Rute knew perfectly well that Sia Tower would indeed treat him with great respect... at least on the surface.
Of course, he also had to know his limits—what he could do and what he could not.
But just because he understood that he would henceforth be beneath them, he absolutely could not start giving even their subordinates and slaves a wide berth.
The world had always been like this... others would never choose to remain on the opposite shore just because you wanted to take a step back. They would only occupy every inch of space you yielded.
The more you retreated, the more they would take.
By the time you had nowhere left to retreat and wanted to reclaim your own territory... you would be the one stealing someone else's property.
The same applied to dealing with people.
No matter how mild your attitude, you could never yield an inch on your bottom line.
Rute could relinquish his absolute authority as the master of a tower, but he absolutely could not abandon his standing as a Ninth-Circle Archmage and the leader of a faction.
There was no way he would stand up to soothe those somewhat bewildered Eighth-Circle Mages.
That would have to fall to Oliva.
Fortunately, Sia Tower was not entirely oblivious to such things... the people it had sent were all people Oliva had dealt with before.
Although Oliva sometimes hesitated over what to do, he would certainly make no mistakes in a situation where he already knew what attitude and approach to use.
Before long, the group was chatting outside the door, all smiles.
Aislin had probably given these mages from Sia Tower a bit of a fright, so they had no intention of hurrying into the hall to greet Rute. Instead, they struck up a