Archenemy Contract

Okay, so this whole arc is a masterclass in layered deception. Let me unpack it. Salar and Mith are disguised as Young Master Carnes and a slave, right? The bandits come for 'Carnes,' but who actually ordered the hit? Salar figures it out: the order had to come from within the Carnes family itself. Old Aiken wouldn't have the guts to kill his master outright, and the bandits clearly had inside information. That means Kendrick Carnes—the 'insane' young master—is either the target of a family coup or the family is trying to eliminate him through proxy. And then Salar burns the mansion to make it look like the bandits fought each other over loot. Brilliant. But here's what's bothering me: the text mentions that 'the Carnes family might have other ways of investigating.' So this fire cover-up is temporary at best. Also, the pen pal in Rosa who was discussing 'how to put a human soul into a corpse'—what the hell does that have to do with anything? Is Kendrick Carnes into necromancy? Is that why the family wants him dead? The plot threads are piling up and I'm not sure they're all converging anywhere good.

The pacing in these chapters is absolutely relentless and I love it. You've got the bandit attack opening with immediate violence—Salar moving 'like a raindrop sliding down a windowpane,' throat after throat opened. Then Mith's fork-based black mold massacre. Three bandits gone in seconds, the mage barely surviving. Then the quiet moment where Salar stops Mith from killing the mage to get information. Then the journey to the hideout, which actually gives us a breather—the description of the abandoned farm, the muggy autumn night, the smells Mith detects. It's atmospheric but still tense. And then Salar kills the mage anyway! Right when you think he's going to interrogate him. 'Do you want to hear the likeable reason or the unlikable one?'—chef's kiss. Then the scavenging scene, which is almost comedic relief with the erotic novels and the cheese incident. Salar trying to pass off terrible cheese as 'great to eat as is' and then spitting it out. I literally laughed. And then BOOM—'I already burned the mansion down.' No bath. The pacing here is just perfect: action, tension, humor, revelation, action again. It never lets up.

The stakes in this section are escalating in the best way. On the surface, it's a survival conflict: bandits want to kill Salar and Mith, they fight back, they raid the hideout, they escape. But the deeper conflicts are what keep me up at night. Salar is playing a dangerous game with the Carnes family—he knows the order to kill him came from within their ranks, and he's burning their mansion to buy time. But as he himself acknowledges, 'the Carnes family might have other ways of investigating.' So he's already one step behind. Mith's conflict is more personal: he's a Demon God trapped in this situation, dealing with a slave who can read his embarrassing erotic literature and has been his enemy for three hundred years. The physical stakes are real too—those bandits weren't playing around, and the mage's reaction ('you didn't chant a spell, you didn't use a magical artifact') shows they recognized Mith's power as something unnatural. And Salar's physical toll: 'with a faint ringing in his ears, Salar pressed a hand to his temple' after processing all the noble hierarchy information. He's not invincible. The tension never drops. Even the quiet moments—the cheese tasting, the book finding—feel charged because we know they're on the run, heading to Rosa, toward some pen pal who was writing about putting human souls into corpses. What could possibly go wrong?

The dialogue in this section is genuinely hilarious and I need to talk about it. Salar's voice is this perfect blend of politeness and pure menace. He says things like 'That's a shame. I gave you a chance.' with zero regret. And then later: 'Do you want to hear the likeable reason or the unlikable one?' while holding a bloody dagger. The contrast between his calm, almost courteous tone and what he's actually doing is what makes him such a compelling character. Mith, on the other hand, is the perfect straight man to Salar's chaos. His internal monologue is gold: 'What logic? I've been tricked!' and 'I have been careless. Why haven't I thought of this trick before?' The banter between them feels natural, like two people who've been through hell together—which, apparently, they have, given the 'three hundred years of fighting with Salar' line. And the scene with the erotic novel? Mith grabbing 'Sweet Trap' and immediately destroying it with black magic because he's traumatized? That's such a perfect character beat. Salar's response—'What a shame,' teasingly—shows he absolutely enjoys messing with Mith. Their dynamic is everything.

I keep thinking about the Saint Salar imagery throughout these chapters. The bard's praise songs are literally quoted: 'Saint Salar is pure and good. He will protect all living beings in the world.' And then we watch this same 'Saint Salar' slit throats without blinking, his eyes remaining 'tightly shut' the entire time. The irony is brutal. The ceremonial dagger—the same one used in 'merciful' executions—becomes a murder weapon. And that portrait at the end! Queenie Carnes looking at the replica of Saint Salar, noting how 'cold and hollow' he looks, how he's 'staring intently in a certain direction outside the frame, as if waiting for something.' Waiting for what? The original portrait is kept in an underground vault, no bigger than a diary. A tiny, hidden image of a 'saint' who was apparently anything but. Meanwhile, the real Salar—this demon god in human form—is walking around being called a descendant of Saint Salar, which he treats with disgust: 'Salar's tastes were truly astonishing.' The whole theme of false sanctity vs. monstrous reality is just layered on top of itself. Who is the real saint here? Who is the real monster? And what does it mean that the portrait's eyes seem to follow something we can't see?