"I plan to travel the world with Seris for a while," Liria said.
She spoke lightly, as though she were announcing nothing more significant than a change in the afternoon weather, but every set of eyes at the table still turned toward her.
Sunlight poured through the high arched windows of the Aerie and painted the dining hall in soft gold. The pale wood of the long table gleamed beneath silver trays and fine porcelain. Crystal goblets beaded with chilled pear nectar. Platters of river trout carpaccio shimmered beneath green citrus and tiny herb blossoms. Roast quail glazed in white peach and rosemary rested atop saffron barley and buttered spring vegetables, filling the air with a warm, fragrant richness.
Liria cut a thin slice of quail and held it up to the adorable little Saintess sitting in her lap. Seris opened her mouth at once.
"Ah."
Liria fed her, and Seris's small face lit with immediate delight.
"This poor child has already experienced too much pain and suffering," Liria continued, lifting a ribbon of trout and feeding that to her next. "So now, I want to show her all the beauty and wonder that the world has to offer. I want Seris to genuinely love this world before she takes on her duties as Saintess."
Seris accepted the food with solemn concentration, then leaned back against Liria's chest with obvious contentment.
"That's all well and good," Ilyrien said in a slightly exasperated voice, "but don't you think you're spoiling the child a little too much? She's refused to leave your side ever since you woke up."
"But I've waited for so long for Big Sis to wake up!" Seris retorted indignantly, twisting around in Liria's lap to glare at Ilyrien. "And Seris has worked so hard. Seris deserves this!"
"Your cute act does not work on me, child," Ilyrien replied primly, lifting her teacup with perfect poise.
The little Saintess stared back with wounded blue eyes, and Ilyrien awkwardly averted her gaze. A quiet, smug little hmph escaped from Seris where she sat in Liria's lap.
One month.
One single month had been enough for Seris to realize exactly how devastatingly cute she was. Liria pinched her cheek.
"Mmff!"
"That's not nice, Seris," Liria chided her. Her little sister only giggled, soft and bright, her shoulders shaking against Liria's chest.
Was she spoiling her?
Possibly.
Almost certainly.
Liria considered this for the span of half a heartbeat, then promptly fed Seris another bite of quail.
"You raise a fair point, sister," she said to Ilyrien with all the seriousness she could muster while her little sister leaned against her like a pampered kitten. "That is another reason I'm doing this. I hope to introduce Seris to friends close to her own age through our travels."
Seris recoiled as though personally betrayed. "But I don't need friends!" she declared fiercely. "I only want Big Sis!"
Liria stared down at her. Seris stared stubbornly back. Then, after a moment, the child's shoulders drooped ever so slightly.
"…and maybe Aethon, Seralyth, Thalanor, Vaelir, Ilyrien, and Kaerthis too," she admitted in a much smaller voice.
Kaerthis, who had just lifted a spoonful of velouté to her mouth, froze for a beat, looking unexpectedly touched.
Liria tried to keep her expression stern. "No. Your world cannot consist of only us, Seris."
She set down her utensils and gently turned the little girl around in her lap so they were facing each other properly. Up close, Seris's pale golden hair had begun to slip loose around her cheeks, and there was still the faintest sheen of citrus oil at the corner of her mouth. Liria brushed it away with her thumb before Seris could notice.
"Promise me that you'll at least try to make some friends," she said quietly. "Can you do that, for me?"
Seris's face scrunched with deep reluctance. Her little hands came up to clutch at the front of Liria's dress, bunching the fine fabric.
"If you say so, Big Sis," she mumbled.
"Look at me and say it."
Seris huffed, then lifted her chin and met Liria's gaze with all the seriousness of someone swearing an ancient oath.
"I promise."
Liria smiled and kissed her forehead. "There. Was that so difficult?"
"Yes," Seris muttered.
A soft snort came from somewhere down the table. Vaelir had the decency to look only mildly guilty.
"Elysium is a wonderful place to visit this time of year," he said, taking a leisurely sip from his goblet. Then, his lips curved. "Still, the Festival of Flowers celebrating the Goddess of Life, hm? Why, little sister, I had no idea you were so vain."
"Seris chose the place! It wasn't me!" The words flew out of Liria's mouth before she could stop them.
Then she froze. Oh. Oh no. A tiny hand tugged at her sleeve. Liria looked down.
Seris was staring up at her with anxious blue eyes. "Big Sis?" she asked in a soft, quavering voice. "Did I do something wrong?"
Liria felt her heart catch. She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. And from somewhere across the table came the faint, strangled sound of laughter being violently suppressed. She ignored it.
"No, Seris," she said at last, forcing a strained smile. "You did nothing wrong. Vaelir was just being an idiot."
She gave her little sister a reassuring pat on the head and the child relaxed, leaning into her touch. Liria let out a quiet breath, then lifted her gaze to Vaelir.
"While we're on the topic," she gave Vaelir a pointed look, "what exactly happened while I was asleep? Why is so much faith that should be directed toward the Goddess of Life flowing toward me?"
She could feel it even now.
It was like standing beneath a vast and invisible waterfall. Countless threads of reverence, prayer, longing, gratitude, and desperate hope drifted toward her from every corner of the world, settling into her soul with a warmth that was almost dizzying.
It had been shocking enough to wake and discover herself at level 507 after what had felt, to her, like a brief and deeply inconvenient nap.
She frowned. It was 508 now. She had gone up another level in the middle of lunch.
Liria stared at her wine as though it might somehow be responsible.
Why, exactly, had she needed to sleep for three hundred years in that other timeline if getting to level five hundred was apparently this easy? What had her past self even been doing?
"Isn't it obvious, little sister?" Vaelir asked, far too composed for someone enjoying himself this much. He waved one lazy hand through the air. "The Goddess of Life has returned in mortal form. For Her first divine act, She erased the Ashen Wastes that had plagued this world for a hundred years and restored the lost principality of Brighthold. For Her second divine act, She found the Church of Light's lost Saintess, purged her of the dead god's corruption, and drove off its remnant soul."
A faint curve touched his mouth. "The scriptures have already been revised. The Goddess's name has been revealed as Liria. The entire world knows."
Vaelir took another unhurried sip from his goblet. "Consider all you've done. What, exactly, did you expect, little sister?"
"All right," Liria conceded, trying to gather her thoughts. "Perhaps I was a little… indiscreet."
"A little?" Kaerthis muttered under her breath. Liria ignored her.
"But what happens when the real Goddess returns?" she pressed. "Would she not be furious? The Goddesses fell silent, yes, but their deaths have never been confirmed."
"You do not need to worry about that, Liria," Aethon said.
He had been quiet for most of the meal, but when he finally spoke, the table seemed to settle around his voice. He had always possessed that sort of calm. Warm, steady, impossible to rush.
Liria looked at him immediately. "But why?"
"Because the Goddess of Life is not the Goddess of Life," Aethon replied.
Liria stared at him. "I do hope you realize how absurd that sounded."
Vaelir made a choking noise into his cup. Aethon, to his credit, did not even blink.
"Our world is young," he patiently continued. "One of many in a vast cosmos. Life existed long before this world did, and it will continue to exist long after it ends. Lady Liria is not some eternal, all-encompassing embodiment of the concept itself."
He rested one hand against the table.
"She is a powerful being. A very powerful one. She planted the World Tree. She seeded a barren world with life. She shaped and guided civilization. But she is still a person."
He paused.
"She is Liria. Just Liria. And definitely not a Goddess. Those were her own words. She never wanted to be worshipped."
"What's the difference?" Liria complained. "That's just splitting hairs!"
Every single person at the table looked at her. Even Seris. Especially Seris, actually.
The child's expression held the faint, solemn disappointment of someone watching an adult fail to grasp a very obvious point.
Liria drew herself up. "What?"
Seralyth reached across the table and patted the back of Liria's hand in a soothing manner that instantly made Liria suspicious.
"Now, now, dear," she said. "This… misunderstanding is good for you, you know?"
She coughed delicately into her fist. Then coughed again. Her cheeks had gone slightly pink.
Liria narrowed her eyes. "You may continue."
Seralyth's smile turned strained.
"Thank you, dear. This… misunderstanding is, unfortunately, extremely useful." She glanced toward Seris, and some of the teasing softness left her expression. "Thanks to it, the Church of Light agreed to hand custody of Seris over to you without question. They asked only that she return once every month until she reaches adulthood."
Liria blinked. "That easily?"
"That easily," Seralyth confirmed.
"They practically thanked us for taking responsibility," Vaelir added.
Liria looked down at Seris. The little girl had gone very quiet. Her tiny fingers were still curled into the fabric at Liria's waist.
Her chest tightened. She wrapped one arm more securely around the child and felt Seris relax almost at once.
That decided it. If pretending to be a returned goddess made things easier for Seris, then Liria could tolerate it. At least for now.
And if all that faith helped her return to level 1000 more quickly, then she wouldn't object
But… if she accepted faith that had once belonged to the Goddess of Life, then did she also inherit some portion of that responsibility?
The thought was enough to make her appetite falter.
Still, no one else had stepped into that role in the future she remembered. No radiant savior had descended. No hidden guardian had appeared to steady the world. If the true Goddess still lived somewhere beyond silence and distance, then she had remained absent for centuries.
Liria did not know why. She only knew that people would pray anyway.
And if those prayers reached her, perhaps the least she could do was answer what few she could. Even if she was nowhere near enough. Even if the thought of trying made her feel very small.
At last, she let out a long breath.
"I'll do as you say, sister," she said quietly. "At least until Seris becomes an adult."
Seralyth smiled in immediate triumph.
"Wonderful." Vaelir clapped his hands. "Excellent. Then have fun at the festival, little sister."
Liria narrowed her eyes. The transition was suspiciously smooth.
Too smooth.
"And if you have the time," Vaelir continued in a more serious tone, "I would like you to check on Lord Caspian Cole for me."
That pulled Liria up short. "Caspian?"
"Yes." Vaelir's laziness slipped just enough for her to notice that he had been thinking about this for a while.
"It is not confirmed yet," he said, "but I have received several reports suggesting he has fallen ill."
Liria frowned at once. "He's a high lord. How could he be ill? What are the priests even doing?"
"He didn't call for them."
"What?"
Vaelir gave a small shrug. "Apparently he has declined formal healing several times. But his public appearances have become less frequent lately, and when he does appear, he always looks pale and exhausted."
Liria’s brows drew together. That did seem a little unusual. High lords were not invincible, but they were resilient enough that ordinary illness seldom lingered. Still, it could easily be nothing more than fatigue or overwork.
"It could be nothing," Vaelir said, "and I hope it is. But it wouldn't hurt to pay him a visit if you have the opportunity." He leaned back in his chair and swirled the last of his wine. "It doesn't need to be official. Just take a look if the chance presents itself."
Liria considered that, then nodded. "I'll keep your words in mind, brother."
For a while after that, the conversation drifted elsewhere. Attendants refreshed their tea, and the scent of white jasmine and honeyed herbs rose into the air.
Seris had grown drowsy in Liria’s lap, all earlier indignation and triumphant sass fading beneath warmth, food, and the gentle cadence of familiar voices. Her head had come to rest beneath Liria’s chin, her small body soft and heavy with trust.
Liria rested one hand over her little sister’s hair and held that quiet warmth close. She would protect this. She would preserve it.
And she would shape the future into something gentler than the one she remembered.
Serivhal sat motionless upon his Divine Throne and let the faith of his worshippers seep into him.
The sensation slithered through the cracks in his damaged soul like warm grease, sticky with desire, sour with fear, rank with the desperate self-interest of lesser beings begging for power, salvation, revenge, or pleasure. Some prayed with trembling devotion. Others with naked greed. Many with both.
He despised every moment of it. But it was useful. And so he endured.
His throne room stretched around him in vast, colorless silence.
With the clarity of hindsight, Serivhal was willing to concede that he had made a serious misstep.
His disgust had gotten the better of him. His jaw tightened.
But it could not be helped.
Just thinking about that thing Liria Yggdris had created made his mind feel as though thin cracks were spreading through it. His fingers curled against the arm of his throne.
As expected of his nemesis.
He had not even known he was still capable of such visceral revulsion. Such raw, immediate horror. Such affronted disbelief.
How long and how obsessively must that elven ha—
The thought refused to complete. It felt like sacrilege. Serivhal's teeth ground together. The contamination was worse than he had initially judged. He forced himself to think around it.
How long and how obsessively must Liria Yggdris have dwelled on him to conceive such a sickening form of revenge?
He could acknowledge her creativity, if nothing else.
It was meager consolation, but Serivhal took a thin thread of satisfaction from the knowledge that such a hateful shrew had always lurked beneath that flawless exterior. He had suspected it before, in quieter moments. Beneath the saintly composure, beneath the maddening radiance, beneath all that impossible gentleness, there had to be something bitter and venomous hidden at the core.
It was satisfying to have that suspicion confirmed.
As though in immediate protest, unwanted memories surged up from somewhere deep inside him.
Awe.
Reverence.
Relief so profound it bordered on pain.
A radiant, shining Goddess reaching down toward him with open arms and endless compassion in her golden eyes.
Warm hands stroking gently through his hair.
A soft voice calling him precious.
The blissful, helpless comfort of being gathered close against a warm chest and held as though he had never once been monstrous.
Serivhal’s hands slammed down against the throne hard enough to make the ancient bone beneath him groan. A violent tremor ran through him. Those were not his memories.
They were alien and intrusive. Profane.
And yet they would not leave. No matter how often he clawed through his own mind, no matter how viciously he tried to strip them out, they remained. Soft and bright and unbearable.
He rose abruptly and began to pace. The silence of the throne room made every footstep sound wrong.
They were too light. Too measured. Too… graceful.
His expression darkened. He kept walking, but it did not help. If anything, the movement only made him more aware of what had changed. The subtle shift in the distribution of his weight. The altered balance of his body. The way certain motions now carried an instinctive fluidity that had not belonged to him before. A nauseating sensation crawled up his spine.
Serivhal stopped at once. Then, with murderous restraint, he turned. Walked back to his throne. Sat down. And seethed.
He could admit this much, at least.
He should never have extended so much of himself outside the sanctuary of suspended time. He should never have gambled so much of his existence on trying to overwrite that abomination while Liria Yggdris was raining holy fire upon him, and reality itself was straining to… correct him.
That had been imprudent.
But this was only a setback. A temporary one.
He would recover. He would adapt. He would overcome. And then he would conquer.
Because he was Serivhal, Lord of Ashen Eternity.
His fingers drummed once against the arm of his throne.
"Camilla."
The name cut through the silence. At once, a voice answered through the link that bound them. Low, controlled, and deliberately shaped to please.
"My God."
"Report."
"The preparations are complete," Camilla said. "All will proceed according to your will."
A cold satisfaction settled over Serivhal.
At last.
Soon, on the busiest day of the Festival of Flowers, when the streets of Elysium overflowed with revelers and pilgrims and every bright fool who still believed beauty itself was sacred, he would usher in a new era of chaos.
And in that chaos, he would claim the ascension that Liria Yggdris had denied him.
Everything was already in place. The sacrifices had been gathered. The stage had been set. The city would open itself willingly.
And no one would be able to stop him. No one, unless Liria Yggdris herself chose to interfere.
A cold smile touched his lips.
She would not. He knew her too well. Liria Yggdris would never willingly set foot in a festival devoted to the Goddess of Life. That certainty had been one of the reasons he had chosen Elysium in the first place.
He leaned back against the throne, satisfaction spreading through him like frost. By the time she noticed, it would already be too late.
Again.
And when the truth finally reached her, when she realized what had happened beneath her notice and beyond her grasp, Serivhal would savor every shred of her despair.
His smile deepened.
Then his body gave a sudden, violent shudder. His fingers dug into the throne.
In his mind, unbidden and hideously vivid, flashed the image of that giggling holy abomination.
Bright blue eyes. Golden curls. That unbearable little voice. Big Sis!
Serivhal went very still.
"No," he said aloud into the empty hall. He was not even attacking it this time. There was no reason for it to interfere. No reason for those disgusting memories to return. No reason for his thoughts to snag in strange, humiliating ways whenever the thing crossed his mind.
Liria Yggdris may have won their first exchange in this new timeline.
But he, Serivhal, would have the last laugh yet.