Kaden awoke to a splitting headache. The bed surrounding him was familiar. One he remembered from some time ago with a familiar blue ceiling hovering above him. He groaned, clutching an ache in the side of his head. A pain in his throbbing skull. He strained his neck, lifting his head, and gazing upon the mostly healed slice down his naked chest.

He almost thought that it had all been a dream. Him surviving the Night Terror, the prince making him his Karo Shar. Fucking a slave girl nightly. Marrying the princess. And everything else up to the invasion of the Black Rohs and his battle against them in the Lower Ring.

He gave another groan, realizing such was not the case.

The wound in his chest was as exactly as he had remembered it. And that made him realize everything he thought had happened, actually had.

"Well, look at you," Touran said, wiping his hands and approaching the bedside where Kaden laid. "Didn't think I'd see you back here like this again. You're in quite a bit of trouble, my boy."

Kaden remembered why his head hurt. The prince, after coming to his rescue in the Lower Ring had walloped him good.

"I surmised from the prince's reaction once the battle was over that he wasn't too happy with me."

"To put it mildly." Touran slapped a moist cloth on Kaden's temple. "Why did you go into the Lower Ring, boy?

Whatever was on the rag besides water immediately dulled the throbbing. It also burned.

Kaden took over, holding it there. "I did what was right," Kaden explained himself. "More people, more citizens of Ison, would have died if I hadn't gone down there."

"You know the rules."

"The rules are stupid. Those people's live are worth just as much as yours, mine, or even Prince Relastin's."

Touran did not reply, except to poke his chin towards the doorway.

Kaden followed and saw Prince Relastin, arms folded across his own bare chest, his urk clean of any signs of green blood, and and a sour expression on his face. "So you've changed your mind on the Decrees then? They are no longer important? Just stupid and unnecessary?"

The city's monarch marched in, his expression darkening with every pace. When he reached Kaden, he struck his Karo Shar across the face once more. This time with a manly backhand.

Kaden's head whipped, but recovered from the shock of the swipe and locked eyes with the prince.

"Touran," the prince said, "leave us."

"As you wish." The physician bowed and beat a hasty retreat from the bedroom.

Kaden and Prince Relastin continued their competition of staring.

"You can just go ahead and kill me now," Kaden goaded his sovereign, feeling the welt he'd just received growing and vibrating with pain. "It's what you want to do, so do it."

The prince's sigh at the accusation was heavy and forlorn. "I sent Touran away, so that I wouldn't have to discipline you any further. You speaking that way to me in front of him necessitates a harsh reaction. You know that."

"Then I will take it, for I speak the truth."

"You speak an opinion," the prince reminded him. "One that, I will admit, but only in private, I am not unsympathetic to. But our troops are too thin, Karo Shar. We cannot afford to send men down into the Lower Ring every time the Black Rohs breach the wall. Last night hurt our readiness. We only lost one man, but there were injuries that will take time to heal."

"They're not even on par with Koronai, and we go down into the Abyss all the time to save Imeron from them. We wouldn't even need as many soldiers in the Lower Ring as we do in the Abyss."

The prince seemed frustrated by the conversation. Even so much as to message his own brow vigorously. "The Lower Ring is too vast. It would take too many men to secure it. Even though we wouldn't need as many men for each such encounter, we would need numerous stations placed around the slums. Each with a full contingent and ready every night. As I said, there are not that many men."

"We got there tonight from the Upper Ring. Yes, people died before we arrived, but we arrived. But we saved lives."

"Those men that I brought to help you on your little mercy mission were meant to go into the Abyss tomorrow. To relieve the soldiers who are down there now. But now, some of those men are injured. And they are tired. They are not at my disposal to use in the Abyss now."

Kaden held back his next words, rethinking them and reshaping them. "Those people are your loyal subjects, and you would leave them to die."

"Everyone has a role to play, Karo Shar. You. Me. Them. Those who live in the Lower Ring help protect us from the Black Rohs. By sacrificing themselves, we in the Upper Ring survive to fight in the Abyss against greater enemies."

"They're citizens. Not warriors."

"No, they're not."

"Then expecting them to fight the Black Rohs—"

"When did I ever say I expected them to fight the Black Rohs?" The prince's rebuttal cut Kaden off. "I said they help protect us by sacrificing themselves. After over two years, you still haven't learned how to listen properly."

What Kaden wanted to say was caught in his throat. He knew they'd be unwise words that would push the boundary of what the prince would let him get away with. So he swallowed them and went a different route.

"I'm sorry, my prince. You know I see things differently than you."

"You do. In the time I have had you by my side, I have learned that you indeed have a different view of many things. A way a common man would think of things. Early on, I believed that I would have to kill you for those differences. As they annoyed me. But as you've fought with me, side by side, I have seen your merit with a weapon and grown to respect what the son of an Alchemist and a traitor can bring to the battlefield." Outwardly, the prince showed signs that he couldn't let such praise go without a warning. "But mind yourself, Karo Shar. My respect has its limits."

"I will remember that. And I apologize again."

"Good. Now, let us not speak of this any more. I grow tired of these confrontations. Confrontations I do not feel are necessary between us. And the fact that you brought me to strike you twice for offenses in such short order does not bring me pleasure."

"I only ask that the great prince of Ison gives thought to my concerns."

The prince backed away a step. "I will give thought to giving thought to your concerns, Karo Shar. But, regardless of whether or not I do, I need you to be more diligent in your duties and in your adherence to our ways. If I cannot control my men, then I am weak. And if I am weak, then I must eliminate what makes me weak."

Kaden opened his mouth to say more, but the prince raised a hand to silence him.

"No more," the prince said. "This matter is closed." And the man who ruled over Ison turned and walked out to punctuate that he was serious.