The Almighty Dominance (by Sunshine) novel Chapter 686

The Rydell family home was the kind of place that had been designed to make visitors feel small.

Three stories of pale stone, iron-latticed windows, a gate that required a mana-key to open — the kind of gate that announced, before anyone inside had spoken a word, that the people within considered themselves a different category of person than whoever was standing outside it.

Alex stood outside it with Feby and noted all of this without comment.

She had told him on the tram ride over. Her father — Edmund Steinmeyer, dead four years now — had left behind a fortune so substantial that the precise number had never been discussed in polite company.

What had been discussed, extensively and behind closed doors, was the question of what happened to it.

Edmund had died without a will that satisfied everyone.

His money had passed into a family trust administered jointly — which in practice meant administered by the Rydell side, her mother's family, who had been living off the interest since the funeral.

Feby was the sole heir to the family fortune, yet the trust documents were frustratingly vague. They stated that she would receive everything “when she was ready”—words that, in legal terms, left everything open to interpretation.

The Rydell family had spent four years finding reasons why she wasn't ready yet.

"Level three," Feby said, standing at the gate. Her voice was flat. "That's what they'll say today. I need to reach level three Magician certification before I can be considered capable of managing an estate of this size. They've been saying level two for two years. Now it's level three."

"What level are you?"

"One. Provisional."

Alex nodded. "And the actual legal requirement for inheritance access under Arcanum State trust law?"

She looked at him. "There isn't one. There's no certification requirement. They invented it."

"Good," Alex said. "That's useful."

She stared at him, her expression fracturing. "Alex… everyone in that room is my family. My mother, my grandmother, Uncle Rael, my cousin Leon. They've been scheming since the day my father died. I even suspected they were the ones trying to have me killed." She swallowed hard. "I've been fighting them for four years, Alex. And I've never once backed down—"

"Have you ever brought someone with you?"

A pause. "No."

"Then today is different," he said. And walked through the gate when she opened it, hands in his pockets, as if he had somewhere to be.

The sitting room was the largest room on the ground floor. It had been arranged, Alex noted, with some care — the Rydell family members positioned on chairs and a settee along the far wall, a single chair placed opposite them with a small table beside it, which was presumably for Feby. The arrangement communicated without words: you, singular, facing us, collective.

There was no second chair.

Alex looked at this arrangement.

Then he picked up a chair from near the window, placed it beside Feby's, and sat down.

Nobody said anything for a moment.

Feby's grandmother — Marta Rydell, eighty if she was a day, with the bearing of a woman who had been the most important person in every room she'd entered for six decades — was the first to speak.

"Febyella." Her eyes moved to Alex with the specific quality of a person who has decided not to acknowledge something and is communicating this decision loudly through the not-acknowledging. "We weren't informed you would be bringing a guest."

"This is Alexander Leonhart," Feby said. "My fiancé."

The word landed in the room like a stone dropped into still water.

Feby's mother — Adeline Rydell-Steinmeyer, fifties, wearing an expression that suggested the smile on her face was load-bearing — said: "Your fiancé. How lovely. And so sudden."

"It isn't sudden," Feby said. "We've been together for some time."

"Mm." Adeline looked at Alex with the specific attention of a woman conducting an assessment. The suit. The shoes. The absence of any mana-shimmer around his hands, which in a room full of certified Magicians was notable. "And what is it that you do, Mr. Leonhart?"

"Acquisitions," Alex said pleasantly, a calm smile on his face.

In a single night spent in Febyella’s guestroom, he had read everything he could find. He remembered enough details to make his lie sound completely believable. After all, lying wasn’t difficult when you prepared properly.

"Acquisitions." Uncle Rael — heavyset, fifty, with the look of a man who had spent years perfecting the performance of being reasonable — leaned forward slightly. "Independent?"

"Yes."

"And your family? Your House affiliation?"

"Western Reaches," Alex said smoothly. "They’re independent there too."

He had just made it up on the spot. No one would be able to catch him if he stayed confident. When lying, the most important rule was simple: appear believable.

Rael smiled the way people smiled when they had just heard something that confirmed their existing opinion. "I see. Well, Mr. Leonhart, I'm sure Febyella has explained that today's meeting is a family matter. A legal matter, regarding her father's estate. I'm afraid it's really not appropriate for — "

"I'm her fiancé," Alex said. "I'm family."

The smile didn't move. "Yes, well, the engagement being quite new — "

"Is there a minimum engagement duration required by Arcanum State law for a fiancé to be present at a trust administration meeting?"

Rael blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

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