-51-

[https://i.imgur.com/LoYByv0.png]

A shard of marbled stone sat upon a table. Veins of gray and violet ran through the stone, and small wisps of energy glistened across the purple streaks.

Hailey and Julius sat across me, opposite the table. Mei, Alistaire, Soren, and Luke stood just behind them.

Akari and Ikuye were sitting on either side of me.

Julius was the first to break the silence, “So, what do we do if we enrage the Goddess?”

He held his hands in front of him, fingers interlaced, and leaned forward.

His question wasn’t really aimed at me, but between Ikuye and I, as if he couldn’t quite determine who would have the authority to answer.

“Last time,” I answered, “she was immediately aware something had changed. What’s to say this time is any different?”

“You’re saying this was part of her plans all along?” he sat up from his seat.

“I’m saying I don’t know.”

Hailey tugged at Julius’ sleeve, “Airis is just as in the dark as us.”

“How?” Julius raised his voice, “She chose this! That’s what she said, isn’t it? Celestials above, Airis, I will follow you to the ends of Terae but I’m so desperate to understand what’s going on here I feel insane!”

“And I don’t?” I raised my voice in return, “I went to sleep so worn out from everything this morning. Fighting, killing, and trying to emotionally partition the fact that half this city is on fire again—Oh! And not to mention that only the Celestials know where all the civilians are.”

Akari and Ikuye both reacted to my outburst, reaching for me.

“Haah.” I sighed.

“What do we do?” Luke calmly asked.

Soren and Alistaire were whispering something to themselves in the back.

Mei was busy trying to bring Julius’ calm back.

“I don’t know. We just keep pressing forward. Nothings really changed since this morning, right? I’m still me, we’re still in the middle of a war, and our people still need saving.”

Hailey looked conflicted, but agreed with me.

We both hashed this out as best we could this morning when I abruptly woke up after finalizing my new Iteria node.

Not so long ago, she’d accused me of pursuing Capricorn’s power to attain a level of ‘godhood’. But after the conversation with Tamirayth and the subtleties of the Iteria descriptions, we’ve agreed there was something bigger going on.

Hailey laid her concerns about me being some sort of divine being out, and I promised we’d take some meaningful action once we wrapped things up in Axio.

Akari somehow managed to make things more complicated when we approached her afterwards.

When I told her I was apparently some kind of Goddess and was developing divine powers, her response was, “Yeah, you’re just like momma!”, and I was sent spiraling down a rabbit hole of wondering if Rias and I had another actual sister or aunt somewhere.

Celestials above, I still have to talk to Rias about this…

She learned Zophiel’s identification spell and we double checked her detailed status. Both our spells listed her race as Altaerian.

As I got lost in thought, the boys finished their secret meeting.

Alistaire looked eager to share something, so I prompted him. But Soren responded first, “We don’t care.”

Julius smacked his head, “Elaborate. That sounds rude.”

Alistaire floundered, “What we mean, is that to us nothing is different. Our thoughts haven’t changed from the start. We swore our oaths to the Republic and then reaffirmed them to the Empire—”

“—and our empress—” Soren interjected while fighting off Julius.

“—under the Goddesses. So, if those Goddesses now also include you, nothing changed.”

Luke perked up at Alistaire’s backwards reasoning, but didn’t look excited by it, “Wait, then does that mean Airis' paladin oaths aren’t empowered by another Goddess but by herself?”

“What?” I flinched, “No way, right? I just got the title.”

“And if you got the title because you recognized yourself as a Goddess? You said that Dolain guy was a ‘hero’, right? That’s something that only shows up when you or the people around you truly believe it. You’re still the same as you were, even you said so. By that logic, you’ve always been a Goddess. You just finally admitted it to yourself so you got the title.”

We all paused.

“Awh, come on, Luke!” I moaned, “Don’t bring all this cold rationale into this. Now I’m just some shitty Goddess who let all this happen because I was too dumb to realize it.”

“That… That’s not what I said at all.”

I waved him off, “I know. I know. Let me lighten the mood, would ya’? I doubt I manifested my own holy powers. My oath sucks. The Church only let me be a paladin because I learned HEAL and HOLY BOLT when I was still a kid.”

“Wait, Airis,” Hailey stopped me, “You could cast HEAL and HOLY BOLT before becoming a paladin?”

“Yes?”

“That’s… not possible?” she remarked quizzically.

“But I did?”

“She’s been a Goddess this whole time…” Luke lamented.

“Hey!” I jumped up, “Come on! Why does it seem like that’s a super depressing thing? Look, if I’ve been a Goddess this whole time then my title would be something crazy, like ‘Goddess of Vanixia’ or whatever.”

» YOUR TITLE ‘FLEDGLING GODDESS’ HAS BEEN MODIFIED:

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

» YOU HAVE BEEN GRANTED A NEW TITLE:

» GODDESS OF VANIXIA

I freaked out, “No way, come ooooon!”

“Did your title just, uh, change, Airis?” Hailey blinked.

I hung my head.

“Yes…”

Ikuye slapped my back hard, “It’s settled then! My sister is special just like we all thought. This calls for celebration! I’ll go find Tomin.”

She cheerfully exited the room while whistling some unknown tune.

“I’m going back to bed. We have three more hours till the planned assault time.” Julius said flatly, looking defeated.

“I’ll be joining him.” Mei said offhandedly, following after Julius.

Soren and Alistaire watched them go. Alistaire said something that made Soren’s face turn red and they both left as well.

That just left Hailey, Akari, Luke, and myself.

“Are you doing okay, Luke?” Hailey asked.

“Yeaaah.” he sighed.

“What’s on your mind? Do you need to talk it over with Hanna first?”

“It’s nothing. I was worried Hanna was in danger of becoming more like Airis if she kept using her paladin powers, but I see it was never about the powers and just about Airis.”

“Heeey, what’s that supposed to mean?” I complained.

Hailey sighed back, “It means you’re a lot to handle, Airis.”

“Oh,” I nodded, “Fair.”

Akari jumped up, “Are we going back to bed, momma Airis!?”

“Yeah, kiddo. We’re going back to bed. Coming, Hails?” I took her hand and reached for Hailey.

“Yep.”

I shot a look back at the disheveled rogue, “Chin up, Luke.”

----------------------------------------

“So we’re not going to tell the Goddess Virgo?”

Hailey, still groggy from sleep, asked me shortly after we woke up. I wiped the sleep from her eyes and planted a kiss on her lips.

“No, if she doesn’t know already, then so be it. She hasn’t been entirely straight with me and I’m not prepared to sift through lies right now. If possible, I’d like to wait till we’re more free to discuss things with people who seem to know more than we do. Like Tamirayth.”

“I see. That makes sense to me. What about Capricorn?”

“Same reasoning I suppose, though she’s been a bit more open about things. I don’t know if she knows what Virgo is plotting actually. I’d rather not risk having the whole city go up in chaotic magick if we can help it.”

“That… also, definitely, makes sense to me.”

“Good,” I smirked, “Now let’s get dressed and go wake Akari. I’m hungry.”

We dressed lightly, knowing we’d have to be fully armored after lunch, and headed to the room next to ours to rouse the little pink-haired girl.

“Mommas!” she beamed as we opened the door, tackling us both in a hug, “I’m hungry!”

Hailey giggled, “You’re sure you don’t have a child you never knew about? She’s so much like you at times it’s weird.”

“How would I not know I had a child, Hails?”

“I dunno, weird Goddess magick?” Hailey laughed, walking with Akari down the hall.

Is that a thing? Do Goddesses just make children? No, wait… Isn’t that exactly what Capricorn did with the Alaetüs?

My stomach gurgled.

I shook my head and followed after them. Any crisis of self can wait until after I’ve eaten.

We scarfed our food—supplies raided from the Renaultian outposts that were barely better than the hardtack rations we’d relied on marching north.

Luke briefed us on the progress our daytime forces had made while we slept.

Under Matriarch Aisling and Lady Sara’s command, the majority of the Maarin district had been secured.

A large number of self-titled resistance fighters had made themselves known while clearing the section of city I’d been teleported to. Their leader wanted to parley with us and sent an emissary.

Per my instructions before going to sleep the first time, ‘Don’t bother me over useless things’, Aisling negotiated on my behalf and now we’d split a large chunk of city patrols to them in exchange for the surrender of any politicians or military leaders responsible for aiding the Renaultians in the coup.

Specter teams had secured the inner Maarin walls and were pushing out to the docks and wrapping around the Vanixian district.

The commons between the Maarin and Renaultian district had been mostly cleared, but due to interference from the Renaultian towers, it was no effectively a no-man’s sector.

Our ballistae could hit the towers if we could get some height, but without dismantling them and reassembling atop the remaining inner towers it wasn’t an available plan for immediate action—though it was already in the works.

However, even if the ballistae were ready we wouldn’t be able to mount a full assault on the Renaultians just yet. Their gatehouse had been fortified with a kind of barrier magick, stronger than what had been cast over the inner Maarin gate.

Lady Sara doubted the runestones would be able to breach the spell and if we tried it was possible the beam attack would be deflected and cause unknowable damage somewhere else in the city.

Until our Assault divisions finished clearing the Vanixian district and recovered the people being held in the internment camps, we couldn’t risk it.

Ikuye and her team of Tomin, Strea, and…

Shit, what was that guy’s name again?

...one other guy would be aiding them, so I had faith it would be wrapped up before the end of the day.

In the meantime, we’d mount an attack to prod the gatehouse and see if there were any weaknesses up close. We’d go with my full retinue of guard knights and most of our strongest vanguard, including Hailey, Julius, Mei, and Tatsuko.

The city looked quite different in the daylight.

From the old Maarin headquarters, we walked across the inner walls to the one standing gate tower.

The flames from our assault this morning had died out, but there was so much more of the city razed and blackened. Swathes of inner city was charred and in disrepair—from the fires that consumed it during the coup.

Renault hadn’t bothered to clean up much afterwards it seemed. Apparently he’d been busier with repainting the town in their ugly blue.

Blue banners. Blue flags. Blue tiles.

Even some walls were splattered blue.

“Half the city is burnt to the ground and they’re worried about making sure everyone knows who is in control. Sickening.”

I made a comment and nobody replied.

We walked the rest of the way in silence.

The stairwell had an unassuming door that opened into a small house built on the main road. We were looking up at the Renaultian gatehouse a moment later.

“I passed by this place hundreds of times going to and from the capital building and central spire.”

Julius smirked at me, “You should’ve knocked it down back then, Your Divineness. Would’ve saved us the trouble.”

I smacked his arm, “Shut up. Maybe I’ll smite you instead.”

As we approached, a chill set into the air. There was a sheen of magick covering the gates and a large magick circle was drawn on the ground.

“When did they find time to do this?” I asked.

And a voice from above answered, “It’s been there for months. I never needed to activate it until you showed up.”

My eyes shot up. A projection of Renault was hovering above the Renaultian gate.

“I swear if you teleport me away again.” I snarled.

“Now, now,” Renault tutted, "We can all agree I was hasty and underestimated you. You were simply so weak the last time I saw you. But, don’t fret. I’ve prepared my best toys to entertain us both.”

As if prompted, four figures appeared at the base of the gates.

“Do put on a good show.” he jeered.

Renault’s image disappeared and we readied our weapons for whatever was about to come.