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I rushed to speak, sharpening my tone before my husband grew stubborn.
“Your Highness! If this concerns my people on the expedition, then please don’t get hung up on a minor issue!”
That expedition included the Hero’s Party, people personally important to me, but more importantly, it included a large number of ordinary mortal soldiers of my duchy. Just like the sailor woman was saying, we couldn’t waste time on trivia like how who knew what.
He pressed his lips together and turned his gaze to me. “Minor issue?”
It looked like he was surprised I had been that assertive. But I think I grew a lot tougher in the Royal Knights than the twelve-year-old girl he remembered. Maybe in the last three months, he hadn’t had enough contact with me to learn that.
Softening my voice, I noted, “You need to consider your priorities, after all, Your Highness. Worrying about how the captain knows about it can wait. First we need to know why she claims we’re running out of time. This is no time for you to be distracted.”
He frowned, cleared his voice and nodded, turning back to her. “And your reason for that is?”
“You already know how dangerous the opponent is, Yer Highness,” the sailor woman stated. “An’ they’ll be meetin’ him real soon.”
I have to admit, I was distracted as well. To begin with, blood hunger was already gnawing away at my mind. Not to the point I couldn’t control it, but it was making its presence strongly known.
But more relevant to our conversation, Captain Sirth herself was making me anxious. Everything about her words unsettled me. I tried to repeat my words to my husband in my mind, stressing them to myself.
But I couldn’t help it. Not only did this woman know about our top secret operation, and apparently its timetable, she said her information came from ‘goddesses and the like’, a claim any rational person would hesitate to make. Did she already know I had a person in my life who also claimed this, and that I believed her? Thus, I would be more likely to accept that she was another such?
Yet the biggest concern was a moment ago, when she slipped and called my mother ‘Mother’. Was she yet another unknown sister? Yet looking at her with [Fairy Sight] I could tell she was no fairy. Well, neither am I, but I could say she was even less so.
Something about her, though… my mind was now insisting that she was somebody I knew very well. Someone even closer to me than a sister.
Unaware of my racing thoughts, my husband pressed his questions. “We have sent a powerful force, and powerful allies. Are you saying they aren’t enough?”
“I’m sayin’ ‘xactly that, Yer Highness,” she nodded. “With Deharè dead, your kingdom’s only asset powerful enough t’ ensure their lives is…”
For some reason she cut off with a frown. Then, apparently making up her mind, she sighed and admitted, “Is Her Highness, before she lost her memories. An’ even then, only if she was armed with Durandal and backed up by that entire force you sent out.”
My first urge was to laugh at that preposterous claim, but nothing more than a momentary sound like a cough came out before I had already caught it. Too many people had already told me of all the amazing deeds I had pulled off during the time I now could not remember. No matter how nonsensical it seemed to me, no matter how much I couldn’t understand how I had done it, I somehow must have indeed become incredibly powerful.
My husband practically growled at her. “Even if Ti had all her memories, in her condition…”
“I know that!” Sirth snapped. “If she even tried, we’d prob’ly kidnap her and lock her up somewhere! Not a chance we’re lettin’ her go out there!”
I put my hand over my lower abdomen, acutely aware that they were thinking of my babies. They were there, for sure. If I concentrated, I could feel them with [Fairy Sense].
“That was very close to a kidnapping threat against the royalty of this country, Captain,” Benedetta observed, her voice dire.
“It’s the opposite,” Sirth replied, a dark glint in her eye. “It’s a promise t’keep her safe. You’ve got my solemn oath on that.”
I should have been upset they would speak about me like that, right in front of me, but I shuddered a little instead. The reason wasn’t the conversation though.
Why am I in blood hunger again, so soon?
What was going on with me? I had last fed only yesterday afternoon!
Sirth moved onward. “That’s why it’s up to us, instead. Since Her Highness can’t protect them, we have to do it in her stead.”
Benedetta replied, “By ‘us’, you mean the various entities like you, the mystery beings that keep inviting themselves in?”
“Aye, I guess that’s how you would think of us,” she nodded.
My lady-in-waiting raised an eyebrow, then stated, “I would like to bring in a person currently waiting outside to report to My Lady. After the events of yesterday, I need to reassure myself, and perhaps His Royal Highness, that we can trust you, and she is the person to ask.”
“Miss Mireia’s goddess already vouched for me, right?”
Benedetta frowned. “She has, but…”
Visibly growing uncomfortable, she turned to my husband. “Although I had Lady Tiana’s assurances before she lost her memory about Miss Mireia and her connection to the gods, I have a very long acquaintance with this other person. I have reason to trust her knowledge when it comes to matters of gods and Heaven. At this point, I very much want her confirmation.”
The mystery witness turned out to be…
“Miss Lawin?” I asked, confused.
Why would my Advisor for Political Affairs have such a highly-regarded expertise on gods and Heaven?
Miss Lawin smiled and dipped in a well-manicured commoner’s curtsey. “My Lady, Your Royal Highness.”
Benedetta pursed her lips, and then explained to me, “You would also know Miss Lawin from your religious studies, My Lady. Her original name is Gyges.”
One blink. Two blinks. Tilt my head.
“Gyges as in the ancient goddess from the Hekatoncheires?” I asked, still uncertain.
Lawin bowed again. “Indeed, My Lady. I am one and the same.”
What, she was claiming she was the real one?
The objections piled up in my head, but the one that I ended up saying was, “You don’t seem to have anything like the right number of heads or hands.”
She gave me an eye-twinkling smile. “Our mythical description is a misunderstanding. If a goddess split herself into fifty bodies, she would have fifty heads, right? And a hundred hands. Hence our name. Spreading ourselves across so many bodies is the only way we can come down to the mortal world. Immortals can normally not live down here.”
This was not even remotely what they taught me in Temple School. The Hekatoncheires are a category known as the ‘grotesque’ or ‘fantastic’ gods who only show up in the Time of Legends. Like Medusa, Hydra or Cyclops. Also, Lamia, who has an entire race of monsters named after her. The priestess teaching those stories had actually suggested they might be nothing more than ancient superstitions.
And yet, something nibbled at my memory. Some place or time where I had heard Lawin’s claim about the real form of the Hekatoncheires before. And I remembered someone calling herself an ‘Immortal’ and dodging the term ‘Goddess’.
I looked over at my husband, who heaved a sigh. He nodded while answering my unspoken question. “Mireia says she’s for real. So is Kottos, who is also working here in Pendor. And apparently you met Briareos in Relador.”
Benedetta declared, “I can assure you, she is the real thing. I’ve known her for many centuries, after all. She can disguise herself as mortal to most fairies and Elementals, but my [Mana Sight] is not going to be fooled. Her aura is clearly that of a higher being.”
Lawin, or rather, Gyges, smiled again and prompted, “You brought me in for a purpose, right? Otherwise, shall I deliver my briefing?”
So they were totally going to say nothing about why an ancient goddess would be working as my Political Aide, weren’t they?
My lady-in-waiting replied, “The purpose was to vouch for the captain, here. She claims to speak with Heaven’s authority, and you’re the only goddess from whom I can seek a confirmation.”
Gyges raised an eyebrow, her eyes looking from Sirth to me and back. Then her eyes widened.
Sirth grew agitated and spoke before the Hekatoncheir could. “Don’t tell her who I am!”
The woman tipped her head. “I know she has lost her memories, but… how is it possible that she has, and you have not?”
“I’d love to tell you, but I’m avoidin’ [Spiritual Voice], Senior,” Sirth grumbled. “The princess is in bad shape, and me usin’ more power will make it worse. Can you get the details from Rhea?”
The woman looked perplexed, then her face went blank. “Ah. No, she just explained it to me.”
She gazed at me with a meditative stare, then added, “I see. This is tricky.”
As this exchange proceeded, I had just sat there being very bewildered. Their conversation told me little and begged several important questions.
Gyges ruminated for several more seconds, then stated, “Your Royal Highness, Your Highness, Your Ladyship, first let me assure you that Rhea confirms this woman is indeed here to protect our princess, and that she indeed is not lying to you about having contact with the Immortal Realm. Rhea also states that her priestess has been reliably relaying her words. And…”
She frowned, pooched her lips out, then stated, “It seems I shouldn’t say anything more.”
“Why not?” I demanded, getting frustrated with this. My physical state was adding to my agitation.
Sirth answered for her. “Yer Highness, for a very important reason, we don’t want you to hear certain things. The reason you ain’t dead right now is that you lost your memories instead. We need you to agree to some things that will allow us to protect you, without tellin’ you why, ’cause you might start rememberin’ stuff.”
I mulled that over. I prompted, “Because if I do…”
“It could kill you,” she stated frankly.
My husband blew out a heavy blast of air, then stated, “That’s preposterous!”
Gyges gently differed, “It’s not, and it’s a very real threat to her, Your Highness.”
“And exactly what do I need to agree to?” I wondered.
Sirth answered, “Right now, yer havin’ to feed way too much, aincha?”
“You know about that too?” I cried.
She sighed. “Yesterday, y’fed on a couple hired girls, right? You took as much as you safely could from two girls, and yet yer already hungerin’ again. It’s gettin’ bad for you, ain’t it? We worked you way too hard, yesterday.”
I shuddered again, and this time I wasn’t able to hide it. I wrapped my arms around myself and set my jaw.
“Just as I thought,” she said with a nod. “Our presence is harder on you than we expected. That’s our fault, Yer Highness. I guess we should apologize for it.”
“Your presence is… related to me having to feed? How?”
She pooched her lips out in thought, then stated, much more gently than she would normally speak, “Yer kinda like our priestess. Just like how Rhea works through Mireia, we have you. Yer body is our gateway to this world. Before you lost your memories, it was no trouble for you. We didn’t realize, with you now lackin’ the skill to manage your spiritual powers, just what kinda strain it would put on you.”
Tightening the hug I was giving myself, I asked, “Can you please stop, then?”
“We can’t. Without you to protect the people going to Oto, we have to step in.”
“Look here!” I objected. “This is my body, not yours!”
“We got a solution, Yer Highness,” she assured me. “I was coachin’ you in magic to get your spiritual powers to awaken just enough to do it. But I’m startin’ to think we can’t wait that long.”
Growing angry, I was ready to argue. Then a pair of arms hugged me from behind.
I recognized Mireia, whom I had told the maids to let sleep. I was so agitated I did not even sense her approach, or even come out of the bedroom. Or had her goddess helped her sneak up on me?
“Be at peace, My Lady,” she whispered into my ear.
Again, I had that weird certainty that it was her goddess speaking, not Mireia, and then I realized I could feel the difference in my [Fairy Sense]. It was a shift in her aura, or maybe the presence of another aura mixed with hers.
Tears started leaking as I protested, “But I can’t keep this up! I need to feed again, so soon! If this woman is causing it…”
“Bring Fan Li here,” Rhea ordered. “We can’t leave her like this any longer.”
“Can’t you just make them stop?!” I cried, squeezing my eyes shut and grabbing her arms.
“If I do, it could take centuries before they can connect up with you again, Your Highness,” the goddess said. “It was a miracle that they connected once. If the connection is broken, it cannot be restored until you grow spiritually enough on your own to reconnect it, yourself. But you need their help right now, not centuries later.”
“Fan Li replies that I would be a better choice,” stated a new voice. A very familiar voice.
I looked up and stared in shock at a different person standing in Sirth’s place. She possessed a disturbingly familiar face.
My apparent twin gave a shrug and a slightly wry smile, and added, “So, I’m here.”
