Heretic Spellblade 3

by Robertson, K. D.

  “But you don’t know about the second one,” he finished.

  “What’s she like as a person?”

  “Difficult to read.” Nathan bit his lip, then decided to be honest. Maura was being surprisingly helpful—although her reason was clear, given she wanted him to make a deal with her. “She idolizes me, but is also a rabble-rouser and firebrand. Good with words. Excellent fighter. Dutiful.”

  Maura let out a whistle. “Sounds great. Also gives me no idea what could be up. People with… issues have strange mental worlds. She could also be a user of mental magic.”

  “That would be unheard of,” he said.

  “True. But you’ve unsettled this world. Who knows what’s going on. I’ve seen some really fun stuff over the years.”

  Maura stood up and walked over to her twin. He took this is as the opportunity to leave and walked to the door.

  “Remember your promise, Nathan,” Maura called out, her sister in her arms. “Just a single tether, and we can do a lot. You won’t regret it. And just think of the orgies.” She winked at him.

  As he left the strange world of the Messengers, Nathan did his best not to think of the orgies. He could not say the same about his crotch.

  Over the coming weeks, he slowly practiced his mental magic, among other things. Nothing appeared to be awry with his new Champion. Everything proceeded apace.

  One morning, Seraph opened his door. She wore her usual outfit, and the red and black dress hugged her curvaceous figure delightfully. Her smirk made it clear that his gaze was welcome, as his eyes drank in her figure and cleavage.

  “Carriages from the Spires have arrived at Castle Forselburg,” she told him. “Ambassador Sureev wishes for you to meet him there, and then head to the Spires to meet with the Council of Aurelia.”

  Chapter 17

  “Who’s with him?” Nathan asked Seraph as they walked to the gateway in Gharrick Pass.

  “A pair of hunters. Your beloved Astra is nowhere to be seen.” Seraph smirked at him.

  “I don’t think I’d call her beloved.”

  “She certainly would.”

  No, she wouldn’t. But he left that part unsaid.

  They walked through the main hall of Gharrick Pass, which bustled with activity. Guards patrolled the walkways. Clerks walked past with bundles of paperwork and stationery. Castle staff carried supplies from wagons. Noise drifted in from the open doors, as the knights undertook their daily drills.

  Nathan’s destination was the basement. Huge suits of armor stood beside a solid steel door. Runes glowed on the door, visually warning any intruders to stay away. Nathan supposed they also told intruders that this door was important, but they’d get a nasty surprise if they tried to break through.

  The suits of armor lit up with light as he and Seraph descended the staircase toward them. Unlike other areas of the castle, this one wasn’t protected by knights. Only Nathan’s Champions had access to the basement.

  With a wave of his hand and a surge of magic, he unlocked the door and it opened. Once through, it slammed shut behind him and Seraph.

  A long, empty corridor greeted him. At the far end was an archway over solid stone. The gateway. A few doorways stood off to the side.

  One of those doorways contained the binding stone of Gharrick Pass. Nathan didn’t have a reason to check on it, so he ignored it.

  “I take it Narime’s talking with Sureev?” he asked.

  “As much as she can. I’d describe her as ‘strained,’ when she spoke to me over the wireless,” Seraph replied. “I’ve dealt with dark elves briefly. Sureev is the same as all the others—a massive asshole.”

  Nathan laughed. “I’m pretty sure they started training Sureev to look down on everyone that wasn’t a dark elf from the moment he opened his eyes. Being realistic about the dark elves is only smart.”

  “He likes you,” Seraph said.

  “He thinks he can use me,” Nathan corrected. “Like I said, we need to be realistic. The Council isn’t inviting us to the Spires for a friendly chat. They’re inviting us because there is something in it for them. If we forget that, then someone will kick us off one of their massive towers and we’ll plummet to our deaths.”

  “How optimistic of you.”

  “Somebody has to be,” he replied.

  They stood in front of the gateway. Despite appearing to be a featureless wall, magic radiated off it. Nathan felt it in his bones, without making any attempt to sense it.

  He touched the wall, and it shimmered like the surface of a pool of water. A circle of white light erupted from his hand, expanding to the edges of the archway over the wall. After a few seconds, a solid white door stood in front of him.

  “After you,” he said, gesturing to Seraph.

  She pushed him through the gateway in response.

  Pure white filled his vision. He stumbled to a halt, reaching out to stabilize himself against the wall on the other side of the gateway. When his eyesight returned, he found himself in a small room inside the basement of Castle Forselburg.

  Seraph stepped through behind him, then continued walking.

  The binding stone of the castle sat in this chamber and glowed a dull white. Given he was here, Nathan brushed it with his hand and checked on it.

  Time itself slowed. Seraph’s sashay ground to a halt. Nathan had an eternity to admire her ass, if he wanted to. And she wouldn’t even be able to tease him about it, as she was completely unaware.

  Time dilation was one of the more powerful abilities that a Bastion had access to. When Nathan dove into the mental world of his binding stones, his awareness of the physical world accelerated a thousand fold. Even the blink of an eye became slow to him.

  Most of the time, he used it to give him more time to think and strategize. That was invaluable during battle. But he also needed that time to do anything with binding stones. Bending reality wasn’t easy. The time dilation allowed Nathan to do fantastically complicated things.

  Nathan sank into his mind and the binding stone. In the back of his mind, he felt a gargantuan presence—almost alive and powerful enough to consume him. But once he dove into it, it split up into a series of smaller entities.

  Four of these were larger than the others. These were mental nodes, and represented the binding stones he controlled. One each for Gharrick Pass, Castle Forselburg, Fort Taubrum, and Castle Tartus. Each had a fine mental tether connected to him, and to each other.

  Many more tethers ran to small nodes and entities. Nathan had been connecting himself to the leylines and cairns in his territory. Doing this enabled him to further enhance the range of his Bastion abilities, which became less efficient the farther he was from a binding stone.

  “God, that thing is ugly,” Nathan said, once again seeing something that didn’t belong here.

  A fat, pulsing tendril of power was hooked into Gharrick Pass’s binding stone. It led out of his mental world.

  Once, he had mistaken it for a connection to Kadria. In reality, this tendril belonged to the Twins. This was their parasitic connection to Gharrick Pass, and through it, to his mind.

  What he couldn’t see were thousands of little tethers connected to himself from Kadria. He knew they existed, but they remained invisible.

  Everything looked normal, so he returned to reality. Time sped back up.

  Seraph looked back at him. “Why did you use binding stone magic?”

  “Explain to me again how you can sense that?” he asked.

  “I told you before, I can sense your mental state,” she said. “The hooks you place in Champions run both ways, and I’ve gotten pretty good at reading the connection. Think of it like trying to make out sound by pressing your head against the ground and listening to vibrations.”

  “Does that really work?” he asked. “I thought that was a myth.”

  “The beastkin are pretty good at it. Doesn’t Fei have a dog lieutenant that hunts like that?” Seraph said.

  “Kara,” he replied. “She
’s a Champion candidate.”

  “I bet she’s keen on that.” Seraph winked, but there was an odd look in her eyes.

  He grunted in response, then shifted the topic away from horny beastkin. “So, what, you can tell whenever I look at my binding stones?”

  “Yes. You’ve been doing it a lot lately. It’s been concerning me.”

  “No, I haven’t.” He tilted his head. “Wait, are you sure you’re not just mixing it up with whenever I use mental magic?”

  Seraph stared at him. “Nathan, don’t take this the wrong way, but hearing you say that you can use mental magic is terrifying. Especially after your recent revelation that you’re working with a Messenger.”

  He winced. “Not like that.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  They walked out of the basement and toward Narime’s office. Guards kept watch. The atmosphere was tense as they saluted Nathan. He returned the salute.

  No dark elves to be seen.

  Narime refused to do paperwork, so Seraph had a dedicated unit of clerks posted here. The door to their offices remained locked tight.

  While Nathan could go inside, there was no reason to. The fact the doors were shut said a lot about the current situation, though.

  “I’m trying to expand my repertoire of magic,” he explained to Seraph as they ascended to the upper floors of the keep. Nathan hadn’t wasted energy on rebuilding Castle Forselburg, so it still retained its extremely tall, phallic shape.

  “By becoming an incubus?” Seraph teased. “Do you plan to fight fire with fire when the Twins attack again?”

  “That’s… Hmm.” He paused and stroked his chin. “I didn’t think of that. It’s a terrible plan, though.”

  “I imagine so, yes. They’re literal sex demons, and you’re still human, Nathan.” Her eyes flashed. “Remember that while you’re dabbling with ascended magic. Everything I know about the topic suggests that there’s a price to pay.”

  “You certainly know a lot about ascended magic,” he said, staring her down.

  “After Kurai fell, I was taught many of the secrets that the Guardian Council knew. Or, that some of them knew, given Narime doesn’t know some of this.” Seraph’s expression darkened and she looked out a window.

  Nathan stopped, realizing that Seraph was talking to him seriously about her past for once.

  “We thought very little about the world outside our little bubble.” Seraph let out a ragged sigh. “There aren’t many people left who know how Kurai fell. It’s a deep, dark secret. Hearing from you how cascades truly work, about the true power of Messengers, and the apocalyptic power they hold… It makes me realize just how pathetic my homeland was.”

  He remained silent. Narime always spoke about Kurai solemnly or wistfully. To the old fox, her homeland was a cherished memory that had been lost forever. Kurai’s fall had been a tragedy to her.

  Seraph saw things differently.

  “I don’t want you to make those same mistakes, Nathan.” She faced him, before stepping up to him and pressing a hand against his cheek. Her eyes stared directly into his, as if trying to see into his mind. “It’s taken me my entire life to find a man who actually knows what they’re doing. I’d hate to lose him because he repeated history.”

  Nathan held her hand with his, but his eyes hardened at her words. “Repeating history is the one thing I won’t do.”

  She smiled at him. “Good. I’m looking forward to seeing that at the Spires.”

  They broke apart, then rose the last flight of steps to Narime’s office.

  A dark elf Champion stood outside. Like all hunters, this Champion swathed herself in robes from head-to-toe and covered her gems. Nathan didn’t recognize her.

  He did find it curious that Sureev brought hunters this time, instead of normal Champions. To Nathan’s knowledge, only the Bastions commanded the hunters. As a mere ambassador, he shouldn’t be working with them on normal visits—his last visit with Astra had been special, given he had been collecting Torneus.

  A pair of beastkin knights played cards next to the hunter. The tension was thick enough that it seemed to cling to Nathan’s skin.

  The knights saluted, and he returned it before heading inside the office.

  Sureev stood inside with another hunter. His skin was the color of ash and his tailored silk suit matched his natural hue. Dark elves had a wide variety of skin tones—from tanned to charcoal black. Human artists had a thing for chocolate-colored skin for some reason, although it was a rarity in reality.

  This man was the dark elf ambassador to the Anfang Empire. His face bore a sneer that Nathan suspected had settled on his face at some point in childhood, and was probably his resting expression.

  Narime sat behind her desk, slowly combing out a tail, while Sureev attempted to incinerate her with his eyes. Both of them looked up at Nathan when he entered.

  “Ah, Bastion Nathan,” Sureev greeted him, his expression instantly shifting to a bright smile. “Or is it Lord Nathan, now? I heard so many interesting things during my recent trip to Aleich. It was a truly exciting trip, for once.”

  To Nathan’s surprise, the ambassador offered a handshake. The hunter stared at Sureev as if he had grown a second head.

  Nathan took the outstretched hand, and they exchanged a firm handshake. “You visited His Majesty?”

  “And Her Imperial Highness,” Sureev stressed, his expression tightening briefly. “I had many duties to attend to. Hardly a surprise, given how busy the Empire is, and how strong the relationship between the Spires and the Empire is right now. Today is proof of that.”

  They pulled away from each other, but Nathan gave Sureev a nod. He’d gotten the message.

  Sureev knew about Alice and her eventual move for the throne. Nathan needed to follow up on that in private later.

  “His Majesty told me you’d visit when it was time. Is it?” Nathan asked.

  “It is. We should leave as soon as possible. I would have sent word sooner, but…” Sureev paused, before letting out a cough. “The One True Council of Aurelia has countless matters to attend to, given their role within the Spires. But an opportunity has arisen, and they wish to extend you the unprecedented courtesy of observing the trial of former High Lord Torneus.”

  It took Nathan a moment to realize that “as soon as possible” meant “now.” Narime straightened up in her chair, her eyes widening.

  Nathan mentally checked on whether he had anything important that needed to be done.

  “I am honored to receive the invitation, and of course, I accept,” he said politely, hiding his exasperation. “I’ll bring Seraph, Narime, and Fei with me—I believe you’re familiar with my Champions, at least by reputation.”

  “They will make for excellent escorts. There are no issues with them,” Sureev said.

  Nathan blinked, but managed to withhold his surprise. “I see.” Then he recalled another promise of his with Ciana. “I also have a Champion-in-training with me. I can’t leave her behind.”

  Sureev’s lips thinned. “That should be fine as well, although I do not know of her. I recommend that she remains with one of your respected Champions at all times while within the Spires.”

  Not even that had shaken Sureev. Nathan gave up on the political nonsense and simply smiled at Sureev while raising his arms in a shrug. “Can you give thirty minutes to organize things over the wireless, Sureev? I run the military of an entire duchy and defend five portals. I can’t exactly drop everything and walk off these days.”

  The ambassador chuckled. “I’m certain that I can find something to amuse myself with while you prepare to leave. I noticed some unfamiliar bottles in one of the storerooms that I passed. If you don’t mind…?”

  Narime clicked her tongue, but Nathan let Sureev poke around.

  The dark elves left. Once he was gone, Nathan quickly warded his office.

  “He’s talking about my sake, isn’t he?” Narime growled, her tails rising behind her.

>   “Probably. We’ll give him a case as a gift,” Nathan said.

  The fox glared at him.

  “He’s an ally, Narime.”

  “To you,” the fox spat. “He asked if I was pregnant, and whether I could defend the portal in my current state.”

  “I didn’t say he wasn’t an asshole,” Nathan said. “And I guarantee you that the hunters were just as bad, even if they didn’t say anything.”

  Narime scowled, but said nothing.

  “What was that about the handshake?” Seraph asked. “I thought the hunter was about to die of shock.”

  “Dark elves see all other races as lesser. A handshake indicates that I am equal. Even as an ambassador, it’s a huge faux pas for Sureev to shake hands with a human.” Nathan frowned. “Or it’s a sign that there’s something big going on in the Spires. He shouldn’t have let me bring three Champions—four if you include Ciana. It was a fight to bring two last time, plus Nurevia.”

  In his original world, when he had gone with Charlotte and Gareth, the Council had limited their presence. Even in the face of the end of the world, they looked down on everyone else. Nurevia had been the only Champion allowed near the Council. Gareth hadn’t even been allowed to bring a Champion. Nathan had brought Vala and Narime, but that was it.

  Later visits hadn’t been much better.

  What was going on in the Spires?

  “I suppose we’ll find out once we get there,” Seraph said. Then she tilted her head to one side. “Shouldn’t I stay behind to run everything?”

  “Anna and Kuda can do their jobs for once,” he replied, although Seraph glared at him in response. “Get on the wireless and delegate your work, then. You’re coming with me to the Spires. I’m taking all of my duogems, save Fyre—and both you and Narime are my smartest and sharpest Champions.”

  “Ah.” Narime smiled at him.

  Both women stepped up to him, and the fox’s tailed curled around him.

  “You could have said that to begin with,” Seraph said. “I’ll never refuse a compliment. But who’s smarter?”