“Do you like the milk?”

“It’s… interesting,” Jay responded as she took the cup away from her lips. “I’ve never had elk milk before.”

“I imagine not,” Soteria huffed as she stirred a bit of honey into her own cup. “No one but the Dryads who dwell in the Crook milk lupina elk.”

“Why not?” Jay frowned as she gave the weirdly pungent milk a dubious look.

“Because it tastes terrible,” the old Dryad huffed before throwing the contents of the cup down all in one gulp. “I can barely stand the stuff.”

“Then why are you drinking it?” Jay laughed as she took the spoonful of honey that Soteria passed to her. “And why give it to me?”

“It’s healthy for you. And when you get to be my age, you do not take your health for granted. Nor should you, young sapling. Especially not when you are with child.”

Jay nearly snorted the honey-sweetened milk out of her nose.

“I have a skill for such things,” the ancient tree woman said mildly as she watched Jay recover. “I admit, I have never met a person or beast who has more than one body, so I cannot tell if just one of your physical manifestations is pregnant, or if they all are.”

“Uh, just this one,” Dys said while her other self cleared her throat. “At least, last time I checked.”

“And who is the father?”

“One of my other wives,” Jay simplified the explanation. “Alex.”

“Hm. Is she a Nephilim as well?”

“No, she’s… a Demon.”

“I see,” Soteria murmured as a look of mild startlement passed over her features. “Such a fascinating age we live in.”

As Jadis and the elder Dryad spoke, she had her Syd self keep a careful eye on Meli. While Soteria had led Jadis off to a quiet clearing a small distance from the gravesite, Meli had been surrounded by what she presumed was her extended family. Her mother, Acantha, had not let go of Meli, but had dragged her back to the original meeting spot that Kreios had served them tea. There was a lot of talking going on, and Meli was looking a little overwhelmed, especially since every few minutes, another Dryad would wander out of the trees and rush over to join the gathering. By that point, the crowd had nearly doubled, which meant for a lot more focus than Meli was used to handling.

Kreios, Jadis noted, did not mingle into the press. Instead, the man stood on the outer edge, one hand on his elk’s neck, as he silently watched the growing commotion. Jadis felt a small twinge in the pit of her stomachs at the sight, and the suspicion that she might have responded poorly to Meli’s father took root. With some distance from the immediate moment and her emotional response, she realized that Kreios was exhibiting signs that reminded her a lot of Meli, in certain regards. She would have to address that concern later, though. It was Meli’s grandmother who had her attention for the moment.

“You don’t want to spend some time with your granddaughter, first? Before speaking with me?” Jay asked as she motioned towards the group. “She’s been gone for a long time.”

“Pish,” the old woman sucked on another spoonful of honey. “I will not be crowded. She will come to me when the others have exhausted their excitement. I can wait a few more minutes. I did not expect her back so soon to begin with.”

“So soon?” Jay raised her eyebrows. “Hasn’t she been gone for decades?”

“I knew her little tantrum would be over in a century or so. Maybe a few decades past that. That she has come back in half that time is highly unexpected,” Soteria said as she set aside the wooden spoon she had used for her honey. “I suspect it has something to do with you.”

Little tantrum? Meli had moved hundreds, no, thousands of miles away, and she had been gone for more than half a century, and Soteria called it a little tantrum? The lack of concern was baffling to Jadis. How could Soteria be alright with her granddaughter fleeing so far and being alone for so long? She knew it wasn’t polite, but Jadis couldn’t help but press the issue.

“You weren’t concerned for her safety?” Jay asked incredulously. “Meli’s been gone for literally decades and you act like she’s just been sulking in her bedroom for a few hours.”

“Safety?” the ancient Dryad raised a single bushy eyebrow. “What concern would I have? She ran off to the heartland of that upstart’s empire. Nothing there would be of any danger to her. And if she did find herself face to face with a great threat, she has the sense to run away.”

Thinking back to her first encounter with Meli, Jadis cringed internally.

“Well, she’s fast enough to outpace most threats, I’ll give you that,” Jay mumbled.

“She’s also stubborn enough that I know that she isn’t here by her own choice,” Soteria pointed out while giving Jay a hard look. “You are the odd leaf in this bush. What has caused you to come to my grove?”

“This was actually Meli’s suggestion,” Dys corrected. “We wouldn’t have come, otherwise.”

“We need some help,” Jay explained. “Or rather, Volto needs help. I don’t know how up to date you are on what’s going on, but the city of Kastoria was taken over by Demons around a year ago, and the whole countryside surrounding the city has been overrun and corrupted. We’re working on taking the city back, but one of the major concerns right now is the lack of food. Volto’s farmlands are suffering from blights that were definitely created by Demons, and it’s cutting into their agricultural output. A lot. If we take all of the preserved foods that we need for the soldiers in our military campaign, there are serious worries that there won’t be enough food stocked up to feed all of the civilian refugees in Thracina next year.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Taking a breath, Jay motioned with one hand towards the distant clearing where all the other Dryads were gathered.

“Meli said that you and your grove might be able to do something about the blights that are killing the crops. We came to ask for your help.”

“I see,” Soteria said quietly. She did not seem particularly affected by the explanation, one way or the other. “So, you want to fly me down to the south on those wings I spied a moment ago, so that I can solve the problems of the Voltonian people.”

“Basically, yes,” Jay nodded her head. “If you are willing.”

“Hm. I see,” the ancient woman hummed to herself.

Picking up her wooden spoon again, she took another mouthful of honey before covering the clay pot and setting it aside. Getting to her feet with the help of her gnarled staff, she motioned for Jadis to follow her before slowly walking to the east.

“Come with me, sapling. You said something quite startling and I would like more details.”

“You mean about Kastoria and Volto?” Jay asked as she and her other selves got up and followed the Dryad. “Or the blight?”

“No. You have a Demon for a wife. That is going to require some explanation. I cannot simply let that acorn drop without remark.”

As they walked by the gathering of Dryads, Soteria reached out with her long staff over the others and used it to knock on the top of Meli’s head, getting her attention.

“You, thistle head. Come with me.”

With visible relief, Meli extracted herself from the crowd, though not before she gave her mother a kiss on the cheek. The rest of the Dryads let her go, making no fuss as they got out of the way. Some still eyed Jadis warily, but many just looked at her with open curiosity. Meli’s mother, Acantha, had a conflicted expression when she met Jay’s gaze, but she didn’t say anything.

Falling into step between Jay and Dys, Meli greeted her grandmother quietly as they all carried on through the grove. Soteria hummed in response, but after a quirk of her lips, gave the taller woman’s arm a gentle squeeze.

“I’m glad to see you alive and healthy.”

That was at least a little warmer than Kreios’ greeting, Jadis supposed.

Together, they calmly walked through the grove while Jadis gave a brief explanation of Alex to Soteria. She tried to keep the story brief, but it was a complicated topic, and it naturally veered out to other subjects such as the rest of Jadis’ lovers and everything that they had done and were currently doing. Soteria asked a few pointed questions, but she was otherwise silent for the majority of explanation. Meli added details here and there, mostly about how she and Jadis had met, but she wasn’t much more talkative than Soteria. By the time Jadis had covered enough about her recent personal history that she felt like the ancient Dryad had a good review of the full situation, they had reached the edge of the rotted clearing.

Jadis, Meli, and Soteria stood within the tree line, silent for a long while. The destruction was truly horrific. Every tree in the acres before them had been stripped bare of their leaves and turned black from rot. The forest floor was covered in detritus, all of it withered and dead like all the life had been sucked out of the ground itself. A few feet away from where they had paused, Jadis spotted the corpse of a squirrel, or what was left of it. The creature looked as though it had been squeezed dry, its body crumpled into a bony husk with the fur still attached. The death did not look natural, or even physical, but like a supernatural force of terrible intent had willed the tiny beast to die and the squirrel had succumbed under great pain.

“Kreios said that Demons attacked,” Jay broke the silence. “What happened, exactly?”

“Demons attacked,” Soteria motioned with the head of her staff. “They came in the night, on stolen wings. There was an Erinyes among them. She had great power, and she cast magic as one with a clear mind. I do not believe she was possessed. Likely a collaborator, or a cultist. Certainly, she worshipped Samleos, as she invoked his name with her spells. She is the one who did all this.”

“You couldn’t stop her?” Meli asked, a shocked look on her face. “Not even with—”

“Do not give me that look, little thistle,” Meli’s grandmother shook her head, causing her fronds to stir against the ground. “I am old, and I am still strong, but I have never been a warrior. Not with claws, and not with spells. That Erinyes was bred for war. I saved as much of the κήπος as I could. Things could have been worse.”

At the mention of worse, Jadis was reminded of the fact that Meli’s brother had apparently died in the attack. She wasn’t entirely sure how to broach the topic, and it didn’t feel like it was her place to do so. Instead, Jadis focused on one of the details of the explanation that confused her.

“What’s an Erinyes?” she asked. “I feel like I know that word, but I’m not sure what it means.”

“An Erinyes is the offspring of a Dryad and a Valbjorn,” Soteria answered as she leaned heavily on her staff. “A half-breed. I have not seen one in an age, and I did not think I was likely to see one again. But you do not forget the look of their kind. Such a fierce creature. So destructive…”

“Did you manage to kill her?” Dys asked, her brow furrowed as she wracked her brain for where she knew the word Erinyes from. She had been reading up on the mixed offspring of avatars, but she was certain that she had heard the term before, on Earth maybe. “Or the rest of the Demons?”

“Only a few of the Demons,” the elder Dryad sighed. “They struck without warning, and without alerting our sentries. The Erinyes fled before Kreios could truly muster our defenses.”

“A bunch of Demons led by an Erinyes attack a grove all the way out here, far from the lines of the invasion,” Jay murmured. “And they run away almost as soon as they strike. That doesn’t sound like Demon behavior. It’s not their usual tactics, anyway. Why would they come here, of all places?”

“I do not know the reasoning behind their actions,” Soteria said as she motioned towards the blighted land. “But they destroyed the section of our κήπος where the rarest of our plants once grew. Many magic trees, vines, bushes, and flowers that take decades, or even centuries to cultivate, have been destroyed.”

“Magic plants?” Syd blinked as she took a step forward, looking at the rotted area more closely. “Are they the kind that would have been useful for enchantments?”

“Some, yes,” the ancient woman agreed. “Enchantments, alchemy, rituals, and others forms of spell craft.”

“And when did this happen?”

“A handful of weeks ago,” she waggled her fingers. “No more than three.”

“We’ll need a list of everything that was destroyed,” Jay said firmly as she turned to look down at Soteria. “Or what might have been taken. We’ve run into some extremely unique enchantments that were made by either cultists or Demons recently. The plants that were once here might have been ingredients used in those enchantments.”

“An interesting thought,” Soteria allowed. “The Erinyes may have taken some plants, instead of simply destroying them. I cannot be certain. But if I can help in no other way, I can at least get you a list of what has been lost.”

Jay frowned lightly, her brow pinching at the response.

“No other way? Does that mean you can’t help us with Volto’s blight issue?”

“I did not say that,” the ancient Dryad said as she started walking away from the rotted land. “That idea will take some deliberation. Give me time, young Nephilim. Time to think, and time to discuss.”

After a moment, the old crone let out a quiet cackle.

“And time for you to meet the rest of your in-laws.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep