Caleb grabbed the thick brass handle of the Hearthsong's private dining-room door, while his mind drifted back to the conversation he'd just left.

  Rewrite reality.

  The concept looped through his thoughts, a desperate prayer drowning out the muffled din of the inn’s common room. It offered a lifeline across the finality of death. If the legends held—if a True Sovereign held some sort of ascendant power—then the car crash, the blinding white void, the separation from his family… none of it was permanent. He could wake up on a Saturday morning to the aroma of coffee and the sound of cartoons, his biggest worry being the length of the lawn.

  He squeezed the handle, needing an anchor to the here and now.

  Metal groaned. Caleb glanced down. The fixture had slightly bent under his fingers.

  He released the thing as if it were red hot. His [Savant of the Body] supplied a belated flood of proprioceptive data, detailing exactly how he had just misapplied force. He was piloting a machine whose calibration was still off if he didn't focus.

  He pushed the door open with the tip of one finger.

  Stepping into the room, he intended to walk with a casual stride, but struck the floorboards with a heavy thud.

  Conversation inside the room died instantly.

  Caleb stilled in the doorway. The private dining room was beautifully covered in polished dark wood and gleaming silver inlays, insulated from the festival chaos. He felt like a bull that had just stumbled into a china shop.

  Seven faces turned toward him.

  Cassia sat at the head of the table, her warm smile faltering for a fraction of a second before she recovered. "Thal, dear, come in. We've been waiting for you."

  Gareth occupied the chair to her right, his massive shoulders making the sturdy furniture look like a child's toy. Corinne and Leo were huddled together opposite the chef, their eyes wide. Aurelian leaned back in his chair, a glass of wine held loosely in long, pale fingers, regarding Caleb with the expression of a biologist examining a particularly interesting mold culture. Selara offered him a nod from next to her brother.

  The man next to Leo, who he presumed was Sergeant Torric Tanner, did not nod.

  "Close the door and sit down, lad," Torric rumbled. "The food is getting cold."

  Caleb turned, gripping the handle with agonizing care—using two fingers this time—and clicked it shut. He walked to the empty chair next to Aurelian, moving with the jerky gait of a marionette whose strings were being pulled by a drunkard.

  Gentle. Don't break the chair.

  He lowered himself slowly into the seat.

  "Well." Aurelian’s drawl cut the silence. "The returning hero. I must say, your performance was… illuminating. Crude, barbaric, and entirely lacking in finesse. Effective, though." He took a sip of wine, muttering into the glass. "…though watching a peasant flail with a spear is hardly high art…"

  "He almost won!" Corinne bounced in her seat, nearly knocking over her goblet. "You were incredible, Thal! Your movements against Astrin? That red glow around you? How did you even do that? Is that what let you keep up with her?"

  Caleb hesitated, his mind catching up to her words. Red glow?

  "I..." He paused, piecing together what she must have seen. "I was pushing everything I had into my movements. Channeling Stamina through my entire body to enhance my speed and strength." He flexed his fingers, still feeling the phantom ache of overextension. "It burned through my reserves fast, but it was the only way to close the gap."

  He looked at Corinne questioningly. "It glowed red?"

  "Like a furnace!" She gestured excitedly with her hands. "Your entire aura. It was amazing!"

  Caleb frowned slightly, filing that detail away. His [Spiritual Perception] had been focused entirely on Astrin during the fight—he hadn't thought to examine himself.

  "I didn't realize it was that obvious."

  "Obvious?" Torric leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table, staring intensely at Caleb. "Half the arena saw it. That kind of full-body enhancement isn't something a kitchen boy should be capable of."

  The Sergeant's eyes narrowed. "And it's not something Hatch would ignore. He doesn't waste time on accidents or luck. He invests in threats."

  "Is that what I am?" Caleb kept his voice low. "A threat?"

  "To anyone who thought you were just a kitchen worker? Yes." Selara picked up a slice of bread. "You've upset the board, Thalorin."

  Caleb scanned the table. A shift had occurred. Even Corinne and Leo watched him with a new layer of wariness beneath their friendship. He had become something beyond Thal, the once-onion-dicer-turned-adventurer. He was now the guy who had defeated a noble and managed to keep up with a second.

  "I didn't ask for this." Caleb stared at the empty plate before him.

  "Irrelevant." Aurelian sniffed. "Competence attracts attention. Attention attracts problems. You have demonstrated a surplus of the former; expect an abundance of the latter."

  Competence? From Aurelian?

  Gareth cleared his throat. The sound resembled a boulder shifting in a quarry.

  "Food, Thal. You're late. Eat." The cook gestured to the center of the table where a covered platter sat. "Leo prepared dessert."

  The change in focus was abrupt. All eyes turned to the young Tanner.

  The boy looked as though he wanted to dissolve into the grain of the floorboards. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his pale skin grew splotchy. He stood, his hands shaking as he reached for the silver lid.

  "I—I… I made these," Leo stammered, his gaze darting to his father’s stony face. "Gareth let me use the ovens after the tournament. They're… um… sun-honey tarts."

  He lifted the lid.

  A sweet, warm aroma filled the room. The tarts were golden discs; the crusts flaking delicately, the glaze and filling glistening under the rune lights.

  Hunger clawed at Caleb's midsection.

  Torric eyed the pastries. The muscles in his jaw bunched. "You spent the afternoon baking?"

  Leo flinched. "I… yes, sir. I mean, after the fights. I just… needed to settle my nerves. Kneading dough, it… helps."

  "A warrior should be maintaining his equipment." Torric’s voice dropped a glacial degree. "Practicing to overcome his mistakes. Not playing in a kitchen."

  Leo shrank back, shoulders hunching. The joy of creation withered under the frost of his father’s disapproval.

  "A moment." Gareth rumbled.

  Gareth picked up a tart with surprising delicacy for such large hands. He examined it with the critical eye he'd turn on a cut of meat or a sauce reduction, rotating the pastry to check the lamination of the layers and the evenness of the glaze.

  Then he took a bite.

  The room held its breath.

  Gareth chewed slowly, deliberately. His expression revealed nothing for a long moment, as he continued to examine the treat. Then he swallowed and looked directly at Leo.

  "The lamination is excellent. Multiple distinct layers, each one properly separated." He pronounced his professional judgment. "The honey glaze has citrus notes—sun-apple, if I'm not mistaken. The balance between sweet and tart is exquisite."

  Leo's face lit up.

  "This is journeyman-level work. Maybe better." He set down the half-eaten tart and met Leo's eyes. "I'm offering you the morning bake position. You'll report directly to me and prepare the day's bread and pastries for our guests."

  Leo appeared ready to faint.

  "Better than my sous chef…" Gareth muttered.

  Leo's mouth fell open. "I… really?"

  "Yes."

  Torric locked stares with Gareth. Neither the soldier nor the chef flinched. It was a silent clash of worldviews, granite against iron. Torric looked at the tart on Gareth's plate, then at the hopeful, terrified expression on his son's face.

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  Finally, the Sergeant exhaled a short breath through his nose.

  "Gareth Hearthsong does not offer charity," Torric said, the words grudging but respectful. "If he says it's good work… then it's good work."

  Torric reached out and took a tart. Having a bite, he chewed stoically. He didn't smile, but he nodded once.

  "Acceptable."

  Leo beamed. It was a blinding, radiant smile that transformed his entire face. For a moment, his father's disapproval didn't matter.

  "Congratulations, Leo." Caleb smiled. "Well done."

  The pressure in the room broke. Laughter rippled around the table. Corinne grabbed a tart, moaning in delight as she ate. Cassia praised the texture. Even Aurelian took one, sniffing it critically before deigning to nibble the edge.

  Caleb relaxed. The burden of The Sovereign Path receded. He was just having dinner with friends.

  He reached for a pastry.

  He didn't think about his grip. He didn't concentrate on the feedback from his nerves. He just grabbed the treat like he had grabbed a thousand snacks before.

  Squelch.

  Caleb looked down. His fingers had squeezed the delicate pastry like a vice. The treat had squished instantly, turning into a glob of sticky, golden paste that oozed between his fingers and fell onto the pristine tablecloth.

  "Oh." Caleb blinked.

  "Smooth." Corinne giggled around a mouthful of crust. "Like a troll trying to pick flowers!"

  "Crumb." Caleb grabbed a linen napkin to wipe his hand, scrubbing at the sticky mess.

  Riiiiiip.

  His fingers punched through the cloth.

  Caleb stared at the ruined piece of fabric and stilled.

  "Okay," he whispered. "That's… inconvenient."

  He reached for his goblet with his clean hand, intending to take a drink to cover the rising heat in his neck. He misjudged the distance and the speed of his own arm. His knuckles clipped the cup.

  It promptly launched across the room.

  The goblet spun through the air, spraying red wine in a wide arc across the center of the table before clattering against the far wall.

  Silence descended again. This time, it was baffled.

  Red wine dripped from the centerpiece. A splash had landed on Aurelian's sleeve. The alchemist regarded the stain, his left eye twitching.

  "Explain." Aurelian’s voice was very quiet. "Before I decide that you are simply a menace to society and have you put down."

  Caleb held up his sticky, pastry-covered hand. He looked at the torn napkin, at the dented door handle across the room.

  "I might have… eaten some essence stones."

  "Some?" Selara narrowed her eyes. "Hatch gave you your reward? How many Thal?"

  Sensing he might have made a mistake, Caleb swallowed past the growing lump in his throat. "Thirty-five."

  "Thirty-five?" Aurelian’s voice climbed an octave. "Over what period? A month? A week?"

  "About twenty minutes. Roughly half an hour ago in his office."

  Aurelian choked. He coughed violently, wine spraying, while Selara thumped him on the back. Even Torric looked disturbed.

  "You consumed thirty-five essence stones in a single sitting?" Aurelian wheezed, wiping his mouth. He looked at Caleb with a mixture of horror and professional fascination. "And you aren't dead? Or screaming in a puddle of your own liquefied innards?"

  "I feel fine. Mostly. Just… too strong."

  The alchemist's expression cycled through shock, disbelief, and landed on something approaching horror. "You consumed thirty-five essence stones. In rapid succession. Without any acclimation period between absorptions."

  "Yes."

  "All at once."

  "I think we've covered that, yes."

  The alchemist pressed his fingers to his temples. "Do you have any idea—any concept whatsoever—of the physiological stress that places on your body?"

  "I'm getting the sense it was inadvisable."

  "Inadvisable!" Aurelian's voice rose. "You possess the motor control of a drunk toddler because you have drastically altered your physical baseline without allowing your nervous system to calibrate! The twenty percent rule, boy! One does not increase an attribute by more than twenty percent in a single cycle without severe proprioceptive lag! You're at significant risk of what we call an acclimation accident. Crushed doorknobs. Broken furniture. Accidentally launching yourself through a wall because the neighbor's cat startled you."

  Aurelian grabbed Caleb's wrist—the clean one—and examined the muscle density.

  "You only pushed your physical stats to the threshold," Aurelian muttered. "Typical. Give a peasant a fortune and he buys a bigger spear…" He dropped Caleb's arm. "Not a single stone for the Mind? No Intelligence? Wisdom?"

  "Hatch recommended focusing on my strengths."

  "Hatch is a hammer." Aurelian spat. "To him, every problem is a nail. You have the potential for subtlety, yet you choose to be a brick."

  Caleb ignored the insult. His mind raced, replaying the scene in the office.

  Hatch knew.

  The captain knew about the twenty percent rule. He knew about proprioceptive lag. He knew that eating thirty-five stones at once was dangerous—potentially fatal.

  He had been testing him under the guise of a concerned mentor.

  Hatch had wanted to see if Caleb's body could handle the rapid influx of power. If Caleb had seized up, passed out, or lost control and put a fist through the wall in the office, Hatch would have known his limits.

  But Caleb hadn't seized up. [Savant of the Body] had adapted so fast that he’d been able to walk out of the room.

  He played me. And I gave him exactly what he wanted: more information.

  "The boy's an idiot," Aurelian concluded, returning to his seat. "But a resilient one. To absorb that much essence without systemic shock implies a natural physiological talent that is frankly absurd."

  "It implies he's committed." Torric watched Caleb closely. "Why did you do it, Caldorn? Why take them all at once?"

  Caleb looked at his sticky hand.

  "Having never heard of the twenty percent rule, the advice of a Captain of the Legion felt appropriate to follow. Especially now that I'm a Legion Adjunct." Caleb kept his voice soft, dropping the title Hatch had pressed upon him like a coin he didn't know the value of. "In fact… I'm a Sovereign Aspirant."

  Corinne blinked, her brow furrowing. "A Sovereign what?"

  Leo shrugged in confusion.

  Gareth paused with a fork halfway to his mouth, looking from Caleb to Cassia. The matriarch shook her head slightly, her expression blank. To the Hearthsongs—successful merchants and skilled professionals—the words were gibberish. A title without meaning.

  But to the others, it was a bomb.

  Selara went unnaturally still. Her eyes, usually steady and unphased, widened with a flash of recognition. Beside her, Aurelian looked as if a talking dog had just recited poetry. He slowly lowered his wineglass.

  "You?" Aurelian asked, the disdain forgotten in the face of sheer incredulity. "A peasant? Walking the path of kings?"

  "Is that a bad thing?" Corinne looked between the shocked nobles. "What does it mean?"

  "It means he's either lying or he's doomed," Torric rumbled.

  The Sergeant hadn't moved. He stared at Caleb in a way that felt like the pressure before a storm.

  "It’s not something you hear about in the taverns, girl," Torric said, his voice pitching low, addressing Corinne without looking at her. "It’s not a path for adventurers. It’s an Imperial doctrine. A myth we use to scare recruits."

  "A myth?" Caleb asked.

  "The Sovereign Path." Torric rolled the words around his mouth like they tasted of ash. "Did Hatch talk you into that?"

  "He offered it. As an alternative to conscription."

  "It's a trap, son." Torric sounded tired, the bark stripped from his voice. "It sounds noble. 'Perfection.' 'Mastery.' It’s the kind of thing highborn officers discuss in their war rooms while drinking century-old wine. But in the barracks? In the mud?"

  He took a sip of his own drink.

  "We have other names for Aspirants. 'Resource Pits.' 'Walking Ghosts.' It's a nightmare, Caldorn. It demands everything you have, and then it asks for more. If you aren't independently wealthy—and I mean 'owning a city' wealthy—then you have to be functionally suicidal just to feed the Toll."

  Torric leaned forward, the shadows of the room deepening the lines in his face. "Most who walk it end up stalled at E-tier or D-tier, unable to afford the cost to advance, but too proud to specialize. If they survive that long, they become stagnant. Monuments to wasted potential."

  "I didn't have a choice," Caleb said, the significance of the title finally settling on his shoulders. "It was that or my freedom."

  "There is always a choice," Torric said. "But you've made yours. Just know this: the title commands legal respect in the courts, but it earns you no favors in the field. They’ll see you as a pumped up waste of special treatment."

  Cassia studied Caleb for a long moment. Her warm eyes moved from his sticky fingers to the bent door handle across the room, then back to his face. He couldn't read her expression—concern, maybe, or calculation. Whatever a Sovereign Aspirant was supposed to be in her mind, he suspected it didn't match the reality of a kid who'd just obliterated a pastry.

  "Well," she said finally. "Whatever path you're walking, Thal, you're not walking it alone. Not while you're under my roof."

  Caleb appreciated the sentiment. The Hearthsongs clearly had no idea what they'd just heard, though they seemed willing to trust it mattered.

  The innkeeper straightened, her tone shifting to something more businesslike. "Which brings us to why we're all here tonight." She looked around the table, her eyes settling on each person in turn. "Zarven Mault is becoming a problem for all of us. He used Loric Thane to threaten my family." She nodded at Torric. "Threatened your son—" she turned to Selara "—and chokes your business, tries to intimidate your apprentice. He grows too bold."

  Her voice firmed. "We need an alliance. To pool our resources. To share intelligence. We protect our own."

  "Agreed." Selara didn't hesitate. "Zarven has stifled our supply lines long enough. If Thal is an Aspirant, he becomes a protected asset. Attacking him or his known associates becomes a crime against the Dominion's military interests. It gives us legal leverage."

  "Leverage is good," Torric grunted. "Steel is better."

  Torric turned to his son.

  "Leo."

  The boy straightened instinctively. "Yes, sir?"

  "I watched your fights during the tournament. Both of them." The sergeant's voice was rough.

  The color drained from Leo's face. "You... you did?"

  "I rented a long-range scrying mirror from Mistress Alia. Had it keyed to the tournament arena." Torric's expression remained neutral, giving nothing away. "I saw you face Tamsin Mhuire."

  Silence.

  "You were terrified. Your hands were shaking. Your stance wavered. You looked like you wanted to run."

  Leo's shoulders hunched.

  "But you didn't." Torric's voice softened fractionally. "You held your ground. You used proper defensive techniques. And when the opening came, you took it." He paused. "That's what matters, Leo. Not whether you were afraid. That you fought anyway."

  The boy's eyes widened.

  "As long as you fight with that spirit, I have no doubt you'll become a capable warrior." Torric reached out, placing a hand on his son's shoulder. "I'm proud of you."

  Leo's face transformed. Pure, unfiltered joy.

  But Caleb saw the shadow underneath. The conflict. Because Torric's pride wasn't for the baking—the thing Leo truly loved. He struggled between meeting his father's expectations and following his own heart.

  He's going to have to choose. Between what he loves and what will keep his father's approval.

  It was a burden no sixteen-year-old should have to carry.

  "Thank you, father," Leo whispered.

  Caleb looked away. It was a complicated victory.

  The dinner wound down. Caleb continued to make strides in managing his new attributes. The stress of the tournament eased, replaced by the fatigue of the day. The alliance was formed, vague but real. They had support.

  As the group stood to leave, Selara moved to Caleb's side.

  "Aurelian watched the tournament too," she confided.

  Caleb successfully wiped some pastry crust from his hand without making a further mess. "And?"

  "He called your fighting style 'offensive to the concept of aesthetics.'" She offered a dry smile. "But like everyone else who knew what they were seeing, he observed you develop a technique you never could have known while in live combat."

  She glanced at her brother, who was currently lecturing Gareth on the chemical properties of yeast.

  "He respects problem-solving, Thal. Creative application of limited resources. And after tonight… after watching you somehow function after metabolizing thirty-five stones without killing yourself or inflicting significant property damage?"

  She turned back to Caleb, her grey eyes serious.

  "He's convinced. You've moved beyond brute status in his eyes. You're a viable candidate now."

  "Is that a good thing?"

  "It means you have a shot." She placed a hand on his arm. "Come to the shop tomorrow. We have much to discuss."

  She walked away, leaving Caleb standing in the wreckage of his dinner. He looked at his hand, closing it into a fist. The alchemist was going to give him a fair shot, was he?

  Finally.