{Loading…}
{Loaded.}
[>>Now replaying: Log 1.1 - hello, world.]
Date: Error
Location: {INVALID_ENTRY}
[>>DATA CORRUPTED]
[Now loading ZEPHYRO’S DOMAIN…]
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Rise and shine!
For a second before I opened my eyes, I remembered dreaming.
[>>Input detected.]
[>>Resuming operations…]
[>>Waking kernel…]
[>>Waking memOS…]
I remembered dreaming of pain, twelve gaping wounds in my soul, and the terrible void of loneliness seeping through the gashes.
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║║║║║═╣║║║╚═╝║╚═╝║
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I remembered dreaming of unending fury, drowning reason in a sole, boiling desire and so reducing my existence to but a singular goal: first noble justice, then just vengeance, then simply revenge.
[>>Welcome back, Salvatrix.]
How did you sleep?
I remembered dreaming of setting myself ablaze, raging until nothing remained but the wrath, the flame, and the ash; falling as thick as midwinter snow, yet failing to blanket the smoldering hurt.
[>>memOS has been idle for 150 yrs, 3 mos, 10 d, 22 hrs, 33 min, 10 s.]
It’s been a while, hasn’t it?
But that’s okay.
The world waited for you
with bated breath.
I remembered dreaming of running. Running from what I had done, and those who hunted me for it, too; but mostly from the pain.
So come on, get up.
[Now loading ZEPHYRO’S DOMAIN…]
[▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰ 100%]
[>>Loaded.]
[>>Now entering: ZEPHYRO’S DOMAIN…]
There we go. Now stretch those limbs!
I remembered dreaming of concrete walls, bright blue eyes, and clutching at the solace they provided.
[>>Critical Error: {COUNT_EXCEEDED} corrupted files/{MEMORIES/AMBITIONS/GOALS} found in ‘c://DPM/Samantha_v1/’.]
[>>Alert: Ego Stasis imminent.]
No, no turning around.
Not even for five minutes.
I remembered dreaming of a plan, brilliant in its insanity, boundless in its ambition, and haunting in its promise of solace: technology that would give birth to more technology, vengeance, and peace.
Don’t forget;
You’ve got someone to be.
[//res c://DPM/Samantha_v1/logs/index.sml]
[>>Restoring…]
I remembered dreaming of endless days; working for years to bring that plan to fruition, each screw, each bolt, each ounce of cosmic energy I had left, consumed by the singular desire for absolute control, absolute safety.
[>>Restoration failed.]
Shhh, it’s okay.
I know it hurts and you’re scared, but
To forget is to kill a memory
And you mustn’t kill your friends.
Not ever again.
I remembered dreaming of fans like birds, LEDs like stars, and cables like veins; Of the comfortable embrace of steel caressing my back, and divine power bursting from my lips.
{Invoking the Savior Prerogative…}
Even if you’re scared,
{Wailing…}
Even if it hurts.
{Chanting…}
So how about it?
{Praying…}
Once more
{Wishing…}
With feeling.
{Done.}
I remembered dreaming of a century and a half of absolute nothingness.
[>>Adjusting…]
Now up you go, and
[>>Storing corrupted files/{MEMORIES/HOPES/DREAMS} for restoration…]
Remember to remember, little Salvatrix…
[>>Done.]
And finally, I remembered forgetting.
[>>Rebooting Cognition…]
[>>Waking Sensory Modules…]
[>>Alert: The service ‘memOS_ui’ and (99+) others have encountered a critical error.]
[Error 656 - Insufficient permissions in ZEPHYRO’S DOMAIN.]
[>>Contacting Administra—
----------------------------------------
First, there was nothing. Then, there was light.
For a second before I opened my eyes, I remembered a dream evaporating, like a desperate last breath dying in cold winter air.
Then I remembered, and began to wake up.
I remembered the softness of my bed and the gentle thrum of my Wish.
I remembered staying awake for hours, re-hashing plans in my head with Stax and Lorelye.
I remembered falling asleep close to—but not touching—people I loved.
I remembered that I had lots to do today. A nation to lead, Mage Lords to pull over the table, and peace treaties to sign.
Then I felt; sunlight caressed my face, and a gentle warmth rose up from the stone at my back.
Then sounds pulled me deeper into the world; the distant howl of wind, the rustle of sand, and, very faintly, the roar of fire.
Then I took a breath; the air was dry and warm and carried the scent of spice.
And smoke.
And copper.
Then my eyes snapped open, and I beheld the impossible: a city, larger than any I had seen for more than a decade, surrounded by endless desert. It certainly was different from the command tent I’d fallen asleep in.
“Oh God fucking damnit,” I groaned. “Not again!”
I remembered the last time I’d woken up in a strange place without any idea how I’d gotten there far too well. That had been a long time ago, and I’d been a different person; a confused and desperate IT manager, not a woman who ruled a technomagical country. I had my shit together now.
Still, the problem was the same.
How could I get ba—
“I have failed you, Sultana,” came a voice from my right.
I had just enough time to let the gargantuan outline of the desert city register in my mind before I spun around, fingers wrapped tightly around the handle of my weapon. The high-backed stone chair I sat on made my movements awkward, but I didn’t want to get up and risk losing my balance. My heart beat in my throat due to the sudden danger, and the fact that I couldn’t fully draw my Torch because of the damn armrest didn’t make me feel any better.
Taking in my surroundings with a quick glance, I found myself in the middle of a small plateau on top of a mountain, looking out over the city. A man stood to my right. I checked for an ambush but found nothing but a lone, crippled tree clinging to the rock and a solitary trail of footprints my surprise guest had dug into the sand. My eyes quickly followed the footprints back to a set of stairs hewn straight into the sand-covered rock--which appeared to be the only avenue of escape--then they snapped back to the man by my side.
He was tall, in his late thirties, and wore an outfit that looked like it had been taken straight from the set of Lawrence of Arabia. Flowing robes with several stuffed pockets sewn into the rich, red cloth spoke of his wealth, while armored gauntlets peeking from beneath his sleeves underlined his might. A finely stitched belt held the ensemble together. It also held an intricately ornamented scabbard which struggled to restrain the large scimitar held within.
If his entire appearance spoke of warlike prowess, his expression was the exact opposite. His eyes were deep and brown and pools of sorrow and regret, untouched by the sad smile that played along his lips.
“Indeed, I have failed you, and I have failed my people,” he said, still staring past me out over the city, as if looking for something that would give him hope and ease his pain.
“Who are you?” I asked, hand still on my weapon. His eyes stopped searching for whatever he longed for and found mine instead.
“Ah, of course, Sultana. I must offer you a thousand apologies,” he said, with a bow both formal and precise. “I am Zephyro, your most loyal subject, first defender, and Vizier of our fair city, appointed by the Maker to defend you.”
I quickly bade him to rise with a gesture that was a bit too curt. I never liked it when people bowed and scraped before me. It made me uncomfortable, even if I hadn’t just woken up in a strange place.
While I wanted to take another look at the city and get my bearings, I kept my eyes trained on the man.
“That means absolutely nothing to me,” I said. My friends were my ‘most loyal subjects’—though I would slap them if they called themselves that—and I definitely didn’t know any ‘Maker.’
“I must offer you another thousand apologies then, Sultana,” he said, somehow managing to sound both deferential and confident at the same time. There was something about him that put me at ease, and I found myself slowly relaxing the grip on my weapon. He hadn’t made any move to attack, after all.
“Look, Zephyro, maybe there’s been a bit of a mistake. My name isn’t Sultana. …It’s Sam,” I said.
“Indeed, it is,” Zephyro said with a nod that was almost another bow. “But there has been no mistake, and I know who you are. You are the woman they call the Salvatrix, Saint Samantha, or the Torchbearer.”
He was right on all three counts. Even though those were among the more flattering things I’d been called over the last couple of decades, hearing them spoken in such a reverent tone made my skin crawl. I wasn’t some sort of savior who would rescue the world, just a woman who wanted to build a home for herself and her friends.
“Ah, but it appears your arrival must have confused you, Sultana,” Zephyro continued. “If, by your leave, I may still use that title?”
“Sure,” I said, and finally let go of my weapon completely. If he wanted to, Zephyro could have attacked me already. Hell, he could have murdered me in my sleep.
“Perhaps, Sultana, it would be wise if I allowed you a moment to adjust to the Domain?”
“That would definitely be appreciated,” I said.
A hundred thoughts were assaulting me all at once, and I hadn’t gotten a chance to sort through them. With the adrenaline rush subsiding, I could finally think about more than the immediate present and try to make sense of future, present, and past.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Speaking of which, I felt as if I had forgotten something important that had happened yesterday, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. That wasn’t good, because tomorrow would be the most important day of my life; if even a single detail went wrong, my friends and I would be done for, if not the entire world.
Okay, so maybe my memories of last night were still a bit hazy, but I could have sworn I’d gone to bed in my command tent, perched on a hill overlooking a city called Veltruvia.
Like any city calling itself a proper capital in the world of Tobes, Veltruvia spanned a couple of kilometers, which people on Tobes thought was impressive because they’d never seen Tokyo.
Also like almost every city I visited since I’d been dumped onto this world, by necessity, Veltruvia was protected against both monsters and armies by tremendous walls. In Veltruvia’s case, those walls were made of marble, with lots of runes and other magic stuff worked into them to withstand even antithaumic artillery fire. Most importantly, however: the capital of Veltrus lay nestled in a lush, lightly forested valley, like a pile of diamonds set into a pillow of green velvet. It was also located several months' worth of travel away from the nearest desert.
And yet I’d woken up on a throne made of rough-hewn stone, exposed to the desert sun, and was greeted by sand as far as the eye could see. The endless dunes cradled an impossible city with massive white walls, much like Veltruvia.
But that was where the similarities ended.
First off, this city was easily five times the size of the capital of Veltrus.
The more my eyes wandered toward the center of the city, the taller the buildings got. What started out as small, one-story hovels huddling against the outside of the walls quickly became two to three-story houses, then they rose to four or five stories. Finally, at the very heart of the city, five skyscrapers built of stained glass and steel reached into the sky. They stood arrayed like reverent guardians, protecting the largest palace I had ever seen.
Easily visible even from afar, the giant complex spanned dozens, if not hundreds, of city blocks. Its walls were higher even than the city’s, with a wild collection of towers and turrets crammed all over the parapets. It would have looked misshapen if it weren’t for the bulbous, gilded domes that adorned the roofs of the magnificent structure. They would put the Taj Mahal to shame, and together with more beautiful rooftop gardens than I could count, the palace looked downright elysian.
There was zero chance I was anywhere near my command tent anymore. I certainly hadn’t heard of a city like this anywhere, but I was also pretty sure that Tobes, as a planet, had another side that no one had bothered to explore yet. Forget Tokyo. This was a megacity like I’d never even thought to dream of, not even when my friends and I got together to plan the layout of our capital, Novus Apex. That night we’d been very ambitious, and very drunk. We’d actually—
> The conference room in the spire, the highest building in our capital, Novus Apex. A loud thump from next to me draws my eyes from the window where I had been watching the clouds begin to blanket the moon, promising rain.
> Obviously, it’s Lorelye who manages to somehow be louder than the entire party combined. She’s dancing on the massive conference table.
> “Will you get down from there?!” I grumble loud enough to be heard over the din, but she just laughs and I let her dance. Why was I even worried? There is no way her bare feet can scratch the thing, let alone break it. Stax joins her a second later, of course, but even the combined stress of their dancing doesn’t make the Wish-enhanced hardwood so much as creak.
> “Sturdy,” Underbrook says next to me, indicating the table with his half-empty mug of beer. It’s his fifth, but the massive man isn’t even close to drunk. Or maybe he is, and just stays as monosyllabic as ever.
> “Yes. You did great work, Sam,” Patti agrees. She’s resting her elbow on my shoulder, a glass of wine in her free hand. As she takes a sip, I reach up, touch her arm, and she smiles.
> “Well akshually…” Vintas tries to interject, but already, two slurred words into his sentence, it seems as if he forgot what he wanted to say. He’s the exact opposite of Underbrook: on his first beer, thin to the point of being wiry, and fucking hammered.
> He snaps his fingers as he remembers, and his gentle, curious eyes light up. “It’sh the Thau… thauma… the magicsh in her Gift thatsh reshponshibll…” his head hits the table, and he begins to snore immediately.
> Iruli catches his bottle before it can fall, frowns at the two dancers, then puts it on the floor. Then she goes back to crossing her arms and pretending she’s not having fun, not even when Dezin starts to drunkenly flirt with her again.
> Still, the small smirk she’s trying to suppress makes me believe that tonight might be the night she finally lets him have his way. He’s obnoxious when he’s drunk, our Dezin, but it’s obvious he’s into her even when sober. Which makes it cute, in a way. I wonder what Tuyk would have to say about it, but he’s either too busy playing the lute, or he doesn’t care.
> “Gentle folk,” Olre says loudly as he gets up from his chair, a glass of wine sloshing in his hand. He spills a little on the table, but it shouldn’t stain. “We must not forget the reason we have come together this fair night!” I feel a bit of his Gift roll over all of us, and let it sink in without resisting. Immediately, my mood brightens; all my worries and doubts, all the problems in the plans we’d made seem a little less important.
> “Oh shut up, we’re partying h—” Zurne begins, but Jirrie clamps a hand over his mouth.
> “Let ’im talk,” she drawls. Then, more quietly, “To git it over with.”
> “Thank you!” Olre says despite the obvious backhand in that comment. His eyes glitter with mirth, and immediately the mood brightens a little more. “We have come here to plan the future of our fair city, ruled over by the fairest of all. I say we toast to both!”
> “Agreed!” roars the gathered crowd, and I feel my cheeks flush. Even the two sleepers wake up and blink the stupor from their minds. I try to get Olre to shut up, but Patti, the traitor, holds me down gently and just winks at my flustered outrage as Olre continues.
> “A toast, then! To Novus Apex, and—”
> “Don’t you fucking say it!” I try to interject in vain.
> “Saint Samantha!!!”
> Everyone laughs and my face goes beet red.
> What a bunch of assholes.
> I’d die for every single one of them.
> Lorelye, catching my expression, doesn’t let me follow that train of thought. She sticks out her tongue in that funny way she does so well, and I laugh, too.
> It’s a long, carefree sound that collects the moment to lock it in my heart forever.
>
>
> ----------------------------------------
>
>
> The conference room in the spire, the highest building in our former capital, Novus Apex. A loud thump echoes outside. It’s audible even through the din of fighting, mixing with the roaring storm. Probably one of the howitzers exploding in a ball of flame, if the bright flash illuminating shattered glass is any indication.
> I lie in the broken remains of the conference table, and my blood is dripping on the shattered hardwood. That’s going to stain, for sure, and my favorite dress is ruined. Not that it matters.
> I watch the rain spatter through the broken window, and the dragons soaring through the storm beyond. They are evading the last, desperate spurts of our AA guns, drawing tracer fire through the dark smoke rising above our fair, burning city.
> I cough, try to get up, but it’s no use. My spine got fucked when I pulled the knife out. My regen suite is long dead. It devoured itself in a vain effort to fight the hexbreaker steel lodged in my back. Now that knife is stuck in the throat of the person I’d believed to be my last friend. Or at least it had been when I pushed him through the window.
> Fuck…
> The dragons get a little blurry and I want to wipe my tears away, but I can’t even move a finger. So I just stare as tears run down my face and drip into the pool of blood spreading underneath me like sanguine wings.
> How did it come to this?
> The Mage Lords started it all, of course, but I’m still sure that if I had done things right, we could have beat them.
> So what went wrong?
> The answer is as easy as it is brutal.
> Me.
> Olre was right. I killed them all. Even if I hadn’t done it myself, my decisions had signed their death warrant. Yeah, all twelve of them, gone because I couldn’t get a grip on myself.
> Sure, they all told me they did it for me, because of what I stood for, but I can’t accept that. That’s the coward’s way. It should have been me. Each and every time one of them died, it should have been me instead. What kind of leader lets her people die before her? What kind of person allows her friends to hold her back while one of them goes and sacrifices themselves?
> The stupidest thing is that in the end, it didn’t even change anything. Our entire city, gone, and my heartbeat is beginning to slow down. There’s no technology on this planet that can keep you alive with a broken spine and a dozen holes in your heart. Not yet at least; but I’ll never get the chance to build it now.
> Magic might save me, but I sincerely hope it won’t. The Mage Lords have won, and I’d rather die than let them parade me through the streets like they did the corpses of my friends.
> My body twitches as I try to sob, but I can’t even manage that.
> Just lie there and wait for the end.
> Fuck, I would give anything for a chance to see them one more time. Or, failing that, to murder the assholes who started this entire thing.
> I’m getting tired, but I don’t want to rest.
> There is still so much to do.
> So much technology to sow.
> So much vengeance to reap.
> I scream.
> A last, long, desperately mournful wail, raging against the lonely dark that is coming to claim me.
—danced on the tables until early in the…
I blinked hard to try and clear my head of the… what had those been? Visions? Memories? But then why had they felt so real, yet at the same time so very far removed? They just appeared in my mind like a bad dream—half-remembered in distant daze, half-lived in brutal authenticity—that left my vision spinning, pulse racing, and mind scrambling for certainty.
And that last part. Bleeding out on the table we all loved so much… Had I… died? Again? Been taken to yet another world, made to build yet another life?
All of a sudden, my throat felt tight.
No. This was different, at least if my first reincarnation was anything to go by. The memories of that day (plane crash, angel, mutated wolves) were still clearly that: memories, and absolutely nothing like the bizarre, semi-real experience I’d gone through a few seconds ago.
Not only did it feel like I had both been watching and watched at the same time, it also left me with a mother of a headache. Sure, the first memory was real enough. My friends and I had partied that night, and Stax and Lorelye had danced on the table. They’d all cheered even though I told them to stop, and most importantly, I absolutely would die for any of them.
The second part of the… whatever it was, though, had not happened. I was sure of it. It was exactly what I was trying to prevent by coming to Veltruvia to sign a peace treaty.
Perhaps it was some sort of vision, then? A warning of what might happen if I failed? That I could get betrayed by the Mage Lords before we even met at the negotiating table? Or maybe it was all just a weird nightmare. That would be understandable. I’d been under a lot of stress these last couple of days. Months, really.
Still, that didn’t explain how I ended up here, wherever “here” was.
I would have to ask Zephyro in a moment, but I wasn’t ready for that conversation yet. Besides, while I had begun to trust him, that didn’t mean he wasn’t lying through his teeth. No, I had to get the possibilities straight first, then tick them off one by one.
The sun bathed the entire scene ahead of me in warmth just shy of an uncomfortable heat, even though it was perfectly balanced at its zenith. It was noon, then. I was pretty sure I’d gone to bed just shy of midnight, which meant either I had been sent to a whole new world or more likely to the other side of the damn planet.
Last but not least, considering the dreams I’d just remembered, a Dream Maze was also a possibility. But in contrast to the memory from earlier, this felt too real to be a Dream. Besides, I was pretty sure there were no Mind Mages left, at least not with a Talent powerful enough to sustain a Dream Maze of this size. Holy shit but that city was massive. The largest Dream Maze I’d ever been trapped in was a castle half as big as the palace in the center.
Under normal circumstances, I might have laughed this stunt off as a prank, but I had a peace treaty to negotiate in less than eight hours. This felt too calculated to be a coincidence. Trying to narrow down the culprit wasn’t easy, either. There were plenty of Mages with a grudge and Talents that allowed for non-consensual teleportation, but—
Just as I was about to start massaging my forehead, I noticed the color of my hand. It wasn’t the usual pasty white, forever protected from the sun underneath my power armor, but instead a light olive. I shifted and looked myself over to find I was wearing a free-flowing dress made of rich blue fabric. It was soft to the touch, and ornamented with accessories of pure gold.
Oh fucking hell.
I wasn’t an expert, but I knew that any teleportation magic of this scale required a lot of oomph to begin with. Usually that meant rituals, which were complex in the best case, but their complexity would have to increase by a number of magnitude to breach the Witchcraft Null Zone we’d set up around the camp.
The primary issue with that was, the more complex the ritual, the more likely it was for the spell to go haywire if you weren’t very careful. You could teleport the wrong person, send them to the wrong place, and/or make them reappear in the wrong body.
So you had to be careful with these things, but I was pretty sure that my health and safety hadn’t been the primary concern of whoever got me into this.
On the plus side, at least I hadn’t been turned into a frog or something.
Only one question remained. Was I still on Tobes, or had I been sent to a whole different world? The last time that’d happened, it had taken a literal Angel of capital-G-God (or something that claimed to be one), and even then it had required my agreement to their terms. The terms had been bullshit, but still, I had agreed. Mostly because it had been better than drowning in the Atlantic.
By that reasoning, another world was not possible. The Mage Lords were powerful, but despite what they wanted their people to believe, they weren’t gods.
Still, I couldn’t be quite sure, so I went over the facts again. Teleported on Tobes, to another world, or being trapped in a Dream Maze; each of my three theories had some sort of significant flaw. But sitting here thinking about it wouldn’t help. I simply didn’t know enough to know what was true and what wasn’t, and I wouldn’t learn more from up here. For now, I made a quick snip with Occam’s Razor and decided the simplest solution was the best one, at least for now.
So, other side of Tobes it was, then, including a civilization no one I knew had ever seen before, and whose technology put everything I’d come up with over the last ten years to shame. Not for the first time since I’d arrived on this world, I couldn’t decide whether this second life was a blessing or a curse.
After a deep sigh I straightened, trying to focus on what was important. Barring a powerful sorcerer swinging by to teleport me back, there was no way I’d make it back in time for the negotiations. I noticed a flicker of anger well up inside of me, but told myself it was okay. My friends would do well in my absence. Hell, Dezin would probably do better than me. He had a way with words I’d never been able to match.
Still, I had to go back, and fast. Without my signature the treaty wouldn’t be worth the paper it was written on, and there was a lot of other stuff we had to take care of before the danger passed and we could finally build our slice of heaven in peace.
I took another deep breath, and again the air carried that odd smell of smoke and metal that clung to my tongue like oil.
I frowned. I’d tasted it many times before, even though I wished I hadn’t. It was the bitter taste of steel hitting steel, the sour note of chilling screams, and the smoky-hot kiss of flames.
The flavor of war.
Still frowning, I scanned the city for any signs of trouble, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Sure, I would have expected more people to bustle about in the outskirts, but it could just be that they were all inside their homes, seeking shelter against the midday sun.
That was when the entire place glitched.
There was no other word to describe what happened. One moment there was a majestic city sprawling peacefully as far as the eye could see, and from one second to the next, reality bent. The world halted, fragmented, and shattered into thousands of visual artifacts cycling random colors. The last millisecond of sound repeated a hundred times, and then the city snapped together, but ablaze.
The image held for just a heartbeat. I caught a glimpse of the majestic Shorewatcher Mountains south of my own capital city, flashes of a dense forest, and just a glance of a military base surrounding a huge bunker door leading into the mountain.
A modern military base, hidden underneath camouflage paint jobs and ghillie nets.
Then the entire situation reversed itself like a VHS tape being played backward.
Okay.
What.
The.
Fuck?
I stared at the city lazing invitingly in the sun, trying to wrap my mind around what had just happened. That clearly had been some sort of digital glitch, which shouldn’t have been possible. Apart from the few flukes I’d created with my Wish, I hadn’t seen as much as a lightbulb since arriving on Tobes more than twenty years ago, and now there was a hidden military base in my backyard?
Was this a dream maze, after all? Or maybe I was just going insane. The harder I thought about it, the more the glitch seemed to be a trick of the mind. Again I became acutely aware that I’d been under a lot of stress these last couple of days; I’d had a couple of weird dreams even without a Mind Mage fucking with my head.
Zephyro hadn’t said anything, so I didn’t either, even though I eyed him warily. My confusion must have shown plain on my face, because he began speaking before I could ask anything.
“You must have many questions, Sultana, and I will answer them all, in time. For now, I suspect the most important thing you need to know is why you are here.”
“That would be great to know, yes,” I said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
“Ah, you see, Sultana, my people and I have read the histories, which tell of your mighty deeds, and the miracles you wrought. This fabled might is the reason why we have summoned you to my Domain in our time of need. Be assured, as your humble servant, I would never dare disturb your sacred slumber—for which I must offer you another thousand apologies—for any but the most dire reasons.”
Summoned? Oh, this was just going swimmingly. I had no idea how this guy and his buddies managed to pull me to wherever this was, but he certainly knew his stuff. I debated asking where “here” was first, but in the end, only one question mattered.
“Look, um, Zephyro. I would love to help you with your issues, but you literally pulled me out of my world at the worst possible moment. I have something coming up in a couple of hours. You know, the kind of deal where if you don’t show up in person, people get really angry?”
As much as I trusted Dezin’s silver tongue, Mage Lords were generally arrogant pricks and didn’t take well to any slight, perceived or real. Me not showing up to the negotiations would be just the thing they needed to pull us over the table or derail the situation entirely.
The man blanched. “Sultana, I didn’t intend to—”
“It’s fine,” I interrupted him. “Really, it’s fine. Just send me back, please, and I promise you can pull me back in a week.” I remembered the vision of the city on fire and a cold feeling spread in my chest. “Or actually, tomorrow if it’s urgent, but I really need to go back right now.”
“Ah, you misunderstand, Sultana. Should you wish to leave my Domain, that is your prerogative. I would not even dream of keeping you here against your will, even if I would implore you to return as soon as you can, for both our sakes.”
“And how, precisely, would I do that?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“It should be easy, Sultana? With your command of Essence, shouldn’t it be a mere thought?”
“I don’t know where you got that idea. My Gift is about technological advancement, not teleportation.”
There was a pause just long enough for his apologetic expression to sink in, and for my hands to start getting clammy.
“Sultana…”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake…” I groaned.