The Goddess of Fate's gifts had always come with a price.
Perhaps his string of recent victories had used up all his luck, because trouble came for Annan without warning: voices within the Empire called for sanctions against him, and some seaports that traded with Free City had already been affected.
At the dawn of the second millennium of the Saint Laurent Calendar, Annan had drawn far too much attention in just six months. Champion Sorcerer, Magic Films and Newspapers, the war with the Mad Dog Duke, the Free Expeditionary Army...
Annan's name had been ringing in their ears without end.
And the Empire had granted him the title of Champion Sorcerer... They hated dazzling people like him most of all!
The two most recent issues of the Voice of Freedom had thrust him further into the spotlight.
Mebis was one of them.
A low-ranking official in the Empire's Ministry of the Interior, Mebis ate breakfast in a kitchen plastered with posters of "Jack," picked up the briefcase Annan had invented, passed the Moonlight Opera House, and arrived at his office. "Rose's" voice came from a colleague's Magic Newspaper as Mebis began the day's work: the Expeditionary Army suspected there were Ratfolk spies inside the Empire, and a few days earlier, several unsigned tip-off letters had suddenly appeared outside the Ministry. He and his colleagues had been run off their feet ever since. By evening, Mebis was home. Over dinner, his daughter talked about how handsome Jack was. Later, as he lay in bed, his wife told him she wanted Star of Gems jewelry endorsed by Annan...
In the dead of night, Mebis jolted awake.
When had his life become like this?!
That man was becoming one of the three things no human could escape: birth, death, and Annan.
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