“Why did you knock?” he groaned.
Fara paused. “Wow. You really are done for. How much did you drink?”
“I lost count after the third bottle. Weren’t you keeping count?”
A snort. “In case you didn’t notice, I fell asleep. I had to stop drinking or I’d pass out, but it still got to me eventually. Vallis carried me back to bed.”
“How nice,” Rys drawled. “I woke up in a pile of sticky liquid.”
Silence.
Fara began to giggle, then burst out laughing.
“Not that sort of sticky liquid.” Rys rolled his eyes. Or tried to. The movement physically hurt, forcing him to shut his eyelids as tight as he could.
“The whiskey, I know,” Fara gasped out. “But just imagining you and Grigor…” She broke down in a fit of giggles again.
Rys did his best to let her laughter wash over him.
Eventually, she stopped laughing at her own imagination. She padded up to him and he felt her hand on his forehead.
“You seem fine,” she declared.
“I am never relying on your healing skills again,” he responded, glaring at her.
She rolled her eyes, taunting him with her ability to do so. Her hands gestured for him to move over. He did not do so. Her eyes rolled again.
Gently—and Fara was actually gentle—she lifted his head and upper body and sat on one end of the sofa. Then she sat his head on her lap. Her tails curled over his lower body and she stared down at him.
The warmth of her body crept into him, seeping through his head and clothes, until it reached his very core. Rys sighed. Her fingers brushed the hair from his fringe. They feathered over the side of his head, tracing a curve around his ears. Every sensation was amplified by his closed eyes.
Rys was left alone to the sounds and sensations that Fara gave him. The rustling of her tails and clothes. The rhythmic accompaniment of her breathing. The feel of her fingers on his skin. The brushing of air against his body as her tails moved.
A soft sensation tickled his lower body, and he automatically reached for the cause. Fara gasped as his hands sank into a soft, fluffy object. Her fingers froze.
“I’ll let you off with a warning today,” Fara murmured. She resumed playing with his hair.
Rys gently ran his fingers through her tail. Soft gasps, full of heat and longing, joined the chorus of sounds he heard.
His explorations taught him many things about her tails. That the bristly tips of her fur only went half an inch deep. Those bristles grew in density toward the tip of the tail, where her tail transitioned from black to white fur. Running his hands along the bristles produced softer moans and sometimes giggles.
So Fara’s tail was ticklish, if he brushed it the right way.
His hands sank deeper, and he got a smack for his trouble. A strong core of something ran through the very center of the tail.
“Don’t touch that,” Fara said. “You can really hurt me if you mess up my tail.”
“That’s not a bone, is it?” Rys asked.
He knew that ordinary foxes had bones in their tails. As did many other animals.
“No, but we need something to connect our tails to our bodies,” Fara answered, speaking softly. “We control our tails using magic within our bodies, rather than muscles. Casting intricate arrays would be impossible otherwise.”
Rys suspected there might be other reasons. Almost the entirety of Fara’s tail was fur, with only a small core running through the center. If the fur itself held astral energy, then maximizing the amount of it was ideal for a designer.
That fact made Rys pause. Fara was a divine being, which meant she came from another world.
No, mystic foxes were originally a race of divine beings. Fara was definitely native to Harrium. She had parents here, grew up here, and had mentioned thoughts of becoming a mother. Her race had lived here for at least a thousand years.
Most divine races couldn’t reproduce on Harrium. Infernals had failed every time to use their mating ritual here, due to the incompatibility between the local magical energy and the infernal energy required to sustain infant life. Even when it succeeded, the results were horrific.
By the time Rys had been born, Ariel had long since banned any attempts to create infernals in Harrium. The heartlessness required to experiment on their own children had been too much even for the infernals.
Which made mystic foxes even stranger. Fara was a divine being that felt like a native of Harrium. Her race didn’t feel like an accident, either. Infernals varied immensely, with countless strains and species within the broad categories of demons and devils. Mystic foxes felt too perfect, by comparison.
Rys was reminded of the angels, who were a created race. Angels didn’t reproduce—although Rys had heard that archangels supposedly could. Instead, angels were crafted in Heaven as footsoldiers and sent to Harrium. Vastly greater beings supposedly lived in Harrium. The angels were only the army of Heaven. Messengers, essentially.
If mystic foxes were created by something or someone, it would explain a lot about them. But it also left many questions open. Questions that Rys was in no position to answer.
Rys and Fara remained together for longer than Rys tracked. His headache dulled. Fara meditated, but her fingers continued to weave through his hair. The gentle sensation running along his face lulled him, and he dozed.
Humming filled the room when he came to. He opened his eyes and looked up at Fara. Her eyes were closed.
The room was peaceful.
Eventually, Fara noticed he was alert.
“Feeling better?” she asked.
“Much.”
She continued to hum, and they remained together in this blissful state for several minutes.
Eventually, her fingers prodded at his ears.
“Fara,” Rys said aloud.
“Back home, it was fairly common to clean ears like this,” Fara said. “I cleaned my sisters’ ears occasionally. When I was really little, some of the village elders cleaned mine.”
Ear cleaning. What.
“Please don’t put anything smaller than your elbow inside my ears,” Rys said.
Fara laughed. “Yes, that is the reaction I expected. It’s odd how normal it is back in Pharos, but everybody from Gauron recoils in horror.”
“Hearing damage is no joke.”
“Could I even permanently hurt your ears?” she asked. “But it’s different for foxes, anyway. We have to regularly clean out the fur and bristles around our ears. And while that fur protects our ear canals, if we want to maintain our excellent hearing, it is important to clean them out occasionally.”
“Fara—” Rys began to warn her.
“I won’t touch your precious little ears.” She wiggled one of them and he resisted the urge to grab her arm.
A question rose up within Rys. “Why didn’t your parents clean your ears?” he asked.
Fara grimaced. “Foxes are raised communally in most clans. I knew my parents, but I never had much of a relationship with them. They grouped together all the foxes born within several years of each other, then assigned several older foxes to take care of us. When we got older, we then split into clan groups based on age and undertook training outside of our village.”
She sighed and looked up. “That’s part of why my sister is here. She wanted to be a mother—a real mother. So when I came here, she followed and raised her daughters for as long as she could before they needed to start doing the clan training.”
Once again, the problem of the mystic fox clan requiring the individuals to sacrifice for the good of the clan had arisen. Rys let the topic drop for now, and instead relaxed on Fara’s lap.
She traced his Adam’s apple with her fingertips.
“I told you in Harpiscon that we needed to have a talk, but it can wait,” Fara said. “This is nice.”
“It is.” He waited for a few seconds. “But unless you want to talk about something really big, I don’t think you shou
ld put it off.”
The feeling of her fingers on his neck felt odd, as he felt a slight pressure while he spoke.
“It is big, but… smaller than I thought it would be.” Fara sighed. “I thought this would end up being an argument, but now I feel that I can just voice my thoughts.”
“I take it they won’t be positive ones,” Rys said.
“Most will be. But a few will be on things that I disagree with you about.” Fara smiled sadly. “Maybe I should turn this into an argument over them, but I know you well enough that it would be pointless. Everything you do has so much thought and experience behind it. I might not be able to change how I feel about something, but I want to at least understand.”
Rys sighed and closed his eyes.
“So, are you starting with the worst topic or…?” Rys asked.
“Let’s rip the bandage off,” Fara agreed. “I’ve been helping you slaughter your way through Compagnon’s mercenaries. While I’m trained to kill—that’s what an enforcer does—this has been much different. Since I gained my fourth tail, I’ve slain monsters to protect Pharos or killed those who threatened Vallis’s family. This is…”
She frowned and looked at the wall. Even after several long seconds, she didn’t finish her sentence.
“More proactive,” Rys said, saying what she wouldn’t but in a friendlier way. “Hence why you want to talk it through.”
“Yes. I feel that I’m stepping over an invisible line,” Fara said.
“If you had been asked to do this as an enforcer back in Pharos, would it be different?”
“I… I don’t know.” Fara’s lips thinned. “Things came close to civil war when Taira vanished and the new alliance chief was… not who everybody expected. The idea of killing so many of my kin kept me up at night. I left Pharos not long after.”
Rys saw the unbidden tears in Fara’s eyes and sat up. She tugged at his arm, preventing him from standing. Her head slipped into the crook of his neck while her tails tickled his side.
“Does this feel the same?” he asked quietly.
“No. But I feel that it should. I’ve lived here for decades. Killing and capturing so many people should make me feel worse. But it’s so easy to justify it, because of what Compagnon did, or because I’m helping Vallis, or because I care about you,” Fara mumbled. “Does that make it right?”
“You realize I’m not going to give you an answer you’ll like?” he told her.
“You’ve never given me an answer I’ve liked. But you have given me answers that I need to hear. I’m trying to pull my head out of the sand I’ve kept it in for most of my life, and I need you to help me, Rys.” Her hands pulled at his clothes.
“The simple answer is that it doesn’t matter if anything is right. All that matters is that you feel good about what you’re achieving,” he said.
She looked at him in shock and disbelief.
He continued, “That’s why the demons don’t care. To them, there is no right or wrong, only what they can and can’t do. Except Grigor, but he’s an exception.”
“I could tell,” Fara said. “He’s so unlike every other infernal.”
Rys smiled at that, but he quickly stopped. “Personal justification is what you need to get through life. You’re doing that right now. Compagnon is evil, therefore you can kill the mercenaries who fight for them. Or maybe it’s just about love. The mercenaries do the same thing. They’re just taking a job, and everybody in their way is only business.”
“That’s cold. Do you view everybody like that?” Fara asked, her eyes narrowing.
Chewing on his lip, Rys considered his next words. He had wanted to place himself away from Fara, so this discussion could be better controlled. She frowned at him when he tried to move away, her lips twinging downward as if she didn’t understand why he was trying to stand up.
So he remained seated next to her.
“There’s a gap between my personal approach to people, and how I run an empire. I care about you, but the people in Anceston are a faceless mass. When you’re ruling an empire, people are a resource,” Rys said. “Peaceful, loyal subjects have high value. They become the craftsmen, engineers, bankers, mages, and officers that lead the empire. The value of enemies varies based on whether they can become loyal subjects in the future.”
“I’m surprised you put people into buckets like that,” Fara said.
“I use those buckets to keep the infernals under control. Useless enemies are fodder and can be killed or imprisoned without issue. Few people miss them, although I’ll need to be careful with the soldiers.” Rys frowned. “There’s only so far that ‘he took up a sword’ goes to excuse things. Slaughtering an army of conscripts is brutal.”
“Most soldiers are ordinary people, yes,” Fara said. “So is almost anybody.”
“The difference is that soldiers are loyal subjects, except they’re fighting for the other side. They haven’t done anything wrong, except be born in the wrong country,” Rys explained. “Once I conquer that country, they stop being ‘the enemy’ and become peaceful, loyal subjects. For the most part. There are always units of soldiers who do awful things.”
“So, you consider this to be some sort of karmic system? Retribution for the sins that people do?” Fara asked, her voice uncertain.
Rys opened his mouth to deny that, then froze.
Retribution? That sounded an awful lot like vengeance.
Had Azrael subtly affected the way he approached life? Simply by existing, Rys’s soul invisibly affected his decisions. That was what souls did.
The possibility bothered him, but he brushed his concerns away.
“That was never the intention, but it helps justify it,” Rys said. “It’s mostly about balancing competing needs. The infernals enjoy wanton violence, and I want a peaceful empire where people don’t worry about being murdered at random. That’s why there’s a huge bucket called ‘peaceful loyal subjects.’ They’re off limits.”
“What happens when the infernals get bored? Or if a massacre happens despite this?” Fara asked.
“Then Grigor or I remind the infernals—or whoever is responsible—who sets the rules and sends some stupid infernals back to Hell,” Rys said flatly. “Sometimes they don’t make it back to Hell.”
Fara gulped. “You just kill them?”
“I told you before. You can’t set rules or make threats, then not follow through,” Rys said. “People will only obey if they’re reminded that there are consequences for disobeying.”
“I can’t help but feel that this is self-justifying. If you’re powerful enough, can’t you do things a different way? Is violence the only option?” Fara asked.
“If a dictator orders his people to survive on a grain of rice a day, can he ensure that happens? Of course. But only by killing everybody who disobeys, and watching everybody else starve to death,” Rys said. “Power isn’t absolute. I have my limits.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Fara muttered. “It still feels wrong that I’m okay with slaughter because I dislike who I’m killing, or that I care more about you than them. Do you think there’ll ever be a time when we can stop? That warriors won’t be needed?”
Rys shook his head, expression grim. “No. That will never happen.”
“Why not?” Fara ran a hand through her hair. “Even if you ruled the entire world with an iron fist, it wouldn’t be enough?”
Rys stared at the far wall. He took a deep breath as he remembered long repressed sensations and feelings.
“Do you know what the death of an entire race feels like?”
Fara blinked and stared at Rys. Her tails fell around her, then her ears flattened against her head.
“I… That’s not a threat, is it?” she asked. “You’re referring to the Cataclysm.”
“Yes.” Rys’s expression remained stony. “When the reapers were wiped out, it unleashed a magical shock wave across Harrium. The interference knocked out every active magical spell that wasn’t sufficien
tly shielded. Bridges and buildings fell down. Mages collapsed. And everybody sensitive to magic felt the death of an entire race.”
Fara didn’t say anything.
“A few months later, it repeated. Only different. Hades still existed on Harrium, but it became uninhabitable due to whatever killed the reapers. But the archangels erased Pandemonium from existence.” Rys shuddered. “The shock wave knocked out almost every person on the planet. Kill a lot of them, too. People drowned, or fell from high places, or cracked their heads open from a bad fall.”
“Every person on the planet?” Fara repeated.
“Almost everybody can use magic, even if they’re bad at it,” Rys explained. “Only nulls—people who literally cannot use magic—didn’t feel the destruction of Pandemonium.”
He remembered where he was. Everybody did.
Or at least, everybody still alive today. Rys reminded himself that he was almost unique these days. He probably couldn’t fill a bar with the number of people who remembered the Cataclysm personally.
“That’s why there can’t ever be a time when there’s enough,” Rys said, continuing his original train of thought. “Because maybe a Cataclysm will happen. Or another Emergence. Or an army of shadowbeasts wipes out half of a continent. Idealistic decisions work in idealistic times. I don’t think those times actually exist, other than in people’s minds.”
Fara wrapped an arm around him and leaned against him. “I’d make a comment about the road to Hell being paved with good intentions, but I think you’re well past that point, Rys.”
He shrugged, causing her body to shift along with the movement. “You wanted to understand.”
“I do. It’s hard to really get it. You’re talking from a past of pain and suffering that makes my own problems feel so… trivial,” Fara said. “Maybe that’s why talking to you helps me. When I think about what I should do, I get caught up in my problems. Here, with you, I feel free. Like whatever my issues are, they don’t matter.”
They remained silent for several long minutes. The atmosphere from earlier couldn’t return, but Fara’s fingers curled around his.
“I’m assuming that’s because you’ve come to a decision about what to do next,” Rys said.
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