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Arc 9-12
🕑 Added 2026-02-04 06:02:14 +0000 UTCWith each day, fewer problems plague the city and on a smaller scale. Better, the people put in place to take care of them become more competent, surer of themselves and the power they wield. I have no illusions about who I am. About what I’ve done. The people of New Quest will never love me. It’d be a stretch to hope they’d respect me. Saints know I have mixed feelings for my citizens, some deserved, some not so much. It’s enough if they obey me. If I take a quiet joy on that day I leave because I know I’m leaving New Quest in good hands, that’s no one’s business but my own. And my wives, since I can’t keep anything from them.
Still, there’s more to do until the day we fly down King’s Road. More than I think, or so I’m reminded when I enter the house after a long day to an unexpected guest.
I can’t imagine the expression I make as I stand in the doorway of the living room, watching the lizard sipping from a fancy cup with the poise of a noblewoman. I don’t take offense to it; I’m fond of Little Water and her daring journey that could have come right out of a bard’s story. Taking what she says at face value, she is an ordinary girl who refuses to be ordinary. She wants to singlehandedly change the world, using the power of love for saints’ sake. It’s beautiful and awe-inspiring. Aside from that, she’s pleasant company, if a little stiff.
My discomfort is my own fault. I want to help her; aside from her personal motivations, she wants to end the endless war in the north, something I support wholeheartedly. The problem is her chosen method. As tradition has demanded for hundreds of years, she wants to bind two warring people through the power of marriage. Her partner of choice, if not of feeling? Khan James, son of Duke James, Alana’s older brother. The man more at home with the winter wasteland that lies beyond the Bleak Peaks than his own people. She found him, or maybe they found each other. Little Water saw in him a political opportunity. The awkward cartographer found love. Her family? Saw a problem.
I might be fond of the friendly estrazi, but I’m not so keen on her family. Not least of which because there is an actual, celestial affinity wielding seer in her brood. One who pushed aside fate’s curtains, peeked through its window, and decided they had to erase Khan’s memories to ensure the future.
Khan says he agreed, despite knowing that being mentally interfered with in such a way is a death sentence in Victory; they consider it a mercy, killing him rather than leaving him to the machinations of the enemy. I managed to convince the duke to give me custody of his son so that my succubus could attempt to reverse the damage, selling him on the strategic advantage of finally having information on the force behind their war. It didn’t take much effort. Beneath the stone-faced mask Alana’s father wears, he’s a father. He’d rather not see his child die. With me confidently offering a solution, he decided to balk Victory’s traditions.
A gesture of faith I don’t deserve. Geneva is the best mental caster in the kingdom. I have no illusions that between the elves, the dragons, and whatever other competent races exist, she’s not the strongest in the world, but I never expected to find a superior so soon. Or at least, someone whose skill she must respect.
The scrambling done to Khan’s mind? My succubus can’t simply snap her fingers and erase it. To even try, she would have to shatter his mind and piece it back together with the hope that being able to scrutinize the pieces will give her a better idea what was done to him. Something that will have consequences, severe ones. At the very least, he won’t be the same. The worst case? Khan might not exist anymore, dead in all the ways that count.
It’s a decision no one wants to think about. Little Water is lumped into the “things to avoid” category by default. Because, either way this goes, her plans are screwed. I’m not looking forward to telling her that the man she snuck into a hostile country for might not survive us rooting around his brain, that her efforts are likely all for naught.
I hate that this is my job…but it is. I literally asked for it.
Sighing, I force myself to step into the room. She notices me immediately, the slit pupils of her ice-blue eyes thinning. A disturbing gesture that is softened by her thin, yet sincere smile. The tip of her tail idly drums on the cushions, creating a soft rhythm that accompanies my steps.
“Hello, Lou,” she greets as I sit across from her, the excitement in her tone exacerbating the dread knotting my guts.
“Little Water. You don’t come around much. Something wrong?”
Her tapping tail stops. “Have I offended you?”
“What? No! What makes you think that?”
“You are upset.”
Saints, even she can read me. “…maybe. If I am, it’s not because of anything you’ve done.” I clear my throat. “What I should have said was it’s great to see you. And it is. How are you? Are your, er, kin doing well too?”
“The softies are doing well. We have dug a small burrow in the colorful part of the city and they are much calmer with a place to escape the surface.”
“And no one’s asked questions?”
“No. One time, a shopkeeper saw my face and mistook me for a young human noble.” A finger touches her cheek, her short claw scraping a scale. “She thought this was the result of a healer.”
I snicker. “No one goes that far for melding, but good for you.” Problems that solve themselves are the best problems. “You’re doing alright with food? Clothes? I don’t mind lending you a few crowns.”
“I’m fine.”
“Great.” No more avoiding it. “But there is a reason you’re here, isn’t there?”
“Yes.” She sets her cup down and leans forward, her tail tapping again. “I’ve brought news.”
Ah. I forgot about her strange desire to make herself useful. The strangest thing is that I can’t quite pin down her motives. At first, I thought she hoped to sway my decision with Khan and she’s asked for him. But the more we meet, the more I feel that her concern for her star-crossed lover matters less. Saints protect my future brother-in-law, I hope she isn’t cutting her losses. That would hurt.
“It is about the Grand Summoners.”
It takes me a moment to place the name. If it weren’t related to summoning, I might not have. Mr. Self-Made doesn’t make much of an impression. Ah, to go back to the days when my biggest concern was an idiot lusting after my wife. “What about them?”
“They are attempting to raid a village.”
“O…kay. I suppose as the governing noble, it’s my job to intervene. I’ll report this to the guard—”
“I think you should intervene yourself. With the presence of numerous summons and the extensive amount of melding done on their members, the guards will be overwhelmed.”
My wandering mind sharpens as I register this is more than her usual pandering. She doesn’t appear stressed, which hopefully means she doesn’t see them as a threat, but I’m concerned about a possible army lurking in the shadows of my city.
I mentally call for Geneva to bring me something to eat and settle in, readvising my plan to get the estrazi out of the estate as soon as possible.
“Explain.”
