Percy rolled his eyes as the man insulted him. This had to be some noble thing, if the man was ballsy enough to insult a Viscount's son he must be high up. Or maybe not, Viscounts are appointed by the Count and not the king himself, they are not that big of a deal.

Thalos' glare was enough to chill the bravest man's heart, but the white-cloaked man ignored it like it was nothing.

"I don't care much for how you feel about Spiritmancy or Hermetics, but you better hold your tongue when you're talking about my son."

Under the wide bowl hat the man wore, Percy could see black hair, and he could see the man's sapphire eyes flash with irritation. He floated down from the carriage in one smooth move and glided across the ground like it was ice.

He stopped once he was face to face with Thalos, and the tension on the rocky road rose like heat on the edges of skin.

There wasn't a reason, but Percy felt that this guy was on the same level as Thalos. He hadn't seen anyone stand under Thalos' sharp gaze without faltering till now.

Percy coughed.

"Sorry to interrupt, but who are you? And what gives you the right to call me names? I'd like to know the answers to these questions before I decide to put you on my shit list."

The man curled up his nose at him.

"I am Pethros, a professor at Fourpoint Academy in Nephelestia."

He thought for a moment but couldn't see what gave this guy the balls to speak to them like this.

The Fourpoint Academy was a prestigious school for young Spiritmancers, but he already wasn't planning to go, since any interesting spells would be kept secret among families.

Nephelestia was the capital of the Crona kingdom, but he was just a teacher there, no one important.

"Well, welcome to my shit list I guess," he said frankly, "I'll get to fucking you over anywhere else we meet."

All the soldiers' and Spiritmancers' jaws dropped, Pethros himself just stared in disbelief. George was trying to hold back his laughter while his friend, Melnas, glared at him.

Thalos smiled fondly, but kept his eyes on Pethros and his hands on his sword. After a moment of staring back at Pethros, Percy turned around and took out a knife to cut out some of the Black wolf fur.

Pethros glared as he got down and started sawing at the beast's hide.

"What are you doing?"

"Taking the hide of the beast, I've heard it's pretty good for making armor with Hermetics. Something light but stronger than steel."

Pethros tried walking to him but Thalos held out a strong arm that stopped the man in his tracks.

"He will not take our kills to use in his barbaric experiments!"

"I knew you were angry at my Hermetics." He stood and turned to the furious man. "But I killed this one by myself. You can dislike my work, but if you try to stop me I hope you're ready for a fight."

Melnas decided to interrupt. He pushed free of George and walked over to Pethros.

"That's enough Sir Pethros, disrespecting the ruling family of this land is too much. Let's part our ways, take the ones we killed, and continue the journey."

The other Spiritmancers agreed, but he could see they didn't like this. They all scattered and went about their business. Pethros glared at him for a moment longer then left.

Percy rolled his eyes and got back down to harvest the hides of the beasts. Thalos walked over and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Sorry about that kid. How much hide do you need? We don't have much space in the carriage."

"Bahhh, don't worry about that," George said. "He can keep them in our carriage if he needs space."

Percy leaned against his father's shin and looked up smiling as he said,

"I'm all good, dad. I don't need much space for the hides too. I want to test out an idea for this new Magic tool I have in mind. I wonder if we'll see any Golden Shrike, I think I could use some of their feathers."

Thalos smiled back softly.

"Are you sure it's okay? That guy was an asshole. I'm proud of your magic tools, one day he'll probably be proud of them too."

"I can't blame him, I understand the doctrine," Percy shrugged. "It's in people's nature to distrust new things and question their safety and ethics. I think it's important to challenge ideas, as long as you're doing it in good faith."

"I don't know what good faith means, but I agree," George said, dragging the corpse of a wolf over to them. "We fear Hermetics because we do not want to overtax the spirits and drain the earth's spirit energy. But spirits enter circles on their own, and they never leave. And there's this thing I heard of that happens in Erynos and Lysandra… disasters caused by spirit energy…"

"Interactive disasters," Percy said. "They're caused by large buildups of Spirit energy at leylines. It mostly happens when people live too close to leylines. I have some theories on those…"

Thalos knelt to help him cut out the coat, seeing his son didn't even care about the hostility. Percy was stronger than he often gave the boy credit for.

"We'll go looking for some Golden Shrike nests this evening, they live close by," he said. "But did you notice anything off with these wolves?"

"The fact that they didn't run when things started looking bad?" Percy answered. He felt it was strange since wolves were meant to be smart creatures.

"Wolves don't even attack people in caravans, too small for prey and often too dangerous to fight. If they were hungry I saw a wild herd of Strommers a couple miles back."

There was something off, but Percy couldn't put his finger on it. He decided they would investigate tonight.

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