It was hours later, I was in my tent, laying next to an exhausted Yathanae, my hand lazily stroking her sweat covered stomach. I had a faraway look on my face, thinking about something.

“What are you thinking about?” she murmured, stretching a bit. It had been a long workout session for us. It had taken a bit of experimentation, but I had found out that healing magic could be used to heighten or lower sensitivity, just like it could pain. It was particularly useful when you wanted to pleasure someone with hundreds of years of experience.

“Don’t be mad, I was thinking of taking a detour now that we got the protection of Ayda,” I mumbled.

“Why would—stop, I can’t handle another round—I be mad?” she asked. Her admonishment came when my hand slipped a bit lower.

I gulped once, before whispering, “Thesathas.”

Her body went stiff like a wooden board. She stopped breathing for a moment. When she spoke, I could hear the grief in her voice, “Why go there?”

“For you.”

“But I don’t want to go there.”

I pulled her into a hug and rolled her on top of my body. “I don’t give a shit about elven superstition. You’re not dead, you’re very much alive. Soon you’ll have your first child, our first kid of many. You and your parents deserve to meet up at least once more. I’ll find a way for letters to be transported back and forth.”

“But I’m dead,” she complained.

“I’m not into fucking dead people, you certainly didn’t feel dead just moments ago,” I countered. “With peace amongst the wood elves and my—our Hold, we might be able to open up some trade. We might even be able to build a teleport. I’ve to talk with Ethan about that.”

“I—” she started saying, but then started tearing up. “I can’t see them!”

“Why not?” I asked soothingly, stroking her back.

“What if—” she sobbed once. “What if they reject me? According to tradition, I’m dead.”

“Then they’re not worthy of being your parents,” I said simply. She lay on top of me for almost an hour, no talking, just being held, silently crying.

Around dinner time, I made my way alone, but fully armed, to the elven side of the glade. An elf moved to stop me, I just gave him a stare, “I’m here to see Ayda.”

Without pausing I just continued moving forward. He drew his sword. “You’re not worthy of seeing the Queen.”

With a simple wave of the hand, he was suddenly standing on a twenty metre high stone column. His reaction was to scream insults at me. Mine was to summon a bucketful of cold water to dump on his head.

More guards stepped forward to stop me, but they were stopped by Ayda, whose voice rang out, “Let him pass.”

“Most gracious of you,” I said as I was led to her tent. It was a rather big one, double the size of the one the commander of the treasure transport had. She was sitting on a boulder in front of the small cooking fire.

“What do you want?” she asked, her voice dripping with hate. Her guards withdrew, giving us the semblance of privacy, though I was sure they could hear what we were saying.

“Nothing too serious, just discuss our travel plans.”

She glowered at me. “We’ll make for the castle as quickly as possible.”

“No, that doesn’t work for me,” I said with a shake of my head.

“Too bad, you don’t have a say in that.”

“Ah, but I do,” I countered.

“You might think that, but you don’t. Where do you want to go anyway?”

“Thesathas and Irhhone.”

“It’ll take almost a moon to Thesathas from Irhhone,” she pointed out. “Why would I want to allow you to traipse around in my kingdom?”

“For my people. More specifically, two of the three elves in my company are from Thesatas and Irhhone respectively. I would like them to visit home at least once,” I explained, not daring to lie around the giants. Because they might actually be standing right behind me. I had no way of knowing.

“Companions, you mean slaves,” she spat.

“I’m not going into an argument with you, I’ve stated what route we’re going to take. They’re not my slaves, they’re my people.”

“Then remove their collars,” she argued.

“I would if I could, but I don’t know how. Not yet at least.”

“Then let them return home.”

“Not possible,” I said. “Not because I don’t want to do it, but as long as the Church remains in a position of power in the human kingdoms, they can track down anyone wearing the collars. It’s not a problem inside the kingdoms themselves, because there are so many. However, if a bunch crops up inside the elven kingdom, it’ll raise questions.”

“You’re inside the elven kingdom,” she pointed out.

“Yup, but I’ve gone raiding. I’m sure King Alfred will be very pleased by all the coins I’ve managed to scrape together,” I replied with a shrug. “Heck, if necessary I’ll even pay the fucking Church a tithe of the riches.”

She glowered at the mention of the treasures I had stolen from her. Not that I planned on paying tithe to anyone if I could get away with it. She looked at me as if I was a mystery she had to solve. “Why do you care so much about your slaves? And why only two out of three?”

I sighed. “They’re not my slaves. They’re my people. One of them is going to be the mother of one of my children. And the reason why I only want to do this for two out of three isn’t because I’m being a jerk, but because the third is not from the area. If we had the time, I would go there, but we need to be at the fort in two moons when the portal opens. I want to get home to my wife.”

“You have a wife, and yet you’re forcing one of your slaves to be a broodmare?” her eyes narrowed.

“No. Yathanae and her bondmate Emerald wants children, despite Yathanae’s status in the human kingdom, and have chosen me to be the father of their children.”

“Bondmate?” Ayda muttered. “You’ve got a beastkin slave as well?”

“No, Emma is a priestess, she’s posing as a housecat most of the time,” I replied. Maybe it was stupid to reveal details like that to her like that. However, if I could show her that I was not like the rest of the humans, the truce I had forced upon the wood elves might be easier for her to swallow. It could even lead to some smuggling maybe.

Because while Anders was planning a rebellion that I wanted no part of, I decided with my new found wealth that I could use his rebellion to secede from the human empire. It would require moving the Hold, but to be honest that would be the easy part. Since basically everyone on the Hold were serfs, I don’t think a lot of people would mind getting more rights and freedom.

Ayda had been silent for a while just staring at me. “Why are you telling me all this?”

For several reasons, but I only told her one, “It’s no secret that I managed to steal a lot of wealth from you. Wealth I’m planning to use on improving and expanding my Hold. That requires me buying a huge number of serfs. I don’t mind making sure a lot of those people are elven prisoners of war.

“Many of them will be combative, which is completely understandable, until I can show them they can live a relatively normal life without oppression and being abused,” I explained. “It would help if they could write and receive letters from their families. I won’t try to cast it as altruism on my part, it serves a greater benefit for me if they know that what I can provide them is better than the alternatives. However, with your tradition of regarding enslaved elves as dead, it’s a little hard for any captives to feel optimism.”

When I finished speaking, she was silent for a long while, just looking into the fire. “Why would you be willing to risk the ire of the Kings and the Church, just for the sake of some slaves?”

“Again, I don’t regard them as slaves. Sure they might have fewer options than someone who’s free, but I’ll be doing my best to take good care of them. They are my people, they are my responsibility,” I said. Irritated by the word slave, because that was not how I saw my people. With a heavy sigh, I continued, “I didn’t have any family growing up, I pined for one every single day. I can’t imagine having one, who thinks I’m dead in a war, or pretend I’m dead because I was captured.”

“What else can we do? We haven’t found any way to destroy those fucking collars,” she screamed. This was the first time in the conversation she had lost her cool. “My daughter is the plaything of the high hierophants, it would be better if she was dead!”

I closed my eyes for a moment. “I’m truly sorry for what she and your family are going through. However, I’m sure that the giants that are probably listening to our conversation can verify what I’ve said is true.”

“Indeed, Little Karth, you’ve spoken truthfully,” the voice of the giant that had caught me boomed. Yet he did not show himself.

“What has that got to do with anything?” she asked, hurt, anger, and grief all battling for supremacy in her voice.

“If you had the chance of communicating with your daughter, would you not want it?” I asked. “Wouldn’t you want to be able to give her words of comfort, hear that despite everything, she’s still alive and loves you?”

Ayda sobbed a single time, before getting control of her emotions. I continued, regardless of her emotional state, “That is what I can offer the families of every elf in my territory. I’m not from this world, I don’t want any part in your fucking wars. I have received a chance of starting a family, and I want that more than anything. I want to build a safe haven for them, and I will fight anyone that threatens that hope.

“With the resources I have stolen from you, I have a chance of making that a reality. Sometime in the future, the families might be able to do more than just exchange letters. They might be able to come to visit, but that only happens if they know their loved ones are alive.”

“What can you do against the endless human armies?” she asked with a dismissive chortle.

“I can make them wish they never summoned me to this world,” I said with passion. “I might be embracing the chance I got of starting a family, but I do not like being forced into doing things. They’ll one day pay for what they made me do.”

“Then why aren’t you willing to join Anders’ rebellion?” she asked, I had a feeling that she was sincerely curious.

“Because he’s a fucking narrowminded asshole,” I said through clenched teeth. “And he betrayed me.”

“The way he tells it, you’re the traitor. Buying slaves despite being appalled by it,” she countered.

“He got his head so far up his ass that he can’t see the truth. Yes, I bought slaves, I’m not denying that. Some see that as supporting slavery. I don’t,” I started explaining. “I bought them, I actually intended to free them, but found out that it was not possible. Not even the human priests know how to do that. So I did the next best thing. I gave them as much freedom as I could, without being punished.”

I took a deep breath, to give myself a moment to think. “In my world, there’s a saying. If you give a man a fish, you feed him for the day. If you teach him how to fish, you feed him for life.”

She cocked her head. “We got a similar saying. What point are you trying to make?”

“What if that man is unable to move away from the lake he’s at, and there are no fish at that lake? Have you fed him for life if you teach him how to fish?” I rhetorically asked. “No, you’ve just done something to make yourself feel good. You haven’t helped the man one little bit, because you did not understand the underlying problem. His problem was not that he didn’t know how to fish, it was that there were no fish in the lake.”

“What does that have to do with slavery?” she asked, confused.

“I’m not good with words. My point is, if I had not bought the slaves, I might be a morally superior asshole like Anders, but I had not done anything to change the underlying problem,” I explained. “Granted, if I join his rebellion, I might be able to do it, but I can’t trust him. Anyway, by buying those slaves, I might have enriched those that deal with slaves. On the other hand, I’ve taken them under my wing, and are now obligated to feed them a fish every day. Is it the optimal solution? No, but it’s all that was realistically within my power to do.”

She cocked her head. “I guess you might have a little point if a convoluted one.”

“Me buying them is probably the best outcome they could realistically hope for. I’m not mistreating them, and I genuinely want them to be happy and safe,” I said. Not adding that if they were happy and safe they would be more productive, which would benefit me.

“What about your slave soldiers?” she challenged.

I frowned at that. “Not one of my finer moments, but a necessary one. It was the only choice I had that did not involve me becoming a slave and my pregnant wife a whore at a brothel. However, is it really that different from what Anders is doing? His soldiers are not professional soldiers. They’re conscripted levies. They have just as much choice in the matter as my soldiers. At least I fight at the front with my people.”

“They’re still free men,” Ayda pointed out.

“Yes, the illusion of freedom. If their families didn’t provide a member for the levy they would have to pay for the privilege. Money is just another form of shackles used by the governing bodies to control the masses while giving an illusion of freedom,” I said. “Anyway, this conversation has veered off its course. I came here to inform you of our travel plans, and hope that you’ll allow my people to write to their families.”

“I’ll consider the last part, I guess I’ll have to acquiesce to your request on the first part,” she said with a dismissive tone. She turned her head away from me. I was clearly dismissed.

As I made my way back towards the human side of the glade, I asked loudly, “Could I speak to you for a moment, oh invisible stalker of mine?”

The giant chuckled, and a moment later I could see both him and Ismenal appear right beside me. The giant sat down. “What do you want to speak about, Little Karth?”

“First, could you perhaps not call me Little Karth? It’s not good for my ego,” I said wryly.

“Sure, Tiny Karth,” the giant replied with an ill-concealed smirk.

“Not better,” I grumbled. “Moving on, I wish to ask what the heck is your name?”

“Little Sapling That Grows Crooked,” he replied with a nod.

“Can I call you Sap?”

“Can I call you Teeny Tiny Karth?”

I ground my teeth. “So, Little Sapling That Grows Crooked, I wanted to know if I perchance could get permission to connect to you and maybe Ismenal?”

“What does this connection entail, Karth?”

Knowing their goddamn ability, I told the truth, “I get the ability to use your magic power. It’s how the human’s priests’ power works, creating links between things. Including mana pool. When I cast your magic, I draw upon your mana pool but replenish it with my own at once.”

“Interesting, we did not know that we only knew that the Traitor Priests can use many different kinds of magic,” Sap said thoughtfully. “Are there any other benefits?”

“Since my Ascension, I can actually see the connections if I want, not just feel the active ones. I think there might be other new benefits, I might even be directly available to weaken your barrier,” I mused out loud. “Though I won’t do that unless I’m nearby if something goes wrong.”

“Interesting,” Sap said thoughtfully.

“Why do you want access to our magic?” Ismenal asked.

“Being able to tell if someone tells a lie will be incredibly useful, but that is nothing compared to the ability to confound someone else’s senses,” I said honestly. “Both abilities will be of great benefit to me, making me stronger and more deadly.”

“Why do you want to be more deadly?” Sap asked with a frown.

“To discourage people from going after my family and my people,” I replied instantly, anger boiling beneath the surface. Not at the giant and fairy, but at the bastards. “You probably heard that I’m going to sire a child with an elf and a beastkin. While it’ll be their children, I’ll be a part of their lives no matter what. I’ll be damned if I let anyone put my children in collars, no matter who their mother is.”

“How will your strength prevent that from happening?” Ismenal asked. “You would have to hide them.”

“I know, which is where your magic comes in. Despite everything you put me through, I need the ability to create your illusions more than anything,” I stated with passion. “Hide us from everyone else, because I’ll show you a secret.”

Ismenal waved his little hand. “There, we are hidden.”

“Could you create a spell crystal that does something simple? Don’t infuse it with a lot of mana, just enough for a minute,” I asked. The fairy shrugged his shoulder and did as I asked. He hesitated when I asked to touch him for a moment.

Before, I had needed the collars’ parasitic aspect to link a spell crystal to a mana pool. However, I had an epiphany while trying to take my mind off the incredible woman writhing beneath me earlier. The insight I had gained into mana, barriers, and so on when I Ascended made me certain I could do it with mana pools that had already been opened. With a quick thought, I connected Ismenal’s mana pool to the spell crystal.

“What now?” Ismenal asked impatiently.

“We wait.”

“How long?”

“When should the spell crystal run out of mana?” I asked as I watched an illusion that showed a couple of miniature giants throwing a human, who looked remarkably like me, back and forth.

“Ten beats or so,” he replied. We waited, after two minutes the spell crystal had not run out. Ismenal stared at me. “How? Are you providing it mana?”

“No, you are,” I replied. “I connected the crystal to your mana pool, I think the drain is so small you only spend a tiny bit more than your regeneration.”

“Impossible, you’re lying,” the fairy shook his head in denial.

“He’s telling the truth,” Sap mumbled, sounding very fascinated. “How will this help your children though?”

“I’ll create a spell crystal that makes them look like an ordinary human. I’ll connect it to external mana sources as well, so they’ll never run out,” I replied. “It’ll be a necklace or maybe a bracer or something.”

Both of them fell into silence for a long time, clearly thinking about it. I could see they conferred for a short moment as well, but I could not hear it. Finally, Sap asked, “Will you promise not to use it against us giants and fairies?”

“I’ve no intention of being hostile towards your two species, in fact, I’ve got nothing against any species, except maybe my own,” I replied. “I will not promise not to use it, because if I’ve to defend myself against your two species, I’ll use all the tools at my disposal. I’ll give you a promise that I’ll do my utmost to keep the peace with your two races. To be frank, you scare the crap out of me.”

“Good enough,” Sap said. “You’ll find that my magic is two-fold. One part functions like a normal fideomancer, but instead of reading the truth, I can read memories. The other part you know, if you activate it, you’ll know if people are lying.”

“Thank you, this means a lot to me,” I said, as I solidified the two links that I had already created with them when they showed themselves. It was better to have permission.

However, they would never have known it. Since I started training with Ethan, my approach had become much less intrusive and draining. Not like the first time I had done it with Emma.

It had been a day since we had left the sacred forest. We had been travelling in the middle of the elven force. It almost felt like they were our captors than our escort. There had been some tense moments, nevertheless, it had not come to any bloodshed. Only a few broken bones.

We had made camp early where we had captured the treasure convoy. The elves wanted to pay respect to the dead, which was understandable. As always, we had burned the corpses. It was the least bit of respect we could pay them.

While the elves were holding their ceremonies, I was meeting with a few people. In front of the tent, I had acquired it from the leader of said convoy, I was standing with my bodyguards arrayed behind me. Yathanae and Shenerah as well. The senior squad leaders and most of the mages were there as well. Most importantly, Axina, Anders, and Chione were there as well.

I looked at Axina who looked very mad. “Since someone spilt the beans, I got no control over you any longer, Axina. But neither do I have a need to keep you alive. Shenerah has asked me to make your death merciful. So I’ll grant you that.”

“Wait,” Anders said quickly. “Let me buy her.”

“She’ll resurrect and have to carry a child or two. That must be better than keeping her as a slave?” I said with narrowed eyes. I was not sure what his game was. I played with the two small titanium balls in my hand.

“My rebellion needs her, as a direct line to the lampads,” Anders said quickly.

“Is that what you want?” I asked her. “Your daughter has been well behaved, and she’s asked me to grant you freedom.”

“Fuck you. I’ll see you burn when the human kingdoms fall,” she spat in my direction.

“Very well,” I said and took a step forward. Ayda had informed me that they would make such a request. I took out a binding stone and transferred her link to it. “Here you go, Anders. Bitch is all yours.”

“Thanks,” he said and reached out to grab it. My left hand which was holding the binding stone shot out and grabbed his collar, dragging him closer. Meanwhile, the two balls of titanium in my hand transformed. I formed them into a long thin spike sticking out between my ring and middle finger. I punched it directly through his right eye and into his brain.