I held the letters of abdication in my hand very carefully as I looked through them. On the surface, this truly seemed like everything that I wanted. My goal was to take control of the human realm. It didn’t really matter what my personal feelings were. I had to do what I had to do to protect this world and secure my position. That had even meant seducing and impregnating my sisters. If I could achieve the same goals without doing that, shouldn’t I try?

  I was well aware that despite everything I was doing to secure my sisters outside of the realm, this wouldn’t necessarily secure my position in line for the next king. After all, my uncle was acting regent, and it was he who had all of the power. He had been setting policy for the st few years. The guards were working under him. The armies would listen to orders given with his seal. For all intent and purposes, he was already king.

  Just because an inheritance stated that I would get a certain amount of the kingdom, I’d need the power to keep it. I would be much better off in the kingdom consolidating my power, than out here wasting my chance. Once the king passed away, other parties would start to make their move. I didn’t know what direction my uncle would move, but knowing what I suspected I knew, it wouldn’t be in the best interest for me to gain the throne.

  I had none of the support of the people. So, I really should just return to the castle and then begin to build up my influence. I could finish securing the st letters of abdication and even getting the local politicians to accept them. I had very little time to do it, and I had a lot to do. I had pnted a seed in Virdainia, but I couldn’t expect such a seed to grow if I didn’t nurture it. If I didn’t move now, I could end up losing everything. So, why was I still hesitating? It wasn’t because I was worried about my sister and the baby, although that was certainly a matter that weighed heavily on my heart. The true reason was because of God.

  Yes, that crappy God who had dumped me in this world to clean up his messes. His assignment had been extremely explicit. He hadn’t said that I needed to force my sisters to abdicate and cim the throne. He said I needed to cim my sisters, impregnate them, and ensve them. I didn’t know if Olivia losing her ensvement by giving birth technically would reach that requirement, but that was a worry for another time. God had made a point of saying I needed to sve and impregnate every sister.

  I didn’t believe an omnipotent being would be so sloppy with her requests, especially when it would have just been easier to ask me to secure the human realm. There was a grander scheme at py here. I had already worked out that the human realm needed to be kept intact, not just for the bance of this world as Baba believed, but because something was coming. It was more than just ciming the human realm. It was uniting all of the realms.

  Well, I hadn’t done a good job of that so far. The elf nation currently found me as their public enemy, and the Faery nation was doing everything in their power to keep me from entering. However, I believed I was on the right path. I had to try not just to unite humans, but all of the races. It was just a shame that time was so short. After a moment, I put the letters back on the table with a sigh. I opened my mouth to speak, but Lucil spoke first.

  “You know, sister Lucille used to hate you. Your devil ways are truly powerful.” Lucil spoke, seemingly to herself.

  “Lucille?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Lucy? Lucille? Don’t tell me you don’t know her name? She hated our names being too alike, so she shortened it. I suppose getting to know someone isn’t necessary when you mind control them.”

  “Is that what you think I did?” I asked. “Mind control?”

  “You’ve taken control of all of these women. You’ve made all of them your pythings. Lucille never would have abdicated to you without some kind of mind control. Conveniently, you didn’t bring her with you. Were you afraid the brainwashing would be too obvious?

  “I didn’t do anything to Lucy that she didn’t ask me to do. If you have doubts, you’re welcome to check Saria or Ba. They are here of their own will as well.”

  “I do not know Saria or Ba.” She sniffed. “I know my sisters.”

  “And Olivia?” I asked.

  She looked away. “She’s besmirched. She’s not thinking clearly. The bab- the ensvement has rattled her mind.”

  I snorted. “Do you honestly think that I am capable of brainwashing? What I do is influence at all. It’s just hormones and-”

  Her hand smmed the table, causing Mother to jump slightly, and my own mouth to freeze.

  “It’s not like that at all!” she hissed. “You don’t even know… what you’ve done. What you do!”

  She gred at me angrily. I was a bit taken aback. My other sisters had simirly met me with hostility, but their hostility seemed to stem from just a general hatred for devils mixed with the inconvenience it had caused them. There was something strangely different about Lucil. Her hatred felt more personal like it wasn’t devils that offended her, but me personally.

  While she had acted cool and collected when were first met, her demeanor seemed to be slipping. She was breathing hard now, and even though she had previously not been sweating, I could see signs of perspiration. Was it because of Mother’s presence? That was the point where her behavior seemed to start changing and she started accusing me of mind control.

  As the oldest daughter, it stood to reason that she would have known Mother the most. She was even one of the few sisters who left the kingdom willingly, all to follow after her mother. She would have known Mother the best before I was born, and had spent the most time with her after. In that respect, I came to understand where her emotions were coming from. I just needed to come up with a way to deal with them.

  “I can’t hope to understand other people’s experiences. I can only understand my own experience, and do what I can to achieve my goals.”

  “Power…”

  “If that’s what you want to believe, then believe it. However, my path is decided.” I finally pushed the letters back in her direction. “I’m sorry, I won’t be able to use these.”

  “You…” Her expression darkened. “You can’t enter Benatong! I won’t allow it.”

  “Then, it seems like the pair of us are at an impasse.”

  She shook slightly. “Why do you have to be so difficult?”

  “I’m here talking with you, aren’t I?”

  She stood up, her chair scraping across the wood floor. “No. You’re not. I will be leaving this hotel. Consider this outpost your new home. My soldiers are blocking every exit out of town. I have numerous magicians with me. You won’t be able to flee without being seen. If you try, then you’re going to have to fight your way out. Once you’ve shown your true colors, you will have to excuse me for no longer being nice. You can wait here until the human realm is gone, or you can leave in a box!”

  She spun around, storming from the room in bristling anger, even going so far as smming the door behind her. I took the st cool sip of my drink and then leaned back in my seat with a sigh.

  “Stubborn.”

  “Master shouldn’t speak about yourself the third-person. You already have a big enough head.” A familiar deadpan voice came from the stairwell.

  I looked back at Aeryn as she entered the room in her typical maid outfit, although this inn was far too hot for such an outfit, giving me the inclination to strip it off of her.

  “Come now,” I smiled at her. “I thought you were starting to like me.”

  “And I thought you were intelligent.” She lifted her chin.

  “Oh? You’re complimenting my intellect. It seems like I have grown on you.”

  “Delusional!” She cried, but her cheeks grew slightly pink in a pleasing way.

  “Call everyone else back in. It looks like we won’t be setting out today.” I gave her my order.

  A short time ter, everyone was back inside the inn. It was still mostly empty except for the innkeeper, who was looking stressed that he had to cater to us while losing the majority of his business. Well, this wasn’t so busy of an inn anyway, so he was probably used to dwindling business.

  Since Lucil left, I could feel some kind of magic being used in the distance. The guards and her left this pce completely alone, and they didn’t even appear to be trying to spy on us. This supported her cim that she was going to somehow keep us in here. Her barricade was being supported by the Faery kingdom, the center of magic. Even with the grand magus here, there was no telling if she’d be able to outdo them. It perked my interest.

  “My lord, what shall we do? I would happily cut a few throats, but they outnumber us far too many.” Captain Moar was the first to speak.

  “Baba, what are your thoughts?”

  “It won’t be a physical barrier. Such a thing cannot be erected without significant use of resources. They’d only be able to create one for a day, and the cost would be astronomical. To protect a city, it might be worth it, but to keep us in, there is no way. The spell is likely instead a locator spell. It will detect how close we are to any given side of the barrier, and should we breach the barrier, the arm will alert the guards, a trivial watchdog spell.”

  “If it’s trivial, can you bring it down?”

  “Possibly, but if I did that, then they’d know we were using that time to escape. It’d be just as useful at alerting them.”

  “True… but there is one thing we’d gain. They wouldn’t know what side we’re escaping from.”

  “I’ve already checked,” Ba spoke up. “They’ve position people at every exit. Even if they don’t know which direction we’re fleeing to, they would learn extremely quickly. They’ve also likely paid the residents to be spies as well.”

  As she spoke, she shot the innkeeper a side look. Although he couldn’t hear our conversation, he must have detected Ba’s icy look and stiffened slightly.

  “So, I take it you’re not thinking of waiting them out?” Baba asked.

  “No,” I shook my head. “We don’t have the time. I wouldn’t even wait until tonight if I had my way.”

  “Then, you do pn to leave tonight.” Baba sighed. “I’ll get working on a way to break down that spell.”

  “Thank you, Baba. You are the best.”

  “Hmph… I’ll expect a reward ter.” She stood up and walked away, her back straight.

  “What should we do?” Captain Moar asked.

  “Just keep an eye on the guards. Let me know if there are any changes. Also, keep those supplies close. I don’t need them to loot us as a deterrent. See if you can repackage the supplies so that if we are in an emergency, we can carry what we need easily.” I nodded and then turned to Ba. “I’m going to need you to search for any weaknesses in their security. If there is something we can exploit, I want to exploit it. If we can take out the guards at one of the gates without them ever sending off an arm, all the better.”

  “We could just fight our way out and kill anyone in our way.” Ba offered.

  “No…” I responded. “The Faery are not our enemies yet. If they make the first move, defend yourself, but don’t kill unless they try to kill you. I don’t want to escate this.”

  “As my lord commands.”

  “Then, until tonight. We’ll have to use the cover of darkness. I might be able to come up with some ways of helping us as well. My devil arts aren’t up to Baba’s level, but I’m confident.”

  With that, everyone broke up and went their separate ways. For the likes of my mother and Aeryn, they had nothing to do. This likely meant I wouldn’t get any peace of my own, as Mother would take any opportunity to close the distance between us, while Aeryn would take every opportunity to cut me down. So, when my eyes caught Saria slipping away, I excused myself from the pair and followed her upstairs and into her own room, private from mine.

  She was already halfway to her bed before she realized I was behind her. I closed the door and locked it with a click. Saria looked back at me, her face expressionless.

  “Did you need something?” She asked.

  “You were pretty quiet during the meeting.”

  “There was nothing I needed to say,” Saria responded.

  “Your brother Gantar is dead.”

  Her body shuddered slightly, showing me that I was on the right track with this one.

  “He was a bastard. He wanted to have me, or my sister and was willing to do anything for power. In the end, he took Olivia even though she was pregnant with another man’s child. I do not have any lingering affection for him whatsoever.”

  “I might be able to believe that coming from Ba. After all, she’s able to separate her emotions as part of her swordcraft. You, on the other hand, are much too fiery not to be affected.”

  “You think you’re so smart. You don’t know everything about me!” She crossed her arms, gring at me angrily before turning her back on me and starting to fiddle with her sheets.

  I did know quite a bit about Saria at this point. In many ways, she was duplicitous and conniving. However, between her and her sister, she was the one who wore her emotions on her sleeve. She was always true to her feelings and her emotions. Once I understood this, I was able to understand her. In this particur case, Saria’s thoughts were clear. She was deeply troubled by her brother’s death. However, it wasn’t so much about him, but the fact that he was the st of the men.

  All of her brothers were dead now, and that technically meant the future of the kingdom fell on her shoulders. How could such a reality not weigh on someone? However, Saria would never admit this to herself. Instead, she’d allow it to fester, and when the time came that she needed to address it, she’d likely panic. Thus, I needed to get her to emerge from her slump. Of course, there was a way I knew that could accomplish this goal. A malicious grin formed on my lips.

  “You know, Saria, we’ve been husband and wife for nearly two weeks now.”

  Saria became rigid, her hands stopping her from making the bed. I took a couple of steps toward her, and I swore she jumped with the sound of each step.

  “We’ve been on the run for so long, and it wasn’t like we could do anything while lying around a campfire with everyone else present.”

  “If this is about that, can’t you just take your enjoyment on the big-breasted maid of yours? I bet you already have!”

  “Smaller breasts have their appeal to.” I grinned, even as Saria couldn’t stop herself from looking back with scathing hatred. “It’s not like it’s not anything I haven’t seen before.”

  “Just because I consented once before because of circumstances, doesn’t mean I’d consent now!” She snapped.

  “True… but wouldn’t it be embarrassing if a husband and wife never consummated their marriage, right?”

  “Maybe for you?”

  “Where is your sense of duty as my wife?”

  “Using such cheap lines!”

  Although she was protesting, I had closed the distance between us, and I id my hands on her shoulders. She didn’t resist at all as I slid my arms around her, and hugged her from behind. I pressed my face into the back of her golden blonde hair, smelling her sweet earthy fragrance. I tightened my hold on her, my lips moving to her delicate, pointed ears.

  “Whatever happens, we will do it together. All of us.”

  Her shoulders seemed to lose their tightness like a string had been cut. She leaned back, her body pressing against mine. It was like she had to feel my presence, to feel that there was something there supporting her. She used this physical manifestation for her worries. My hands moved up and touched Saria’s modest breasts through her thin robes. She had adopted the dress of this region quickly, so unlike Aeryn, was dressed appropriately for this weather. That was to say she wore a white, thin material that allowed a breeze, as well as stimution from a tactile tough.

  “Ahhhhn…” She moaned slightly. “P-pervert…”

  “Isn’t it because my sweet princess is so erotic that I can’t help but touch?” I teased, my hands continuing to fondle her chest.

  “Is it really so erotic? They’re far smaller than your human women.”

  “They’re erotic because they are yours,” I admitted, turning her around. “Saria, Lucille made several accusations about me, but she was right about one thing.”

  “Wh-what is that?” She asked as I gently turned her around so that we were facing each other.

  “You are, and will always be, my pything. I’ve possessed you, and I will never let you go.” The two of us kissed, falling into each other’s embrace.

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