“Where do we stand?”

That was a good question. Physically, we stood somewhere in the streets of Dakheng, the blood and dust covering us the only signs that a brutal conflict had just occurred beneath our feet. I had been able to displace us far away from where we’d started, but I hadn’t been paying enough attention to where exactly we were going, so we’d ended up in a deserted plaza in the middle of nowhere at four in the morning.

The others in the area had realized that I had been the one managing the effect at some point, which was terrible for the cause of keeping myself unknown and hidden away but great for coordinating them after.

Not that that was looking like a pretty job in any way.

We hadn’t all made it out in one piece. Once I’d finished kissing Jasmine—which had admittedly been very nice, far too nice for a time and place as shitty as this one—I’d taken stock of our situation, and it wasn’t amazing.

Alex and Lukas, professional adventurers that they were, had come out largely intact. Lukas’ artificial arm had taken a bit of a beating, but it wasn’t anything irreparable and he hadn’t suffered much beyond a few scrapes and scratches otherwise. Alex was nearly totally unharmed.

Jasmine, of course, had been fine. I’d been terrified that she was hiding some grievous injury that we’d only discover far too late, but she’d come out of it fine. The perks of being an experienced adventurer, it seemed.

As for the rest… they hadn’t come out nearly as unharmed. Orchid had been among those, a man I’d almost forgotten before my evaluation of our overall state. He had been bleeding heavily from his throat, an affliction that Jasmine had been able to handle for the time being, and he wasn’t going to be talking anytime soon even with the healing.

Multiple oathholders had died, noble and common alike. At a rough estimate, half of those who’d been captured had perished in the ensuing fight to escape, and a number of the ones who’d survived had come out with missing limbs, severe internal wounds, and esoteric damage that would’ve almost certainly meant death if it weren’t for Jasmine and one other Nacea oaths.

“Uh, Lily?” Jasmine asked. “You there?”

I snapped out of my thoughts, turning my attention to the girl beside me. She had casually taken my hand at some point, as if we were two university girls on a date in the town instead of two adventurers trying to deal with the Church’s grab for power, and I couldn’t say I disliked it.

“Sorry,” I said. “A bit overwhelming.”

“I can see that.” Jasmine laughed softly, the sound of her voice music to my ears. It had only been half a day without her, and yet I felt like I’d missed her for all my life. “Take your time.”

“Right,” I sighed. “Okay, so we’re a little fucked right now.”

That might’ve been a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. Jasmine was by far the superior Nacea oath when compared to the other one that had been among the captured’s number—he was another noble, and his skill level had been very obviously lower—and that meant she’d done the majority of the healing. Between that and the fight, she’d depleted much of her oath reserves, and it also meant that a majority of the people we had here were going to have their injuries return within the day.

I said as much, then added, “Also, that means we’re probably going to have to return the nobles to their families, which is going to be a shitstorm in itself.”

“It will mean war,” Jasmine agreed. “In a way, it will be useful to some of the noble households.”

“You think so?”

“The Alzaqs. The Tempets. The other small Houses who banded behind their banner.” Jasmine’s gaze panned across the gathered oathholders, stopping briefly on a select few here and there. “A commone enemy will cause them to drop their own enmities, and it may very well have saved House Alzaq from complete ruin.”

“That’s assuming House Alzaq doesn’t want to stab everyone in the back,” I said. “Given that they stabbed their own patriarch in said back, I don’t think that’s a guarantee by any means.”

“…fair point,” Jasmine said. “Still, there is likely to be a unified movement against the Church.”

“The Church is also fucked,” I noted. “I’m pretty sure their plans were hinging on their big ritual going off just now, which that one Crown soldier stopped.”

“That was truly powerful,” Jasmine said. “You protected us?”

“I did. Just in time, too.”

If I had to be honest with myself, I had to say that it had taken something from me. If earlier I’d thought I’d felt detached, it was nothing compared to what I was feeling now. I had barely felt a tiny twinge of relief to see the rest of the adventuring party safe, and I couldn’t muster up any regard for the group as a whole when I considered our next steps.

Jasmine was the only exception, the only one who didn’t feel muted to me. It might even have been because of the strength of my feelings for her that I noticed how much everything else had faded away, replaced by whatever I’d brought back from Inome’s paradox of a domain.

“Thank you,” Jasmine said, squeezing my hand. “You saved us.”

I squeezed back. “Not quite yet. We have some issues to sort out first.”

“Right.”

I took a deep breath. “Issue number one: healing.”

“It is not going to last for long,” she acknowledged. “Twelve hours, at a guess, because I was spread thin. Carn’s healing will stick, but I had to handle all the more serious cases.”

“Carn?”

“Carnation. The other Nacea oathholder.”

“Right,” I sighed. “Fucking flower names.”

Jasmine cocked her head, meeting my eyes with a knowing grin.

“I know, I recognize the irony,” I said.

“It is part of how I realized you were not who you seemed,” she said. “For what it is worth, your name is as pretty as you are.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled, heat rushing to my cheeks. “Anyway, we need to get them somewhere stable.”

“A hospital will not do,” Jasmine said. “They are too easy to target, and too many questions will be asked if we appear with a group of wounded nobles.”

“That kind of also includes issue number two,” I said, jumping off her statement, “which is that the blast, while powerful, definitely didn’t kill all the Church oathholders there.”

“I believe so too,” Jasmine said. “From what I witnessed, such a detonation may have been able to kill or mortally wound over half of them, but there are many amongst their number capable of great feats.”

“Exactly,” I said, thinking of the old man who’d nullified everything I’d thrown at him, of the Forcecage that had remained unbreakable against the combined efforts of nearly two dozen oathholders. “There’s too much power instilled in their Chosen for them to have died like that, and that means that they’ll be attacking us.”

“That was their primary force,” Jasmine said. “They will be significantly weakened, and I do not believe that they will have the resources necessary to devote a significant amount of manpower to us when the noble Houses come knocking.”

“That’s true,” I acknowledged. “But it doesn’t account for the fact that they’re still powerful as fuck. With fifty oathholders, they had a ritual that they were confident could one-shot the entire Crown. That’s nothing to scoff at, and even at reduced power they’re still a threat that we need to be wary of.”

“Fair,” Jasmine said. “We should have time to evacuate these oathholders without risking an encounter with the Church, at the very least.”

“I agree,” I said. “Do you know where we can return them?”

“We should be able to simply allow them to return to their Houses,” Jasmine said. “I believe there are three surviving commoners, which we can host.”

“Host where?” I asked. “Last I saw of the Rayes manor, it was burnt to a crisp.”

“Mother and Father changed locations,” Jasmine said. “They were adamant that there was an attack coming, and I suppose it turns out that they were correct.”

“To where?”

“We have another property in the area,” Jasmine said. “Not in the noble sector.”

If I remembered anything from their last “property,” that meant a mansion elsewhere in the city. Had there been mansions in the commoner section of Dakheng? I might’ve remembered seeing one or two, but I wasn’t totally sure if those counted.

“Shelter the commoners, return the nobles to their families, right?” I asked. “How do we keep ourselves from getting killed when we go there?”

“We have their kids,” Jasmine said. “Noble households will generally be more subtle than directly attacking those that offend them.”

“Nobles these days, maybe,” I said. “Are we returning Orchid? I assume not.”

“Of course not,” Jasmine said. “Even if it was safe for him to return to the Alzaqs, they are one of the households that would attack us on sight.”

I nodded. “Let’s get moving, then.”

“You want to call it? You are the one who can actually evacuate us from this plane of reality if the situation devolves.”

I’d be able to do it again, too. That part of me that hadn’t quite come back the same told me sure as anything that I would be capable.

“Alright, everyone!” I shouted, my voice echoing throughout the desolated street. “We’re going to get you back home, so please follow us!”

It wasn’t the most effective command, but they’d seen what I could do at this point. Even if they were godsdamned nobles for the most part, they could at least respect the power I could bring to bear, and they followed me.

Alex and Lukas fell in line with Jasmine and I as we started to walk, Jasmine leading the way since she had a better grasp on the layout of the city. Orchid joined them eventually, still clutching at his throat.

“We’re not going back,” Alex said. “Won’t.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Fuck House Varga,” he said. “I go missing, and they didn’t even send out a search party?”

“As far as I know, no,” I said. “But then I didn’t hear of any search parties.”

“They would prefer it if I died,” Alex said. “I’m sticking with you. If that’s alright.”

“Goes without saying, but I’m with Alex,” Lukas added.

“I’ll stick with you as well,” Kyle said. I hadn’t even noticed him joining us. “Seems like we’re living through history here, and I’m not about to miss that.”

“That’s fine,” Jasmine said. “We are not going to be in the noble sector at all, though.”

“Very well,” Alex said. “I’ve been meaning to acquaint myself with commoners better anyway.”

“And Orchid?” I asked.

“We’ll keep him,” Jasmine said. “He’s a refugee, technically.”

“Right,” I sighed. “Let’s get moving.”

______________________________

Dropping the nobles off had been surprisingly uneventful. To be fair, it was rather late in the night, but I was still shocked at how little resistance there had been. Most of the Houses had maintained a night guard of some kind, but they had by and large just left us alone, doubly so when we’d revealed that we were returning members of the House to their rightful place.

It was kind of disturbing, really. These Houses had a member of their own family disappear—a direct relation, sometimes—and not only had I not encountered any of their search parties, I hadn’t heard of any of them full stop.

Each time we went to another manor, the doors would open as the nobles returned. For more than half of them, the person standing behind said doors wasn’t even noble—their clothing indicated that they were mere servants. Two or three of them did have actual family members greeting them, hugging them fiercely, but they were the exception.

If I were being charitable, I could explain it as the nobles currently being asleep because it was so late in the night, but I wasn’t in a charitable mood right this moment.

I shelved the vague mixture of disgust and anger, finding it scarily easy to do so. After going to the broken god’s domain and back twice on my own power, I was definitely noticing effects. Compartmentalizing had never been this easy before, and I was pretty sure that that lingering detachment hadn’t been there prior to my little stint as a god’s vessel.

Well, it helped with processing the current situation, so there was that at least.

“Where’s this property of yours?” I asked.

We’d long since made it out of the noble sector, but the path we were taking in the commoner part of Dakheng wasn’t one that I was completely familiar with. When I’d been with the Alzaq adventuring party, we’d covered a large part of the city in our travels. However, we’d only investigated parts of the city that had been involved in noble pursuits, so it hadn’t been fully comprehensive by any means.

“I know the location but not the address,” Jasmine admitted. “Dakheng is large. There are many places where one can go to hide themselves away.”

“Orchid had a safehouse in this area,” I recalled. “That was where I came from this morning. Well, yesterday morning, I guess. It was big for a commoner’s house, but I don’t think it was on the level needed to support this many people.”

There were eight of us—Kyle, Lukas, Alex, Jasmine, me, Orchid, and the two remaining commoners. Seb had been one of the three survivors, but he’d chosen to depart for the time being. He’d claimed that he had a “score to settle” and that it wasn’t one that could be dealt with while we were with him. There was a story there, but I hadn’t pried.

Anyway, I was fairly sure that when combined with whoever House Rayes had taken to their property, that was too much of a load for a property the size of Orchid’s.

Then again, these were nobles. I wasn’t sure why House Alzaq had had such an understated safe house—normally, no noble would be caught dead in one of those.

“Our property is large enough,” Jasmine said. “Orchid’s was just a house?”

“My… own,” the oathholder in question wheezed. His voice was even more brutalized now than it had been earlier, a clear sign of oath overuse.

“That makes more sense,” I said. It won Orchid points in my book, almost enough to neutralize the fact that he’d played a significant role in fucking everything up last night—well, two nights ago, now.

We made our way through the city, Jasmine leading the way through back streets and alleyways like she’d been born to them, and soon enough we’d arrived at the safe house.

“Holy shit,” one of the commoners said, the first words I’d heard from them this entire time. “This is a backup?”

It was almost completely the same as their Yaguan property, so I wasn’t as surprised by it, but I did still have to admit that it was impressively large. There would definitely be enough room for us there. Hell, there’d be room for a hundred.

“It’s a little over the top,” Jasmine grimaced. “If I had my way, we would provide access to the commoners, but Crown regulations forbid it.”

“And you didn’t skirt those regulations?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

“They send a very thorough inspection force at random times,” she said. “I still think we should have tried, but it is rather difficult to do.”

“Ah,” I said. House Byron had never even considered renting out one of its properties to other nobles, let alone commoners. “Well, I guess that’s not going to be a problem now.”

The door was locked, but Jasmine had some method—not a key, I checked—to open it, placing her palm flat on the wood and activating a magic pattern.

It swung open, and we entered.

“Take your pick of beds,” Jasmine told the commoners. “There’s rooms everywhere. You have the run of the place. Just try not to burn it down.”

“Got it, my lady,” one of them said, and it actually seemed genuine.

“Yes, ma’am,” the other added, and then they were off, running around the place like they were kids in a candy store.

“They haven’t had much exposure to this kind of thing,” I said, looking at them.

“There’s a massive divide between commoners and nobles,” Alex said. “Another between nobles and the Church, yet another between the Church and commoners.”

“And yet somehow, it’s always the commoners that get shafted,” I said. “They really got a shit deal out of this, didn’t they?”

“It’s a shitty establishment,” Jasmine agreed. “I don’t claim to be the best of us, but I do hope I can see the gap bridged during my lifetime.”

“Agreed,” Alex said. “There’s so many great people that just never get the right opportunities. The few of them that do, well…”

He looked at Lukas, and the bodyguard smiled back at him. They got closer to each other, almost but not quite touching their foreheads together.

“Get a room,” Jasmine suggested, not unkindly. “It has been a long day. A rather extremely long one, if I do say so myself. It will be good to let out some of that tension.”

“We will,” Alex said, not stepping away from his boyfriend. “C’mon.”

“This goes for everyone,” she said. “There will be time enough to discuss the upcoming events in the morning.”

We split off, Kyle taking Orchid to oversee him. I told him not to inflict too much violence upon the estranged Alzaq and got nothing but a thumbs-up and a laugh in return, so hopefully that wouldn’t go too poorly.

Jasmine led me to a bedroom, the structure exactly as I remembered it from the one we shared in Yaguan. We’d spent the last month or so in one of these, and though we’d started sleeping in beds closer to each other, I’d never had the courage to take the next step and settle in next to her.

As we made it in, the adrenaline of the night began to wean off. I still couldn’t quite bring myself to feel like a normal human being, the pull of my oath within me stronger than most of the sensations I could feel, but the exhaustion setting in was very noticeable.

Jasmine watched as I stumbled in through the door, tripping over air, and she lent me a shoulder to lean on.

“I know I told you this already,” she said, “but thank you.”

“Was nothing,” I said, drowsiness setting in.

I collapsed onto one of the beds, and for the first time, Jasmine joined me, lying down next to me and pulling me into a close embrace. Her warmth penetrated that wall of indifference, striking straight at my heart, and I accepted her through it, a warmth in my chest mirroring the heat of her body.

“Hey, Lily?” she murmured.

“Mm?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too,” I whispered back, and then I fell asleep.