More pitiful reliance on such weak and archaic methods of realm travel, I had suspected as much, but it was nice that our prey was leading us towards exactly the information we had been looking for. Since picking up the strange demon named Ana, I had been learning all about this odd organization called the “Great Church” and the many facets of beliefs they held. It sounded too strange and ridiculous to be true, but I supposed that in such a low magic realm people had turned towards the ideas of gods and goddesses to explain the things they could not understand. I had read of societies coming up with such ideas, though they were often quickly discarded once the mysteries of magic were unveiled, but in this case it seemed that the group did have some idea of magic and how to utilize it and were still yet keeping hold of the outdated beliefs. Fascinating really, too bad that I would be forced to destroy them if they were harboring the fae blessed child in any way, which I had been informed they might.

“No sign of the child among them,” the seeress huffed next to me, “this was a waste of time.”

We had marched on the temple just after dawn and found it empty, obviously they had been aware of our impending arrival. My scouts had been waiting to report that the entire group living in the temple had set off on foot just before we arrived and that a woman who appeared to be the leader had declared that they were going on some sort of journey that was important to whatever god or goddess they worshiped. None of the scouts had sensed fae magic in the crowd and therefore had hung back, waiting for me to decide what to do. Intrigued by what exactly they were up to, I had decided to follow the group with Ana and the seeress in tow, the three of us would be more than capable of handling even the toughest of magic a human could possess. Just one of us, even Ana would have been hilarious overkill and been able to easily wipe them all out on her own. Still, I liked to keep backup nearby just in case it became necessary and Ana was much more familiar with the workings of this human realm than either Emmi or I. We had been following behind an invisible shield of my design, undetectable by anyone of lesser power than a fae. Safe to say that none of the group we were trailing were going to pick up on anything out of place.

“Perhaps in regards to finding the child,” I replied. “I do not think that we should be so rash as to declare it a waste of our time, however.”

“What other regards are there?” Emmi huffed impatiently.

She was growing tired of being out and away from the homelands. It seemed that sooner and sooner into any mission we went on she would start to complain. She was still quite clear on the fact she planned on upholding her position of seeress for many years to come, but that did not stop her from feeling the impact of her aging body. “We find the girl, we bring her back and it is obvious that the foul goblin is not here. His stench has not been present since we left the demonic kingdom.”

“He will find the girl again,” Ana said, “he wants something with her, otherwise he would not have bothered. If he takes a special interest in something he is like a dog with a bone, he will not give it up. Everything he does has a time and purpose, even if that purpose is horrific.”

Ana’s angled jaw set hard and her nose flared like she was holding back some intense emotion, but soon her sharp features smoothed out again. I could tell that she was a normally expressive person and was intentionally masking herself around us. Fae were generally known to be stoic and cold, withholding even small displays of emotion. Perhaps she knew and understood that bit of our society. It would serve her well, a lot of fae tended to equate displays of emotion with weakness and lesser intelligence. I did not necessarily think that myself, but if she were to attempt to make a place for herself amongst the fae as anything other than a common slave, she would need every advantage she could get.

“We shall see,” Emmi snorted and shook her head, not entirely believing Ana’s explanation.

“Regardless, this is the group that was harboring the girl, we need to know where they are going so that we can follow in case the girl is returned to their care,” I said.

None of us said anymore as we watched the girls one by one approach the stone and either pass through or be sorted out to the side looking completely devastated and defeated. I could not help but feel particularly sorry for the girls who had been sorted off to the side. Any lowly creature, even a tiny insect, in the fae realm I could have collected and pressed to the stone to activate it, the threshold for using such a magical item was so low as to be almost zero. If these humans could not even inspire a spark of magic great enough to use the item, then they were truly hollow vessels and useless for anything. The leader of the group looked forlorn as she took one last glance at the girls, gave them advice on how to avoid us, then crossed over. Left behind was an elderly woman holding up a glamour of a much younger and refined young woman. It was not a very strong illusion and I could see right through it to the truth, but I supposed everyone else around her probably marked her as closer to her mid thirties than the mid eighties she likely really was. It was still very strange to think that eighty years was a very long life for a human, I could not imagine how awful it must be to know your life was so fleeting and short. My kind did not even figure themselves to be fully adult until at least a hundred and fifty years old. I, myself, barely made that classification by about a decade, at eighty I was practically still a toddler.

“That is Mari,” Ana said, extending her slender lavender arm to point towards the elderly woman. “She is the great aunt of the queen whose castle you invaded.”

“She is amongst the group that harbored the aberration?” Emmi asked. “That is one we may need to mark for intense interrogation and execution.”

“Yes, though she never seemed to be fond of the idea. Tolerated because the queen allowed it and he was acting as the girl’s keeper. They were all at least smart enough to know that it was important to keep the girl contained so that none of you would be able to find her. He was just unsuccessful in doing that.”

Ana’s face turned into a deep frown and a brief look of annoyance and understanding crossed her features.

“What is it?” I pressed. I was quickly figuring out that the demon woman was very clever and well suited to putting together pieces of information when they were presented to her, like pieces of a puzzle.

“I am just now realizing that he should have been more than capable of keeping the girl under wraps and stowed away safely.” Her voice was low, again controlling herself from giving away an emotion. “He wanted you to find her and therefore him. I was too distracted and enraged with him to see it before now. That was likely part of his plan too, if I had not been distracted I think I would have very quickly figured it out.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, thoroughly intrigued by the idea that the creature would desire us to find him. “Does he have a death wish? If he is as smart and ancient as you say, then surely he knows what awaits him when we arrive and take him into our custody.”

“Death is something he runs from, he does not want that, that much I am sure of. However, what exactly he does want with you, that I do not know, but there must be some sort of plan he is orchestrating otherwise none of this would be happening, you would have never found the girl. In fact he would have just jumped several realms until he was sure his movements were so shuffled you would never find him.”

Emmi snorted loudly and tapped her hand impatiently on her hip. “I think you give this foul beast far too much credit. He may be ancient and powerful, but he will be no might for elite fae. Even the Spring with their pitiful forces would have been far and away enough to obliterate him and end his cursed existence for good.”

Ana glanced at the seeress without turning her head and sniffed through her nose. “I will bow to your superior magical affinity and knowledge, but I will remind you that this is not the first time he has tried to lure fae to him, and he escaped your kind before and eluded detection. He obviously has thought this time he has a better chance to do whatever it is he had been planning.”

The elderly human woman holding up the glamour reached out and traversed realms, leaving the group of empty vessels shivering with fear in the empty wilderness. Seeing the last person go, fresh wails tore from their lips and they openly wept and sniffled, their faces full of pain. We watched as they took turns arguing about what to do next. A few of them had already started a depressed trudge towards the direction their leader had pointed for the next town, but a majority of the women and children were hovering together, debating what exactly to do next.

“We just need to go to the town,” a tall woman with dull blonde hair said, eyes still swollen from her weeping. “She is the arch cleric, she would not lead us astray.”

“Oh really? I do not know about that anymore,” said another, more portly woman with dark brown hair. “I certainly feel like I have been led astray right about now. Why would I listen to her now when apparently the past twenty odd years of my life had been all for nothing? She has been feeding me lies and had me worshiping a goddess who does not care for me one bit.”

A few of the women gasped in shock at what she said and more arguing broke out about what they should do. The children of the group looked up to the older with wide, terrified eyes, like they had never seen any of them argue before.

“Do what you want, but I am going to the town,” the tall woman said. “Anyone who wants to follow me can, we will figure out where to go from here together with help from the townspeople. People are essentially good and we will find other gods fearing people to take us in and give us kindness. We will do as the arch cleric says and rebuild our lives.”

“Go then,” the other woman grunted and dramatically pointed back towards where the temple was located. “My home is there and that is where it will remain. My life needs not to change and it will not if I have anything to say about it. I will not be driven away from it just because I have been told I am rejected and to never return. If I am rejected, then what does it matter if I listen to the arch cleric or not? Clearly listening to her up to now has all been for nothing and I will do it no longer.”

The woman hiked up the skirt of her tunic and began marching back towards the temple. A few of the women gathered up children and began to follow her while others uneasily started towards the town. After a few moments it seemed like most everyone had made their choice and were following one of the women.

“They choose death I suppose,” Emmi said. “Shall we return now and see that they are all rounded up and taken care of or should we just get it out of the way now?”

I did not particularly enjoy the idea of putting down such weak and empty vessels as they would stand to be absolutely no threat to any fae, though if they were indeed intent on their idea of returning to the temple I had no choice. A soft sigh, barely perceptible to my hearing, escaped through Ana’s lips and I became aware that the idea of them marching to their death was for some reason distressing to her. Her eyes were trained on the small children clinging to the older women with frightened eyes and it looked as though if she was not keeping such tight control on her emotions that she might give in and let a tear drop from her eyes. The idea of her being so upset as to want to cry upset me for some reason and while I could not understand why it bothered me, I wanted to do something to prevent it.

“Wait here,” I commanded, then focused on the tendrils of power within my core.

It was a silly plan, one that if it got out I was sure every noble of every other house would use to discredit me even more than they already did, but my mind was made up.

“What do you think you can do about this?” Emmi said, abashed that I had commanded her into inaction.

Without answering I faded from view, entering into the thin veil that separated realms, thin, transparent lines appeared before my eyes, half-obscuring the image of the human realm like several layers of delicate gauze had been laid over the image. I sensed which of the lines to follow to stay hidden from view while still traveling in the correct realm, then walked over to place myself a few feet from the woman leading the charge back to the temple. I realized that appearing to them as a fae meant I would definitely have to kill them, so I instead took inspiration from the humans I had been observing on this journey and the look of their outfits and went with appearing to them as a moderately tall, thin woman with richly golden hair and wearing a simple, flowing white dress. The disguise set, I stepped out of the veil between realms and faded into view before their eyes. The woman in front clasped her chest in shock and she immediately fell to her knees. She looked up to me in awe and reverence which thoroughly surprised me, but it was no matter as long as they would listen to me.

“You should not go back to the temple,” I said, careful to enunciate each word as clearly as I could in their accented tongue. “You will perish if you return, you must go to the town. Your leader was correct, death awaits you back at your temple.”

Everyone else who had been following the woman back to the temple had noticed me and fell to their knees as well, looking stricken and elated. None of them were saying anything and instead were openly weeping even harder than they had been when they thought they had been tossed aside by their leader.

“If that is your wish, lady Amara,” the woman closest to me murmured with shock and awe. Her eyes were wide, the whites looking stark against her darkly sun kissed skin.

“I knew you would not forsake me, my goddess!” another woman cried close by. She had the same amazed and elated look on her features as well.

“I am n-” I had to stop myself. Perhaps it was best if they thought what they wished, even if it was preposterous. The truth would be even more unintelligible to such weak and useless creatures, there was no harm in them thinking their goddess had appeared to them. “Now go,” I commanded and pointed towards the direction of the town. “You will find prosperity and happiness.”

The women sighed in awe as I faded back out and into the veil. By the time I walked back to my waiting companions they had clambered back to their feet and were turning around, running back to the group who had already left towards the town to tell them of their vision.

“That was ridiculous.” Emmi sniffed her disapproval.

I did not care for her approval, I did not want it, nor did I need it. I felt better for having done what I did and it looked like Ana was pleased that they had been spared and this pleased me.

“Whatever,” the seeress said tersely, popping out of existence and likely traversing the veils that overlapped the realms to make an instantaneous appearance back at the temple. She was much better at finding the right strands and even folds in the veils that meant she could appear anywhere at a moment’s notice.

“Thank you,” Ana said, looking at me with a small smile. “I know you probably will hear about that later.

“It is no matter what she thinks or what she says,” I replied with a shrug. “She is under my command, my word and my direction is paramount whatever it is she thinks should be done. I decided that was the path to take and I took it, that will be the end of matter.”

It was not the truth at all, Emmi was not going to let the matter go, I was sure of that, but I would not have done anything different. If anything, her annoyance on the matter might just press me towards the idea of finally looking into replacing her with a different seeress.

Ana nodded her head and watched the women happily skipping and jumping, laughing with happiness now that they assumed they had not been forsaken and left behind after all. They had rejoined the group heading to the town and they were all frolicking with glee now that they thought their goddess had blessed the journey and told them their lives would be good from now on.

“You have done a good deed today, I did not think the fae were capable of that,” she commented.

I frowned and quickly snapped my lips back into a more neutral expression. “Why would you think that? We can be good, bad, and any shade in between just like any other creature.”

She let out a soft laugh and her violet eyes met mine briefly then returned back to watching the group skip away. “I think you will find that most beings think of fae as pretty squarely on the side of evil. Your kind does not care much for how others feel.”

I nodded my head, understanding what she was saying. It was true, my kind was not known to care for anyone or anything that did not march their kingdom or their kind towards perfection and glory. Though I apparently was different, because I was currently finding myself caring a great deal for what this demonic woman felt. It was strange and in some ways disconcerting, but also wonderful when I saw her guard drop as she watched and a true smile graced her delicate lips.