14.A: Her Father's Daughter (All) (Patreon)

Jasmine, Kyle, and Alex had just about finished securing the unconscious bodies of the two Alzaqs when Lukas arrived, rounding a corner at a jog.

He looked harried. The fabric of one of his uniform sleeves had been ripped to shreds, and from the blackened bits still clinging to his newly constructed arm, it looked like it had been burnt off. Lukas himself looked uninjured, if a little exhausted, and his arm was still glowing with magic.

“Lukas!” Alex exclaimed, rushing over to wrap his black-haired bodyguard in a hug. “Where were you?”

“Tempet reinforcements,” Lukas said. “Alto called on his personal guard. What’s all this?”

Jasmine put their conversation in the back of her mind, idly listening in to ensure she didn’t miss anything important without fully engaging. It was a skill she’d learned a long time ago while patiently waiting long hours for her parents to finish their delegation with other Houses, and it came in use quite frequently when she’d been expected to attend her parents’ court.

Her thoughts were elsewhere. Jasmine was happy that Lukas and Alex had managed to reunite, glad that the former hadn’t suffered grievous injury, but seeing them happy together reminded her of Lily.

She had been so lucky, finding that girl… Jasmine had known from the start that there was something different about Lily. She’d seen something special in everything from the way Lily held herself to the dangerous aura her oath exuded. On top of Jasmine’s partner being a surprisingly competent teammate—especially for someone who had supposedly never fought before—Lily was an awfully pretty girl.

Jasmine couldn’t stop thinking about her, worrying over the grey-eyed beauty that had taken off with little warning while Jasmine had still been sorting out the healing situation at the ballroom. Rationally, she knew that Lily could probably hold her own against even those a dozen classes above her thanks to the unique power she wielded, but Jasmine was still nervous for her.

The Alzaq oathholder had claimed that Alto was dead and that Lily had joined his side, which was obviously false. Lily would have sooner killed a noble—especially that disgusting excuse of a man—than even come close to participating in one of their plans. With that in mind, Jasmine did have to consider whether what the now-unconscious armored man had been telling the truth, at least in part.

Weigh the situation. Who benefits from which lies? From which truths?

If “Alto Tempet is dead” was the story that this man was running with, then it was more than likely that the noble had already been killed or was about to be. After all, it would not do wonders for House Alzaq’s credibility if they claimed that a very much living noble had been killed.

Igei’s Principle. The most reasonable answer is generally the correct one. Jasmine would assume that Alto was dead, then.

“That man was lying, right?” Lukas asked, addressing everyone in the group. “Just to be clear.”

Jasmine snapped out of her thoughts instantly, knowing from experience that she had managed to look attentive throughout the entire conversation.

“Of course he lied,” Jasmine said. “Lily would never cooperate with a noble.”

“Gut feeling, yes,” Kyle said, the jester eyeing the unconscious Camellia like she would wake up at any second. “I didn’t work with her much, but she hated nobles.”

“I don’t think he was lying about Alto,” Jasmine added. “Just on whether Lily was involved and the manner of her involvement.”

“He wasn’t lying about Alto,” Alex confirmed, glancing at Lukas.

Lukas inhaled deeply and exhaled before he spoke, letting the tension melt away from his shoulders. “I found Alto’s body.”

“Shit, a Tempet noble was killed?” Kyle asked, his vaguely amused tone belying his choice of words. “How… unfortunate.”

“He choked on his own blood,” Lukas said. “Knife wound to the throat. I can’t say I was ever a fan of that man, but… gods, it was a messy way to go.”

Jasmine winced. It was a relatively light death, as far as assassinations triggered by noble intrigue were, and Alto had been an absolutely horrible person who enjoyed abusing commoners for fun, but cruelty was cruelty no matter who it was inflicted upon.

“Serves him right,” Alex said. “Fuck him. He was the worst of us.”

“Do we know who did it?” Kyle asked, all business now. “I would imagine that that would be important.”

“I checked the wound,” Lukas said. “It was a precise one. Inflicted by a small knife or dagger, if I had to guess, nonmagical.”

“What weapons does this man have here?” Jasmine asked, a gnawing sensation forming in her gut. This new information was painting a picture in Jasmine’s mind that she wasn’t sure she liked.

“Hold on,” Kyle said, forming a sphere of multicolored magic in his hands. It expanded and flattened, ballooning out into a disc, and he pushed it down and through the unmoving armored man’s body. “I’m reading enhanced strength in the gauntlets, a retractable mace in the arms, and an expandable longsword strapped to the back.”

“Then it wouldn’t be one of the armored ones,” Jasmine reasoned. “Kyle, may I ask why your Identify spell looks like that?”

The structure of the spell looked to be similar to the fourth-level spell, but Identify wasn’t even supposed to be visible no matter which oath cast it, let alone visible as a disc of energy.

“It’s not Identify,” Kyle said, then frowned. “Or maybe it is. I copied it from an Oloje oathholder, might’ve been a Naan’ti variant of it.”

Ah. If it was a Naan’ti Oloje spell, that might explain it—that school of magic was notorious for its spells being exclusive to each god, leading oathholders who solely learned from the Naan’ti school to have wildly different spellsets from each other.

“Shanzhai oathholders,” Alex said with a grin, shaking his head. “You amaze me, Kyle.”

“I do my best,” the jester replied. “Anyway, the important part was that it wasn’t this guy who did it. No weapons that fit the description.”

“I assume the other guard had the same setup,” Lukas said. “That leaves… you said there was a third?”

“A cloaked man,” Alex said. “I’m not sure what his deal was. It could definitely be him, but we have no idea who he is.”

“I have an idea of who it might be,” Jasmine said, the pit in her stomach gone now. She was fairly certain of what had happened, and though she would be happy to be proved wrong she could accept that Lily was a broken enough person to casually execute a noble like this.

“Do go on,” Alex prompted.

“Lily has a knife,” Jasmine said after a moment of deliberation. It didn’t feel like a betrayal, because it wasn’t. All the people here had had experience with Alto. Nobody was going to stand up to the Crown and say he hadn’t deserved it. “A small and sharp one.”

“And how do you know this?” Kyle asked.

“I gave it to her,” Jasmine admitted freely.

The other three took a moment to process that, and it was during that moment of silence when they felt it.

A wave of crushing pressure, passing over them in an instant and leaving behind sentiments. In the span of a moment, they all saw far too much. The images came in a deluge, so fast and so plentiful that none stayed long enough for Jasmine to fully examine.

A young girl, crying as armored men beat her with long poles.

The same girl, pacing back and forth in a dark room.

An older version of the girl, her features oddly familiar, shaking in fear alone in the woods.

A thousand images, running through her mind in an instant. It should have been too much for any human to process, but Jasmine found that she could make out the shape of their gestalt even if she could not comprehend the details of any individual image.

One image came to the forefront of her mind’s eye, less fragmented than the rest. This was one that featured people and scenes that were all too familiar.

Lily, forced back by a number of armored Alzaq oathholders. Lord William Alzaq, lording over her.

And then the infinitesimally short moment passed and more images came, more thoughts, and over a period of time that couldn’t have been much longer than a single heartbeat, an idea coalesced.

[QUERY], Lily Syashan said, and Jasmine answered.

______________

“I hear there’s fighting going on in the noble sector,” Alicia said. The woman was unsteady on her feet, hopped up on a stimulant of some kind. Instability is exploitable, my dear.

“Mm, is there?”

Seb sipped his coffee, luxuriating in the sensation of the warm bitterness. It was an expensive drink, but it had been a hard enough challenge stealing them away from the noble storehouse that he felt justified in drinking some.

He’d missed the drink. It had been his favorite back when he’d had the means to actually obtain stuff like it, and the flavors reminded him of better times.

“One of the scouts said that there were other groups just like us invading the royal castle,” Alicia pressed, leaning forward and getting into Seb’s personal space. He could smell the sourness of whatever she’d taken on her breath.

“So there are,” Seb agreed. The Tempet noble that had supplied him had explained that there would be other cells of commoners carrying out other missions. This had been accounted for.

“Then let me know this, Seb,” Alicia said, leaning even closer. “Why the fuck aren’t we out there with ‘em?”

“I like living,” Seb said mildly. “Those two groups are cannon fodder. The royal guards will take them.”

“Oh,” Alicia said, like it hadn’t occurred to her. It might actually have not. She got back out of his face, the burgeoning anger he’d seen fading away in an instant. “Oh, alright.”

Seb really did appreciate having someone like Alicia around. When he was with her, he could drop the whole ‘savant vagrant’ act. She was far too simple to catch the difference, her mind too addled by the substances she regularly ingested.

“Well, can we go to the noble sector?” Alicia asked cheerily. “I’d like to see some action.”

She resembled nothing so much as a child begging a parent for candy, Seb mused. A shame, really, that she was so dumb. At least she was a somewhat decent scrapper in a brawl and not a horrible shot.

“Not yet,” Seb declined. “We still have our part to play, and tonight is not our night.”

“Come oooooon,” Alicia said, drawing out her words. “I can call the guys together real quick, if that’s what you’re worried about. C’mon!”

“The day after tomorrow,” Seb said for what must have been the fifth time this hour. “No sooner.”

“The scout also told me that House Alzaq’s manor got hit,” Alicia said, watching Seb for a reaction. “How ‘bout that, huh?”

Seb controlled himself, keeping the muscles in his face from making a move and betraying him. Alicia knew that House Alzaq had wronged him in the past, he’d let that slip to her at some point, but she didn’t know nearly the extent of it.

“…I’ll consider it,” Seb said.

He’d been a merchant, once upon a time. Not nobility, but quite near it. Of his brothers, he had been the least successful, but he’d still seen a fair number of customers.

His birth name had been Seb Alzaq, but even that had been taken from him when his family had forced him out as a concession to the Crown. Just a few years ago, he’d had everything a man could reasonably want. A successful business, women on his arm, enough money that he could be comfortable for the rest of his life.

And then the Alzaqs had gone on that godsforsaken push to become true nobility. It had never been enough for them to simply be content with their smashing success. No, father William simply had to get that special title to cozy up to the Crown with. Losing Seb had been more of a transaction than anything else.

Calm. There is a time for rage, and it is not when I am truly myself. Seb stilled his emotions, stamping out the embers of anger. He had become Seb the vagrant rebel for a reason. The anger would come out then, when he was whipping up his following into a frenzy for their push on the Crown proper.

Alicia leaned in again. “Whatcha thinking ‘bout, Seb?”

“Leave me be,” Seb grunted. “Else I’ll not consider your suggestion.”

That shut her up right quick, the woman drawing back in an instant. Seb eyed her balefully, taking in those sharp features that had been worn down by time, substance abuse, and more fights than he could count. She must have been pleasing to observe at one point, but now she wouldn’t even fetch a single sun if he sold her. Wasteful, but convenient to have around.

Seb’s mind returned to the Alzaq manor. Alicia never lied to him—he almost believe that she’d forgotten how to. Even if she had been, he would be able to tell. As a member of an important merchant family, he’d been expected to gain an oath. Oloje, God of Discovery had been his chosen god, and he had gained much experience in evaluating where someone’s intentions lay.

He closed his eyes, drawing on his oath and activating a spell pattern that he’d memorized long ago. Detect Lies, one of the spells exclusive to Oloje and a few others that he hadn’t bothered memorizing.

Alicia had truly encountered a scout who had said that.

Interesting. Not interesting enough for him to call together his following to join the fight, but intriguing nonetheless. It was most likely another peasant cell, instructed by Alto Tempet to attack there for maximum chaos on this night.

Seb wasn’t going to risk losing his chance for a cheap shot of revenge against his former family. He had good reason to believe that when the die was cast and the cards were down, acting as Alto had planned would elevate himself back to the level he deserved to be at. The Tempet name was beckoning him forth, and all he needed to do was sit and wait.

Still, though, he was tempted to—

A wave of thoughts hit him in a manner that seemed vaguely familiar. Divine communication? Now?

No, this was from a much more mundane source. Much of the message was comprised of images of a girl he didn’t know, and it was messy in a way that emphasized a select few scenes while leaving the rest by the wayside, but there were fragments that looked familiar.

Seb’s eyes widened as the message slammed through his mind, realizing what part of the [QUERY] he had recognized.

The message itself had been a cry for help, but it had also come with a location, one that he had never gotten the opportunity to get familiar with.

In the noble sector of Dakheng, a girl fought for her life against the massed forces of House Alzaq.

Now this was a new development. He wouldn’t be interfering with any other peasant mobs if he went there, and on second glance, that girl was someone he knew.

The noble’s “assistant” that had lied about almost everything except her name. The one that Seb had requisitioned for his own following.

The gears in Seb’s mind turned quickly and decisively. This was a golden opportunity to strike at his father, and he had a reason to go now. Surely Alto wouldn’t fault him for saving one of his own, right?

“Did you feel that, Alicia?” Seb asked, turning his head towards the woman.

“Feel what?”

He sighed. Seb had almost forgotten that so few peasants ever even had the opportunity to obtain an oath. The perils of ignorance and uneducatedness…

“No matter,” Seb said, messing his own hair up. When he fully met Alicia’s eyes, the wildness he’d cultivated for himself had returned to his gaze. “Alicia.”

“Yes, Seb?” She was grinning now, her voice as dangerously unstable as his eyes were. “Have you made a choice?”

“Call them together,” Seb said, slipping his mask of a personality back on. “Tonight, we make House Alzaq pay for their crimes.”

_____________________

“Please. You don’t have to do this.”

“Your pathetic whining is wasted,” Nishi said, stomping on the downed priest’s throat. His windpipe collapsed under his boot, the feeling of flesh grinding against muscle until the man’s life gave out a rather pleasing one to behold. He could have executed the disciple with magic, but there was a certain level of intimacy to killing with one’s own body that he would never grow tired of.

Nishi stood, hands clasped behind his back. This country… he’d forgotten to ask for its name. Forgetful of him. He was fairly sure it had been named Rokoi at some point, but much had shifted over the course of the years. The continental war especially had caused a good deal of political turmoil and redrawing of boundaries that he’d largely ignored in favor of the more entertaining, bloodier aspect.

Whatever the case, they had far too many branches of the multifaith Church that had given Nishi so much trouble when he’d been a youth. The Church had been useful for a time, but their limitations had been… frustrating. Frustrating and irritating, when its inquisitors had started trying to put him down in his earlier attempts at rising.

Nowadays, all the Chosen disciples in the world would be incapable of defeating him, but he still held a soft spot in his heart for returning the Church’s old malice to them with extreme prejudice. This was the eighth or ninth branch of the Church he’d wiped out in the past week, if he was counting correctly. They’d been ready for him, this time, a whole host of Chosen ripping the very air apart from the moment he’d entered.

Nishi stopped walking by the corpse of one of the leaders of this branch’s Chosen. She’d been a strong opponent. Thoush ultimately helpless in the face of the murderer-god’s magic, she had fought him to the very end. She had his respect, at the very least.

He stood there amidst a field of corpses, basking in the power their deaths had afforded him.

It was good that he was being noticed. The stronger the resistance, the better the payoff. Murder granted power, and murdering the powerful increased that boon exponentially.

Nishi allowed himself another moment of relaxation, then strode out of the Church. This particular branch had been rather out of the way. It was the largest building by far in this remote village buried in the foresty mountains on the outskirts of what might have been Rokoi, but despite the small size of the village they had still fielded a decent turnout of Chosen. Flown in, perhaps, though there was the possibility that this particular village was simply highly favored by the gods.

As he stepped out of the octagon-shaped building, he noticed a sheet of paper tacked on to one of the few undamaged steel doors. Nishi ripped it off, took a glance at what was written on it, and laughed.

CRITICAL WARNING—ALL CHURCH BRANCHES

Eight of our outposts are lost already. A witness from the destruction of the last (our only surviving one so far) claims that our enemy matches the drawing below. He is described as having a “crushingly destructive” aura, one tangible to any oathholder.

Enemy is DANGEROUS. The god to which he is sworn to is unclear, but he is a heretic nonetheless.

Chosen are to slay this man on sight. The branch that brings him in will receive one thousand suns.

Good luck. You’ll need it.

- High Priest Zae

The drawing was surprisingly accurate, capturing Nishi’s height and features with a precision that should’ve required a close-up view. As far as he could remember, he hadn’t left any of the Church’s Chosen alive. The children they hosted and the villagers surrounding them he had left alone, as their deaths were far too unlikely to grant him any significant gain in power.

Ah, it must have been one of them, then. A child or villager that he’d overlooked, perhaps one with an oath that would enhance their memory.

How entertaining, that only a century or so was long enough for the Church to have forgotten who he was.

A heretic, eh? The Church’s charge of “heresy” was a meaningless one. Nishi knew from experience that almost any disciple who was not Chosen by their god would gain that label.

He would show them true heresy. Not just the pathetic kind that they charged almost anyone with.

Nishi had made himself the rare possessor of true heretical oaths, one who held them not just to gain from the gods, but to usurp them. The Church had already grown to fear him, and soon they would learn that every bit of their growing fear was not only justified but understated.

At this rate, he was likely to clear out the major branches in maybe-Rokoi in a matter of days. Next, he could move on to its neighboring country, which he knew had once been named Alun. What was its new name again? Was it Yelian? Yelan?

Whatever the case, he was rapidly approaching the homeland of the other. Nishi hoped that his instruction to her had been sufficient the last time they’d met. He’d burned the power of a primordial seed just to ensure that she wouldn’t perish. It would be a shame for his investment to turn out fruitless.

If the other was broken in a way that even faintly resembled his, she would be growing her power as well. Nishi had not entirely disclosed his plan for deicide and ascension, but if she was anywhere approaching reasonable, she was sure to understand.

Far away from him, thousands of kilometers away, a pulse of power resounded. Most of those with power would not have even registered it, the distance too great and the attempt at communication not yet powerful enough to truly span the continent.

Nishi was not, however, most people. He closed his eyes, taking in the pulse of information. It was rough, crude, and needed weeks if not months or years of refining, but she had done it. In an even shorter period of time than it had taken him, the other had managed to expand her perspective and ask a [QUERY] with the voice of their murderer-god.

As he stepped out of the church, Nishi pumped the building full to bursting with raw magic from four different gods. The murderer-god, the energy-god, storm-god, plague-god, swarm-god... It wasn’t a mixture he’d tried before, but then gaining knowledge had always required experimentation.

The detonation was muted, the sound stolen away by the murderer-god’s ruinous magic, but Nishi could feel the effects hanging in the air, and he could sense the shape of what he had left behind. A dozen localized firestorms, ones that would die down only to flare up again once someone came close enough. An interesting enough effect, but ultimately not useful for his arsenal.

He marked the combination down anyway. As the foremost scholar of divinity, Nishi knew that knowing what gods could enable one to execute which actions was far more important than learning a backwards formula that conflated cause with effect.

Did the other know that? From their short interaction, it would appear not. The ex-disciple of a dozen gods sauntered away from the burning wreck of a temple, a destination in his mind.

He wouldn’t be in Tayan for a while, and he was still too far to pull the other into the murderer-god’s realm at will, but Nishi was not an unprepared man.

Soon enough, he would continue molding the other.

With a rare smile on his face, Nishi Ben-deren left the town.

Congratulations, Lily Syashan. You have my attention.