MageCrafter - 31. Chapter 31

Abigail's grin broadened as she entered the training grounds for Silbel's newest military recruits. The future Duchess looked quite out of place with her flowing scarlet gown and flowery hat among all the armored guards around her, but they merely bowed and allowed her in. She frequented the Royal training grounds enough to be known by face alone, and even more so by name and family crest. Her heeled shoes normally would have been ill suited to the grassy courtyard she was walking onto, but the sharp point of her shoes did not sink into the ground or seem hindered at all by the soil beneath her. Nor did it seem to dirty her clothes as she flowed across to where a group of young recruits were practicing their archery.

"Ready! Steady! Loose!"

Those words were music to Abigail's ears as she spotted the raven haired beauty she had come to see. The princess was in her perfectly tailored gambeson armor as usual, along with her sturdy no nonsense boots and military helm that held her beautiful black hair in a braided ponytail through the back of it. It took Abigail ages to convince that woman to grow her hair out, but it was worth it. She smirked as she watched the princess bark orders to the youngsters, giving them an earful about proper posture even when all of them had landed perfect shots on their targets.

All active duty military of Silbel from the most mundane soldier to the highest ranked generals were expected to be able to perform flawlessly with all weapons. It wasn't enough that they could shoot a bow. They had to be able to shoot with perfect accuracy, every time, regardless of how pitched the battle was. It was said that the Silbel Military never missed a shot, and the Princess was not about to let this current batch of trainees ruin that reputation.
"Heya Ridley. You look as gorgeous as ever this morning."

The princess whipped her head back and locked her grey eyes on the smirking woman in red behind her before breathing out through her nose in aggravation. With a snap of her body she turned around and raised her chin up high to the trainees she was overseeing.

"GET WASHED UP AND READY FOR BREAKFAST WELPS, I EXPECT YOU FED, CLEANED, AND BACK HERE IN ARMOR FOR SWORDSMANSHIP TRAINING WITHIN THE HOUR."

"YES SIR!" The young voices piped up in unison before marching off rapidly to the barracks to get cleaned up and ready to eat. It was more than obvious to Abigail that Ridley had not wanted to end the training that early, but with her being the distracting bard that she was, the princess was wise enough to know she wasn't going to get any work done with Abigail around.

"What brings you here Abby, you know I am busy in the mornings."

"You were saying my name in your sleep last night." Abigail said with an impish grin on her face, "It kept hitting my ear in such a delightful way that I just had to see you."

The princess sucked in air through her teeth and her face flushed as she turned on her heel and marched off inside, fuming at what the extravagantly dressed intruder revealed. It only wrinkled her brow more when her long time acquaintance followed behind with that self satisfied expression she knew was on her infuriating face.

"I do not have time for you Abby, we've been over this. If you are just here to distract me then you know the way out."

"Actually I'm not. I'm here on other matters."

The princess sighed and pinched her brow. "Your brother isn't trying to collar that Bertolde brat again is he?"

"Nonono, that's over." Abigail said with a wave of her hand, "He apparently inherited my family's little embarrassment."

The princess turned around with a look of concern on her face. " Is he okay? He didn't turn did he?"

"Not all the way. Father had to give him over to the Belemus Temple as an Acolyte. Poor thing's having a hard time adjusting."

"I'm...I'm sorry to hear that Abigail. If you need any assistance I will do what I can."

The princess's face lit up with a flush as Abigail stole a little peck on her cheek with her lips before pulling back with a coy grin. "You're sweet, but I'm actually here to help you. What I heard out of your sleepy mumbling wasn't just my name. You sounded like you were having one doozy of a nightmare."

Princess Ridley sighed and sat down on a hard wooden chair while rubbing her gloved hand over her face. She knew better than to admonish Abigail about being so open about her ill gotten abilities from Babica. The girl had always been a headache for Ridley ever since they were kids, running off and doing all sorts of dangerous things without telling anyone where she was heading. It was enough to drive a person wild. Her trip to Babica's bog had taken the cake however. Ridley had been beside herself with incensed rage over what she had done, but the charismatic Abby had cooed her back down from her temper flare up. So far she had not been caught, but if she ever was, Ridley wasn't sure if even her influence could protect her. The hard-line stance Silbel took against Warlocks was as well earned as it was immovable. Yet Abigail was just that kind of person to ride the edge of danger like that.

The princess reached into her armor and pulled out a loose fitting necklace with an intricate sigil on it. Abigail knew the item all too well. It was the only magic item in all of Silbel that worked with the princess's hyper specific variety of Divination wizardry. Most everyone else needed to imbue thousands of attunements to get that thing around her neck to work. They assumed it was a useless magic item. Yet for Ridley it worked for her with only three of them. That suited her just fine, as the only other magic items that worked for the princess were school neutral items that gave the tiniest of advantages. Most assumed the Princess to be mundane, which was nothing short of an embarrassment to Silbel nobility and royalty. That was far from the case however.

"My father's recklessness is going to cause a calamity Abby. I keep trying to use my perception of causality to shift the course of our nation away from it, but the fool will not listen to reason. He's still convinced I'm mundane and won't even meet with me in person even after all these years. My brothers are no better, hedonistic cretins every last one of them. Their short sighted machinations are going to cost so many human lives it terrifies me."

"That's what you were dreaming about. At least from the snippets I heard from you." Abigail said with a more somber expression as she settled herself down across from the princess and crossed her legs beneath her red dress. "It sounds like it could be happening soon, whatever it is you're worried about."

"It's been worse since The Day of Black Thorn." Ridley adjusted her posture and looked off into the distance, "Something unfathomably ominous happened for our Country that day, and I can only see the aftershocks of it. This item see's the ripples of consequence. When the ripples are small I can see them clearly and I know how to influence them in my favor. These were no mere ripples Abby. These were tidal waves, a tsunami of causality that is going to rip Silbel apart and kill so many people. I can not allow that to happen."

The princesses gloved hand struck the table hard before she continued, gritting her teeth with visible rage on her face, "Yet my shameful family sees none of it! Worse they are trying to take actions that make it worse. Every time they make a move towards Collaring that Bertolde Boy, the Tsunami of Causality only comes faster! I've had to work my fingers to the bone behind the scenes to influence those around my idiot father enough to talk him down from doing such a thing. It's like they are actively trying to kill this nation and its people!"

Abigail let the princess get this budding anger and resentment off her chest and into the air. Ever since Ridley had adorned the family heirloom on her neck, her disillusionment with her family had begun in earnest. With that ancient item that dated back before the Dark Age Wars, the princess suddenly became capable of seeing the effects that cascade out from an action. It was this item that the founder of Silbel used to carve out a nation for Humans, using his perception of cause and effect to grow an army unlike any had seen before and completely tame the lands that became their nation. However it had been generations since anyone in the family line was capable of effectively utilizing the items power, and the increasingly corrupt royalty eventually discarded the heirloom into the depths of the treasury as testament to their glory instead of a tool for their nation to use for its betterment.

Now that Ridley had it, the princess and youngest member of the Silbel royal family could see the disaster that her family was unwittingly calling to their nation. Her father was a contemptuous fool, there was no mincing words on that front. Everything he did revolved around himself and his festering ego. He had inherited the most powerful human led nation in the world, and his actions had only made it more unstable and volatile. The aggressive collaring of magic users and the scandalous treatment of demi humans brought the ire of so many nations against Silbel. While she had no love for demi humans, nor did she especially dislike them, the item around her neck made it clear that what her nation was doing to them was brewing wrath from both within and outside of Silbel that she was not sure they could weather.

She had been the one to make the push that orphans could enlist themselves in the military. It had been tedious and infuriating to get her father to sign the legislation to make such a thing happen. He was content to let the orphaned rot on auction blocks and become the playthings of his simpering yes men and human supporters. At least with them being in the military they had a chance to work themselves up a ladder and gain something of a life for themselves that wasn't being some disposable toy for an unscrupulous citizen. The fact they were even referring to what they did as “indentured servitude” instead of slavery was merely to save face for foreign powers.

Her siblings were no better than her father. Those Princes, including the crown prince, were hedonistic louts without a brain cell between them. They merely parroted the boisterous ramblings of their father while plotting and scheming against each other. Two of her brothers had died under mysterious circumstances in the past few years, and she'd be lying if she said she cared a single iota about it. Her family was an embarrassment among royal houses, and she was ashamed to even share blood with these cretins.

Yet she couldn't just kill her father and brothers. That would do the nation of Silbel no favors. Her father, despite all logic and reason, was loved by his people. The humans loved him that is. He fed into their fear and distaste of demi humans with every decree and law he put forth, emboldening the populace into greater and greater levels of careless cruelty. If she were to strike out at her family, even if it was a flawless attack, she'd almost certainly lose control of the nation entirely. She knew this all too well thanks to the item around her neck.

In the eyes of her family, she was the worthless mundane daughter of the king. The Magic-less Princess. She was cast aside and out of her fathers sight, left with some guardians in the grand palace with orders to allow her to do whatever she wanted as long as she didn't bother the king or allow herself to be seen by him. He wanted nothing to do with her the second the testing to find out what school she was from failed.

In a way, she was thankful for the autonomy. If it wasn't for the lack of oversight by her father, she might have turned out just as conceited and vapid as the rest of her siblings that he kept under his thumb. It was because of her lack of oversight and direction that led her to discover that she could use the family heirloom, and allowed her to join the military and earn her own reputation among the soldiers as a capable commander and fighter. They too thought she was mundane, but they found that inspiring in a way with how competent and controlled she was both in combat and in giving commands.

Yet her father cared nothing for her accomplishments in the military. The fact she was mundane in his eyes was more than enough reason to consider her bad stock and cast her aside. She had ranted and wept about the injustice of it all to Abigail on more than a few occasions growing up. Here she was once again, offering the princess an ear to air her grievances out on. Was it any wonder why she felt so strongly for this reckless fool who always managed to get herself in trouble when the princess wasn’t looking.

“I might have some information that could help you figure out how to navigate this tsunami you’re talking about. This ear of mine has been picking up a lot of interesting information the last few days, including why our Lord Baldric seems to be at the center of so many of your headaches.”

The princess looked at Abigail with renewed interest after staring off into space for so long. “What information? These waves have been too murky and hard to read to figure out more than basic information, so any clues that could help me decipher what threats could be heading to Silbel would help me plan accordingly. There are a lot of lives at stake here Abby.”

Abigail sat back with a broad grin, “Well it all started when I found out the identity of the Silbel Strangler.”

The princess’s eyes went wide as saucers as she looked at Abigail’s self satisfied expression and posture. She knew well enough to know that her friend would not kid around about one of her greatest obsessions since they were kids. She had been one of the most dedicated followers of that cold case since as long as the princess could remember, and she had in fact went to Babica Preja specifically because of an off chance that she might find something out about the infamous serial killer.

Abigail, pleased that she had the princess’s attention, began to regale her with everything she had learned up to that point. She didn’t know what her long time friend could do with this information, but she was more than a little interested to find out.

***

In the makeshift Bedroom within Lord Baldric’s Lair there was a certain Lynxian making quite a bit of muffled noise under the covers. Though the older teen was still quite unconscious, the expression on his slumbering face was that of a growing smile of contentment accompanied with his body adjusting appreciatively to the warm mouth coaxing his shaft awake. As Baldric slowly became aware of his surroundings, he began to become aware of the bobbing lump underneath all his blankets, and he was especially happy with the purring that was sending pleasant vibrations through his cock as it was suckled on so aggressively.

One of the pleasant side effects of the punishment he had given Kotik involving being the boy in the middle to his slave boys was it made his lover a lot more open to being the initiator in sex. Before he would beat around the bush and send signals to Baldric, sometimes not even consciously, hoping that the young lord would take the lead. Lately however Baldric found his lover doing more adventurous acts like waking him up in the morning with a blowjob. He could have easily asked the Lynxian to do that for him, but the fact that it had been Kotik’s own idea and initiative that made it happen made the feeling of that mouth all the better.

This morning felt a bit different however. Kotik was being far more aggressive about what he was doing down there than his usual efforts. Not that Baldric was complaining; the rough way that head was bobbing up and down beneath his covers certainly felt amazing, as did the grumbles of Kotik’s voice reverberating into his cock. With some mirth in his expression he lifted up his covers to find a quite grumpy looking Lynxian working his slicked shaft between his puffed out cheeks. Something had ticked off Kotik quite a bit, and the lynxian had humorously decided to work out that aggression through a rather intense fellating session.

“What’s got your tail frizzed up this morning there kitten?”

Kotik pulled off his shaft with an audible pop and worked him over with his hand while he grumbled, “King Morcant is a big Jerk that’s what.”

Kotik was about to get back to sucking before he saw Baldric sit up far straighter than before and look far more awake than he did a moment ago. His lover looked down at him with an expression that was rather hard for the Lynxian to read. The closest he could compare it too was someone trying to figure out a strange riddle a bard told to the tavern in between one of his songs.

“Uh, Kotik, what do you mean by that exactly.”

“Big Jerk came in my head in the middle of the night cause my magic was acting up and said you weren’t training me well enough or something like that. I wanna deck him in his big ugly nose.”

Baldric was too stunned by What Kotik said to stop him from aggressively sticking the older teens cock back in his mouth and start sucking with a renewed gusto. What happened last night? When did Morcant reach out to Kotik? Baldric was mentally kicking himself for shutting off so many of his senses before he had gone into that trance. He didn’t really have a choice however. He needed to resync with all of his mental duplicates and that required hours of uninterrupted meditation.

In truth, neither he nor his copies have had a true night's sleep in years, nor could he afford to let such a thing happen. When he meditated like this he would shut off all his senses and enter into a state of sensory deprivation. While in this state of pure disconnect from the outside world, the multitude of copies as well as himself focus on calming their minds and bringing themselves in sync with one another. He still gained the benefits of a good night's rest and his physical body appeared to be sleeping from all outward appearances. However this state of mind is fundamentally different from sleeping.

For one thing, he did not allow himself to dream while he was in this state of mind. He had learned the hard way with his original seven what the dangers of sleeping when you have parallel minds could bring. Before he was a MageCrafter and still ran with the Bavaram circus, Baldric used to sleep like anyone else. He did not see what potential issues there could be with his various minds drifting off to sleep could bring, nor did he see a problem with openly talking and holding conversations with his parallel minds. Most of the time none of the seven or himself could even remember what they had dreamed the night before, so they did not think much of it causing issues later. How wrong they all were.

Baldric learned later in life that a human can have an average of five dreams a night without remembering a single one of them. When he only had one mind to worry about that was not a problem at all. That is merely his mind processing the various thoughts and emotions he felt throughout the day in an abstract way while he connected with the realms of dreams and illusions. What Baldric had not realized until much too late was that each of his parallel minds was having their own individual dreams alongside him. Their minds were processing the day they had differently than Baldric had, and though the differences had been slight at first, it only grew more pronounced as time wore on.

Before he could think much further about that he found his body reacting quite forcefully to Kotik’s efforts. He had not prevented himself from coming, opting instead to let his orgasm happen naturally, and it came upon him quite suddenly with how good Kotik had gotten at using his throat and tongue. Baldric tensed up and gripped the lynxian on the head, biting his lip as he came into his lover’s mouth without much in the way of warning. The younger teen had felt it coming on the throbbing shaft however and had been quite ready for it, and he managed to handle the young lord’s load without even letting a drop escape past his lips. It was a far cry from his amateur efforts that he exhibited on the day he had been the Boy in the middle. There was no question that he was using his collar’s learning abilities to become better at sex now.

In a way, Kotik helped Baldric more than the Lynxian could possibly have known. Sex, in a way, was another method he used to stay synchronized with his parallel minds. Though they were made of vapor or water, These copies of himself still had the desire to have and experience sex like the central Baldric did. The unfortunate difference was they could not achieve that on their own, nor could they enjoy things like food or other pleasures in life. They were magic items with the fully formed mind of Lord Baldric, but they did not have the body to act on the needs and desires of the original.

Whenever Baldric enjoyed himself with his harem of pleasure boys or Kotik himself, all of his parallel minds enjoy the experience vicariously alongside him. They feel every moment of it and get to enjoy a pleasure and a sensation that their bodies were otherwise not equipped to experience. Even the parallel mind that he had lost contact with was not equipped to feel pleasure like that with his facsimile of a body he was walking around in. Allowing them to enjoy the perks of being human encouraged them to stay connected with the central mind and maintain the mindset of being a human named Baldric with him.

He had not done the same with the original seven, and it had cost him dearly. Those seven, even before they had become heralds of the realms of dreams and illusion, had at some point stopped viewing themselves as human and started identifying with the fact they were magic items. They were also made from when Baldric had been much younger and less interested in sex, so it had not been as much of a draw for them to maintain connection with Baldric as it was for his later creations. Something about that shift in perspective changed them in a strange way, making them gradually unable to remember what having a human body was like. Eventually the abandoned conventional bodies altogether, preferring the free-form and horrifying visages they adopt today.

In a way, Kotik’s treat to Baldric had been an award to all the mental duplicates for staying synced with him, and gave them the energy and drive to carry out their various duties wherever they happened to be stationed. Gradually Baldric’s senses became aware of not only the room he was in with his lover, but also all the various locations his mental duplicates were. Once again he was simultaneously in the sky, within the lair, and deep under the sea in all three kingdoms all at once. It would only take a few moments for all of that information to coalesce into his mind and allow for him as the central baldric to process it all and disseminate it out to the rest of the duplicates. While human minds were never designed to work like a hive, this was the closest Baldric could come to making such a thing a reality without completely compromising his mental state. It had taken him a lot of practice to learn how to manage this particular balancing act.

“Okay Kotik could you tell me what this is abou-”

“I see you’re finally done with your meditation.”

Baldric raised a hand up to stop Kotik from talking as his eyes went wide in alarm. The lynxian looked confused but didn’t say anything, instead cocking his head to the side and looking up at Baldric as he seemed to stare off into the distance. What he did not know was Baldric had just heard a duplicate of himself speak to him through an Assistant. One of the rules he had laid out for the copies of himself was they were under no circumstance supposed to talk to himself or each other. If they needed to communicate something they could share their mind with the central Baldric and have him disperse the information among the copies. Talking to each other was one of the quickest ways to create deviations in thought, which is why it was strictly forbidden. The fact that this copy of himself was flagrantly ignoring that right now spoke volumes of how bad this situation was.

His assistant fed an image of a funeral procession that appeared to have been going on awhile. Baldric’s heart leaped into his throat as he used the assistant to look around and not finding his Father anywhere to be seen. His Parallel minds that had been laying dormant in the sky began to descend onto the estate in droves to figure out what had happened and try to get to the bottom of this funeral. He had not been informed about any of this since he was forced to regroup and re-sync with his parallel minds.

Taking control of the assistant, he panned it over to the person who had established this call with himself. It was bizarre looking at a perfect replica of himself that he was not connected with. Once again he tried to reach out and establish connection with this parallel mind, and once again he refused.

“I would not be speaking with you through one of our assistants if I thought it was safe for me to reconnect with you.”

Baldric did not like the feel of this one bit. He was getting flashbacks to the original seven all over again. This copy was speaking directly to him and Identifying himself in the singular instead of identifying as Baldric. This was a dangerous level of divergence that would be disastrous if he were to reconnect with Baldric. It would result in two distinct personalities competing for control of the central body, which would almost certainly drive a person mad. There was a reason Baldric went to such lengths to make sure he was of one mind with his copies.

“There was an attack on the Bertolde Estate. An individual that High King Vinal and High Priestess Marigold identified as a FearCrafter managed to infiltrate into the estate and assault over forty individuals with his powers, resulting in twenty two deaths and many injuries both physical and to attunement slots.”

As the copy of himself spoke, the multitude of parallel minds began to flood information about what they were finding in the estate. Visuals of his father, maids, servants, and even some of Marigolds own men in the infirmary as well as information on who counted among the dead began to paint a picture of the carnage that had taken place while he had been gone.

“Our father is alive, but he is in critical condition. This FearCrafter was capable of creating magic items with peoples fear and use them to attack their attunement slots and very souls if they did not comply with his demands. Our father lost all three of his attunement slots within a manner of moments, and he would have been killed outright if High Priestess Marigold hadn’t intervened and saved him at the last minute.”

Baldric could feel a strange mixture of fear and relief hearing that his father hadn’t died in this attack he had not known about. Maybe if he had been there instead of moving to leave the estate this wouldn’t have happened? If his father had his attunement slots attacked in the way his copy had just told him, he would be unconscious for months at the very least, as well as vulnerable to any illness that should come his way. Thankfully there seemed to be quite powerful abjuration items made of water and powdered gold that had been rubbed into his father to keep him protected.

The copy of him drew Baldric’s attention back to him through the assistant. It was so surreal having a copy of himself talking to him like this. What did this mean going forward? Were other minds going to break away like this? What if he had tried to connect back to Baldric being as diverged as he was instead of keeping himself separated from the rest of the body. It brought to the forefront just how fragile this balancing act he was trying to do really was.

“You do not have time to focus on our father right now.” The copy said as his gaze bored into the assistant, as if he was looking directly into Baldric’s own eyes. “Listen to me. We have a mission to do. We cannot afford any more bouts of fear and uncertainty. I am diverged now, there is no getting around that. Between this body feeling so much like the real thing and the experiences I’ve had at the hands of a god and that bastard FearCrafter, I’ve become my own being whether I want to or not. Trust me, I do not want to be having this conversation with you right now.”

He jutted his finger out at the assistant, appearing to know exactly where to look to make direct eye contact with Baldric. “Before he left, High King Vinal demanded an audience with you. He knows you are the undersea emperor and will be expecting an invitation from you as soon as possible. Focus on that and the plan in general. Let me handle this mess at the estate.”

“There’s got to be a way to ease you back into…”

“Stop talking Baldric. I am diverged. There is no getting around that. Any attempt to reconnect with you right now would split your psyche in two at the very least, if not utterly fractal us entirely. We cannot afford that right now. I will not allow myself to go insane like the original seven did.”

Baldric raised his own voice in aggravation, “How the hell are you going to stay sane when you can’t even rest properly without being connected to me? The longer you stay disconnected the worse connecting back to me is going to be. We need to fix this!”

“I have a plan Baldric, or at least I have the beginnings of one. For now I need you to trust me and stick to the mission. I have plenty here to keep me focused while I figure out how to make my plan work. Without our father leading the estate, I need to step up and be the controlling figure on the estate and handle the duties he was taking care of before. This will also help conceal the fact you are no longer in Silbel. Prepare yourself with your meeting with High King Vinal. I will use assistants to keep you updated, but from now on do not attempt to reconnect with me directly. This is for both of our own goods.”

The copy continued, making his voice sound even more forceful now, “You also need to learn about FearCrafters, as well as any other threats that can compromise a person’s emotional or mental state like them. Until we know how to properly counteract those beings, they will be our most dangerous threat. I would suggest talking with King Morcant about this, or one of the other leaders, and see what their thoughts are on the matter. We cannot afford to let ignorance blindside us like it did inside the Estate. Not if we want to have any chance of overthrowing Silbel without resorting to war. finally…, “ The copy seemed to lose some of the fire in his tone as he said this next part, “Take care of Kotik for me.”

Baldric’s heart sank as the connection faded between himself and his copy through one of his assistants. Of course the copy would have strong feelings for Kotik, he still essentially was Baldric after all. However because he was indefinitely severed from the rest of the parallel minds, he was not going to be able to share in the relationship with Kotik like the rest could. How strange it was to think that there was a version of himself out there right now who basically had to give up being with Kotik while he still had the Lynxian in his bed at this very moment.

“Baldric, can you hear me? Are you alright?” Kotik was really close to the older teens face now. From the Lynxian’s perspective, Baldric had gone into a partial trance and held a one way conversation with someone, and he hadn’t been able to respond to Kotik at all. Baldric responded to his lover’s concern by hugging him tightly to him and blinking some moisture out of his eyes as he did so. Even though his copy told him not to focus on the Estate, he still wanted to help him as best as he could. From what his parallel minds had been gathering, the Copy and the High Priestess had been instrumental in saving lives and protecting his father, and aside from the Maids and Sargis who had seen Baldric leave, most assumed the copy was Baldric himself.

“I’m fine Kotik. I just found out some very troubling news is all. I’ll tell you about it later.” the older teen shook his head to clear it some before continuing, holding Kotik closer to him as he did so. “ First I’d like for you to tell me what happened between King Morcant and yourself, and then after that we’re going to need to see about getting you ready to go into the sea.”

Kotik’s fur and hair bristled as his ears flattened at that. He did however show some remarkable restraint in not letting out a hiss like he normally did when large bodies of water were mentioned.

“C...could we at least go out there in a way where I don’t get wet?”

Baldric grinned at the adorable compromise his lover offered, even though Kotik looked like he hated bringing that up.

“Maybe for your first outing, If you behave yourself.” the last part was said with a teasing poke of Kotik’s nose with his finger.

Kotik flashed a grin and looked down at Baldric’s shaft and then back up at him. “I can behave myself if I want.”

Baldric let out a laugh before kissing Kotik, trying to let some of his worries seep away from him as he leaned into it. There was a lot of troubling things happening around him all at once that he had not made plans for. He decided as he pushed Kotik down on the bed and got himself situated on top of him that he was going to need to convene with Shahnaz and some others to make a new modified draft of the plan with all these new variables that were in play. He needed to make sure they were on the right path to take Silbel as peacefully as possible, or else it could cause unintended consequences that he shuddered to even consider.