Void Lord: My Revenge Is My Harem

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The lane shut like a book. Behind John, the market noise fell away. In front of him, two old walls faced each other across a strip of stone so clean it had forgotten mud. The last bruise of sunset slid off the roofs and left the air the color of tin. A single lamp far back threw a long V of light that did not reach them.

Fizz rose to shoulder height, ears tipped back, whiskers bright. "Three," he breathed. "Left, right, middle."

John did not turn his head. "I see them."

Brann stepped into the center of the lane like a man arriving at a meeting he had set himself. The neat coat. The neat hat. The neat calm.

Edda peeled out of the shadow on the left, braid tight, mouth smiling the way knives smile. Rusk came lumbering from the right, rope–tied trousers already complaining, jaw gone hard to hide the red in his ears.

"Evening," Brann said. Voice low. Voice sure.

"Evening," John said, the word landing flat, neither welcome nor fear.

Fizz tipped his head. "Ah. The brave trio returns. Cabbage–knee, Rope–pants, and Miss Leech–Dream." Sparks ticked along his whiskers.

Edda's grin did not change. "You are too loud for a candle stub," she said. "We will put a jar over you again."

Brann's hands slid out of his pockets, empty. They did not stay empty. Lines of pale blue thread formed between his fingers, clean as chalk but drawn in air. He did not hurry. Circle three men do not hurry. Rusk did not wait. Rusk never waits. He lowered his bull shoulders and came on with both hands up as if he could push a door that did not want to open.

John shifted his feet a half inch. His right hand turned, palm open, as if he meant to catch rain.

The air bent.

It always starts with the feel, not the sight: a tug, a tilt, the world remembering it has a hollow center. Dust slid. Loose threads on Rusk's stolen tunic stood up like grass in the wind. The little black sphere formed over John's palm like night forgotten in daylight, smooth and deep, the size of a fist, then a melon, then a ball big as a football.

Rusk's eyes flicked to it, fear trying to climb up past anger. He roared to drown the fear and kept coming.

Edda threw wind. No art, not yet—just pressure, clean and sharp, to snap a knee. John dropped his center and let the pull of the void take the shove sideways. The knife of air slid past and shaved a flake off the wall.

Brann's thin blue lines snapped together in a grid. He did not aim at the boy. He aimed at the space around him, a net of force that would hold a drunk bull or a bright fox. The grid fell like light rain.

John raised the void and the grid met it. The neat lines dimpled. For a breath, the whole lane hummed as two ideas met: hold and erase. The lines thinned, thinned, broke. The void ate them the way a dry sponge eats a spill.

Fizz whooped. "Ha! Neat trick, neat coat, not–so–neat math!"

"Shut him up," Brann said, not looking away from John.

Edda's left hand flashed. The small dull bell appeared, tied with its soft ribbon so it would not clang. She flicked her wrist and rang it once.

Fizz flinched midair as if a cold finger had touched inside his chest. He did not drop, but he jolted. "Rude," he hissed, eyes watering. "Who rings soup bowls in the street."

"Again," Brann said.

The bell swung. Fizz flattened his ears and shot straight up, out of its cone, then cut left and kicked a pebble up with one paw. The pebble pinged off the bell and made Edda snarl, because the sound was small but her anger was big.

Rusk reached John. He swung a wide, heavy arm. John did not block. He bent the world.

The void's pull tugged at Rusk's rope–belt. The rope tightened, then slipped. The bad knot Rusk had tied because he had needed pants more than pride gave up. The trousers sassed him one last time and went south. The roar turned into a yelp. His stride broke. He stumbled, legs catching in cloth.

Fizz cackled, sparks popping like tiny stars. "The legend continues! Defender of drafts, champion of breezes!"

Rusk tore free, red to the ears, bare knees flashing, and came on anyway. Big men who hate being laughed at do not listen to good advice.

"Net," Brann said, calm as ever.

From somewhere inside his neat coat, he snapped out a folded square of mesh with copper thread woven through it. It came open in the air like a hand. He flicked his wrists and threw.

John took a step to meet it. He had seen that mesh before—in the alley, on the roof. Copper sings to certain magics. It hisses at others. Does it hiss at a hole where there is no song?

The net met the pull. The copper threads sang high and mean. The mesh jumped as if it had landed on a hot pan. It tightened, then loosened, then whipped up—toward the void, not away. John dropped his palm and twisted his wrist. The mesh twisted too, caught on its own threads, tangled, and the void ate the corner of it like a fat beetle eats a leaf.

"Again," Brann said.

"Stop saying again, again," Fizz snapped, and flung a fan of sparks at Edda's hands. Not fire to burn, not enough to make her drop the bell, just pain to make her flinch. She flinched. The bell swung wrong, clonked her knuckle, and rang stupidly. The wrong note did nothing to Fizz. It did something to Edda's temper.

Rusk swung for John's head. John stepped under the arm and set the black ball low—no face, no throat, no showy tricks. He put it to Rusk's ribs like a mason puts a stone where a wall needs it and pushed one inch.

The world made no sound. That is what void does: it takes sound away. John felt the way you feel when you lean on a door and it opens onto stairs you did not know were there: a give, a shift, a drop inside. Rusk's breath stopped in his body like a candle under a cup. His eyes went wide and confused. He took one more step because his legs had already decided to, then all the parts of him that needed air realized air was not invited.

He fell. Not a dramatic fall. Not a spin. He fell like a cart handle dropped in a yard.

His body hit the stone street and stayed.

The lane did not cheer. Lanes do not cheer. Fizz did not cheer either. His mouth shut with a click. He looked at the shape of the man on the ground and then at John's jaw.

Edda's sharp grin faltered, then showed teeth. "You—" she started.

Brann did not speak. He moved. Three white points bloomed between his fingers and shot—small darts of mana force, for tendons, for joints. John stepped back and the void swelled again, humming low. Two darts vanished into its skin. The third slid by and nicked his sleeve. The cloth ripped, neat as a paper cut.

"Left," Fizz snapped.

John went left. A blade of wind took a curl off the old plaster where his head had been. He planted, felt the world tilt, and palmed the void forward a foot like a man pushing a jar across a shelf—slow and sure.

Brann's calm thinned for the first time. He slashed a pattern in the air, chalk that was not chalk, a rune built on habit and a thousand drills. A square snapped up in front of him, a shield without weight. The void touched it. The square dimpled. The lines screamed a sound no one else heard. Brann gritted his teeth and set his feet.

"Fizz," John said, not loud.

"I know," Fizz said.

He dropped out of the bell's reach and hit the ground in a little, furious roll that left a streak of light. He shot under Brann's shield like a dog going under a fence and raked sparks along Brann's ankle. They bit like bees. Brann hissed, foot flinching, shield tilting a finger. It was enough.

John pushed.

The black ball slid under the tilted edge and kissed Brann's coat at the ribs. It did not break the cloth. It did not rip. It just touched, the way a thin winter touches water and makes ice at the edge.

Brann's eyes went very, very wide. He had time to understand that the boy was not guessing, that this was something real, that he had done neat work for years and it was not neat enough. He had time to hate that. He did not have time to finish another shape.

The void tugged.

Brann's breath went out and did not come back. His hands dropped. The neat lines of power he kept ready in his body unwound like string without a spool. He took half a step backward and sat down without meaning to, then slid sideways and lay still.