Chapter 25
Vallis’s sending interrupted Rys’s otherwise pleasant afternoon. He grunted and immediately replied to her sending with one of his own.
“I swear to my creator below, Rys, if you’re managing your kingdom with your dick inside me, I’m not fucking you for a month,” Fara snapped, glaring up at him from where she was pressed into the bed.
“Vallis is in trouble,” he said.
Fara froze. The two of them were in the exact situation Fara had described, with Rys on top of her on the bed.
Without any hesitancy, Fara pulled herself backward. Rys popped out of her, but he was already focused on his next move.
Rising, he grabbed his clothes and began to dress. Ideally, he’d put on his armor, but that might take too much time. Vallis hadn’t told him how soon she needed his help, and he hadn’t asked.
“Do you know where she is?” Fara asked, as she tightened up the sash that held her clothes together.
“She’s with Terry and Margrim. I can still feel their presence through the summoning link and can find them easily.” Rys reached out to the two infernals as he spoke and confirmed their location.
“And?”
“Roughly ten miles east of Port Mayfield, along the highway between Anceston and the port,” he said.
Fara stared at him. “You sure you don’t need a map to check that?”
“I’ve been doing this for centuries, Fara. When you can teleport, you need to have strong visualization abilities when it comes to comparing magical presences and maps,” he explained. “Understanding Harrium’s curvature helps, too, although most teleportation spells handle that and annoying concepts such as momentum and relative velocity.”
“Huh. Never thought of that.” She tilted her head. “I wonder if I’ll need help or if it’s intrinsic, given I can teleport once I get my sixth tail. Some foxes can even do it with five.”
“Probably intrinsic,” he replied, still distracted.
There was another infernal close to the convoy. A succubus.
Rys fired off a sending to Mina, asking about the succubus stationed in the Anceston duchy.
Surprisingly, she responded with mindspeak. He felt Leth’s mind acting as relay, suggesting that she was currently meeting with the Haunt.
“I’m busy, Rys,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
“Vallis asked for help. Your succubus is near her convoy.” He frowned. “If I need to deal with a rebellious succubus, that’s easy enough.”
Mina cursed over the line, and he felt Leth’s amusement filter through the link.
“I wanted to deal with this before you noticed,” she said, embarrassment laced throughout her tone. “A Malus League cell has launched a major ambush. I knew they were up to something, because—”
“Explain later. Is your succubus helping or not?” Rys interrupted.
No response for a moment.
“She is. There are a lot of mages there,” Mina said. Nervousness now. “Um…”
“Worry about what you can do, Mina. I’ll teleport over and protect Vallis. Once she’s safe and the attack dealt with, we can debrief,” he said.
Then he severed the link, although he felt Mina’s misery as he did so.
“That’s not a good look,” Fara noted. She wrapped her arm around his. “Are we going now?”
“No, I’m going.” He looked at her. “I might need to teleport more than once. You still can’t deal with the sickness it causes you.”
She winced and looked away. “I know you’re right, but it still hurts when you’re that blunt, Rys.”
“Being right is what’s important now,” he said.
The two of them left his bedroom after he grabbed his axe, and they swiftly moved to the front of the castle. Rys needed to protect his soul using the castle’s power before he tried teleporting, or he might not make it to Vallis at all.
“Mina is… in the sub-levels with Leth,” he said. “You might want to talk to her. This League ambush slipped through her net, and she might need some moral support before we debrief. Like it or not, this is her first major mistake, and it’s a painful one.”
“Would it be a major mistake if it wasn’t painful?” Fara noted, but her tails lowered as she walked. “Were you that blunt with her just then?”
“Yes. I want people who are capable and loyal, but I can’t babysit them when they fuck up,” he said. “Hopefully, this is just a learning lesson.”
“What if it was outside of her control?” Fara countered.
He gave her a look. “She’s a spymaster, Fara. Her job is to maintain control, or to let me know if she doesn’t have it, so that Grigor and I know to step in. When subterfuge fails, that’s when we plant axes in the backs of our enemies instead.”
Fara sighed. “Fair. I definitely got slapped and yelled at for my share of mistakes as an enforcer.”
The two of them rapidly prepared Rys’s protection. Once he had confirmed it worked, he cast his teleportation ritual.
“I’ll be back with Vallis,” he said, before a flash of red light consumed him.
A craggy shore came into view and he knew that he’d overshot. Since regaining a lot of his power by breaking the power conduit, his magical power had increased drastically. He needed to practice using his teleportation spell again to calibrate it.
His next cast brought him close enough, he decided.
Margrim and Terry were nearby, along with the other infernals in the escort. Rys’s concern was that they had separated at some point.
His infernals could take of themselves, or be resummoned later in the worst case. He had already lost a demon and an Ashen, but both were merely banished. They’d be back in the palace within a few weeks.
Rys realized that if the infernals had split up, then he couldn’t use them to track Vallis. It was time to rely on a more traditional navigation spell.
He knew Vallis’s magical signature and used that to power his next spell. If he had contracted her or had some hair or blood, then he could find her more reliably, but this would work well enough.
If Vallis had wards to stop him from tracking her, it would be different. But she didn’t.
Rys wondered if that had been part of the reason this ambush had worked so well. While the carriages were warded against magical tracking, Vallis had no such protections. Any time she stepped too far from her carriages, she’d be easy to detect. The same applied if she ever cast a spell.
Wasting time thinking about how this happened was pointless. Rys finished his spell.
A glowing red needle appeared above his hand. It pointed him in the general direction that Vallis was.
Rys took off through the forest. Running like this made him feel young. Ordinarily, he would leap through the air like Grigor, but his spell was inaccurate enough that he didn’t want to overshoot Vallis.
Soon, he heard the clatter and screams of nearby battle. Smoke choked the air in the distance, and Rys felt Margrim and his succubus in the vicinity.
Vallis was closer to Rys than Margrim, however. Terry must have run with her, as Rys sensed him nearby. His magical essence was weak, but strong enough to remain on Harrium.
Rys kept moving. Within a few seconds, he found Vallis. She was sprawled on the leaf-covered ground. Her ankle was twisted, and likely broken.
Five corpses were strewn across the ground in front of her. Some looked like they had been blown apart.
More importantly, a mystic fox stood over Vallis. Four white tails fanned out behind her, and she wore simple clothes common to the region. She held a pair of bloody short swords in her hands.
Rys instinctively summoned hellfire. Two pyres of it appeared in his hands, but he paused before attacking.
The white tails meant this fox was from the Garrote Clan. She might not be an enemy. Her ears twitched the moment he cast his hellfire, and she spun to face him.
Her face and features were almost identical to Mina’s. Although she needed to pad her chest out significantly if she wanted to trick anybody for more than a split second.
“Rys!” Vallis called out when she saw him.
The fox’s eyes widened when she heard his name. She locked onto the flames in his hands and his posture.
Her tails hit the ground so fast that they kicked up a wind, blowing leaves into Vallis’s face. The fox waved her swords around in a panic.
“Don’t kill me!” she shouted, pupils shrinking to dots. “I helped!”
Rys considered her for a moment as something occurred to him.
“You’re Mina’s sister, aren’t you? Sarae?” he asked.
She blinked and lowered her weapons, although her ears and tails remained flatter than he had ever seen Fara’s.
“Um, yes. She’s told you about me?” Sarae asked.
“A little. Fara also mentioned you,” he said.
Despite his misgivings, Rys let the hellfire dissipate. Sarae sighed in relief. Her arms slackened.
“Fara, too,” she muttered, then raised her voice. “I’m Sarae, yes. I only just returned to the archipelago from Pharos.” She licked her lips and looked him up and down with a faint smile. “And you are?”
“Talarys. Everyone calls me Rys,” he said, approaching them.
Sarae froze, although her eyes tracked him as he walked forward.
He towered over her, as she was as short as Mina. Stepping past her, he picked Vallis up and held her in his arms.
“Ah,” Vallis gasped, but didn’t fight back as he lifted her.
“Fara or the Lilim can heal your ankle when you return,” he said. “For now, we’ll need to collect your escort and finish this.”
As he walked away, Sarae yelped and chased after.
“Wait, you’re not going to say anything?” she asked.
He gave her a look. “Thank you for dealing with the attackers, assuming that you did.”
She pouted and fell silent, although he felt her gaze on him the entire way. Where Mina and Fara usually restrained themselves, Sarae felt no compunction about openly staring at his ass.
A figure strode out of the trees shortly.
“Boss,” Terry said from where he limped toward them. “You made it.”
Rys grunted. While he suspected that he would have arrived in time to save Vallis anyway, he couldn’t exactly take the credit. Not that Sarae or Vallis said anything.
Although Sarae seemed lost for words as she stared at the demon in front of her. Her head barely reached his waist, and his biceps were the size of her torso.
Eying Terry’s wounds, Rys said, “You’ll need a Lilim to see to your wounds.”
Terry nodded and followed along. Rys used the traces of magic in the air to follow the path the Vallis had taken.
Corpses lay everywhere in the forest, although Rys saw no mages. They must have retreated instead of wasting time and energy fighting, especially after Vallis got away from each group.
Nearby, they found several wounded demons. According to Terry, there should have been two more.
“Banished,” Rys said as they pushed on. “I’ll bring them back in a week or two, once they reform in Hell.”
“You say that so fucking casually,” Sarae muttered.
“Yet you don’t look surprised,” he replied, looking back at her.
The demons turned to stare at the fox, and she gulped.
“You’re King Talarys, right?” she said. “It’s common knowledge that you have infernals. I just haven’t seen them before, outside of books and a practical exam.”
“You have an exam that involves summoning demons in Pharos? Are infernals a common problem there?” he asked.
“No, but how can we detect infernals if we’re not trained to do so? The differences between infernal energies and ordinary sorcery are subtle. If I was ever deployed outside of Pharos, it’s necessary,” she said. “Like right now.”
Rys hummed in response and turned away. The demons ignored her as well, deciding that if their master didn’t care, then they didn’t either.
Closer to the carriages, the forest was choked with smoke and flames. A blazing fire ripped through the trees farther east, using the dead leaves and dried trees as tinder.
Rys found the Kinadain escort here. They had fared both better and worse than the demons.
Better, because their raw numbers allowed them to repel the attacking force. They now focused on quenching the blaze.
Worse, because the dead were truly gone. Almost all the warriors were wounded—a few severely—and several were dead.
Rys frowned at the fire. He doubted it would be much of a threat if it burned itself out, but he didn’t know how long that might take or who might be affected.
The hellfire that caused the fire was long gone, but the embers continued to burn.
“This would be a great time to have a water elemental,” he said aloud. “I’ll need a few minutes to prepare a ritual to put this out.”
“A few minutes?” Sarae asked, incredulous.
“Terry, make sure everyone is clear of the fire. I think Margrim is up the hill, trying to control this,” Rys ordered.
The Ashen had some control over fire, but nowhere near enough to stop something of this size.
“Got it, boss,” Terry grunted out, then trudged up the hill.
Rys placed Vallis on her feet tenderly, and Sarae helped hold her up.
Then he cast his ritual. The key to all magic was controlling magical energy, but the other secret was that all energy was equivalent.
Most spells converted magical energy into either physical matter or some sort of simple energy, such as heat or light. Mystic foxes manipulated kinetic energy with their tails.
There was nothing stopping a mage from doing the reverse, however. Nothing except experience, training, and talent.
The circle that appeared around Rys’s feet was devilishly complex. Probably because it had been designed by an extraordinarily intelligent devil a very long time ago.
Slowly but surely, he filled the circle up with infernal energy, careful not to make any mistakes. This sort of spell could backfire horribly, given what he was doing.
Once ready, Rys mentally drew a line around the area of the fire. He waited another minute for Margrim to tell him over mindspeak that the region was clear.
Then Rys cast the spell.
The flames vanished, turning into wisps of smoke instantly. Like candles that had been snuffed out.
In this case, that was exactly what had happened. Rys had stolen the heat from the entire area. Without any heat energy, the fire burned out, and no longer converted itself into light.
Frost coated the ground and trees now. Mist formed around some of the formerly burning tree branches. If anyone had been standing in the area, they would be collapsing from shock as their body was robbed of all heat.
The trees should live, he thought. But if they didn’t, then nature would eventually replace them. Losing a small part of the forest was better than the entire thing.
Next to Rys, the circle glowed blindingly bright. He felt immense pressure bearing down on him. His blood seemed to boil and every square inch of his skin was being pricked by invisible needles. The energy he had sucked from the fire had been converted to magical energy, and he needed to maintain control over it.
“Holy fucking shit,” Sarae said, jaw dropping. “I’ve seen some impressive elementalism from elder foxes, but putting out an entire forest fire instantly is…”
Then she looked at him and her tails shot bolt upright. The fox grabbed Vallis and leaped away, her inhuman strength carrying her several dozen feet.
“It’s fine,” Rys said with a raised voice. “I’m slowly bleeding off the energy.”
Sarae calmed down, but only slightly. A smart response.
A single mistake made with this much magical energy could create an explosion large enough to take out half the clearing. Dense concentrations of magical energy tended to be unstable, and if released into the material world, they reacted violently.
Right now, all of the heat and light from the forest fire was condensed into this tiny magical circle and being pushed through Rys’s body.
Normally, magical energy turned into prismatic light and a small amount of heat when it left the material plane. But if the energy was orders of magnitude greater in quantity, then that small amount of heat cascaded.
Mages called this process “immolation,” as the resulting heat vaporized everything.
Also, it made for a witty joke about self-immolation, given how often this process killed the mage who caused it. Some mages used it as a weapon, and fire elementals did as well, but it was usually too dangerous.
Rys bled the energy off over the course of ten minutes. A continuous stream of prismatic light rose from his body and the circle. Some of the energy remained in his body, as he converted it into infernal energy.
“I don’t think I’ll sleep for a week,” he said once done, rolling his shoulders.
“That sounds like the perfect length of time for an orgy, master,” a woman cooed. The succubus had shown up, and had been making it clear that what she wanted from Rys was what Fara had been receiving earlier in the day.
Rys ignored her. “Margrim, Terry: there are a few Lilim on the way here. Head to Port Mayfield and meet up with them.”
The infernals nodded, then gathered up the escort and left Rys alone.
He stood in the forest with Vallis and Sarae. Vallis was in his arms again and squirmed while trying to find a comfortable position.
“What about me?” Vallis asked.
“I’m taking you back to the palace,” he said. “And you as well, Sarae.”
The fox nodded, but licked her lips again. “You’re Mina’s new employer, right?”
He raised an eyebrow at her question. “I am. Does that bother you?”
Sarae shook her head and her tails flew back and forth with the motion. “No! It’s just…” Again, she licked her lips. “Can I touch you?”
Vallis sputtered. “What the hell are you asking?”
“You can touch me, yes,” Rys said, amused. Vallis glared at him as he set her down, causing her to lean against him.
Sarae slinked toward him, like a nervous cat that was afraid this was a trick. Once she was within arm’s reach, her hands hovered over his chest.
Then she pressed an open palm against him and sighed. Her tails wagged like a dog’s.
When Rys didn’t protest—and Sarae ignored Vallis—her hands shifted to his arms. She squeezed his arms along their entire length, and especially his biceps.
“Fuck. Are you a statue brought to life?” Sarae asked. “Foxes are all such pretty boys, but you’re like the champions out of myth.”
“Are you done being weird?” Vallis snapped.
“Weird? How can you not want to do this?” Sarae squeezed Rys’s bicep. “His muscles are like steel cord, his face could be the dictionary definition of ‘handsome,’ and his torso is like condensed muscle.”
“I don’t really feel the need to grope him,” Vallis said primly.
“Then you don’t know what you’re missing.” The fox sighed. “I can’t believe Mina gets to be railed by a man like you. Life’s so unfair.”
Vallis gave Rys a look, but said nothing.
“I’m ready to leave when you are,” he said.
A long pause. Sarae nodded, although she looked less enthusiastic than before.
The three of them returned to the palace. Fara was waiting for them out front, along with Mina.
Both foxes stared at Sarae with wide eyes. Fara’s narrowed first.
“I’ll take care of Vallis,” she said. “I can heal her ankle without much trouble.”
Rys handed her over and was left with two sisters who glared at each other.
“So, you have four tails,” Mina said.
“You’re the same, apparently. And you’re fucking the greatest piece of man meat on Harrium,” Sarae responded.
Mina smirked. “Oh, jealous? I figured he’d be your type. You used to whine so much about how none of the foxes had muscles.”
“Fuck you,” Sarae spat. “Why don’t you shut her up, Your Majesty? Wouldn’t you love to have two sisters pressed together while you reshape us with your massive cock?”
Her hands wandered across his stomach, toward his crotch. Mina glared at her sister, but barely reacted to her words. Perhaps she had thought the same thing at some point.
But Rys stepped away from Sarae. “If I’m fucking anyone, it’s after we debrief. We have a few things to talk about, given what nearly happened.”
Sarae pouted, but nodded. “Fiiiine. But remember that I’m up for a very slick threesome. Or a foursome, if Fara’s up for it.”
“Fucking hell, Sarae,” Mina muttered.
“You misunderstand. You’re coming to the debrief, Sarae. Or at least part of it.” Rys stared down at her. “I think you have a few questions to answer for us.”