A hand shook my shoulder lightly. Someone was saying something in the distance. It all seemed so far away, too far away to be real. Opening my eyes it was all a blurry mess, all I could register was a small shape looming over me. I closed my eyes again.

“Milord, wake up,” the shape said, shaking my shoulder once more.

“What?” I managed to groan.

“Milord, it’s time for breakfast,” the shape said and I finally recognized it as belonging to Nina. “You’re going into the mountains today.”

“I am?” I mumbled, turning onto my side, facing away from her. This dislodged the small furball from my chest, and I got an indignant hiss from Emma.

“Yes, you said something about finding a spot for a fort,” Nina replied. “And you wanted to visit the dwarves.”

“Right, give me a span or two, then get Saori in here,” I grumbled and rolled back on my back. Opening my eyes I saw that everything was still a bit unfocused. What was disturbing was the fact that the fire in the fireplace was not the right colour. Suddenly Emma was standing on my chest, blocking my face.

“Stop it,” I growled and tried to push her away, but she was insistent and kept coming back up, even dug her claws in. Nina curtsied and left the room. As the door was closing, I heard my page giggling.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, and why did you do that thing to my eyes again?” I complained in elvish. The irritating cat shimmered into her humanoid form.

“I didn’t. You’ve somehow linked to my mana pool and we’re still connected. You drew on my magic and somehow did that to yourself,” she said. “And I got in your face because your eyes look like mine right now, while the power is still active. Wouldn’t want anyone to see that, not even Nina.”

“I took mana away from you?”

“Not really, you sent mana equivalent to what you withdrew,” she said. “More importantly, how the hell did you do that?”

“I don’t know, I just tried to do what you described,” I said with a shrug. “Maybe it’s part of my power, I can link objects they said.”

“No, that shouldn’t be possible. Linking mana pools, I’ve never heard about that before. Much less you transforming your eyes on your own.”

“Well, what else could it be?” I asked.

“Priests of each race have their own special power, the ability to change into an animal, or part of you, is only possible for the Kin who are chosen by the Wildmother,” she replied.

“What ability do humans have? You saw what the priest was able to do,” I wondered out loud.

“No one knows. They’ve always displayed a wide variety of power, normally associated with normal mancers.”

“Problem for later, how do I turn off this power?” I demanded. She told me and after a few seconds of concentrating, I could see colours normally again. Emma shimmered quickly, just as there was a knock on the door.

After having washed up and eaten breakfast, I found myself riding northward with my bodyguards, Lily and her bodyguard, the three advisors, Caspar, Yathanae, Nathalie, as well as Gudrun, the strongest of my stone mages. We were following the old trade road, which had been little more than a well-worn wagon trail and after years of neglect, it was barely noticeable.

Lily was acting cold toward me, it would seem that my two outbursts the day before had soured whatever budding cordial relationship we had started to build. She kept glancing at Yathanae, who seemed uncomfortable being dragged along. However, during the hunting trip, I had found out a bit more about her. It turned out she was one of their military officers. Low ranked, but nonetheless an officer, and unlike my newest Commanders and myself, she was actually trained in strategy. I wanted her input on the location of the new fort.

After a couple of hours of riding, where we had passed a couple of platoons that were training and protecting a fruit picking crew at the same time, we stopped for a break at a small lake. The place was pretty beautiful. It was situated in between the hills, and it was fed by a small stream that poured down one of the hills. Almost like a miniature waterfall. There were a lot of bushes that seemed to be some kind of evergreen since they still had their leaves. There were even patches of snowdrops growing around the place.

The most curious thing was a family of otters that were living in the lake. Or vacationing. What did I know? At first, they seemed a bit skittish and kept to the far side of the lake. However, after ten minutes, they were back in the water. The smaller otters were running up the hill with the stream and then used it as a waterslide back to the lake, while the larger ones kept an eye on us. Emma was watching them with great interest.

While the others were resting and watering the horses, I took Yathanae a bit away from the others and continued teaching her tai chi, something she had asked about when she had seen me practice during the hunting trip. Apparently it was similar to something the elves practised. I would have her show me the difference at some point.

We were halfway through when Lily came stomping over. “Don’t you care at all for reputation?”

“What do you mean?” I asked with a sigh. I did not want to have another fight with her.

“You mingle with an elven serf, it’s unseemly,” she fumed.

“Why?”

“We lost almost all the freemen because of that,” she said and pointed at Yathanae.

Groaning I stopped my movements. “And so what? For what I could see from the ledgers, they added little value to the Hold, and with all the coins we found, most of them were probably helping Vernon ruining the Hold. Why else would they flee?”

“Because you act like a tyrant. Threatening with having them read by fideomancers or they would be found guilty.”

“Sure, I’m the bad guy here,” I said. “Listen here, I’ve less than two moons to get almost five hundred serfs into something that resembles soldiers. Then I’m going off to fight a war that is not mine. At the same time, I’ve to find a way to provide for everyone on the Hold, because it has been mismanaged. And some of the people you’re attacking me over was part of the problem. Some of them might not have been, but they could’ve stayed then.”

“Not with you threatening them and being at war with the Church.”

“I’m not at war with the Church, just ask Ethan,” I countered. “We’re at peace. A strenuous peace, sure, but peace nonetheless. They don’t mess with me and I’ll follow the law and try and respect them.”

“But you’re being unreasonable, one of your men pulled a sabre on a high priest.”

“Former high priest,” I corrected. There was also something wrong. It was clear that she was upset with me, but the reasons she gave seemed hollow. I did not know where that insight came from. It was almost like a voice in the back of my head telling it to me.

I thought about it for a second and then decided to test the waters. “But that’s not the reason you’re really upset with me, is it?”

Her eyes teared up. “No, I hate seeing you with your whore. I knew whoever I would be marrying would end up having other lovers, but I didn’t think they would flaunt them in front of me. And you told me that you wouldn’t sleep with anyone else, and you made me believe that. Yet you take her out on a camping trip for several days.”

I took a step towards her, but she backed up. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. “Listen carefully to what I am saying. I’ve not slept with anyone since we got married. Only you. I’ve no intentions of sleeping with anyone else without your permission. We might be forced into this, but you’re my wife and I’ll not cheat on you.”

Tears were running down her cheeks by then. “Why take her camping then?”

“She’s an expert marksman with a bow, an expert tracker, and many other things. She taught us a great deal. More importantly, I secured her help in teaching me about elven tactics,” I said and took another step forward. This time Lily did not back away. “But if you want, I’ll allow one of the fideomancers to read me while you ask all the questions you want. I’ll never lie to you. I might not want to tell you everything, but I won’t lie.”

She looked me deeply in the eyes. “Is it really true that you haven’t been intimate with the elf?”

“Yes. I really haven’t. She offered when I first bought her, in return for leaving the two other elves alone,” I said. “I won’t lie and tell you it wasn’t tempting. However, I’ll never force anyone to sleep with me.”

“We were forced,” she said.

“A fact I regret every single day,” I said and reached up to stroke her cheek. “You deserved better.”

“It’s custom for a cleric of Adea to ensure that the wedding nights of all lords bear fruit, they even make sure that it’s a son that can be the heir,” Lily said. At least she did not pull away from my touch.

“Tell me what I can do to help make this better?”

She thought about it for a moment. “Did the Cardinal really try to have you killed?”

“I never said that. People just assumed the men were there to kill me because he tortured me like that. He was there to put me in the same kind of restraints as Yathanae is wearing,” I answered honestly.

“Thanks,” she mumbled. “I had wondered about why you never said it directly.”

“Listen Lily, I really want you to be happy and secure, not only because you carry my son, but because you’re my wife. Even if we were forced into the marriage, I’ll not see you harmed,” I said.

“What if the only way to do that was to start worshipping the Gods?” she asked.

“Anything but that. I know the Gods are real, they must be, because someone or something brought me here from another world,” I said with a groan. “However, I feel something is not right. Whether it’s the Gods or the Church, they seem to have misused the prophecy. There should only be one champion summoned for each God. They summoned many more than that. Even without counting all those they killed, there are still thirteen for each God.”

“Killed?” she asked with a frown.

“When they summoned us, women and people who would be considered tainted were killed at once,” I explained.

“Why would the Gods bring over tainted people? Or women for that matter?” she asked.

“Because on my planet anyone looking down on another person because of skin colour, gender, hair colour or anything like that is a fucking asshole,” I said. “And honestly, I think most people here are assholes. It’s not their fault they were born or who their parents are. I don’t understand all this hate between the races. From what I understand from your creation myth, you were all placed here to help the Gods in their duty as wardens. Keeping the Destroyer imprisoned.”

She looked thoughtful for a long time at that. “It all started—”

“Milord!” Caspar shouted, interrupting her. Looking over I saw him pointing northwest, where a column of smoke was rising. From where we were it was hidden behind a hill or two.

“Fuck,” I swore and started running to my horse while shouting orders. “Hrothgar, Linus and Caspar with me. Kiril, assign two men to stay here and follow us.”

I was in the saddle and heading towards the smoke within a few seconds, the rest of them trailing a few seconds after me. Only Caspar was keeping up. The smoke was not far away, less than two kilometres, and as we were approaching a couple of minutes or three later I could hear panicked shouts.

When I crested the hill, where the smoke was coming from, I saw a copse of apple trees, one of our platoons, some of our serfs, and one of our wagons which was ablaze. The serfs were fighting to keep the panicking oxen calm enough to get them free from the wagon. I also spotted a couple of large birds flying away. It took me a second to realize they were not birds, but people with wings flying away.

I pulled my musket out of reflex, but it was not loaded and I gauged the distance to be too far to get a shot off anyway. Riding up I demanded, “What happened?”

“Milord,” the senior squad leader said, coming out from amongst the trees with his musket in hand, putting the ramrod back in place. “A handful of harpies attacked the serfs, driving them further inside the copse. They scared my horse away, so I didn’t have my musket. We managed to kill three of them, and the two others just fled. They must have been more if they could also set the wagon on fire.”

“Casualties?” Hrothgar demanded, but I got distracted by a feeling of dread and urgency coming from somewhere behind me. It almost felt like it was back at the lake. Looking back, I saw something that looked like really big birds circling around the lake. Then the faint sound of gunfire reached us.

“Fuck,” I swore and spurred my horse on after I had turned him around. I was pressing it a lot harder than I had done on the ride up, making the trip back in what felt like less time. Coming back to the lake, I saw at least twenty winged elves. Half of them were flying in the air, shooting arrows down at my people, who were huddling behind a stone wall.

Any time the elves tried to circle around the wall, they were met by a musket ball or a firebolt. The other half was leading the horses away. I could do nothing about the elves in the air, but I could do something about the horse thieves.

I headed directly for them, drawing my sabre as I approached. One of them, a male, did not even look before I clipped him with the sabre. I had gone for a decapitation, but the wings got in the way, and instead I chopped half a folded wing off. The other elves were busy trying to pull swords.

I slammed as many hilts and sheaths as I could see with my magic, and jumped off the horse, barrelling into one of the elves to break my fall. I managed to use the momentum to roll off him and get to my feet, swinging the sabre at the nearest elf. He jumped back, but still received a shallow cut on the arm.

Feeling the weak links I had created being broken, I knew I was in trouble. Instead of being defensive, which I was in a bad position for, I lunged for the elf in front of me. He was still off-balance from just having jumped back, meaning my sabre sank into his stomach.

Instead of struggling to get it out, I pulled my shortsword and one of my axes, while keeping moving forward. I felt a slight burn and pain as someone scored a hit on my forearm as I reached back for the axe. Since I could still close my hand around the haft, it was not serious. Spinning around, I saw that three elves were behind me, while the elf I just had skewered, was sitting on his knees, slumped over. The three behind me were all women, and one of them was overextended.

Guessing the one with her sword thrust forward was the one who had hurt me, I slapped her sword to the side, and advanced. Only to be met with two thrusts from the others. I swept down with the axe and sent them to the side, but one of them still grazed my thigh. I had to retreat a few steps. A quick look behind them showed that my bodyguards were engaged with the other elves.

Turning my attention away, even for a split second, almost proved fatal, because one of them had leapt forward trying to cleave me from head to toe. I did the only thing I could think of and that was to close the distance. Her blade missed me, but the guard smashed into my left shoulder, making me drop the axe. I grabbed her around the waist and stabbed my shortsword into her side, before ripping it away from myself, opening her up.

A great pain spread in my right knee, and I dropped to the ground, losing my hold on the elf. The two elves were dragging the wounded one away from me, and I looked down to see that my knee had been completely mangled by a sword stroke. Groaning, I grabbed the axe from where I had dropped it, before weakly flinging it at the retreating elves, who had started flying away. The axe caught one of them in the wing and made her drop for a moment before she started flying away again. Only to be caught by a shot from one of my bodyguards.

“Attend the Lord, he’s been wounded,” I heard Kiril shout. A handful of seconds later Nathalie was leaning over me. Tears falling from her eyes.

“I’ve used most of my mana already, Milord,” she stammered.

“Just stop the bleeding,” I groaned with pain. I had seriously fucked up. I had dominated my own soldiers in training bouts, and the bandits had been untrained. The priest had used magic. This was the first time I had been in a real fight against trained opponents, and it showed how much I did not know about fighting with weapons.

“Casualties?” I heard Hrothgar asked.

“Commander, we got some wounds, but the major ones have already been healed by the healer, but we can’t find the Lady or the elven serf,” I heard one of the bodyguards that had remained answer. “We’ve killed seven of theirs.”

“Nathalie, did you see where they went?” I asked and tried to get up.

“No Milord, please lie still. You can’t walk on that leg,” she said. “And I’m all out of mana. I’m so sorry Milord.”

Hrothgar started barking commands, “Load up the Lord and we ride for the Hall. We’ll send out search parties for the Lady and the serf.”

“Belay that order,” I growled. “Start looking for my wife, now.”

“But your safety,” he protested.

“I gave you an order,” I said frostily. I then turned my attention to Nathalie. Emma had said something about me sending mana over the link. Maybe I could do the same without creating a link. With the pain, it was a bit hard to concentrate, but I managed to send a tendril out to connect with Nathalie’s mana pool.

I then tried to just send mana into the pool, and slowly it started to refill. Her eyes went big. “What are you doing, Milord?”

“Shush, don’t say a thing,” I whispered. “Start healing.”

She did as I ordered and started pulling mana out of the pool. I could feel the tendril of mana leaving her pool, but somehow it was blocked, crooked or something. Not as much mana travelled the tendril as left the pool. Since my mana pool was not infinite, I wondered if it would be more effective to connect my pool directly to the magic she was performing.

It took a little finagling, but I managed to latch directly into the tendril and feed the mana directly. I could feel the magic she was performing becoming more powerful since it had more energy. It was accompanied by a slight gasp from her when the mana started pouring into her spell in a greater amount.

“Get my horse over here,” I demanded. It took half a minute, but when the horse was next to me, I used the stirrups and saddle to drag myself into a standing position. With a little help from Nathalie, and a lot of fucking pain, I managed to get into the saddle.

“No sign yet,” Kiril reported. Looking around I saw that he was the only soldier still here. Though everyone else had remained.

“Which direction are they looking?”

“East to west, and the south,” he responded. Which were the obvious directions they would have fled. To the north was closer to trouble. I closed my eyes and concentrated on my magic.

Emma had mentioned our mana pools were connected, or at least I was to hers. I thought the feeling of dread from earlier had a tinge of her essence, so I hoped we were still connected. Looking inward, I managed to find my mana pool easily enough. However, it took me a moment to find a small thread that seemed to go off in a northeasterly direction.

“Follow me,” I told Kiril. When Hrothgar and Linus made attempts to follow, I ordered them to stay. The link felt relatively calm, so I hoped they were out of danger.

After a couple of minutes of careful riding, because every jostle sent a shot of pain through my knee, we had crested a hill and came to a thicket of shrubs and some apple trees. I felt the link was nearby. The horses acted skittishly, something they had not even done while around the battle.

“Lily, Yathanae,” I shouted.

“We’re here, you should send your bodyguard away,” I heard Yathanae call back.

Turning to Kiril, I ordered him to go get Nathalie and call the searchers back. He looked reluctant but followed orders. I rode around the other side to the thicket, so we would be hidden. “Okay, you can come out now.”

The first thing to come out of the thicket was a giant black panther, with a white belly. The eyes were familiar and could only belong to one person, Emma. Damn, she looked dangerous, especially being the size of my horse. My horse tried to back away, sending jarring pains through my body.

Emma shimmered and turned into the normal cat form, and the horse whinnied in confusion. Yathanae, who was supporting Lily, followed Emma out. Lily blanched when the giant panther turned into a house cat. She looked very pale.

“Are you okay?” I asked her, greatly concerned.

She pointed at Emma and tried to say something, but all that came out was a stuttering, incoherent mumble. Frowning I said. “I know. She’s the one who saved my life when the priest was torturing me, please don’t tell anyone.”

She looked uncomprehendingly at me. Damned situation we were in. She could say something where Ethan could hear it, and right now it did not look like we could explain anything to her.

In elvish, I asked, “What happened?”

“Soon after you took off, I heard a whistle, knowing it was an elvish signal for attack, I tried to make the soldiers listen, but they just slapped me,” Yathanae said with a frown. So did I. They had hunted with her just a couple of days earlier, so that attitude had to be adjusted.

Yathanae continued, “I at least had made everyone pay attention, so when the attack came, everyone acted quickly. Hope’s firebolts kept them at bay, while the lapomancers shielded the others. Your priest did nothing.”

She looked at Lily who was clutching her tunic. “Lily panicked and ran east, me and Emma set after her. So did a couple of my winged cousins. We had to run far enough away that Emma could transform and kill the two of them.”

“Thank you,” I said looking at both of them. “Please, get her up on my horse.”

We were in the process of getting the incoherent Lily onto the horse in front of me when Nathalie and Kiril came riding back. Luckily the others, including Ethan, were further back, but still heading in our direction.

“Nathalie, can you make her sleep?” I asked, indicating Lily. Nathalie nodded and put her hands on Lily. Nothing happened, so I was about to ask when I saw she was looking expectantly at me. I reached out and poured some mana into her pool.

It was the middle of the night, and I was sitting in my bed, next to a still sleeping Lily. My knee was aching mightily. It was not completely healed, but hopefully, Nathalie and the others would have enough mana to completely repair it when they woke up. Emma was purposely on the other side of the fireplace, not wanting to freak out Lily when she woke.

Or at least that was the impression I was getting. It was not like we could talk since there was a guard outside my door, and one on the balcony. Kiril took no chances with a harpy raiding party in the area.

We had been relatively lucky. Besides the wagon and a handful of serfs, we only had walking wounded. I scoffed. Five life should not be something that should be described as lucky. Though secretly I was glad it was five untrained serfs and none of those that were being trained as troops we had lost. It was so easy to be caught up in the callus way they viewed life here in this world.

Lily started stirring, so I waited patiently for her to wake up completely. She sat up looking around frantically. “It’s alright Lily, you’re safe. You weren’t hurt.”

“But—but the cat!” she frantically stammered.

“Emma saved you, just as she saved my life,” I said and gathered her into my arms. She went without protests. She was shaking like a leaf.

“What kind of monster is she?” Lily asked after nearly ten minutes.

“No monster, she’s a priestess of the Wildmother,” I said, which elicited a gasp from Lily.

Gulping, Lily asked, “She’s a beastman?”

“They prefer Kin, I think,” I answered.

“You’ve sent it away, right?”

“Why would I do that? She saved both of our lives.”

“If it was found out we had an uncollared priestess of another God here, we would be killed. It’s just as bad as if you tried to set some serfs free,” she said.

“I won’t do that. She saved our lives, and Yathanae is her bond-mate. I can’t very well send the woman who saved our lives away from her life partner, wouldn’t be right,” I said with a shrug.

Lily thought it over. “You’re right.”

“You know, the reason for the hunting trip was to let the two of them spend some private time together,” I said.

“Really?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Where is she?” Lily asked after another ten minutes of silence. The entire time she had been cuddling up to me.

“Why?”

“I guess I should thank her,” she said.

I switched to elvish. “Emma, Lily would like to thank you.”

The cat slowly approached and jumped up onto the bed. Lily pressed a little further into me for a second, before relaxing. She held her hand out and Emma approached slowly. Soon Lily was petting Emma, and Emma was purring like a whole herd of cats.

“Thank you,” Lily mumbled. She got an inquisitive meow in return.

“She’s not very good with your language, you could try saying it in elvish,” I said and supplied her with the words. Lily repeated them and was rewarded with an enthusiastic lick on the nose.

“Lily,” I said after a few minutes. She looked up from her petting session. “Please, keep what you just learned a secret. I don’t want to die because someone is being a racist. Emma is a good friend, and with her help, I actually hope I got a chance to survive this hold ordeal. At least I won’t have to deal with the human Church completely in the blind.”

“I’ll not reveal that secret,” she said before going back to petting Emma. Satisfied, I finally lay down and went to sleep.