The mood on board the Leviathan was a strange mix of exhaustion and muted disappointment. The exhaustion was understandable; they had all been fighting throughout the night, only departing the village of Nonia when the Demon forces had been completely wiped out, well after the sun had risen. They were all running on little food and even less rest, and the aches and pains of constant battle were still felt, even with magic to heal the physical wounds. Jadis almost couldn’t believe that twenty-four hours ago, she had been in the Verdant Sea with Kerr, still helping her come to terms with her father’s passing. It felt like months had passed since that yesterday morning.

The muted disappointment was a more complicated emotion to analyze.

Jadis had not been able to rescue the victims trapped inside of the third Demon shell. Not that she had been the only one to try. Noll, Wilhelm, and Halvor had all gone inside with her, with the support of many others like Sorcha and Severina on the outside. Yet, they had not succeeded. Using all of their combined power to attack and suppress the demonic slime monster hadn’t worked. Before they could try to extract the people who had been pinned to the obelisk, the runes had self-destructed and the men and women had burned. Not even the hasty application of Severina’s Burst Heal could save them. The unfortunate man whose face had been so terribly disfigured by torture that Sev had tried to save had only had his pain prolonged a few moments longer than the other victims. Jadis wasn’t sure she would ever be able to forget his screams.

It felt like a failure. It was a failure, in so much as the poor souls who had been sacrificed upon the altars of Samleos’ depravity were concerned. The attempted invasion had been thwarted, the lives of many soldiers had been saved, and they had destroyed four pieces of demonic enchantment that had to have been costly to construct. They had even managed to save the woman who had been staked to the altar, though it had been a close thing according to Eir. By those metrics, their defense of Nonia had been a success. And yet…

Jadis had taken up multiple seats in the sparsely occupied airship cabin. There was plenty of room for both the full retinue of Fortune’s Favored and the Hero’s party, and they had all spread out quite a bit, separating into various pockets of subdued conversation. Maeve had taken over the duty of piloting the Leviathan from Sabina, and the half-elf was lost in deep discussion with Tiernan. Jadis knew that the two were talking about the changes to the domes and the unutilized altar, but she wasn’t paying much attention to the details. Others were discussing the events of the battle as well, though there were those like her that were simply too tired to talk and were just quietly resting in their seats.

Dys and Syd sat across from each other, sharing a mirrored pose of crossed legs and slumped shoulders. Somehow, Alex had ended up in Dys’ lap, and Eir had crawled into Syd’s. None of them were sleeping, but Jadis had wrapped two pairs of arms around her two lovers and was simply appreciating their proximity, even if she couldn’t feel their bodies through her armor.

Jay, on the other hand, was further away from her other selves. She, too, was slumped in her seat, but the matching mirror to her tired posture was not another of her selves, or even a lover. He was, however, someone Jadis thought shared feelings close to her own.

“Can I ask you a question?”

Wilhelm looked up at Jay’s words, the distant focus of his eyes sharpening at meeting her gaze. The brown-haired man had one hand on the helmet he had placed in his lap, but the other was resting on the pommel of his sword. That golden weapon, a gift from a god, stood sheathed with its point on the cabin floor as Wilhelm had idly spun the sword in slow circles. With his focus on Jay, the weapon ceased its movement.

“Of course,” Wilhelm said, his voice a little rough, forcing him to clear it. “Feel free.”

“How do you… keep going?”

The man stared at her blankly, and Jadis worried that her question might have been too vague. Honestly, she hadn’t put much thought behind it herself. Staring at Wilhelm, the chosen Hero of Valtar, a man who had dedicated years of his life towards the defense of the people, had made Jadis want to ask. In that moment, she wondered. Why him? Why had he been picked by the gods? Did he ever wonder the same thing?

“Don’t you ever want to stop?” Jay asked after a few more beats of silence. “Just… not be the Hero, for a while?”

Wilhelm opened his mouth, lips parting slightly, before he let out a tired exhalation. His eyes fell closed for just a moment, before he opened them and met Jay’s gaze.

“Every day. There is not a day I wake that I do not think of returning to the woods of my home. Building a house with my own two hands. Marrying. Having children. Teaching my son or daughter how to hunt or gather mushrooms. Everyday.”

Wilhelm’s eyes squeezed shut tightly as he ran a rough hand across his face.

“But I have found that I cannot sit idly by,” he said with a small, sad smile. “I can’t. The world needs a Hero, right now. I may as well try.”

Jay nodded, accepting the explanation. She felt she understood very well what Wilhelm was saying. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to sit on the sidelines either. She certainly had the option to. She could take her lovers and her child and go far, far away if she wanted. The world was open to her. But she just couldn’t imagine actually doing that. Not when she could do so much more.

“Why do you keep trying?”

Jay glanced up at the question. She hadn’t even realized that her eyes had drifted to where Aila sat with Noll, quietly talking with the old wolf. Blinking, she took a deep breath as she tried to find words to explain how she felt.

“You know, when D told me that I was going to be his champion, he didn’t say I had to be a Hero.”

Wilhelm said nothing, simply waiting as Jay took another breath to collect her thoughts.

“He told me I could do whatever I wanted, just so long as I made things interesting for him. I could have joined the Demons. I could have fought against the empire, the people, all of that. He said if I wanted to destroy Oros, that would be fine. Just so long as I entertained him.”

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

“Madness,” Wilhelm frowned. “To give anyone such license and the power to do so.”

“Yeah, probably,” Jay agreed with a breath of laughter. “He’s the god of chaos, after all. But he’s still a god. I think he had to know that there wasn’t really any chance of me being a villain like the Playwright or any of the rest of the cultists out there. He can see my soul. See me. And I just can’t do the evil things that D gave his blessing to do. It feels… wrong to even think about it. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I want to do good. I want to try to be a good person, even if I get it wrong sometimes.”

Jay grinned wryly as she shrugged her shoulders at the man who sat across from her.

“I guess I just want to try, too.”

Wilhelm smiled back at her, his expression losing the sadness that had crept in before.

“Thank you,” he said with genuine feeling.

“For what?”

“For trying with me. I don’t feel quite so alone now.”

Jay chuckled, her grin turning sly. Raising one hand, she pointed towards the back of the cabin, where Jocelyn and Cora were both tending to the unconscious woman who had been rescued from the altar.

“If you’re feeling alone, you shouldn’t be looking at me, Willy. I’m pretty sure there’s a girl somewhere around here that would much prefer to have your undivided attention.”

Jay held back her laugh as the Hero’s cheeks flushed red. Clearing his throat again, the man rubbed the back of his head as he failed to meet Jay’s eyes.

“I, ah, do not think that would be entirely appropriate,” he said. “We are kindred under Valtar’s name in this war, and our focus should be on the fight. Besides… I do not think that a woman as beautiful—I mean, she could have anyone she wanted.”

“What, and you think being the motherfucking Hero doesn’t put you in her league?” Jay asked incredulously.

“Well, I—” Wilhelm struggled to find a response.

Before he could either dig deeper or climb out of the hole he had tripped into, the Hero was cut off by the sudden appearance of Noll at his side. The old wolf sat heavily in the aisle seat next to Wilhelm, letting out a gruff grunt of weariness as he tossed his pack of supplies to the side. A second later, Aila sat next to Jay, opposite to Noll. She made no noise as she took her place, but the redhead placed her hand on top of Jay’s forearm and leaned into her side.

“What’s up?” Jay asked, her gaze flicking between her lover and her mentor.

“We wanted to talk,” Aila said, her tone light but serious. “About how to handle the Demon shells the next time we run into them. More specifically, the people who are trapped inside.”

“Right,” Jay nodded. “I mean, I guess we’ve figured out the slow approach won’t work, and breaking the connection doesn’t either. Maybe if we just pull the people off the stakes really fast, like we did with the woman on the altar, we can get them off before the runes burn them.”

“That might work,” Wilhelm nodded contemplatively. “We would have to coordinate the timing, so that all six are removed at the same time. However, I could see that working, so long as we have Jocelyn or Eir ready to heal them from the internal damage.”

“No more trying to save them.”

Both Jay and Wilhelm paused at Noll’s command. Looking at the grim-faced therion, Jay frowned back at him.

“What are you talking about?”

“No more trying to save the people staked to the obelisks,” Noll clarified in a slow, measured tone. “Too risky.”

“Too risky?” Jay repeated, her expression aghast. Looking over at Wilhelm, she could see that he was just as disturbed by Noll’s declaration. “What the fuck? Those people are being tortured to death! And I think we’ve pretty definitively proven that we can handle their gunk monster shit.”

“Yes, you have,” Aila agreed, responding for Noll. “Both of you. And that is exactly our point.”

Jay turned in her seat to better look at her lover, her frown still heavy as she waited for further explanation.

“The Demons, or cultists, who have made these shells have shown that they are escalating with each iteration,” Aila said calmly. “The first was just a test of the defenses. These three were a test of their offensive capabilities, with an improved internal defense. The next shells will be further altered in response to what we did last night, without doubt.”

“Just because it’s going to be harder, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to save those people,” Jay stated with conviction.

“I agree,” Wilhelm nodded. “If we have the power to help them, we should.”

“What if next time the dome fills completely with ice in response to your invasion?”

Jay hesitated at Aila’s words, meeting her lover’s blue-eyed stare. She wanted to say she would simply break through the ice, but she knew from personal experience that suffocation via being entombed alive was a real threat that could not be easily dismissed.

“What if fills with stone?” Aila continued. “Or lightning bolts that are just as powerful as the one that cut two thousand health points from your life?”

“Two thousand?” Wilhelm exclaimed, clearly shocked by the number.

“What if the shell is filled with exploding Demons, like the ones that tried to kill you in Thea’s village?” Aila pressed on. “We already know how dangerous explosions can be inside of a confined space. They wouldn’t even need that many.”

The mage turned her gaze away from Jay to look at the Hero, whose expression had shifted to one of worry.

“Those are just some of the ways that I can think of myself to trap one of those shells. Who knows how many other methods a truly cruel mind may think of to kill those who manage to break through the dome’s defenses? We already know that the Demons don’t care about their own kind dying. They have also shown that they don’t mind losing the obelisks and all of the resources that go into making them. The interiors of the shells becoming death traps is the only logical conclusion.”

Jay opened her mouth to argue but closed it again a moment later. Aila was right. She was honestly surprised that the Demons hadn’t tried one or more of the far more lethal options already. Even the goop monsters that had guarded the interiors could have been more effective if they had simply focused on filling the interior with noxious gas and then keeping her or the others inside.

“But the people staked to the pillars,” Wilhelm spoke out as he leaned towards Aila. “We can’t just abandon them! They need our help.”

“We have the power,” Jay nodded to the Hero’s words. “We can figure something out! We can use healing, or magic, or maybe some kind of shield—”

“You can’t save everyone,” Noll stated simply. “It’s vanity to think you can.”

Both Jay and Wilhelm leaned back in their seats, unable to find any words to respond to the old wolf. Noll stared back at them, a stern expression on his aged face. He seemed to be daring them to talk back, but for the life of her, Jadis couldn’t think of what to say. Nor, it seemed, could Wilhelm.

“Perhaps with Sabina and Tiernan’s help, we might come up with a safe way to attempt rescue in the future,” Aila said gently, once more putting her hand on Jay. “But no more headlong rushes inside of the shells. The focus needs to be on neutralizing them. You can’t risk your lives like that anymore. Too many other lives depend on you both.”

Jay’s gaze met Wilhelm’s for a long minute. She could see the wheels turning in his mind, and she wondered if her thoughts were just as obvious to him. Neither of them liked the ultimatum, but neither could think of a good reason to argue against it. Purposefully choosing not to try and save the people trapped inside of those domes felt horrible, but getting themselves pointlessly killed in an easily avoidable trap would cost far more people their lives than just the victims of the obelisks.

“Your advice, while unhappy, is fair,” Wilhelm said eventually. “And I will follow it. Thank you, Aila.”

When Jay was silent for a few seconds longer, Noll raised an eyebrow.

“Pup?”

“Alright,” Jay sighed. “No more reckless rescue attempts. I swear. But I want as many people as possible focused on figuring out a way to safely extract those people from the inside of those shells. I refuse to accept that death is their only option.”

“I’m certain that we’ll figure something out to save those people, together,” Aila said with a soft smile. “After all, you’re both heroes.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep