The psychological landscape of the caravan had shifted drastically.
Before the "Handshake Incident," the knights rode with the swagger of apex predators escorting sheep to the slaughter. They sat tall in their saddles, laughing, making crude gestures at the maid, Lena, and ignoring my orders.
Now, six hours later, the silence was deafening.
We set up camp as the sun dipped below the tree line. Usually, the knights would demand the best spots near the fire. Tonight, they huddled on the perimeter, casting fearful glances at the royal wagon.
I sat by the fire, observing the data.
Ser Garrick was awake but unsteady. He walked with a twitch, his eyes wide and vacant. Every time Elara moved—even just to adjust her cloak—Garrick flinched violently, as if expecting another lightning strike.
The fear was infectious. I watched two knights, clearly the spies planted by Advisor Corvin, trying to do damage control.
One of them, a lean man with a scar named Kegan, was whispering furiously to a group of three large, rowdy axe-men. I couldn't hear the words, but I could read the body language.
Spy's Pitch: "Don't be cowards. The North is ours. We will rule like kings. The women—the maid, the smith, even the Princess—will be ours to use once we get past the pass."
The Reaction: The axe-men weren't buying it. One shook his head vigorously, gesturing toward Elara.
"You touch her," the knight seemed to mouth. "She's a storm demon. I'm not frying my cock on a witch."
The promise of a "harem of their own" had been overridden by the primal fear of electrocution. The spies were losing control of their muscle. The hierarchy had inverted.
"Valian?"
A soft, heavy weight pressed against my shoulder.
Elara was sitting beside me on the log. She wasn't just sitting; she was engulfing me. She had taken my right hand and pulled it deep into the folds of her grey dress, pressing it against her chest.
My hand was buried in soft, yielding warmth. To a layman, it was just a breast. To me, it was a high-density thermal insulator protecting a racing heart.
"You're smiling," she whispered, her voice giddy. "You're thinking about how he fell. Like a sack of grain. Thump."
She squeezed my hand tighter, pulling it deeper into her cleavage. The sheer mass of her was comforting, like leaning against a warm wall.
"I have trained in the shadow arts since I was six," she confessed, her eyes shining in the firelight. "Garrotes. Poison. Daggers in the dark. My mother always said, 'Elara, you are too big to hide, so you must be twice as quiet.' But today..."
She let out a breathy laugh that vibrated against my trapped hand.
"Today, I walked up to the strongest man in the guard, looked him in the eye, and put him down. I didn't hide. I didn't sneak." She looked at me with hero-worship in her eyes. "You gave me that. You made me a battle-mage."
"It wasn't magic, Elara. It was a discharge of potential energy," I corrected gently, though I didn't pull my hand away. The tactile feedback was... pleasant. "And we need to refine the capacitor. If the glass had shattered, you would have taken the shock too."
"I don't care," she murmured, resting her cheek on my shoulder. "Make me stronger, Valian. Fill me with lightning again. I want to see them run."
She was addicted to the power. And, judging by the way she was practically cuddling me in front of twenty men, she was becoming addicted to the source of that power.
Clang.
A tin plate hit the log next to me with unnecessary force.
I looked up. Lena stood there, holding a tray of stew. Her knuckles were white on the handles. Her usually timid face was pinched tight.
"Dinner, My Lord," she said, her voice brittle.
She looked at Elara. Specifically, she looked at Elara's massive chest, where my hand was currently disappearing. Then she looked down at her own modest figure, hidden under a starch-stiff maid's uniform.
"I made sure to test it for poison," Lena added sharply. "Since the Princess is too busy... charging... to help with the camp duties."
Elara blinked, looking up from her reverie. She didn't move my hand. If anything, she pressed it closer, a subconscious territorial claim.
"The Duke requires warmth, Lena," Elara said calmly, her voice shifting from giddy girl back to regal lady. "The night is cold. I am providing insulation."
"I have blankets," Lena snapped. "Wool ones. That don't conduct electricity."
She shoved the stew bowl into my free hand.
"And you," she turned her glare to me, her eyes wet with frustration. "You promised to teach me about... systems. I know the castle secrets. I know the spies' names. But all afternoon you've been building toys for her."
I paused. Harem dynamics were not my area of expertise. I usually dealt with stress fractures in concrete, not emotional stress fractures in personnel.
I needed to balance the load.
"Lena," I said, keeping my voice calm. "Sit."
She hesitated, then sat on the other side of me, as far from Elara as the log allowed.
"Elara is the defense system," I explained. "The capacitor was a weapon test. But a weapon is useless without targeting data."
I nodded toward the knights whispering in the shadows.
"I noticed you speaking to the stable boy earlier. And the cook."
Lena sniffed, wiping her nose. "The cook talks. He says Kegan—the scarred knight—has a letter in his saddlebag sealed with red wax. He checks it every hour."
"Red wax," I mused. "That's the Advisor's personal correspondence."
I squeezed Elara's hand (the one in her chest) to signal approval, then turned and gave Lena a genuine, impressed nod.
"You found the communication uplink in less than an hour," I said. "Elara knocked out the muscle. You identified the brain."
I took a spoonful of the stew.
"Elara provides the shock," I said, looking between them. "You provide the aim. Without you, Lena, Elara is just blindly striking. Without Elara, you are defenseless."
Lena's posture softened. The jealousy didn't vanish—she still glared at my hand buried in the Princess—but the logic appealed to her need to be useful.
"So..." Lena muttered. "We need to get that letter?"
"Exactly," I smiled, my black teeth glinting. "Elara can't do it. She's too big; she displaces too much air. But you? You're a maid. You're invisible."
Elara pulled my hand from her dress, looking disappointed at the loss of contact, but she nodded at Lena. "He is right. I cannot pick a pocket. My fingers are too thick."
Lena sat up straighter. She smoothed her apron.
"I can get it," she said, a dark determination replacing the jealousy. "Tonight. When he sleeps."
"Good," I said. "Bring me that letter, and we will know exactly how they plan to kill us."
I looked at my team. The Tank and the Spy.
"Now, eat. Tomorrow we hit the mountain pass. And I have a feeling the brakes on these wagons are going to need some... adjustment."