For a half second, my brain refused to accept what my eyes were telling it. Summoning constructs at this scale wasn’t a Tier I curiosity or an overeager student exercise.

  Stone sentinels were strong enough to show up in high Tier II dungeons as mid-bosses. Even hedge-mages—people who thought safety margins were optional—knew better than to face a free-standing lithic sentinel head-on if they valued their lives.

  Lacking the skill Appraisal, I could not reliably judge her as I could with aetheric creatures. She could summon a Level 25 Stone Sentinel with some random aetheric essence she happened to collect roadside. What Level was she, exactly?

  I never got an answer.

  “Oooh… He’s solid.” Anabeth hopped to her feet and attempted to climb on the golem’s back.

  She reached it in three strides, planted a foot against its thigh plating, and vaulted upward. Stone sentinels didn’t particularly like being climbed, and they had a very simple way of reminding people of that fact: an instinctive counterstrike delivered with a fist the size of a boulder.

  “Foolish witch—” I barked.

  A slab of stone had already formed between Anabeth and the fist. The impact landed with a thunderous crack that shook dust from the ceiling, and… stopped outright.

  Her instant shield held completely.

  “No! Durand!” she scolded, rapping her knuckles against the back of its head. “Bad. We do not strike during calibration.” She then snapped her finger, and her crystal choker unraveled and reformed as a translucent cord of hardened crystal. She shook her wrist, and the crystal lash wrapped around the sentinel’s right arm. A second snap sent another loop around its left, cinching both limbs tight against its torso.

  The golem strained. Stone groaned. Plates ground. The whip refused to budge.

  “Mmm… stop struggling, silly little thing,” Anabeth gave the crystal line an affectionate pat. “Once it’s bound like this, even I wouldn’t be able to break free.” She turned and gave me a conspiratorial wink.

  How subtle. I wonder whatever it is she could mean…

  “Now,” Anabeth said primly, “that’ll teach you.” Then she climbed the restrained construct. From atop its shoulders, Anabeth glanced down at me and grinned. “Does this please you, my lord? Now I can ride my own mount, and you’ll have more space on your horse!”

  How did she seriously think she could ride that out of this room without collapsing the doorway, shattering the floor, or drawing the sort of attention that ended with a dozen senior magi sprinting in with suppression glyphs already primed?

  Most of the attributes of the golem were obscured, as were the skills. Nonetheless, there was a single line of note that was available to me.

  I could command this creature? I had always been under the assumption that summoned creatures were linked to their summoners.

  The construct was not keyed solely to her, but authority. And I’d wager that since this was a sentinel and not a mere golem, it had a level of sentience enough to respond to hierarchy. It made sense that Intimidation could be used as hierarchical assertion.

  Anabeth waved her hand. The golem let out a low grinding sound as fissures raced across its surface. Plates sloughed away, crumbling into pale ash and coarse grit that cascaded to the floor. By the time Anabeth dropped gracefully from where its shoulders had been, there was nothing left but dust.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  The room fell quiet again, save for the soft, agitated ticking of the resonance detector lying in a corner.

  She glanced down at it, then up at me, eyes bright with vindication. “See? Master Derevin was right. Invisible aetheric entities make much stabler conduits for summoning than corporeal anchors. Oh! And since we’re already aligned for field acquisition—why don’t you accompany me on a short retrieval excursion? We’ll need more bonetree roots eventually, and—oh! Oh!” Her eyes lit up as another thought struck. “The river here is actually an extension of the same waterway back in Elderstead. That means there should be Bloomed Lumenlilies along the banks! You are quite fond of those, aren’t you?”

  Ah. The flowers that granted experience boosts upon consumption.

  She would get her roots. I would eat my flowers.

  “Such is an acceptable arrangement,” I conceded.

  Anabeth tilted her head, studying me with an intensity that had nothing to do with summoning theory. She looked me up and down, lingered deliberately at the seam of my gorget before licking her lips. “You know what would be an even more convenient arrangement, my lord?”

  I felt it immediately. That tone suggested less vertical fieldwork and more… horizontal collaboration.

  She stepped closer, lowering her voice. “We’re already in the same very quiet wing. And at night… Well. There wouldn’t be much else demanding our attention, would there?”

  My mind supplied memories entirely unhelpfully.

  I needed to capture a bandit leader in three days. If I didn’t establish a boundary now, I might give in to temptations, and if I did, she was going to work us both into the ground, and she’d call it efficient bonding. I must do what was necessary for the both of us.

  “The Ferrum Overlord does not squander his nights,” I rumbled. I clasped my hands behind my back, letting my voice drop into that deep, resonant register that made proclamations sound older than reason. “Nightfall is the hour when ferrum sings most clearly to those bound to its dominion. When lesser beings sleep, I must stand in communion with the Metal Realm, listening, aligning, stabilizing.”

  Anabeth’s eyes widened.

  I continued. “During these hours, my veins conduct a slow aetheric annealing. Impurities are burned away. Stress fractures are reforged through uninterrupted concentration.”

  “Yes, of course,” She nodded very vigorously.

  “I have already extended exceptional grace the other night, when I permitted physical contact during the lower sanctum phase—that was… unorthodox.”

  Her cheeks flushed crimson. “Then when… am I allowed to touch you, my lord?”

  I felt my brain spin up like a failing gear assembly.

  Ah. A direct question.

  Very well.

  I lifted up my palm. “Timing is… precise.”

  She leaned in.

  “The Ferrum Overlord’s metabolistic resonance peaks during transitional intervals,” I intoned. “Based on my current binding state, the optimal window falls between the post-prandial ferric lull and the pre-vesper crystallization cycle. Any earlier and the ferrum channels remain thermally unstable—prone to stress response under even moderate external influence. Any later, residual ferric flux begins to reflux through the circulatory pathways, which will be unbearable for mere mortals.” I didn’t even understand what I way saying.

  “Oh. Oh no,” she breathed. “That sounds… very dangerous.”

  “Thus,” I concluded, “the interval between three forty-seven and four thirty-two in the afternoon, every second—no, every third day—is structurally optimal. Outside of it, contact must be minimized to preserve long-term ferric integrity.”

  That sounded ridiculous. We could only indulge ourselves between 3:47 and 4:32 every three days? And we had just gotten intimate decidedly not between 3:42 and 4:32 yesterday. This was logic stupid enough for anyone but Anabeth to balk.

  “Three forty-seven to four thirty-two,” she repeated, committing it to memory with the intensity of an acolyte receiving sacred hours. “Of course. Of course it would be so specific.” I thought that would be the end of that, but then she went on, “Ferrum flux does exhibit transitional instability during circadian phase shifts,” Anabeth murmured, half to herself. “Especially in bonded systems with incomplete annealing.” She tapped her chin. “If the reflux you mentioned is the same phenomenon described in Archmage Vareth’s On Post-Vesper Metallic Resonance, then theoretically…”

  What? Ferrum flux is a real thing?

  “…the regulation period could be extended,” she continued thoughtfully. “It might even be enough to last through the night, hehehe. The ritual would be rather painful to mortals, but of course, to a Ferrum Overlord such as yourself, it should be no more than an ant bite.” She sighed, genuinely regretful. “Unfortunately, I don’t have that tome with me. A copy is… ah, carefully sealed in the restricted stacks of Viremont. But we’ll be passing near the town once we finish with the riverbank. Surely we could… borrow it for a while?” Borrow was doing a heroic amount of work in that sentence.

  Viremont was just half a day away.

  I gulped. That was the moment I understood the fatal flaw in my strategy.

  I hadn’t set a boundary. I’d issued a challenge.

  She clasped her hands again, utterly pleased. “Until then, of course, I will respect the current parameters.”

  I sighed. Until then… I had bought myself time.

  Maybe I could be strong enough to become an actual Ferrum Lord by the time she got her hands on whatever On Post-Vesper Metallic Resonance was.