Chapter 107: The Ring Comes Off

Chapter 107: Chapter 107: The Ring Comes Off

For a few seconds, nobody in the Council Chamber moved.

Harrow lay slumped forward in the First Seat, his chin on his chest. The gold ring on his finger had gone dark. The thin thread of gold that had run from it into his body was still there in Donald’s [Arcane Reading], but it was slack now, like a rope somebody had dropped.

Lord Barrow had his axe half out of its loop. He was staring at Harrow with his mouth open.

Lady Reed was the first to stand.

"Nobody touch him," she said. Her voice was sharp and steady. "Henry, put that axe away. If you swing it in this room, you’ll break a lock and kill us all."

Barrow looked at the silver ring of runes in the floor. Then he slowly let go of the axe.

The other three Masters were on their feet. One of them, a thin woman in green, had both hands raised with a ward half-formed between them. Another had backed against the wall.

"That was a Demon King," the thin woman said. "That was a Demon King speaking in the Council Chamber. Through the First Seat."

"Yes," Donald said. "His name is Paimon."

Every head in the room turned toward him.

"How do you know that name?" Barrow demanded.

"Because I’ve been fighting his friends for two weeks," Donald said. "And because the one in your First Seat has been wearing his ring for twenty-two years."

Harrow groaned.

He pushed himself upright in the chair, slowly, with both hands. His face was gray and wet with sweat. His eyes were his own again, pale and tired.

He looked down at the ring on his hand. Then he looked around the room at the five Masters staring at him.

"Well," he said quietly. "That’s that, then."

---

Lady Reed didn’t sit down.

"Edmund," she said. "Is it true?"

Harrow didn’t try to lie. Donald watched it with [Valuation Eye] and saw that the old man had stopped hiding anything.

[Target: Lord Edmund Harrow]

[Status: Exhausted. Fear: Extreme. Relief: High.]

[Binding Activity: Crowned Pact slack. Holder has withdrawn attention.]

"It’s true," Harrow said. "Twenty-two years. He gave me the First Seat. He gave me every vote I ever won. In return, he steered me." He turned the ring slowly. "Not every day. Not every decision. Only the ones that mattered to him."

"Like leaving Dragonheart’s seat empty," Donald said.

Harrow gave him a thin smile. "No. That one I steered myself. He wanted the seat left empty, and the anchor under this Hall left to wake. I told him the best way to keep it empty was to offer it to the one man who couldn’t swear an oath." He let out a breath. "I didn’t know you could buy a lock. Neither did he."

Lady Reed sat down very slowly.

"So now what?" Barrow said. His voice was rough. "He’s a traitor. He’s sat at this table for twenty-two years with a demon in his ear. He goes to the Association. Today."

"He will," Harrow said. "But not as a traitor. I’ll go as a witness." He looked at Donald. "If the Investor will still have me."

Donald held his gaze.

"He just spoke through you in front of six Guild Masters," Donald said. "Your cover is gone. You’re no use to him now."

"No," Harrow said. "I’m a loose end. And Paimon is a careful man. He doesn’t leave loose ends in his books." He laid his right hand flat on the arm of the chair, with the ring facing up. "I’d like to keep my head, Investor. Like your secretary."

Donald took out his tablet. He opened a standard TIG membership contract and walked across the circle, careful not to step on the silver runes. He held it out.

"Read it first," he said.

Harrow read every line. Then he pressed his thumb to the screen.

[New Guild Member Registered: Lord Edmund Harrow (S-Rank Enchanter).]

[Title Effect Applied: Breaker of Chains.]

The ring cracked.

It wasn’t loud, a small sharp sound like ice breaking. A line ran across the black stone from one side to the other. Then the stone split in half. The gold band went dull, then gray, then crumbled into a fine dust that ran through Harrow’s fingers onto the floor.

The slack gold thread inside him flared once and broke.

Harrow made a sound that wasn’t quite a word. He bent forward and put his face in his hands. His shoulders shook.

Nobody in the room said anything. Even Barrow looked away.

When Harrow lifted his head, his eyes were wet, and he was smiling.

"Twenty-two years," he said. "I’d forgotten what it felt like to want something and say it."

---

They moved to a smaller room behind the Chamber, with a table, a fire and two guards from the Third Seat at the door. Lady Reed stayed. So did Barrow, who refused to leave until he heard everything. The other three Masters went back to their towers to check their own Guilds for rings.

Harrow drank two cups of water and began to talk.

"The anchor under this Hall is not the only one," he said. "During the Collapse Years, the first gates opened in thirty-one cities across the world on the same night. Everyone knows that. What nobody knows, except a few of us who’ve read the old Council files, is that every one of those thirty-one gates was ’closed’ the same way this one was. The boss was killed. The ground was sealed. And a city government, or a council, or a guild was built on top of the seal."

"Thirty-one anchors," Donald said. "Asleep under thirty-one cities."

"Some are asleep," Harrow said. "Some aren’t. Saren lost three cities in the Collapse Years. Everyone thinks those were breaches. They weren’t. Those were anchors that woke up because the people holding their locks died in the fighting." He looked into the fire. "And the western cities that went silent twenty years ago, the place we call the Silent Zone... I believe that’s what happens when nobody holds the locks at all."

Lady Reed had gone very pale. Barrow was gripping the table.

"Paimon’s work is politics," Harrow went on. "He buys the people who hold locks. Councils. Ministers. Guild Masters. Some he bribes. Some he rings, like me. And then, slowly, he makes sure the wrong people sit in the right chairs, until one day a seat goes empty and nobody fills it."

"He’s been doing that for thirty years," Donald said.

"In this country, and in others," Harrow said. "I don’t know how many seats he holds across the sea. I know of the Eastern Commonwealth. Their largest Guild, Taeyang Holdings, has had his ring on its chairman for fifteen years. They sit on the lock under their capital. If Taeyang falls, their anchor wakes."

Donald sat back.

He thought about the golden receipt in the Council Chamber. Everything you can buy, I can buy back. Let’s see whose purse is deeper.

He understood it now. Paimon wasn’t threatening to fight him. Paimon was going to buy against him, all over the world, one chair at a time.

There was a knock at the door. One of Lady Reed’s guards leaned in.

"My lady," he said. "There’s a man here from the Investor’s party. He says it’s urgent."

Damian came in without waiting. He had a tablet in his hand and his face was gray.

"Aris sent this," he said. "It just came over the market wire. Twelve minutes ago."

He set the tablet on the table.

It was a financial news feed. A red banner ran across the top.

TAEYANG HOLDINGS ANNOUNCES HOSTILE BID FOR THE INVESTMENT GUILD.

Below it, a smaller line:

Eastern Commonwealth giant offers 4 billion credits for controlling stake in Westmark’s newest Royal Guild. TIG shares jump 30% on the news.

Donald stared at it.

Twelve minutes ago. Barely half an hour after a gold-eyed voice in the Council Chamber had promised to buy back everything he’d bought.

"He doesn’t waste time," Harrow said quietly.

"No," Donald said.

He looked at the number. Four billion credits. He had 260,000.

Paimon wasn’t going to fight him. Paimon was going to buy his Guild out from under him.