CHAPTER 9

“Good morning.”

Lanri’s eyes fluttered open, and she looked at the source of the greeting. Seeker lay beside her, half covered by their sheet. They smiled at each other. Lanri’s thoughts immediately went back to the night before, to the several hours they’d spent exploring each other’s bodies.

“You had fun,” Seeker told her with a smirk. There was no doubt there, no hint of uncertainty. Seeker didn’t suspect it had been good for her, nor did she merely think it. She knew it.

“Absolutely,” Lanri agreed with a satisfied sigh. She’d had a moment alone in the shrine, when she’d first found the dress, and that had definitely been nice, but it hadn’t been… that. She rolled onto her back, and stared at the ceiling. She let out a giggle. “All the gods, that was…”

“Not all the gods, dear,” Seeker corrected her. “You really only have the one to thank for that.”

Lanri’s giggle turned into a bout of laughter. “Did you just–” she tried, and laughed more. She turned to look at Seeker, and found the Heartwarden’s signature quirked eyebrow only made things worse.

“I did,” Seeker dryly agreed. “You, my dear, had sex with a Heartwarden. There is exactly one god you owe your gratitude to for that.”

“I know that!” Lanri managed between chortles. “But it’s just an expression, not an actual prayer, Seeker! People don’t usually actually mean to address the gods directly when they” – she let out a few lingering snickers – “invoke them. Especially not when they mention all of them as a group like that!”

“I suppose that is true,” Seeker agreed. “Had you been born two hundred years ago, I might have smacked you for it.”

Smacked me?

“But invoking the gods in vain has become somewhat popular. It’s just unexpected that all that time you spent with the dress didn’t make you more mindful of your tongue.”

“Theology isn’t usually involved in pillow talk, Seeker,” Lanri told the redheaded angel.

“Oh, really?” Asked Seeker. “Pray tell, what is usually involved?”

“Y’know, intimate stuff!” Lanri offered. “Faron and I would talk about each other, and ourselves, and our jobs, and the future, and–” Seeker raised a hand to cut her off. She shut up.

“My dear,” Seeker patiently began. “Every single one of the topics you just mentioned qualifies as theology when I’m involved.”

Now she wanted to smack herself, too. “I’m not very smart,” she quietly said.

“Nonsense,” Seeker told her. “You’re a witty little thing, dear. You just let your words get ahead of you, sometimes. And you make mistakes.”

“How diplomatically put of you,” Lanri mused.

“I thought so,” Seeker agreed with a smirk, as she threw aside the blanket, and got out of the bed. She stood up, stretched a gratuitous amount of times, and intoned “habillez. Lanri’s chest tightened as Seeker said it, and she watched with abject fascination as the Heartwarden’s magics illuminated her. Her body grew brighter, and brighter, until Lanri had no choice but to look away. And when she looked back, Seeker was dressed in the same style as before, but not in the same exact outfit. Her cardigan was a different color, and crocheted into a different pattern.

“That’s just remarkable,” Lanri whispered, unashamed of how easily impressed she was.

“I am pretty remarkable, huh?” Seeker asked. The question confused Lanri, but the answer was obvious. She nodded. “Good, stay in that mindset,” Seeker bade, as she walked around the bed, and sat down beside Lanri.

“Okay,” Lanri said, and smiled at Seeker.

“Tell me, dear,” Seeker gently began. “Do you remember everything that happened yesterday?” Lanri considered it, and nodded. “Good,” Seeker said. “Tell me about it.”

“We had a good time together,” Lanri told her.

“Before that,” Seeker urged.

“I… had a bath?” Lanri hesitantly offered.

“Between that and when we got to the room,” Seeker specified.

A pit began to form in Lanri’s stomach. She had the sense this wasn’t leading to anything good. “I… I had the…”

“Keep going,” Seeker insisted. Her voice was growing colder.

“I had the donut. With the poison currants in it.”

“Exactly,” Seeker told her. “You, Lanri, had a poisonous donut.” The bottom dropped out of the pit in Lanri’s stomach, collapsing into a sinkhole. This wasn’t a good talk at all.

“I’m sorry,” Lanri quietly said, and looked away from the Hearwarden.

“Look at me!” Seeker snapped. Lanri obeyed, and returned her gaze to her. She looked so angry. “I could use a spell for this, but I suspect I won’t actually have to.”

A spell for what? Lanri cringed. Thinking in complete sentences was as good as yelling when it came to Seeker. She also pulled the sheet up a little higher, trying to feel a little less small, and vulnerable. But she did not look away from Seeker.

“I told you not to eat it,” Seeker said. Her blue eyes were wide, and awesome, and furious. “I know you were hungry, Lanri, believe me. I know you were starving, and that you’ve had a confusing time of it, but I forbade you to eat it, and you disobeyed me. It. Was. Poison!”

Dread pooled in her, tinted ever so slightly by some other emotion that felt almost, but not quite the same. “I’m sorr–”

“STOP APOLOGIZING UNTIL I’M DONE!” Seeker interrupted. “I knew it was poison, Lanri! I tried to tell you, and you adamantly refused to listen, and that is unacceptable. I am trying so very hard to keep you safe, and the last thing I need is you making that harder by eating something that would get me stoned.”

Lanri felt like she could cry. “You’re making me f–”

“Feel bad?!” Demanded Seeker. “That’s the point; I need you to learn from this, and you might not be alive to learn your lesson next time. Until I tell you otherwise, you will NOT disobey me again, Lanri. I cannot protect you when you disregard what I say. You are very welcome to voice your opinions, but you have to listen to me. Do you understand?!”

Lanri nodded fiercely. She didn’t dare actually say anything; She would only make a fool of herself. She blinked, and was mortified when she felt tears running along her face.

Seeker’s face softened. The determined, stern expression disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by something far closer to her usual playful, patient compassion. Lanri hesitated for a moment, then threw herself at the Heartwarden, and wrapped her arms around her.

“I’m sorry!” Lanri promised, as Seeker ran a hand along her bare back. “I won’t do it again, I swear!”

“I know,” cooed Seeker, as all of the pent up stress of the last week overflowed, and she broke out into sobs. “I know you won’t, dear.”

“I’m sorry!” Lanri repeated, as she buried her face in Seeker’s neck. She felt so safe around Seeker, and it had made her take her safety for granted, and she felt like such a fucking idiot. Seeker knew better. Seeker always knew better. She really was safe with her, but she had to, absolutely had to do what she said. “I’m so, so sorry,” she pleaded.

“I know you are, dear,” Seeker assured her. “And that’s plenty. I know you won’t do it again.” Seeker pulled Lanri off of her, and wiped some locks of tear-matted hair out of her eyes. She gently smiled at her. “It’s okay. You learned from it. I’m proud of you.”

And suddenly that other feeling made itself known. Awe. The same awe she’d felt when she’d seen Seeker for the first time. She was in awe of Seeker; She was in awe of her compassion, and her might, and her authority. On instinct, she reached to the back of her head, where the brooch was still firmly in place.

“I love you, Seeker,” Lanri blurted out.

“I know,” Seeker told her.

“N–no, you don’t. It’s not Ishara, it’s not magic, it’s–”

“I know,” Seeker repeated, reassuringly. “I can sense your thoughts, remember? I understand your feelings exactly. I make you feel safe, and understood, and that’s why you love me.”

Lanri nodded. “I will never disobey you again.” She considered that normally, promises made when emotions are running high aren’t very reliable, but it felt so true. How could she? Seeker was orders of magnitude greater than her. It would be lunacy to do anything other than what she told her.

She gave Seeker a questioning look. I know made her feel understood, but it wasn’t the same as the reciprocation she wanted above all else at the moment. There was an unpleasant silence, and Seeker was implacable. As it dragged on, it began to hurt, and she was just opening her mouth to ask the question out loud when Seeker whispered “I love you, too…”

That last word trailed on longer than it should, Lanri thought. She watched curiously as Seeker slowly turned to look away from her, towards the room’s sole door. “What should I–”

“Cover yourself up,” Seeker ordered, and pointed at the bizarrely large pajamas that still lay where Lanri had left them. She obeyed, scampering off the bed to pick them up, and threw them on. She pulled the pants’ drawstring as tight as it would go, and, as Seeker began to stalk towards the door, decided on folding the shirt closed like a robe, as brevity seemed more important than modesty.

Lanri held her breath as she watched Seeker approach the door. She moved her right hand to the bangle on her left arm. She grabbed hold of part of it, and pulled on it. She could hear metal scrape against metal, and watched with interest as Seeker drew a rose golden short sword from a sheath that simply did not exist.

“What’s–”

“Quiet,” whispered Seeker. Lanri shut her mouth.

What’s going on?

Seeker gave her an approving smile, and put the back of her left hand to her forehead. She extended two fingers, and curved them forward slightly. Lanri considered it for a moment, and then she got it.

Horns. Gorance?

Seeker winked at her, and nodded. She examined the door for a while, then raised her sword at chest height, and rammed it through the door. Lanri gasped. Had Seeker just… killed him? For snooping? Did that mean they could go home, now? Seeker skeptically examined the hilt of her sword, the only part still visible.

Suddenly, Seeker turned, and looked at her with wide eyes. Worried eyes. She raised her open hand at Lanri, shouted “Venez,, closed the hand into a fist, and pulled towards herself!

And she really pulled. Lanri felt the magic of it, sure, but it was barely noticeable compared to an invisible hand grabbing her by the shirt, and yanking her down and towards her. She stumbled towards Seeker, as she felt and heard the world behind her warp.

She landed on her knees, a meter or so in front of Seeker. She suspected that under any other circumstances, this would paint a smile on the Heartwarden’s face. Right now, she wasn’t even looking at her. She was glaring daggers at whatever had emerged behind her.

“I do not subscribe to your notion of superiority,” Lanri heard in a perfect imitation of Seeker’s voice. She could only tell it was an imitation at all because it came from where the warp had happened, and the fact that Seeker’s mouth was a thin, tense, line as she heard it.

“That lasted what? A day?” Came Gorance’s voice, from the same place behind her. She swallowed, and worked up the courage to turn to look at him. He was wearing a white cotton suit, and a hat that had little holes cut out for his horns. “Now I come in here to see your little mortal pet on her knees, with eyes red from crying. It seems someone remembers the natural order of things, after all.”

“You forced my hand,” Seeker spat. “Leaving poisoned food out for her after she’d been starving, promising all manner of horror if we don’t comply; of course I did!”

Lanri wanted to ask questions. She really, really did. They’d alluded to similar things in the carriage, but she’d been so foggy from hunger…

Gorance rolled his back and neck, and Lanri could hear a dozen joints crackle and pop. “Wouldn’t it be easier just to thank me, Seeker?” Gorance asked. “A few well timed obstacles and dangers, and now your little mortal is ex–act–ly where she should be.” he shifted his voice to a somewhat more malicious timbre. “On her knees.”

Seeker scoffed, and Lanri returned her gaze to her. She remembered she literally was on her knees, and decided to rectify that. She unsteadily stood up, and shuffled to behind Seeker.

“Well, I suppose that was to be expected. They do love their little defiances,” Gorance said. He took a few, languid steps closer, and his tail swayed at twice the cadence of his stride. “Speaking of defiance, Seeker,” he pointed past Seeker, to the sword hilt next to Lanri’s head. “That’s a violation of our terms.”

“I had cause to believe it was someone else,” Seeker lied. She knew she was lying. Seeker had made it clear it was Gorance on the other side. “I haven’t seen you use a door once in the last week; Why would you start now?” Lanri was impressed by how brazenly Seeker was lying, even as a faint curiosity arose in her about how much time Seeker had spent with Gorance during her… sedation.

“If it weren’t for your little pet screaming her thoughts across the Unminded Lands, I might actually believe you,” Gorance said. He twirled around, and paced back to the other side of the room. “I would, and should punish you,” he began, “but I don’t have time. The guests are due to arrive soon, and I suspect some of them would pay less if your Lanri were covered in burns.”

Lanri swallowed.

“But, know this. If you misbehave again, I will simply opt to delay the show for as long as it takes for her to recover.” He nodded at the door, and added, “Her clothes are in the corridor on the other side, though some of them might have a hole in them now.”

He grinned at them, and with another warp, he was gone again.

“Cocky bastard…” Mumbled Seeker, as she turned around, and looked Lanri over. “Did the spell hurt?” She asked.

“What? The… venez thing?” Asked Lanri. “Of course not!” She blustered. It had stung a little when landing, but it obviously wasn’t an actual injury. “I’m sorry I gave your fib away,” she added.

“Oh, don’t mind that,” Seeker assured her, as she pulled her sword from the door, and returned it to its nowhere sheath in her gauntlet. She cautiously put a hand on the door’s latch, and pushed it open a crack. Between Seeker, and the door, she could just barely make out one of her boots, on the floor outside. The Heartwarden opened the door a bit further, and gathered the clothes up in a bundle, before closing the door again.

She strode across their room, to the messy, unmade bed, and dumped them on it. Lanri cocked her head at the laundry.

They look different.

“That would be because they’re clean, dear,” Seeker chided.

“I don’t think so,” Lanri mused, as she picked up one of her boots. It had been shined, sure, but more notably, it had a new sole, and a fuzzy lining that hadn’t been there before. She dropped the boot, and picked up her holster. It had been rebuilt from scratch! The old, tarnished buckle had been replaced by a shiny, silver one, and the holes now had grommets reinforcing them, made of the same, shiny metal. Her jacket had been mended with gold thread, and her trousers had been dyed a deeper black. “What the hell is this?” Lanri asked, bewildered.

“A bribe?” Seeker offered. “A way to try to persuade you to behave for the day?”

“I am not that problematic,” Lanri protested, as she took off the pajamas she’d only just donned, and replaced them with her own clothes.

________________

“They fit better, too,” whined Lanri as she followed Seeker down the villa’s many corridors.

“Is that somehow supposed to be a bad thing?” Asked Seeker.

“It’s the principle of the thing!” complained Lanri. “These are nice, expensive repairs. If that… Sheep had offered to do this, I would have told her to shove her and her master’s gifts.”

“If it were purely the principle of the thing at play here, I’d agree, dear,” Seeker said. “But remember that we’re several weeks’ travel from civilization, and staying on their good side is the safest way to get you back there.” She stopped, and leaned back, cocking her head at Lanri. “Besides. They look better on you, now. They suit your figure.”

“Why, thank you,” said Lanri, briefly striking a pose for effect before the pair resumed their wandering. It was odd, Lanri thought. They were definitely wandering at random, yet the villa seemed designed to funnel people into the center of the building.

And funneled there, they were. The corridor opened up into a lavish atrium dining hall that must take up at least half of the building. Two stories tall, the space had a stained glass roof, and a mezzanine wrapping around most of the rectangular room in a massive U shape. In the U’s opening, there was a stage. It was lined with vibrant red curtains, and a small circle of runes was just barely visible in the middle.

“I don’t much like the look of that,” Seeker grumbled. The space was clearly in the middle of preparations for an event, because Sheep was darting up and down the many tables, pulling taut tablecloths, and distributing silverware from a cart that seemed to follow her on its own.

“Oh!” She said, upon seeing Seeker and Lanri. She put her supplies down on the cart, and approached them with a smile on her face. “I see you got your clothes.”

“I did,” Lanri said, looking down at the outfit. “They’re hardly recognizable.”

“I hope you like them,” Sheep said, as she gave Lanri an appreciative, if cursory examination. “It was quite a bit of work.”

“You did this?” Lanri asked. She hadn’t exactly pegged Sheep as the type to master both tailoring and cobbling. Sheep struck her as more of the butler-y chief-of-staff type, if anything. But, now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen anyone except Sheep and Gorance here.

“I did!” Sheep happily said.

“Alone? When?” She asked. She tried to picture herself doing all of this to her equipment, and figured it would take her two days of work to manage it. And she wouldn’t have been nearly so good at it.

“While you were asleep.”

“You didn’t sleep?” Lanri asked. The beastkin looked well rested, if anything. Hardly the picture of an overworked servant.

“Oh, no!” Sheep began, and gave Lanri a dismissive wave. “Master Gorance decides when I do or don’t sleep.”

Sounds familiar.

Seeker squinted at her, suspiciously, and returned her focus to Sheep. “Your master keeps you awake?” She asked, joining the conversation.

“He does when it’s necessary, Lady Seeker,” Sheep said as she resumed setting the tables. “I spent the night cooking, and I thought I would use the downtime on something more creatively rewarding.” she turned, and looked at Lanri. “I’m particularly proud of the reinforcements to your holster.”

“The fur in my boots is nice, too,” Lanri reluctantly said.

“So, your master didn’t order you to alter her clothes?” Seeker asked.

“No, Lady Seeker,” Sheep said.

“Interesting. In any case, we are most grateful,” Seeker happily offered. “You did some fine work; You’re very talented.” Lanri supposed she agreed with that. Looking down at herself, her remade clothes were night and day compared to how they were before. They reminded her of how much effort she used to put into her appearance when going out on dates with–

Seeker put a hand on her shoulder, snapping her back to reality. “What is it?” Lanri asked. Seeker nodded towards Sheep. “I’m sorry, did you say something?”

“I asked if you wanted some breakfast,” Sheep repeated.

“Yes, please,” Lanri said. The handful of croissants she’d stolen for their room hadn’t quite filled her up.

Sheep smiled, and nodded. She pointed at one of the unset tables, and said “I’ll bring it to you in a moment.”

“Thank you,” Seeker said, as she guided Lanri to the empty table, and the pair sat down. “What had you so distracted?” She asked.

Lanri looked down at her outfit. “These clothes. They’re nicer than I’m used to,” she said. She pulled the holster off her hips, and looked at it more closely. The leather looked younger, and the silver was as shiny as a ring.

“I know that much,” Seeker said, softly. “But that’s not where your thoughts were going, was it?”

“No,” Lanri admitted. “Not really.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Lanri scoffed at the idea. She tried to picture telling her new… whatever Seeker was to her at this point about her husband. The image seemed silly.

“I don’t think you want to hear about it,” she eventually offered.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Seeker asked. “Ishara teaches us that all romance is important and worth savoring.” She put a hand on Lanri’s face, and brushed a lock of hair away, tucking it behind her ear. “And on top of that, you personally are important to me. That includes your past.”

Lanri sighed. “The clothes… remind me of being with him, yeah,” she admitted. She pictured herself in the streets of Astoria, clinging to his arm as they navigated the markets and bazaars on their way to a restaurant or play. “He was a nobleman, you see. His father is the baron of a city called Cerene, and he was a successful alchemist in his own right. So… he bought me nice things.”

“Like these clothes,” Seeker said.

“Yeah,” Lanri agreed, now imagining the two of them in a tailor’s store close to the royal palace, arguing about how much the tailor had claimed the fabric cost him. “I think he actually did buy me this jacket, once upon a time. But after he died, I stopped putting in effort. I still wore those nice clothes, sure. But I didn’t wash them as often, or keep ahead of mending them. I wasn’t going to bother when the only people who ever saw me were my students. What I had wore down, and became less nice over time. It’s… confronting to see how much of a difference that actually made.”

“I understand,” Seeker offered, gently stroking her arm.

“The only thing I actually take care of is the wand,” Lanri wistfully continued. “And now the brooch, I suppose.”

“They are worthy priorities,” Seeker easily told her. “I already explained that Ishara considers gifts from lovers important, did I not?”

That drew Lanri back to just before they fell into Gorance’s trap, to the first time they’d talked about her wand. “You did,” she said.

“Well, this thing certainly qualifies, wouldn’t you say?” Seeker asked, as she tapped the metal that kept Lanri’s hair in check. “It was made for you, with great care.”

“But we’d only spoken a dozen words to each other. We hadn’t–” Seeker put a finger on her lips, silencing her.

“I had a hunch, my dear,” she said. Lanri smiled at her. “And I won’t deny wishful thinking played into it. I spend quite a lot of time carrying you between places when I have you asleep, you know.”

Lanri giggled. She pictured Seeker carrying her around like some enchanted princess, protecting her from ancient evils, and weighing whether she could get away with sneaking a kiss whenever things were calm. “So, you did want to,” she said.

“Of course I did,” Seeker easily replied, and quirked her eyebrows in that delightful way that made her swoon. “I told you I was flattered the first time. I was tempted, t–”

A crash. From what Lanri assumed to be the direction of the kitchen, the unmistakable sound of a plate shattering into a thousand little pieces, and a heartfelt “Shala, torture me!” In what had to be Sheep’s voice.

“That’s… a creative curse,” Seeker huffed, before reluctantly adding, “should we go help her?”

________________

Hours passed. Seeker patiently sat with Lanri as she had her breakfast, and the pair now roamed the grounds around the villa, taking in the rather depressing sights of a lakeside vineyard in winter. Everything was muddy, and brown, and cold, and the neat rows of stubby trunks looked more than a little like a graveyard. Directly behind the villa, a small deck extended to the waterline, like a pier for a boat that goes nowhere.

“Are you sure we couldn’t just run?” Lanri asked, quietly, as the two settled down onto a cold bench overlooking the estate.

“No,” Seeker reluctantly said, “I don’t think we can. Not safely, at any rate.” She pointed at her cheek. Despite the cut being long gone, it still reminded Lanri of the image of Seeker bleeding, telling her getting home would be dangerous. And that was before Gorance had made himself known. “I think just playing along for now is the safest option, my dear.”

Whoever buys us won’t be any more willing to let us go.

Seeker looked at her. “No, they won’t. But they’ll be easier to overpower than Gorance.”

“But what if they aren’t?!” Lanri demanded. She imagined Gorance selling the pair of them to another, more powerful demon. Spending the rest of her life as a pawn to keep Seeker in line.

“They will be,” Seeker assured her. Lanri wanted to protest further. She wasn’t put at ease by this. Seeker was just gambling that Gorance wouldn’t attract something even worse to pawn them off on. “Have you already forgotten this morning?” Seeker asked.

“What?” Lanri asked, bewildered. She wasn’t disobeying, she knew. She was discussing what to do next, offering a dissenting opinion at worst, certainly not dis–

“Not that!” Seeker said. “I know you’ll do what I say. I mean what happened right after. With the door.” Lanri nodded. She remembered it vividly, watching Seeker drive her sword through solid wood like it was a skewer through cake.

“Yes,” she added a moment later.

“I don’t think you quite understand what happened there, dear,” Seeker continued. “I tried to kill him, and it didn’t work. I knew where he was, and I attacked, and suddenly he manifested exactly where you were standing. If I hadn’t been paying attention to you as well…” She trailed off, letting Lanri put the pieces together.

“I’d be…” She didn’t have words for it, she realized as she trailed off as well. She pictured a person mangled by a broken waygate, stretched, and smeared across a surface that doesn’t exist.

Seeker quirked an eyebrow, and nodded. “That’s a remarkably accurate guess,” she mused. “And he can do that at any time, with only as long as he needs to whisper the spell as notice. If I split my attention too much, say, to summon one of those waygates, or to move us to a different plane, or to even just fight him head on? I might not notice when he does it.” she paused, and gently took Lanri by the chin, tilting her face up to meet her gaze. “And I don’t want to risk that.”

“So we just sit here and let him sell us?”

“We appease him,” Seeker firmly said. “We play along with his stupid little auction, and then, when he loses interest, I will deal with whoever had the hubris to make themselves complicit.”

Lanri swallowed. She pictured Seeker in her armor, sword in hand, vanquishing her enemies. It wasn’t an unappealing image. “Like you dealt with Mick and Tallah?”

“Unlikely,” Seeker said, coolly. “They were harmless compared to the kind of being that accepts an invitation like the one Gorance is extending. I will show quarter where possible, but I will not risk your safety to capture someone for a Lawbringer’s judgment.”

Lanri nodded. “Fair enough,” she said, as she looked to the west, where the Valtans were presumably lurking just beyond the horizon. She expected Gorance’s guests would all come from that direction, sooner than later.