"You need to learn when to talk and when to stop," Jaegar said, looking at him.


    Another p burst across the foolish lordling''s face, this one raising an instantaneous welt that mottled his cheek in blistering shades of crimson. "Consider that a lesson in humility," Jaegar growled, his voice low and dangerous.


    The remaining nobles recoiled with shouts of dismayed protest, but none dared physically intervene against this unstoppable juggernaut.


    Jaegar turned to them; his gaze was that of an untamed, primitive beast.


    "What do you think you''re doing?!" Kimon finally found his voice amidst the maelstrom, surging forward with Tavorn at his side like a break-wave against the madness before them. "Release him this instant; Imand it!"


    Jaegar''s fiery re swiveled to bore into the young prince, his arm still extending Drasus''s beaten face outward in a mocking disy of bravado deted. A heartbeat passed, then two, before the wizard unceremoniously discarded Drasus in a crumpled heap at his feet.


    "Teaching manners to witless wretches who''ve forgotten their ce," Jaegar responded in a tone of quiet menace. The very air seemed to constrict around them all, oppressive and heavy with the weight of his utterance.


    But Tavorn would not be cowed so easily. The young royal rounded on Jaegar like a blooded mastiff, all puffed bravado and feigned outrage to mask the core of carefully nurtured terror lurking within.


    "How dare you raise your voice against me, ve?"


    "Ridiculous!" he bellowed through clenched teeth. "You ill-behave as if you''ve forgotten your own ce...ve! You were brought here to serve, nothing more. How dare you raise your hand against your betters! I should have you yed for such insolence!"


    Jaegar''s cold gaze slowly swiveled to transfix the prince, and in that moment, Tavorn seemed to wilt before the sheer weight of whatever inscrutable force bored through him.


    The intense pressure radiating from Jaegar focused on Tavorn, making him shudder and shiver under his might.


    The royal fumbled for the next tart rejoinder, then the next, only to find his mouth rendered speechless as a vise.


    The tension in the tent had be a choking, viscous miasma, ready to detonate into utter chaos at the slightest provocation.


    Jaegar provided that catalyzing spark as he effortlessly caught Drasus''s limp form and hauled him upright once more, pinning the now bloody and rapidly swelling face before his own.


    "What was that you said?" The words sliced through the pregnant silence like a butcher''s cleaver as Jaegar began closing the distance towards Prince Tavorn. Each measured footfallnded with ominous finality, tly disregarding Drasus''s pitiful whimpers and weakly batting hands.


    He was showing what it means to confront him by taking Drasus as an example.


    "Did you believe you could stop me, little prince?" Another vicious backhand cracked across Drasus''s cheek, spraying a fine crimson mist. "That you or your pathetic entourage could bind one such as me?"


    The wizard''s free hand was whipped out in a contemptuous gesture, and Drasus''s thrashing body abruptly seizes in an invisible telekic grip as if frozen in time itself. Only the runnels of blood continuing to weep from his mangled features showed any movement at all.


    Kimon surged forward again, hands upraised in appeal for reason despite the thickly knotted dread cording his features. "Young man, you are testing the limits of our forbearance! Release Drasus at once, or we shall be forced to restrain you and answer these transgressions!"


    "Heh!"


    That received a slow, dark chuckle from Jaegar as he canted his head towards the minister. "Indeed? And how would you propose managing such a feat, old man?"


    The slightest flick of his fingers sent a concussive force rippling outwards, the shockwave staggering everyone except Jaegar and the frozen Drasus. With a grimace of intense concentration, the wizard then leaned in until his face was mere inches from his captive''s bloodied and panic-stricken visage.


    Tavorn watched in stunned horror as Drasus''s eyes seemed to ss over, his face abruptly ckening as drool seeped from his lolling jaw and a high, keening whine built from his core.


    Jaegar held him there, locked in whatever hellish trance had taken root, the whine slowly crescendoing into a piercing, ulting shriek of utter mortal terror.


    "No! Make it stop! MAKE IT STOP!"


    Drasus''s hoarse, gibbering screams battered against the tent''s walls andshed at the onlookers'' very sanity itself until, atst, Jaegar straightened and released him. The pitiful lordling copsed to the floor in a fitfully twitching, voiding heap, His eyes rolled back to show just bursts of white as his mouth worked soundlessly in whatever fresh hell only he could perceive.


    Shaking his head in something like mild disappointment, Jaegar simply turned his back on the pathetic thrashing and leveled his gaze at Kimon once more.


    "There. Your wish is granted, Minister. I''ve released your lord Drasus..." A thin, mirthless smile yed at the corner of his mouth. "In more ways than one."


    A suffocating miasma of dread and disbelief hung like a funereal shroud over themand tent.


    The other nobles and even the steadfast Kaeso found themselves unable to hold Jaegar''s burning gaze, so viscerally potent was the aura of merciless power roiling around the wizard like a breath of scorching winds from the mouth of a kiln.


    Kimon''s features were chalky and taut, his mouth working in rictus shapes as he feebly raised a hand, gesturing for his personal guard to step forward and attempt to restrain this unstoppable juggernaut by force. But the motion was abortive, rendered stillborn before it could fully take shape.


    "Minister Kimon." Kyra''s voice sliced through the pregnant silence like a razor''s edge. She had willfully inserted herself between the two factions, raising one slender hand in a cating gesture as she met the minister''s frantic stare levelly.


    "I think it is best that you stand down from this course for now. Allow me to take charge of this regrettable matter and see it concluded with reason prevailing."


    "I think we all know that Master Jaegar is the reason we won this battle. If not for him, this battle would have taken a lot more than it did today."


    "And, regardless of who he is, he is an honoured guest of mine who has epted my request to help us win this war."