“Did this seriously happen to me twice?”
“Pardon?” Vita asked, her head cocking to one side in a frankly adorable move.
“Never mind,” Jay mumbled as she glanced sidelong at Noll.
Was she going to have to put in a standing order to Hans to not let weird furry people into their guild hall while she was gone? Getting ambushed like this again was not Jadis’ favorite way of being greeted when returning home from a long trip. Well, she had to admit, she wasn’t quite as thrown off her footing the second time around. Unlike the debacle with Noll, she knew what Vita was, if only through Eir’s descriptions.
Vita was a Lares. Just as her elven lover had described, Vita looked just like a normal cat. Maybe a bit on the large side for a house cat, but not to the point where she’d be confused for a wildcat. The big, obvious, unmistakable difference, however, was that Vita’s fur was made up of burning flames. Yellow and orange fire radiated from the Lares’ body, though rather than looking like some uncontrolled inferno, the flames spread out around her in a pattern that mimicked fur. If the scintillating flames had been still rather than constantly moving, Jadis might have been convinced that Vita was just an unusually bright long-haired cat. That could talk.
The talking part was kind of a big thing, too.
“Hello,” Jay said, making a conscious effort to not be a rude bitch like she had been in the previous similar situation. “Nice to meet you. My name is Ja—Jay.”
Jadis briefly stumbled over her name. She had resolved herself to the fact that the cat was out of the bag when it came to her triple-bodied nature, yet it still felt weird to introduce herself as anyone other than her assumed identities as triplets. She’d tried it with Renz and it had gone over well enough, but that was someone she had at least a passing acquaintance with. Renz was on her list of people she felt she could trust in a pinch. This high priestess wasn’t even in the same book. She felt like she might as well keep up the pretense, at least for however long it took to get the high priestess out of her house. She really didn’t want to get bogged down in any discussions until after she’d had a night’s sleep.
Wait. Was “cat out of the bag” an insensitive phrase considering present company? Thinking about it, Jadis decided she would keep that little idiom to herself for the time being as well.
“Ah, yes, Jay,” Vita said with a nod, as though she had expected the name. “One of three sisters, or so I have been told. I do not see them with you. Are they nearby?”
“Yeah, just outside,” Jay hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “They’ll be in in just a second. Is there something we can do for you…?”
“Perhaps,” Vita purred, her voice slightly raspy in a pleasant sort of way. “And perhaps I for you. But la, look at me. I have been ever so rude. Here I am chatting away when you have clearly just returned from a long and tiring journey. No doubt you are cold, hungry, and tired. And I have not even had the grace to introduce myself to your estimable companions. Please, do go about your business, dear, and I will greet your company and perhaps do what I can to soothe your aches.”
Even as she spoke, Vita’s flames flared in brightness. A warm aura radiated out from the Lares, spreading over the whole room and everyone in it.
Immediately Jadis felt warmer. Even her two bodies who were still outside suddenly felt as warm as though all three of her were sitting in front of a crackling fire with a mug of hot coco in their hands. More than the temperature, Jadis also felt her stamina rejuvenate in a way that reminded her of Bridget’s aura ability, only far stronger. Even the little aches and pains that came with wearing heavy armor for a long time were gone, leaving Jadis feeling just as refreshed as if she had just stepped out of a hot shower.
True to her word, Vita leapt off of the seat she had claimed and began walking around to each and every one of Jadis’ companions. She spoke kindly, introducing herself to each one in turn, even taking the time to ask a few questions about who they were and where they were from. From the way she spoke, it seemed to Jadis that Vita already knew the answers to her questions but was determined to be polite and get the information directly from the source.
While all of them were respectful to the Lares, Eir was the most formal towards Vita out of all of her companions. She bowed deeply, hands folded before her, and spoke to the Lares in a way that reminded Jadis of someone speaking to their boss. Which made some sense, Jadis supposed, since Vita was apparently a high priestess. That had to put her on the same level as High Priest Gerhardt, at least. Or perhaps higher, considering Vita had introduced herself as being the high priestess of a temple in the empire’s capital. Jadis wasn’t sure how religious hierarchy worked on Oros, but she made a note to ask Eir as soon as she could get the elf away from Vita.
With the high priestess momentarily distracted, Jadis took the opportunity to get her other two bodies into the building through the back door. Syd and Tegwyn had moved the goats into the back courtyard while Dys hurried behind them carrying Alex in her crate. As soon as all three entered through the kitchen, Dys set the crate down and partially opened the lid to speak with the demon.
Alex’s three bright eyes stared up at her upon opening the crate, her tentacles already moving to push their way out. Making a shushing noise, Dys motioned for Alex to stay where she was.
“Alex, stay,” Dys whispered while Tegwyn and Syd strode over to the door that led from the kitchen into the main room. “Quiet. Stay. Okay?”
Alex didn’t respond verbally, but a tentacle reached out and ran across Dys’ face in a tender stroke. Jadis felt like she was getting a little better at interpreting the demon’s touches, since she felt like the move had been an intentional effort to tell if Jadis was alright.
“Safe,” Dys said, though she wasn’t wholly sure if Alex understood that word yet. “Just, be quiet and patient, okay?”
Hans was heading back towards the kitchen then, so Dys hastily put the crate’s lid back in place. Then, to make sure no accidents happened, Dys used the distraction that Syd and Tegwyn provided to take the crate down the stairs into the cellar.
It was easy enough to use the idea that they now had a lot of valuable items in their possession as an excuse as to why they needed to unload the wagon right away, so while Vita exclaimed her delight over meeting Tegwyn, a native Dryad to Weigrun, Jadis unloaded a few more of the most valuable crates from the Behemoth. Once she’d moved enough to feel like her actions weren’t suspicious, Jadis resigned herself to the fact that it looked like she would be having four guests staying for dinner. Not only Noll, Gerwas, and Ludwas, but also High Priestess Vita. She politely excused herself from the flaming feline to rush upstairs and take off her armor, followed by pretty much all of her girls, even Sabina and Bridget.
“Why in Lyssandria’s perfect tits is the high priestess of Ulya’s Temple downstairs?” Kerr demanded as she quickly stripped out of her own leather armor. “Shouldn’t she be, I don’t know, in Eldingholt!?”
“I don’t think it’s that hard to guess,” Aila waved a hand at the trio of one Nephilim in one corner of the bedroom. “She’s here for Jadis.”
“Yeah, no shit. But why is she here?” Kerr cursed as she nearly fell over in her haste to remove her boots. “I feel like I’m about to have dinner with the damn emperor.”
“Vraekae might have called for her,” Jay suggested sourly. “Or Gerhardt. It smells like some kind of political nonsense to me.”
“I do not think my cousin would have requested the high priestess of Ulya’s Temple to travel all the way to Weigrun, Jadis,” Eir said in a subdued tone. “She does not have the power to move them, for one. Nor do I think she would wish to risk such a venerable high priestess by having her come to a city on the front line of the demonic invasion, especially when High Priest Gerhardt is already here.”
“Why would that make a difference?” Jay asked, turning to face Eir. “Also, just how high up the chain of command is Vita?”
“As a rule, both the temple and the empire do not generally permit more than one high priest to be in the same high-risk location at the same time. What if the worst were to happen and the city were to fall to a demonic attack? Losing one high priest would be a tragedy. Losing two would be an utter disaster. High priests are an exceedingly rare class that are not easily replaced. High Priest Gerhardt’s presence here in Far Felsen should prohibit all other high priests from coming to this border city, for prudence’s sake. Such a rule would not be broken lightly.
“As to her rank, High Priestess Vita is one of the few that have surpassed level one hundred. There are only a handful of high priests in each gods’ temple that have exceeded that marker. I believe only a few priests would be her senior.”
From Eir’s explanation, Jadis was quickly putting the pieces together to get a picture of what had been going on in Far Felsen while she’d been away on the expedition to the north. Vita had shown up, likely just as unexpected and uninvited on Vraekae’s doorstep as on her own, and demanded to see the mysterious Nephilim sisters that had shown up out of the blue. Since Jadis hadn’t been present, Vraekae had probably been having a fit trying to appease the high priestess, which explained why she’d put an order out to the border forts to get her back to the city as quickly as possible. It was also probable that Vraekae was trying to get Vita out of Far Felsen as quickly as possible to avoid any incidents.
At first glance, Jadis didn’t think having a second high priest in town for only a short visit was really all that big of a deal. But then she remembered how demons were avatars, just like Nephilim or Lares. If Ulya had given Vita the nudge to be at the Fortune’s Favored headquarters on just the right night to be around for their arrival, it was just as possible that Demons could be receiving the same kind of instinctive direction that several somethings worth killing could be found at the southernmost tip of the landmass.
Well. Jadis and her allies had just killed off two demon matriarchs, two greater demons, and literally thousands of the regular variety. With so many slain, Jadis figured the number of demons wandering the Weigrun wilderness had to be depleted. Even their journey back to the city had been fairly unobstructed by demonic attacks. Hopefully that meant she’d bought a little safety for the visiting high priestess.
Soon, Jadis and her companions were changed out of their travel gear and into more comfortable clothes. Feeling slightly more informed though still underprepared, she led them all back down the stairs to where Vita, Noll, Gerwas, Ludwas, and Tegwyn were already sitting around the sole large table in the room. Hans was busily setting out plates and mugs, as well as baskets of bread and platters of assorted cheeses and preserved fruits. She could already smell meat cooking in the kitchen, so it looked like Hans wasn’t holding anything back for the impromptu return dinner.
“Noll was just telling me a little of your journey,” Vita said to Jay as they all squeezed in tight to find seats around table. “It sounds like you have had quite the adventure! Clearly, you and your sisters are not ones to shy away from danger.”
“Ah, no, definitely not,” Jay quickly agreed. She found herself slightly distracted by having a conversation with a cat who was happily lapping at a bowl of milk, but she managed to get her head back on track. “We had an overall pretty successful trip, aside from the fact that we didn’t find any other Nephilim.”
“But other than that minor detail,” Syd huffed dramatically, “yeah, it was good. Feels like we got a lot done.”
“A toast to that,” Tegwyn added, raising his mug in a salute to Jadis and the others. “Praise be to the gods that you and yours came when they did, else my kin would have been in dire straits.”
“Returning alive is always worth a toast,” Noll agreed as he raised his own mug.
“To living another day, then,” Jay said as she took up her drink. “Cheers!”
The toast did what Tegwyn likely had hoped it would and broke some of the tension that still lingered in the room. It helped that Vita didn’t attempt any kind of interrogation or pursue some kind of obvious agenda. She was kind and attentive, asking questions and answering those asked of her, though otherwise not inserting herself into every conversation. She behaved, despite her lofty title, no differently from any common guest that might join them for a late dinner. The Lares’ behavior was calming enough that Jadis felt she was likely going to be able to get away with pushing off all important conversations until the next morning.
And then the front door banged open with a gust of frozen wind with a sternly frowning Magistrate striding into the room a moment after. The words she spoke were said with enough frost in her voice to put the blizzard outside to shame.
“Of course I find you here.”
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