Alice stared at Leopold. She tried to keep the shock off her face.
“Are you suggesting that Nathan is the same as Tharban? People said this about Torneus, and I never really bought it,” she said.
“What makes some people similar aren’t how they act, but their drives,” Leopold said. “If nothing else, the parallel makes for a great story. Father and son, powerful Bastions, both believers in Imperial glory, staunch supporters of the goddess, but they hold violently opposing views on non-humans—it becomes very hard to argue one is morally superior to the other.”
The smile on Leopold’s face was one that Alice was much less familiar with. It wasn’t the smile of her genial uncle, but that of the Emperor’s right-hand man.
A web had been woven. Alice wondered how long ago the spider had started weaving it.
And, for that matter, who was caught up in this web.
Chapter 4
The days passed quickly at Anna’s palace. Nathan had escaped his duties by visiting Vera, but only briefly. The bureaucracy swiftly caught up to him.
Like Anna, he had also vastly increased his power. He now controlled four separate binding stones and their respective fortresses.
His home base of Gharrick Pass. Seraph’s haunt of Fort Taubrum, just east of the Gharrick Mountains. The very phallic marble fortress of Castle Forselburg, where he left Narime in charge. And, of course, Castle Tartus, which was named after the city it protected.
Each of these fortresses had a fully active demonic portal. They needed to be defended, manned, and used to instill peace in the surrounding region. Anna’s army and the local guards relied on him to provide a calming presence to the region.
Ordinarily, Nathan wouldn’t have that much to do. Bastions typically defended their fortresses, trained their Champions and soldiers, and stayed out of politics. Taking care of the region was the job of the nobles. That was, theoretically, why they were nobles.
But Nathan cared dearly for Anna. She had stepped out of her comfort zone for him, and was trying her best to stay afloat. If she needed his help to protect and manage the region’s military, he’d provide it.
Although he wasn’t sure if she was serious about marriage. She’d teased him more than a few times about when he’d become Nathan von Clair. Given his worries about the potential end of the world, he chose not to focus much on it.
In the end, that meant Nathan found himself inundated with as much paperwork as Anna.
His tasks were many. Run training programs for both her army and his own knights. Find and recruit long-term soldiers within the region, which typically meant beastkin. Establish strong logistics and command structures to quell bandits and withstand future disruption.
And, of course, he needed to pay for it all, feed and house everyone, build and rebuild forts and warehouses that were often in a state of disrepair, and maintain good relations with the people of the region. All while political instability rose within the Empire.
Fortunately, Nathan was no stranger to doing this. He had overseen the evacuation of entire countries more than once. Being able to prevent that from happening made all the work worthwhile, in his mind. He had seen off far too many people in courageous last stands for one lifetime, let alone two.
The downside was that he lacked many of the people who helped him manage things back then. He was stretched thin in terms of Champions. Fei, Sunstorm, and Sen were warriors, not clerks. Narime could do the paperwork, but if Nathan so much as waved a form at her, she’d teleport halfway across Doumahr.
Seraph carried most of the load for Nathan, but even her master administrator abilities were being taxed. As such, most of the work followed Nathan wherever he worked. He made it a priority to train more clerks and also to find more Champions who wouldn’t suffer a mental breakdown when left behind a desk for a day.
At least he had some very soft and lovely stress relief while staying with Anna.
“Mmmm,” Anna moaned as he pulled out of her. Her back was arched and her rear faced him, while her face pressed into a pillow.
Nathan settled next to her naked body as she settled into a quivering mess.
“Not going to clean up?” he asked.
She made an unintelligible noise. He chuckled and rubbed her bare leg. Although she smiled, her lack of reaction made it clear she was spent.
Minutes passed in silence as they lay together. Slowly, she drifted off to sleep. Almost as if she had eaten a big meal and needed an afternoon nap.
Technically, she had eaten a big meal.
Something glowed softly on one of Anna’s bedstands. They were in her bedroom, which was absolutely palatial.
He rose and padded over to the source of the light. It was a small hand mirror. One of the jewels encrusted on its rim glowed.
Alice had left him with this mirror. It was a magical communication device that allowed him to speak with her. When the jewels glowed, it indicated that Alice was trying to contact him or that she wanted to contact him at a specific time.
Right now, she seemed to be using her mirror. So he picked up his own, sat down, and activated it.
“Oh, you are there,” she said as her face and upper body appeared. Then she blushed as her eyes darted lower. “And… not wearing anything?”
“I can put a shirt on if you’d like, but I was with Anna a moment ago,” he replied.
An odd expression crossed Alice’s face. Her lips tried to pout, but instead decided to thin. The rest of her face became a little more taut.
“Is she there?” Alice asked, lowering her voice.
“Sleeping.”
Alice blinked. “It’s mid-afternoon.”
“I’m not sure I should go into more detail about what we were doing, given you are the Imperial Princess.” Nathan coughed. “But she’s sleeping now.”
Alice’s eyebrows shot up. She muttered, “Lucky Anna.”
“I’m sorry?” Nathan asked.
Had she said what he thought she said?
“Did I say that aloud?” Alice’s face paled and her expression became one of mortification.
Then she put on the broadest, fakest smile that Nathan had ever seen on her. “I understand you’ve been busy, Nathan. From what I hear, you’ve become a general.”
“I’m still only a Bastion in service to my duchess,” Nathan said, but his tone was wry.
“Cute. Is that what you tell all the nobles who ask why you’re in command of Anna’s army?”
“Heh. Pretty much. What are they going to say? That Anna’s not allowed to give me orders? That I can’t command soldiers outside the Imperial Army?” He shook his head. “Besides, it’s mostly just busywork. Logistics, recruitment, construction.”
“Why the rush, then?” Alice asked.
Because Nathan knew from experience that these things mattered the most when everything went to Hell.
Not that he could put it like that.
“A lot of this is just invisible bureaucracy,” he said. “The sort of things that nobles take care of themselves. Without them, chaos spreads. Anna’s replaced a lot of the people that used to do these things, and I don’t want everything to get out of hand.”
“People like Torneus,” Alice said.
“And his supporters. When his retainers fled, a lot of knowledge vanished with them. Seraph is one of the few people who knows how the place works. Some of the other regents are helping, but they have their own problems to handle. Plus, Anna’s competition. If she blows it, then they think they can take her land.”
Alice scowled. “For about five seconds, until the Nationalists take it back.”
“Yes, but that’s not what they see.” Nathan shrugged. “I just need to keep things from getting out of control. The faster I move, the harder it is for others to instigate problems.”
“Tharban,” Alice said.
“And others,” Nathan said.
She frowned and made a show of chewing over his words. This wasn’t the first time he’d put it in her
head that there was more going on.
Alice was good friends with Charlotte, who was the princess of the Kingdom of Falmir. All indications were that Falmir were involved in this mess. They were doing a good job at staying hidden, but had nearly overplayed their hand during the cascade.
Unfortunately, that meant that Nathan couldn’t outright tell Alice that Falmir and Charlotte were untrustworthy. For one thing, he didn’t believe it himself. He had spent his life supporting Charlotte in his original world.
But many things had changed when he came to this new world. Ignoring reality was foolish.
“Fair enough,” she said. “But shouldn’t Anna be handling this? I feel you could be getting a lot more done if you were more focused and not”—Alice’s face reddened—“helping her sleep.”
“Call it mutual stress relief,” Nathan said.
Alice muttered something in reply, that he didn’t quite hear but almost sounded like she had repeated his words back to him. The redness of her face implied she had said something inappropriate, so he didn’t pry.
“More to the point, Anna doesn’t have much experience with military affairs. I do. Things get done a lot faster,” he explained. “I understand logistics, recruitment, training regimens, and can instruct others how to set these up.”
“Huh. You’re strangely experienced in this.” Alice tilted her head. “It’s just like when you organized the conference between the Empire and the Federation. I’m absolutely certain nobody in the academy taught you this.”
“I was a count for a decade. More or less,” he said, not meeting her gaze.
“Ah, yes. I recall the part where your father’s county was a captured region of an enemy nation, and needed a swift, firm hand to bring it under control,” Alice said drily. “What a firm bed of experience you have, Bastion Nathan.”
“Why thank you, Princess Alice,” he replied without missing a beat.
She glared at him.
“Do I ever get to find out how and why you know these things?” Alice asked quietly, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’m not stupid. Leopold and my father are using you in some grand scheme, despite the fact you should be some greenhorn Bastion. Your Champions trust you implicitly. People don’t come out of nowhere with your skills and ability.”
Nathan grimaced.
Keeping secrets was beginning to make life difficult for him. Only a fool wouldn’t realize he was more than he appeared.
Before he had invaded the Federation, he had made the decision to use his full strength, even at the cost of standing out too much. Arguably, he had gone too far.
“Sometimes secrets remain secrets for a reason, Alice,” he said. “That’s why Bastions take the oaths they do.”
She stared at him for a long time. His skin prickled.
“That’s another trick you do, isn’t it?” she said, an odd smile crossing her face. “It only just occurred to me. If you had other secrets, you only need to bring up your oath to Omria, and it makes it hard for me to question you without appearing unfaithful.”
Smart girl.
“Maybe,” he said.
“Haha,” she said, her smile turning genuine. It softened a moment later. “I may not be Anna but…” she trailed off, then coughed. “The summer session of the Diet is approaching. Grandpa is about to sign a ceasefire with Trafaumh and he wants to ask you to do something for him. Can you come to Aleich soon?”
What had she been about to ask him? And what did it have to do with Anna?
“You don’t need to bring up the Emperor to get me to come to Aleich,” he said gently.
Alice blushed and looked away.
Had she always been so easily embarrassed? For that matter, she was wearing an absolutely stunning dress. He could only see the top of it, but it looked more expensive than his entire wardrobe combined. Diamond studs glittered in her ears, and her face looked made-up.
No, he realized. Alice hadn’t looked like this when she’d visited him at Gharrick Pass. The exception had been during the conference, but that had been a formal event between nations.
“Thank you,” she said, a slight giggle escaping her. “I’m looking to seeing you then, Nathan. Try not to tire Anna out too much.” She paused, then pursed her lips. “And maybe we can get to know each other enough that you feel comfortable sharing those secrets not covered by your oath.”
They said their final goodbyes, before Alice vanished.
When Nathan lowered the mirror, he felt a presence. Instinctively, he summoned magical power from his closest binding stone in order to prepare a spell.
Then he spun and saw nothing. Anna had turned over in her sleep. Her eyes remained closed, and she made adorable noises that he refused to tell her about.
No, Nathan realized, there was something here.
A black door loomed in the corner of the room.
That couldn’t have been the presence he sensed.
Tossing on a set of clothes, he checked the door. Although Anna had an escape room, her bedroom only had one normal entrance. The door remained locked and magically warded.
Despite that, Nathan peeked outside. The bedroom connected to the study, and from there to the palace proper.
“My lord?” Fyre asked, her red eyes almost glowing in the shadows of the room.
The beastkin sat on one of the sofas, paperwork neatly stacked up in front of her. While she was working through some of it, Nathan spied what he suspected was a growing pile for Anna.
“It’s nothing,” he said.
Fyre tilted her head. As always, her attention fixated on him whenever he was nearby.
He closed the door.
Then, despite himself, he turned to face the imposing presence that he had been ignoring since arriving at Anna’s palace.
Kadria.
She was the Messenger that he made a deal with on that fateful night. While she had been the architect of his defeat, the opportunity she had given him was…
No, he refused to accept it as a good thing. People he loved were dead. This wasn’t the past, and his old lovers were never coming back.
But he had hope, and an opportunity to prevent the world from becoming the nightmarish wasteland he had lived in. Kadria was his partner, like it or not.
These black doors represented the entrance to her mental world. Nobody else could see them, because Kadria was using Nathan’s mind as an anchor in this world. He didn’t fully understand it, to be honest.
But he knew enough that the door shouldn’t be here. Until now, they had only ever appeared close to binding stones. While Castle Tartus was close by, the palace was outside of its domain. If Kadria was here, then…
Nathan drummed his fingers on his leg. The only way to find out what was happening was to go inside and talk to her.
He walked up to the door, opened it, and stepped into the white void that appeared in front of him.
A moment later, he appeared inside a small house. Until very recently, Kadria’s mental world had been a strange place.
Now it looked almost normal, if very strange to Nathan.
The house consisted of three rooms. He stood inside a carpeted bedroom, which contained a very large plush bed and many bookshelves. The books were written in languages that Nathan didn’t recognize.
A tiled bathroom stood off to the side, with appliances that Kadria explained as extremely futuristic compared to his own. The other room was a combined kitchen and dining room, and contained similarly complex appliances. One of them was some sort of magical stovetop, which produced flames by turning a knob.
Everything had color, texture, and looked like a complete object.
A year ago, this room had nearly driven Nathan mad, as it had looked like the outlines of a room, rather than an actual place.
Taking a deep breath, Nathan checked for Kadria. No sign of her. He stepped into the kitchen and saw another door. This one was made of an oddly familiar material.
“Oh, damn, they’re back,” he muttered.
<
br /> Rubbing the bridge of his nose, Nathan opened the new door and stepped into the world of a different Messenger.
Chapter 5
Bright, hot sunlight beat down on him. He heard the laughter of children and distant chatter of people. The smell of grilled meat wafted through his nostrils. Instinctively, saliva built up in his mouth.
His eyes adjusted, and he stared at his surroundings. He stood in a fenced, grassy field. Except the fence, sky, and sun looked like somebody had drawn them with chalk. The feeling of sunlight felt too real, however.
“What have I told you about thinking too hard about this place?” Kadria’s familiar voice snapped, pulling him from his thoughts.
He stopped staring at the strange drawings and looked down.
Three women stood nearby, around a strange assortment of furniture. All of them had curly horns protruding from their heads and bronzed skin. But that was where the similarities ended.
Kadria sat on a wooden chair, wearing as little clothing as always. Platinum hoops and bangles hung off her body. Her black hair had grown out substantially since they first met and nearly fell to her ass.
Despite long familiarity with her, Nathan felt his body react. He hadn’t seen her in natural lighting like this. Her bronzed skin glittered in the sunlight. Her thick, curvy thighs drew his eyes to them, which only made the nearly transparent material of her black silk panties more obvious. His cock knew what it wanted.
Kadria’s violet eyes narrowed, her red pupils shining, and she smirked at him.
“Hey, hey! Pay attention to us, too!” another voice shouted. “Our tits are way bigger than hers.”
“Yes, because that’s all that matters in a woman,” Kadria drawled.
“Our tits are bigger than your entire body. So yeah, it does matter,” a huskier voice replied. “We’re real succubi.”
Nathan sighed and looked over at the pair who demanded his attention. He knew them as the Twins—Maura and Laura. Months ago, he had fought against them and won.
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