Heretic Spellblade 6 - Ch12

Chapter 12

“Are you sure?” Reine asked while creeping forward a single step at a time.

Tarako guffawed. “And you gave me guff about questioning you. Even your loyal subordinate is wary.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Reine mumbled.

She balled her robe in her fists, but remained facing forward. Nathan suspected her scrying might be directed at the ground. It’s not as though Reine had a reason to physically point her face downward, after all.

“Lord Nathan’s decisions are always guided by his brilliant insight,” Reine said. “I just worry he’s being rash, given the troubles currently facing us. If it helps, I am more than happy to wait until later.”

“No. You’ve acclimated to your Champion enhancement and the alexandrite is ready. If I sense even the slightest problem, I’ll abort the ceremony, but we’re trying it now.” Nathan took a step forward and reached out to reassure her.

Reine leaned forward and pushed her head into his hand, her ears lowering as he rubbed against her. The other beastkin barely hid their jealousy.

“Anyway, give me a few minutes to draw up a ritual circle,” he said. “You’ll need to remove your robe in the meantime.”

She tilted her head at him. “You haven’t used a circle for monogem ceremonies before.”

“I have sometimes, when I don’t want to risk anything going wrong. A circle allows me to focus my magic better, and I’d like all the help I can get given Tarako’s warning.”

The fox kept her face studiously neutral.

That concerned him. While she’d said little more on the topic since her earlier outburst, Nathan still got the feeling she disapproved. That suggested something might be awry.

Reine shrugged off her baggy robe while he slowly drew a large ritual circle on the stonework. Her dress was one of those that Narime had been forcing on her, which worked well for the ceremony given it revealed her substantial cleavage and enough skin to insert a gem.

Partway through drawing the circle, Nathan paused. He’d been automatically drawing the usual one he used for trigems, which almost felt like overkill.

Yet he hardly knew what he was handling here. He’d expected the difficulty of using alexandrite to be the gem itself, not the ceremony. No gem had ever been that different in his experience. Tarako’s words shook him, as he realized he might be treading new ground.

Unfortunately, nobody could provide him with the advice he needed. The reason Tarako had needed him was precisely because no other Bastion had the capability of supporting her, so who might know enough to help him gem Reine with alexandrite?

Three people abruptly came to mind. One might not be too useful at the moment, given the way Kadria refused to teach him outright and instead prodded him to teach himself.

But a pair of lazy Messengers who had vanished last night had taught Nathan almost everything he knew about mental and spatial magic, and supposedly excelled at manipulating magic. He had a hunch they might know more about handling gems than they’d let on.

“Give me a little longer,” he said aloud.

Then he prodded the Twins over their mental link. No response. Not that he could ever be certain with them, as while he could intrude on their minds at will, they possessed powerful barriers and had reinforced the link multiple times. While they could spy on him at will, he needed to actively monitor them to accomplish the same.

But he didn’t want them to lounge around. So he gave them a much more powerful shove. This time, he felt them buzz him in response. A mixture of annoyance and lust filtered across the link.

The more he used his mental links, the more he began to feel the emotions of the various women connected across them. Perhaps this was how Seraph, Ciana, and Fyre could monitor his emotions and thoughts. He’d simply ignored the possibility until now.

By the time Nathan finished his circle, the Twins appeared. They lazily floated across the courtyard from the rear palace entrance. Grimaces rose to the faces of the assembled Champions. Tarako raised an eyebrow at them.

“Do you really let them just wander around unchained?” the fox asked.

“I thought I’d sensed something moldy and unpleasant join us last night,” Laura said as she descended, screwing up her face as if around something foul smelling.

“Why’s the hag here?” Maura whined as she leaned against Nathan, her tits pressing against his side. “You realize her pussy is drier than the Sahara, right?”

“The what?” he asked.

“The Houkeem,” Maura corrected, referring to the massive desert to the east.

“I might be a hag, but I bet I know how to handle him better than you oversized cows,” Tarako said, narrowing her eyes and pushing out her chest.

Not the smartest motion, given Tarako and the Twins were almost polar opposites when it came to body shapes. Tarako reminded Nathan of Kadria, which might explain why the dopey succubi hated the fox.

The Twins reared back and covered their mouths with their hands, before the most obnoxious laugh escaped them.

“Ohohohoh, quite the claim,” Laura said, her voice more obnoxious than usual.

“You got that right. I hope Nathan never wastes his time on you. You’ll be crying about how his dick will break you and snap you in half.” Maura sneered. “Although maybe that wouldn’t be too bad to watch.”

“I could say the same about watching him use the two of you like cheap—” Tarako began to say, her eyes aflame.

“Stop, please,” Nathan interrupted, exasperated.

Fortunately, nobody seized up due to some unexpected mental command. Likely because he’d tacked on the “please.”

“I don’t even know why you don’t get along. Heck, I don’t even know why Astra dislikes you, Tarako. You’re proving less popular than I expected,” he said.

“Hey! Everyone else loves me. Don’t blame me because the dark elf bought into Om… the goddess’s sourness toward me,” Tarako said.

“Not sourness. Distrust,” Astra said.

“Sure. Whatever you say.” The fox rolled her eyes. “She always disliked those foxes who bore my creator’s mark. Although it’s curious to learn that Astra holds a similar power, and the goddess liked her.”

Astra grimaced and looked away.

“Yup. Totally curious.” Maura smirked.

“Totally not because the slut goddess was sympathetic. Nope.”

“Lies,” Astra muttered. “She was a friend.”

“Oh, I know that. But she chose you for a friend, over an entire civilization of humans. A dark elf from a race that she detested.” Tarako’s expression tightened. “The legendary Astra, bridge between humanity and the dark elves, and the last living memory of the goddess. It always bothered me. Still does, knowing that what drew her to you is a poisoned chalice you almost certainly should never have drank from.”

Astra snarled something in dark elf, and her opals glowed. Nurevia visibly flinched and her hands twitched in the direction of her crossbows.

Yet Tarako remained unmoved.

“I don’t think any of us can cast stones about poisoned chalices,” Nathan said.

“Perhaps,” Tarako said. “I’m drinking from yours right now, after all.”

“Is that how you view it?”

She smiled darkly. “Absolutely. Now that I’ve met these pets of yours, I’m more convinced than ever that victory is possible, yet I’m more uncertain of what comes afterward than ever. It’s a strange feeling after so many repetitive cycles.”

“Don’t pretend you understand the cycles,” Maura snapped. “This hag is a fraud. She understands a sliver of what’s going on.”

Nathan understood that. Yet Tarako did know a lot about Doumahr and the Messengers, even if she wasn’t an expert on the dimensional nonsense.

“So why do you hate her?” he asked.

Maura snorted. “We don’t hate her. That suggests we think of her as more than a particularly annoying insect.”

“She’s just really annoying,” Laura said.

He stared at them. The Twins sighed.

“Look, the goat told you about how she hated the Hound, right? And none of us like when wolfie here munches on magic grass and ascends to some higher realm or whatever bullshit Trafaumh does to make her so dangerous,” Maura said.

“Magic grass?” Reine asked, her expression the picture of confusion.

“She’s our equivalent,” Maura continued. “Watch.”

The succubus raised one arm, wreathing it in darkness. A shout rose in Nathan’s throat and he reached for his sword. Seraph’s tonfas shot into her hands.

That arm snapped down toward Tarako.

All three of the fox’s gems glowed. In the blink of an eye, so fast that Nathan struggled to follow, several things happened in quick succession.

An ornate short sword appeared on Tarako’s hip. Her arm blurred to it, and the air in front of her shimmered. Wind blasted across the courtyard in response, lifting up skirts, loose clothing, and leaves.

A thin cloud of darkness appeared across Maura’s body, only to burst apart. The succubus scowled once her arm lowered and remained still.

Nathan gulped. He’d felt the spatial magic that rippled across the courtyard faster than he could possibly react.

Abruptly, Maura’s dress exploded into ribbons, leaving her naked. Nine thin white lines ran across her bronzed skin. Each cut remained too shallow to bleed, but deep enough to be visible.

Tarako’s sword vanished as she bristled with barely contained fury. “I should reduce you to bloody ribbons for attempting that. It’s only respect for Nathan and the knowledge that you’re little more than his fuck pets and minions that I stayed my hand.”

“Strong words for his newest minion,” Maura said, more than a touch bitterly. She waved her hand and her black dress reformed on her body. A tinge of fear remained visible in her eyes, however.

Nathan finally let go of the breath he’d been holding since Maura raised her arm. “That was the Nine Tail Slash.”

“Yes. Like it?” Tarako tried to regain her usual perky demeanor and smirked at him. “Not how I planned to reveal it, but it works.”

“It’s a spatial attack.”

“The most annoying one,” Laura said.

“Yup. Nine simultaneous spatial slashes. Makes that stupid Tsubame Gaeshi sword legend from my world look like a joke.” Maura ground her teeth together. “It’s combined with her ridiculous speed enhancement and all those magic swords in her pocket dimension to make her annoying as shit.”

“You talk as if you’ve fought me before. Yet we’ve never met.” Tarako narrowed her eyes. “This is because of the alternate worlds Nathan spoke of. You’ve killed me before. And I’ve killed you.”

A few of the Champions seemed confused, but Nathan didn’t have the time to correct things.

“Other versions. Although we rarely beat you if you actually have all your gems active. Your mind’s a fortress thanks to the ancient training you have and your spatial magic is better than ours,” Maura said. “If we win it’s because you show weakness when we take control of one of your disciples, or we catch you by surprise and you can’t slice us up. Koji came up with most of his bullshit to ensure he could handle you.”

“Koji?”

“Thanatos. The Messenger who attacked the Spires during the civil war and who breached near Mortiswatch,” Nathan explained.

“Ah. I recall him. The loudmouth.” Tarako frowned. “I… see. He had immunity to spatial attacks, could teleport, possessed magic-absorbing flames, and could turn off ascended magic. Yes. That’s a set of skills built to defeat me.”

“You never told me that Thanatos built his skills around fighting Tarako,” he told the Twins.

“You never asked,” Laura said.

“Also, it’s not like his power didn’t work against other threats. This hag is just one of the major threats.” The Twins shrugged. “We can handle the Hound. Koji deals with this hag. Beatrice has Arcadia and Falmir on lockdown. If the Frenchies are ever a threat, the goat usually dealt with them.”

Nathan’s Champions shifted uncomfortably. The ease with which the Twins talked about how the Messengers dismantled Doumahr troubled them. It spoke to the systematization of the destruction of their world, over and over again.

Even he found it difficult to hear, and they’d told him about it before.

“I’ll be blunt. Are there any other superweapons I don’t know about? I could really use some,” he said drily.

Maura rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah, I can tell. You have us, the goat, a prophet, a billion trigems, can mix-and-match gems, an entire Empire at your beck-and-call, half of Doumahr’s binding stones, and two living legends.”

“There aren’t any,” Laura said. “Unless the goat’s holding out on you, but she’s given you the prophet.”

Nathan nodded slowly. For now, he’d have to accept that.

“Hey, you never said how anyone handles Astra.” Nurevia patted the other dark elf on the shoulder, before getting elbowed for touching her. “She’s immortal. How do you beat her?”

“Um.” Maura looked at her sister, who shrugged. “We don’t. Avoiding her is best. She vanishes or dies sometimes, but I have no clue how. If that crazy kitty we fought can’t hurt her, what makes you think we can?”

Nathan frowned. Astra had died in his world when the Spires detonated their binding stones. Was that the level of destruction required to truly harm her?

“We’ve gone off topic,” he said. “Maura, Laura, I need your help with gemming Reine.”

“Last time I checked, you were the specialist at sticking things in chicks, while we excelled at taking them.” Maura patted his crotch for good measure. “And while I’m interested in a lot of things, that’s not something I care to change.”

“Not what I meant.”

“Oh, come on. At least play along a little. I missed the hag moaning sweetly like a bitch in heat when you claimed her, after all.”

Tarako looked at Seraph as if to ask, “are they always like this?” Seraph nodded grimly, and the fox sighed.

“I know how to gem Champions. It’s all about mental tethers and providing a conduit between my binding stones and their gems,” Nathan explained, pretending that Maura hadn’t said anything. “Mental stability is also important, although it’s less so now.”

“So, what do you want from us?” Laura asked, hand on one hip.

“This alexandrite gem supposedly channels power from the goddess better. I’m worried about what that means.”

The succubus narrowed her eyes. For some reason, Maura remained silent and let her sister think.

“Not sure I’d put it that way, but maybe the goat would have a different opinion.” Laura bit her lip. “I’m not familiar with it, as nobody has used alexandrite since we arrived. Given how the relics are used, that’s probably accurate.”

“You’re oddly serious all of a sudden,” Seraph said.

“I know my shit. I just don’t need to apply myself.” Laura huffed and flicked her long hair over one shoulder. “Anyway, I’m guessing alexandrite is a bitch to use because it’s too girthy for your average Champion’s tether. The tethers you make are a lot better now than they were when you first claimed us, but if you ram enough power down one it’ll shatter. What happens then?”

“I can guess,” Nathan said darkly.

A failed gemming ceremony shattered the mind of a Champion, turning them into a mindless husk that could do little more than obey simple orders. Assuming they even survived.

“Yup. You probably would have realized while establishing the link and fixed the problem, but you can solve it in advance by making the tether really big and fat for each gem,” Laura continued. “You’ve been doing something similar since you first gave that unicorn her second gem, but you need to make the tether much bigger. Give each alexandrite a dedicated highway to your binding stones, instead of a little road. And definitely don’t use one tether for all her gems like most Bastions do.”

Tarako scratched her head. “I’m not sure that’s as easy as you make it sound. Establishing a connection to a Champion is a deeply complicated and personal ritual for a Bastion and—”

“Oh, shut up, hag, and let Nathan show off,” Maura snapped.

Glares were exchanged between the pair, and Nathan swore a fight might break out.

“I’ll try that,” he said. “I actually figured it’d be about the ritual more than the mental connection.”

“I mean, it might be.” Laura shrugged. “But I can’t see why. You’ve made all your advancements in creating Champions through mental magic, right? That’s because the actual magic behind it is super simple. If it wasn’t there’s no chance Neanderthals like your old man could be Bastions.”

Her reasoning appeared solid to him. Once again, Laura had proved to be the brains of the Twins and revealed that, when she cared to, she could match Kadria in her understanding of how magic worked. The difference appeared to be that Kadria focused more on how Doumahr and Omria functioned, whereas the Twins excelled at magic itself.

Even though he knew they’d always intended to support him in an attempt to turn him to darkness, the casual way the Twins revealed their true power and knowledge bothered him. Unlike Kadria, who fought tooth and nail to keep her secrets from Nathan, the Twins offered them up on a platter if he simply asked.

He supposed that was the point. Whenever he ran into a problem, who did he ask for help?

Who had he just asked for help, in fact?

“Thanks,” he told the Twins.

Maura scratched her cheek and blushed. “Don’t mention it.”

“I’m the one who helped, dimwit,” Laura drawled. She smirked at Nathan. “Do mention it. It’s always so cute to see Sis like this.”

“Fuck off.”

“I’m sure Nathan would happily fuck you if you asked. Even in front of—”

Before the two could begin openly fighting each other, he gave them both mental slaps. They pouted at him, but hovered over to the sidelines obediently.

“Reine, step into the circle. I’m ready now,” he told his Spymaster.

While her tail wagged wildly behind her, Reine showed few other signs of nervousness. She stared blankly at Nathan as he approached her. As always, he had no clue what she stared at with those golden winged eyes of hers.

“How are you feeling?” he asked her.

“Confident,” she said. “I trust you with everything.”

He smiled at her, and she smiled back. Her cheeks reddened.

“The first gem ability—” he began to say.

“Cannot be chosen. I recall from monitoring earlier ceremonies.” Reine nodded. “I shall instead focus on the sort of Champion I wish to be and how I want to support you. Especially as neither of us know exactly how this gem might support my abilities.”

“Thank you for understanding. Now, hold still. The first time always hurts the most.”

The beautifully carved purple gemstone slid into Reine’s collarbone without a hitch. Her eyes teared up, yet she barely twitched or showed any reaction. Not even the slightest shake affected her body. As it sank into her flesh, it glowed like a purple sun as he pushed a little power into it.

Then the insertion was done. Reine’s fingers tapped against the gem.

“I’m ready,” she said, voice steady.

Nathan nodded, keeping his own expression unchanged. Her endurance unnerved him. He felt a deep hatred toward Trafaumh and Baudelaire for whatever torture they had put Reine through that allowed her to suffer the pain of the gemming ceremony while barely reacting.

For the first time since he’d first enhanced her, he dove into Reine’s mind. Just like last time, she kept her emotions and thoughts eerily stable. A mental tether connected her mental core to his own mind. No others existed.

Following Laura’s advice, he established a new tether between his mind and Reine’s. But he made it as massive as he could manage. The process felt strange, as he usually thought of tethers similar to fine diamond threads that sailed through the mental world. Now he felt as though he was building a pipeline into Reine’s mind, that could channel a gargantuan volume of magic.

He wondered whether he already possessed similar links to his binding stones. Surely if the alexandrite needed this much magic, it couldn’t require a bigger tether than those to his binding stones? The process confused him.

With that said, he found the size of the tether curious for another reason. He’d been using them for multiple uses lately—gems, control over the Twins, and even to support Narime’s magic. But a tether this size could support a significant magical load, among other things.

Nathan might be able to supply magic himself to his Champions where an alternative didn’t exist in reality. All he needed was something to use all that magic, other than gemstones.

Shaking his head free of errant thoughts, he felt confident he’d connected the tether correctly and focused on the gem itself. He pulled Reine’s thoughts and emotions together to craft her ability. Once finished, he left her mind and returned to reality.

Once back, Reine leaned against his chest. Her alexandrite gleamed in her collarbone, clearly active.

“Reine?” he asked gently.

“I’m fine.” Her ears twitched. “I just felt your presence deep within me, much like when Fyre uses her powers nearby, but… far nicer. Hers is like a spike driven into my heart, but yours is like a pleasant breeze through my soul.”

Pretty words, but Nathan had no clue what they might mean. He ruffled her hair instead.

Tarako clapped nearby. “I’m genuinely impressed. You actually did it, whatever her power might be.”

“You’re still surprised?” Seraph asked.

“Of course. I said that alexandrites are rare. Gemming ceremonies using them typically end in tragedy. Shattered minds and lost futures. Even if a Bastion created a monogem, creating a duogem might fail. Om… Sorry, the goddess never bothered teaching the elves or humans how to use them. I think she only bothered with the faeries due to her hatred of the dragons.”

Nathan’s expression turned stony. “I suspected as much. But the process was far more dangerous than you admitted. Yet you said nothing.”

“I didn’t want to scare you away from trying.” Tarako shrugged. “Narime’s impression of you tells me you’re the type to take risks, but you’re unwilling to make sacrifices. In my experience, attempting to use alexandrites is no different to a sacrifice.”

“Yeah, well, welcome to the rest of your life,” Maura said as she leaned against Nathan’s side.

“Yup. You’ll learn your place soon enough, hag.” Laura joined in on his opposite side.

“I truly wish I could slice you two apart,” Tarako said.

“Don’t,” he said.

Tarako blinked, then tilted her head. “Was that intentional?”

He grimaced. “No. I’ll… explain that later.”

Only some of his Champions knew about his growing mental presence and uncontrollable outbursts of magic. He really needed to work out how to control it.

Given the broad grins on the faces of the Twins, he doubted they’d help him here. This felt too much like something they wanted to happen. Kadria might, however. Once she entered Doumahr she’d loathe being under his direct control if he so much as ordered her around.

“Ah.” Tarako nodded. “It’s no trouble. Merely confirmation of my suspicions.”

“Which you won’t share?”

“In this case, I think it’s better that I’m utterly certain before I breathe a word of them. My apologies. The day may never come that I talk of them.”

That boded poorly.

Shaking his head, he focused on Reine. “Can you feel your gem?”

“Indeed. It feels… like an old friend. A limb I didn’t know I had.” Reine peeled herself off him and stepped away. “I’m not entirely sure what it does, but there’s some instinctual recognition of the power. As if I already know how to use it.”

“That’s because I implanted the knowledge as part of the ritual. It’s an important part so that a Champion doesn’t accidentally activate a gem ability that might kill themselves,” Nathan said. “Gem abilities can’t hurt their own Bastion, but they can hurt other Champions and themselves. Imagine if a Champion received Sunstorm’s spatial slash without understanding it and cut their own arm off or killed somebody by accident.”

Every Champion save Tarako blinked at once. They hadn’t realized the reason they automatically knew how to use their gems upon receiving them.

“In any case, your ability is… frankly ridiculous.” Nathan ran a hand through his hair. “Seeing is believing. Look somewhere with your vision and then use your ability.”

Reine faced him, and he knew she was looking at him with her scrying. He waited and placed his hands on his hips.

Then she smirked, and her tail wagged playfully.

“I know what your ability does,” he drawled. “Don’t mess with me like that.”

“I don’t know what I can do, but I have enough knowledge to know that I shouldn’t use it while looking at people. You were insufficiently specific, I feel,” she teased.

“Get a move on, Reine.”

She nodded and her expression turned serious.

Her alexandrite glowed brilliantly.

The next moment a tear in reality tore apart the space beside Reine. It stood twice her height and roughly six feet wide.

Unlike demonic portals however, Nathan saw the other side. A dirt road and plain, with a fortress in the distance. Imperial flags waved in the distance and he saw a few soldiers patrolling the battlements.

Reine’s breathing quickened. “This is identical to your teleportation magic. Like the unbound gateways you sometimes create for short-range travel, instead of teleporting. Except I’ve created this gateway over a length of hundreds of miles.”

“Yes. Somehow, I was able to craft teleportation magic connected to the scrying magic in your divine eyes,” he explained. “I don’t fully understand it. Your divine eyes are almost like gems themselves, I think. Your emotions wanted to support me in situations like last night, when only me and the foxes could provide direct support in the cascade. Now you can.”

“This is amazing. With this, I can send you and your army to Trafaumh and ensure reinforcements can arrive, without you overtaxing yourself.” Reine practically vibrated with excitement as her tail attempted to take off. “I shall ensure your word and power as prophet shall—” She abruptly cut off and her face reddened.

“Prophet?” Nurevia asked, grinning from ear to ear.

Even the Twins raised an eyebrow.

“Quite the sycophant,” Tarako chirped. “Deserved, I supposed, given the power you just granted her.”

Nathan sighed. It had been a while since Reine had referred to him as the “true” prophet, particularly after learning the truth. Whatever she believed about Omria appeared to have warped in his presence even more.

“I’ll still teleport the main force north today,” he said. “Seraph, I assume we’re nearly ready?”

“Fei seemed confident we would be. You should have time to check in on Alice before we march. Or teleport, as the case will be,” Seraph answered.

He nodded, but Reine glowered at him.

“No. I shall use my power to whisk you north,” she insisted.

“Reine—”

“No. This power has been granted to me for a reason. You have been overtaxing yourself and must battle even more threats imminently. When you teleported an army to Mortiswatch, you nearly collapsed. The amount of binding stone power you used then has barely recovered, yet you’ve been burning it to protect Prophet’s Hope and fight off the cascade. How much do you have left?”

“More than enough. I haven’t felt the slightest resistance while using magic at all,” he said.

For some reason, the Twins shot him an odd look. Tarako merely nodded grimly.

“Uh, that’s weird,” Maura said. “You’ve been going absolutely fucking nuts with ascended magic, Nathan. Spatial and mental magic everywhere, building huge defenses, closing the portal on the evil titty kitty, and lots of teleportation. Plus topping up tons of gems constantly. Don’t think we haven’t noticed all the power you keep sliding them.”

He shrugged. It had become second nature to keep his Champions topped up using mental magic these days, particularly with so many.

“Look, I’m certain I’m fine. I’ll even check, just to make you happy,” he said.

For the first time in a long, long time—in fact, he struggled to remember the last time he’d properly dove into his mental world to check on his binding stones—he checked on his binding stone tethers and their reserves. A huge mental presence loomed in his mind and he tapped into it.

Only to freeze on the spot. A lump formed in his throat.

What the fuck was going on?

More than half of his binding stones were bone dry. He rapidly realized the only binding stones with any power in them were those that had been affected by the cascade, as they’d been topped up. The rest barely had a drop of magic in them.

In that case, he’d almost certainly run out of binding stone power while battling Artemis. Yet he’d felt nothing.

When had this happened? How had this happened?

More importantly, for how long had he been casting so much powerful magic without relying on his binding stones?

No, even worse, where was he drawing all his power from? When he shut the portal on Artemis, he’d needed an immense amount of magic. He’d been certain he drew it from his binding stones. If not them, where had it come from? And had the same thing occurred while fighting Thanatos, as he’d thought he’d used almost all his binding stone power just teleporting to Mortiswatch?

“Nathan?” Ciana asked, gripping his arm with her single hand. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s the expression of a guy who found a lot of nothing.” Maura glared at him. “I can feel the terror pouring off you, big guy. The fuck did you find?”

“It’s not important.”

“Fine. Clam up. I’ll spy on you when you talk to the goat about it.”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll worry about it when I have the slightest clue what I found. For now, Reine, you win. Practice your new ability for a bit, then join Seraph and the others with the troops.”

She perked up. “Of course, Lord Bastion.”

“We’re leaving, then?” Seraph asked.

“I’ll double-check that Alice has the approval of the Princes College and give a speech to tide everyone over,” he ordered.

Then frowned as he realized that Alice was likely dealing with the Amican dukes, given Milgar and Otto were affected by the cascade and Lotte was too young to officially act as archduchess. Then he shook his head.

“Get everyone ready,” he said. “We’ll teleport to Trafaumh the moment we’re assembled. Hopefully we get there before the demons do.”

- - - - -

Commentary: I feel like a rule of this series is to never answer a question without raising new ones, although I think I am beginning to provide plenty of answers. The issue is that some answers are so big they'll explain a lot of hanging threads.

I am highly likely to change the explanation of the alexandrite stuff and the process of gemming Reine (and all the tether stuff). I don't particularly like the solution, and it doesn't do a great job of laying the groundwork for Nathan's two future "bastion magic" problems he's going to solve in the near future. Mostly, it's just a lot of gibberish and I moved away from the mental world/tether stuff for a reason. Fixing it right now is a timesink as while I know what I want to change it to, putting it into words is harder.

Also, we really are at the point in the series where there are so many little things in the world that I just don't have the patience to remind people about (e.g. Lotte and the Princes College). This does mean there will likely be a bunch of people who will stop reading the book because I won't reexplain stuff and they'll feel lost, but I just can't dump constant paragraphs or having a fifty page appendix on the series' lore. I'm fundamentally reaching my limits. Given the popularity of web serials, which almost never reexplain anything, I am feeling less and less generous on this front.