The panic Jadis felt rise in her chest was blunted only by the certain knowledge she held that Hope was safe. She had personally taken her daughter to stay with Meli’s family that morning. The situation that the cultist-aligned Fetch was implying simply did not exist. Jadis had no doubt that the asshole was referring to Sybil, the woman that she had rescued from the altar during the battle at Nonia. Sybil had been checked by both Eir and Lucia, and neither had detected any sign of possession nor any connection to Samleos. If what the Fetch was saying was true, though, the woman wouldn’t have any idea that a soul-linked object was inside her body. She would be an unwilling carrier of a hostile entity, a complete victim of circumstance. Still, even if the Fetch was telling the complete truth and Sybil was carrying a link to the Playwright or whoever Ilmarinen was, Hope was safe. Sybil was nowhere near her baby.

And yet… Jadis could not quell the almost overwhelming blade of frozen panic that pierced her heart.

She almost didn’t notice. It took her a moment of true self-reflection, not something easy to do under her immediate circumstances, to realize that the feeling wasn’t wholly her own. The fear welling up from within had not come from herself. It was an outside emotion, an alien urge that had come from elsewhere. An orange placed among her apples, as Elder Yorath had once explained to her.

It was her goddess’ fear and panic that she felt so strongly, not her own.

“Aila!” Dys shouted as she backed away from the Fetch. “I need to get back to the temple! Now!”

The urgency in her voice was greater than she had intended, and all of her allies turned their attentions towards her. Dys continued to back up, though she kept her front to the Fetch. She was ready for tricks and didn’t want to give the not-yet secured captive a chance to make a move.

“What’s wrong?” Aila asked, rushing out from the tunnel entrance to stand at Dys’ side. “What happened?”

“I think the Playwright might have slipped past our defenses again,” Dys said, turning her head slightly to meet Aila’s gaze. “I need to go check—”

The slight inattention that Dys gave by looking away from the Fetch was all it took for him to act. Of course, Jadis still had her Jay self focused entirely on the crazy avatar, so she saw the moment that he moved. Clear, colorless flesh rippled as the shapeshifted changed form, morphing into something other than humanoid. Jay didn’t hesitate. The second she saw the shift begin, she swung her hammer, aiming for the Fetch’s head.

War hammer struck stone as Jay’s swing took the Fetch’s head clean off of his rippling shoulders. The destructive shape changer didn’t even try to dodge. Instead, his translucent face smiled, even as his head was splattered like a rotten melon by Jay’s attack. The loss of a head, however, was unimportant to a creature who had no brain, or any other internal organs for that matter. The Fetch moved, regardless.

Even as Jay swung again and Dys moved to protect Aila, the hostile shapeshifter transformed. His jelly-like flesh bloated outwards, turning both harder and opaque. Long trunks that were thick around as her shoulders spread, filling the room and knocking into everyone who was within. At first, Jadis thought they were tentacles, but when the ends opened up with toothy jaws, she realized what the Fetch had done. He had become a hydra, or at least part of one, and his many heads struck like angry snakes at every creature within sight.

What followed was a storm of melee that lasted mere seconds. There were half a dozen people in the room who were above CLR one hundred, and more who were just as strong thanks to being bonded to Jadis. The many snapping maws of the false hydra were nothing against the combined force of so many powerful combatants. But that, Jadis realized in the seconds it took strike the Fetch’s flesh down, was beside the point.

“The exit!” Jay shouted as she bodily slammed through the severed trunk of a wriggling hydra neck. “He’s going for the tunnel!”

Multiple hydra heads had slipped down the tunnel that Tiernan had created. Even as Jay shouted, the mage and others were reacting by striking at those extensions of the shape changer. But that was the wrong focus. Jay’s eyes were not for the improvised entrance that her allies had made to access the ritual basement, but the smaller, pre-existing tunnel that led to the workshop.

Two of the hydra’s heads had already slipped through the doorway.

Abruptly, the whole of the Fetch’s mass lit up with blue flames. Bridget had struck the shapeshifter with her damage-increasing skill, making it even easier for those who fought to cut through his coils. Even as Jay pushed towards the exit, she saw that two others had made it before her. Halvor, with his blue tattoos swirling across his skin, chopped at the thick hydra necks that blocked his way. Just behind the growling barbarian was Wilhelm, who also swung his golden sword through the wriggling mass, clearing a path with each stroke. When Jay neared, the Hero spun and called out to her.

“Go! See to the temple! We will catch him!”

Jay didn’t bother arguing. She turned away, running towards the other tunnel even as her Dys self pushed the hydra coils off herself from where she had protected Aila from being crushed. The Fetch’s false flesh was already melting, turning into the consistency of old pudding as its connection to the main body, or however it worked, was severed. She would leave chasing after the Fetch to others. His candor had been a setup, a purposeful reveal intended to create enough of a distraction to let him attempt an escape. But his words had not been lies, not completely. Jadis could still feel the warning pang of danger that Lyssandria had sent to her soul. The threat to the temple was real.

Jay and Dys pushed through the tunnel, grabbing hold of Eir and Alex as she went. She already carried Aila under one arm. Jadis couldn’t pause to explain everything, nor could she delay to gather all of her lovers, but she called out where she was going even as she passed the staging area that they had set up inside of the warehouse basement that they had commandeered for the operation. As her two selves broke through to the surface with her three lovers in tow, Jadis realized that a fourth companion had joined her.

“Don’t be reckless,” Noll shouted gruffly as he landed on the cobblestones next to her. “Don’t rush into a trap!”

“Stay here and make sure this isn’t a bait and switch!” Jay shouted back at the old wolf. “Do it!”

Her Dys self was already running ahead with Aila and Eir, but Noll sprinted up to Jay, preventing her and Alex from turning away as he stood in their path. Placing his closed fist against her chest, the savage warrior glared up at her, gaze unyielding.

“You have three heads,” he growled before giving her chest a solid thump. “Use them.”

With that, the therion turned away, heading back to secure the cultist ritual site.

Jadis mentally acknowledged what her mentor was trying to tell her. Panic wasn’t going to help. Keeping a level head was the most important aspect of reacting to a dangerous situation. She had always been good at responding to life and death attacks against herself with a clear head; it was when her loved ones were threatened that she let her emotions get the best of her. Letting herself be provoked into rash action was idiotic, especially when those who she cared about most in the world were in no immediate danger.

The surge of panic that Lyssandria had sent Jadis still lingered, though, and she couldn’t help but run as fast as she could to the temple. She needed to see if what the Fetch had said was true, and if so, what harm had been wrought by the Playwright’s hands. Fortunately, she was not just a single body. Her Syd self had been on the surface while her other two selves had been in the basement, and that part of her had already arrived at the temple entrance, well ahead of the rest of her selves.

Keeping Noll’s words in mind, Syd exhaled slowly before calmly approaching the closed doors of Lyssandria’s temple.

Jadis knew something was wrong the moment she entered the building. Thracina’s Lyssandrian temple was not frequented by many of the citizens compared to other temples. In fact, the general traffic had been mostly turned away ever since Jadis and her lovers had taken up residence, with the local priests and priestesses holding services either outside or only in the main hall, while the rest of the building was restricted. Despite not having many visitors, there were still plenty of clerics and priests who lived and worked inside of the temple, so the site was never quiet. There were always acolytes moving around on errands, or priestesses performing ceremonial duties. Someone was always playing a song, with faint music filling the halls even when no voices were present. And yet, as Syd took a cautious step inside, the hall was silent. No voices, no songs, not even a hint of life. Just the oppressive stillness of death.

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Moving further into the quiet temple, Syd noted that the lights had not been lit. The rain clouds outside had shrouded the city in murky darkness, so the inside of the temple was filled with shadows. Thracina was not as rich nor as advanced as Eldingholt, so the priests here used candles instead of magical enchantments. No candles were lit, nor could Syd smell the telltale sign of smoke that would have been in the air if the candles had been doused recently. Whatever had happened, the temple had been given time to settle.

The lack of light did not prevent Jadis from seeing. She still had Bridget’s Light the Way spell, and it was like having a blue-tinted flashlight that only she could see. Just to be sure, though, she quickly cast her Eyes of the Succubus spell, so that she would be able to see any magic in the air.

As her eyes flashed with the light of her spell, Syd caught sight of something dark spread out across the white marble floor at the back of the temple. Raising her sword staff, Syd approached, careful to keep an eye on her surroundings. The end of the hall was dominated by a statue of Lyssandria, with a simple marble altar set before it. Small vases and bowls filled with flowers and other offerings were set on top of the ceremonial altar, but it was the growing pool of liquid coming from behind the stone that Syd was focused on. As she neared, Syd’s nostril’s flared and her expression fell. The unmistakable scent of blood was filling the air, telling her what she would see even before she drew close enough to look beyond the altar.

A woman’s body lay on the floor. Or at least, Jadis guessed that the ravaged corpse had once been a woman. She had been mutilated beyond recognition; her face was a dark pulp of viscera and her body had been torn to pieces. It was hard to tell, but the woman’s arms looked like they were missing, and possibly her spine. Perhaps more, but without taking a closer look, it was impossible to tell for sure.

Jadis was horrified by the sight, but she set the emotion aside. Her focus was on the immediate threat, and the fact that the Fetch’s words had been all but confirmed. Someone had attacked Lyssandria’s temple, and based on the viciousness of the killing, they had to be related to Samleos and his cult.

If the soul-link item was real, and the Playwright had possessed Sybil, then did that mean the entire fight at Nonia had been a set up? Sabina and Tiernan still didn’t know what the sacrificial altar that the woman had been pinned to was supposed to do; it had never exploded, nor had any other effect that they could tell. Had it all been a ruse just to get this one woman close enough to Jadis and her lovers so that the Playwright could enact his revenge against her?

Possibly. All Jadis truly had was speculation, for the moment. As much as the Fetch had said, there was far more that he had not explained, and she had no more insight into what was happening than she had before the shapeshifter had spoken. She needed to tread cautiously, at least until she could figure out exactly what game the Playwright was playing.

“I am… Sorry…”

Syd almost jumped at the sudden voice in her ears. It had come from all around her, seemingly from no direction at all, yet filling the room. A woman’s voice, with a strange cadence and a familiar resonate echo that reminded her of…

“I wanted… To spend more time…”

The voice was like Alex, Syd realized as she slowly turned on her heel, scanning the shadows of the empty temple hall. Different in tone and pitch, but the same in its alienness. The voice sounded… regretful. Perhaps even sad. There was no hint of the mad glee that Jadis had heard from the Playwright in the past. Whoever the source of the voice was, Jadis was beginning to suspect it was not the leader of the cult. Perhaps it was Ilmarinen, whoever that was supposed to be.

Regardless of the voice’s identity, Jadis decided to play along. Her other selves had just arrived, and stalling for a little time could give her the seconds she needed to get her bodies into position. She didn’t want to rush into a fight with one lone, unarmored body.

“Is that you, Playwright?” Syd called out, her voice echoing in the despoiled temple. “Couldn’t wait for me to come to you in Kastoria?”

“Wait… No…” the disembodied voice replied. “I could not… Wait… To see you…”

“I didn’t think we had that kind of relationship?” Syd said sarcastically.

“Relationship… Yes… To be… Close… Yes…”

Syd frowned. That really did not sound like the Playwright. Again, he could be putting on some kind of an act, but as the seconds passed and the voice continued, a chill ran up Syd’s spine. This person, whoever they were, felt wrong. Horribly wrong. Even as her other selves arrived at the temple exterior, she found herself hesitant to continue. She didn’t want her lovers anywhere near the person who was speaking from the shadows.

That feeling would not prevent her from acting, though.

Dys landed on the balcony of the second floor of the temple as quietly as she could. She had left both Aila and Eir outside of the temple, where the two were starting their own preparations to deal with whatever was going on inside. Unlike her Syd self, who had forgone armor, her Dys body was fully equipped, so stealth wasn’t really an option. Still, Dys moved as quickly and quietly as she could into the room where she and her lovers stayed.

The room had been ransacked. The furniture had been overturned, and their clothes and other personal items had been tossed across the floor. Worse, Dys could see that Aila’s journal had been broken into, along with all of the maps, letters, and other materials that the mage kept locked up in her pack. The journal had been written in code, so Jadis didn’t think the cultists would be able to use those pages against them, but the letters and maps had details on their plans for the coming assault against Kastoria. Those getting into the Playwright’s hands could have devastating consequences.

“I wanted… To be… Closer… To you…”

Dys frowned at the voice. This time, it was speaking so that she could hear it, not her Syd self, which meant that the person had not only recognized her entry to the building, but had some kind of illusion skill or spell that let her project her voice all over the temple. The cultists could be anywhere, or even outside of the temple by that point, depending on how the spell worked.

“You aren’t the Playwright,” Dys said as she carefully stalked forward, searching for a sign of the intruder.

“Yes…”

“Are you Ilmarinen?”

“No…”

Jadis paused, her attention momentarily broken. Her Jay self had just entered through the second floor on the opposite side of the building. The door that led to Sybil’s room lay at the end of the hallway, and she could see that it was wide open. She could also see the tattered remains of a woman in a familiar brown dress lying in a pool of blood, just inside the doorway.

“Gloria…”

“No…” the voice answered, though Jay had not meant the name as a question. She could see the woman’s fate well enough from where she stood.

“Who are you?” Jay demanded, her voice tinged with anger as she pushed aside thoughts of the woman who had once sought her blessings for children.

“I am… Desire…”

“Desire? Twisted Desire?”

Jadis almost couldn’t believe it. The Greater Demon Twisted Desire was speaking to her? How was that possible? What the fuck had happened for that wretched monster to have reached a point where she could talk? Had the Playwright done something, after seeing what was possible with Alex?

“Prince Desire…” the Demon’s voice called out, a hint of pride leaking into her tone. “I am… Strong…”

Prince Desire. That name change was more than just a matter of ego. If Twisted Desire had become a Prince, that meant that the Demon had potentially replaced Demon Prince Vinea. Possibly due to the power vacuum killing Vinea had caused? Or was there something else at work?

Dys cursed softly under her breath as she stared through the side door that led to the room where Hope normally stayed. The furniture within had been destroyed even more than inside the main room, and many of the stuffed animals that she had not taken with her to Meli’s family grove had been shredded into little pieces.

“I expected the Playwright,” Dys growled as she backed out of the room. “Not his pet.”

“The Playwright… Was weak…”

Was. Jadis did not think that use of past tense was a mistake. Not with how her gut was screaming at her that Desire was horribly, terrifyingly wrong.

“Why are you here, Prince Desire?” Jay asked as she continued down the hall. As she walked, more bodies were revealed, all looking to have been given the same treatment as the one in the main hall. “What do you want?”

All three of Jadis went still as no response came from the Demon. With Jay and Dys upstairs on either end of the temple and Syd downstairs in the main hall, she stood and waited, listening for either a word or a noise. She still had no idea if the Demon was in the building or not, but from how the monster had spoken, she did not think she was far. But her own allies would be getting closer, too. And once they had all arrived, Jadis knew that they would be able to root the evil out, wherever it was hiding.

“What I want…?”

The Demon’s voice spoke again, this time audible to all three of Jadis’ bodies. However, as Jadis listened, her muscles tense and her senses straining, it was her Syd self who saw the tattered head of a stuffed rabbit fall from the ceiling above her to land in the cooling blood at her feet. Reacting instantly, she dashed backwards, looking up.

There was nothing above her, just shadows. But as she landed, Syd felt multiple sets of arms wrap around her waist, torso, and shoulders from behind in a vice-like grip. A cold set of lips brushed against her as a dark voice whispered like a lover in her ear.

“I want you…”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep