Heretic Spellblade 7 - Ch1

Chapter 1

Moonlight streamed into the parlor of the Imperial palace, glinting off the armor of the Royal Knights standing guard by the room’s exits. Two people sat at separate tables with the only lit lamps in the room. Arched windows framed the gargantuan hall, and Aleich, the capital of the Anfang Empire, lay beyond them. Despite the late hour, light streamed along its busy streets.

Nathan sat in the corner, away from the windows and doors, whiling away at his straw-colored wheat ale. The warm weather of summer steered him away from heavier stuff. He wore the Royal Bastion uniform of the Empire, sword at his hip and jacket hung over the back of the chair. His unkempt black hair somehow looked worse than usual. He stared into his drink, lost in thought.

Footsteps drew him back to reality. Too many to be one of his Champions. Too few to be either of his fiancées.

The lamps clicked on automatically as the Royal Knights swung into action and opened the doors. Their eerie ability to remain deathly still while on guard duty and not activate the lights was almost nostalgic.

Although the source of the nostalgia was a unicorn knight sitting at another table. Ciana scribbled in a book to pass the time, her golden horse ears and long, silken tail twitching every few minutes. Her bright blue eyes shot to the door and she snapped the book shut upon the arrival of the visitor. While she appeared unworried, her iridescent horn shimmered with darkness and she clenched her prosthetic left fist.

“Gareth, don’t you have work to do?” Nathan said to the newcomer.

With a wry smile, Gareth gave an exaggerated shrug and even raised his hands into the air. “Is that a joke? I’ve barely had anything to do since joining you a few days ago.”

Until Nathan’s battle with him, Gareth had dutifully served the Kingdom of Falmir. Now he’d switched to a black and silver Imperial Bastion’s uniform plus a sorcerer’s cloak. He possessed a lanky figure with a gaunt face and a perpetually amused expression, and was around ten years Nathan’s senior.

A small escort of knights accompanied him, plus Gareth’s loyal Champion, Beth, complete with heavy armor. Nathan waved them away and gestured Gareth to join him.

After a questioning glance at Gareth, Beth joined Ciana. The unicorn rose with a smile and made for one of the cabinets adorning the walls. Nathan beat her to it with a wave of his hand and a glimmer of green wind magic.

Or he tried to, anyway. Ciana blurred across the room, slammed the cabinet doors open, and produced a tray with glasses. One of the two diamonds embedded in her collarbone gleamed, although the alexandrite remained dim. She’d used one of her Champion abilities to move faster than Nathan could cast a spell, just to serve beers.

“Must be hard to dress yourself these days,” Gareth said drily.

“I know you’re joking, but it’s truer than you think,” Nathan said.

“Wow. Truly torturous. My heart weeps for thee.” Gareth’s perpetual amusement made it difficult to tell how serious he was, but Nathan guessed he was a touch annoyed. “I’ve seen your elite Champions in action a few times before, but being around them when they’re not the embodiments of death is different. I always felt Leopold did well with his harem, but yours blows his out of the water. Plus you claimed his.”

Ciana froze where she was pouring beer from the kegs. Before a glass overflowed, she snapped out of it and made her way to the table.

A brittle smile crossed her face. “For you, Bastion Gareth.”

Gareth winced. “Ah, no offense meant.” He didn’t take the beer yet.

“I’ve kept my relations with Leopold’s Champions non-sexual,” Nathan explained.

“I’ll take your word for it. Like I said, no offense meant. Or maybe it’s one of your special tricks again.”

It was, but one that was difficult to teach or explain. Nathan’s use of mental magic might cause immense complications and needed a delicate touch when he explained it to Gareth.

As if realizing she might be making things awkward, Ciana gave Gareth his drink before puttering over to her table with the other for Beth. The stout woman shot her own Bastion a glare before accepting her beer from Ciana.

Gareth ignored the Champions, and instead took a careful sip of his beer. He grimaced. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you Imperials need to drink stronger stuff. Falmir is awash with amazing ales, and this stuff is so clean it’s like somebody waved the hops over water.”

“Tell the Twins that and they’ll give you something that will blow your mind,” Nathan said. “I avoid drinking anything they create because it makes our food taste less… real. It’s hard to explain.”

“The magically created food tastes more real than the actual stuff? You sure it’s not stuffed with succubi magic?”

“No. I know what that feels like. It’s more that everything is just more. Saltier, sweeter, more balanced, or it just pops in your mouth.” A smile rose to Nathan’s face from a memory. “They started slipping Fei some weird drinks and I had to ban them because she started bouncing off the walls.”

“She already bounces off the walls,” Gareth said.

“Then you understand why I banned the drinks.”

His old friend nodded solemnly. Or at least, Nathan thought of him as an old friend, even if Gareth didn’t. In Nathan’s old world, Gareth had been his mentor. Here, they’d been closer to rivals.

And Nathan hadn’t been entirely truthful about why he banned those drinks. He recalled vividly the morning he punished the Twins. Fei had kept him up all night in bed, and seemed to be both tired and energetic at the same time while pushing him to keep going. While the Twins swore the cans of drink had nothing other than sugar in them, he sincerely doubted that.

Maybe people in their world drank stuff with sexual stimulants in them and didn’t even realize it. Or perhaps beastkin were sensitive to something that humans weren’t. Maura had muttered something about the unreliability of “the FDA.”

With “greetings” out of the way, the two men settled into their chairs. The lamps above the entrance remained on, as the new knights bustled about. There were around a dozen of them in total now.

Usually, Nathan didn’t bother with an escort besides Ciana. Anybody capable of threatening him wouldn’t be slowed down by a few knights. But he’d been told about the perception of being unguarded and forced to accept a small escort that followed him everywhere except his bedroom—and he had his doubts about that, given the habits of his overly-loyal knights.

Gareth, on the other hand, had an escort for a more troubling reason.

Put simply, he might be a spy. While Nathan wanted to trust the man he once trusted above all others, that might be an easy way to ruin everything. Gareth had switched sides in a dangerous situation, where refusing meant imprisonment or death. Only a fool would trust him blindly. Hence a handful of knights to keep an eye on him.

Especially with tensions still high. Falmir’s armies remained in Trafaumh and on the borders of the Empire. Two elite Messengers roamed Doumahr—Bauer and Artemis—and nobody knew who or what they served.

“You know, you’re a lot more mopey than I expected,” Gareth said abruptly. “Erica says you’re broody, but that just sounds like a way to dress up moping.”

“That sounds like jealousy talking,” Nathan said.

His friend rolled his eyes. “That prophet of yours is more likely to betray you than Erica is to show interest in men. Or people in general.”

“She’s pretty misanthropic. I’m pretty sure the two of you get along so well for that exact reason.”

Gareth winked at him. “You and your future knowledge… or, uh, alternate world from the future knowledge. I know a lot, but this infinite timelines stuff is a lot to wrap my head around. The only stuff written about it are crackpot theories buried in ancient binders in the Imperial Sorcerers’ Lodge. Literal loose papers. But, yeah, you’re right.”

He raised his beer for a toast, grinning, and Nathan clinked his glass against it. The two drank, while Beth huffed at them from nearby.

“Beth was your first Champion, right?” Nathan asked.

“Shouldn’t you know all this?” Gareth replied.

Nathan shrugged. “You might not believe this, but I was dumb and reckless in my original world. Less concerned about the past of my mentor, more interested in what he could teach me about killing demons and convincing the princess to drop her panties.”

“Did she? Drop her panties, I mean? She’s, uh, kind of interested in you, I think. Treats Oliver like a pet, although I’m certain he hasn’t gotten lucky.”

“She never treated me even half as well. Acted more like… Hmm, not like Alice. She had Alice’s political façade, but was used to getting her way and kept us at a distance. We were convenient tools in a kingdom run by nobles growing increasingly disloyal to the monarchy.”

Gareth sighed, downed the rest of his beer, then rose and topped it up from the tankard hidden in the cabinet. “Yeah, that sounds about right. Can’t blame your disinterest in me when you were young. You seem to know my backstory. That mummy of an archduke banged a loose royal—one of the king’s sisters—and I resulted. All sorts of complications there. So they shoved me into a boarding school, then a mage tower once my talent with magic became apparent.”

“Then you got picked up as a Bastion by a sorcerer looking to retire. Netted you two binding stones in short order,” Nathan said, recognizing this part of the story. “It also got you sent to Kurai.”

A bark of laughter escaped Gareth. His eyes glinted with dark amusement as he returned to his seat. “No, I got sent to Kurai because I’d become too powerful. A royal bastard tossed out like garbage becoming a capable Bastion at a time of rising Republican influence? They feared I’d be a useful patsy to somebody like Adam Martel. He’d already approached me, seeking to appoint me to the throne should the king… succumb to an accident.”

“Wow. My old man was planning to off the king that early?” Nathan wouldn’t have even been born by then. He was pretty sure he was born because Adam saw how close he came to death due to a Messenger, went home, and produced an heir.

“Yup. And it nearly got me killed, along with so many others on that hellscape of a peninsula. I never battled Siv—that’s her name, right?—but I saw the aftermath.” Gareth’s eyes stared into the distance, well past the wall behind Nathan.

Silence reigned. While the older Bastion dwelt on his memories, Nathan gazed out upon the capital. Usually it would be dimly lit, but night markets took place regularly during summer. Many stores closed in the middle of the day due to the heat but they opened late. Cheap, fruity alcohol flowed freely, although it would only grow cheaper and more plentiful.

While Nathan hadn’t spent a summer in Aleich yet, he’d seen many in his years in his old world. His knights were incorrigible when it came to food and liquor, and still had vats full of wine they’d snapped up during the recent civil war. If they weren’t busy battling Falmir, they’d be getting sloshed on the streets of Aleich. Some already had. He’d foreseen this and banned uniforms when drinking.

Nobody wanted to see the kingdom’s greatest defenders passed out drunk in the capital’s night markets.

But the sight of the active night markets warmed Nathans’ heart. Despite all the ongoing chaos, everyone kept doing what they always had. He’d have to make sure the same applied in the parts of Trafaumh he was responsible for.

“Damn, I ended up moping too.” Gareth sighed and slugged back some beer. “So why do you mope so much? I expected a more relentless, give-no-shits, orgies-every-day guy. You have fifty million Champions, half the binding stones on Doumahr, political control over the Empire and Trafaumh, and an empress and archduchess as wives.”

“Future wives,” Nathan corrected.

“That’s the only part you’re correcting?”

“It’s pointless to correct the rest. Anyway, I mope for the same reason you are. Loss.” He grimaced. “I told you, didn’t I? Everything went to hell, so I came here. You don’t watch your best friend sacrifice himself for a country that hated him and just shrug it off.”

A slow nod from Gareth. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t look at me like I’m your best friend. We joke a bit, but you’re still pretty guarded.”

“You’re not the man I spent nearly a decade with. He’s dead. You’re not, and I want to be friends, but this is a different world, a different life, and a different future. I can’t magically bring him back, only change your fate.”

This time, Nathan raised his glass for a toast. Gareth stared at him for a while, then nodded and accepted. Their glasses clinked.

“I’ll drink to that,” Gareth said, before chugging back his beer. He rose. “I really should sleep. And so should you, mope-man. But before that…” He paused.

Seconds passed. Nathan polished off his beer in the time. Something fought within Gareth, as if he knew he was crossing some internal boundary.

Then, he said, “You know von Salms, right?”

“The dead one or the living one?”

“The new archduke. Otto von Salms.”

Nathan nodded.

“He’s an agent for Falmir. Beatrice met with him regularly after Charlotte’s failed attempt to invade the Empire.” Gareth’s face was an inscrutable mask as he turned away and swept out of the room.

Beth swore, gulping down her own beer before chasing him. “Fucking hell, Pike, you can’t just fucking run off like that.”

Within a few seconds, Gareth, Beth, and his escort of knights left. Nathan and Ciana sat alone in the parlor.

When Ciana attempted to clean up, Nathan stopped her. “Let the servants deal with this. That’s their job, and you’re a Champion. There are limits to helpfulness, Ciana.”

She winced. “Right.”

“Let’s get some sleep.” He made to leave, then stopped. “Uh, I forget whose night it is.”

“It’s mine.” She smiled at him and looped her prosthetic arm through his. It felt exactly like her real arm. “I realized you wanted a quiet night, so turned down invitations from the others to join us. We can just… cuddle, if you’d like.”

“Cuddling sounds good.” Nathan had spent most of the day in meetings, plus some magic practice, and hardly felt in the mood to make his bed shake.

Not to mention he needed time to digest Gareth’s revelation.

They retreated through the palace’s winding corridors. Patrols of knights greeted them, and they even stumbled across one of the monogem Champions assigned here. Nathan hadn’t bothered to check how late it was, but knew it couldn’t be midnight yet as the night markets had still been open when they left the parlor.

Even so, the halls seemed eerily empty of everyone save soldiers. Despite the late hour, more than a few servants should be bustling about to clean rooms that were otherwise full of people at all hours, repairing broken lamps, and refilling the stocks of the many kitchens and liquor cabinets.

Nathan held up his hand as he came to a stop. His escort immediately drew their swords, realizing something was amiss. One of Ciana’s diamonds glowed.

Unsure if something had actually gone wrong, he said nothing. Instead, he drew on the power of the Imperial Palace itself, which acted as a binding stone. Within its walls, nothing escaped his gaze and every stone, board, and tile bent to his whim.

The world slowed to a crawl as he did so. The swishing tails of the demihumans in his escort ceased to move, and Ciana blinked so slowly that minutes might pass before she finished. This was the Bastion ability of time dilation, which drew on the innate power of binding stones and enabled them to think at super speed. Also to cast at super speed, if the Bastion knew what they were doing.

Nathan should use it more often, but had been hesitant since the Twins caught him off-guard years ago. Because the power wasn’t truly unique to binding stones. Any demonic Messenger could utilize it, if they possessed spatial magic. Nathan didn’t fully understand how time dilation worked, however. The Twins didn’t appear to utilize it themselves, but could butt in whenever he used it.

Like many things about the binding stones, there was something unique to the power that overlapped with Messenger abilities. Likely because the goddess Omria had once been a Messenger herself, and a succubus at that.

Pulling his thoughts away from his concerns, he monitored the entire palace through its walls and his magic. He rarely did this. His spymaster, Reine, kept an eye on things in his place but couldn’t monitor everything. He’d also keyed the palace to specific magical wavelengths that should set off alarms automatically.

Should a Messenger show up and begin blasting things, or a succubus use mental magic without his explicit permission, he’d know without even looking for it. In theory.

The gap between theory and reality was what he worried about. Would he catch spies or agents sent by Falmir or Messengers like this? Had the servants already been killed?

Nothing in the hallways that he didn’t expect. Most of his Champions were in their bedrooms or offices. For some reason, the Twins were arguing with Tarako in his bedroom. If the succubi twigged to his time dilation, they hadn’t reacted yet.

When he scanned the servant rooms, the mystery only deepened. Various maids, butlers, and maintenance workers busied themselves around the palace. Except in the royal wing of the palace, where he, Alice, former Emperor Gorthal, and many of Nathan’s Champions resided.

Yet he found servants milling about in the cluster of rooms allocated to the servants for their duties in the wing. They chatted, made tea, napped, prepared tools for future work, and generally went about their business.

Confused, Nathan nearly let go of the palace’s power. He’d found nothing to indicate the servants were missing. Just that they were slacking. He’d need to send a knight to chase them up. Not that it was any of his business, but it annoyed him.

Then he froze. His senses locked onto the lamps inside the servant quarters. He couldn’t “see” them, so to speak, but the lamps were part of the palace. The magic that powered them came from the same source that he drew on to cast his spells.

And the lamps were off. At this time of night, despite being motion-activated like every other lamp in the palace.

Someone had fooled his perception somehow. Illusions?

He’d have time to work it out later.

“We have intruders,” he snapped, returning to reality as time snapped back to normal speed. “Somebody’s broken into the nearby servant rooms.”

Crashing emanated from a neighboring corridor, precisely from where he’d just been looking. His knights spun, shouting in alarm and to raise attention.

Nathan wasted no time. He reached out with his magic and activated the palace’s alarms.

Or tried to. Another power actively fought him, its magic gumming up the enchantments he’d laid across the palace to detect all sorts of spells. Somehow, his opponent’s spell felt both sloppy and highly precise at the same time.

No, it wasn’t the spell that was sloppy. It was how it was used. The magic preventing the alarm from activating was extremely powerful and designed by somebody who understood magical theory at a far deeper level than Nathan might ever, yet it had been laid across his alarm spells like a huge net. No matter how well-crafted the net, it was still being tossed across an entire palace. Although that craftsmanship had been the reason he hadn’t detected it.

Somebody with immense power—or, really, immense backing—had suppressed the palace’s detection systems and snuck in.

That crashing grew closer while Nathan battled with the spell suppressing his own magic, his arm glowing with power. The noises drew shouts from the nearby bedrooms, and Sunstorm appeared in the hall in little more than panties and her cloth bindings. Her olive skin gleamed in the lamplight, but Nathan didn’t waste time appreciating her appearance or the wet drops in her hair that suggested a recent shower.

Instead, he grit his teeth and rammed power through the palace’s wards and enchantments. The walls rumbled and a dim sheen emanated from the walls and floor. Anyone who hadn’t noticed the ruckus surely had.

A second later, alarms rang out in every corner of the castle. Magical bells clattered and speakers shouted orders for the knights to ready themselves. The slamming of doors echoed down the corridors.

The question was, had Nathan been fast enough?

Because what rounded the corner was a threat he genuinely feared.

A black-haired catgirl with a bushy cat’s tail, three amethysts, and a Falmirian Champion’s uniform. A scimitar gleamed in her hand. Her green eyes bore into Nathan’s, utterly ignoring everyone else in the corridor.

“Mine,” Artemis said.

- - - - -

Commentary: So it begins. Not quite the beginning of the end, but Book 7 is close to it. A lot of things are going to be closed out in this book. Which is part of the reason I've been struggling to really get it going.

I've rewritten these opening chapters more times than I care to admit. I even took a break to edit Mob 2 because I wrote a "final" version, then started rewriting them again. The issue is that Book 6 ended abruptly, when I really should have had one or two extra chapters to close out matters in Soreaux and a PoV chapter to establish what Charlotte was doing (and her relation with Artemis and Bauer). That way, I could have jumped right into the action. Instead, I need to close out stuff from the climax of Book 6 while trying to get everyone going for this book.

Book 7 has an ending set in stone. The ending has been set in stone since I started writing Book 3, but it also means a lot of plot threads must be handled by the time Act 2 finishes in the book. So, good luck me. I recommend that you strap in.