Heretic Spellblade - Ch9

Chapter 9

A cackle escaped Tarako and she collapsed into a leaning posture, laying lengthwise along the straw mat flooring. As if expecting Nathan’s reaction, a collective sigh filled the room from the foxes. Even Narime joined in.

“Oh, so you know me from all the books, do you?” Tarako asked, her voice somehow both elegant and bratty at the same time. Nathan felt an instinctive urge to take her down a notch despite her fame and status. “What type? You don’t look the romantic type—no offense—and somebody of your fame isn’t a starry-eyed adventurer.” Glee filled her eyes. “Is it all the smut?”

“Chief, could you please—” one of the older foxes interrupted, his face and tone the very image of exasperation.

“I haven’t been your chief for a very, very long time.” The legendary fox patted the mats in front of her, as if gesturing Nathan to sit on them. “Join us. Narime’s been in my ear for months now and the stories she tells of you are as fascinating as they are full of holes. I can’t wait to evaluate the legendary Messenger tamer. And prophet tamer, one might say.”

While Narime began to walk forward stiffly, as if all too aware of the gazes of the other foxes, Nathan remained put.

Not because he didn’t trust Narime, but rather that he found the reveal of this fictional fox to be too good to be true. Who, or what, was Tarako?

To satiate his curiosity, he gingerly reached out with mental magic for her. Not to breach her mind, but to see what he found. After his recent encounter with Tomoe, as well as his own growing manipulative abilities, he worried there might be something lurking here. A fox that had slipped in the henhouse.

There, on the borders of Tarako’s mind, he found a mental tether that extended out to her power source. This tether should be to her Bastion, who supplied her with power from a binding stone.

Yet, Nathan knew from personal experience that this particular tether was to an entirely different class of being.

“It’s usually polite to greet others with a simple ‘hello’ at minimum,” Tarako said, all signs of brattiness evaporating from her voice. “I do worry that rather than taming those succubi, that they tamed you, now.”

Every fox in the room stiffened. Ciana reached for her sword, only to realize she hadn’t brought one as it had been shattered battling Artemis and she hadn’t replaced it. Instead, she tried to unshoulder her shield.

“You’re like Astra and the Hound,” Nathan said, ignoring the threat. “At least one of your gems is powered by the same things that empower the Messengers.”

“How dare you—” a fox elder snapped, his tails weaving behind him as he rose to his feet.

“Did I allow you to intervene?” Tarako snapped, her voice like a thundercrack.

Her glare brought the fox back to his knees, and the rest of the group bowed their heads. Nobody moved.

She turned her eyes to Nathan. Her fingers ran over the middle gem. “I can’t remember the last time somebody has recognized the power within this stone. No wonder Narime has been enraptured by you.”

“You knew about the things behind the Messengers? And even Astra?” Narime asked, her voice rising with her fury.

But the other foxes seemed confused. At worst, they glared at Narime for daring to question Tarako. Nathan knew a fight was inevitable.

So did the legendary fox, once she gazed over the room.

“Everyone, leave us!” Tarako ordered. “I will speak with Nathan and Narime alone.” She raised an eyebrow at Ciana, who attempted to shield Nathan from her. “And, I suppose, his adorable unicorn.”

Without another word, the other fox elders filed out of the room. As they did so, Tarako sat cross-legged and her tails shifted with magic. Cupboards slammed open along the sides. A low table flew out and landed in front of her, followed by a comically large bottle of sake and four small cups.

Before Nathan even sat down, Tarako had filled each cup over the brim. Transparent liquid splashed across the wooden tabletop as she happily sipped her own serving.

“I assume you all drink,” she said.

“Um,” Ciana mumbled. She definitely drank, but Nathan suspected she wanted to remain sober while protecting him.

“More for me then.” Tarako snatched up Ciana’s cup and gulped down its contents in one go. “Do the stories still include my iron liver, by the way?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

She scowled at him. “Really? You don’t even read the smut? Narime told me that it was very popular in the palace.”

If he didn’t know better, Nathan might guess he had left this plane of existence. At least judging from Narime and Ciana’s unwillingness to even look at him.

“I read some of children’s versions when I was young. A long time ago…” he trailed off, realizing that those stories were still rather contemporary.

To him, the memories of reading tales of Tarako’s deeds defending Kurai from demonic hordes and devilish generals were twenty years ago. But those books were maybe ten years old. Ciana and Fei likely read the same ones, or similar enough.

“I sense something is awry.” Tarako waited patiently for him to pick up his lost thought.

“It’s not important.” He shook his head. “But that gem of yours is. Do you know what powers it?”

“I do. Do you? You suggested something quite disturbing, and I’ve suspected such beings existed for much of my long life, but I can assure you that my gemstone is of benign origin.”

“Yet it’s not naturally powered,” Narime said. “You don’t have a Bastion. You’ve always said that you cannot fight alongside us for that reason.”

Nathan blinked. “Wait, your gems aren’t dim.”

Tarako laughed. Her tails shifted and, suddenly, two of her gems dulled, like those of Champions without Bastions. Only the middle one remained active. “It’s trivial to deceive others with our magic, you see? Including other foxes.”

“Of course,” Narime muttered.

“But before I answer any of your questions, I want this discussion to be a level playing field,” the legendary fox continued. “I am all but certain of the source of your knowledge now. Almost every individual I’ve met who has learned the truth, or approached it, has been some variation of insane or deeply deceived. You seem to be neither. Or convinced of such. Why are you convinced the Messengers aren’t lying to you?”

So she knew he’d learned everything from Messengers. Nathan sipped his sake. Then nearly spit it out.

“Damn, this is cheap shit,” he said.

“I’m old. I got used to it a long time ago,” Tarako said. “So?”

“The simple answer is that I’m not. That’s why I’ve needed to distrust most of what they tell me. But a lot of it has played out as they said it would, or other Messengers have confirmed it, or I’ve had other ways to confirm the truth. For instance, they told me that Doumahr used to be far larger. Narime confirmed that herself. The same goes for the goddess’s magic being nearly identical to Messenger magic.”

Tarako grimaced at that comment, then sighed. “Well, it seems you might be genuine. Unfortunate. Especially as I really didn’t want there to be something behind the Messengers.”

A long sip of her sake broke up her words. They waited.

“The terms of our conversation are simple. I’ll tell you everything I know about my history and that of my race’s, including what I know of Omria and the Messengers. You tell me your story and what you know,” she said.

“I know a lot,” he said.

“Do you know how many civilizations Omria has been the goddess of?”

“At least four.”

“I’ve seen her as goddess of five and have evidence of a sixth.”

Well, shit. Tarako wasn’t fictional.

She was immortal, orders of magnitude older than Astra, and had seen more of this world than even Kadria claimed to.

“Deal,” Nathan said. “I take it I go first?”

“It would help. To be honest, my race is bound to help you as is. You have nothing to lose by walking away, other than missing out on my stories. I need everything. But I’m also the only person left who knows a damn thing about how things actually work who isn’t some demonic invader.” Tarako raised her cup with a grin.

She held it in the air. After a few seconds, he realized she wanted to toast to their agreement. He clinked his cup against hers and they drunk.

“I come from an alternate version of Doumahr where the demons win,” he said, causing Tarako to freeze while refilling her sake.

Narime helpfully took the bottle from her senior before it overflowed and made a mess.

He continued, “The Empire fell when the Federation triggered a Messenger invasion along the Gharrick Mountains. Years later—around now, actually—the Federation and Arcadia fell to a mixture of internal strife, Messengers, and a massive demonic onslaught via the Houkeem Desert. Trafaumh eventually fell as well. Only Falmir remained. I was essentially the only Bastion left with enough experience and trigems capable of fending off Messengers.”

A complex expression crossed Tarako’s face. One that spoke of sorrow, yet also familiarity. Her gaze seemed distant. Lost in time and thought, as if recalling events that he had barely even alluded to and she hadn’t even witnessed.

Had the terrors of his own world been the same witnessed by each civilization of the past, as the Messengers tore them down one-by-one?

“And then?” she asked.

“A Messenger defeated me. Slew all of my Champions and shattered my fortress. One of my last resorts prevented her from claiming total victory, so she instead offered me something else. The chance to come to a different world and stop it from ending.”

“And you believed her?”

“The alternative was death, and even if she killed me, the binding stone would still detonate.”

Tarako’s look of resignation tinged with horror told him that she knew exactly what detonating a binding stone meant. Perhaps Nathan had been right that Omria had forbidden the technique for a reason.

“Well, I suppose it worked out,” she said, finally sipping her sake again. “Now you’re here, using your expertise and foreknowledge to stop… Hmm.”

“You caught on fast.”

“Only one of those events even came close to happening. I assume your mysterious appearance along the Federation border was purposeful. Yet by changing history, you made all of your other knowledge useless. Except perhaps Arcadia. They’re still a tinderbox.”

“The succubus who set them off is currently working for Charlotte,” he said drily.

“And that’s a good thing how, exactly?” Tarako gave him a sidelong look. “I know Omria all too well. She treats the races she discards like toys she’s outgrown. Then again, there aren’t many humans in Arcadia. If she were a beastkin…” A grin crossed her face. “I feel quite stupid now. I had wondered how two prophets emerged, when that had never happened before. Especially as both seemed genuine. I don’t know what you’re doing, but yours is the real one, isn’t it?”

Nathan frowned. This conversation moved at a pace he barely followed.

But he knew that Tarako understood the system of cycles and Omria’s reincarnations like the back of her hand. She made leaps of logic that he’d required to be explained to him, yet failed to follow.

“The real one?” he asked.

“There’s only one race left on Doumahr that Omria can use. She’s never gone back to an old one. Somehow, you found a prophet in the beastkin first, and now she’s back with the humans. I won’t pretend to understand how or why any of this works. But I think you broke something.”

“That, uh, was the plan.” He scratched the back of his neck while Narime glared at him.

Had he ever fully explained the intent behind creating Fyre, or Kadria’s nonsense? While he explained various elements of the insanity that took place, much of it never reached his Champions.

Not entirely because he intended to keep them in the dark. He sometimes struggled to put the matters into words, which would make explaining anything extremely difficult.

“So you made your own prophet. And then, somehow, another one appeared.” Tarako grimaced. “I’ll admit, that still confuses me. While I don’t believe in Omria, I believe in her power. There’s only one of her, and she always comes back somehow. Now you’ve brought back two of her.”

“Not quite.”

“Nathan,” Narime said, a touch sharply. “While I know that you often have good reason to keep your secrets, I get the feeling this isn’t the time.”

“Look, it’s more that I don’t know how to explain it properly.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Fyre is the goddess. So is Charlotte. The difference is that Fyre is still Fyre, but Charlotte is taking on somebody else’s personality.”

“Omria’s. The personality of the prophet fades away over time. Maybe a few years. Maybe a few decades,” Tarako explained. “Why don’t you say her name, by the way? It’s quite noticeable.”

“I can’t.”

“It’s a word.”

“Not like that,” he said. “Whenever I say her name, an immense mental presence attempts to smother me. Fyre can chase it away, which is one of the reasons I believe she’s genuine.”

“A… mental presence.” The legendary fox frowned. “I felt you doing something earlier. That mental magic is yours, not the succubi you work with?”

“Yes. I’ve developed it as a way to improve my abilities as a Bastion.”

She clicked her tongue. “So you even worked out that part, huh? Teaching Bastions mental magic caused so many problems that Omria crippled her teachings eventually. But I’ve never heard of a Bastion being afraid of saying her name.”

“Really? I was told that my usage of ascended magic, including mental magic, was the cause.”

“If that was the case, no mystic fox Bastion could ever have spoken her name.” Tarako gave him an odd look between sips. “But that suggests you use even more ascended magic. Something humans can’t do. Part of the reason Omria chose the foxes when she did was that we can.”

Nathan ticked off his fingers. “Mental, spatial, life… I guess whatever wards count as, given the Messengers seem weirded out by them. Naturally, there’s also the typical Bastion stuff of reshaping matter.”

A low whistle left Tarako’s lips. “That is something, yes. I still don’t understand the presence.”

“I think it relates to what the goddess is.” His gaze hardened. “To be honest, my gut feeling about its intentions is that it wanted to take control of me. Given Charlotte’s behavior, I’m even more certain now. Why destroy me when she could use me as a puppet for a simple mistake?”

“Omria never showed any such behavior.”

“Really? Because what I know about her origin suggests otherwise.”

Tarako refilled her sake cup, then waited for him to lower his before pouring more. Narime joined in the round at the last second.

“You won’t like what I have to say,” he warned when she gestured for him to speak.

“I haven’t liked much of what I’ve seen over the millennia,” Tarako said.

“The goddess was a Messenger once. A succubus that escaped here, seized some strange power that I’m convinced is entwined with the binding stones and allows her to reincarnate, and is now being hunted by her former employer.” Nathan pressed on, despite Tarako’s widening eyes and slackening jaw. “Behind the Messengers is some sort of primordial, extradimensional deity that transcends time and space. He consumes worlds as food. More than that, he consumes multiverses.”

“You mean the idea that reality can be split into an infinite number of possibilities,” Tarako said.

“Why do you know this?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“We specialize in spatial magic. It’s a basic concept,” Narime explained. “Also, it would have helped if you’d started with this when you first explained how you came here. You never time travelled, did you? Rather, this is an alternate world in the multiverse of possibilities. That explains much.”

“I’m glad it does for you,” Ciana muttered. “I am so lost.”

Nathan wanted to agree with Ciana, and he was supposed to be explaining things to Tarako.

“So, Omria is a Messenger.” Tarako gulped down a cup of sake, refilled it, gulped it down, and poured more. “I’d always suspected as much. I guess this is where my story begins.”

Narime’s and Ciana’s ears pricked up. Nathan leaned back and sipped his drink, and wished he had a beer instead of cheap swill.

“You know of the Soaring Peaks?” Tarako asked. “A race once lived here known as dragons. Huge, flying lizards full of magic and capable of breathing fire. They were Omria’s chosen before my kind. When she spurned them, they grew to hate her. Eventually, they helped the demons destroy the Elven Khanates and drive the elves west, to what we now call Doumahr. Furious, Omria returned, transformed the faeries into the bloodthirsty savages they are today, and slaughtered every dragon remaining.”

If the Twins had been here, they would have cracked some awful joke.

Instead, Nathan and the others sat in stunned silence. He choked down some sake. What the hell could he say to that?

“But lets step back in time a few tens of millennia. I haven’t seen the entire history of my kind, but I’m old,” Tarako continued without letting them recover. “When I was born, the dragons were Omria’s chosen. They ruled a continent across the ocean to the south, twice the size of Doumahr, and barely came here. Omria limited expansion because unsealing binding stones attracted demons. She wanted Doumahr to remain pristine.”

Suddenly, the entire reason why Omria permanently sealed binding stones made sense. If the race she sponsored wasn’t present somewhere, she didn’t want demons rampaging around there.

And, Nathan realized, whenever a race fell it only lost a set amount of land.

“The dragons hated us. Foxes are the only race to naturally use ascended magic, even if Bastions and Champions are vastly stronger. We lived on an large-ish island—if small compared to a continent—converted to Omria, and stayed out of trouble. I grew up and watched as the world I knew burned. The proud dragons died in the millions when Omria’s incarnation perished. Many of my teachers still went and futilely defended the race that spat in their faces for their entire lives. We believed it was the apocalypse.”

“Why wasn’t it?” Narime asked, a tremor in her voice. “Why were we spared?”

“I have two possible answers. One is the ‘official’ answer Omria gave us when she reincarnated. That the dragon’s pride overshadowed us. They banned us from having Bastions, so the demons couldn’t invade our island.” Tarako closed her eyes.

“And?” Nathan asked. “The second?”

He already knew it before she said it.

“That Omria prevented us from having Bastions because she wanted us to still be around after the dragons lost.”

Nailed it.

“As it was, the dragons didn’t perish. Their civilization burned in a sea of hellfire and their continent vanished, remaining only in our memories and history books. What few dragons remained flew north, to Doumahr, but lacked the ability to unseal the binding stones. For a century or so, life returned to normal. Very few demons troubled us. Then, eventually, she returned.”

“The goddess,” Nathan said.

Tarako nodded. “Our prophet was a firebrand who hated the way our society had bent the knee to the dragons, but also how we favored the number of tails in society.” Tarako waved her own tails, but also gestured around the room. “A fox’s tails mean more than age. More tails means you live longer, but are more powerful. At least, ordinarily.”

“Champions live forever,” he said. “And you just said it. Gems greatly outclass your ascended magic.”

She smiled bitterly. “Precisely. It wrought havoc among our nascent society. Our creator finally left us, as they had been dutifully creating new foxes like me for over a thousand years, but Omria ordered them gone. Before leaving, dozens of Champions were gifted with special gems, imbued with his power, and vastly stronger than those of anything a regular Bastion could create.”

Her fingers traced her active gem once again.

This time, a question rose to Nathan’s lips. But not the ordinary one. “What is that gemstone? It’s not sapphire, even if it looks it.”

“It’s a variety of zoisite that was only mined on our island and was named after it. It no longer exists, and I am forbidden to ever speak it again,” Tarako said, sorrow drowning her voice. “To my knowledge, no deposits of zoisite exist on Doumahr. The last was lost somewhere in the Far Reaches.”

He already regretted asking. So he asked the other, more obvious question. “Your creator… You’re saying foxes aren’t from here?”

“No. I don’t know the specifics. But I wasn’t born. Instead, I was created with magic. The secret of my creation will die with me, however. Ask no more about it.” Her eyes turned to stone as she looked at him. “To answer your third question, yes, this is my Nine-Tail Slash.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Let’s get back to your story.”

A nod. Her energy began to return to her body as she gulped down a helping of sake. Ciana refilled her cup and Tarako grinned in thanks.

“Our story is quite boring, to be honest. We became prideful, like the dragons. Omria had been interested in us because of our magic, but it made little difference. The same problems appeared. Our prophet acted the same as the old incarnation, only favoring foxes instead of dragons. Eventually, we began to falter as the demons grew in strength and Messenger attacks struck with greater ferocity. Our capital fell, along with Omria.”

“Then you came to Kurai,” Nathan said quietly, interrupting, but he’d heard this part.

She nodded, looking at Narime.

“This is the part I’ve heard,” Narime admitted. “But not the rest of the details. In fact, I don’t even know about these Elven Khanates. Why is this a secret?”

“Once, there were dozens of Champions like me. Each capable of vanquishing a Messenger easily with our creator’s power.” Tarako’s gem gleamed but she didn’t use her ability. “I’m the only one left. To everyone else, I’m the legendary Tarako. They draw faith from me. The idea is that we can defeat the invaders. If they knew that we failed, time and time again, even with fifty Tarakos, what would they think?”

Narime gulped and stared into her sake. “So… why now? Why only move now?”

“Because, if we don’t, we all die,” Tarako said. “Let me continue.”

Silence.

“By now, all that remained was Doumahr, plus the great steppe to the east. The elves occupied the steppe, living in expansive, nomadic tribes. Despite that, they weren’t much different. Same prophet. Millennia more of Omria’s nonsense. We knew the truth now. As I said, the dragons caused the end this time, as the unsealing of the local binding stones allowed them to regain some of their true might.”

“So the goddess let the dragons access binding stones but not the foxes?” Ciana asked with a frown.

“No, we all had access,” Tarako said. Then she blinked. “Oh, you meant during the time she was the dragons’ prophet? Heh. Yes, there is some deep hypocrisy there. I doubt she cared much about the fate of the dragons at the time. An oversight of hers. The betrayal of the dragons likely spared my kind complete destruction from Messenger invasions, now that we had our own Bastions. By now, we’d rebuilt our society on the old ways. But with our reduced numbers and humbling, we needed help.”

Something prodded Nathan. A strange comment from Kadria. “Humans.”

“Oh?” Tarako raised an eyebrow. “I’m certain Narime doesn’t know this part of the story.”

“A Messenger told me you… uplifted humans.”

“A curious term. We began to teach humanity our ways, save for magic. This then spread from Kurai to the mainland. Not too well, though. Your kind were terrified of the dragons overhead and the marauding beastkin tribes that stole your food and women.” Tarako paused. “Probably your men, too, given how wolf beastkin are.”

Ciana snorted water across the table.

“There’s one other oddity I uncovered while the elves built their Khanates. They tried to convince Omria to unite the elves and dark elves, who were their subterranean kin who lived in the various mountains nearby. Omria refused, and in fact forced them to remain separate using her teachings.”

“What? Why?” he asked.

“Guess.”

An inkling of an idea formed in his mind. “You said that the beastkin were the last race Omria had available. Does that mean…”

“You said I’m sharp, but you should give yourself some credit.” Tarako’s tail shifted and another bottle of sake flew over. This one was far smaller, with crystalline blue glass. “Try some of the nice stuff, on me.”

He sipped it. Smooth and fruity. “Thanks.”

“But, yes, that’s my suspicion. She treated the dark elves like she did us and the dragons. Discarded toys. They’d served their purpose. I’m certain Omria had already used the dark elves as her chosen race before foxes even walked this world. As these dark elves were weak and helpless, she wanted nothing to do with them. The only reason she let us and the dragons do our own thing was because we didn’t need protection, whereas the dark elves on Doumahr had never been exposed to Bastions or Champions. Or, if they had, they’d long since forgotten.”

If Nathan’s faith remained even vaguely intact, it would have shattered into a billion pieces by now. Fortunately, he had nothing remaining to shatter. So he enjoyed the sake.

Narime seemed far more tortured. He rubbed her back in circles and she leaned against him, attempting to process what she heard.

“Honestly, there’s not much to say on the faeries. The strangest part is that Omria just… vanished.” Tarako scowled. “She was slain the past three times, but just pissed off this time. The only benefit, again, was that it prevented the Messenger invasions from growing too horrendous. The faeries mostly just lost islands. Which leads us to today.”

“No, to Kurai,” Nathan corrected. “Siv’s strong, but Astra told me that she’s been defeated countless times. If you’re so old, you’ve definitely fought her before and won. How did you lose so easily? You definitely know all about cascades and Messenger invasion tactics. Everything I know about fighting them is old news to you.”

“Is it?” Tarako shook her head. “Their tactics change with ours. We never used gateways, because we can teleport. The dragons could fly at immense speeds. The elves and faeries never learned. Humans are behind the curve on gemstone carving, but have vastly more Champions and Bastions. Omria’s teachings also advanced as she learned from her mistakes.”

“What about Siv?” he asked.

“I know her well. She’s probably the only fodder Messenger who sticks around between civilizations. Cut her down fifty times. Got smashed once and had a drink with her, even. She’s an odd one.” Tarako stared into the distance. “When I found her in a wasteland full of the corpses of people I’d trained, I could hardly believe it. My Nine-Tail Slash had always cut her down in one blow before. This time, she used some strange skin-shedding technique to shrug it off and nearly killed me in return.”

“You couldn’t beat her,” Narime asked, horrified.

“And you did. That’s the danger of underestimating a breach. We used to allow for controlled cascades and non-Messenger breaches in Kurai to avoid portals remaining open for millennia. The country was ancient by the time the Anfang Empire emerged. We’d watched both the elves and faeries rise and fall. The Guardians grew complacent. I grew complacent.”

“I’m sorry,” Narime whispered, sounding and appearing very small. Her tails curled in around herself.

“It’s everyone’s fault that Kurai fell, Narime,” Tarako said. “Just as it’s nobody’s fault. I do wish it had been one of those awful elites, though.”

A chill fell upon the room. Ciana, Narime, and Nathan looked at each other. Then at Tarako.

She smirked at them. “And now today’s topic. You don’t need to tell me everything that’s happening. The increasing frequency of cascades, the emergence of a prophet, the appearance of Messengers—it’s a cycle I’ve seen before. And with Omria’s reemergence comes them. The elites. They strike at the start and the end.”

“You know about them,” Nathan said flatly.

“Of course. They destroy nations and slaughter even the most powerful Bastions.” She gulped down some sake. “The armored warlord. The dandy. The cold fox-wolf woman. The goat succubus.”

Nathan gulped at the mention of a goat succubus.

“Fox-wolf woman?” Ciana gasped out, eyes wide.

“She’s like us, but… not.” Tarako frowned. “Hard to explain. She doesn’t appear often.”

“Oh. Not who I thought.”

“So you definitely know what I’m talking about then.”

“Yes,” Narime said. “We’ve encountered… three? Although only two directly. One matches your description.”

“Atlas is the armored warlord. Bauer might be the dandy based entirely on the name and gender. Artemis is new, based on what Atlas told us,” Nathan said. “Kadria is the succubus, but she’s working with me.”

“With you?” Tarako snapped. “She destroyed…”

Freezing, Tarako calmed herself, then poured a healthy helping of the good sake. She gulped it down.

“You have history,” he said.

“I have history with all four. Atlas destroyed the dragons and helped the fox-wolf wipe out the elves. The dandy attacked everyone when the prophets appeared. The fox-wolf also finished us off. But the succubus…” She glared at Nathan. “You called her Kadria? She razed our capital and killed Omria. I was there. She nearly killed me and my Bastion.”

Nathan gulped. Any word he said might be his last. “I said that Messengers are working for something, right? What makes you think they’re doing that voluntarily.”

“Keep talking.”

“She and the succubi Twins I’ve ‘tamed’ want out. But make no mistake, I’m in charge.” At least, he was now.

“She was the one who brought you here.”

“Yes. But things have changed now that Fyre’s here. She’s independent and loyal to me.”

Biting her lip, Tarako leaned backward. “Maybe. I might need to take a chance on you anyway. You’re the only other Bastion I’ve met who has ever achieved five trigems. The other died fighting Kadria. Overextended himself for that battle and died of a stroke trying to supply them.”

A stroke… “You mean she killed him with mental magic. She does that.”

Tarako stared at him. Then slapped herself in the face. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

“Mental magic is an offensive weapon as well. Kadria excels at that, but sucks at manipulation. The Twins are the opposite.”

“And you?”

“I’m not answering that.”

She grinned at him, then cackled. “Well, maybe I’ll find out. Because there’s a reason I wanted you here other than to swap stories. As you can see, I’ve ordered the foxes to help out. I saw that the elites were moving. With your power and prowess, we might have a chance. But I’m powerless as is and the Messengers moved too soon for our efforts with von Milgar to work out.”

Efforts… “You’ve been pushing for noble ranks so you can get some Bastions to take on fox Champions.”

“Of course. More importantly, I hoped for one that might bring me into the fray.” She fixed him with a look. “I’d ask you to help me, but as you already have five, I’ll need you to recommend—”

Narime and Ciana snorted.

“You wanted a recommendation?” Narime asked.

“You think Nathan can’t handle a sixth trigem?” Ciana chirped with a grin. “Are you sure you haven’t drunk too much?”

“Maybe that Bastion didn’t suffer a stroke, but nobody else has ever had more than four trigems for any length of time,” Tarako insisted.

“Nobody else has been using mental magic—” he began to say.

“Every Bastion used mental magic to bind their Champions.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re not special for doing that, even if you might be more talented in doing so. Much more talented, given all the other ascended magic you’re using.”

Tarako pursed her lips and looked him up and down.

“Why are they so convinced you can handle more than five trigems, anyway?” she asked.

“Why don’t I take you back to the palace to reactivate your gems and explain on the way,” he said drily.

It might take a while, given the amount of Champions he had queued up for a third gem at the moment.

- - - - -

Commentary: A very long exposition chapter, although it should hopefully answer a ton about the background of the setting that has been mysterious, and explain a lot about Omria. There are a bunch of clues here, to be very clear. That's part of the reason Tarako exists.

Chapters like this always involve a bunch of choices. This one is already long, but there are little side conversations I excluded. One about how old Tarako really is and how many generations of foxes and humans she's seen. Another focused on her gem power and Astra, because I think that can be talked about later.

I've taken a short break due to the release of Mob, as releases are always rough. I'll be writing again within a day or two.