We met with Miusin the next day, and after much discussion, the two of them agreed to share the lands of Sarinknell and Biustarn between them. Elmidath would be nominally the lord of both, while Muisin handled the day-to-day affairs. Once that was decided, I did much of the work relaying the decision to their subjects.

From what I could tell, the villagers took their new rulers in stride. I imagined they didn’t much care at this point, it’s not as if they had many other options and they were busy trying to get their own lives back on track.

Though rather hesitant at first, with the help of Korzan and Elmidath, Miusin quickly grew into her new role. Before long homes had been allocated for all the villagers, as well as work and plans were being drawn for a new tower to serve as their join seat of power.

In the days that followed, we received word from Yueryurn that the former lord’s soldiers had mostly packed up and left, leaving the civilians there to fend for themselves. Taking the opportunity to expand her reach, as well as keep them safe, Elmidath immediately went to negotiate with them once she heard the news.

I went with her and the reception we received was cold, to say the least, but we eventually talked them around to accepting Elmidath’s rule as well. The few soldiers that remained amongst the three provinces would be distributed between Yueryurn and Biustarn as evenly as possible, with the promise that they’d come to each other’s aid if the need arose.

Though she’d taken on a lot of new responsibility, Elmidath took it all in stride and managed to handle it all without much fuss. And, as an added bonus, she even ascended to the second circle. I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but it came with a considerable increase in the power of her sanguis.

Once all the outstanding matters had been resolved, and Elmidath’s new subjects had more or less returned to their normal lives, the two of us sat down to discuss the future in the small house Elmidath had set aside for herself until the tower was complete.

She looked at me across the stone table, with a determined expression on her face.

“I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I think we should make that trip to the capital after all. The Ortisfel might have backed off for now, but they’re still out there and we need to know more about them.”

“Are you sure? Can we really afford to leave your subjects alone?”

“I believe it’s necessary in this case. They should be fine without us for a while, it’s more important that we find a way to resolve this issue with the Ortisfel once and for all before they become an issue again. Even if Tarith keeps her word, and they never bother our subjects again, you know they’ll do something terrible elsewhere in the world.”

Distraught at the prospect of tangling with the Ortisfel yet again, I sighed.

“Haven’t we done enough at this point?”

“Not until the job is done. Or we can find someone else more suitable to take over for us. At this stage, we don’t know if anyone else is even aware of what the Ortisfel are up to.”

“If they’re not, then they’re probably not going to be much good in giving us information.”

Elmidath frowned.

“They might not know much about the Ortisfel specifically, but I’m sure someone there can give us the tools we need to find our own answers. The real difficulty will be in convincing them to help us when we have so little to offer.”

“What exactly do we have to offer?”

“Yomence crystals for one. There was a sizeable stash of them in Biustarn’s tower and I helped myself to some of them. That’ll pay for our trip and maybe open a few doors for us, but not much more. Beyond that, we only have our services to offer in trade.”

That didn’t sound so bad at least, the wider world also seemed like a turbulent place and I imagined they could use our help. Well, mostly Elmidath’s help. I didn’t relish the idea of us working as mercenaries for the demons of the capital, but it might be our only option.

“How likely is it that we’ll be able to convince anyone to help in ways beyond just sharing their knowledge with us? What else are they occupied with?”

“Well beyond the usual power struggles of the other demon lords, there is something of a war brewing. As you may recall from the attack on the human city.”

I thought back to the army I’d seen when I was still freshly arrived in this world, far larger than any force I’d seen since. And how they’d been butchered by the humans.

“Is that really a war the demons can win? It seems hopeless.”

Elmidath glared at me.

“Of course we can win it. What you saw was only a minor part of our strength. If the demon lords can work together, then I’ll sure the humans’ cities will fall.”

“Yeah? Well why haven’t they fallen already then? It seems like you guys have had plenty of time to accomplish that.”

“In the past we’ve mostly been busy with our own affairs, but that’s all changing now.”

I scratched my head.

“You know, it sounds like you actually want them to destroy the humans.”

“I do. We owe them a great debt of blood. Rebuilding our civilisation can only truly begin once they’re gone.”

Either I was misunderstanding something or she seemed to have a terribly biased view of the subject. The latter wouldn’t be surprising, given the history between the humans and demons. And I could hardly blame her, it was hard to forgive the destruction of your world. Even if most of the humans alive now had nothing to do with it.

“Why does it matter if they’re still around? They’re all confined to their cities anyway, aren’t they? It doesn’t seem like they’re really getting in the way of you rebuilding anything.”

“For now. I’ve heard rumours that they’re looking to expand outward. Besides, how we are ever meant to look towards the future when they remain as a terrible reminder of all that we have suffered? I was too young to experience the merging, but of those who were there, even the bravest shudder to speak of it. And they brought that down willingly, on our entire world. Can you imagine doing something like that?”

It didn’t seem all that unreasonable, given that the demons had been invading them at the time, though I suppose that hardly justified it. Either way, there was no denying that they’d done a terrible thing to the demons.

“Does that really mean they should all die for it though? Isn’t there another option?”

Elmidath sighed, her fury draining away. “Honestly, I don’t know. It’s the only real option I can see, but there may be others. None of it really matters though, given that none of these decisions are up to me. Lord Azuren’s authority exceeds mine by several orders of magnitude. If he wants a war with the humans, then that’s what he will get.”

I considered suggesting that we could talk him out of it for all of half a second before realizing how foolish such an attempt would be. He must already have his heart set on that goal if he was really going through with it and arguing against him would only seem insubordinate. A condition which I imagined was quite fatal in this world, particularly when such powerful individuals were involved. And that was assuming we could ever get an audience with him in the first place.

“So, you’d fight in such a war then?”

“I’d rather continue to protect my subjects, but if I am called to serve, then I will answer. To do anything less would be the height of cowardice. How can I expect my subjects to follow me if I can’t even fulfil my own obligations?”

She certainly had a valid point about honour, though I wasn’t sure how much it excused the atrocities she’d no doubt be party to if the war went ahead. Even if they were unsuccessful in wiping out the humans, there was sure to be terrible slaughter on both sides. Which would only make it easier for both the Ortisfel and Soarister to realize their ambitions.

“I suppose you’re right that you couldn’trefuse such a command, even if you wanted to. Still, I don’t much like the situation.”

“Unfortunately, our wants never seem to factor much into future events, even if we wish that weren’t the case. For what it’s worth I don’t really like it either. I haven’t done much fighting in my life in the grand scheme of things, but I wouldn’t miss it if we were never involved in another violent conflict again.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

We both sat there, staring down at the table for a few moments, before Elmidath got to her feet.

“We should probably get going soon, no sense wasting any time. Is there anything we need to do before we leave?”

“Not that I can think of. I’ll meet you back here in a little while and then we’ll go?”

“Sounds good.”

I was about to leave when Elmidath called out to me.

“Oh, and by the way, I know I’ve said this before, but thanks for everything.”

“You really don’t need to thank me, I was just doing my part.”

“Even so, you deserve it. You’ve gone far above and beyond anything I could have expected.”

Given how largely unsuccessful we’d been that almost didn’t sound like a compliment, though I was sure Elmidath meant it that way.

“I think we’ve both greatly exceeded expectations. After all, how else would we have survived? Particularly while being at least marginally successful.”

“I know you don’t think much of our success and I didn’t either for a long time, but now that I’ve had more time to think, I think we did pretty well, given the circumstances. We really did stop the Ortisfel, who are quite frankly a terrifying enemy. Sure, we didn’t get rid of them permanently, but things are still a lot better than they were.”

Leaning against the wall, I thought over what she said.

“I suppose you’re right that we did accomplish something momentous, even if it wasn’t quite what we wanted. But the problem I have, is that we don’t know if it will actually do any good in the long term. We might have made things worse for all we know.”

Elmidath shrugged.

“Yeah, maybe. Sometimes that’s just life though I think. There’s no point us getting bent out of shape about it. It’s best that we take things as they come. And, so far at least, it seems like we won a great victory against the Ortisfel.”

I looked at Elmidath, studying her beaming countenance. It was hard to believe sometimes that this was the same woman I’d met when I first arrived here.

“Fine, I’ll do it your way; I’ll hold my head high until I have reason not to. Though I still can’t help but wonder what Erstanos is planning.”

“Just one more mystery for us to uncover.”

“Have we successfully uncovered any mysteries yet?”

“Sure. We found out what happened to my father and Tagath, as well as a few other people.”

Stroking my chin, I made a show of deeply considering the examples she’d provided. “It seems to me that all the people we managed to find met rather terrible ends. Are you sure we’re any good at this?”

“Nope. But hey, maybe that means Erstanos and the Ortisfel will meet a terrible end too if we can learn more about them.”

I snorted at the amusing narrative. “Maybe things will be that easy for once.”

“It has to happen eventually, right?”

“Let’s do it then; let’s uncover everything about our enemies and bring doom upon them.”

Elmidath grinned. “Now you’re talking.” She raised her fist and her voice. “Doom to our enemies!”

I echoed her words and good humour, then went to prepare for the long journey ahead.