Mina knocked on the bedroom door.

  It was a funny thing, bothering to knock on the door to her own bedroom, but considering that Zora had emerged not long before, she thought it was possible that James might have recovered from his condition—might be changing clothes at the moment that she reached the door.

  “Come in,” she heard him say.

  So, he’s not up, then, she thought, slightly disappointed.

  Mina opened the door to find James’s position in the bed unchanged.

  “So, I guess the blessing helped your mother after all,” she said.

  It clearly wasn’t my Zone of Enchantment…

  “That, plus your Zone of Enchantment,” James replied. “I’m feeling a lot better myself. And I guess Junior didn’t mind your Evolution?”

  Those last words caused Mina to look down. She held the baby in her arms, and Junior clung to her as tightly as he ever had.

  She smiled.

  “Yes, he still seems to like his Mommy.”

  It had been a little strange when she approached Junior. The child didn’t seem to have any issues recognizing Mina as his mother at all, despite what she considered fairly substantial changes to her external appearance.

  “I’m glad,” James said.

  But his expression was preoccupied and far away to Mina’s eyes.

  “Did anything interesting come up while you were talking to your mother, skapi?” she asked after a long pause.

  James’s mouth set itself into a hard line.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Then he explained what Zora had shown him. Visions of an enemy who would likely come to attack them sometime in the next few months.

  “We really don’t have a good timeline on that,” James finished. “It could be after the World Leaders’ Summit, but I’m not feeling that optimistic.”

  Her heart beat a little bit faster.

  “What do we need to do?” she asked.

  “I’m going to arrange a meeting with my council for this evening,” James said. “I’ll get some advice from them. But the choices will end up being, call the army back, or find a way to deal with this without them.”

  “That hardly seems like a choice at all,” Mina said, hardly thinking about it.

  “Oh?” James raised an eyebrow.

  “Well, we wouldn’t want to fight an army by ourselves, would we?”

  But as the words left her mouth, she was already beginning to doubt them. She knew some of what James was capable of, including driving a couple of species to extinction in the past.

  Maybe he thinks he can fight an army alone. Maybe he’s right.

  James frowned. “I sent the army away, in part to figure out if they could take on a significant enemy force without me present. I’m not really reliant on having a lot of warm bodies to fight for me. But I’ll make sure that I get a clear report from our advisors on how many people the Fisher Kingdom can put in the field right now. Speaking of which, before we meet with them, what do my council members know about my condition?”

  “Not much,” Mina said. “We’ve been vague so far. Leo said a couple of army guys asked what happened on the day of the incident, and he told them there was an explosion. Then we told the couple of council members who asked that you were recovering from fighting a small incursion. But very light on details. We wanted to ensure you had the opportunity to shape the narrative as you preferred once you were back to yourself.”

  James nodded. “Thank you. That was a good decision. Maybe I’ll have the meeting in Dreamspace, so they don’t have to see what kind of condition I’m in.”

  “It’s a good thing all of your abilities are still working,” Mina said.

  “As long as they don’t require me to move.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “You’re one of the only people I definitely want to have involved,” James said quietly. “Regardless of how I end up handling this. So, with that in mind, you should prepare yourself. We’re going to war, one way or another, unless I can completely prevent it somehow. Seems unlikely, though. You should probably study your magic and see if there’s anything you can learn to do that’s going to be useful here. I don’t know if the Tome of Elemental Magic that I gave you will help at all, but at least that’s a starting point. I’m going to leave my body behind for a bit and go check on how the army is doing.”

  Mina nodded. “Okay.”

  At least that was something.

  As she grasped the doorknob again, James was shutting his eyes.

  Before the door was all the way shut, Mina thought she sensed that her husband was already gone from the room.

  —

  Luna and the wolf pack hunted for days, periodically reporting back to Dave and the army, before they came upon any worthwhile prey.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  They easily found large animals to attack and consume wherever they roamed, but the beasts were not particularly organized or able to rally around a single, strong leader that might defend them from the wolf pack’s aggression. None of these creatures were worthy of being subjugated by the Fisher King—at least not in Luna’s reckoning.

  She thought she had a good read on her King’s wishes and future intentions. All of creation was to eventually become his possession, and he needed creatures that would be good fighters to entrench his power further. Creatures that were good as food would naturally be plentiful, too, but there was no need to kill the leaders of those populations and establish dominance as of yet. They could wander the land freely as long as they did not interfere with the movements of his army.

  Despite Luna’s fierce desire to prove her own value, and that of her pack, by their valor, what felt like a long time elapsed before they ran into anything worth reporting.

  It seemed that the Fisher Kingdom’s closest neighbors, once the King had defeated the alligators, bats, and the incomprehensible things that lived in the Haunted Forest, were none too threatening.

  At least not to the East.

  They moved on, ranging further and further from the main army group, until finally, the pack hit something that caused them to stop.

  Luna scented the air, nose pointed straight up into the sky. The smell was not one she was familiar with. Still, the feeling in the air was unmistakable.

  “An enemy aura,” she growled quietly.

  The other wolves had already stopped rushing forward and gathered around her. Now she was grateful that her pack was so well coordinated.

  They rushed back to the main army, several miles behind them despite the wolf pack’s rather circuitous style of travel, to report what they had found.

  “Enemy territory,” Luna reported to Dave once she stood before the man. “Seven miles East. Scrubby land. Among the pines. We did not witness the exact nature of the enemy. The smell was unfamiliar but felt vaguely reptilian to me. I sensed a certain malevolence in the air. We did not enter, though. I thought it best to wait for you and the rest of the army.” She spoke that last sentence with an obvious reluctance. It hurt her pride slightly that she was not the hammer, entering enemy territory with reckless abandon.

  But this was the role she had been given, and she would play it faithfully.

  The army moved on, perhaps a bit more slowly than Luna would have liked, and the wolf pack prepared to play their part as the most vicious part of the Royal Fisher Army.

  As they reached the border area, Luna saw that there was now a sort of guard force posted within.

  Dozens of creatures, lined up and waiting for them.

  She saw several different kinds of lizards, each roughly the size of an alligator before the System; turtles big enough to bite through tree trunks; and there was a massive snake leading them.

  As the army approached, the snake rattled its tail in an unmistakable warning.

  They did not slow, however.

  Dave expressed the group’s reasoning in a statement made under his breath: “We have the numbers.”

  No matter how formidable this gaggle of border guards might be on an individual combatant level, they would not be able to stand up to the thousands of soldiers the Fisher Kingdom had brought to throw into the fights this journey was inevitably going to bring.

  The army reached within twenty feet of the border, and the rattlesnake spoke.

  “Stop right there, sssscum!” it said in a menacing hiss.

  Dave raised an arm and yelled out, “Battalion, halt!”

  The human segment of the army stopped in its tracks almost instantly, along with the wolves, shortly followed by the Goblins. The alligators bumped into each other and halted a bit more clumsily, but overall, Luna thought the army had shown its discipline fairly well with that single gesture.

  I did not realize my human colleagues were so well trained, she thought with some admiration.

  “Damien, Luna, Sam, Duncan, Samuel…” Dave called out multiple names, gathering several individuals close to him. Luna felt a touch of pride at being selected, considering that all of the individuals chosen were fairly strong.

  Then Dave and this honor guard—only around a dozen comrades—advanced the remaining twenty feet toward the border.

  “I ordered you to stop!” hissed the snake again, rattling more ferociously than before.

  “Most of us did,” Dave said in a loud voice. “I’m advancing with a small group to negotiate with you! If you are not open to negotiation, please feel free to let me know, and my army can rain hell on you instead.”

  The snake continued rattling, but the motion grew noticeably more subdued. Luna watched the creature’s head turn from side to side, as if really taking in the sheer scope of the army’s numbers for the first time. Its body seemed to stiffen as it absorbed the sights before it, but Luna could not tell if that was a sign of the snake’s resolve strengthening or weakening.

  Meanwhile, Dave and his guard had continued to move forward. They walked right up, almost to the very edge of the territory. Dave stopped upon getting near the border and frowned.

  He feels it too. The malevolence in the air. I do not know about this contingent of guards, but the Ruler that lives in this place will not submit without a fight…

  Dave began to speak in a loud, confident voice.

  “We come from the Fisher Kingdom. We are instructed to destroy all opposition to the Fisher King between his territory and the coastline. In order to do so, we must pass through this land. Are there any who would stand against the Fisher King here?”

  Luna felt a hint of trepidation at observing the steady gaze of the rattlesnake. The creature had kept its eyes locked on Dave as he spoke, and she saw no signs of hesitancy in its body language now.

  They will not simply roll over and play dead.

  “And what if we would ssstand against your Fisher King?” the rattlesnake asked in a challenging tone. “Is this army all that you bring to enforce his Will? If he is so mighty, why does he not come forth himself? Does he think that normal humans and your ragtag bunch of creatures can defeat our Ruler?”

  Luna’s eyes narrowed. The snake was dangerously close to getting her head bitten off.

  But Dave continued the path of civil dialogue.

  “We can, and we will, if that is necessary,” he replied smoothly and confidently. “But the Fisher King prefers to accept the submission of Rulers rather than killing them, however. We have two Rulers who fought against him and submitted to him right here. Samuel? Duncan?”

  The two former Rulers stepped forward from among Dave’s guard.

  The rattlesnake looked distinctly unimpressed by Duncan, but her head had to tilt back to fully capture the might of Samuel. Luna thought she sensed a wavering in the snake’s body language. There were few creatures in the System-initiated world, as far as Luna knew, who surpassed Samuel for sheer scale and capacity for intimidation.

  “There were other Rulers who fought against him and are sadly no longer here to tell the tale,” Dave continued. “Their former followers are a part of the army, however. Our King is merciful. The question that you should take back to your Ruler is: do you want to be a part of the Fisher Kingdom, or just part of the story of its expansion? Do you want to serve the Fisher King, or be Looted and turned into a piece of his equipment?”

  The sound of rattling intensified again.

  Dave’s words appeared to have set off the rattlesnake emotionally.

  Time seemed to slow down for a few critical moments.

  Then the snake uttered a final, wordless hiss and threw itself at Dave’s neck.

  After that, the world moved far more quickly.