“So what’s with the corpse?”

“Hmm?”

“That one,” Pearl continues, poking at the desiccated remains outside the castle gates.

The remains with the plate armor, still mysteriously shiny as a mirror.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” I answer. “An idiot came calling and he won’t be calling anymore.”

Izahne crouches for a closer look. “This is awfully fancy armor, isn’t it?”

“Well, yeah. This was some supposed ‘True Hero’ or something, who had this big idea to–”

“Wait,” she interrupts, “I recognize this, I think. Isn’t this the same armor that hero you blew up in the dungeon was wearing?”

I nod. “Yeah, that was him. Apparently whoever was stringing him along resurrected him entirely to annoy me. Problem solved, his soul is in some gizmo he wanted to use on me. It’s down in the treasury if you want to mess with it, but I cast Permanence on it so there might not be much you can do.”

Pearl stands agape. “You can do that?”

“Of course I can,” I shrug.

But I’m getting bored, so I start half-walking, half drifting down the road from the castle gates.

It’s been a week since Artemis and I set up the gate between our planes, and she hasn’t visited once. That might be why Izahne has been gradually warming back up to me, even to the point that when I go somewhere, she follows.

And so does Pearl, for some reason. I asked her once and she gave me the same line as before; that she’s not here for me.

Which, fair enough. If it weren’t for all the limitations and so forth around that soulbond I’m sure she’d spend as little time around me as possible.

“Do you care if I salvage this?”

I stop and look over my shoulder at my wife, still poking at the mirrored plate armor. “What for? The armor I made for you is probably a lot stronger.”

“Yes, but I don’t mean for me. Well, for me, but I’m not going to use it.”

I scratch my head. “What do you need it for if you’re not going to use it?”

Pearl sighs. “Think a bit harder, ash-brain. Where do adventurers get their gear?”

…

“They uh… Hmmmm… Well Nerin bought me a set of gear once, so I think that’s probably pretty normal… and I know there’s equipment in dungeon chests or whatever, or sometimes gods bestow magic… stuff?”

“And where do the people who sell the gear get it?”

“Oh.”

(Yeah, ‘oh’,) Nyx says in the back of my mind.

“I see. So, you want to sell it or something like that. That makes sense,” I say with a shrug.

But Izahne is still looking at it thoughtfully.

…

“You’re going to do something else with it, aren’t you?” I ask.

“Well,” she starts, “I’d like to at least clean it and move it to the armory for now. Is that alright?”

I shrug again. “Knock yourself out, it’s mostly empty in there. Oh, right. He had a sword and a knapsack and some other stuff too, here, you can have it,” I say as I empty the former True Hero’s personal effects on the ground in front of me.

“Why do you have all this? Shouldn’t it have been in his dimensional storage?” the former healer asks.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

“Because he was stupid. No, really. I’m not sure he even knew how to use dimensional storage, or if he even had the Skill. When he tried to pull out that gadget he wanted to attack me with, he kept fumbling in this bag. My best guess is that heroes are supposed to get really strong before trying to take on a demon lord? And this idiot had this great idea to do it early and usurp my power somehow.”

…

“Oh right, I’m a demon lord apparently.”

Ah, that got some gasps and wide eyes.

“What?”

Pearl furrows her brow at me. “Well, it’s just that… Don’t they normally have big armies and delusions of grandeur, and… You know what, nevermind.”

“So we’re never going to actually have peace? We can’t just relax?” my wife asks with a hint of frustration.

I tilt my head. “Why not? I’ll just kill any heroes that try to fight me, and then we can do whatever we want. Easy.”

She lets out a long breath before replying. “Alright, sure. You’ll kill the heroes. But what about the next heroes? Or the next? They’re not going to stop coming, you know. The gods set up this system for a reason.”

“You mean because they’re bored, so they play games with mortals’ lives? Trust me, I know. They play games with other gods too, specifically their homes, mortals, planes, retainers, families…”

“Woah there big… whatever, you gonna catch on fire or what?” Pearl deadpans.

Ah.

I take a deep breath. “Sorry, it’s a sore spot.”

“So I see.”

Izahne finally rises to her feet after moving the armor into her dimensional storage, other than the large breastplate she’s still picking at. “Is being a demon lord related to why the hostility you radiate is so much stronger now?”

I laugh lightly. “So, that’s another story. When I was at that gala last week, I met someone I haven’t seen in hundreds and hundreds of years – my grandmother.”

Apparently that surprised Pearl enough that she almost dropped her form, the slightest hints of her true nature showing briefly. “Wait, what? Family? You have a family?”

“Yeah, apparently.”

That’s… something Izahne is interested in, from the ripples of curiosity across our bond.

So I turn to her. “You want to know more? You feel like you want to know more. But, well. You might not want to know… You know? Consequences or whatever.”

She thinks for a moment and then says, “We’re already married, I’m pretty sure that I’m already caught up in whatever consequences that could happen because of your family.”

“That makes sense. Besides, you could be used as leverage against me even if I don’t tell you.”

And now she’s concerned instead.

But I’ve already come this far.

“Have you heard of Lamashtu?”

“The ancient horror? Yeah, of course. They’re in the first year study materials at the academy,” Pearl flatly replies.

“Oh,” my wife reacts. “Oh. You don’t mean…”

“Yes, yes I do mean. I’m Lamashtu’s granddaughter – ER, I mean. Uh. Astraea is. Was!”

(Still going to do this game?) Nyx snarks.

Oh shut up!

“Astraea?” Izahne asks lightly.

I take a deep breath. “Alright, so, I’m still having trouble accepting this, and I have no idea what to do with it, but I’ll tell you anyway. Grandmother flatly confirmed that I’m Astraea, apparently… or at least that her Ego and Akashic Self are in me, and that those are what actually make up a person… And that after Erebus removed my Ego I started forming a new one, I think? And now my Ego is merging with Astraea’s, which is why I keep turning into her, and I basically am her now… I think. Does that make any sense?”

“Then why the ashes?” Pearl asks.

“Ah, so we talked about that too,” I reply. “She said it looks like when Erebus did whatever she did, it smashed my Body and Anima together into a sort-of Vessel, and then she suggested that I have the Queen of Hunger’s characteristics because maybe she was closer to a being of Body and Anima? I don’t really know for sure. Oh, and I think her Ego is in me too somewhere.”

“So you’re going to keep changing,” my wife says flatly, with the smallest hint of sorrow.

“Probably, but I’ll still be me no matter what I become.”

Pearl sighs. “What you are is unpredictable, and nobody’s gonna pretend that’s a good thing. Anyway, what are we even doing standing around outside the castle like this?”

I shrug.

Why did we come out here?

“I wanted to go for a walk,” Izahne answers.

Oh right!

“But now we’re distracted with conversations and armor sets and… hang on a minute.”

Having caught my reflection briefly in the chestplate my wife is holding, I move closer to get a better look.

…

Were my eyes always shaped like that?

They’re still blue… although they’re only glowing around the outside parts now… and the middle parts looks like black vertical slits.

“How long were my eyes like this? I don’t remember this,” I ask no one in particular.

Izahne meets my gaze. “They’ve been like that ever since you went to the gala. What happened there, anyway?”

I sigh, trying to tamp down the anger I feel rising unbidden.

Once I’ve gotten it under control, I answer. “First a lot of gods avoided me. Then I met grandmother – Artemis really didn’t like her – and she fed me god’s blood, and I-”

“God’s blood? From what god?” Izahne cuts in.

“No idea,” I say dismissively. “Anyway that happened and I remembered a bunch of things. After a while we said goodbye and went back to the main central whatever where the others were. Then Themis said a bunch of stupid things…”

My wife opens her mouth to speak when I mention her former patron, but I hold up a hand and gesture for her to let me finish.

“And he was a complete asshole, saying crap about how all my mortals dying and my retainers almost dying was equivalent to his grudge against me. And I told him to shove it!”

“Oh. Oh no,” Pearl says quietly.

Izahne rattles the soiled chestplate thoughtfully. “So what does that mean for us?”

What does that mean for us?

…

“Well,” I reply, “If nothing else, I have a lot of new enemies.”

“Like who?”

“Well, like… the entire light pantheon, probably.

The shiny metal armor piece makes an unexpectedly loud clang as it falls to the soft earth.