The morning was cool and crisp, a sharp ocean breeze carrying along the smell of salt and ice. The sun’s light sparkled off of a blanket of snow that had covered the city three feet deep, transforming the streets and buildings into featureless uniformity that was nonetheless beautiful in its clean simplicity. Whole quarters of the city were silent, the reduced population who still remained mostly staying indoors on this clear day after a blizzard. The few who were moving outdoors on this quiet morning were on official business: city guards changing shifts at the wall, soldiers preparing to go on patrol, laborers working to clear the main streets from all the snow, and nine-foot-tall Nephilim mercenaries marching on city hall to meet with a gaggle of priests.
Of course, Jadis wasn’t alone. All of her companions had wanted to come with her to meet with Vraekae and the priests, if for no other reason than to offer their support, but the magistrate had preemptively disallowed that from happening. After the extremely awkward dinner on their first night back in Far Felsen had quickly ended, Vraekae had ordered Jadis to report to the city hall first thing in the morning with no more than two of her companions accompanying her. She’d then heavily implied that those two companions had better be Eir and Tegwyn or no one at all.
Jadis liked the fire-cat priestess Vita. She was kind and friendly and honestly gave off a sort of motherly vibe that made Jadis feel comfortable with the Lares in a way that she did not with many other authority figures. However, the business of excitedly talking about Jadis producing children, whether they be with her lovers or with her own “sisters” had been one of the most excruciating few minutes of her life. And as someone who had literally been set on fire to the point of having her skin melt off, Jadis felt like the assessment held a lot of weight.
As bad as that had been, it had given Jadis some hint of the reason the high priests had come all the way from the capital to the distant colonial city. They weren’t here to confirm if Jadis really was a Nephilim but had instead come to make sure that the only “three” Nephilim known to exist in the whole world didn’t stay at just three.
Now, that wasn’t to say there weren’t other agendas hiding under the table. Jadis wasn’t so blind to political machinations as to think that nine different priestly envoys would seek her out just to make sure she was doing her part to repopulate the species. There were definitely other reasons for the high priests to seek her out. Jadis had no doubt that some of them had to do with political favors and support; Vita didn’t seem like the type but Jadis doubted that the Lares got to be a high priest of a temple in the capital by ignoring politics. Jadis was going to have to tread carefully to make sure she wasn’t sucked into any partisan quicksand in the coming meeting.
Jadis hadn’t gotten as much sleep as she would have liked before going into this meeting, either. As soon as all of their guests, including two decidedly concerned and overexcited uncles, had left the mercenary headquarters, Jadis and her companions had spent hours discussing what their game plans were. Eir in particular had done a lot of the talking as she had not only gone over all the information she had on any and every high priest that she thought could have possibly come from Eldingholt to speak with Jadis, but also went over all the information she herself had ever reported to High Priest Gerhardt about Jadis. Eir had previously admitted that she had passed information on her experiences with Jadis to the temple head as a matter of course but had not elaborated overmuch on what she’d said. Now that it was clear that Vita knew about Jadis being a hermaphrodite-type Nephilim, Aila wanted Eir to go over even the smallest detail that she may have told Gerhardt since it was more than likely that all such information had been passed along to the other high priests. In the coming encounter, it would help Jadis to know what the priests already knew about her.
Crunching her way through the snow the next morning, Jadis wished she had Aila with her. While her arcanist girlfriend wasn’t a priest or a politician, she did have a sharp mind that would have been very welcome as an added defense against a group of people who had who knows how many hidden motivations. Having Eir accompany her was excellent since, as a priestess and someone of noble lineage, Eir had a wealth of experience walking through the same circles as the kind of people Jadis was about to meet with. But Vraekae had limited the number of participants, probably because she wanted to lessen Jadis’ defenses, and she’d told Jadis to bring Tegwyn instead of any of her other companions. And Tegwyn was a far cry less welcome of a companion compared to Aila.
Well, that wasn’t fair. Tegwyn was a good man. Even though Jadis hadn’t known him that long, he’d shown himself to be both a congenial and trustworthy companion. And while he wasn’t any more experienced with politics than Jadis, he was a fellow avatar race. That fact alone gave him the advantage of having a god in his corner who might offer some guidance should Tegwyn and his Nephilim friend wander into some truly troublesome weeds.
She was also probably being unnecessarily bitchy about Vraekae, too. There were more reasons to limit the number of people Jadis brought with her other than putting her at a disadvantage. One reason that Jadis could think of right away was that the magistrate was probably just trying to keep the high priests safe. It had to be stressful having that many important guests dropped into her lap, the expectation that she had to keep them secure from all harm weighing heavily on her. Jadis could admit a begrudging sympathy with Vraekae when she thought of it that way.
After all, Jadis spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about how to protect those who were special to her.
“What do you think about the city so far, Teg?” Syd asked Tegwyn, noticing the Dryad’s head was on a swivel as they made their way to the city hall. “And now that I think about it, have you ever been anywhere like this before?”
“No, not really,” Tegwyn answered in a distracted tone. “I’ve visited a few smaller settlements in the past, but I never came this far south. Just little villages.”
He was quiet for moment as his gaze tracked the movement of a woman sweeping the snow out of the doorway to a shop. The woman stopped to stare at their group right back, her eyes moving up and down the smiling Dryad in a way that made Jadis smirk. After they had passed, Tegwyn seemed to remember he had been asked more than one question.
“Oh, yes, this city is much nicer than I had expected. My father and other Dryads had told me that many larger cities tend to be overly crowded and unclean, but so far Far Felsen has been relatively pleasant. Not enough trees to be anywhere I’d want to settle my roots, but nice enough.”
“Some cities can be untidy places,” Eir chimed in. “Though that is mostly a problem in border towns that do not have well-established local governments and lack funding for public works. But you would love the capital, I am certain. The Great Eld Tree is a wondrous sight.”
“I’ve heard tell,” Tegwyn nodded. “The founding tree. I would like to see such an ancient work of Villthyrial’s one day.”
“It is beautiful,” Eir smiled, clearly thinking of a fond memory. “As is the rest of Eldingholt. Every street is lined with works of beauty and art. You could spend a year wandering the roads and alleys from dusk to dawn and still not find every statue and mural that has been placed for the citizens to appreciate and enjoy.”
Jadis liked the picture that Eir was painting of the capital city, but she doubted that her pure and sheltered priestess had a full picture. Maybe it was her Earthly background biasing her expectations, but Jadis doubted that any city could exist that didn’t have a poorer quarter. There always had to be places where the impoverished and downtrodden lived, and those places were usually far out of sight of the places where someone with Eir’s background would live. Maybe Jadis was wrong and Eir was right and there weren’t any rough places in the capital. But she doubted her expectations would not be met.
Soon enough, the small group of pseudo-five people found themselves walking up the steps of the Far Felsen city hall. It had been more than a month since the last time Jadis had been to the municipal building but she didn’t expect there to be any changes. For the most part, there weren’t any, except that it looked like the number of guards who were normally stationed along the entrances and walls had doubled.
Before Jadis had even reached the top step, she found herself accosted by a half-dozen well-dressed attendants. The group of men and women metaphorically swept Jadis off her feet, trundling not only her but Eir and Tegwyn along in a whirlwind of rushed greetings and official courtesies. In mere minutes Jadis was walking through a set of double doors that were actually tall enough that she didn’t have to stoop to go through them. Beyond them was a massive chamber that was longer than it was wide. The richly appointed room was large enough that a few hundred people could have been accommodated within, though the number of occupants there to greet Jadis and her two companions was far less than that number.
A long table had been set up in the middle of the room with exactly enough chairs around it for the people present, if Jadis included herself, Eir, and Tegwyn. None of the people around the room were seated, barring one exception. Standing at one end of the table was Vraekae, the blue-skinned elf dressed in an even finer uniform than the one she typically wore. Her perpetually cold expression was in place, as was her glowing red ball of death. To her right stood High Priest Gerhardt, the old and bearded human man wearing a set of fine white robes. To her left was—
Jadis nearly let out a curse. To her utter disbelief, General Egilhard was standing to Vraekae’s left. He was also dressed in a formal uniform that was the match to what the Magistrate wore, though his chest was festooned with what Jadis assumed were military medals. The general looked serene, satisfied even. Not at all the way Jadis would have expected Egilhard to look after captain Willa had no doubt given her report to Vraekae. In fact, Jadis had fully expected not to see the general at all, except maybe in a courtroom or behind bars. But there he was, unruffled as an eagle surveying his rightful domain.
The distraction that General Egilhard presented was enough that Jadis almost missed the other people standing on either side of the table. Fortunately, she was able to gather her senses before she caused a disturbance and quickly took in the various men and women. It took only a glance to confirm what Jadis had feared might be the case. Of the nine men and women at the table that Jadis didn’t know, every one of them looked like a priest.
There was, of course, one who Jadis did have an acquaintance with. Vita, a high priestess of Ulya, was the exception to the rule of everyone else standing. The fiery Lares sat on a kind of booster seat in her chair near the end of the table that Jadis was closest to. She gave Jadis a very feline smile before calling out to her ahead of everyone else.
“Good morning, dears!” Vita purred in that slightly raspy voice of hers. “I’m so glad you could join us, Jadis. Eir and Tegwyn as well, of course.”
There was an amused sparkle in the flaming cat’s eye that made it clear that her words had been chosen with care. A nice signal to Jadis to let her know that not only did she now know the nature of Jadis’ three split bodies, but everyone else present was aware as well. Jadis would have to thank Vita for the warning later. Maybe buy her a bucket of fish and another of cream.
“Yes, welcome,” Magistrate Vraekae quickly said, taking control of the room with little effort. “Please be seated. We have much to discuss.”
With a mental shrug, Jadis moved her three bodies together in purposeful unity. Taking hold of the three seats that were clearly intended for her bodies considering their unusual size, she sat down at the other end of the table, Eir on her left and Tegwyn on her right. She smiled in as polite and friendly a way as she could manage at the gathering before greeting them in perfect unity.
“Good morning. My name is Jadis Ahlstrom. It’s a pleasure to meet you all.”
326