AO 7 Ch 40

By the time I woke up from Soulgard, it was already the next morning. I had run away, so to speak, because I needed to get something else done than just lay in bed with Ditzy.

Now I was in the dungeon cell, hoping that we’d be ready to leave and I couldn’t get dragged back to bed with Ditzy. It was lovely, but left me with the feeling that I’d eaten a few too many sugary berries and needed a break before I did nothing but sit and eat for the rest of my life.

"Ard, how are you? Have a good night?" Emlyn asked with a smirk. 

"I think I might have broken Ditzy," I replied, looking around to see if she’d already followed me. 

My response was clearly not what she was expecting. Emlyn paused and blinked several times. "I'm sorry, what?”

“I think I might have broken her.” I answered.

“As if." Emlyn replied.

Ditzy appeared a moment later. Her attire resembled a white toga, lined in a sparkling purple that appeared to be Ardenium. And to compliment it all, the ring I had put on her finger was still there, a simple twisted loop of metal, yet she looked at it like it was a masterpiece. 

"Good morning," she said. Some of her usual edge was gone, and instead she just seemed like she'd finished skipping through a field of flowers. 

Maribelle took one look at the goddess and walked up, giving her a warm hug. 

"She doesn't seem that bad," Emlyn said, frowning at Maribelle's friendliness with one of my other women. 

"She's perfect," Maribelle said with a grin that was quickly mirrored in Ditzy's own. 

Emlyn squinted. "Okay, now I'm getting this feeling that something is wrong.”

“Thank you. I think I broke her. That, or she really needed to get laid." I shrugged.

"If by 'broke me', you mean 'broke me free'," Ditzy interjected. She had a big smile on her face as she did a dancing twirl around the cell. "I haven't felt this great in ages! And it's all thanks to you, Ard." 

She finished the graceful dance, coming to a stop in front of me, her hand resting on my cheek. She planted a soft loving kiss on my lips and went back to twirling around the room. 

Maribelle was the only one who didn't seem disturbed by the sight. "She's perfect," Maribelle breathed. 

And I really had no idea what to say. I’m glad she was going to get along with Ditzy, but that was also disturbing in its own right.

Ditzy stopped and put her hands on my shoulders. Every time she looked away from me, the hearts in her eyes disappeared. But once her gaze was locked on mine, I could see them slowly form once again. It was strange and crazy because I felt like if I told anyone else they existed, they would never see them. 

"Gods are defined by people's perceptions," she said, placing a hand on her chest. "I, as the goddess of love and beauty, am always seen as a harlot, as a manipulator, as someone who twists men around my finger for purposes unknown, to stir up marriages and spoil them. Meanwhile, you might have the freedom to do entirely as you like as a human. We did not. No matter what I did, no matter what any God did, the impulses bestowed upon us by our perception would continue for as long as we lived."

"Couldn't you, I don't know, resist them?" Emlyn asked. 

"That would be like asking a human to never eat, to never give into hunger. It's an impulse. It's a craving that will only grow the longer you ignore it, until of course it overrules your common sense," Ditzy replied. She gave a sad smile that flashed away into one of radiant happiness. "But I am no longer a god. I can be whoever I want to be, and I choose to be a woman devoted, because that choice is something that I never had before." Ditzy went back to dancing, and I gestured at her, only for Emlyn to nod in agreement. 

"I think you broke Ditzy," she said. Emlyn paused and cocked her head to the side as she watched the happy goddess. “It might not be a bad thing though. Maybe you even put her back together already.” 

"Thank you for understanding," I replied with a sigh and a shake of my head. "Now, what is going on out here?"

"Well," Missy said, "I almost had it figured out and was just going to wait for you to pop the lock, so to speak. We didn't want to set off any alarms if you were still… occupied." 

Emlyn studied Missy. "We all do it. It's how we make babies. It's how humans survive. No need to dance around the word." 

"Having sex," I stated bluntly. 

"With another woman," Missy added. 

I had the wherewithal to be a little embarrassed that I was rubbing that part in her face. "Right. Missy, come pop the lock. We're ready to get out of here." 

The goddess appeared in a swirl and I checked my connections with Aurelia and Zuri to find nothing amiss with either of them. Hopefully, we could figure out the palace dealings.

This morning, though, after a night with Ditzy, I was suddenly feeling some post-nut clarity. I reflected on everything we had learned so far during our murder mystery.

The woman beside Augustus, who seemed far too suspicious, immediately came to mind. She was my prime suspect.

Then there were the strange actions of the Vel'shae and the mysteries throughout the Zenovian royal palace. And they seemed to worship Freya. Heck, I even remembered Eva saying that the ritual to make a Vel'shae happened at the goddess's feet. The situation started to fall into place for whatever reason. 

I had dismissed Freya, since I had seen neither hide nor hair of her. But the goddess clearly had a presence here in Zenovia, and in particular in the royal palace.

Perhaps by performing the ritual at her feet, the ceremony gave her some leverage on the Vel'shae. She would have also been old enough to set the wheels in motion for such a grand plan. But as I understood it, she could not personally intervene and kill all of these Zenovian royals. That meant Freya had someone else here working for her.

And that she had a hand in the founding of the current Zenovia by the way their foundation of soul magic had been purposefully flawed. Which led me to the question of why? She could wipe them out, but instead she was letting them run the country and growing… within her own bounds.

She was nearly keeping Zenov's descendants like livestock, and there was only one purpose that I could think of for those actions. She would be able to pull out the fragments that Missy had passed down through Zenov's lineage.

They had of course diluted and sifted out through the years, but that left me to wonder what was feeding on the fragments of my beloved goddess. 

"Well, there you are," Missy waved a hand in front of my face as I focused on her. "Ready to pop the lock?”

“Missy, if Freya is farming and harvesting Zenov's, it would be for the bits of magic that you left in them. Is that correct?" I asked.

"Sure," Missy shrugged, "but I didn't leave fragments. I left potential in each and every one of them. Even though I only gave Zenov potential, the potential is at least in part hereditary. So while his children may not have gotten all of it, they would have at least gotten enough to be mages, and each subsequent generation would have some varying degree of his whole potential."

"Does it get used up or does it run out?" I asked. 

Missy shook her head. "No, but each generation only has a small portion compared to an actual god. That you've bloated yours to the current levels is because of all of the soul juice that I gave you in your own particularly extravagant starting point. Which was all sort of dumb luck."

"But say someone wanted to make a god," I said hypothetically. "Could they extract the little bits in Zenov’s descendants until they made a whole one?"

"Sure," Missy said off-handedly. "But it would take thousands of years. I mean, it would be a massive undertaking." She hesitated. "It would be a grand undertaking that would require significant control over an entire family. You'd have to essentially raise them like livestock and harvest them regularly. But you'd have to do it in such a way that they never realized the pen they were in or they simply wouldn't awaken their magic and grow that potential themselves. Because you need full blown and trained mages to make it work."

My smile grew stiffer and stiffer the longer she spoke. 

Emlyn hesitated. "I don't want to point out the obvious but doesn't that sound remarkably like what's happened to the Zenov family?"

“What if they killed the other heirs as a smoke screen for the ‘harvest’ of each generation?” I asked, a shiver running down my spine at the idea.

Missy squinted and waffled her head. "Even then, the thousand years from now when Zenovia separated into this small segment wouldn't be enough to complete anyone's ascension to godhood. It's not that easy to brute force your way but it all depends on where they started. No, it'd be more likely if there was a project like this that it's been going on for longer than Zenovia or would take far longer to complete."

"But it's possible," I reiterated. Even then if Freya had a part in the founding of Zenovia, couldn’t she have had a hand in the collapse of the previous empire?

"Everything's possible, Ard," Missy shrugged and finished her magic.

“I’m having my eureka moment. This is a critical stage of the murder mystery! I’m solving it!” I shouted in excitement.

As soon as she completed her action, there was a faint popping sensation. It felt like somebody had opened a carriage door in the middle of a busy city street. Sound went from dead silence to a rapturous commotion in an instant.

"You were saying?" Emlyn asked, as it sounded like the palace was in an absolute panic. 

I didn't have time to launch into my theory. Instead I blew past the stunned Missy and was out the door in record time.

We found the palace guard was fighting another palace guard, and Vel'shae tore through both opponents. One of them was thrown clear across the hall, only to reveal Lord Valken stomping down towards me.

"It's wonderful to see that you are okay," he said, sizing me up as if something had changed. 

"Well, that's good." I checked my shirt to make sure there wasn't a stain. "Now, could you tell me what the heck is going on?"

Lord Valken shook his head. "I'm not entirely certain myself. The situation has gotten terribly out of hand. Half the Vel'shae are going feral on the people in the palace, the others are too stunned to know what to do. Meanwhile, monsters have been summoned into the palace grounds and princes and princesses won't wake from their slumbers."

"Well, that sounds less than peachy. But also, like pure chaos.” I cackled with glee.

“Ard, This is another one of those points where you probably shouldn't be laughing.” Emlyn told me.

“What? I'm supposed to be some new god or something goddish of chaos. And it sounds like I'm going to be right in my element.” I rubbed my hands together. "Now, Uncle, I've been able to check in with everyone, but Eva, how is she?" 

"Fine, last I checked," he said quickly. "Though if it were up to me, I would like to hurry back to ensure it stays that way." 

"Okay. Right. Then lead the way." I gestured, happy that I could still rely on Uncle Valken. I would be lying if I said that there hadn't been some level of worry. With everything going on with the Vel'shae, I had thought there was a chance that he wouldn't be reliable. Yet he turned to two of his companions, clearing the hall before us. The rugs were stained with blood, and bodies were flung about the palace halls. 

"This way. Hurry, Ard," Lord Valken urged. I didn't need the urgency in his tone to tell me how worried he was about Eva. He moved desperately through the throng, wanting to reach her.

Clearly the situation was escalating.

"Are you sure everything's going to be okay?" I reiterated. 

"Am I certain? No, Ard. There is no certainty to be had. Certainly not in life. And definitely not in the palace tonight." He responded.

"That's… unsettling." I hesitated for the right words. 

"For you and me both." He kept his eyes forward, worry pinching at his brow.

By the time we got to Eva's room, I could see why he was tearing through the halls. The opulence of Eva's room had been spoiled in the short time he’d been away.

I immediately spotted an unconscious Zuri and Aurelia slumped against the far wall. 

Since I was in such a rush, I was a little less than polite with how hard I shook them. “There’s a new monster for the beastiary!” I shouted, trying to rouse Aurelia, who was generally not one for such heavy sleeping. She always slept as if there might always be a monster ambush around the corner. 

Aurelia mumbled in her sleep, and I leaned down to whisper in her ear.

"Uncle Silver brought the bestiary. I told him I had a new beast, the Mantikitten, to add to it." 

Aurelia’s eyes snapped open, and she glanced around in dazed confusion. "What?" She asked, wiping drool from her lips. 

"I should be asking you that. Where's Eva?" I pushed off the wall.

Aurelia rubbed at her face, "Just over there." She pointed at the empty kitchen. 

"Have I gone blind? Because I don't see her." I was doing my best not to be upset with either of my anchors. However, one of our family members was currently missing. I wasn’t so naive as to think they fell asleep on the job. 

"She was right there. I swear. And you were back here. And I was cuddling you while we all talked." She sounded more confused the longer she spoke. 

"Are you talking about a dream?" I asked, and she blinked, shaking her head. 

"Maybe?" She looked up at me. “It was so real.”

“I was kind of hoping for a yes or a no, they tend to be more helpful than maybes.” I watched her closely. However, if she suddenly fell asleep and was dreaming so vividly that she couldn’t tell it from reality… then a few things started to come together.

"I mean, I know I was just asleep, but I swear." She squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head, her mane of red hair lashing out around her. 

While I'd been busy with her, Emlyn had gotten Zuri awake, who was going through an eerily similar conversation, where Zuri was describing something that hadn't happened. 

"Alright, both of you, up. I have no idea what's going on, but you were both absolutely asleep." I informed them. “If I had to guess, whoever we are dealing with has either a skill to play with your soul and put you to sleep or worse they might be a god related to sleep.”

It looked like Aurelia was about to apologize, and I held a hand out to stop her. "Please don't apologize. I doubt it was an intentional choice." 

I glanced back at Lord Valken. "Have any of the Vel'shae been acting odd after they wake up?" 

Lord Valken only shrugged in response. "I wouldn't know. I've been so busy I've skipped sleep for the last several days." 

I bit my lip. "Well for once your wild dedication has given rise to an additional boon," I turned back to my two still-sleepy anchors. "And you two don't feel too bad. It's not like you meant to sleep through Eva being kidnapped, but we do need to find her." 

The color drained from Aurelia's already pale face. "She's kidnapped?" 

"Well," I paused. "That's my assumption." I said, opening up all four spheres of magic, and readying myself for something no doubt difficult to come.

"What are we doing now, Ard?" Emlyn asked.

"Fucking finding my princess," I replied, glancing at Zuri. "Here's your chance. Let’s pretend you're the person behind all of this. You just kidnapped Eva while turning the palace upside down. What are you doing next?"

"Well," Zuri said, frowning, "if they've gone this far, then I can only assume they are at their endgame. Otherwise, they're significantly risking exposure. We don’t know what they are after."

“You just missed my murder mystery eureka moment and while I would love to do it again, suffice to say someone wants to kill all the Zenov’s.” I grit my teeth. "So if we're at the endgame, and they're harvesting Zenovs, like I think, then that means this is the big final harvest, where they no longer need to keep sowing crops." My face turned bitter, even speaking of people like they were disposable.

Emlyn pat my shoulder. “I’m proud of you for not doing another eureka moment. I know how much that kills you.”

"Perhaps she's just a hostage," Missy offered.

"Oh, how I wish that were the case. Remind me to thank whoever's behind it, if we get to the end, and that's all that's gone on." I answered.

"Yeah, it's pretty unlikely," Emlyn said. "But if they're putting on such a show, it's not outside the realm of possibility that they're going to antagonize you, Ard."

"And by antagonizing me, you mean threatening me with Eva?" I asked.

Missy's face was bitter, but we all knew that it was a high possibility. Whoever had been acting in the Zenovian Royal Palace clearly was not given enough attention as a child. At least that was my assumption based on the games they played so casually with people's lives.

"And if we take all that into account," I hesitated, "then the most likely place for them to be is in the throne room. To put on a show in the palace, what better place to hold it?"

Lord Valken was already turning around and rushing to lead us through the palace. "I am terribly sorry, Arden. It was my responsibility to protect Eva, and I have failed," he hung his head slightly, but his eyes were continuing to scan our surroundings.

"If you're going to punish yourself in some misguided sense of honor, be sure to do it after we get her back. Only then is there something to atone for." I told him.

As we twisted our way through the palace, still stuck in the midst of its own chaotic developments, we found the throne room preciously unguarded.

The doors were wide open, and sitting on the throne was a nondescript woman with sleepy eyes and heavy bangs. She leaned on her fist and had a giant grin plastered on her face.

"You are finally here," Jezebel said, and her tone was at odds with the rest of her demeanor.

I would expect the voice from a girl skipping through a field, not some madwoman with princes and princesses kneeling before her with vacant expressions like zombies.

"Don't mind them. What kind of show could I put on without an audience?" She stood up from the throne and bowed to me.

I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. "You're right, every show needs an audience. But how about I take a few of your members from you? They had a prior engagement." I replied.

"You didn't think that would really work, now did you?" She laughed.

"You miss all of the shots you don’t take," I held my hands out. "I at least had to give it a shot before I ripped that cold, dead heart out of your chest."

"There it is," she said excitedly. "I've been waiting a long time to see you angry, your eyes boiling with rage as I take everything and I get there first."

I frowned at that last part of her statement, tilting my head. "I wasn't aware the two of us were in a race." That and I was fairly sure I was in a rush but not necessarily angry. It seems that she was reading what she wanted out of the situation.

"Of course we're in a race," she laughed. "A race to be the first God born in this world." She threw her arms into the air dramatically.