Chapter 4

I wasn't sure what was worse: how fast Liora dragged me down the palace halls, or the fact that I was willingly going with her.

Stone corridors blurred past us like a fever dream, her footsteps echoing with the sharp urgency of someone who had seen too many crises to waste time on hesitation. The ancient walls seemed to lean inward as we passed, their carved faces watching our hurried progress with the stoic indifference of witnesses to countless disasters.

"The outer ward's collapsing," she muttered, walking like she owned the place, her voice carrying the weight of impending catastrophe. Each word fell between us like stones dropped into still water, creating ripples of understanding that spread through my mind with growing alarm. "We've got maybe two hours before the whole eastern district goes dark."

The casualness of her tone made my blood run cold. Two hours. She spoke of it like discussing the weather, but I could see the tension in her shoulders, the way her fingers gripped the scroll she carried like a lifeline.

"And you're just casually telling me this now?" I asked, nearly jogging to keep pace with her relentless stride. My breath came in short bursts, the palace's endless corridors seeming to stretch before us like a maze designed by someone with a cruel sense of humor.

"I was waiting to see if you were full of hot air," she said, glancing back with a thin smile that didn't reach her eyes. The expression was sharp as winter wind, cutting through any pretense between us. "You're not."

How comforting.

We arrived at a control chamber near the city's outer wall, the massive doors groaning open to reveal a scene of barely controlled chaos. The room was packed with mages scrambling over glowing panels covered in diagrams and numbers that flickered like dying stars. The air crackled with nervous energy and the acrid smell of overheated magical circuits. Sweat beaded on foreheads bent over instruments that hummed with barely contained power, and the sound of muttered incantations filled the space like a prayer for the doomed.

The High Mages were here too, standing like monuments to their own importance amidst the organized panic. I recognized them from the council meeting: overdressed peacocks in their silk robes and golden ornaments, smug expressions worn like armor, and absolutely useless in any practical sense. They hovered at the edges of the real work, their presence more hindrance than help.

One of them, the fattest with rings on every finger that caught the light like captured stars, spun toward us the moment we entered. His face was already flushed with indignation, as if our very presence was a personal affront to his dignity.

"What is she doing here?" he sneered at Liora, his voice dripping with the particular disdain reserved for those who actually understood their work. "And who allowed him near the control array?"

The words hung in the air like smoke, poisonous and thick. I felt something cold and sharp settle in my chest, a familiar anger that had served me well in corporate boardrooms and faculty meetings.

"That 'him' is your Sage," Liora said, her voice sharp as a blade drawn from its sheath, each word precisely aimed to cut through his pompous assumption.

"And she is the only one here who knows how to actually read those schematics," I added, stepping in front of her with deliberate slowness. The movement was calculated, protective, and I could feel the weight of every gaze in the room settling on us like a physical pressure.The mage's face flushed purple, a color that clashed violently with his golden robes. His rings caught the light as his hands trembled with barely contained rage.

"Outrageous! This matter is far beyond the comprehension of mere assistants and... and whatever you claim to be!" His voice rose to a pitch that made several of the working mages wince, their concentration wavering at the worst possible moment.

"Shut up," I said flatly.

The words dropped into the chamber like stones into deep water, creating ripples of silence that spread outward until even the humming of the magical instruments seemed muted. Every face turned toward us, eyes wide with shock at the audacity of speaking to a High Mage in such a manner.

"I don't have time for your ego trip," I continued, staring him down with the cold focus I'd learned from years of dealing with incompetent management. "Either you let me work, or your eastern district turns into a nice toasty bonfire. Your choice."

The silence stretched taut as a bowstring, filled with the weight of consequences and the sharp scent of ozone that preceded magical catastrophe. For a moment, I thought they'd try to throw me out, their pride overriding their desperation. I could see the calculation in their eyes, the struggle between maintaining face and preventing disaster.

Then the wall monitors flickered to life, projecting an image of the outer barrier that made everyone in the room suck in their breath. The glowing lines that should have formed a perfect geometric pattern were breaking apart like spiderwebs in a hurricane, flow spiraling out of control in cascading waves of failure. The visualization showed the magical energy hemorrhaging from the system like blood from a severed artery.

They hesitated for one heartbeat, then another. Then, with the reluctance of those who had run out of alternatives, they moved aside.

I knelt beside the control array, the cold stone biting into my knees as Liora hovered near me, her presence a steady anchor in the storm of chaos around us. The schematics spread before me like a map of disaster, each line and symbol telling the story of a system pushed beyond its limits.

"It's worse than I thought," I muttered, mind racing through calculations and possibilities. The patterns were clear now, terrifyingly so. "The oscillation's not just feeding back on itself. You've got phase drift between nodes. If we don't sync them..."

"Chain reaction," Liora finished, her voice tight with understanding. She could see it too, the inevitable cascade of failure that would bring down not just the eastern district but potentially the entire city's defenses.

I nodded, fingers tracing the flow patterns on the display. "We need a bypass. Divert part of the load through an auxiliary line here."

I pointed at a secondary channel that hadn't been touched in decades, its pathways dark and forgotten on the schematic. It was a risk, using untested infrastructure, but it was the only path that might save them.

Liora's eyes widened as she followed my reasoning. "That could work, but nobody's recalibrated that line since the old kingdom fell. The resonance frequencies might be completely out of phase."

"Then we'll do it now," I snapped, adrenaline sharpening my focus to a razor's edge. "Walk me through the interface."

She started flipping switches with practiced precision, her movements a dance of familiarity and desperation. The control panel responded to her touch like a musician's instrument, each adjustment creating ripples in the magical flow that we could both feel in our bones."Primary bypass... engaging," she called out, her voice steady despite the chaos around us. "Flow rate at fifteen percent and climbing."

I was calculating the optimal flow rate in my head, numbers cascading through my consciousness like a waterfall of mathematics. Thirty percent diversion, then stabilize resonance factors at the central node. The equations were complex, but they had a beauty to them, an elegance that spoke to the fundamental harmony underlying all systems.The chamber around us had fallen silent except for the hum of machinery and the whispered prayers of those who understood exactly what failure would mean. Even the High Mages had stopped their protests, their faces pale with the recognition of approaching catastrophe.My pulse was pounding, but it wasn't fear driving the rhythm. It was adrenaline, pure and electric, the same rush I got solving unsolvable problems back home. This was what I lived for: the moment when chaos yielded to understanding, when the impossible became merely difficult.

"Phase alignment at twenty-eight percent," Liora reported, her voice cutting through the tension like a blade. "Resonance stabilizing, but we're still in the red zone."The monitors showed the ward's condition in real-time, the failing barrier flickering like a candle in a hurricane. We were racing against time itself, each second bringing us closer to either salvation or disaster.

"NOW!" I shouted, the word tearing from my throat with the force of absolute certainty.Liora slammed the final sequence into place, her hand moving with the precision of someone who had trained for this moment her entire life. The control panel erupted in light as the auxiliary channel roared to life, decades of dormant potential suddenly flowing with renewed purpose.

The chamber lights flickered, dimming as massive energies shifted and realigned. For a heart-stopping moment, everything hung in balance, the fate of thousands resting on calculations made in desperate haste.

Then the barrier projection stabilized, the chaotic swirls of failing energy suddenly snapping into perfect geometric harmony. The cracks in the outer ward vanished like frost before the morning sun, replaced by the steady glow of properly functioning defenses.

We'd done it.

The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the steady hum of restored systems and the collective exhale of those who had held their breath while watching disaster approach. The working mages looked up from their instruments with expressions of stunned relief, while the High Mages stood frozen in a tableau of shock and disbelief.

"You... you tampered with the divine flow..." one of them croaked, his voice barely above a whisper. The words carried the weight of theological horror, as if we had reached up and rearranged the stars themselves.

"Divine, my ass," I muttered, standing and brushing dust from my knees. "It's a power grid."Liora stifled a snort, the sound carrying notes of exhaustion and vindication in equal measure. The tension that had driven us through the crisis was finally beginning to drain away, leaving behind the bone-deep weariness of those who had stared into the abyss and somehow found a way to step back.

The fat mage's face twisted into an expression of pure outrage, his rings catching the light as his hands trembled with barely contained fury. "This will not go unchallenged. You've overstepped your authority, Sage. The council will hear of this transgression."

"Yeah, yeah. Write me up." I stood, shaking out my sore hands, feeling the ache of muscles held too long in tension. "Next time, maybe try fixing something instead of polishing your rings."

I walked out, Liora at my side, leaving their gaping faces behind like relics of a world that no longer had the luxury of willful ignorance. Our footsteps echoed through the corridors with a different rhythm now, the measured pace of those who had work to do and no time to waste on the complaints of those who refused to understand the world they lived in.

Behind us, the steady hum of the restored ward sang its electronic lullaby, a song of systems working as they should, of problems solved and disasters averted through the simple application of knowledge and will.

For the first time since arriving in this strange kingdom, I felt something that might have been hope.