Heretic Spellblade 5, page 53
The shards shifted. This time, the scene looked literally identical to what they’d seen. But with one difference.
It appeared to be before Charlotte had appeared. Nathan’s memory spun up and told him that this had been what everything looked like a minute or two earlier.
He watched as one shard began to glow.
“What do you think you’re doing, you slut?” Fyre screamed.
The strange universe of shards vanished, and Nathan blinked his eyes to see he was back in his old world. Charlotte’s jaw dropped, and she took a step back in shock.
“How… how dare you stop me?” she gasped out, a hand over her chest. “I nearly had it! Everything would have been perfect, but you ruined everything.”
“Shut up,” Fyre said.
She pushed between Nathan and Charlotte and physically grabbed one of Nathan’s arms. Tears welled in her eyes. Fyre’s grip felt almost painful, and he knew she was channeling her power into her body if she was able to harm him physically.
“I don’t know what you were doing, but I won’t let you do whatever you want,” she said. “This is our Doumahr. We’re making it better. I don’t care who or what you think you are. If you try to do anything to Nathan again, I will turn you into dust.”
Both women began to glow with the same golden light. Nathan felt the world shudder.
Then he grabbed Fyre’s arm and pulled her behind him. She let out a squeak.
The confrontation ended. Charlotte blinked.
“You’re protecting her?” she whispered.
“Don’t ever try that again,” Nathan said, his voice like quiet thunder. “I’m not a toy to be used in your dioramas. If you truly wanted anything to do with me, you’d treat me like a person. Jumping to an alternate world and redoing this conversation until it goes the way you want is an insult.”
“Oh, fuck, I forgot you notice that shit,” Maura said.
“Damn. The slut princess got her shit slapped,” Laura added.
Charlotte ignored them. She gulped, then took another step backward.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered. “I’m the prophet. You’re supposed to help me save Doumahr. Isn’t that what the hero does?”
“I’m not a hero. I’m just a Bastion trying to protect everything I care about.” He turned away and prepared a teleportation spell. “Leave. If your army is still across the border in an hour, I can’t promise that it will ever return.”
Then he cast the spell and returned them to Aleich.
At the last moment, he met Charlotte’s gaze.
Why did she look almost identical to the last time he’d seen the Charlotte from his world, after the Republicans overthrew the monarchy?
CHAPTER 42
Falmir retreated. The Imperial Army descended on the region around Mortiswatch, as well as the few breaches east of it. Bastions and Champions from across the Empire rushed to quell the tide of demons, and even a few dark elf Champions from the Spires came to help. The Houkeem Desert remained quiet, so the Spires willingly spared its warriors as a gesture of the alliance between both nations.
Weeks of demonic suppression remained, however. Nathan left clear instructions to the Bastions, nobles, and officers who spread across the region. If they wanted to minimize the loss and destruction, his knowledge was invaluable, even if explaining it was far harder than “a Messenger told me.”
He held no illusions about what would come after, however. The Nationalists refused to cooperate and moved northwest to take up camp in the Torrovium Fields. Alice ordered soldiers in to occupy the region on behalf of the von Allesburg family.
Months and years of rebuilding would follow. Anyone from the region would live with the memory of the night forever, and many had lost family and friends. Hundreds of thousands of acres had been scarred, along with the residents.
“What are the nobles saying?” Nathan asked Alice a few days after the incident.
“They’re in shock. A Messenger destroyed Mortiswatch, Falmir attempted to invade, and tens of thousands of Imperial citizens are homeless or dead. Several nobles and Bastions died in the fighting, and we’ve deployed the Imperial Army to suppress demons for the first time since Kurai fell.” She sighed.
Both of them were in her suite, but sitting on the sofas. The days had been long, and his role directing the suppression efforts meant he rarely saw Alice outside mornings and nights. Almost everyone understood that Nathan had magic that enabled him to traverse the Empire at will by now.
“I had hoped to keep Falmir’s attempted invasion a secret,” he said.
“A giant army appeared in the Torrovium Fields, Nathan. You’re impressive, but that’s beyond what even a miracle can accomplish. The Lodge felt Charlotte’s teleportation spell in Aleich and scryed her.”
“I know,” he said. “What about the archdukes? I imagine they’re more used to this.”
“Hardly. If anything, this has changed politics in the Diet forever. It’s difficult to argue about devolution of Imperial power when the Empire’s existence is in danger,” she said. “Lotte’s arrival shook things up as well.”
“Isn’t she too young to be an archduchess?”
“Yes, but she’s the rightful heir, no matter who her mother is. Grandpa has taken her on as a ward of the Arangar family until she’s of age. That means the Diet will need to appoint a regent. For now, the Princes College has granted me the power to act as the archduchess in her place until a proper appointment is made.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I bet Otto hated that.”
“The opposite. Falmir’s attempted invasion riled him up. I told you we can trust him, and we can. At least for this. I’m relying on him for support in the Allesburg archduchy. Anna’s already stretched with Amica, and I don’t want to move Grandpa’s forces away from the border with Trafaumh,” she explained.
“I don’t think we need to plan for war with Trafaumh. At least not from that front.”
“And what if Soreaux is seized by nobles loyal to Falmir? I know this feels like a reminder of the danger of Messengers, Nathan, but it’s more a reminder that the Empire is far more fragile than it should be.” Alice leaned against him and nestled her head in the crook of his neck. “I need you to handle the Bastion side of things, but let me take care of the politics. For now.”
He huffed. “You’re cheating by acting like this.”
“We’re going to be married soon. I’m allowed to cheat.” She shot him a wicked smile. “In fact, we could easily make it a triple wedding.”
What. He stared at her.
“I’m talking about your newest secret admirer.”
“Lotte isn’t exactly leaving her crush on me a secret,” Nathan said drily. “I’m surprised you’re not jealous.”
“She’s fourteen, even if she’s a little more developed than normal for her age,” Alice said. “I’m not exactly worried. But you should have seen her face when she learned that you were marrying both me and Anna. Her mind rushed right to the conclusion she wanted.”
“Let’s change the topic,” he said. “Have you spoken with Charlotte?”
Alice shook her head. “She’s refused to answer the wireless. You gave me a short explanation, but Ciana and Nurevia told me much more. The things she said… She sounded obsessive, Nathan. How are you so calm about this?”
“I dealt with Fyre. If anything, this is easier. It’s a smart move for the opposing prophet to trick me into joining her by using immensely powerful ascended magic. I just need to be wary of her schemes.”
“I wouldn’t compare Fyre’s interest in you with what I heard. Our favorite horsegirl has practically been floating around since you started sleeping with her. She still throws me jealous looks, but I’ve spotted some dopey smiles on her face when you’re not watching. Charlotte sounds like someone who wants to steal you away, whereas Fyre is just a young girl hopelessly in love,” Alice said.
Nathan shrugged.
But he did have something else to take care of when it came to Fyre.
Ever since that morning, Kadria had remained missing in his mental world. While he’d put up with her absence at first, he needed to end this farce. Despite his concerns, he’d formed a plan with the Twins and Fyre. Supposedly, it should work, despite Kadria’s resistance.
He kissed Alice goodnight, then slipped inside his mental world.
In there, he saw the sight he’d been told to expect. He simply hadn’t believed it would happen.
Kadria writhed atop the large map table in his mental throne room. Thick cables tied her arms and legs down, forcing her to spreadeagle herself across the metallic surface. Her clothing remained intact, for what little it mattered given how revealing it was in a situation like this.
Her purple eyes pierced him as he entered the room and closed the door behind him.
The Twins giggled from where they sat beside her. Their fingers ran across Kadria’s exposed belly and arms. Fyre watched with her wings folded around her body, but her eyes held a reluctant enjoyment to them, rather than unhappiness.
“Are you happy?” Kadria spat.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” Nathan said as he walked around the nearby office table. “Although I didn’t seriously expect the Twins to pull you out here, even with Fyre’s help. Last time the three of you fought, you flattened them.”
“Yeah, but that was before you juiced us up while leaving this dumb goat to suckle up the leftovers,” Maura said. “This is your mind, even if we squat in it. We’re as powerful as you allow us to be, and our link to you is way stronger than this leech’s.”
“Don’t pretend you aren’t parasites as well,” Kadria said.
“We’re servants, not parasites,” Laura crooned while rubbing one of Kadria’s horns between her cleavage. “And that means if we get asked to clean out an annoying cockroach, we’ll happily do that.”
“Is that what this is?” Kadria’s eyes met Nathan’s.
He sat down in the chair and sighed. “This situation is too much. Untie her.”
The Twins stared at him, while Kadria’s muscles tensed in anticipation.
“But if you try to escape without explaining yourself to me, then we’ll finish this conversation like this,” he added.
His patience wasn’t limitless, even if he disliked the behavior of the Twins right now. Kadria’s actions came far too close to betrayal, for all that she’d helped him so far.
He forced himself to admit that her usefulness was running into its limits. Whatever she was up to, she kept keeping secrets. One of those secrets could easily overturn everything he’d fought for,
Trust no longer remained an option.
Clicking their tongues, the Twins vaporized the cables tying Kadria down. She shot them a dirty look before sitting on the edge of the map table. Her expression wavered.
Somehow, he knew she was about to leave.
“Kadria, stop,” he said.
Despite his gentle tone, he felt a mental surge rush through the room. She hissed at him, but her body froze nonetheless.
“You’ve gotten too good at this,” Kadria said. “No wonder Atlas thought you weren’t human. If the Twins weren’t as dumb as they are, I’d suspect they’ve been transforming you. But no. It’s all you. Somehow, you’re turning into a Messenger—or something more.”
He stared at her. “I thought being a Messenger was just about traveling between worlds? Or working for an outer being?”
“It is, but we gain power in order to do that. Even those of us who look perfectly normal are monsters on the inside. As succubi, we have a specific set of magical affinities, but others can be more flexible,” she said. “I don’t know what you are. You’re different from the more humanlike Messengers I’ve met.”
“A Bastion?” he suggested.
“Bastions don’t casually bind people with mental magic using their voice.” She clicked her tongue. “Your affinities are irritatingly similar to a succubus’s, except you have a mastery of wards. Mental magic, spatial magic, and wards. Except you lack our racial ability to read emotions and thoughts, and you have an odd affinity for reshaping reality.”
“You mean life magic.”
“No. This”—she gestured at the throne room surrounding them—“is about reshaping reality. As are your fortresses. Life magic is one element of that. It’s not a type of magic, but rather a mentality. You directly alter the world, instead of working within it or merely flinging power at it. Any idiot can blow up a fortress in seconds by overloading it, but you can rebuild it just as easily.”
He frowned. Her talk of reshaping reality seemed off to him, at least compared to what he thought ascended magic was.
“I thought all ascended magic altered the world,” he said. “That’s why it’s necessary to modify minds and bodies, and the same goes for manipulating magical energy directly. The natural elements consist of byproducts of the world, but ascended magic is about changing the fundamental facts of reality.”
Kadria tried to shake her head despite her precarious position. “Not all domains of ascended magic are made equal. Mystic foxes manipulate raw force and can teleport, but those are very limited applications of spatial magic that they’re taught themselves. Even most mental magic is just tweaking or observing what is already there.”
“…so it’s different when we use ascended magic to create things?”
“Exactly. If you’re creating your own world and your own rules, what separates you from a god?” A dark expression flashed across Kadria’s face, as if she had realized something, but it quickly vanished. “Using ascended magic is changing you. In fact, I wonder if it happened earlier. You had barely started using it when you world hopped along with the Twins.”
The Twins made confused sounds, before Maura’s face lit up.
“Oh, right. He did, technically,” Maura said. “I always figured he just remembered the other worlds, but that’s the same thing, isn’t it?” She screwed up her face. “Wait, does that mean you were a Messenger back then as well?”
“How?” Nathan resisted the urge to throw his hands up in the air in frustration. “I don’t understand why you keep calling me a Messenger.”
“Because you are, dumbass,” Laura drawled. “The goat uplifted you from one tiny reality, where you didn’t matter, and dropped you here. When we jumped across a bunch of worlds to find one where I cast my spell correctly, you replaced the Nathan in all of those worlds.”
He stared at her. “I what?”
“That’s how Messengers work,” Maura said, but her expression looked grim. “All this infinite worlds shit means there’s an infinite number of Mauras, Lauras, and goats. More appear every second, and just as many leave worlds. Our old boss slams us together to keep us straight, merging memories. You did that naturally when we moved across worlds. If the slut princess had pulled off her trick, you would have replaced the Nathan there—memories and all.”
Nathan knew he needed some time to digest this. They seemed to be implying that he could hop between worlds himself. Which, if he could, then he’d appreciate it if somebody told him how.
“That part isn’t relevant,” Kadria said. “But you’re becoming something much more than the talented Bastion I thought I partnered with.”
The Twins appeared next to Nathan, and he suppressed his irritation as they rubbed their tits against his head.
“You’re just jealous,” Laura said. “You brought Nathan here to be your ignorant puppet, and he’s calling the shots now.”
“And now he’s using you like the slutty succubus you really are, despite all the bullshit you spout,” Maura said.
“We fucked once,” Kadria said.
“And you fucking melted.”
“He is pretty good,” Fyre chirped.
The succubi glared at her for intruding, and Fyre merely rolled her eyes.
“I don’t care about your stupid game,” she said. “I’m here for Nathan, and because he supports what I want to achieve. I thought you did as well.”
Her eyes screamed betrayal at Kadria, who bit her lip and looked away. The succubus then stood and paced toward the throne at the far end.
“I do,” Kadria said. “I’ve never lied about what I’m trying to achieve. We both want a world that’s safe from demons, and therefore my employer. But getting there is complicated.”
“Well, everything gets more complicated by the second,” Nathan said, trying to lean his head on one palm while the Twins rubbed themselves against him. “The recent invasion proved that knowledge is power. I barely stopped everything from going to hell. So many things could have easily gone wrong. The Twins needed to teach me teleportation. I needed to know that Charlotte can manipulate Messengers. Hell, if Fyre hadn’t rushed to join me, I’d be in another world entirely.”
“A timeline is made up of a lot of smaller choices,” Kadria said.
“And many small choices have big impacts down the line. So I refuse to be kept in the dark. Explain everything you know about Atlas and what you think happened.”
Maura scoffed. “That’s all you’re going for? This slut got caught out planning everything. It was all a scheme, Nathan. Like Siv said.”
“I think Siv’s idea of a scheme is different,” Nathan said slowly. “And something about Atlas’s reaction didn’t add up.”
“Because that wasn’t the Atlas I knew,” Kadria said, her face pale. “I thought I was ahead of my employer. That I had him fooled, and that this was all some amazing escape plan that he had overlooked in his arrogance, just like when Sofia escaped his clutches to begin with. But no. He was always ahead of me. Siv was right. The only reason he never came after me was because he didn’t need to.”
Nathan scratched his head. While he vaguely understood Kadria’s muttering, she seemed to skip important logical steps.
“Start at the beginning. Who is ‘he?’” Nathan asked.
“Our boss, duh,” Laura said, but her expression had tightened.
