Chapter 169

“So who wants to tell me what’s going on?” I asked as my gaze swept across the common room.

Mirri, Ashlara, Serah, and Elise sat scattered about the room. Around them were Vel, Thae, Moss, Clo, Tansy, and Nim.

Vel looked perfectly at ease. Thae remained unreadable as stone. Moss chewed birch pitch with distracted focus. Clo sat cross-legged on the floor playing with a hamster. Tansy looked nervous enough to bolt. Nim simply loomed behind them all in heavy silence.

“Well?” I pressed.

“If you narrow the question down, we may be able to answer it,” Vel replied evenly.

I gave her a flat look. “This. This is what I mean. You’re evasive. Secretive. Weird.” I gestured vaguely at all of them. “I’ve seen more of you in the last two weeks than I have in the last two years.”

I sighed and rubbed at my eyes. “And I’m not complaining. I love having you around. But between Clo sneaking back to Earth, Moss climbing into my bed, and Nim suddenly haunting the library, something’s happening. I want to know what.”

“We are preparing,” Vel answered.

“For what?”

“For when you need us.” Her crimson eyes stayed fixed on mine. “You are changing. Fracturing. Unstable. The Covenant is unlike anything we’ve faced before. The portals to Earth introduce uncertainty into the world. We are protecting the pack.”

I looked between them all before nodding slowly. “I appreciate that. I really do. But we need to work together if we’re going to protect anyone.” I exhaled quietly. “I have information about the Covenant. I’m sure you do too. So tell me what you know, tell me what you’ve been doing, and I’ll do the same. Deal?”

Every one of them looked to Vel.

“Deal,” she said at last, her eyes never leaving mine.

“Good.” I leaned forward slightly. “Then I’ll start as a show of good faith.” My eyes flicked briefly to Mirri.

She gave me a small nod.

“I’m…” I struggled for the word. “Changing.”

The room went still.

“I spoke with Myrrakai. She said a lot of things, things that changed my understanding of Earth and here, but apparently I’m not fracturing.” I laughed weakly. “Or not exactly. She called it stacking. She said I’m in flux. Developing new aspects.”

I swallowed. “She doesn’t think I’m the god of belief in the absence of proof anymore.” My voice lowered. “She thinks I’m becoming the god of family. Or something like that.”

Nobody interrupted.

“My Faith has been acting strangely for a while now,” I continued. “I can somehow split my awareness when I’m around you all. I exist in multiple places at once. Sort of. I don’t fully understand it yet.” I shook my head. “I barely understand any of it.”

I leaned back and stared at the floor for a moment before continuing.

“She said I’m becoming difficult for reality to categorize. And eventually…” I hesitated. “Eventually reality may try to simplify me. Strip away everything except what I fundamentally am. Or what I decide I am. Or what others believe I am.” I grimaced. “Honestly, I’m not entirely sure she understood it herself.”

“But if that happens…” My throat tightened. “Everything changes. Me. The pack. What we are together.”

The silence in the room deepened.

“And this affects all of you too,” I said quietly. “She told me my Faith is what allowed you to ascend. That it changed you. Gave you emotions you were never meant to have.”

My eyes found Tansy. “And she thinks I’m the reason Tansy is fracturing.”

Tansy flinched like I’d struck her.

“I’m sorry,” I told her softly. “Tansy, I’m so sorry. I never meant to do this to you. I never wanted to change you in ways that could hurt you.” My vision blurred and I wiped angrily at my eyes. “I’ll figure it out. I’ll fix it. I don’t care what it takes - I won’t let anything happen to you.”

She looked terrified. Not of me. For me.

“I owe all of you an apology,” I whispered. “I never wanted to put any of you in danger. But that’s exactly what I did.”

Nobody spoke. The silence became unbearable. Heavy enough to crush me beneath it.

Then Nim moved. The massive bloodchild crossed the room slowly and extended one enormous hand toward me. Resting in his palm was the stuffed rabbit Clo had stolen from Earth.

“Softbite will make it better,” Clo chirped brightly. “See? I told you I couldn’t leave him behind. He had a destiny to fulfill.”

I took the rabbit from Nim’s hand and laughed as I cried.

* * *

It took me a few minutes to get myself back under control.

I wasn’t used to this kind of emotional display. And lately, it seemed to be happening more and more often.

Back on Earth, this never would have happened. I would’ve buried the feelings, crushed them down, shoved them into some dark corner of myself, and kept moving forward. That was what you did.

But here? Here I was surrounded by family. And somehow that made it feel safe to fall apart a little. Not just in front of them - but in front of myself.

I cleared my throat and rubbed at my eyes one last time. “The second thing I learned is that I now have locations for Covenant safehouses, supply routes, and waystations. We can investigate them together.” My expression hardened. “But we have to be careful. Arvellia is already destabilizing. If we storm in there killing everyone in sight, we could push the kingdom into civil war.”

My gaze moved across the room. “So we go together. We follow my lead. If I say we leave, we leave.” I exhaled slowly. “This is going to get ugly. Morally ugly. No matter what we do, somebody gets hurt.”

I hated that. “But we minimize it where we can.”

Silence settled for a moment before I spread my hands slightly. “That’s what I have. What about the rest of you?”

Vel looked toward Thae.

The dragonwoman crossed her arms. “I am building a weapon,” she said calmly. “Something to level the battlefield. They possess firearms capable of killing from beyond visual range. Projectiles too fast to track or evade. They can arm large numbers of soldiers quickly.” Her garnet eyes narrowed slightly. “We currently cannot.”

“The first dragonspear should be completed within a few days. If the design functions properly, I will construct more.”

I sighed heavily. “I don’t like it. But I understand.”

I leaned back in my chair and scrubbed a hand through my hair. “Earth works on escalation. Someone builds a stronger weapon, so the other side builds something even stronger. Then the first side responds again.” I shook my head. “It spirals until the entire world lives under the threat of mutual annihilation.”

My eyes met hers.

“That’s how Earth ended up with weapons capable of destroying entire worlds.”

The room went quiet.

“We do not want that here,” I said firmly. “So keep that in mind.”

Thae gave a single short nod.

Vel turned toward Moss next.

“Gardening,” Moss replied.

I blinked at her.

She blinked back.

I waited. “...Gardening?” I finally asked when it became clear she didn’t intend to elaborate further.

“Gardening,” she confirmed. “And watching.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Right.” I sighed. “Of course.”

Vel looked toward Clo.

The feral immediately brightened. “Oh! I’ve been shopping!” she announced proudly while hoisting the hamster into the air like a trophy. “I went back to Earth to study humans and collect important things for everyone!”

Her eyes gleamed with manic excitement.

“Did you know human children train for war constantly? And humans put salt on EVERYTHING! And they fear authority more than monsters! And they talk to stones ” She gasped dramatically. “And the coolest thing is the stones TALK BACK.”

She barely paused for breath.

“Oh! And they worship noise! And they say the opposite of what they mean all the time! And they’re lonely! And weak and fat, which is why they use guns to hunt instead of claws!” She pointed excitedly at her own face. “And they paint themselves for social combat! And wear heraldry constantly to announce their allegiances!”

“Okay, okay,” I interrupted gently before she exploded. “Some of that is… weirdly insightful.” I rubbed at my temple. “And honestly not entirely wrong.”

Clo looked incredibly pleased with herself.

“But the humans we’ll be facing won’t be weak,” I warned. “They’ll be highly trained. They’ll know how to use their weapons. Some may understand magic.” My expression darkened. “And they have weapons you don’t understand yet. Grenades. Flashbangs. Tasers. Tear gas. Drones.”

I looked around the room. “And some of those things may already exist here now.”

That sobered everyone slightly.

“I don’t know what it would take to kill one of us,” I admitted quietly. “But it’s entirely possible Earth already invented it.”

The room grew heavier after that.

I turned toward Nim. “What about you, big guy?”

“Reading,” he rumbled in his deep, slow voice. “Watching. Studying human behavior.”

His pale red eyes drifted downward slightly. “I am trying to understand why humans act against reason. Why they continue fighting after defeat becomes inevitable. Why they endure suffering instead of surrendering.”

I nodded slowly. “Those are good things to study. The more we understand how the enemy thinks, the better we can predict them.”

Nim glanced uncertainly toward Vel.

She returned a look I couldn’t begin to decipher.

I raised an eyebrow at her.

“Tansy and I have been tracking and interrogating Covenant members,” Vel said calmly. “When she is not sneaking away to attempt to mate with Anura.”

“What?!” Tansy yelped. “I am not trying to mate with him!”

Vel gave her a flat stare. “You are clearly enamored with him. He is attempting to manipulate you into betraying the pack.”

“You don’t know that!” Tansy snapped back. “You’ve never even met him!”

“The intensity of your denial suggests emotional compromise.”

“Hang on,” I interrupted quickly.

Mirri leaned forward immediately, eyes sparkling. “Tansy has a boyfriend?”

“No!” Tansy barked.

“You absolutely have to tell me everything about him,” Mirri continued anyway, the giddyness in her voice palpable.

“Can we focus, please?” I asked. Then I looked at Tansy. “When did you meet Anura?”

“When she snuck off to kill Covenant members after I explicitly told her not to go alone,” Vel answered before Tansy could speak. She narrowed her eyes at her sister.

“Vel,” I said patiently, “not helping. Let Tansy answer.”

Tansy’s already flushed skin darkened further beneath her sunburnt complexion. She refused to meet my eyes.

“When I snuck off to kill Covenant members after Vel told me not to go alone,” she muttered miserably.

I softened my tone further. “What did he say?”

Tansy hesitated. “That he’d been watching us,” she admitted quietly. “That I was…” She swallowed. “Pretty.”

I crossed the room slowly toward her.

She flinched as I approached.

I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her against me.

“You are pretty,” I told her softly. “And I’m not saying that because I’m your father. I’m saying it because it’s true.”

Tansy froze completely in my arms.

“I don’t know Anura,” I continued. “And I don’t trust the God-Kings. But if he genuinely makes you happy…” I kissed the top of her head. “Then that matters to me.”

She looked utterly stunned.

“Mirri can explain the birds and bees to you later,” I added casually.

“What about birds and bees?” Elise asked immediately, genuine confusion written across her face.

“Sex talk,” Ashlara explained. “Mirri told me about it a few years ago.”

Elise frowned thoughtfully. “But avian and insect reproductive methods are substantially different from humanoid biology. They seem largely irrelevant to such a discussion.”

I laughed helplessly. “It’s an Earth expression,” I admitted. “Honestly? I don’t fully understand it either.”