.”

​

“In the eighth year of my last time here,” he said, as if he were continuing a conversation they had already started, “there was a Lord across the ocean who managed to get hold of a clutch of roc eggs. A taming crafter raised them. Not for show—he built an entire message and lift network around them. Couriers, strike teams, supply drops. He fought wars on the back of that flock.”

Kess had gone very still. The hawk angled its hooded head, picking up the change in his breathing through the glove.

“The problem wasn’t training them,” Harold went on. “It was time. Rocs don’t breed fast enough to replace losses. Every dead bird took five years of planning with it.”

He turned then, the faintest edge of a smile there because he could see the calculation already running behind Kess’s eyes. Crafters were easy. Show them an interesting project, and they would run with it.

“So I’m not going to use rocs,” he said. “I’m going to grow eagles.”

Rimi made a low sound at that, half protest, half curiosity, but he did not interrupt.

Harold lifted the vial and held it toward the light from the slit window. The glass Rimi had made caught it cleanly, no ripple, no distortion. The liquid inside held steady.

“This is the first piece,” he said. “It forces the body to ignore the signal that tells it to stop growing. It won’t create anything new; there were a few mutations that happened last time that I believe came from saturating their bodies in more mana than they were used to. But…when I discovered this potion last time, it was too late to fully research it. The test subjects last time were adults, as they didn’t have the time to test it on things that weren’t fully grown. The results on adults were…less enthralling.”

He quickly thought about the test subjects from the last time, he was forced to put them down himself, and the shaking increased.

For a moment, Harold’s mind was back in his workroom, blood gently weeping from new wounds. He was originally attempting to make an improved healing potion that would dull pain even after it had worn off. His mind hadn’t been solid, and they had tortured him to try to get him to reveal a recipe for a type of explosive he had discovered. He had refused, knowing it would cost him pain, but he did it anyway just to spite them. They were’t going to release him anyway, so why help them?

Kess’s mouth tightened. The bird shifted again, stepping sideways along the perch as if trying to put distance between itself and the glass.

“It will hurt them,” Kess said, not accusing, not agreeing.

“Yes,” Harold replied, bringing his mind back to the present, though the shake was back with a vengeance. “Growth always does, but it’s controlled, and there is no evidence of collapse or insanity. They’ll stay functional while it happens. They’ll eat more, they’ll sleep more, and they will not like the process.”

“But their mind?” Kess pressed.

“There are signs,” Harold said. “Nothing I would consider more than superficial. Of the potion increasing intellect.”

Rimi had come closer without realizing it. The story fascinated him, but he was more interested in seeing how his work was being utilized.

“You’ll need larger housings,” he said, already halfway into the problem. “And reinforced perches. The joints on the transport frames—” Kess trailed off.

“I know,” Harold said. “That’s why you’re both here.”

Kess looked down at his hawk, the bird’s chest rising and falling against the leather.

“You’re not starting with her,” he said.

“No,” Harold answered. “We start with new stock, I believe the results will be more dramatic when given to fledglings the younger they are.  You’ll raise and train them from the beginning, and I will provide the soldiers to fly them. You decide which ones are strong enough to take it and which ones aren’t. There is an upper limit to how far this will grow, so let's start with finding some that will reproduce quickly and are already large.”

Kess let out a breath through his nose, long and slow. When he looked back up, the uncertainty was still there, but it had been pushed aside by the shape of the work.

“How big will they get?” he asked softly.

Harold’s gaze flicked once to the ceiling, as if measuring the space between the stone and the sky beyond it.

“A bird his size,” he said, “would end somewhere between five and seven times its current mass, with the wings to match.”

The hawk gave a short, sharp click under the hood while Rimi laughed under his breath, the sound almost disbelieving. “You’re insane, I love it,” he said.

“Yep,” Harold replied with a large smile. “From you, though, Rimi, I need you to get with the smiths and create a kind of helmet for the riders. One that will protect their heads and allow them see clearly, while also creating a telescope for them. Perhaps one that can be lowered over their eyes from the helmet. It will do no good if the riders can't see while flying.”

Kess and Rimi looked excitedly at each other while Harold felt a mad laugh bubbling up inside him.