Chapter 100 A Hero’s Ailment (Part 2)

Ren looked at me. Then she craned her neck to look past me, at Edda and Ash, who had resumed their practice some distance away. Then she looked back at me, one brow furrowed. "She looks fine to me. The heck are you talking about?"

"She is not fine," I said, folding my arms. "Something is wrong with her. I demand you help me fix it."

Ren continued to stare. Then she raised her hands. "I don't know what the hell you think I can do. If she's hurt or something, just use that fancy white flame of yours and get her back on her feet."

A reasonable objection, and somehow still a stupid one. Did she think I had not made that same offer? I did not want to share any of this with this girl at all. And yet, there was no one else to share it with, save for Ash herself, which would truly be pointless. "Whatever is wrong with her," I said slowly, "my power cannot fix. Or at least, Ash believes my power cannot fix it."

Ren only looked more confused now than when I had started my explanation. Solara let out a loud chirp. She waddled up to Ren and pecked at her knee. Ren cursed under her breath and scooted back. "Hey, relax! Seriously, I don't know what the heck you want me to do if you don't even know what's wrong with her," the girl protested.

I knew it. I had known it before I had even said the first word. Asking this girl again would simply be a waste of breath. I rose, and turned. Yes, I would confront Ash herself. She claimed my Cradle could not fix what was wrong with her, but I had not tried. My power could touch Concepts. Perhaps she had forgotten. Solara waddled to my feet. We began our walk.

"Wait!"

I stopped. I turned. Ren was looking up at me, her face faintly red. "Is this…" She held out both hands and interlocked her fingers. It was a gesture I had seen her make before. One that had conveyed nothing useful to me then, and conveyed even less to me now. "Is this girl trouble?" she finally asked. Her voice was surprisingly low, for Ren.

I regarded her. "Ash is a girl, yes. And whatever is wrong with her is trouble. So yes, under the strictest definition, this is 'girl trouble', though I would urge you to find a more fitting-"

Ren's face turned scarlet. Her entire face was just a shade lighter than the rest of her hair. Her hand shot out, so fast I almost didn't see it. She grabbed my arm and forced me to sit back down. I considered shoving her away and pulling back. I almost did, before Ren quickly spoke again. "Okay… fuck. I can't believe I'm doing this, but maybe I can help."

I raised an eyebrow. "You just said you could not help. I believe nothing has changed between now and a few seconds prior." Solara let out a small chirp. She waddled toward us and sat between us. She was also looking at Ren.

"Do you want my help or not?" Ren demanded.

I did not appreciate the girl's tone. But then again, it was I who had come to her for help. I had certainly been curt with those who had come to plead at the foot of my throne. "Yes."

Ren raised an eyebrow, then she slowly nodded. "Okay, so… tell me what happened. She was fine when I saw her yesterday." She looked past me again, at Edda and Ash. "So what the hell happened?"

Now, how was I to explain this to this girl? I could not very well say that the God she believed in might be someone Ash knew. Someone she had thought dead, now come back to life. I was not sure how Ren felt about this Divine, but when she had spoken of her, it had been in reverence. "Ash…" I reached for the words, and the reaching took some time. "She believed someone was lost to her. We found out that person might not have been so lost after all."

Ren nodded slowly. She rested her chin on the edge of her palm and stared at the ground. "Lost to her, huh?" she mumbled to herself, before looking back up at me. "Another girl?"

"Yes," I said. How had she guessed that part? I was sure I had not revealed that much.

Ren nodded again, more quickly this time. "I get it. So it's like that. Oh God, this is getting a lot more complicated really fast. This is going to be a nightmare."

"Girl." I kept my voice sharp. "If you know something, then share it." Solara let out an angry squawk, doubtless in agreement.

"Okay, Ren, don't fuck this up," the girl muttered to herself. Then, for no reason even I could explain, she clapped her hands against her cheeks, hard enough that they were red when she pulled them back. Well, redder than they had already been. "So, from what I'm hearing, she's sad because of a girl in her past, right?"

"That is an accurate assessment."

"And you're mad because you're right here, so why the hell is she thinking about someone else?" Ren asked.

"I am not mad," I said with indignation. "I am simply…concerned. If this is some kind of poison, then I have seen poison kill many when they thought they were otherwise fine. And this other statement of yours is entirely-"

Ren looked at me. She looked at me sharply, and with a gaze that saw more than I had ever thought her capable of. "Alright, then just show her you care," Ren said. "Prove to her that she doesn't need to be sad over someone in the past. Easy."

This was a line of reasoning I had never considered. It was simple, almost brutish. The kind of thing only someone dimwitted might give credence to. Still, it was more than any method I had devised. "And how do I do that?" I asked. "I have given her a precious title. I allow her to sleep with me. Occasionally, I allow her to hold me, or I hold her, if she so requests. That would match this 'care'."

Ren's face had gotten redder and redder in my telling, and by the end of it, there was steam leaking from her ears. Her Sigil was glowing. A rather strange application of her mark. It took some time for her to recover. I reached out and idly brushed the top of Solara's head. She closed her golden eyes and leaned into the gesture. She was being rather patient with Ren, enough to stop her rolling.

"You need to do something… special," Ren finally said. "Something you wouldn't normally do. Just to shock her out of it, I guess?"

"Something special," I repeated. "And just what might that be?"

Ren looked past me again. Then her eyes found mine. She shrugged. "Get her something nice. Something that would mean something to her."

Give Ash a thing. I turned the thought over. Of everything the girl had said, this made sense. My retainers had always been most pleased when I set something in their hands as a reward. Even Seryth, whose loyalty had been the thinnest of all my Generals', had been pleased when I gave her [The Cutter]. Yes. I understood this well. Service was answered with gifts.

It was very simple. So simple that I should have devised it myself, without any assistance from a serving girl at all.

"Very well," I said, rising. "Where might I acquire an appropriate thing? What beast do I need to slay? Who do I need to threaten?" Solara let out a small chirp, turning toward me. I leaned down and cupped her, setting her between my horns. I could feel her determination from the bond. She was ready to threaten and slay whomever or whatever with me.

Ren rose quickly. "You don't need to slay anything. Divine, but you half-demons are weird," Ren said. "You can just buy something from the city. It shouldn't be that bloody hard to find something she'll like. I bet she'll like anything you give her."

"Something from the city," I murmured. "So there will be no slaying and no threatening?"

Ren looked at me. She very slowly sighed. "I'll uh… I'll come with you. Needed to go out anyway."

We passed the Academy gates as the sun climbed toward its peak. Ren walked ahead of me with the silver token stashed somewhere inside her robes, and she was leading the way, and I was letting her. The guards had glanced at me and stepped aside without a word.

I had informed Ash and Edda before we left. Only that we were leaving, and that we might be gone for some time. The Hero had moved at once to follow. I had raised a hand and told her we were going alone.

Ash had stopped mid-step. She had stared. Something stricken had crossed her face. She had nodded and stayed where she was. Perhaps I should have taken her with me after all. Edda had shared her own look with Ren, one that hadn't looked nearly so stricken. Ren had just nodded, and that was that.

"You better not be leading me astray, girl," I said.

Ren replied without so much as turning. "Like you'd be able to figure out anything on your own anyway. Come on."

It was true that without her assistance I might have some… difficulty navigating this strange city. How she knew this, however, was a mystery. Perhaps the Hero had a looser tongue than I had assumed.

Solara let out a small chirp from atop my head as a breeze blew in from somewhere in the east. I did not need to check the bond to know why. When last she had seen these sights, the sun had not been nearly so high in the sky. "Do you like this, Solara?" I asked her. She let out another loud chirp, one loud enough to make the closest people nearby stop and stare at us. Though, a good few had been staring at the sight of my horns anyway.

Ren led me to a massive fountain. The same fountain I had seen on the first day I had come to this city. Water still flowed in channels, spilling into basins that floated on air. The spray still broke into its dozen colors. The living vines still threaded through the structure, and the white flowers breathed as they had on that day. Soon, I would leave this city, perhaps to never return. Perhaps today was the last time I would ever see this strange structure, one that could never have existed in the old world. Strange, that I should feel grief over rock and water.

Solara let out a small chirp. I looked up at her, and saw the whole of the tiny bird's attention focused on the fountain. She approved, and I approved of her approving. Finally, I turned to Ren, who had only been watching me. "Well? What now, girl? Have you led me here only to stare?"

Ren sighed, then she looked around. There were a great many people, and a great many buildings besides, each one carved finer than the last, their white stone catching the midday light. Merchants called their wares from stalls between them, and students in grey moved through the crowds in twos and threes.

"Now you decide what you even want to get her," Ren said, looking back at me. "Decide that, and I'll take you to the right store."

"Girl," I said. "If I knew that, then I would not require your assistance at all." That was not entirely true. I had given gifts for good service before. All of my Generals had been pleased to receive the weapons I had acquired for them. And Ash was a Hero, one who could respect strength. Given that, the answer was rather obvious. Especially with what we would need for this Great Hunt.

Ren opened her mouth to say something. I cut her off. "Take me to the finest weapons in this city," I said.

Ren's mouth slowly closed.

What followed was an inspection. One more thorough than any I had conducted as the Demon Queen. Ren took me to a dozen of these 'weapon shops', and I inspected the full dozen. Each time, a man or woman would come forward, wring their hands, and point me to their finest wares.

Their finest wares were an insult. I held blades whose balance sat a finger's width from where it should. I held a warhammer a woman called a masterwork. If any of the Dwarves had still been alive, they would have slain her for the offense.

Not one item in any of those shops would have been worthy of my lowliest General's lowliest lieutenant. And I was not shopping for a lieutenant. I was shopping for Ash. For my Hero.

There were swords in every one of those shops. Rows of them. My gaze passed over all of them, and it did not stop.

The hours passed, and the sun began its long fall from the sky. Ren took me at last to the final of these establishments, one that named itself, with no apparent irony, 'The Final Blade'.

"Come on, this has to be good enough," Ren half-muttered, and I suspect half-pleaded, from my left. "What do you even want?"

I ignored her, focusing all of my attention on the armor I held. It was a set of light-brown pauldrons, made out of trollskin. I inspected them. The material was coarse and rough under my fingers. I held them up to the light. As far as armor was concerned, they were adequate. Compared to the several dozen items I had examined today, these were both light, and hard enough to divert more than the most glancing of blows.

"Come on, lady, I have other divine-damned customers waiting on ya," a man's voice came from my right. I ignored that too. He was the keeper of this store, a man whose name Ren had known and I had forgotten. "This 'ere is a fine piece of work. Better than anything else you're going to find in this city. Way better than the likes of you half-"

I looked toward him. He was a short man, stocky through the chest and shoulders, with a brown beard so massive it swallowed half his face. He looked, at a glance, almost like a dwarf. Almost. No dwarf who ever lived would have suffered items of such poor make beneath his roof. The man's words died somewhere inside the beard. His eyes had found mine, and widened. Then they dropped to my forearms, to the branching black and the branching white laid bare, and they widened further still. He only had a pale blue Line I could barely even see.

"This will not do," I said, setting the pauldrons back down on the table.

"And just what, if I might ask," the man said in a much slower voice, "is the issue with that item?"

I eyed the useless pauldrons for one more half-second before turning back to the man. "They are not flexible enough. They will restrict movement. The only thing they will do is guard against blows one should have never taken in the first place." That much was true. It was the reason why I had never liked elaborate armor much. And why my Darkness Binding had been a marvel among marvels. A thing that could glance aside any blow, and make one feel freer for wearing it.

The man's mouth slowly opened. No doubt to raise an objection. The kind many of these shopkeepers had raised, when I had told them their inadequacies in detail. I did not have time to hear it. I strode past him, and into the street outside.

"Hey!" Ren hurried to join me, and then we were walking. "That was the best store in the whole damn city, you know," Ren grumbled. "We couldn't even afford that thing anyway, but I took you because you were being picky about everything else, and even then-"

"I was not being picky," I said idly. I was walking, though with me leading the way, I did not know what I was walking toward. "Everything in that store was simply inadequate. I would find better weapons from the scales of a Wyrm, and better armor from the talons of a Gryffin." Solara let out a small chirp of agreement from between my horns. She was agreeing with me, though she had never seen either of those beasts. She still had good taste.

It was a few steps before I realized I was alone. I paused and turned. Ren stood in place, and she was shaking her head so furiously I thought it might come straight off her neck. "Where the hell are we going to find something like that?!" Ren said. "If you told me you wanted something that crazy, I'd never have taken you to all these bloody places in the first place." She sighed.

"You are saying I cannot find items of an acceptable quality anywhere in this city?" That was hard to believe. Even if Ren had called that store 'the best in Koralis', a part of me had hoped she was simply joking. It seemed she was not.

"Yes," Ren said. "You'd have to go out east. Where there are more dungeons and monsters. You're not going to find a bloody Wyrm anywhere near here."

"I see."

It seemed our quest had been doomed from the start. East, the girl had said. Which meant our excursion had been a waste of time after all.

Ren sighed and stepped to join me. We walked, and this time Ren led. I let her. Her gait was slower than it had been, and her head was low. I understood something of why. Despite our failure, it was true that she had tried. And tried vigorously at that. Once, the trying would not have been enough. One either did, or did not. "Girl." She looked across at me. "Your help was… appreciated." The word felt foreign in my throat. "Even if we did not find what we sought, you were an acceptable guide."

Solara let out her own loud chirp. She was agreeing with me. Then I felt her weight lift. Ren stared as the bird flew toward her. She flapped in front of Ren's face, hanging in the air. Ren slowly held out her hands, and Solara fell into them. Then Solara chirped softly. She was giving her own thanks, I was sure.

"Well-" Ren looked away, and her face was very red. "Well, I guess it's fine then. Stupid bird, making me-" She mumbled something I did not catch, and then she started walking far faster. I followed.

We walked through the streets, and slowly the Academy rose over the rooftops ahead of us. Solara chirped at some point along the way, and I lifted her from Ren's hands and set her back between my horns. Ren let go of her with reluctance. The girl stopped at a stall here and there as we went. She bought one thing, and then another, and a third, and each time she turned her body so that whatever she had bought vanished into her robes before my eyes could find it. I did not ask. They were all food items, as far as I could tell. I had no interest in whatever the girl wanted to eat in secret.

"Honey, it matches your eyes," a man said, somewhere to my left.

"Oh dear, it's so beautiful. You are always so thoughtful," a woman answered.

I paused. Ren took a few steps more before she noticed, and looked back. "What is it?"

I was staring at a stall. A small one, wedged between two grander storefronts, and upon it lay jewelry. All of it shone in the lowering light. The man was haggling with the vendor over what appeared to be a ring, one set with a small green gemstone. When the haggling was done he turned and presented it to the woman beside him, and the woman smiled wide. Wide enough that the smile reached every part of her face.

I knew jewelry well enough. Many of my demons had draped themselves in it, hauled up from the vaults of kingdoms I had broken. I had never understood the appeal. It carried no enchantments. It served as the poorest of armor. It could hold nothing, cut nothing, and guard against no blow at all. It had no purpose whatsoever, save to catch the light.

And the woman smiled as though she had been handed something precious. The transaction did not balance. The two of them walked on, her hand in his, the ring already on her finger.

I stepped forward.