Theodore POV

Your class, [Runic Mage], has leveled up – Lvl 10 Lvl 11!

[Rune Inscription] has leveled up! – Lvl 10 Lvl 11!

[Arcane Awareness] has leveled up! – Lvl 13 Lvl 14!

[Mana Control] has leveled up! – Lvl 18 Lvl 20!

[Mana Convergence] has leveled up! – Lvl 10 Lvl 14!

[Cloning] has leveled up! – Lvl 10 Lvl 11!

[Parallel Processing] has leveled up! – Lvl 3 Lvl 4!

He'd been working on this stuff for days now, stuck on this sandship with nothing better to do. The manastorm had actually been useful for something—being surrounded by that much raw mana, even with shields between them, had given his [Mana Control] and [Mana Convergence] skills a serious workout and even [Arcane Awareness] had gotten some benefit. Like lifting weights, but for magical abilities.

The storm had lasted many days, and the nobles had gotten increasingly twitchy. That had nothing to do with him, though, as Theodore had nothing to do but practice his skills and tinker with runes. His [Cloning] skill had gotten some work too. He'd been maintaining his clone back in Holden the entire time, switching between bodies when he got bored, otherwise just using one body or sometimes using both at the same time constantly. Which was often. The mental strain of keeping it up for that long had pushed the skills over the edge. Not bad for being stuck on a ship doing basically nothing.

[Arcane Awareness] had been the surprise one. He hadn't been actively training it, but apparently being in proximity to a manastorm for days on end counted as passive training. His awareness had sharpened without him even trying.

All in all, not a bad haul for forced downtime. Though, he knew it wouldn't last.

Sure enough, things got heated the moment the storm passed and the ship started moving again. Theodore noticed because the man and the woman—most likely law enforcers, even Roland said so and the man was trained for this stuff—had completely vanished, like they'd never been there at all.

The nobles were in full panic mode. Both groups huddled in their corners, whispering frantically. Some of them kept checking their pockets, their bags, looking around like they'd lost something important. Which, Theodore figured, they probably had. Whatever they'd been smuggling was gone. Stolen, most likely. Those two law enforcement types had made their move during the night, probably right after the storm cleared.

Smart, really. Wait until everyone's exhausted from days of tension, then strike when defenses are lowest. Clean and efficient.

Theodore was sitting on a seat in the open area, watching the noble groups implode in slow motion. One of the younger ones looked ready to cry. Another kept running his hands through his hair, messing it up more each time. The older nobleman who'd almost drawn on Freya was red-faced and looked about two seconds from having a stroke.

Juliana was nowhere to be seen. Probably in her room, reading. She'd found the ship's library on day two of the storm and had emerged with an armful of books. Theodore hadn't seen much of her since.

Freya was sprawled on the sofa beside him, one leg hanging off the edge, arms thrown dramatically above her head. She'd been sighing audibly every few minutes for the past half hour.

Theodore ignored her.

She sighed again. Louder.

Still ignored her.

Another sigh.

"What's up?" he asked finally, because apparently she wasn't going to stop until he acknowledged her existence.

She opened one eye to look at him. "Nothing happened."

"Lots happened. The storm ended. The ship's moving. Those two mysterious people disappeared. The nobles are having collective nervous breakdowns."

"Yeah, but nothing fun happened." She propped one hand above her face, balancing it there like she was examining her palm for secrets. "I was looking forward to a fight or something, I guess. But those two took care of things so cleanly. Now I'm bored."

"You're never not bored."

"Yeah, and it's getting worse." She let her hand fall back down. "I didn't even get to fight anything in the Expanse. Was hoping they'd let me off the ship during the storm."

Theodore turned to stare at her. "You do know they wouldn't have let you off, right? That would've been suicide. Even you can't punch a manastorm."

"Yeah, but I can dream."

Theodore rolled his eyes.

"Hey! I saw that!"

Theodore rolled his eyes again, more dramatically this time, making sure she could see.

A pillow hit him in the face.

"Real mature," Theodore said, grabbing the pillow.

"You started it with the eye rolling."

"You started it with the dramatic sighing."

"That wasn't dramatic. This is dramatic—" She let out a sigh that sounded like a dying whale.

Theodore threw the pillow back at her. She caught it easily, because of course she did, and immediately launched it back at him. He dodged, barely, and the pillow sailed past to hit some poor servant carrying a tray of drinks.

They both froze.

The servant, to his credit, didn't drop the tray. Just stood there, perfectly balanced, with a pillow sliding down his face and an expression of profound confusion.

"Sorry," Theodore said.

"So sorry," Freya added, not sounding sorry at all.

The servant carefully set down the tray, picked up the pillow, and looked at it like he'd never seen one before. Then he looked at them. Then back at the pillow.

Freya was already on her feet. "Come on, Theodore. Let's go."

"I don't want to fight you again. You always win when I don't go all out."

"That's because you don't try hard enough."

"That's because you're insanely strong and I like my bones unbroken."

She grabbed his arm, hauling him up with zero effort. "Stop being a baby. I'll go easy on you."

"You said that last time. I couldn't move my left arm properly for two hours."

"That was barely a tap!"

"Your 'barely a tap' is most people's 'getting hit by a charging bull.'"

"Are you calling me a bull, Theodore?"

"...No?"

"You are!"

They bickered all the way to deck three, leaving the servant still holding the pillow and looking vaguely bewildered. The nobles hadn't even noticed the commotion, too wrapped up in their own crisis.

***

Lord Karstein POV

Lord Karstein really wanted to strangle something, or someone. Preferably Theodore, that smug little shit. It had been a while since that humiliation in the prince's office, and Karstein still couldn't shake the memory. The way Theodore had sat there, all casual confidence, like he hadn't just destroyed years of careful positioning. As if stripping William of his class was some minor inconvenience instead of basically castrating the boy's entire future.

His son. Reduced to nothing. A mundane human? The guild council hadn't been happy about it either. Oh, they'd smiled and nodded when Karstein explained the situation, but he could see the calculations behind their eyes. Weakness. That's what they saw. A lord who couldn't even protect his own heir from some exiled prince playing at relevance.

Karstein drummed his fingers on his desk, staring at the stack of reports his informants had delivered. Theodore's territory. That backwater dump the crown had tossed him like table scraps. Should've been the perfect prison. A slow decline into irrelevance while the real powers in the kingdom forgot he even existed.

Except the bastard wasn't declining.

A soap business. Construction projects. Massive ones, apparently. The exiled prince was playing at being a real lord according to his spy. Planned on building new roads, sewage systems, and housing, apparently. Expanding the marketplace. Even talking about some kind of water system that would make wells irrelevant, whatever that meant.

How could this good-for-nothing suddenly improve so much? Last he'd checked—which was, admittedly, years ago—Theodore had been the kingdom's favorite disappointment. Weak himself, weaker political instincts, zero talent for anything that mattered. The king had basically written him off as a lost cause before the exile even happened.

And now he was what? Playing architect? Pretending he could transform that worthless territory into something meaningful? The more Karstein thought about it, the more his smile grew. Because this was opportunity. Construction projects cost money. Lots of money. Which Theodore definitely didn't have, considering he'd just gotten his debts forgiven instead of actually paying them. Sure, he'd won that little confrontation, but that was politics. This was economics. Completely different game.

And Theodore had never shown any aptitude for either.

The prince was overreaching. Badly.

When these projects failed—and they would fail, because how could they not? He would make sure they failed—it would be public.

Heh.

Building things was harder than breaking them. Always had been. The door to his study opened without a knock. William walked in, and Karstein's good mood soured instantly.

His son looked... wrong. That was the only word for it. The confidence that came from having a class, from being more than just another mundane human, it was all gone, leaving something hollow behind.

"Father."

Even his voice sounded hollow.

"William." Karstein didn't bother hiding his disappointment. Why should he? The boy had cost them everything.. "What do you want?"

"I heard about Theodore's construction projects."

"And?"

William's jaw tightened. "I want to be involved in the response."

***

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