"Do you know where your daughter sleeps?" Seeba asked.

Camping was a euphemism that didn't really pertain to the structure before me. Because I had been recently attained Rank: Duchess, I had purchased a building array that was more Keep than it was camp. The building was imposing, and it should be. I had invested a lot of funds in purchasing an array that simulated a fortress. Powered by magic, it would serve as a temporary base as we rested each night, and like the bones of the new city, I was planning to establish.

Money had been the least of my concerns when I'd made the purchase, I knew I needed something that was durable enough to remain standing no matter how we were attacked. With that in mind, I had commissioned an array that was long-lasting and heavy on defense. Getting past those defenses and entering the Keep should have been impossible, and for anyone not equipped with the codes or permissions, it was.

My magical signature would allow me to make use of the bolt hole, an escape failsafe that came standard with this type of formation. But it was only as we made use of that bolt hole that I realized the Seelie and Kelpie that would attack soon, had to have a spy inside. Someone to open the gates to let them in.

"The second floor, the left-wing, the first room on the right," I answered, distracted by my new understanding of events, something I should have considered decades ago when this happened for the first time.

How did Lord Kel and Lord Haygan get past the protections I had installed? They should never have been able to win past the gate, and to do so in such secrecy? Even with the disparity of numbers, I would have won. I was a Ranked: Duchess when they attacked. The difference in power was more than just the linear progression leveling suggests. An increase in Rank was an exponential difference in power.

The reason they had won, and I had capitulated so quickly, had to do with the lack of warning, their ability to infiltrate so quietly that no one sounded an alarm until it was too late. They had my daughter captured and held hostage before the battle even began, or at least that was what they would have me believe. Someone had let them inside our defenses. It was the only thing that made sense, and I found it hard to believe that it was just now, after all of these years, that I reached that conclusion.

Years becoming decades that I had been so lost to grief or anger that I had ignored the obvious. There was only one person who could have played the traitor. One person that had opened the gates, silenced those guarding the gates or patrolling, and only one person that could have led them to where my daughter slept.

My Seneschal, Lady Yvonne.

She had been entrusted with the figurative keys to the keep. She was the one that programmed the permissions, the one that had chosen the area to camp, and the one that had convinced me to capitulate. I knew from the beginning that she had had reservations about my decision. She argued voraciously against the need to search for and found my own fief, but I'd thought she'd finally understood that I had no actual choice. My recent increase in Rank had forced this exodus. The Duchess that I had served as Earl had demanded I forfeit my lands and leave. I'd thought she understood this, and she probably did. But that understanding didn't soften the blow when her lover of thousands of years had refused to accompany us.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

I wanted to release my anger, satisfy my need to quench that anger with her blood, to track down Lady Yvonne and flail the skin from her body. And I would. But that would have to wait until I returned to my time. The Wild Magic and System had conspired to provide me an opportunity to right these events, a chance to learn the truth, and the chance to save my daughter. I knew that my next trip through the Summerlands would see me restored to my time-line. I would make it back to the future. I was certain of it.

Seeba had the ability to dart and move silently every cat had. She was able to make use of the smallest sliver of shadow to hide and sneak as she prowled forward. I should have been leading, I knew the halls and floor plan intimately, but she knew the foibles and practices of prey, and the guards that I'd set to patrol all those years ago were nothing more than prey to her.

I came to understand how she knew where to go when I saw her pause to scent the air. She was using her nose, even in Seelie form, like a bloodhound. It made sense that she could track my scent, follow the currents of lingering odor that my past-self had left. But more than that, her eyes glowed with the power of Cait Sith. She could see the echoes of magical signature, that identifying characteristic that was mine alone.

"Seeba, there is a better way," I whispered. She was about to brave the main passage when I stopped her. There was a servant's stairwell off the kitchen that would allow us to reach the second floor without risking discovery. The morning staff would be waking soon, an under-chef might already be working on baking the daily bread, but the stairs were isolated enough that we could access them without being seen.

That route was safe for now. The staff that was responsible for cleaning or maintaining the upper floors were bedded down for the night, but that wouldn't last much longer. The kitchen would soon be bustling, as more and more staff joined those baking to prepare the day's breakfast. They had been the least affected by the coming attack. The head chef barricading the door to the kitchen and protecting his people until I had surrendered.

The closer we got to my daughter's room the faster I began to move until I was all-out sprinting. I had enough control not to fling the door open and burst into her room, but it was a near thing. I had to force myself to remember that no one could know that the Sieph that would be left would not be the real person.

I'd finally decided how I would solve the problem of creating an illusion strong enough to hold up to scrutiny, something intricate enough to speak and act as my real daughter. My daughter would die, and with her death, I would remove the need to leave a homunculus of my daughter.

I would set the stage and make it appear she had been murdered in her chamber by the very people hoping to capture her.

With the confusion of that morning's attack, there was no way to keep track of who went where, so the possibility of Sieph attempting to defend herself and being slain in the process was a real possibility. Lord Kel's people would create the illusion of my daughter that would stay my hand in the aftermath. I had already learned this. I would just expedite that necessity.

I would tie the illusion to a small forest creature that Seeba had procured for me. Normally I would not be so cruel as to injure an animal, to sever the spinal cord so that it lived, but was incapable of movement, but I would pay any price to see my daughter safe. The animal's life force would be tied to illusion, allowing that illusion to last until the animal finally expired.

Once we had safely entered the room, with the door locked and Seeba standing watch, I ignored everything but rushing to my daughter's bed. Tears of joy and relief streamed down my face as I gathered the most precious person in my world into my arms.

Sieph lived. I had faced the Goddess Tisiphone to arrive at this moment. I would face Zeus himself to make sure my efforts were not in vain, that Sieph would continue to live. I took comfort in the knowledge that the future was already written. My daughter was destined to join Ryu, son of Teigh Mac de Beleros y Cyronax, and journey with him to Ijal, there to claim that planet for the Sidhe.

She would survive this night. My heart and soul would be restored, and when I had traveled back to the future, vengeance and justice would be mine.