165 The Spy Master’s Gambit

“We should move,” Amelia said. “Time is of the essence.”

Abner gave a firm nod. “First, we have to get rid of Shadow. He should be outside, waiting—”

“He’s dead,” Amelia cut in. “I killed him.”

Abner didn’t flinch. “I see. As expected of Lord Eclipse’s companion.”

Amelia glanced at me, immediately catching the brief rise of surprise in my expression. “There’s nothing strange about it,” she said. “I’m not so delicate that I can’t kill one person.”

“You saw right through me,” I admitted.

Amelia was supposed to be the clean one between us, the one raised under capes’ ideals of justice, restraint, and responsibility. Young cape idealism had a shine to it, and she’d always carried a bit of it even during SRC work. But here she was, completely calm after killing someone. No tremor in her tone. No regret in her posture. Her mind was steady.

Either this wasn’t her first kill… or she had grown sharper than I realized.

Abner cleared his throat. “Even so, we still have another problem. The spy master—”

“Unfortunately,” a ragged voice chimed in, “your Lord Eclipse is already one step ahead of everyone. Or perhaps this is simply providence at work.”

We turned as a man in mismatched rags strolled into the tent as if he owned it. Bland white eyes. Wild hair like it had lost a battle with lightning. And a grin that suggested he’d been waiting for this moment.

Guesswork.

This world’s version of him, anyway.

“I received your invitation,” he announced grandly. “Filled with affection and love. Now, how may I serve his lordship, Eclipse, death god extraordinaire?”

I rubbed my face. “I’m starting to get tired of the way everyone talks here.”

Abner stepped forward. “My lord, why is he here? This man is shady. He could be under the prince’s influence.”

“I already undid the hypnosis on him,” I said.

Abner froze. “When?”

“The moment he made eye contact with me,” I answered. “While I was possessing you.”

It had been a gamble. Untangling the prince’s mental threads wasn’t easy, but Guesswork’s mind was sharp and slippery enough that once I pushed, he practically snapped himself free.

“So, how did your hair turn white?” I asked, more curious than anything.

Guesswork brightened. “Oh, that? Bleach. I stole it from a shady alchemist who tried to scam me.”

Of course he did.

Unlike Abner whose motivations were printed on his soul in bold letters, Guesswork was a different beast entirely. The Guesswork from my world had helped me because he needed me. This one? I had no idea what he needed, and that made him dangerous.

I crossed my arms. “What do you want? I freed you from the prince’s control, but you’re still here. You could walk away. Yet you’re standing in front of me. State your intentions. If we can bargain, good. If not, you leave.”

He didn’t hesitate. “I want to be King!”

That was a far cry from the confident, but self-depreciating Guesswork I used to know.

“The Kingdom of Almer is finished,” he continued. “My guesses may be incomplete, but I can see the collapse clearly enough. With my help, I can advance your goals. I have a feeling our interests align! And if they don’t, they certainly don’t conflict!”

Abner snapped.

“You treasonous bastard!” His voice cracked with fury. “You dare stand here and admit that without shame? You have no loyalty at all!”

Guesswork only smiled wider.

Of course, Abner’s outrage only earned him ridicule.

“Pffft.” Guesswork pressed a fist against his mouth, shoulders shaking. “Isn’t that you? The treasonous bastard? You swear loyalty to the crown and throne… so what are you doing here in the middle of the night with a death god?”

Abner reached for his sword, but I grabbed his hand at the pommel. A single stare from me pinned him in place. The anger in his eyes softened into guilt before settling into tense silence. He finally backed down.

Honestly, I had no idea how I was supposed to help Guesswork become king. That sort of thing took time, patience, and an entire world’s worth of scheming. I didn’t even know if I’d stay in this world long enough for a coup, much less build one from scratch with our current power cap. I toppled an alternate-world Nazi empire in two months, but I’d had more tools back then, and far more familiarity with how the world worked. Here, everything still felt… off.

I crossed my arms. “Tell me why you think the Kingdom of Almer is done for.”

Guesswork’s smile widened as if he’d been waiting for that question. “Well, His Majesty is dead, for a start.”

Abner almost choked. “D-Deceiver!”

“Shut up, Abner,” I warned. “I can detect lies. He’s telling the truth. Now move on, Guesswork. No riddles. No theatrics. You’ll get stabbed before you finish your monologue otherwise.”

“Of course.” Guesswork straightened, adopting a more formal tone. “I don’t know when it started, but the imperial prince—our lovely Prince Grant!—woke up from his coma one day completely changed. As a child, he was a fool, ignored by the court and mocked by every noble tongue. After he woke up? He suddenly became a prodigy! A rising sun among dim candles! He devised clever strategies, overcame political traps, trampled military rivals, gathered allies, and charmed the most powerful houses into kneeling.”

Guesswork tapped his temple. “His ‘magnetic charisma,’ however, isn’t natural. It’s his gift.”

I stared back at him. “So how does that tie into the kingdom falling apart?”

“Easy,” he replied. “The prince detests the nobility. He hates the entire feudal system. He hides it well, but his actions bleed the truth. As he rose in power, he gathered influence, manipulated his siblings, planted false memories to use them later, and prepared for his grand ambition.”

Guesswork spread his arms theatrically. “He wants to build a democracy.”

Abner blinked, utterly lost. “What even is a ‘democracy’?”

Before I could speak, Amelia answered with calm clarity.

“It’s a system,” she said, “where the people choose their leaders, not the nobles or a king. Anyone can gain power through elections instead of bloodlines or inheritance. The idea is that authority comes from the will of the majority, not a crown.”

Abner stared at her as if she had described a spell from another plane.

“It’s a noble ideal, really,” Guesswork said lightly, as if we weren’t discussing the death of a kingdom. “Self-government? What’s next? Equality? Can you imagine that? Grant dreams of a world where everyone has a voice. How heroic. How absurd. How tragically entertaining. He’s a man with grand ambitions, brave enough to challenge the flow of the world! Truly incredible! The irony of it all almost makes me cry.” His grin sharpened. “But if he collapses Almer, we’re staring at a world war. And this world? It would shatter under it. I prefer the lovely balance we have now. Small wars everywhere, all the time… but nothing big enough to scorch the world clean.”

He knew more than he let on. The tone of his voice, the certainty, he wasn’t guessing.

Amelia leaned closer and studied his face. “Your eyes are glowing. It’s faint, but it’s there.”

Abner shifted uneasily. “You… you’re like me.”

Guesswork gave a theatrical bow. “Among my many names, there was another: the Prophet.”

I met his gaze. “How far can you see?”

“It’s random,” he replied. “But very distant. And here’s the interesting part… I don’t think the visions come from my gift. It feels like someone is sending them to me. Whoever they are, I don’t care. They can keep screaming into my skull for all I care, but the messages are… messy.”

“What kind of visions?” Amelia asked.

He shrugged. “End-of-the-world type stuff. The fall of Almer is the opening act.”

Abner stiffened, his expression pale. His faith trembled like a brittle shell.

As for me? I almost killed this so-called Prophet on the spot. The name alone dragged up memories I’d rather never revisit from Lightning’s arrival, the Entity’s whisper crawling through the Prophet back home, and the spiral of disaster that started because of him. I forced myself to breathe and reminded myself this wasn’t my Prophet. Different worlds, different rules. Amelia noticed the shift in my thoughts and nudged me back to focus.

“Here’s the deal,” I said firmly. “I’m not promising you the throne. If you want to be king, you earn it yourself. What I can do is this: I’ll subdue the Royal Guards, undo their brainwashing, and push them to our side with Abner’s help. Then we kill Prince Grant. After that, I want you to gather gifted individuals for me, people I can bring to my world to fight a cause that isn’t theirs.”

Guesswork tapped his chin. “That’s demanding… but fascinating. Another world, hm? I’ll manage something. This is excellent. I can use this.”

Abner swallowed hard and whispered, “How did His Majesty die? Please… tell me.”

The pain in his voice was raw, almost physical. I didn’t share his devotion or his faith, but loss was universal. I nodded at Guesswork.

“Tell him.”

The spy master didn’t soften the blow. “The prince used his gift and commanded the king to slit his own throat. Afterward, he placed a powerful shapeshifter on the throne to act as his puppet. Thanks to gifts, not a single person noticed the difference.”

Abner closed his eyes, shoulders trembling, but he didn’t break.

I turned toward the flap of the tent. “We should go. Amelia, lead the way. And you—” I glanced at the spy master. “Stop calling yourself Guesswork or Prophet. If you need a name, use something like… the Seer. Or whatever.”

He let out a laugh, half-delight, half-mockery. “How tyrannical of you. I love it. Very well, my lord. The Seer it is.”

Amelia took point as we slipped out of the camp and into the woods. The air was cold enough to sting, and the moonlight barely threaded through the branches above us. We moved quickly but quietly, weaving past roots and stones while keeping low whenever a patrol’s torchlight swept too close. Amelia’s senses made the path easy; the rest of us were just trying to keep up.

Behind me, the Seer suddenly began humming, then slipped into a full-blown song under his breath. “Once a nameless vagrant drifting through the world, then a master of spies pulling strings in the dark, and now a mighty Seer, named by a tyrant lord with impeccable taste. Oh, the irony, oh the glory—”

Abner hissed, “Quiet, you fool. Are you trying to get us killed?”

The Seer only chuckled and switched to a third-person flourish. “The Seer cannot be silenced. The Seer refuses to be bound by your boring sense of discipline. The Seer—”

“You’re insufferable,” Abner muttered.

“Correct. The Seer is magnificent. Meanwhile, Abner is wheezing like a dying mule—”

Their bickering didn’t last. After twenty minutes of uphill trekking, both were gasping too hard to waste breath on insults. Even I felt the strain creeping in, but Amelia moved without faltering, her steps light, steady, and confident.

“I should’ve left my armor behind,” Abner grumbled as sweat dripped from his chin.

“I could use the extra exercise,” the Seer wheezed. “This Seer might die, but he would die beautiful.”

Amelia didn’t even turn around. “You know, you two could just shut up and save your breath.”

We didn’t stop until an hour and a half later, when Amelia raised a hand and pointed toward what looked like nothing more than a thicket of thorny bushes piled against a cliff wall. Once I focused, I noticed faint scratches on the nearby rock. It was sign of frequent movement.

She whispered, “We’re here.”

The Seer peeked through the leaves and sucked in a breath. “He hid it well…”

Under the bushes was a concealed opening leading into a cave illuminated by faint torchlight. Inside, dozens of disciplined soldiers slept in organized rows, all wearing the same armor as Abner. Their helmets were polished, their weapons arranged with precision. Even from this distance, I could feel the foggy stiffness of psychic conditioning weighing over them.

Undoing that many layers of mental reinforcement from afar would be difficult. I had to be careful. One wrong push, and they’d sense the intrusion.

There was no sign of the red dragon yet, which both reassured and unnerved me.

“It should be sleeping at the top of the mountain during this hour,” Amelia whispered.

Before I could speak, she crouched low, eyes locked on a lone patrolling soldier near the cave's edge. Her claws half-shifted in anticipation. “I’ll drag him out. Quiet and clean.”

Abner reached out and grabbed her arm roughly. “Don’t. Two steps forward is a spike trap. They placed it earlier in case the nobles tried to run this way when the ambush began. I can tell…”

Amelia narrowed her eyes, shrugged off his hand, and whispered, “I’ll deal with it.”

She crept forward, checked the ground, confirmed the trap’s location, and moved past it. Her breaths were silent, her movements low and tense.

“Stop,” Abner whispered sharply. “There’s someone inside with a gift to wake the entire unit. We alert one, we alert all.”

Amelia didn’t hear him. I felt the spike of panic from Abner’s mind and reached out to her through telepathy.

“Back down. Come back. Now.”

Her irritation flashed across our link as she backed away and returned to the thickets. The moment she reached us, she clicked her tongue. “If we’re careful, I can still—”

“Don’t,” I murmured, confused by her impatience. “We can’t wake them.”

Abner wiped sweat from his brow. “The strain of my precognition becomes worse the longer I use it. I don’t want to collapse before the fighting even begins. Please rely on it sparingly. I would hate being useless, Lord Eclipse.”

“You won’t be,” I said quietly. “If fighting starts, leave it to me. I haven’t lost a fight in my life.”

Amelia turned to the Seer. “Any advice?”

He pointed toward the mountain’s summit without hesitation. “We go for the dragon first. I don’t know the reason. My visions never make polite sense. But this path gives us the best result.”

Of course he had no explanation. Bullshit powers all the way through.

Still, something in his tone held certainty. I trusted patterns, even chaotic ones.

I drew a breath and nodded. “Then we go up.”