“That’s not going to happen,” Nathan said drily.
“Only because you’re a stubborn mule.” She smirked. “You are a lot better at spotting schemes than you give yourself credit for. Any particular reason why?”
He frowned and looked around. Anna had relocated to Tartus, so her old manor was unoccupied. A few townspeople watched them from a distance. Fyre poked her head out from the carriage, before being pulled back in by Sunstorm.
Paranoid, Nathan cast a few wards. Anna stared at him.
“I learned the hard way,” he said. “I’m no stranger to civil wars.”
“Ah. Right.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I’m still getting used to this. Nothing’s changed, but it’s kind of weird to think that you’re not actually a count from the Empire. It does explain a lot. Everything, really.”
Then Anna gave him an odd look. “If you’ve changed the future, is it normal for things to still be so familiar to you?”
“Apparently,” he said, then frowned. “But this is different. What happened before is that past events accelerated. This is different. Things seem familiar, but they’re not.”
“I think that’s just experience,” Anna said.
“Most likely.”
She pulled him in for a kiss, then he bade her farewell. Fyre remained with her.
Then Nathan returned to Gharrick Pass.
Anna planned to join him shortly, but she needed to prepare Trantia for her brother. Now that the war with Trafaumh had ended, she planned to hand over her old county to him so she could focus on ruling the duchy.
Gharrick Pass remained Nathan’s base of operations. After so many weeks away, he was glad to be back. The double-layer of walls of the fortress loomed over his carriage as he approached, as did the keep at the top of the hill.
When Nathan had arrived here, the fortress had been a ruin. It defended a narrow mountain pass that was the only large navigable passage through the Gharrick Mountains for days. These days, its strategic position was drastically reduced, but its political one had only increased further.
Anna’s duchy extended to the east and west of the mountains. Castle Tartus, Fort Taubrum, and Vera’s old tower defended the eastern side, should there ever be a problem. On the western side, there were countless smaller forts and mage towers that Nathan had reactivated over the last year.
His first task upon returning was to explain to both Fei and Seraph his secrets. Everyone else knew, after all.
Fei found out within an hour, as she tracked him down and demanded that he brush her hair and tail. He explained the extra details about the Messenger and how everything had gone wrong in his world.
The catgirl simply shrugged it off, and told him to focus on brushing out her tail.
Narime was going to be pissed when she found out about Fei’s response. In the end, the fox had never made a guess about Nathan’s secret, and now Fei didn’t care about the extra details.
The next day, he met with Seraph in his office. No matter how much larger Gharrick Pass became, he kept his office the same size. It had a desk for him to work at, plus a larger table and chairs for others to sit around. Otherwise, it was nearly empty.
To Nathan, it was a cozy little hole to sequester himself away in.
Right now, he felt cornered by Seraph as she sized him up.
“So, you’re from a future where everything went awry due to the invasion of the Federation. Every nation collapsed and demons overran the world. You know almost all of us from this past timeline, but you’ve come back in time far enough that we’re different to our old selves. Also, Sen and Sunstorm came back with you,” Seraph summarized. “Oh, and I nearly forgot.”
She laughed.
“You’re working with a Messenger.”
“That about sums it up, yes,” Nathan said, his hands folded in front of him.
“Really?” Seraph asked, eyebrows raised.
“Why do you think I have so much experience as a Bastion? I knew how to override the Federation’s binding stone wards because I have methods to decrypt them from the future. That knowledge is also how I predicted your attack,” he said.
Ignoring him, Seraph instead rose and inspected the map on the wall. Almost a minute passed before she spoke again.
“If what you say is true, that makes me responsible for the destruction of an entire world,” she said.
Nathan couldn’t see her face from this angle. Her tone sounded oddly flat.
“No, it doesn’t.”
“It does,” she snapped, spinning to face him. “Whoever decided to attack doesn’t matter. I helped Theus and Torneus craft a plan involving leyline disruption. If you hadn’t stopped me, the demons would have overrun the entire Empire. You specifically said you came to this time to stop me.”
“Seraph—”
“Don’t deny it. Why haven’t you killed me, Nathan? If I’m so dangerous.” She glared at him.
“You didn’t exist in my world,” he said.
She blinked. “What?”
“Exactly what I just said.” He sighed. “This is… more complicated than I hoped to explain. I’m not in the past. This is an alternate world, with slight differences to mine. You never existed in my world. Your relationship with Narime, where the two of you respect each other but constantly snipe at each other? She never mentioned you once in my world. You may have come up with the leyline disruption in this world, but someone does it even if you’re not around.”
With slow, careful steps, Seraph resumed her seat.
“You said several things that I find more interesting than your earlier explanation,” she said. “You’re not lying to protect me, are you?”
“I don’t need to lie to you about this. Didn’t I already say I’d kill you if you betrayed me?”
“You did, yes. I appreciated the threat then. I find myself renewing that appreciation now.” She licked her lips. “An alternate world?”
“I was Nathan Martel in my world. If I went into the past, how could I magically become Nathan Straub while looking almost identical?”
“Good point.” She laughed. “Do you know who came up with the plan?”
He hesitated, then looked away from Seraph. “No. But I have my suspicions.”
“Vera.”
“Yes. She might not have intended to cause an invasion, but it would have disrupted communications and made an attack much easier. Especially as she was the primary defender of Gharrick Pass,” Nathan said.
“What happened to her? In your world, that is.” Seraph’s eyes glittered with a lust for knowledge.
“She got cold feet, fought back against the Federation, and died. I knew her as a hero who tried to save the Empire. Reality is… significantly different.”
“Oh.” It was Seraph’s turn to sigh. “Well, I guess you get to feel less special as well. She turned on the Federation without you. Just like how the plan succeeded without me. That hurt a little, to find out how insignificant I apparently am in the world. I can vanish entirely and history plays out identically? Perhaps a little too dark for my tastes.”
“The others don’t know this,” he warned.
“I gathered. You’re trying to protect us from knowledge that will hurt us. No matter how well you explain things, this is… I believe one of my previous Bastions termed it an information hazard. It’s the reason why you Bastions keep so many secrets. The things you know aren’t merely unsettling, but can do great harm to us and others,” Seraph said. “There are things that people don’t need to know.”
“I’m not sure many Bastions need to know them either,” Nathan remarked.
“How many Bastions ever learn the things you do, Nathan? Isn’t that why Leopold is so antagonistic to others? Because he doesn’t trust the intelligence of most Bastions with the knowledge he has.”
She had a good point.
“And, in the end, you know enough that you chose to work with a Messenger and betray the goddess. A normal person would say that you’ve
realized your information hazard.” Seraph smiled at him. “Fortunately, I’m not a normal person. I’m quite excited to see where this goes.”
“That’s it. Excitement? You’re not going to challenge me?” he asked.
“Over what? My decisions in life are far from perfect. You’re actively trying to improve things, even if you’re using questionable means. That’s admirable. More so than what I did with my life. So no, this doesn’t change anything. I’m still your loyal Champion, Nathan.”
She left him to ruminate on those words.
Now firmly ensconced in his fortress, Nathan returned to his day-to-day duties. He had four demonic portals to oversee, plus another Bastion to train. A lot of things needed to be done before he left for the Spires.
Not that the dark elves appeared to be in a hurry to summon him. The ambassador, Sureev, would show himself when ready. Until then, Nathan ignored the issue.
For the time being, Nathan focused on his immediate issue: dealing with the aftermath of the Diet.
As expected, soldiers and beastkin returned home en masse. Few of them came from Gharrick, but that didn’t stop them from moving here. Nathan was recruiting at a time when many nobles weren’t. He was upgrading defenses, undertaking engineering projects, and reinforcing the duchy. People who were out of work flocked to him.
That put more pressure on his plans and finances. Long nights were spent with Kuda and Seraph to keep things running smoothly. He left a lot of the portal management to Fei, and the politics to Narime.
Ciana familiarized herself with the castle and acclimated to her enhancement. While enhancing her, her ecstasy-filled sigh, dopey eyes, and slack tail and ears had done things to his crotch that he kept secret from her. Sen and Fei had teased her about it, but they both helped her settle in.
His next problem was simpler. Defending the portals. Since the cascade, there hadn’t been any large invasions. Nathan doubted that was a sustainable position.
Gharrick Pass lay dormant—the Twins had whined about the world being too stable, which meant they couldn’t invade until something went wrong. That was precisely the worst time they could invade.
Both Fort Taubrum and Castle Forselburg saw constant small invasions, as they remained unstable after the cascade. Neither had shown signs of a Messenger emerging, but they weren’t decreasing in demonic energy with each invasion. Nathan didn’t know what was happening to them.
Castle Tartus was the simplest, and he considered himself fortunate that it hadn’t been affected by the cascade. It had been invaded once since the cascade, and appeared normal. The downside was that it wasn’t connected to the other fortresses by a gateway, so traveling there needed to be done by horseback.
If civil war broke out, Nathan needed to defend his portals and fight a war. He saw several ways to handle this.
One night, he summoned Fei and Narime to his office to discuss it.
He sat in his chair, fiddling with a pen while staring at the map on the wall. Fei munched on a huge sandwich filled with a variety of smoked meats and slathered in gravy. Opposite her, Narime nursed a bottle of sake. Nathan refused her offer of a cup.
Maybe he’d take her up on it later tonight.
“Fei, lean over your plate,” Nathan said, watching as a huge drop of gravy built up on the bottom of her sandwich.
The catgirl blinked at him, then leaned forward. The dollop splashed on her plate. She yelped, jumped backward and nearly knocked over her chair.
“You realize that’s only gravy, don’t you?” Narime said, staring at Fei in disbelief.
“I didn’t expect it,” Fei mumbled. She bit into her sandwich with a sour face, but quickly cheered up.
“Why are you even eating at this time?” the fox asked.
“Narime, you’ve been my Champion for how long now? Fei eats when she eats. Don’t question it.” Nathan shook his head. Although he did notice that she was eating more these days.
“True,” Narime said.
They moved onto the meeting, ignoring the pouting catgirl.
“I need to shore up the portals. I don’t really have a timeframe, other than soon,” he said.
“This is for when civil war breaks out,” Narime confirmed.
“Yes.”
Fei perked up, freezing in place.
Nathan ignored her and continued, “I can’t afford to leave powerful Champions in four fortresses—five, if we include Vera’s portal—during a huge war. There’s also the risk that other Bastions will ignore their own portals, allowing demons to break through. That happened before. It allows cascades to destroy nations overnight.”
Narime gasped. “I hadn’t—” Her eyes closed. “Did that happen in Kurai? When we flocked to defeat the Messenger, demons sprung up across the entire peninsula at once. We thought it to be some sort of wicked trap. A scheme the Messenger created to defeat us. But…”
“It was a scheme by the Messenger, but not what you think. Messengers can trigger cascades once they’re out in the world, as they have some way to control and interfere with binding stones and portals.” Nathan grimaced. “The only solution is to be strong enough to both fight a Messenger and defend your portals. If you ignore the Messenger, they’ll wipe you out one-by-one. If you can’t defend your portals, then demons overrun everything and more Messengers appear.”
“It took the combined forces of almost every other nation to defeat the Messenger that appeared in Kurai, and they never closed the portals there,” Narime said. “How do we prepare? How do we defend our portals without Champions?”
She raised an eyebrow and smirked at him. “You’re not thinking of replacing us, are we?”
Fei squawked and her ears and tail stood up on end. “He’s not! Are you, Nathan?”
“No, I’m not.” He wished he could pat Fei’s head, given how frazzled her cat ears looked. “I have a few ideas. I want your opinions.”
They both nodded at him. He waited until Fei cleaned up the gravy she spilled due to the motion before continuing.
“First, I need more Champions, and to strengthen the ones I have,” he said. “Not every Champion needs to be extremely strong or capable. As harsh as it sounds, sometimes a lifelong monogem or duogem is better than holding out for the absolute best.”
“Is that a vote of confidence in us?” Narime asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I think all of you can become trigems. I know both of you have the potential,” he said.
Fei blushed, while Narime smiled at him.
“Champions are officers. They are respected when it comes to handling portals, and can control panic. If a weak invasion happens during the war, sometimes I don’t want to send you or Fei to handle it. But one of Fei’s knights, with a monogem amethyst? I’d be happy to give her command if she proves worth it,” he explained.
Narime nodded slowly. “That explains a lot about how you’re training the knights. And why Fei is doing most of the training, and Sunstorm only a small number. They’ll become lieutenants, and Fei and Sunstorm their commanders.”
Fei’s eyes widened.
“Yes,” he said. “Naturally, that means I need to make both Fei and Sunstorm duogems. They’re both ready for it. I just need the gems and magical catalysts.”
“Ah. Your deal with the mages.” The fox frowned. “You want my opinion on things, but it seems you’ve already done everything. Nathan, tell me the truth. How much is there left to do?”
He winced. “I’m mostly looking for holes in my plans. The mages supply gems and magical catalysts. I’m hoping they’ll also help develop methods to spot invasions in advance, although I’ll need to personally detect Messengers. In the long-term, I also want a better method of teleportation.”
“Really? What’s so dangerous about gateways?” Narime asked.
“Let’s say a Messenger invades… the Spires,” Nathan said. “They break out, then head for Castle Forselburg. Or maybe Leopold’s castle. Or somewhere in Trafaumh. It doesn’t really matter, but if th
ere’s a gateway there…”
“Oh.” Narime closed her eyes. “The Messenger goes through the gateway, then appears in the heart of the Empire, or Trafaumh, or Arcadia, and wreaks havoc.”
“Yes.”
“Nathan, how did you defeat your Messenger so easily if they are so smart? One destroyed Kurai. You talk about them as if they are nation-destroying machines, that know all of our weaknesses.” Narime looked at him, her expression dark and eyes concerned.
He coughed, unsure of what to say.
Fei, unfortunately, chose this as the time to speak up. “The succubus seemed kind of stupid. Strong, but dumb. She seemed more interested in having sex with Nathan than defeating him.”
The catgirl glared at him.
Narime raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m sorry? But given how you came here—”
“No,” he said flatly. “Laura is a succubus. If she had her way with me, I would have been reduced to a drooling idiot.”
“Laura?”
“She introduced herself,” he said.
“Ah. How normal of a nation-destroying threat,” Narime said with a nod. Her tails curled around herself.
He rolled his eyes. “Messengers are a weird lot. Most of them tell you their name. Sometimes they try to tell you their entire life story before you kill them. Kind of weird, that.”
Especially as it sounded like the Messengers had been lying to him when they did that. None of them had mentioned anything like Kadria’s world. Had they been playing some sort of weird joke?
Narime changed the subject. “To summarize: you want to recruit Champions from Fei’s knights; promote Fei and Sunstorm to duogem Champions—and presumably Ciana as well; develop methods to detect invasions before they start; and move away from gateways for long-distance teleportation.”
“Yes,” he said.
“What about Fyre?” she asked.
“I need to investigate her mind when I transfer her across,” he said.
Fei pouted at the mention of Fyre.
But, surprisingly, it was the catgirl who had a new idea. “Why aren’t you recruiting new Champions? You know the dark elf Astra? Sen and Sunstorm told me. When we go to the Spires, shouldn’t we talk to her about helping us? And what about Nurevia?”
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