The Author's Extra: My SSS Skill Turns Souls into Anything!

Alden kept his eyes down.

’You might wear the crown of this kingdom, Alistair.’

The smirk settled behind his eyes where no one could see it.

’But I’m the one holding the author’s pen.’

Twenty-four Hours Earlier

The mountain pass was cold and dark, and the only sound left was the wind moving through the craters.

Theodore stood in the center of the ruined bedrock, chest heaving, a smear of melted frost and ash on his cheek. His muscles ached in the specific way that happens when you have pushed seventy percent of your total output against something that kept pushing back.

He looked down at the panting, bound figure in the snow below him.

A second-year student. From a regional academy. With no official class designation. Who had just made a veteran Spire work harder than anything he had faced in two years.

"Just who are you," Theodore said, not quite to Alden, more to himself. "Was the academy hiding something like you in plain sight?"

Alden raised his head slowly. His crimson eyes were exhausted but completely focused.

"Listen to me," he said, his voice rough and dry. "I have no desire to fight you or Lady Isabella."

Theodore’s hand stayed near his weapon.

"Augustus was infected with progenitor blood. He was leading a force toward the campus. I neutralized a threat." Alden’s dark flames had mostly died, just faint wisps now curling off his wrists. "I am giving you a rational tactical explanation and you are treating me like a natural disaster."

Theodore looked at him for few seconds.

He looked straight into Alden’s eyes. They were uncorrupted, clear, and sharp with thought.

He exhaled slowly and let his combat aura go.

"Talk," Theodore said. "I’m listening."

__________

Theodore landed in the snow.

"You certainly took your time." Isabella said seeing Alden in his arms, Unconscious.

"He was troublesome." Theodore looked down at Alden. "More than I expected."

___________

A short while later, the two of them were moving through the mountain pass toward the royal transport.

Isabella glanced back over her shoulder.

The moment she confirmed Alden was fully conscious, emerald mana curled around her forearm.

Theodore stepped sideways, blocking her line of sight. "Hold on. Stand down a moment."

Isabella’s brow went up. "Theodore?"

"I need to speak with you."

She studied him for a second, then stepped aside into the shadow of a rock face, out of earshot. Theodore followed and leaned in low.

"Look at what that kid just did," he said, his voice tight. "His output is absurd. A second-year student at Astral wiped a progenitor vanguard and executed a mutated Crown Prince in one afternoon. The King is going to demand his head the moment we walk through the palace gates."

"I already know that," Isabella said calmly.

"Which would be one of the most catastrophic wastes of a generational talent this realm has ever committed," Theodore shot back. "You are not naive enough to think he killed Augustus out of pure malice. You know what Augustus was, right?"

Isabella said nothing.

She did know. She had been assigned as his caretaker knight before becoming a Spire. She had watched Augustus up close. She knew exactly the kind of person he became when someone handed him a shortcut to power.

Theodore pressed forward. "That pass out there was not an assassination site. It was one person stopping a biological catastrophe before it could ever reach the student dorms."

Isabella looked past Theodore’s shoulder at Alden, who was standing quietly in the snow, looking at them.

She placed two fingers under her chin.

"Fine," she said.

Theodore blinked. "Just like that?"

"If we are going to extract him from the his highness’s verdict, we need a lever strong enough to override royal precedent entirely." Her eyes moved to the distant horizon. "What if we use the war declaration?"

Theodore froze. His jaw literally dropped. "The war proclamation? Isabella, that intelligence is classified until the High Command convenes next week. We would be leaking top-secret strategic information before the official release window. We could lose our Spire crests."

Isabella remained perfectly, eerily calm.

"It is the only narrative strong enough to corner the King," she said. "If the realm is entering an existential war against the vampires, Alden’s talent stops being a crime and becomes a national defense necessity."

Theodore stared at her. His mouth opened once and closed again. He dragged his hand down his face and let out a long, heavy groan.

"You’re right," he said, like a man admitting something painful. "God help us, you are right."

Isabella’s mouth moved into something that was barely a smile. "Then listen carefully."

______________

She laid it out with the unhurried precision of someone who had already run through every variable. The timing of the reveal. The coffins from the border settlements. The emotional gut punch that would shift the room from vengeance to survival panic. The invocation of Article 14. The framing of the Upper Academy Candidate program. The exact sequence that would build the pressure until the King had no politically viable response left.

Later that evening, after turning Alden over to the palace wardens at the dungeon entrance, the two Spires turned to leave.

Theodore paused at the heavy iron doors.

He looked back through the bars.

Alden was sitting on the stone bench inside the cell, watching them go. His eyes found Theodore’s.

Theodore gave the smallest possible nod. A single dip of the chin.

’Play the victim tomorrow. Stick to the script.’

Alden’s eyes narrowed by a fraction.

He gave the smallest possible nod in return.

’Understood.’

_______________

And now, standing beneath the gilded arches of the Judgment Hall while Alistair raged at a trap that had already finished closing around him, Alden remembered every single beat of that arrangement.

The nobles thought they were watching a trial.

The King thought he was about to win one.

The Magistrate thought he was moments away from delivering a verdict.

None of them knew that hours earlier, two Spires had already prepared the one move capable of changing the outcome.

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