by Reed James
It would be so much easier if she was alive and here to protect my women. But Aingeal had her powers while Nathalie, Greta, and Zanyia would protect Ava and Kora. They had their armor. Their powers. They didn't need me.
It hurt. I wanted to rip out my heart. I wanted to pluck it still-beating from my breast. I would clutch it in my bloody hand. I wanted to cast out this pain. It would make this so much easier. I had made my deal. The phylactery was about to be destroyed. I had to slip away while they all had their focus on the altar.
I gathered the shadows, pulling them around me. I made myself fade, blending in with the dancing umbral on the ground. The darkness wrapped around me. I felt something trembling through me. I seized more of the shadows than I could before. I didn't make myself fuzzy and hazy, rather I vanished. I hid myself so completely I couldn't even see my flesh.
There was something interacting with my armor. Something... My sister. I felt a touch of my sister. When she healed me, she had a cut hand. Her blood had mixed with the healing spell and... She transferred something to me.
A final gift to help me escape.
I was such a coward as I turned around and marched down the hill. This was the easiest way. To disappear from their lives. I wanted to take Zanyia, Ava, Aingeal, Nathalie, Greta, and even Carsina with me, but I didn't deserve any of them if I could give one of them up.
I wanted to look back one last time—I itched to return to them—but a clean severing of our relationship was best. They would have each other. They would support each other, and I would find something else. Out there in the world. Far away from Zeutch. They would hate me, but I could handle that. They would be so angry with me. Despise me.
But not as much as I despised myself.
I reached the bottom of the hill. The surviving soldiers had fled, leaving behind their dead. Some of their horses wandered around on the grass. I approached one on silent steps. Light burst brilliant behind me, flooding across the plains. The horse neighed, snorting nervously.
I seized a bridle. I mounted the warhorse, shifting on the saddle. I closed my eyes, drew in a deep breath.
“Goodbye, sister dear,” I whispered. “I love you all.”
I heeled my horse and galloped towards my new life.
~ * ~
Princess Ava
The machinery consumed my focus. The entire hill hummed as my soul worked the mechanism, directing the massive forces contained within the hill. The entire mound was a vast reservoir, a massive battery of power gathered from the world. My awareness flitted around inside the hill, making adjustments here, tweaking something there.
It all made so much sense to me. This was the purpose of the hill, to focus all this energy. It gathered in the altar. It spilled over the gem. I rose my awareness from the machinery. I blinked, staring down at the phylactery. I felt the Biomancer's soul quivering in it.
He knew what was about to happen.
I frowned and understood how the phylactery worked. It was a magical machine created to be a vessel for a soul, a mystical box. That was all that magic was, manipulating the foundations of the world, the vast energies that were used to forge it, the order Krab laid down when the Gods created it. Some people could just tap into it with training, others with natural abilities.
I studied the phylactery, understanding how it worked so I could destroy it. The gem had a small spigot on it that the soul could reach out of, too small for it to escape, but enough for Kora to manipulate and use against the Paragon in the fight. The craftsmanship was superb. It was designed to last, to store the soul for nearly eternity. The energy built up in it was used so efficiently to keep the soul trapped in there instead of heading to the Astral Realm. My senses slid over it, searching for just the perfect spot and...
I found its weakness, the place where I needed to strike.
I raised the hammer up. It was a focus for the energy brimming in the Altar. It was the match for it. I stared at the amulet, letting the power guide my stroke, and slammed my tool down onto the gem with all my strength.
The hammer crashed into the amulet.
The power surged. The entire energy of the hill expended in a moment.
Light exploded around me.
A brilliance engulfed me as the entire hill groaned. The hammer burst into a spray of molten diamond that spilled across the altar. Mixed in were drops of sizzling blood. The ruby fractured with it, releasing what it trapped. Through the heart of the light shining around me, a vast shadow rose. I shuddered as a vast evil spilled into the world.
The malevolent soul of the Biomancer reached for me. It surged around me. It tried to seize my own soul. It tried to rip at me, pulling at my essence. He screamed at me, raging at me for destroying his rebirth.
For a moment, I felt his dreams of a world remade to his perfection. People changed by beetle-like insects, the things that had distorted my step-father into that thing lying dead on the hill. I shuddered, gritting my teeth, my hands clenching around the crumbling handle of the hammer. I buffeted him. He had no substance. No power any longer.
He was just an umbral spectre. Just the sputtering remains of a mad man.
Without a vessel to inhabit, souls couldn't stay in our world. The vast machine of creation sent those souls to the Astral Realm. He couldn't fight it. He had nowhere to go. He howled his rage as he dissipated like a foul mist before the bright sunlight.
The Altar groaned as its light died.
I gasped, leaning forward, grasping the adamant, panting as I stared down at the shattered remains, diamond mixed with ruby. I shook my head, then looked around at the faces of my family. Kora had such a look of rapturous joy on her face, hands clutched to her breasts. She swayed. Zanyia's arm went around her waist, supporting the woman while a purr rumbled from her throat.
“You did it!” Greta cheered. My bedmaid threw her arms around me, her armored form pressing into my side.
~ * ~
Kora Falk
I swayed in Zanyia's embrace. I couldn't believe it was over. I felt so surreal. There was nothing hanging between my tits. I didn't feel the chain rubbing at the back of my neck. No faceted gem caressed the inner slopes of my breasts. For weeks I had worn it. What felt like an eternity, and now it was gone.
I didn't know what to do. What do I say now. I stumbled away from the purring Zanyia, from my cheering family. The entire world felt shifted, the angle of reality changed so I felt like I stood on a slope, off-balance. I shuddered, reaching the slope of the hill.
I gazed down it. A riderless horse galloped from the altar, fleeing the brilliant explosion of light as fast as it could run. My eyes drifted to the dead soldiers lying where they fell, sticky crimson covering the silver of their armor. I passed the black-robed mage and drew up the scorched side of the hill, the scars left by Nathalie's armor. Swaths of char scarred the slope. I skipped past the man I hated for a year and...
My gaze arrested on Ealaín. I swayed more. “Sven... Brother mine...”
I needed him. I needed his arms around me now. Zanyia hugged me from behind, but she didn't have my step-brother's strength, his masculine presence. I was dizzy. My poor muse was gone. Rithi had sent Ealaín to be my inspiration.
Such pain welled inside of me.
“Sven, please!” I moaned. “Brother mine... I... She's gone.”
“Wait, where is he?” Aingeal asked.
“Where did he go?” Ava gasped. “Wasn't he here when I started?”
“He told you to destroy it, Mistress,” Nathalie said, her voice weak.
I blinked, my entire body shaking. I looked over my shoulder at my family. They looked around the top of the hill, confused. My brow furrowed. Shock knocked me out of my daze. Fear crushed my heart.
“Did... did destroying the gem affect him?” I asked, my entire body trembling.
“No, no, don't say that,” whimpered Greta.
“It didn't,” Ava said. “The power didn't touch anything but the phylactery.”
“Then
where did he go?” Aingeal demanded. “Why would he slip off?” She rose up into the air, her wings flapping. She surveyed around, turning. “I can't see him anywhere!”
~ * ~
Zanyia
I trembled as I clung to my shuddering Mistress. I held her tight, rubbing my face into her neck as my world reeled. Master vanishing punched all the joy right out of me. My tail slashed in the air behind me while I held up Kora. This couldn't be happening.
We won.
We did all we set out to do. We should get to be happy now! Why was I happier before today? Ealaín dead and Master gone... It didn't make any sense to me. Why would he vanish? Did he leave? Did something grab him? Was it a final revenge of the Biomancer?
“I sensed something in him since Rithi performed her miracle to save us from the poison,” Mistress Kora said. “Something... reserved in him. When I first embraced him after I was healed, there was something... hesitant in him. For a moment, he looked so full of grief before it vanished as he hugged me. And since then...”
My blood turned into ice water. My skin prickled and my tail stiffened. My arms tightened around my Mistress. “There... was something between him and Ealaín,” I said. “Something they had. I didn't understand it, but there was something in their scents...”
“Is it grief?” Mistress Ava asked, stumbling up beside us. “Is this how he's mourning Ealaín - by... vanishing on us?”
“No, no,” Mistress Kora said. “He wouldn't do that. He would pretend to be fine. He'd have to be the strong man. He'd hold us while we cried. He would share in our grief for her in a stoic way almost... almost feeling it through us as he comforted us. He wouldn't run away.”
“Maybe he feels like it's his fault?” Mistress Aingeal asked. She landed nearby, her pink wings fluttering to a stop. The wind ruffled her pale hair, the same strange hue. She shook her head, her purple eyes distant as she peered at Kora and me. “Does he think he let us down? That because he didn't save Ealaín, he failed us or...?”
“If he changed after the miracle,” Nathalie said, her voice so quiet, “maybe... maybe he promised Rithi to watch out for her daughter. Master upholds his word.”
“Is he being all honorable and manly and dumb right now?” Aingeal groaned. “That figures. Idiot. He didn't fail Ealaín. She didn't need him to protect her. Out of all of us, she was the one who least needed protecting. She was his equal in a fight.
“Idiot!”
“Yeah,” Mistress Ava said. “That sounds just like something he would do.”
My body stiffened. “Let's find out!” I declared, breaking away from Kora. I breathed in deeply, hunting for his scent above the others. Above the death. “He's my Master! He doesn't just get to run off. Right?”
“That's right,” Nathalie said, stepping up beside me, her arms folded before her naked breasts.
Carsina nodded her head. “We chose him. He doesn't get a choice in the matter.”
“Yeah,” Greta said. She joined Nathalie and Carsina. “We're his sex slaves. He has to own us and give us orders. He doesn't get any say in it.”
“Yep!” I nodded. I breathed in again as I moved to the altar. To where I remembered Sven standing when the princess began destroying the amulet. I sorted through the various musks of my wives, searching for that masculine aroma of our husband.
My nose twitched. My tail swished. I leaned down, the grass of the hill caressing my wrists and ankles as I padded around. I caught a whiff of him: leather, sweat, confidence. I moved to him, found where he stood, inhaled deeply.
“Got him!” I said. I padded down the hill, breathing in his musk.
I moved faster and faster down the slope, my family following behind me. Master's scent grew easier to follow as he moved away from the other's. It was a clear trail pointed right down the hill, skirting Ealaín, heading for the soldiers I killed. I moved up to a fast scamper, breathing deeply every chance I could, his scent rising above pollen, dirt, and blood.
I reached the base of the hill, loping now, my legs stretching as his scent led me right to the... The swarthy musk of a horse. I paused at the combination of hay and dung and equine sweat. I frowned, my tail swishing. His aroma was intermixed with it and... I looked towards the horizon.
A small horse galloped away. It was almost vanished from my sight.
“He's invisible,” I said in shock. How did he manage that? Master was amazing. “And he's on that horse!”
I broke into a full run, upright, my long legs carrying me across the ground. I tapped Silence for energy, my damaged armor providing it. I ran like the wind propelled me, chasing after my owner.
He had no right to abandon me!
~ * ~
Aingeal
My wings hummed as I soared after Zanyia. She raced fast, chasing after the stallion. It had no rider, but the lamia was certain Sven was on it. I frowned. If the horse was spooked by the explosion, why was it still running? It had gotten a few miles away. The other warhorses didn't just flee in such a straight path back to civilization. They were starting to wander now, calming down.
The cantering warhorse broke into a full gallop. Someone must have whipped it into a frenzy. Sven. What was he doing? A surge of annoyance for my husband rippled through me. I fluttered after it, gaining on the horse as it raced for the start of the farms. Every moment brought me closer and closer to it. Zanyia kept pace beneath me, racing with such nimble grace.
Her armor gave her endurance.
She veered off from me about where we reached the spot where the horse began its gallop. She didn't follow the steed at all, instead racing in an oblique angle from the path, cutting across the fields. I frowned, my gaze darting ahead of her and...
“Clever,” I muttered. Sven leaped off the horse after probably driving it into a gallop. He used his invisibility with skill.
But now how would we find him? He had to be able to run fast thanks to his armor. He would have endurance. If he could find a way to conceal his scent, to confuse Zanyia's nose... I needed to do something.
Abjuration spirits surged up around me. The balls of blue light bobbed and weaved about me, answering my need. I smiled as I touched them with my will, focusing them on searching out the path before Zanyia.
Purple wreathed the spirits as they danced away from me. They surged out over the field, sweeping across the top of the grass, forming a curtain of energy that they darted around in complex, geometric shapes, covering the ground, searching for anything hidden and...
A shape appeared, a man racing, outlined in purple.
“Got you!” I grinned as the orange-hued spirits appeared before me.
The evocation spirits quivered with eager delight. They drank in my will then darted out ahead of the illuminated figure. They plunged into the earth before Sven and exploded the ground. Tufts of grass and clods of dirt soared into the air in mighty fountains of destruction, ripping up the ground before my husband's feet.
His figure, painted in purple, stumbled to a halt. He threw a look over his shoulder. I imagined the annoyed expression on his face as I swooped down at him, readying more spirits to pen him in and keep him from escaping.
He owed us answers.
Chapter Forty-Five: The Radiant's Inspiration
Sven Falk
I sighed as I watched Aingeal swooping down at me. I brushed off the clod of dirt from my shoulder, noting the purple outline around me. I wouldn't escape. This would be so much easier if my women weren't so Las-damned skilled.
Umbral shadows melted off of me, revealing my form. I turned to face Aingeal only to see Zanyia streaking at me at a full run. I only had a moment to set myself before she slammed into me. I grunted, her weight crashing into my body, her arms and legs hugging tight about me, clinging to me in that desperate, passionate way only my lamia slave could. My armor's strength kept me upright from the force.
“Zanyia!” I groaned, voice tight from the impact.
“I'm not letting you go, Master!” Zanyia said. “Yo
u own me. You don't get to leave me behind.”
Aingeal landed a moment before I could answer, her hands on her hips, her large, naked breasts bouncing. “What is going on, husband?” she demanded, anger rippling across her face. “Why are you running!”
In the background, horses galloped towards us. My other women had followed my example. They would be here soon. Maybe I could convince Aingeal and Zanyia to let me go. Without their abilities, I would slip away from the other women.
The pain swelled in my heart as I said, “I have to leave Kora.”
“What?” Aingeal asked.
“You're not going anywhere, Master,” Zanyia said, crushing me with her lithe limbs.
“What do you mean, you have to leave Kora?” demanded Aingeal, a look of such confusion on her face.
Hooves slowed. “Leave me?” Kora asked as she reigned up, her pink robes hugging her body. She looked so tiny atop the tall warhorse. “Why would you have to leave me, brother mine?”
I groaned, the pain in her blue eyes stabbing into my heart. I wanted to avoid this. It would be an easier wound, a clean slice instead of a ragged cut, if I had slipped away without having to say these words, but...
I owed it to them to explain. I could see it in their faces as the others reined up. They dismounted, rushing around me. Kora looking stunned, the others assaulting me with questions, demanding answers. I was a coward to slip off without telling them.
I had to be a man and explain why I was breaking their hearts..
“Please, brother mine,” Kora said, her eyes liquid, “why are you doing this?”
I wrenched my gaze from her and settled on Ava. She clutched herself, the wind rustling her strawberry-blonde locks. “Ava... I know you want me to settle down and rule but... what if I can't? What if I need to have adventures?”
“And?” she asked.
“Even if I don't, even if I can do that, even if I can stick around and help, I would be working to putting your princedom to right. That would require a lot of moving around.”
Ava nodded her head. “It will be. I can't possibly hold all the territory my father conquered. We'll have to negotiate with the other princes, release land. The negotiations will probably last years. You're shrewd. I need you.”
