The Almighty Dominance (by Sunshine) novel Chapter 714

"Teach," Alex said.

It cost him more than the moth had. He felt the mana leave in real time — five for the moth, fifty for this — warmth draining out of his chest and down the lead rope like current through wire. Squall's whole body flinched, not from pain. From being asked a question in a language he half-remembered.

The air cracked at the colt's hooves. A blade of wind sheared through the paddock rail and took splinters off it.

Squall went still. Stared at his own legs like they belonged to someone else.

Alex saw it happen in his face — the flattened ears, the pride gone stiffer than before. Gratitude and humiliation, arriving at the same exact second.

He recognized that particular flavor of misery. He'd seen it on Grim the hound, too — an animal that had decided a long time ago that being wanted had to be earned first, because it never had been, not the one time it counted.

A runt held back a season past his littermates, passed over again and again for the easy ones. That didn't undo itself over one gust of wind.

"That doesn't make the months worthless," Alex said. "It means you had the shape of it already. I just handed you the last piece."

Squall didn't buy it. Squall, Alex was learning fast, didn't buy anything easily.

"Rest," Alex told him.

Squall planted all four hooves and stared him down instead — the stare of an animal who'd built his whole worth on never resting until he'd earned it, and had no plans to un-decide that tonight.

Alex didn't fight it. "Fine. Control drills. Small, slow, nothing that puts a hole in anything. Work on not embarrassing yourself next time it goes off."

That, Squall accepted. He cut the same six inches of wind, over and over, careful and furious with concentration, while Alex sat on a crate and watched him do it.

It hit harder than the moth's cost had — a pull behind the ribs that didn't fade. He checked the medal. Dimmer at the edges than he'd seen it since Grim's mastery. A new line sat under Windshear that hadn't been there an hour ago.

Cooldown: 24 hours.

"You're not the only one who has to earn things slowly," Alex told him. Squall ignored him completely and kept cutting the same six inches of air.

By the time the colt finally wore himself out — not from anything Alex asked, just his own stubbornness — Alex had already done the math he'd been avoiding all night.

Two beasts now. A hound that held the door. A colt that needed a paddock he didn't have. Every Beast Tamer in this country apparently had somewhere to put their animals overnight. He had a back room, a chain that had never once held Grim, and whatever patience Willowmere's other tenants had left for the noise.

If he meant to keep doing what he'd started at the Yard — and he did, that was the whole point — this was a problem too. And the problem had a shape: he needed ground. Real ground. More than a shop could hold.

Monica found him staring out the back window the next morning and read his face before he opened his mouth.

"You're thinking about the lot."

"What lot?"

"Behind the tree line. Runs the whole back edge of the property — used to belong to the branch, before the branch went under, before most people even remember it had a name. Empty since." She shrugged. "Nobody's touched it because nobody's had a reason to ask. And Willowmere doesn't hand out land for free just because it's sitting there."

"Who do I ask?"

"City hall. Warden's office — same one that licenses every beast-keeper, kennel, and menagerie stall in the district." A beat. "Fair warning. They don't just want your coin. They'll want to know what you're doing with the ground before they let you touch it. That land's for beasts only. That's the rule."

That, at least, was a problem Alex understood the shape of better than most.

The Warden's office was a narrow building wedged between two taller ones, run by a woman named Petrie who had the unhurried, unimpressed manner of someone who'd already heard every excuse a person could invent for wanting free land.

Petrie's eyes narrowed — recalculating him in real time. "Trying to impress me now?"

"Plenty of rich men want this land," she said. "Paying isn't what worries me." She leaned in. "What worries me is a man who wants beasts and means business. I've seen that go wrong more than I've seen it go right. You take this ground, you don't just owe the city rent. You owe every animal on it a reason to be better off for you taking it in the first place. I want to see that before I want to see your money."

Something about the way she said it — like she was already looking for a reason to throw him out — set Alex's teeth on edge.

"Humans are beasts too, aren't they?" he said. "You want me to build you a palace while I'm at it? Try to impress you that way too? How about I put you inside there."

Petrie went still. Then her face went red.

"Well." She cleared her throat. "If you put it that way — I'd be honored. But I'll let you try first."

Alex felt something go very wrong, very fast.

He'd meant it as an insult. You're an animal, same as the rest of them. But people here had something crossed in their wiring — call a person a beast, and apparently you'd just paid them the highest compliment they'd ever received.

Petrie cleared her throat again, all business now, like nothing had happened. "Back to terms. Build the shelter for the beasts like it's for them first and you second. Fencing that keeps them in without making them miserable. Vet on-site — which I hear you already are, one way or another, though I won't ask how a shopkeeper picked that up. Make about a hundred shelters." A look that said she'd ask eventually. Just not today. "Pass inspection in a season, and the lease is yours as long as the land stays what you said it'd be."

“Fine,” Alex replied. Money was the last thing he worried about.

“And I… I don’t mind,” Petrie murmured, still a little red, “if you build a nice two-story wooden house there. You can let me live in it. You don’t have to promise me a palace or anything. But if you ever felt like giving me one… I wouldn’t complain.”

Alex opened his mouth. Closed it again.

There was no version of this where he corrected her now.