The Narrow Band of Fate [Layla POV]

Layla loved her life.

Layla loathed her life.

The duality of sensations pounding in her chest was more conflicting than ever. Oh, how joyful it was to be wanted by her sisters in bliss. How wonderful to know that she was finally out of the shadows and into the light of acknowledgment.

And how wretched the circumstances.

Layla kneeled on his bed. One of his beds, but his bed all the same. She was right next to him and on the other side of him was Lorelei. She had imagined this many times during her many, many, many multi-orgasmic spasm-sessions. The current circumstances belied those hot fantasies.

Lorelei wore clothing and, more importantly, the body of the Gamer between them was a faint echo of his magnificent aura. When she touched the smooth surface of expertly blended stone and metal, she shuddered weakly. Even that bit of his presence would have put her into a state of euphoria some months back. ‘I hate that it was smart that they kept me away!’ she thought.

“Are we on course?” Nathalia asked, harshly.

Layla turned to glare at the redhead. As a fellow haremette – if Layla got what she wanted – which she would – unless she didn’t – which was unlikely – but not that unlikely, actually…

As a woman who she would with some certainty call a fellow haremette one day, Nathalia obviously had Layla’s respect. The same was not true in reverse. Layla was not an expert at reading people’s emotions. The hours Lorelei had spent teaching her that trick had been just a side theatre of their greater effort of learning from each other’s particular sensitivity to auras. However, even limited as Layla was in the field, she could see the distrust the dragoness had for her.

So unfair! She hadn’t done anything wrong! All she did was break into her future home, steal some clothes, stay over uninvited and…

‘You know, after common sense classes, that does sound bad,’ Layla thought. ‘It was different though! Because it was me! She will realize that eventually, just got to show her my best!’ “We’re on course, yes, and you can stop needling me about it!” Layla snapped outwardly. “You think I want to be away from our John?”

“Our John, not yours,” Nathalia growled.

Layla hissed back. She was very sorely tempted to launch herself at the dragoness. Not only would that have been futile, but it was also out of place. “You’ll **** on your doubts eventually,” the brunette declared.

The temperature in the room rose by several degrees.

“Enough!” Aclysia’s voice cut through the room, her chilling presence counteracting the heat radiating from the goddess of volcanoes. “Layla, swallow your antagonism. Your place is, as of yet, outside the harem, work with it!”

Layla could not suppress the growl she had in response to that. It was a thoroughly animalistic sound, paired with a deep and primal urge to defend her territory. There was just enough philosophy drilled into her head that she did not forget herself. ‘Dumb bitch,’ she still caught herself thinking. ‘She’s doing what she has to and she’s just as worried as you are,’ she then reprimanded herself and **** herself to relax.

“Nathalia, for your part, your needling will not serve us. Her intent to find him is pure. You can believe that, if nothing else.”

The redhead’s heel tapped repeatedly onto the white floor of the yacht’s bedroom. Layla did not need to be able to read her emotions on a soul level to see the agitation. “I have evil words on my tongue for you,” Nathalia stated, eyes locked not with the justified stalker but the head maid. “I shall let you know that they exist, but I will not speak them. Know only that I am disappointed… and that I trust you earnestly thought she…” Nathalia made an off-handed gesture, “…is a good investment.”

“That is my belief,” Aclysia retorted.

‘She can be so wise and sexy,’ Layla swooned.

“Concentrate!” Lorelei snapped at her suddenly. The harsh tone from the seer made Layla refocus on the body between them and the fragment of soul therein. “Your fight has no place here. Do not sow discontent in the ranks of the servant of the Lady in times of war, for even the most well-meaning advice can overpower the traitorous rattling for swords.”

Layla was not very aware of the recital. Probably part of some Order doctrine. She had skimmed those books as part of her philosophy reading, but found them too dull. All of those reminders of chastity and such… who needed those? Obviously, she was going to get bred by John. Obviously. As soon as possible.

For that he needed to live.

Layla closed her eyes and concentrated on the spark with all of her being. She nourished it with her own mana, fuelled it to an inferno. It was not enough to establish the connection again, but it sufficed so, when she opened her eyes again, she could see the connections his glorious aura of purple, gold, and prismatic wove.

There was a dense web between the women in the room. There was one layer, a faint one, that danced from the marks on their wombs. A much denser series of cords connected them along their spines. Thousands of individual synapses joined into a communication network that Layla could perceive but not interpret. Through all of that, the thread, as thin as a nylon line, was nearly invisible.

Layla took gentle hold of it. She moaned reflexively when it touched her palms. A concentrated, if ever so faint, variant of his aura became pinched between her fingers. On wobbling knees, she rose, suppressing the urge to rub herself to repeated climaxes while she made her way up to the deck. She followed the prismatic thread all the way to the railing.

“THAT WAY!” she shouted. She had to shout against the wind. The yacht was going at an absurdly fast speed for a ship that size, almost 300 kilometres an hour. Lee was staying underdeck to keep the mana engine steadily supplied and to keep the Mobile Barrier generator compliant.

The ship’s trajectory did not change. They were yet to make it through the Panama Canal. Still, Beatrice, who was operating the controls, made note of the direction Layla pointed at. With enough data points, they would gradually narrow down their search area. Optimally, they would have it before they even arrived in the vicinity of the last tracked location.

Layla’s primary worry was that this ship wouldn’t be able to take this kind of speed for so long, especially if they were caught in bad weather. ‘I know just about nothing about boats,’ she thought. ‘I need to fix that! He has a big boat, I should know what he likes! I need to know everything he likes!’

She returned indoors, beckoned back in by the way the wind whipped her skin. Once back in the apartment, she was greeted only by Aclysia and Lorelei. “Nathalia went to help with keeping the mana engine running,” the head maid explained.

“That’s good, the quicker we get to him, the better,” Layla immediately agreed.

“Your single-minded purpose is of aid here,” Lorelei complimented. Layla was vaguely aware it was not entirely meant as one, but she chose to take it that way anyway.

To only think about John was natural. Well, maybe with some thoughts of the other women mixed in there. An erotic fantasy was already bubbling to the surface. Layla shooed it away. ‘Now is not the time to get lost in the idea of squishing Sylph between us!’ She climbed back on his bed and valiantly withstood the urge to press her nose into the sheets. ‘Gaia, I am quite broken… but he’ll love that, right?’

A phone on a nearby counter buzzed. Aclysia furrowed her eyebrows and picked it up. “Yes? Momo? I- Is this true? Affirmative… Affirmative… We are 30 minutes ahead of time… Beatrice has calculated hull integrity four times, we are fine. Affirmative. I will be in fifteen minute contact via text. Affirmative. Love you too.” Only the last words were spoken with anything besides heavy concern. “The Harem Comms have broken down.”

“We are limited to phones then.” Lorelei clasped her hands in prayer. “May the Lady guide us through these harsh trials. May the Saint know our aid in time. May his flock have their shepherd returned before the wolves descend.”

“No signs of hostility yet, from what Momo reported.”

“But if the enemy strikes with any degree of competence, we won’t know the attack is happening until it’s already achieved initial objectives,” Layla threw in.

Aclysia gave her a pleased nod. “I see you have retained the information from the tomes on war?”

“There’s a lot of overlap between proper warfare and ways to find John and stab his enemies in their idiotic throats!” Layla answered enthusiastically. She had never actually stabbed any of his enemies in the throat. She had beaten and bruised a journalist one time, but she had been reprimanded for it harshly. Apparently, some tolerance had to be shown or whatever. It was a point that Layla gave on only because she had to. If it was up to her, everyone who badmouthed her John should lose their tongue.

People or eldritch entities or whatever that locked away John against his will should be carved down to the atom.

Layla felt a sudden jolt.

Her eyes jumped around the room manically. Her senses remained heightened to the thin threads that filled the room and she found a new one, slick and black, crawling up behind her. It was like a caravan of maggots getting pulled out of her spine, making their way somewhere… below?

“What’s the matter?” Her erratic motions had been noticed.

Layla was not yet at liberty to respond. Twisting around, she tried to keep eyes and grasp the crawling thread. A task as difficult as pinching a skittering louse in a blueberry bush. Even when she finally had a hand on it, it slipped away.

She turned around, her eyes snapping back to Lorelei. A similar thread went from her skull and spine to beneath the bed. An impure strand that was invading what was his! Snarling angrily, she climbed on the bed. Lorelei and Aclysia were alarmed, she could sense that, but they did not stop her, not even when she grasped the soul connection.

With both hands, she tore at the thing. Every larvae was a synapse in a nervous system, endlessly delivering information to something. Both hands on it, she sensed it, faintly. A vast knot of intel, unwilling, unheard, unobserved – until then. It regarded her attempt to tear the thread with amusement.

“Cut here!” Layla barked out, creating a gap between her hands.

Aclysia pulled out Marice. The enormous sword was anything but a precision instrument. The elegance with which she swung it turned it into one. For a brief moment, the string was cut. It reconnected within the second.

The gap was brief enough for Lorelei to scream.

It was a panicked, horrid sound. Layla turned around, hugging her fellow haremette immediately. The seer held onto the sleeve of the justified stalker, bunching the fabric while she trembled. Hard footsteps announced Ehtra and Metra before they burst through the door. “What the fuck is going on?!” the wolf-eared blonde snarled, her eyes immediately snapping to Layla.

“I found another thing that is drawing information from us and told Aclysia to cut it,” Layla answered as calmly as she could. She let go of Lorelei when the seer raised a hand.

“The corruption runs deep. Even now it follows us,” the seer whispered. “I understand now. I cannot perceive the future because it reads my mind. All prophecies I make are seen by our foe at the same time. Thus, the future is in eternal limbo. For the brief moment that the connection was cut… I was able to see the saltwater serpent coiling around the mouth of the river. Aclysia, contact Momo, tell her to immediately begin the evacuation of the Hudson Barrier.”

“Affirmative,” Aclysia answered and grabbed the phone.

“Fuck!” Metra cursed. “Tiamat really is making her move!”

“And we are here,” Ehtra growled.

“Where else would you be? We must save John first!” Layla said.

“You do not understand the hatred I have for Mother Chaos,” Ehtra hissed back. There was a misplaced conflict in her voice, a wish to save her Master and to go fight her enemy. Obviously, John came first – obviously!

‘Don’t keep arguing, you’re on the same side,’ Layla reigned herself in, for the sake of harmony.

“Can’t you just keep cutting the thread?” Metra asked.

“No,” Layla answered, observing the way it moved before her eyes. “It knows now. It’s shifting the connection. I’m not… I’m not good enough to keep grasping it.”

“It is Izha,” Aclysia said, putting the phone down. “Momo is nearly absolutely certain. We had this theory previously, based on the letters and what the Horned Rat shared with us on what he knew about the entity. The pieces have been lined up against Master. The final confrontation with the Lorylim is upon us. The alliances are mobilizing.” The head maid stared at all of them. “Fusion will suffer losses. This is the reality of war.”

Always had been, always would be.