"Because I do and believe me, being Jirni's assistant garnered me a lot of enemies. My role as a Royal Constable gives both me and Zinya the right to have a detail, but not to be protected by the Queen's Corps, let alone an army of magical beasts." Kamila said.
"I still failed to-"
"Say that again and I swear to the gods that I'll slap you!" She put her hand on his mouth, shutting him up. "This very night, I opened up to you about my exes and told you how hard it is for me to trust people. Do you think I take any of this lightly?
"No, I don't, but I never accepted to date you because I expected you to be a god. I dated you because you seemed to like me despite my flaws and because you cared for me. Has any of it changed after Night's attack?" She opened her hand enough to let him reply.
"No, but-"
"Then answer me this. Did you provoke Night in any way? Did you bring the undead army here? Did you ask the beasts to give Zinya's family a lower priority compared to yours?" Kamila asked, receiving a streak of no in reply.
"Then how could I possibly blame you? You're a victim as much as Zinya. I blame that living legacy bitch for playing with the lives of so many innocent people. I blame that senile fart of Baba Yaga for not turning her 'precious daughter' into a chamber pot at the first signs of madness!
"I blame the Kingdom for not investing more resources to protect its civil servants' families with a few decent arrays. Bottom line, I blame a lot of people, but not you. Now that we have made a few things clear, what do you have to say to me?" She said.
"I'm sorry for doubting you?" Lith said with an awkward smile.
"Wrong. Tell me that you're alright and that the next time you meet Night, you'll beat her crazy ass until she's dead." Kamila hugged him, making sure for the umpteenth time that Lith wasn't hurt.
"I'm alright and that the next time I meet Night, I'll beat her crazy ass until she's dead." He said.
"Good boy." She ruffled his hair playfully before pushing Lith down on the bed and giving him a long, deep kiss to forget for a moment about that frightful night.
"Wait." He pushed her away, trying to get up.
"Too soon?" She asked without even hiding her disappointment.
"No, but this is Tista's room. She'll kill me if something happens in here."
***
Solus's tower, a few days later.
The Kingdom had gracefully taken care of the reconstruction works of both Selia's and Zinya's houses. Between construction workers and mages, it had taken barely a couple of days to return everything as it was before the attack.
Under Kamila's and Jirni's insistence, Zinya's house received a few magical home appliances and basic defensive arrays, while Faluel took care of reinforcing the defensive system of Selia's house. The Hydra felt guilty for letting down so many of her disciples and even her godchildren.
Faluel connected Lith's, Selia's, and even Zinya's house with an underground tunnel so that if anything cut dimensional magic off, they could all find shelter in the most protected building.
"Are you really going to do it?" Phloria asked.
"Yes. I'm aware that this is the only block of Adamant I got and that it hasn't been long since Faluel's lessons about Forgemastering ended, but my new Skinwalker armor is long overdue." Lith replied.
"Until a few months ago, I had no clue how to tap into Runesmithing's true potential nor did I have the blueprints to craft a decent armor, but now I can finally put Zolgrish's Forge to good use.
"The silver lining in Night's attack is that once Faluel gives me my mission, it will not be just her protecting my home, but the entire Beast Council. On the other hand, however, it means that failure is even less of an option than it already was.
"If I don't prove my wisdom, Faluel will stop teaching us magic and I'll be back being a rogue Awakened. Sure, Feela and Raagu might offer me an apprenticeship, but I don't trust any of them near Solus.
"If they find out about Menadion's legacy, the undead will be the least of my problems." Lith placed his hand on the Adamant Forge, making it shapeshift into the form of a suit of armor resembling that he was looking on a Royal Forgemaster catalog.
During the last few months, he and Solus had spent most of their free time experimenting with the runes the Skinwalker armor's pseudo cores were comprised of. Only two out of four pseudo cores were made of pure mana while the rest required ingredients.
Thanks to their ability in shaping cores, however, they had been able to imitate the effects of the ingredient-generated cores with their mana and to test how altering their rune strings would affect the final result.
Putting their theories into practice always required them to spend part of the resources they had stockpiled because simple mana lacked the properties of the real deal, like the ability of the Thunderbird's plume to amplify energy-based effects.
Useless to say, by the time they were done with their experiments, their Orichalcum reserves ran dangerously low, and lots of people had received a brand new Skinwalker armor.
"Thanks for letting us spectate, Lith." Quylla said. "As a fellow Forgemaster, you've no idea what it means to me seeing what a mage with a tower can achieve. On top of that, I never witnessed an Awakened Forgemastery and I'm curious to see how different it is from my own."
"You're welcome, Quylla. It's not like you can learn anything from this demonstration. Solus and I have already determined which runes we'll use for the enchantments, which will be engraved on the armor, and how to split different abilities among the cores.
"Without such information, all you're in for is a light show." Lith said with a chuckle.
"Unless you are his lovely, gorgeous big sister. Not only do I have access to their notes, I also got one of their best prototypes of Lithwalker armor." Tista grinned from ear to ear as her clothes turned into a suit of silvery armor embedded with several magic crystals.
It resembled Lith's hybrid form so closely that it gave everyone the impression Tista could shapeshift as well.
"Scalewalker armor! It doesn't allow people to turn into me. That would be creepy as heck. Now stand back, please." Lith signaled them to move away as the Forgemastering lab became enveloped with a blue light that isolated both him and the armor from the rest of the room.
Thanks to Zolgrish's Forge, Lith didn't need Zekell's help to shape the armor, only his own willpower and imagination. After checking that every single detail, from the elm resembling his hybrid form to the joints being properly reinforced, the preparation phase began.
The Adamant Forge was a block of solid metal so big that Lith could have made at least three armor and a couple of weapons out of it. Unfortunately, to do that he would have to use the Adamant in its natural state.
