Heretic Spellblade 7 - Ch4v2

Chapter 4

Even with Gareth’s warning about Otto’s imminent—and somewhat predictable—betrayal, Nathan couldn’t do much about it. As an archduke, Otto possessed immense latitude. Accusing him of treason wouldn’t go far without hard evidence.

Particularly as Nathan and Alice had overlooked Otto’s actions during the civil war and Otto talked a strong game about taking the war to Falmir. Any action against him would look like petty retribution over the civil war in the eyes of the nobility.

All Nathan could do was ask Reine to keep an eye on Otto and look for anything suspicious.

Then it was time to be bored to death by the Diet.

Nathan’s late entry attracted commentary as he strode across the great hall with Ciana by his side. Fei had scarpered the moment he entered, unwilling to be trapped here. Countess or not, she wanted nothing to do with politics.

“Lord Nathan, has the palace been secured against the Falmirian heathens?” a count asked from the second floor of the three-story hall. He’d been the one giving some long-winded speech before Nathan entered.

“All assailants were dealt with an hour ago, and no further threats have emerged. Security will remain tightened until the Diet rests,” Nathan replied without breaking step.

A mixture of approving nods and cheers broke out. Far too much revelry for the Diet, honestly. Then again, some random count from the Crusader faction had referred to Falmir as “heathens,” which said a lot about their mood.

Nathan took his position by Alice’s throne. His fiancé sat upon it, wearing an elegant black and gold gown with dark gray winged patterns sewn across its fabric. Other than a small window revealing her cleavage, she’d chosen to cover up most of her skin. No doubt some sort of nod to the severity of the situation, even if she needed to remain fashionable.

Her blonde hair merged with the gold of her dress, even as her blue eyes stood out given her relative lack of jewelry. Only her engagement ring glittered on one finger.

Beside her stood Fyre, who beamed at Nathan.

Two more of Nathan’s Champions occupied the room. Both were dark elves, and they acted as bodyguards for the Imperial family today.

Astra stood just behind Fyre. She stood out no matter where she was, thanks to her figure-hugging dark armor that accentuated her immense bust and revealed far too much of her luscious dark skin and thighs. She’d tied her white hair up in a ponytail. Three opals sat in her collarbone, but she carried no weapons.

The other dark elf was Nurevia, who carried more than enough weapons to make up for Astra’s lack of them. She somehow revealed even more skin, as she wore little more than a vest and hot pants, and her tits nearly spilled out of them. Her lavender hair stood out even among dark elves, and she looked deeply bored as she stood guard beside former Emperor Gorthal.

Gorthal’s presence surprised Nathan. The old emperor rarely left his bedroom these days, as his health worsened to the point he slept most of the time. At this point, Alice hoped her grandfather would see her wedding.

Yet the old man had dragged himself to the diet, where he’d been afforded an honor guard and prime seating, along with Nurevia and a duogem Champion to protect him. Gorthal’s closest mistress remained by his side, along with several healers.

Maybe Nathan wouldn’t call this Diet session a complete waste of time.

His positive attitude didn’t last long. Every noble and his dog gave some dry speech about their family history, how strong their faith in Omria was, and why this was deeply important to the war vote.

Almost as if every noble wanted to imprint the war—and the assumed victory over Falmir—on their history. The sort of thing they’d tell their children, presumably.

“I was there when we voted to crush the heathens!” or some such nonsense. Presumably they’d leave out the part where they did precisely zero actual fighting.

Although some would. While Nathan tuned out the vast majority of the speeches, a few differed from the rest. Frontier nobles, namely. And a couple of Bastions that had been granted titles. Their words didn’t so much glorify the war or talk up the part about “putting heathens to the torch” as much as talk about the need to protect their citizens or present a united front.

At least a couple of the counts realized who’d be expected to do the heavy lifting.

Nathan slipped out as the Diet session recessed, well before any of the dukes or archdukes spoke. Sure, they might have more important things to say, but a few hours of this nonsense pushed him to his limits. Especially on an empty stomach. He hadn’t eaten since this morning.

While the nobles slowly drifted out of the great hall to the serving halls that catered especially to them, Nathan retreated inside the palace.

The sun was nowhere near setting, but he wanted an early dinner. He tracked down one of the kitchens dedicated to the palace.

And, as always, was immediately set upon by the servants and shooed into a small dining room. A horsegirl maid tried not to look too annoyed by Nathan’s insistence on intruding on the kitchens, but failed.

“You’re supposed to call on us, Your Highness,” the maid grumbled. “Just like Her Majesty does.”

Nobody else called him “Your Highness” or any variation of it outside the servants, but he’d given up on correcting them. The nobles all called him some variation of Lord. Apparently, his official status upon marrying Alice would be the Empress-Consort, but he’d also be married to Anna, which made him an archduke. Oh, and he’d be a count. And a Bastion.

To be frank, nobody—not even Alice—had any clue what his formal title or form of address would be once he married. So he just let others call him whatever they liked.

He allowed the maid to seat him and Ciana in a small dining room, which was opulently decorated. Without bothering to take his order, the maid swept away.

Which typically meant he’d end up receiving some obscene amount of food.

Ciana smirked at his exasperated expression. “This is why you let me fetch your food.”

“It is,” he admitted. “One of the knights probably mentioned to a servant that I’ve been busy all day, and it’s made its way to the kitchen servants.” He tapped the table. “Should I call Fei here?”

The color drained from Ciana’s face. “The cooks would ban you from the kitchens if you did that. You’re the one who mandated she has her own dedicated team of cooks and specific dining hours.”

“It was a joke,” Nathan said. “I’m not cruel.”

Fei’s ability to eat a small town into starvation overnight made her an object of fear and admiration within the palace. Nathan tried not to think about the food budget she consumed.

Especially once she went into heat in winter. He sincerely hoped the war might be wrapped up by then.

Now that Nathan found the time to sit down and rest, he let his mind focus on work. Not the physical jobs he’d been tied up with all day, but the busywork that kept him and several of his more administrative Champions tied down.

With war finally happening—officially—it might help to finish going over some of Seraph’s reports. He mentioned as much to Ciana, and she passed on the message to the knights who escorted him.

By the time the endless platters of food arrived, piles of paperwork dominated half his table. Ciana and another knight assisted the servants to find room to squeeze plates on around the reports.

Hours passed. Nathan found himself skimming through reports on demonic portal activity, estimated troop numbers across various fronts, potential new Champion recruits, scouting reports from Falmir’s territory, and even some reports on politics in Trafaumh.

Ordinarily, very little of this would reach him. But with his Champions focused on imminent warfare, a lot of mundane paperwork submitted by his Champions and officers across the Empire wasn’t being properly processed.

Just how much did Seraph and Kara handle ordinarily? Narime sometimes picked up the slack as well. But both Seraph and Narime were focused on Falmir, and he’d pulled Kara aside to assist Anna with the Diet.

“I need more Champions talented in administration,” he mumbled.

“I think those are just called administrators,” Sunstorm said, leaning over his shoulder.

He nearly jumped out of his skin, instead choosing to glare at the olive-skinned assassin barely an inch away from his face. Her spiky black hair framed her smirk as she leaned backward.

Sunstorm was the most like Erica of his Champions. A trained assassin with a teleportation ability and she excelled at eliminating other Champions. Unlike Erica, who covered herself with a robe at all times, Sunstorm was rarely found without her skintight black uniform that made her lithe figure apparent. A pair of wicked short swords hung from her hips. Two onyxes and a single jade sat in her collarbone.

“Shouldn’t you be in Soreaux, Choe?” Nathan asked.

Sunstorm’s eyes flickered around the room. Only Ciana was here, so she didn’t whine about his usage of her true name.

“I was. But news of your little incident is spreading, so I came back. It’s not like it’s a long trip thanks to the mental gateways. Plus, it’s nicer to sleep in my own bed. Or yours, really.”

“It’s my turn tonight,” Ciana said, but her horn turned a deep black and her gaze turned assessing.

Sunstorm grinned from ear-to-ear. “You know me, Ciana. I’m no stranger to threesomes. Just say the word.”

“Hmm. I’ll think about it,” the unicorn teased, her blue eyes lighting up.

While his Champions made plans for his evening—or the late night, given the time he’d actually end up in bed at this rate—Nathan returned to his report. Sunstorm clicked her tongue and plucked it from his fingers.

“You’re right that you should get others to look at these for you. There’s a war on, you know,” she said.

“Not yet,” he said drily. Then paused. “Or did they declare it?”

“The hell should I know? I don’t care if a bunch of overdressed assholes want to pretend we’re waiting for them.” She rolled her eyes and leaned against his back. “I’m just saying you have more important things to do. You spent the morning in Falmir, then fought off an open attack against the palace, and now Reine’s hunting down cells inside Aleich.”

That caught his attention. Nathan let the reports lie.

Now he’d moved on to something else, Ciana took the opportunity to begin tidying up the paperwork.

“Cells? Last I heard, she still needed to interrogate the enemy agents she captured outside the palace,” he asked.

“I checked in with her on the way here. Pike’s helping out—or his Lady of Death is, at any rate. Not sure how useful the sorcerer is,” Sunstorm said.

“More than you think. There’s a reason he was the one Charlotte kept sending to do her dirty work both here and in Soreaux,” Nathan said.

The assassin frowned and curled a lock of her hair in one finger. “Right. Well, Reine’s worked out they’re a smart enough operation to keep intel on a need-to-know operation. But somebody is controlling them. Find them, find their masters. Somebody brought the Champions here and disposed of the nobles whose carriages they stole.”

Disposed of… “So we’re missing a count?”

“Yeah. Count von Harlik. Controls a relatively unimportant county near—”

“Waier,” Nathan finished for her, eyes hardening.

Sunstorm raised an eyebrow. Then her eyes narrowed. “Alright, if you’re namedropping Waier, that means you suspect our good pal Otto of being up to something. He acted weirdly when you spoke to him during the cascade. Not sure I pinned him for a traitor, though. Especially after he walked away from Falmir before.”

“He might not have a choice.”

“Oh. That sort of bullshit.” Sunstorm made a face. “Guess you’ll need to talk to the bimbos, huh?”

Ciana looked over from where she’d finished stacking up the reports. “They’re not stupid, Choe.”

“Yeah, but what little intelligence they’ve got left vanishes the moment Nathan waves his cock in front of them. Sometimes he doesn’t even have to do that.”

“Enough,” he said with a sigh. “But you’re right, they’re on the list. Tarako as well.”

Sunstorm’s quizzical gaze brought on a new explanation as he helped Ciana tidy up. As they left the room, some servants swept in to remove everything for him, accompanied by knights to ensure nothing went missing.

More time had passed than he thought. Torches lit up the halls of the palace and din of the Diet had long since vanished. Few, if any, servants wandered the corridors. Plenty of knights maintained security, however.

After a quick scan to ensure nothing was amiss, Nathan made his way to his bedroom. Alice remained upstairs with several others, including Otto and Milgar. Presumably they were discussing the aftermath of today’s Diet session and how tomorrow’s would go. Nothing Nathan needed to attend.

Curiously, all three of Nathan’s targets dwelled in one spot. Tarako and the Twins stood inside in his bedroom. That boded poorly.

He opened the door to his room, and raised voices poured forth.

“This isn’t your palace, you bratty rodent,” Laura snapped. “And we’re here to maintain security as much as you are.”

“More,” Maura drawled, but her lazy tone belied the fury in her voice. “So get rid of that fucking picture before I turn you into Nathan’s favorite new toy. I’m sure after a few millennia of being a frigid bitch you’ve tightened up enough for him to enjoy you for a while.”

“Cute,” Tarako said, her voice like ice. “But you’re not Nathan, and you don’t control security here. Today proved that assassins can strike at any time, and without teleportation inside the palace, I need to be able to protect him at a moment’s notice. As much as I’d love to carve failure into your corpses, I much prefer keeping him alive.”

“Yeah. Great. So strip and let him use you like a cocksleeve every night. Then you’ll be here all the time,” Maura said.

Nathan rubbed the bridge of his nose, while Sunstorm and Ciana looked at each other with grimaces.

Once again, Tarako and the Twins were at each other’s throats. And, once again, they certainly refused to hold back. Nathan worried they might follow through with their threats one day.

“Ahem,” he said, not even bothering to fake a cough.

The three women turned to face him, and he got a good look at them in the light of his room.

The Twins, Maura and Laura, were an obnoxiously buxom pair of succubi with thighs to match. They possessed the typical bronzed skin of succubi, along with curly goat horns and long white hair. While otherwise identical, their eyes differed. Maura’s eyes had black sclera along with their matching red eyes.

In the past, Nathan believed that made Maura the more dangerous sister. Not the brightest assessment he’d made, given Maura had been the one to fall in love with him, while Laura mostly played along with her sister. Both succubi wore simple one piece dresses, but in reversed black and white colors.

Tarako, by contrast, was a mystic fox so ancient she’d become fictional to most of the world. Tens of thousands of years old, her nine bronze tails marked her as the oldest and most powerful fox on Doumahr. Three blue zoisites twinkled above her modest chest. Ordinarily, she wore form-fitting clothing that showed off the lean muscles of a skilled swordfighter.

For whatever reason, she wore a strapless white nightgown that fell to mid-thigh. The gold trim around its edges was of an old-fashioned cord that must have taken hours for somebody to craft and painstakingly bind to the gown. She bared her lovely legs to the world, but the rest of her trim, muscular figure was kept a secret.

“See? Nathan certainly likes what he sees,” Laura said, noticing the way his eyes traced Tarako’s bare legs. “Now just bend over on his bed and you’ll provide all the security he needs. We’ll get rid of that painting in the meantime.”

The succubi turned toward a strange, empty portrait on the wall of his bedroom that hadn’t been there this morning. It was roughly man-sized and stood flat against the floor, as if somebody hadn’t finished hanging it. Ascended magic rippled off it.

“Enough,” he said. “You know how I feel about threats like that.”

“Who said we were threatening?” Maura muttered.

“Maura,” he rumbled.

She clicked her tongue. “Fine. Whatever. But it’s not like this hag is good for anything else.”

Tarako rolled her eyes. “I’m glad that’s settled. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

“Tarako, stay,” Nathan said.

Inadvertently, he let a little magic slip into his voice. Mental magic.

The fox’s entire body shuddered, her ears flattening against her head and her nine tails falling flat against the floor. She bit her lip and glanced at him, cheeks reddening.

Not quite the reaction he’d expected, even if he’d accidentally ordered her around with mental magic. He released the mental tether he’d created.

“Sorry,” he said.

“It’s fine,’ she mumbled, slapping her cheeks.

The succubi’s faces split in two as they grinned at Tarako, but they said nothing, preferring to giggle incessantly. Tarako spat a curse in her native tongue at them.

“Don’t start again,” Nathan growled.

Once the three women calmed down, he finally entered his bedroom properly and leaned against the back of the sofa in the room.

His bedroom was massive, as one expected from a man of his status. Half the room contained the preposterously large bed he slept in—which was only so large because it sometimes needed to contain as many as six or seven adults. The other half was split between a small lounge suite and dining set, including a large buffet table, dresser, and sideboard.

“I have things to talk with you about, but first, what the hell is the picture?” he asked.

Tarako puffed out her rather unimpressive chest. Or at least, unimpressive compared to the tits the Twins showed off, each of which eclipsed Tarako’s entire head in size.

“As I said earlier, I realized how much danger you remain in. Given the escalation in power the old cow is forcing upon us, it is my duty as your eldest and most experienced Champion to ensure your safety.”

Ciana’s expression turned to stone, while Sunstorm didn’t even hide a scoff.

“Why do you call the goddess an old cow, anyway?” Nathan asked.

“Because she is one,” Tarako said simply. She then pointed at the portrait. “This portrait is a portable gateway that connects to one in my room. It’s one of the many artifacts in my pocket dimension. It’s similar to a portable gateway. Although it only works over a short distance and needs to be connected to a binding stone. Far less useful than the gateways you humans invented, but extremely useful for moving around within a fortress.”

He frowned. Honestly, he found it hard to argue against it.

As if sensing his approval, the Twins pressed against his sides.

“She’s putting a gateway into your room. That’s a massive security risk,” Maura said.

“Yeah. Why can’t we have a doorway right into your room?” Laura asked.

“I mean, I don’t see why not,” he admitted. “The entrance is in Alice’s room because it started there. Presumably because I intended to sleep there more often.”

Or maybe Kadria had been pushing him to do so. Perhaps assuming he’d ignore Alice’s unwillingness to share with the other girls. She accepted he had many other lovers, but showed no interest in joining them in bed.

The Twins froze. Then tilted their heads as one, mouths opening into an “O” shape.

“Uh, you mean you haven’t tried moving it?” Maura poked him in the side. “We could have been sneaking into your room for morning blowjobs for ages now.”

Maura made a good argument for him to never create a mental gateway inside his room, or else he’d never know peace from his succubi. Their eyes transformed into slits in response to his thoughts.

“Oi,” she muttered.

He brushed them off and focused on Tarako. “So, you’ll use the portrait to enter my room if you think I’m at risk?”

The fox nodded. “Indeed. Ideally, I’d have a bed in here. That’s what I did with my last Bastion long ago, even when he was taking other women.”

“No,” he said flatly.

Ciana’s face had lit up the instant Tarako brought up the idea.

If he gave an inch for Tarako and let her sleep here, every other Champion would take a mile. His bedroom would become a dormitory for his Champions.

Row upon row of beds, as far as the eye could see. That’s what he imagined his bedroom would become. He’d be woken up every morning by Fei flopping onto him asking for breakfast. To say nothing of how often others would join in his nightly activities.

“What about security?” Sunstorm asked. “The bimbos are right about that. If somebody sneaks into your room ,they can get into Nathan’s. I’m vetoing that.”

“Who says you have veto power?” Maura asked.

“I do, as the only trained assassin under Nathan and the one who helps him and Reine with defenses against them.” Sunstorm’s eyes flashed. “You deal with succubus bullshit. I stop people poisoning his food or stabbing him in his bed.”

The Twins nodded bedgrudingly.

Tarako merely giggled. “I’m no fool. The painting has a spatial ward over it coded to me, so nobody else can use it. I tried coding it to any of Nathan’s Champions, but while I am a nine-tailed fox, I’m quite rusty at spellcraft. The Twins interrupted me while I was trying.”

Frowning, Nathan wondered if he might be able to help.

Then he realized there was somebody else more suited for it. “Have Narime take a look at it with you. And no, I’m not helping you if she asks for her own.”

Tarako’s tails lowered as she winced. Evidently he’d foreseen the reason she’d avoided asking for a favor.

“Very well. Thank you for agreeing with my preparation.” Tarako gave a half-bow. “It is my duty to protect you. Whatever my disagreements with some of your decisions and allies may be, you are the one protecting Doumahr and I placed myself into your service. You’ve proven yourself far more capable than I ever anticipated.”

“If you were as old and wise as the stories suggest, maybe you should have foreseen it,” Sunstorm said.

“Choe,” Nathan chided.

She grimaced and threw him an annoyed look, her eyes flickering at Tarako.

The fox rolled her eyes in return.

“I’m not merely from your country, brat, but the very highest echelons. You think I don’t know the names of every Champion from Kurai, even those barely old enough to flee?” Tarako’s expression darkened. “I know yours and Li—”

Nathan shot the fox a sharp glare, but she froze mid-sentence before he even looked at her. A sharp burst of mental magic rippled along his link with her before he even realized. Wincing, he released the spell.

“Don’t say Seraph’s name around others without her express permission,” Nathan said, voice laced with thunder. “Sure, both Ciana and Sunstorm know it.” He was pretty sure Ciana had picked it up simply through clinging to him 24/7, and everyone simply ignored the Twins. “But that doesn’t excuse you.”

“You’re right. My apologies, I let my temper get the better of me.” Tarako bowed stiffly, and her tails fanned out flat across his bed.

“Ooooh, this seems like the perfect time for punishment,” Laura cooed.

“No. I need information instead,” Nathan said. “About today. You two first.”

“Uh, punishment first?”

“No.” He stopped himself before he began looping, and the Twins smirked. “Look, I asked the two of you to check all of the nobles for mental magic, just in case. Did you find anything?”

“Uh, if we had, you’d know. Like hell we’d have let a compromised noble through with the shit that went down today,” Maura drawled. “They’re all clean.”

“All of them?” He frowned. Had Gareth been wrong? “What about Otto?”

“Uh… the archduke? Guy with the wife that looks way too much like Alice?” The succubus crossed her arms beneath her breasts, which caused them to nearly spill out the top of her dress. “Nope. Definitely clean. We checked him thoroughly during the cascade. Would have pinged you about him back then if we found anything.”

Laura ran a finger along Nathan’s arm. “Oh? Has a little bird told you something?”

“Gareth says Beatrice was meeting with Otto.”

The two succubi froze for an instant, and he felt mental activity between them. Telepathic communication between the Twins he couldn’t sense. Previously, he couldn’t even tell when they did this.

“No, he’s definitely clean,” Maura repeated, but more slowly this time. “Even in death, succubi leave traces. And Beatrice isn’t good enough to hide her handiwork from us if we’re checking for it.”

“Even in death?” Ciana asked.

“Yeah. Our mental magic doesn’t poof out of existence when we die. We’re not a fucking load-bearing pillar. If we turn somebody into a killing machine, they’ll stay one. Only difference is that we can’t give new orders.”

Nathan grimaced. “I guess the Inquisition had a point to execute anyone they thought had been controlled by a succubus, then.”

“Probably something taught to them by the slut goddess. She sure as hell knew how it worked, after all. Anyway, if Otto was working with Beatrice, it can’t be due to mental magic.”

“But he can still be a traitor,” Tarako added. “Do not be overly reliant on magic to explain away your foes. I doubt Princess Charlotte needed to manipulate the minds of Trafaumh’s greedy nobles to convince them to rebel.”

“Got it,” he said.

Not that he liked the conclusion.

Gareth knew Beatrice had been meeting with Otto. Otto had been acting strangely, including stalling the formal war against Falmir.

Maybe there was some logical explanation for it, but Nathan struggled to find it. Especially if he looked at today’s attack.

If anyone stood to benefit from Archduke von Milgar’s death, it was Otto von Salms. Despite Alice’s issues with Otto in the past, he had been proving a somewhat useful ally. If Milgar died, Otto might be the strongest ally Alice and Nathan possessed among the nobility, especially when military force came to bear.

He’d need to run this past Alice and Narime to be sure.

“Now for you,” he said, turning to Tarako.

The fox’s tail shot upright. “That sounds much more menacing than I believe you intended.”

“Oh, I’m sure he intends on following through on all the lewd things we’ve been talking about,” Laura teased, pressing her breasts against Nathan’s side so that they spilled across his arm.

“Not like that,” he groaned.

He explained the attack by Falmir’s Champions in detail, with a particular focus on the strange power they’d presumably been granted by Charlotte.

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” he asked.

“Hey, why not ask us first?” Maura whined.

“Okay, have you—” he began to ask.

“No.” Laura hit her sister in the arm while leaning in front of Nathan. “We’ve never seen the prophets active. How the hell would we know about this trick?”

Exactly why he hadn’t thought to ask them. Tarako grinned in triumph, while Maura pouted.

“As it turns out, I have.” Tarako’s grin vanished and her eyes seemed to sink into her face. “Not that I like remembering. It’s a technique I didn’t understand when I was young. The prophet… Or, really, the old cow uses it sparingly due to the cost. Typically only to fend off the elite Messengers when she’s at her weakest.”

Nathan parsed her statements. “So, when the goddess first emerges as a prophet, and later when everything is collapsing.”

The fox nodded. “During the fall of the dragons, there were stories of immensely powerful dragons able to hold off Messengers single-handedly, only to perish because they’d ‘burned up’ all their magical reserves. That could actually happen to dragons, so it was believable. Then it started happening to foxes when the old cow joined us. I thought nothing of it. When it happened again… I saw with my own eyes the rapid disintegration of friends. Their gems burned with her power—brightly, like literal stars—but their lives burned with them.”

Tears formed at the edges of the fox’s eyes as she balled her fists and glared at the ground.

Just how many foxes had died thanks to Omria “empowering” their gems like this?

“You’re saying the goddess can grant Champions extra power… at the cost of their lives?” Nathan asked. “I’ve never heard of that in any records. No Bastion secret ever handed down, or even the most ancient or secret record in the Lodges.”

“She stopped using it before the Empire became solidified enough to record it.” Tarako scowled. “The faeries are aware of it, however. I guarantee you can find old records in the Spires, if Arcadia won’t give you anything.”

“Wait, wait, wait. You’re telling me the titty princess can make super Champions?” Laura asked.

“I wouldn’t call them that. Even at their peak, their powers pale in comparison to gems like mine or the truly talented. And the burst of power is short. The moment a Champion starts using the power, their very essence begins to disintegrate. Mortal bodies can’t handle the raw power of a binding stone coursing through them. That’s why we need gems to channel them.”

The Twins looked at each other, then Nathan. Something twinkled in their eyes.

“Yeah. That’s totally true,” Maura said, sounding more than a little suspicious.

Tarako hadn’t missed their glance at Nathan, but she merely sighed. “I know what I said, and I stand by it. Take what you will from it.”

The Twins opened their mouths to say something more, then shut them.

“Alright, you win,” Laura said. “You were specific enough.”

The hell did that mean? Nathan knew he’d missed something.

But he had followed the most important part. “So we can expect more of these Champions, except they’re not a sustainable strategy.”

“Nothing that princess is doing seems sustainable. But she’s losing.” Tarako’s expression darkened. “You understand Messengers and demons, Nathan. The extent they will go to in order to end us, and the depravities they dwell within.”

“Oh yeah, he really understands how depraved we are.” Maura grinned and slid one hand beneath her dress.

Nathan hit her with a mental slap, unwilling to deal with her at the moment.

Tarako continued, “But you don’t know the goddess. Because she is one. A being used to being worshipped and treated as perfect. Even if you have the upper hand, more Champions than any Bastion has ever used in history, and a stronger prophet, you’re facing a goddess with vastly more experience at using her power. And if she’s using it, she’ll use dirty tricks. Including sacrificing her pawns. Because that’s all we are to her. Chess pieces.”

“Well, you and Kadria certainly agree on that front,” he said.

The fox frowned at the mention of the elder Messenger, but said nothing.

He had his answers, however. Even if he didn’t like them.

A potential traitor in the Diet and a desperate goddess throwing tricks at them usually reserved for fighting elite Messengers.

Nathan really hoped Reine dug up Falmir’s cell in Aleich before he went north for war. Because he worried the danger at home might be too great to leave alone, even if Falmir’s armies beckoned.

- - - - -

Commentary: The last of the rewritten chapters, with a completely different take on the Tarako/Twins section from last time. Everything is firmly in new territory, save for reusing some scenery for an eventual Kadria scene in her mental world.