Chapter 403: Summoned

“The emperor has sent for you.”

Jadis’ three selves looked up from the three books she had been reading simultaneously. She had been lying in the overly large bed of their temple suite, her bodies propped up by an over abundance of pillows. Aila and Alex were both with her, reading their own books as they snuggled in between Jadis’ bodies. She had been so absorbed in the books that it took her a moment to reorient her attention, so she ended up staring blankly at the open door for a few seconds before she could respond.

“Right now?”

The abrupt and unexpected announcement had come from Aurea, who stood in the doorway. She was breathing hard, like she had run a fair distance before coming to Jadis’ room, and her face was flushed from either excitement or exertion. Possibly both.

“Immediately, yes,” Aurea nodded her head as she responded a little breathlessly. “You and all of your companions. I’ve already sent word out for them, including Tegwyn.”

“Okay,” Jay said, her brain finally starting to register the urgency in Aurea’s voice. “Is everything alright? Have there been developments with the Demons or the cult?”

“Nothing has much changed since the attack has occurred that I am aware of,” Aurea said as she rushed towards the wardrobe where Jadis’ clothes were kept. “However, Emperor Somerulf has been in conferences with generals, nobles, his sons, and several high priests including Oswin Teel since yesterday. From what has been said, he is furious that such a complete failure of security occurred and he is putting a great deal of pressure onto everyone to find answers. Here, put these on.”

The clothes that the high priestess pulled from the wardrobe were the ornate tunics and pants that had been tailored for her to wear when she first came to the city. Sliding off of the bed, Jadis took the clothes and started pulling off her comfortable casual wear while Aurea continued to rifle through the wardrobe, looking for suitable attire that the others of Jadis’ group could put on for the sudden audience.

“Will the Hero be there?” Aila asked as she quickly retrieved her own clothing.

“I am not certain,” the blonde woman said as she brought a pile of clothing over to Alex and began holding different pieces up to the confused Demon. “He has been sweeping the undercity for hiding Demons, or at least he was the last I heard. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t been summoned like you, though.”

“These clothes are… Uncomfortable…” Alex complained as Aurea began to drag a long skirt up the Demon’s legs.

“I know you feel that way,” Aurea said in a distracted tone, “but you simply cannot go before the emperor naked. He has always been a reserved sort of man and I do not think his old heart can take seeing you in your full glory.”

While Aurea helped Alex get dressed, Jadis made sure to retrieve the locked box that held the flower pendant that had caused her so much trouble at the ball. Sabina’s inspection had revealed some interesting secrets hidden inside the delicate piece of jewelry and Jadis had yet to speak to anyone in charge about what had been found. If she was going to be taken before the emperor on such short notice, then it was best to take advantage of the opportunity.

Jadis had spent the day after the Demon attack on Eldingholt discussing classes and skills with her companions. Towards the evening, though, she had tried to exit the High Temple of Lyssandria to check on the situation in the rest of the city. While she hadn’t been outright barred from leaving, as soon as she had approached the main hall several priests had appeared before her and had politely suggested she stay in her suite. Jadis wasn’t one to sit on her hands or follow unexplained orders, but she had been patient enough to seek out the high priests before simply forcing her way out of the building.

Jadis wasn’t under any kind of house arrest, Aurea had explained when she had found the high priestess some minutes later. Nothing about her terms of confinement had changed, but the city was in an uproar over the attack. Despite the blizzard still blanketing the streets in snow, people were out in droves, scouring every nook and cranny for any sign of cultists or demonic activity. Unfortunately, that meant that suspicion and paranoia were levels were high. Apparently, three people had already been hanged by a mob in one of the neighborhoods near the docks that had been attacked. Whether those three were actually cultists or just innocent bystanders who had sadly drawn the ire of the incensed citizens was still to be determined, but either way the streets were dangerous for the moment.

Aurea had insisted that she didn’t necessarily fear for Jadis’ safety; no one was blaming the Nephilim so far as she had gathered from what she had heard spoken by both soldiers and citizens alike, but no one wanted to take any chances. The city guard and the various mercenary groups and military garrisons were out in full force. There was still a great deal of confusion about what had happened that was leading to violent confrontations and harmful accidents, and the chaos of the situation was making people take unpredictable actions. If not for Jadis’ safety, then for the sake of the many guards and paladins who would need to divert from other important tasks to watch over Jadis if she left, Aurea had asked that she stay indoors and out of the way for the time being.

With not much else to do, Jadis had requested a few books and had spent time indoors reading with her companions. That night, Jadis had still felt too physically and emotionally drained to do much more than cuddle with her lovers, so they hadn’t done anything lewd. Not even Eir’s ritual to contact D. It had been discussed among the group that it would be best to delay the ritual anyway, since they wanted to talk to a few high priests beforehand.

The one ritual that Eir did complete though was her new Oracle’s Emblem. The casting of the ritual didn’t take long at all. It was a short, ten-minute-long ritual for each mark that was placed, mostly just requiring a continual prayer from the oracle. The part that had made Eir blush a deeper shade of red hadn’t been as lewd as Jadis had thought it would be, though she could easily understand why Eir wouldn’t want to use the ritual on anyone but Jadis and her fellow wives. For the last minute of the ritual, Eir had pressed her lips against Jay’s lower stomach, just barely above her mons pubis. When the ritual had finally completed and Eir had pulled away, a shining red tattoo in the shape of Eir’s lips was left behind. The mark quickly faded away so that Jadis could no longer see it, but Eir had assured her that the emblem was still visible to her eyes.

Oddly, once the mark had formed on Jay’s body, it had also formed on Jadis’ other two bodies. Not wholly unexpected, but still an interesting reaction.

While Eir had performed the ritual on the rest of the group, Jadis had performed her own ritual setup for Ceremony of Licentious Regeneration. The spell would allow Jadis to build up a reservoir of healing just by having sex, yet the initial steps weren’t particularly sexual. All Jadis had to do was light some candles in a circle and then perform a series of specific movements and poses while completely nude. The poses were… definitely on the suggestive side, but none of them were too extreme. It felt more like doing yoga for half an hour than anything else, so far as Jadis was concerned.

The next morning, Jadis had requested audiences with a few of the different high priests, though she only managed to speak with one of them, Irene, for a few minutes. The priests were all still extremely busy with everything that had happened and Jadis couldn’t blame them for not having much time. Instead of working herself up over being confined and partially ignored, Jadis had just continued to read the books she had requested.

Tegwyn had come by to see Jadis, as had Nevan and Orla, which proved to be pleasant distractions that helped break up the monotony of reading dry histories and scholarly treatises on the Hero and the Demon Lord. Tegwyn had been in the temple district during the attack and had helped in the defense, fighting alongside Runar and his order instead of against them this time around. Nevan and Orla had been with Noll at a tavern filled with other high-level mercenaries. The whole tavern had poured out into the streets and rushed the defense of the city. Both the Dryad and the gnome couple had several entertaining stories to tell from their fights that night.

After her friends had left, Jadis had continued to read while some of her lovers went elsewhere in the temple to either speak with the priests or seek their own entertainment. Bridget and Kerr had been particularly expressive when it came to voicing their boredom as neither were the type to spend their afternoons reading. Jadis couldn’t blame them for wanting to find something else to amuse themselves, so she had let them go with only the request that they stay in the temple. Jadis wasn’t about to start being a helicopter mom or anything like that, but with everything going on in the city, she didn’t want anyone wandering off too far.

It didn’t take long for Jadis and her companions to gather in the main hall of Lyssandria’s temple, all of them wearing the finest clothing they owned. None of them were wearing armor or carrying any weapons, despite protests from Jadis and a few of the others. No one wanted to be caught without some means of defense again, but none of them were permitted any such warlike equipment for their first audience with the emperor. Jadis briefly considered ignoring the rules and trying to secret a few weapons on her person for emergency situations but decided against it. The payout was just not worth the risk.

“Glad to see you’re still kicking,” Syd said when she saw who would be leading their escort to the palace. “I lost track of you in all the fuss.”

“I’m sure you had more important things to worry about,” Roy the goblin paladin winked at her. “Besides, the vertically challenged like me are easy to overlook. Such a trait has more advantages than you’d think.”

“Still has some bloody big disadvantages, too,” Sorcha grumbled under her breath.

When Jay moved to lift the goblin woman up onto her shoulders, Sorcha kicked up a fuss that helped break some of the tension in the group. That was a big help, since Jadis wasn’t the only one feeling some nerves about the sudden meeting. She didn’t think that there was anything to fear from the emperor, but the possibility of the audience not going her way was still distinct.

Prince Hraustrekr had said that he would see about releasing her from her confinement, but that statement didn’t mean that the elf didn’t have some other method of imposing his unreasonable will on her in mind. Prince Kestil had said that he would be helping her as well, but she honestly didn’t fully trust the sly man. He was obviously still a manipulative person, even if he had been apparently upfront with her about his nature. Honesty could be a form of manipulation, too.

As to the emperor himself, Jadis didn’t really know anything at all about Somerulf. He was supposedly a good leader whose reign had been generally peaceful. No one that Jadis knew had ever said anything bad about the old elf, not even in passing. Even Noll, who had a massive chip on his shoulder when it came to Hraustrekr, had not said anything bad about the emperor. Jadis assumed that meant that the comments about him being a fair man were true. But if he was such a kind and generous leader, how had his sons ended up so… the way they were?

Had the apples fallen that far from the tree, or was the tree different from what others perceived?

Jadis’ attention was mostly consumed with thoughts of what the emperor would be like and what kind of questions she might be able to ask him, as well as what questions he might have for her. As such, she barely noticed the short trip from the temple district to the palace. They went in a procession, this time in sleighs rather than wagons considering how snowed in the city was. The trip across the bridge that spanned the great river to the island in the middle of the city was quick, though Jadis did notice that there were significantly more soldiers on guard than the last time she had made this trip a couple of weeks ago.

The first time Jadis had entered the palace, it had been not quite in secret, but it had been with no fanfare and little notice. Kestil had brought her up to his wing of the palace with all the speed he could reasonably attain and she had been in and out before speaking with anyone. This time, however, she went in through the front door.

There weren’t as many guards as she had expected. Maybe it was because they were needed out in the city, but from what Jadis gathered she didn’t think that was the case. The men she saw stationed throughout the palace courtyard and along the walls were few in number, but carried themselves with a professional competence that spoke of both years of experience and the power to back that experience up. These were not simply plain, ordinary guardsmen and soldiers who had been chosen for a simple duty. Most were wielding unique weapons and armor, different from the standardized uniform that Jadis had seen elsewhere in the city. They were still wearing the emperor’s colors, but these were the sort of individuals who had grown strong with specific classes and skills, and thus needed to use equipment that suited their styles.

The huge, twenty-foot-tall oaken doors of the emperor’s palace had only one guard standing before them, and the gray-skinned elf did not look like he needed any sort of backup. The two longswords he had sheathed on either side of his waist practically glowed with magic power, and his armor was covered in almost as many enchantments as Jadis had seen on the Hero’s armor. When their procession, led by Roy and Aurea, came to a stop before the door, the goblin paladin briefly announced the names of everyone present.

“The Emperor calls for you,” the elf intoned in what felt like a ceremonial way as he bowed his head to them, though not enough that his blue eyes ever left them.

With one hand, the elf pushed the doors open, allowing them entrance into the main hall of the palace. From the way the doors moved, Jadis got the feeling that the ease with which he opened them had nothing to do with balanced hinges, and a lot to do with just how strong the man was.

The inside of the palace was just as grandiose as Jadis remembered from her trip to visit Prince Kestil. Marble and gold were everywhere, as were silk tapestries and finely crafted stained-glass windows. There were no ornamental statues in the hall, but every wall had a huge wooden disc inlaid into it. The golden hued wood was carved with incredible detail, each one depicting scenes that Jadis presumed were from important events throughout the empire’s history. More than a few were of battles, but many were of peaceful or triumphant events, including one that caught her eye that showcased an armored man riding atop a huge eagle of some kind.

 All along the sides of the hall were various nobles and courtiers, as well as some people who looked like they were from the military. Jadis recognized some of the people there from the ball, and by the looks on their faces they recognized her as well. There was a great deal of whispers, nothing spoken with enough volume that Jadis could hear what was said, but the hall echoed with their many voices. Two people that Jadis recognized in particular were Ladies Elodie and Vanessa Brunholt. The dark-haired mother eyed Jadis with an impassive expression as they passed by, but Jay saw that Elodie gave her a small smile and nod that she quickly covered up.

At the far side of the hall stood two more huge doors of equal size to the ones that led to the outside, only these were made of gold. Maybe they were only gilded, but even if that was the case, the amount of wealth on display was extravagant to a degree that Jadis had never experienced before. Two identical guards stood at attention by the doors and, as their group approached the doors, they stepped aside to clear the way. With a dual gesture from the two guards, both doors opened on their own, likely by aid of magic.

In unison, the guards called out in strong, vibrant voices.

“Lady Jadis Ahlstrom, Last of the Nephilim!”

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