Everyone seemed to have gone mad, all at once. Nemo found his head hurting, his guts squirming, his hands trembling. Everything was wrong, and broken, and frenzied. Everything was confusing and delirious. He just wanted to go home, but even he found himself caught up in the sudden madness and locked into place.

  It was Collin Baird who began the bulk of the screaming, lungs shaking the air like it was some kind of attack. For such a quiet man, he had a remarkable power to make noise. Almost as remarkable as his power to make noise at a man like King Galukar without flinching.

  “You stupid, drooling fucking cock-splinter.” The Kaltan growled, closing in on Galukar and rearing up to scream into his face. It was almost comical. Like seeing a house cat roar down a lion, yet far from bringing his size and strength to bear, Galukar actually looked rather chastened. Not meeting Baird’s eye, wincing at every particularly impactful point. Nodding, even. It did not mollify Baird.

  “There was no reason to do that, none. You just wanted to kill yourself, well congratulations genius you got someone else killed instead. You happy now? Or are you going to keep looking for another suitably dramatic way to die even now?”

  “I’m…” King Galukar hesitated, seeming to swill the words around in his mouth like they tasted bitter, “I’m sorr-”

  “-And that’s to say nothing of the danger to the rest of us.” Lilia the Vampire Queen added, her voice far less overtly furious than Baird’s, infinitely more controlled and regulated, but no less chastising. “Had the Dark Lord succeeded in besting Silenos and you, he may have burst forth to destroy the rest of us. There’d have been little we could do in such a situation, you realise?”

  Instantly King Galukar’s features hardened, and whatever apology was developing upon his lips died in its womb.

  “I won’t be lectured on my behaviour by some rotting whore.” He snarled, taking a step towards the Vampire. What surprised Nemo was not that, but seeing her take a step towards him. Instantly Queen Lilia’s rage broke through the surface and her face was inches from the King’s, rage boiling beneath her eyes, lips drawn back teeth…Long, pointed, jagged. A killer’s teeth. In that single instant the illusion she’d kept so carefully wreathed about herself fell apart, and the predator beneath was unveiled.

  “It seems you won’t be lectured on your behaviour by anyone,” She shot back. “Unfortunate given your total inability to think about it on your own behalf.”

  Nemo didn’t see King Galukar reach for his weapon. One moment his hands were empty, the next they had simply been filled. Six feet long, the Godblade was a towering mass of iron more than to scale with its own mountainous wielder, now hefted high and ready to come down upon the Vampire. She crouched low, nails turning to talons, pupils widening to consume the entirety of her eyes as an unnaturally long tongue protruded from her mouth.

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  Both of them were halted only as Princess Felicia stepped forwards, hands coming down upon one shoulder and another, body trembling as she placed herself between the warring giants of magic and vigour.

  “Stop.” She ordered. It was, Nemo thought, an admirably strong command, given the obvious trembling of her voice and body. Both parties seemed almost to heed it.

  “Dear.” The Vampire began, eyes slowly returning to normal, voice…Moreso. It was unnatural to hear her sultry, human tone after seeing the mask slip just moments before. What she said made it less natural still. “If I choose to attack your father, I do hope you’re not delusional enough to think I would even notice the resistance as I tore through your body to reach him.”

  Galukar stiffened as if a magus had sent lightning coursing through every inch of him.

  The Godblade didn’t move, and neither did Lilia. They were just in different places between one moment and the next, as if the world itself had misplaced them. Ancient iron bit down into the hard ground, tearing it open, sending a kinetic ripple to shake Nemo off his feet and filling the air with painfully fast clots of debris. Meanwhile the Vampiress deftly landed some ten strides away, just beyond the outstretching rent in the ground. She was smiling again, sweet and warm as ever. It sent a chill down Nemo’s spine.

  “You do not threaten my daughter.” King Galukar snarled, eyes wide and bright like bonfires. “Never.”

  “Holy shit stop.” Baird already had an arrow nocked and drawn, teeth practically chattering. Beside him Princess Ado was promptly encasing herself in ice, a shelter no doubt. The Necromancer Sphera seemed to have disappeared entirely.

  Nemo realised just as they did that a fight between Galukar and Lilia would yield a good deal of collateral damage. He started backing off himself.

  The King and the Queen remained still, locked in place by the other’s gaze. Neither one moved, not even King Galukar. They just waited. A pair of statues, moments from animation and ruin.

  Then, all at once, Lilia straightened up. Her talons returned to nails, lips re-covered fangs, smile returned. Nemo felt ever so slightly queasy seeing how perfect her mask of humanity was, even moments after its removal.

  “Well, I believe that accounts for all of our business together, doesn’t it?” She hummed. “Silenos Shaiagrazni was the reason for our alliance, certainly he was the reason for mine…” Her lip curled, eyes tightening for a second. By her standards it was an impossibly great expression, “With him gone, I do not see that any of us have any further business with one another. Save to wait for his return and maintain what he built in the meantime.”

  Silence followed that, lasting until the Vampire had taken another five strides. It was Princess Ado who broke it.

  “You’re…You’re leaving, just like that?” She called back, sounding aghast. “You can’t, what about…” The woman tapered off. Nemo wondered if she was just now realising how foundational Shaiagrazni’s power had been to everything. He’d seen it right away, perhaps due to his own familiarity with the ease with which such magics could overturn any political system, but there had always been a single bond of power and force keeping the Fleshcrafter’s coalition together. Now that he was gone, all of its constituents were free to break apart as they pleased.

  And it seemed that some, at least, pleased.