“Alright, this is it.” I dropped several books on the table, and heard it creek. Each one of those books must’ve been five hundred pages. My wrist hurt, but I got it done, like always. It was definitely somewhat heretical to the mainline christian faith, but not so much so that it disavowed Jesus or something.

“Christ, that’s a lot, innit? How’s she supposed to read all that?” Said Dave, who I was sure had never read a single book in his entire life. The whole thing would’ve taken a couple days to read if we didn’t have literal magic coursing through our veins. If we could walk faster than a jet plane, we could flip pages and read words faster than anyone before us too.

“Really shows why he was a diplomat.” I didn’t know if Eva meant it as a compliment or not, but knowing her, it probably wasn’t. She grabbed the first one, and skimmed it quickly, nodding as she picked up some of the main changes from biblical canon. “What are the other books for?”

“Oh, that’s simple, it’s my interpretation of what Liz’s interpretation of the Goddess of Hope’s position would be on every theological debate within christianity, and the position of the Goddess of Hope on basically every topic imaginable that has not yet been discussed by some random priest in Siberia. In short, you’ll need to study this with a fine tooth comb. We’re trying to be populists here, and that’ll mean bashing and rejecting establishment Christianity, which will be easier than ever thanks to hope in it being at its lowest point it’s ever been for… obvious reasons.” I had stuck with the core message of the Revifier, which was the Goddess’s actual name, as closely as I could. The main message was always that ‘Change was inevitable’. Everything else I had written was just an extension of that ideology.

“I knew you wouldn’t disappoint.” Said Liz while smiling with a more subtle edge. She was either better at hiding it, or was softening, but only slightly. “You’ve almost managed to lift my spirits back up. Almost. I don’t think anyone could manage to make me move on from Ian’s victory.” Seriously? It had been a week since he’d won, and she was still talking about it? It wasn't the end of the world. Someone else could beat Ian the next time the Revifier tried conquering earth.

“Hey. I’m getting dinner, what do you people want?” Said Alex as he moved right next to the teleporting wall. Apparently, tavern food was now acceptable to Liz for an unknowable reason. It definitely wasn’t because Alex would report any information on me that would spill from the mouths of the tavern goers to try and make me seem like I wasn’t ‘faithful’ to Liz so she would dump me in favour of him. In reality, if he actually found anything, she would use it as an excuse to break me down further, but he didn’t know that.

“Whatever Mariel picks.” Said Liz. You see, when she made me pick the most expensive food so that she wouldn’t blame me for supposedly not thinking she was worth the expensive food, it would make me look like the bad guy because I was the one asking for the expensive food instead of her.

“Whatever’s cheapest” Said Dave, followed by a nod by Eva and Franciszek. The only one left was me.

“The most expensive thing there.” I said, and was only slightly comforted by the softening of Liz’s smile. Why was I even comforted by that anyway? She literally set this whole thing up, and wanted me to feel good about obeying her. Alex finally teleported before giving me one last glare, and we were back to figuring out what to do with every book I wrote.

“Okay… have you categorised them?” I nodded.

“The first is the translated and reinterpreted bible. The second and third are all the orthodox debates I could scrounge up and what our position is on them, charted from oldest to newest. And the fourth and fifth are every other issue I could think of, and organised by category. You’ll get it after reading it.” I said, and shrunk back into the soft sofa Liz must’ve summoned herself. I didn’t think any of these divinely comfortable things were still in one piece, but this one was, and that was all that mattered to me. You did not know how good you had it until something as basic as a soft mattress was taken away.

“Well, that is settled then. Eva, take away these things. The table is going to break soon enough if you don’t. I want you to learn it all by the eve of… the next month.” Eva nodded, giving me a bad look and leaving before being followed by Dave. I didn’t even know what that bad look was for. I was given a job, and did it. She should’ve blamed the gal who made me do it. Then Franciszek coughed a little, and left for his room. “Isn’t this nice? Just you and me?”

“Samoylo could ‘ruin’ this by coming in from the fake outside any second now.” I was definitely praying for that.

“He knows not to do stupid things like that. I’d burn him alive if he dared to get in between you and me.” She’s been increasingly clingy, especially after Charlotte showed up, and after I had to leave sometimes to spy on the revolutionaries. It had been a couple days since the celebrations stopped, so you would’ve thought that she would calm down with time, but that clearly did not happen.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Have you considered not being so close to me?” She chuckled before using my shoulder as a pillow.

“Why would I? You’re actually smart, good with words and know your place. A tantalising combination. Anytime I catch you doing something you shouldn’t, you come up with an explanation I shouldn’t believe, but that I do anyway.” I didn’t know my place, I knew how to not piss her off and research when she wasn’t looking. I hadn’t gotten far in my attempts to remove the mark, but I’d crack it eventually. I just needed a plan for when she felt it disappear. If I did that, and she beat me after finding me, I’d be in an even worse position.

“Yea, but could you not have tried to at least earn my love the normal way?” She sighed, then got even more comfortable on my shoulder.

“This is as close to normal as we’d ever had gotten. Need I remind you that you tried to kill me? You’re much less hostile than you used to be, so I’d call that a success.” Oh. I mean, I wasn’t– “I just can’t trust you to not run off while I’m not looking and remove any tracking mark I left on your body.”

“Right, this wasn’t love in the first place. Love can’t exist if I could never consent to this ‘relationship’ in the first place. Murder doesn’t become right suddenly if the person who got murdered wanted to die in the first place. Same with other crimes. If someone wanted their chocolate bar stolen, and I did that, they would still be perfectly in the right to sue me.” She got up from my shoulder, and looked at me with her eyes half closed, signalling confusion.

“Well… that’s a wild comparison. Maybe you’re right about murder, but love is different. Everyone likes a little forcefulness. You’ll learn to like it. Everyone with your mark does.” No argument could actually get through her thick head because I was weaker than her, and by definition, I get no say over her beliefs. People like her needed to get beliefs beaten into them, because violence and power was the only language they understood.

“Of course.” I sighed, getting my exasperation out in the only way I could.

“...You wanna do something funny?”

“Hello, Alex.” I was in her office, listening in on her and Alex. According to Liz, her conversations with Alex would make me feel better, but I had a sinking suspicion she’d just bad mouth him and expect me to find it funny or acceptable.

“Where’s everyone?” Said Alex.

“Eva and Dave are in their room. Franciszek is in his. Samoylo is outside, and Mariel is sleeping in my office.” I was not, and probably wouldn’t even try and look like I was for long if she did what I thought she would.

“What do you even see in him? He’s a midget, hates you, definitely trying to break that mark, talking to outsiders, is being targeted by someone just as powerful as you, and is just a pain in the ass.” Hold on, he was making some fair points there. I might as well have been rooting for him to make Liz think I’m not worth the hassle.

“Who are you to talk about any of that? Alexander, my good friend,” Oof, ow, ouch. “You are marginally taller than him, love me obnoxiously, don’t even need a mark to worship me, and don’t talk to anyone except me. You aren’t a challenge, a conquest, nor are you actually smart. Here, go on, tell me what your highest point in education was.” I was just feeling bad at this point. This was too much. Official education didn’t even mean that much. Sure, you got your degree, but job experience was way more important.

“Well… I didn’t go to college or university.” Come on man! You didn’t have to admit that.

“Exactly. Mariel knows what he’s talking about. I can talk to him about an endless assortment of topics for hours. What am I supposed to talk to you about, that stupid sport you’re obsessed with?” I swear to god if it was football.

“You’re stupid!” Yea! Screw all these reincarnators and their hate of real sports.

“See, that’s the worst part about you. You have potential. You come so close to actually being good, and then fall flat after a while. You don’t have any drive to resist. You give yourself up without a fight. If I were to get with you, I wouldn’t have earned it.” She laughed a bit, and then sighed before continuing. “But if your brain can’t handle that, here’s it simplified. You’re boring. It’s just that simple. You’re boring.” Man… This had to stop. This wasn’t funny. Yet I didn’t go out and stop her. What would I gain from it? I was already screwed, and would only make it worse if I went against her. Something, oh something was pulling me away from doing the right thing. It was pulling me towards not resisting. I didn’t give it the luxury of giving in.

I opened the door.

“Hey, Elizabetha. I’ll go get the others for dinner. You should go find Samoylo, Alex.” He just nodded. That was… grim. She’d just ruined him, and I couldn’t even be blamed this time.