“That’s my girl,” I said, reaching her arms, and taking them when she smiled at me. “So what do you have in mind for moving forward with this?”
“Well,” she said, looking pensive, “I think I’ll have to keep sharing information about you with the ones that haven’t met you, like Jarta and Minerv. That’ll help prepare them for when you finally do meet them. And, um, if you could maybe keep doing what you’re doing with the physical stuff?”
“What, you mean like keep it slow?” I asked, trying to make sure I understood—even though I really didn’t want to keep moving things at this slow pace.
“I meant, keep doing them, period,” the olive-skinned woman said, her cheeks reddening a small bit. “I mean, I’m really, really grateful that you’re not moving too fast. I don’t think I can handle, um, actual sex yet. But whatever you did with Merada and Via felt really, really good. And it’s helping me in a way I really can’t explain. So, um, if Anahita or someone else starts getting comfortable with you, don’t go any slower, either, if that makes sense. And,” she added, biting her lip for a moment, “even though we can’t go full-on um...lovemaking, or whatever....Breena’s made it clear that I need to do a much better job of handling your own needs. You deserve to feel good, too. Can you let one of my bodies know whenever we do something right, or wrong?”
“Absolutely,” I said, caressing Stell’s forearms as I held them. “There are a lot of things we can still do right.”
“Good,” Stell said firmly, smiling at me as I touched her arms. “Your needs are just as important as my own. I’m going to do what I can for them, apocalypses be damned. So,” the beautiful woman blew out a breath, “I’m going to try something. It’s called a Courtship Bond, and it’s usually only done when all of a Starsown’s Satellites pair up with another Starsown’s Satellites, but, well…Via’s right. We’ve pretty much moved beyond coffee and holding hands in the park.”
“Agreed,” I noted. “So what will this look like?”
“It will be a tiny bit like the familiar bond you have with Breena,” Stell began to explain, “that’s also something that came about from my tinkering with the pseudoprojections. At least the current state, anyway. Fairies and familiars in general are complicated things. But anyway, we hold hands, and then I pour a tiny bit of Starsown sense into you. It’ll make the transition easier on your Satellites, and it will provide a kind of…ugh, it’s hard to describe, because it’s a sense that you only have when you’ve got more than one body. But it will create a presence in you that will help me soothe you in a bunch of minor ways, that will hopefully help you deal with a complicated girlfriend who’s probably been taking things far, far slower than most Earthborn women would with you back home.”
“So wait,” I said, still gently holding her arms, even as I grimaced over her bit of self-deprecation at the end. “First of all, I don’t know what Breena’s been telling you, but I’m not about to start frothing at the mouth and tear your clothes off or whatever. I don’t want you to feel bad over how complicated this is, and beyond our control. Okay?” She nodded, looking a little pleased and irritated at the same time. “Second, is this um, gonna replace sex? Or the desire for sex?”
“Definitely not,” Stell said firmly. “The desire will actually get stronger in the long run, but the bond will help level out some of the frustration, if not the urge itself. It’s complicated to explain, but we’ll be able to sense each other’s intentions a little better, so that you’ll at least be able to tell that your desires are reciprocated, and that I’m um, not leading you on or whatever. My people actually developed the bond so that a couple’s different bodies could better sort out the signals they were receiving from their mate’s many Satellites. I know you don’t have your consciousness spread out like I do, but it should still help at least a little bit. Can we try it?”
Yes, Teeth spoke up. Say yes. Right now.
“Sure,” I said, privately trying to figure out just what exactly Teeth counted as in terms of a consciousness. “Just tell me what you need me to do.”
“Just keep holding me like you are now,” Stell commanded, as she closed her eyes. “Also, Breena, Anahita, make sure no one else can come inside while we do this. Okay, here we go.”
Stell’s ears turned gray and began to extend, until they were longer and narrower than an elf’s.
A moment later, her body became warm, and some buzzing energy flowed from her arms into mine.
As it traveled up into the rest of my body, Teeth let out a relaxed sigh, and grew quiet.
I couldn’t feel anything else, except for some vague, hazy sense of assurance that hovered around the edge of my senses, right next to the vague, hazy sense of anxiety that had also hovered around the edges my mind, one that I had never noticed until now.
It was like discovering a hundred little ‘what-ifs?’ in my brain under the carpet, and then having a hundred little ‘it will be okays’ sweep them up and put them in a dust bin.
“How do you feel?” Stell asked me.
I sensed nervousness flow through her, then I felt it still the next very moment.
“Relaxed,” I answered, still sifting through my own emotions. “It’s like I just found a handhold I can grasp whenever I feel in danger of falling. Beyond that, though, I have no idea, but my inner dragon feels happy, and calmer.”
“Good!” the woman holding me said, with a hint of Breena’s old cheerfulness. “I feel much better, too. And I’m glad you’re not mad at me.”
“You were worried I was mad at you?” I asked, tilting my head at her.
“I was worried about a bunch of things.” Stell admitted. “In fact, it sort of feels like I’ve been giving a dozen different worst-case scenarios free rent in my head until now. It’s good to finally kick them out.”
She looked out to the entrance.
“I think I’m out of time,” she said regretfully. “The Malus army should be arriving here any hour now, and I have to distribute this poison to the proper battle lines, anyway. It was good to see you, though.” She reached for my neck to give me a hug. “Stay safe, okay?”
I wrapped my arms around her.
“As best as I can,” I promised. “You do the same.”
I felt her nod, and then she let go. She stepped toward the jars and vials of poison, made some gesture with her palm, and my stored blood disappeared with a crack of energy. With another gesture, a portal opened in front of her. She gave me one last smile, and then stepped through it.
The portal snapped shut, and I missed her immediately.
I somehow knew she missed me in turn, and that she looked forward to seeing me again.
And that she was immensely grateful for me, on an order of magnitude she didn’t know how to express with mere words.
I let that comfort me as I turned my attention to preparing Sejmera to receive the massive incoming army.
And I tried very hard to hide my anticipation over this next endeavor.
Thanks to our fairy-whisper network, I had gotten some very, very good news both from Avalon and Chris this morning.
The first was that Chris, after returning to his dad and making an announcement about his death, had managed to make another quick visit to Avalon and update Guineve and Virtus about the Malus movements.
As we had suspected, most of the Malus forces would be linking up right before they reached our city. There would be additional armies moving in later to ensure Warren’s people retained control of this world, and some were already arriving far down in the south, but for now, we could say for a fact that we were about to deal with the largest concentration of Malus and Horde forces currently inside the Golden Sands.
The second message came directly from Guineve, and it concerned Avalon itself.
The Avalonians were the first race I had managed to liberate in Avalon’s rites, but they had taken the longest to awaken.
That was because the people themselves had been turned completely into ghosts, to be fuel for
Virtus’ fallen comrades. Conquering the Rite reversed the process, but it was taking a long time to rebuild the bodies of the last Pendragon’s people—and the ghosts had insisted that their children and young adults resurrect first.
That had still given me a powerful benefit, though, because even the youngest Avalonian was inherently talented in at least one form of magic—Ideal, Saga, or otherwise. The children were all Initiate-ranked, while the teens had all been Journeymen or even Practitioners.
According to Stell and Virtus, an initiate mage was powerful enough to be useful in all manner of camp and settlement tasks, while Journeyman or Practitioner was the average rank of most casters on the battlefield. It was part of the reason my retinue and I could so easily annihilate forces over a dozen times our number.
And my K-12 class of Avalonians could easily duplicate that feat, whenever I was actually willing to risk using them.
At any rate, the adults were finally beginning to resurrect now. That meant that I had gained scores of new Practitioners—some in multiple Ideals—dozens of High Practitioners…
And one Adept.
A near-archmage, of both Air and Water.
He wouldn’t be able to hurl thunderstorms through portals like Fragglerock had, but I wouldn’t need him to.
Because, even after their fifty years of glorious conquest and their vaunted potential of Descending, the Malus Members still didn’t seem to have more than a handful of Adepts within their own ranks.
But with the addition of an Air and Water Adept, I could move my own forces even more quickly, and keep them supplied with water.
Combined with the losses I was about to inflict, we may be able to retake this world far more quickly than our original projections.
But first I had to pull off said losses.
Anahita and Breena stayed out of sight while I made sure that Stell’s pseudo projections were carrying out their routines.
The Horde rounded themselves up at their appointed locations. The disguised projections continued their routines, though I could tell that they were almost out of power, meaning that if new Malus operatives came by next week, they’d be able to find out that there weren’t any of their operatives here.
So I still had a limited window to maximize my damage.
Eventually, the Malus operatives arrived, another group of assholes in black robes and armor. I disguised myself as the local captain and went to meet them.
They didn’t speak to me much, other than to make sure that the liaison from earlier had told me everything we needed to know. They also treated me with a good bit of contempt, like they thought I was inferior to them, and that this place was some back-water post not really worth their time.
The officers did appreciate the local dancers, however, who agreed to perform again for them. It would be a much similar dance to what they had performed before.
The one modification was that this time, the poison we used would work much more slowly.
Except for decreasing their libido. That would be rather fast-acting, and in fact I had already made arrangements for the rest of the army to receive poisoned refreshments, just to keep them from abusing any vulnerable women like Gustav had threatened to do.
So, once everyone was properly poisoned and entertained, I sat back and reflected on just how much I had bled over the last week.
There was a reason Stell kept you hydrated and fed, Breena said into my mind as I sat in the entertainment room with a bunch of people that I’d much rather murder than share a drink with, watching a bunch of women twirl in colorful garments. And by the way, you should sort of still be eating and drinking a lot.
Noted, I sent back as a small serving woman set out another plate of food for me. I’m really not hungry though.
I took a bite anyway, because the local bread was fantastic.
“Do you always eat this much?” the Malus operative said from the table next to me, giving me a disgusted glance. He was a man with oddly spiked hair and a magical tattoo covering half of his face, made by some Malus Scripter’s attempt at duplicating tattoo magic.
“Why not?” I said with a forced smile, grabbing a loaf and tearing it. “The food’s good, and it’s pretty much the only thing to do around here, now that I’ve got the locals in line.”
“I don’t see that as much of an accomplishment,” the other man snorted, eying the women performing in the middle of the room with distaste. “After all that talk about finally breaking the dancers, I’d expect more results. These women aren’t doing anything at all for me.”
“Not my problem,” I said with a shrug. “I’m just supposed to feed and supply you guys, then go back to meeting my own quotas.”
“And thanks to our own work, you’ll be able to,” the other man replied irritably. “Getting pulled out of the Spirit Kingdoms to haul ass across the entire goddamned desert has been an absolute bitch. Cripplehead could have at least had the decency to stage his heroic return somewhere people actually live. But instead, he pops out in the middle of nowhere, and starts to overrun the incompetent shits guarding three cities and our brand-new Air master—which was probably the expensive thing he wrecked up there. Since most of the Golden Sands is an overheated shit hole, guarded by a bunch of slackers who can’t handle a single trauma patient and his ragtag army of refugees.”
“Hey, don’t look at me,” I snapped, as the serving girl quietly refilled Commander Karen’s glass of wine. “I’ve got everything under control here. My city is one hundred percent Malcolm-free and running smoother than ever. Besides, what do you mean three cities? The liaison said he’d only taken Nedjena and Mejem.”
“I mean the Horde are reporting that Tajam’s Pit was destroyed,” Commander Karen growled, “and we just lost contact with the operatives there. It’s possible that the Sable Bitch did all of that on her own, but we can count on Cripplehead to try and take advantage of that.”
“How could she have done all of that if Cavus had caught her?” I asked, looking mildly interested.
“Because he hasn’t caught her,” the spiky-haired prick snapped. “He went back on his idea. Says he’s got her right where he wants her, and doesn’t have to give up anything else he wants. But yeah. Because of that, we’re pulling most of the actual elites we do have on this world, just to make sure we finish things once and for all. That’s why most of the vault guards are with us.”
Commander Karen pointed to a group of powerful-looking, but bored men on the other side of the room, casually drinking the wine we had so lovingly prepared for them.
“More food, my lord?” the serving girl said as she set down a tray of baklava next to the tray that had held my bread.
“Eh, why not?” I said, surprised at how hungry I felt. The veiled, dusk-skinned woman refilled my glass and took away my empty tray. “Now, what’s this about the vault guards being called into duty?”
“Warren made the call himself.” The other man shrugged. “They’re not elite by Dawnland or Spirit Kingdom standards, but they’re pretty much the best units we have here. There’s no point in wasting them on guard duty.”
“I thought they were guarding this world’s most powerful artifacts?” I asked, doing my best to sound confused instead of excited.
“Yeah, and only the nerd-girl’s Satellite knows how to operate them,” Commander Karen retorted. “Cavus insists that he has the bitch under control, so the guards won’t be needed. They’ll be more useful bringing the captured cities back in line, and possibly even helping us retake Avalon through the Pathway Cripplehead used. Or at least locking that Pathway down.”
“Huh,” I said, taking a sip from the healthiest wine glass in the entire room. “Well, not my problem. My men and I are keeping this city working as it should, with all the deliveries running on time.”
“Good for you,” the asshole at the table next to mine grumbled. “Even if this is as far as your advancement goes. Not that you seem to have the temperament for conquering cities anyway.”
“Hell, no,” I replied, careful to sound apathetic, “that’s not something I have the skill set for. I wouldn’t even know where to begin—and don’t care to learn.”
He snorted again, and then finally, blissfully shut up.
The performance ended, and most of the Malus officers streamed out of the room to go get some sleep, grumbling about how bored and tired they were.
“My lord,” the veiled serving girl said, just before the last of the Malus Men filtered out of the room, “shall I take you to your bed chamber now?”
The hell? I thought. Why would she—oh, Anahita. Duh.
I caught one more disgusted look from Commander Karen, that was also full of poorly disguised jealousy, before he exited the room.
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