Chương 36: So It Exists

There was something deeply unsettling about being told I would die one hundred years from now. For a human, a century would have been generous. It was more life than most could reasonably expect, provided they were fortunate, cautious, healthy, and not stupid enough to insult the wrong noble, marry the wrong person, wander into the wrong forest, or gamble at my tables after drinking half a bottle of whiskey. For me, however, one hundred years no longer sounded distant.

That realization bothered me more than I cared to admit. Humans loved telling stories about immortality as though it were some grand tragedy. Plays, novels, and those increasingly popular moving-picture productions all seemed fascinated by the same idea: that endless life eventually became empty, that centuries stretched into a gray road where every pleasure dulled and existence itself turned to ash. Those stories had clearly been written by people with very little imagination.

Or by people who had never met Celeste. With Celeste nearby, boredom wasn't a realistic concern. Her presence was occasionally unwelcome, frequently loud, and exhausting enough that I sometimes considered sealing myself inside a vault simply to enjoy the silence. It was never boring. Now there were Adrian, Celeste, Malcolm, Vera, Aura, and two strangers with severed threads who might someday become one of us.

My life had grown overcrowded, overcomplicated, and deeply inconvenient, which only strengthened my determination to keep living. I had no intention of dying now, one hundred years from now, or even five hundred years beyond that. If possible, I intended to live for a full millennium and then continue out of spite. I wanted to see how far the world could crawl. I wanted to watch cities reach toward the clouds, machines outrun storms, and artificial lights banish the night.

Perhaps humans would eventually fling themselves beyond the sky simply because the ground had become too familiar. Would humanity eventually build cities among the stars and carry all its ambition, greed, and ridiculousness into the void? Almost certainly, and I wanted to be there when it happened. More importantly, I wanted House Vaust to leave its mark on that future. The thought of a Vaust sign glowing beneath alien moons was excessive enough to appeal to me.

This meant that whatever this Demon Lord was, whatever world-ending creature had supposedly managed to kill me in another timeline, I intended to destroy it. There was nothing noble about the decision, nor did it come from any sudden affection for humanity. The creature had simply made the unforgivable mistake of threatening a future I fully intended to experience. As irritating as it was to admit, I had already begun to believe Nadia and Rowan.

I was nowhere near foolish enough to accept every word without question, but they had given me enough truth that dismissing them outright was no longer an option. The severed threads inside them were too real to dismiss, broken and frayed echoes of bonds that had once connected them to a version of me who no longer existed. Whenever I focused upon those remnants, I could feel their ache, faint and distant, like music drifting through a wall from a room that had already been demolished.

Even so, caution cost me nothing. I would see the first spire with my own eyes before deciding how much of Nadia and Rowan's story deserved my trust, my attention, or eventually my blood. Naturally, no one intended to let me make that journey alone. Adrian refused to let me travel without him. Celeste would have followed even if I locked her inside the vault, and Malcolm insisted that any threat to me was a threat to the entire family.

Vera agreed, though with considerably more composure, while Vesper stared from her shoulder as though daring me to suggest leaving them behind. Aura was necessary because she was our transportation. More importantly, ordering a newly claimed dragon to remain behind would have caused a tantrum large enough to damage the roof. Nadia and Rowan also had to accompany us. They were the only ones who knew the location of the first spire.

With House Vaust leaving the city together, keeping the hotel open was no longer practical, so the Vaust Hotel and Casino closed its doors until our return. The notice posted for our guests was deliberately brief: The Vaust Hotel and Casino will be temporarily closed while House Vaust undertakes a confidential SSS-rank mission concerning regional and humanitarian safety. I had nearly laughed when Celeste suggested the phrase.

"Mother, it sounds better than telling everyone we're leaving to prevent the possible end of the world."

"That would be more honest." Not that their feelings particularly concerned me, but the reputation of my establishment certainly did.

"It would also be terrible for business." So humanitarian it was. I asked the Adventurer's Guild Master to watch over the property in our absence. He agreed so quickly that I suspected he feared refusing would somehow result in Aura being left inside his office. Smart man, and with the hotel secured in our absence, we departed for the Demon Continent by the only means available to us.

Air travel did not yet exist in any practical sense, which meant crossing vast distances beyond the known coastlines was difficult enough that most people simply never attempted it. Ships could only carry you so far, maps were unreliable, and much of the world beyond our shores remained little more than rumor. So we had no idea what we were actually flying toward. Fortunately, Aura made the journey possible.

Her true form was so enormous that the hotel's upper balconies had to be cleared before she transformed in the open courtyard below. Her small, platinum-haired body vanished in a roar of gold-white light and was replaced by a massive dragon covered in radiant golden scales. Pale markings stretched along her spine and across her wings, while her violet eyes now matched my own. I still hadn't decided how I felt about that. I was somewhere between proud, possessive, and deeply concerned for my architecture.

Now we were soaring across the sea toward lands none of us had ever seen. The ocean stretched beneath us in endless blue-gray folds, with sunlight scattering across the waves like fragments of shattered glass. The wind rushed past with enough force to tear ordinary people from Aura's back, but Celeste had enclosed our seating area within layered barriers of warm, controlled air.

The arrangement was nearly comfortable, though riding on the back of a dragon still fell well short of a luxury carriage, no matter how insistently Aura claimed otherwise. The couples naturally settled together, while Celeste pressed herself directly against my side as though personal space had never been invented. Malcolm and Vera rested a short distance ahead of us, with Vera tucked between Malcolm's arm and one of Aura's raised scale ridges.

Vesper remained perched in crow form upon her shoulder, apparently unaffected by the wind. Nadia and Rowan sat behind them, close enough that their shoulders touched as they exchanged the occasional quiet word. Adrian had taken up position at the rear, keeping watch over the sea and sky with the steady vigilance of a man who would probably challenge a storm if it approached us with sufficient hostility.

At times, I wondered whether he secretly enjoyed the hours spent away from Celeste more than those spent beside her. Then again, he had willingly married her and somehow remained married to her despite the countless occasions she had declared that they should renew their vows simply "for atmosphere." Perhaps Adrian genuinely enjoyed chaos when it came wrapped in a small, silver-haired package. Either that or he had lost his mind decades ago and simply learned to carry his madness with remarkable dignity.

The sea wind tugged at my hair as I looked across the endless stretch of water and considered how rarely I had wondered what existed beyond it. I had always known humanity shared this world with countless other creatures. Over the centuries, I had encountered, and frequently killed, beastkin, spirits, monsters, cursed creatures, and several unfortunate things that possessed far too many eyes for any reasonable purpose. Yet despite all those years, I had never given much thought to what might exist beyond the ocean.

There had never been a reason to care about something that remained comfortably distant from my life, and distance had always been a remarkably effective measure of importance. Apparently, that luxury had ended. Somewhere beyond the horizon waited an entire continent inhabited by demons. If Nadia's and Rowan's damaged memories were accurate, it was a vast land filled with hostile creatures, ancient spires, cults, armies, and eventually a Demon Lord powerful enough to kill me.

The entire situation was becoming increasingly irritating, especially once one obvious question presented itself: if demons eventually intended to invade our lands, why had none of them crossed the ocean already? In all my years, I had never seen a true demonic vessel approach our shores. There had been no black sails gathering on the horizon, no invasion fleets, and no coastal cities reduced to ash by armies arriving from across the sea. Perhaps demons simply could not make the crossing easily.

The spires might have somehow anchored them to their continent, or there could have been some other limitation Nadia and Rowan no longer remembered. Of course, there was another possibility. Perhaps they had simply been waiting. That thought was considerably less amusing. Nadia had also spoken of beastkin territories beyond the sea, a land of ancient forests, forgotten shrines, spirit-covered mountains, and clans older than most human kingdoms.

Somewhere within those lands was Akane's homeland, a place she had apparently protected before our paths ever crossed. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. A nine-tailed fox beastkin demigoddess who, according to a future I had never lived, would become my mate and eventually love me enough to shatter her own core and gamble with time itself for another chance to find me. Assuming any of it was true. My gaze remained fixed on the distant horizon.

"Mother." A whisper brushed against my ear. My eyes closed.

"Celeste."

"Are you thinking about Akane?" I turned my head toward her slowly.

"How the hell could you possibly know that?" She smiled.

"Intuition."

"You have never possessed intuition. You make guesses with absolute confidence and somehow remain completely unbothered when they're wrong." Celeste's smile widened. Unfortunately, this time she wasn't wrong.

"And yet I was right."

"You were annoying."

"That too." Celeste had insisted upon sitting beside me for the entire journey. Not near me or behind me, but directly against my side, her shoulder pressed to mine and her silver hair whipping around her face despite the protective barrier. Aura's dragon form was large enough that we could have sat in pairs while maintaining a respectable amount of space. Celeste had rejected personal space as a concept entirely, and despite myself, a smirk tugged at my lips. Her eyes narrowed immediately.

"You're thinking about her again."

"You caught me." I lifted my hands in mock surrender. Sometimes the easiest way to deal with Celeste was to play along with her nonsense. Her face lit with triumph.

"I knew it."

"I was wondering whether your husband might finally want a divorce after all these years." Celeste froze, and from the rear, Adrian answered with perfect calm.

"I do not." She twisted around to stare at him.

"You heard that?"

"I hear everything." She pointed accusingly toward me.

"Mother is trying to wound me emotionally."

"She does that when cornered."

"I'm not cornered." Celeste faced forward again, looking smug rather than injured.

"Adrian would never divorce me."

"He might enjoy the quiet."

"He enjoys me."

"That answer came far too quickly."

"Because I'm correct."

"You are," Adrian confirmed from behind us. Celeste beamed so brightly that it was almost offensive. In truth, if Adrian ever left her, I would feel terrible for Celeste, though I would rather not imagine what that would look like. She would probably attach herself to me for the rest of eternity, which meant it was in everyone's best interest that their marriage remains intact. Fortunately, Adrian seemed perfectly content with the life he had chosen.

He was a strange man, certainly, but also a loyal one and his tolerance for Celeste bordered on something supernatural. My attention drifted back toward the ocean, though my thoughts did not follow. A woman… Not a man. That detail lingered more stubbornly than I wanted it to. I had never experienced romantic attachment to anyone. Desire had surfaced occasionally, interest even less often, and amusement more frequently than I liked to admit, but love had always belonged to other people.

Romance was the sort of consuming foolishness that convinced otherwise sensible beings to sacrifice themselves for someone else. I had never understood it. What I felt for my children was different. It was familial, possessive, protective, frequently irritating, and warmer than I preferred to examine too closely. Celeste was beautiful. Anyone with functioning eyes could see that, but I had never once looked at her as a lover. The thought itself felt absurd.

She was my daughter, my shadow, my secretary, my loudest curse, and perhaps something dangerously close to my closest friend. That realization settled more gently than I expected, which was precisely why I would never say it aloud. Celeste was already difficult enough without learning that I considered her one of the people closest to me. The thought brought another smirk to my face before I could suppress it, and naturally, Celeste noticed.

"There." She pointed at my face.

"That was an Akane smile."

"You're inventing categories now."

"You look softer whenever you think about her."

"I don't even know her."

"Your face disagrees."

"My face is considering throwing you into the ocean." Celeste's smile turned smug.

"Then I suppose we would finally find out whether you care more about proving a point or keeping me dry." I looked at her. She looked back with unmistakable victory. I hated when her nonsense discovered logic.

"I was thinking that the timing is suspicious." Celeste's expression shifted. The playfulness remained, but her attention sharpened beneath it. I looked toward Aura's enormous head in the distance, her horns cutting through the sea wind.

"I acquire a dragon, and almost immediately afterward, two strangers arrive claiming I need that dragon to cross the ocean and destroy a series of spires."

"You think Akane arranged it?"

"I think someone arranged something."

"Perhaps it was fate."

"I dislike fate."

"You dislike anything that behaves as though it knows better than you."

"Because it rarely does." Celeste smiled.

"Perhaps Akane does." My gaze shifted toward her. She leaned closer, lowering her voice.

"Perhaps she knew exactly when you would acquire Aura."

"Or perhaps this is a trap."

"That's also possible." That was something I appreciated about Celeste, though I would sooner swallow broken glass than admit it often. Beneath the chatter, the teasing, the affection, and the ridiculous declarations, she wasn't foolish. She could play at romance while still recognizing knives.

"The first spire will tell us more than speculation," Adrian observed from behind us.

"Practical as always." I marveled at his ability to stay completely calm in any situation. The level-headed man.

"One of us should be." Celeste turned to smile at him.

"That's why I married you."

"You married me because I asked."

"You asked because I made it impossible not to."

"Also true." Malcolm laughed quietly ahead of us. Vera leaned against him, one hand resting upon Vesper's crystalline back.

"It's strangely comforting to know that some things never change."

"For one hundred and fifty years," I replied, "they certainly have not." Celeste hummed happily.

"Longer, spiritually." Aura's voice rumbled through her enormous body, somehow deep and youthful at once.

"Master." I leaned forward.

"What is it?"

"Are we close?" Nadia lifted her head. Her violet hair whipped around her face, and Rowan steadied her with one arm as she studied the horizon through narrowed pink eyes.

"Not yet. The first spire stands upon an island chain before the Demon Continent. The islands have black basalt cliffs and are surrounded by red fog. There should also be a ruined shrine near the shore."

"Should be?" Adrian repeated. Nadia's expression tightened.

"I know how uncertain that sounds." Rowan rubbed his forehead.

"The memory exists, but it's not clear. Trying to recall it is like looking through cracked glass."

"Do you remember the spire itself?" Vera asked.

"Yes." Nadia's voice steadied.

"It was tall, black, and twisted. It looked as though bone and obsidian had been fused together." Rowan nodded.

"In our future, the spires were fully active and heavily defended. Entire armies moved around them. We were told that destroying them earlier would be much easier."

"Convenient," Adrian remarked.

"Necessary," Rowan replied. There was no anger in Rowan's voice, only exhaustion, and when I glanced back at him, the strangeness of both him and Nadia settled over me again. Every time my attention lingered on them, I could see the hope they were trying not to show, and some instinct urged me to look away. It wasn't because I disliked them. The truth was far more uncomfortable. Some part of me already understood how dangerous it would be to accept them.

I already had four blood children, a dragon bound to me, and apparently a future mate somewhere in this world. Now Nadia and Rowan lingered at the edge of that family, carrying the shattered remnants of bonds that should not yet exist and waiting to learn whether I would choose to make them mine again. It should have been too much to even consider, yet the broken threads remained between us, impossible to ignore and undeniably real. Celeste pressed her shoulder lightly against mine again.

"You're quiet."

"I'm often quiet."

"No. You're thinking loudly."

"That's not a real thing."

"It is with you." I glanced toward her.

"Do you believe them?" She stared across the ocean for several moments before answering.

"I believe they love you."

"That was not my question."

"It's part of the answer."

"Celeste." She released a low sigh.

"I believe something terrible happened to them, and they know far too much for their story to be dismissed. I also saw what happened when Nadia spoke Silas Vane's name." My jaw tightened before I could stop it. Her voice softened.

"I also believe that if there is even a chance you die and the rest of us die with you, we have no choice but to act." I gave her no answer, but when her hand slipped into mine, I did not pull away. For once, Celeste held on gently.

"I don't want to die either," she whispered. That was enough to settle the uncertainty inside me. It wasn't quite belief and certainly not trust, but it was enough to become a decision.

"Then we will not." Celeste smiled.

"Simple."

"Extremely."

"Destroy the spire, delay the Demon Lord, find your fox mate, build the Vaust Royale, and live forever."

"You make it sound like an errand list."

"It helps." Malcolm turned his head slightly.

"For the record, I would also prefer to avoid dying."

"Strongly," Vera added. Aura released a low rumble.

"I will burn anything that tries to kill Master."

"We should first determine what can and cannot burn," Adrian advised. Aura considered that.

"Then I will burn the things that can." Vesper cawed once. I looked toward Vesper.

"No one asked you." The crimson crow answered with a single, pointed stare. I stared back. Vera ran her fingers lightly over the familiar's crystalline feathers, amusement softening her expression.

"Vesper says she agrees with Aura."

"She said nothing of the sort." I completely denied it.

"She implied it." From beneath us, Aura shifted her enormous head just enough for one violet eye to angle back toward Vera's shoulder.

"I don't like the small red bird." Vesper's wings flared at once, crystalline feathers lifting in obvious offense. Vera closed her eyes for a moment.

"Please do not encourage each other." Celeste, naturally, brightened at the possibility.

"Can Aura and Vesper fight later?"

"Possibly," I answered with amusement written all over my face.

"Yes," Aura rumbled at the exact same moment. Vesper let out a sharp caw of agreement. Malcolm rubbed a hand over his face.

"This family is going to destroy civilization before the demons have the opportunity."

"Unlikely," Adrian replied.

"We are far too organized." Celeste laughed. Even I allowed a faint smile to surface. The sea continued beneath us for several more hours. Blue water gradually darkened, while the pale sky deepened into gold as the sun began its descent. Clouds gathered along the distant horizon, thin and crimson, stretched across the heavens like half-healed wounds. Eventually, the air changed. It became warmer and oppressively heavy. The scent reached us first.

Sulfur and ash carried upon the wind, with something metallic beneath them that reminded me of old blood dried against black stone. Nadia stiffened. Rowan immediately sat straighter. Aura beat her wings more rapidly, lifting us higher.

"There," Nadia whispered. Shapes emerged through the haze ahead of us. The islands emerged gradually through the haze, jagged silhouettes rising from the sea like remnants of a land long forgotten. Sheer basalt cliffs surrounded their shores, split by deep fractures and weathered into cruel, uneven faces. Crimson fog wound through the broken rock below, drifting in slow currents along the coastline before spreading thinly across the dark water. Nothing grew there.

No trees clung to the cliffs; no birds circled overhead, and no ships moved between the islands. Even the waves seemed reluctant to disturb the shoreline, leaving the entire chain wrapped in an oppressive stillness that felt less natural the longer I looked at it. Then I saw what stood at the center of the largest island. The spire towered above the cliffs, impossibly tall and distorted, its black form twisting toward the sky in unnatural angles that made the eye resist following them.

Bone-like ridges coiled around veins of polished obsidian; the two fused so seamlessly that it became impossible to tell where stone ended and something far less natural began. It did not look constructed so much as grown, as though the island itself had forced something diseased and ancient through its surface. Even from Aura's back, high above the surrounding water, I could feel its presence bearing down on me.

At first, the sensation was little more than an uneasy pressure beneath my ribs, but it intensified the longer I watched, carrying the unmistakable impression that the spire did not belong in this world and that the world itself knew it. Every conversation died at once. Celeste's hand tightened around mine, all trace of her earlier amusement disappearing. Adrian rose carefully at the rear, his attention fixed on the island with the cold focus he usually reserved for an approaching threat.

Ahead of us, Malcolm's gravity stirred instinctively, briefly thickening the air, while Vesper became unnaturally still upon Vera's shoulder. Aura also reacted. A low growl rolled from deep within her chest, traveling through her enormous body until I could feel the vibration beneath us. I barely noticed any of them. My attention remained fixed on the spire. Nadia and Rowan had described it, and now it stood directly in front of me.

Whatever doubts I had carried across the ocean did not disappear entirely, but they could no longer remain comfortably abstract. Something from their impossible future existed here in the present, exactly where they claimed it would be. That changed everything. Doubt was still useful, but denial was not. The wind tore through my hair as I leaned forward, violet eyes fixed on the black structure rising from the crimson mist below. Proof had finally grown teeth.

"Well," I murmured, unable to tear my gaze from the spire, "that's ugly." Celeste released a breathless laugh beside me. A laugh escaped me as well, though there was little humor behind it. It was closer to instinct, a thin attempt to smother the dread gathering beneath my ribs now that Nadia's and Rowan's impossible story had taken physical form before my eyes. I let the sound fade and kept my attention fixed on the island.

"Land us nearby." Aura spread her wings wider and began her descent. Below us, the crimson fog churned around the black cliffs as though disturbed by our approach, while the spire loomed above it all in absolute silence. Somewhere inside that twisted structure lay the first piece of a future that had already killed me once. This time, I intended to break it first.