The Court of Souls?

“Eternity in common parlance is either an infinite or an indeterminately long period of time. In classical philosophy, however, eternity is defined as what exists outside time while sempiternity is the concept that corresponds to the colloquial definition of eternity.

Eternity is an important concept in many religions, where the God or the gods are said to endure eternally. Some, such as Aristotle, would say the same about the natural cosmos in regard to both past and future eternal duration, and like the eternal Platonic forms, immutability was considered essential.”

- The Journey to the Afterlife

***Dedessia, the Sea of Souls, Semper Fidelis***

***Elona***

So boring.

“...and I say that we have to be careful about confronting Miraven. She is a powerful mage. If we don't play it right, then there might be casualties. We shouldn't make the citizens think that we don't care about innocent bystanders,” Doreen explains.

I let my eyes wander around the room to judge the opinions of the other family members. Shade clearly looks like he simply wants to lop off Miraven's head and take her soul. Ishaan's expression says that he doesn't care about innocents.

Tisha clearly has mixed feelings and the rest seems undecided.

Quianna raises her hand. “How about catching her in the act with all of us surrounding her? She would be stupid to fight her way out of such a situation. Surely she would surrender.”

Antonius shakes his head. “We don't know her reasons. She has fooled everyone with a perfect facade of unimportance. I spoke to her myself and I didn't feel any malevolence from her. It would be a mistake to judge her by our current impression of her personality since she is clearly a good actor.

“Maybe she gives up when she is faced with overwhelming odds. But it may also be that she turns out to be some kind of fanatic. Or someone who simply has no other choice. I went through all the information we have about her. She has family with Draconis, a brother and her parents. Moonray might be blackmailing her.”

Aswang scowls. “That's a disgusting idea, but entirely possible.”

Doreen tilts her head to stare at the ground. “I can't believe that he would go that far. But then again, I didn't believe a lot of things about him.”

Ishaan makes a dismissive gesture. “I think he is capable of a lot more than that. Someone who has obvious ties to the slavers must have done something to gain their trust.”

My mother nods with a grim expression. “I think we all would do good to forget about the Moonray who once was our ally. Instead we should start seeing him as the traitorous rat he was all along.”

“We are going off course,” Manti complains. “Aren't we thinking about a possibility to subdue Miraven without damage to the surroundings.”

I blow a strand of hair out of my face and decide to end this. “You said that she is a mage. What's her speciality? Anything to look out for?”

Doreen bites on her lower lip. “The girl specializes in area of effect magic. She also has a few skills against single opponents, but I haven't seen her use them all that often. Most of the time she stays out of harm's way to cast spells.”

“So a pure mage character?” Shade asks with a frown on his face. “Easy, we just have to subdue her quickly before she can cast something like soulfire and the whole city goes to hell.”

All heads turn towards him and he realizes what he just said. “It's not like I know magic which can jump from person to person and use their souls as fuel. Preposterous. Just think how dangerous such a spell can be in confined places like a town.”

“I'll deal with it. I have the perfect skill for people like her. Don't worry, we just have to wait for the next exchange.” I lean back and cross my arms in front of my chest, hoping that I convey confidence.

“You have?” Ishaan asks with doubt in his voice.

I nod vehemently and smile mysteriously. “Yes, but it's a secret.”

With that we declare the meeting as finished. All we have to do now, is to wait for the next time our spy decides to send a message. That's either tomorrow, or the day afterwards. Unfortunately we didn't see a pattern to the meetings. It's probably something that Miraven decides randomly and then attaches the next exchange date to the message.

So all I can do until morning is wait. In my head I start planning the rest of the day. I like to have a list of everything. It makes me feel secure.

Shag my husband.

Shower my cute Seria with love, though that requires wringing her out of Doreen's hands.

Shag my husband.

Feed Seria.

Make some adjustments to the city.

Shag my husband until we fall asleep.

Being woken up by the baby, feed it again.

Then another round with Shade, and sleep until dawn.

Hm, sounds like a plan to me.

The next morning comes much too quickly...

I am waiting at the central square in front of the palace. A spirited soul decided to open a small restaurant in this place. Normally such an establishment would lack the necessary supplies, but Yggdrasil adds a good amount of items to the menu. Though there aren't many items on the list. There is monster meat, bread, fruits and some juices. Mostly stuff which grows on Yggdrasil.

I go with juice to start the day and order it from the nearby waitress.

Miraven left the palace a few minutes ago. By now she should be done with her exchange. The courier will be caught by Quianna and Antonius. That should be easy enough since he is just a mid.

The rest of our group will be backing me up, though I doubt that it is really necessary.

The waitress returns with my drink when I feel a slight tug on my mind. “She is coming,” Shade informs me via telepathy.

I look up and search the plaza for a familiar face. A few seconds later I see her. Miraven is returning to the palace. Her long, orange hair is flowing down between her shoulders and she holds herself in a perfect posture. Neither does she walk too fast, nor too slow; the perfect image of a morning stroll.

I raise my hand and wave. “Miraven!”

She stops, startled, and looks around. Finally she notices me. I raise my glass and point towards the free seat at my table. Just come here and share a drink with me. Nothing is wrong, we have no clue about your secret messages.

At last Miraven decides to join me. It's not like she has a reason to walk off and ignore me. When she is close enough for talking, I greet her, “It's so nice to find you here. I was a little lonely in my quest to try out the various items on the menu. This juice is perfect.” I offer her my drink.

Miraven smiles a perfect smile, though she seems a little stiff. “Thank you. It's an honour to be invited by someone from the leading group.”

I wave my hand dismissively. “Don't blow it out of proportion and sit down. We are more like administrators and you yourself are a god. If you have a problem, you can always come to us. We will take care of it.” I study her droopy, grey eyes. If she ever decides to play a sad, teary character she already has the perfect face.

“I am sure of it. This juice isn't bad by the way,” Miraven's eyes fall down to the glass in her hand and she relaxes a little. It's a slight shift in the way she sits, but I notice it immediately.

I raise my hand and snap my fingers towards the waitress. “Two more please.”

When gods fight with each other it is highly unlikely that it happens without collateral damage. The best example is the battlefield in front of the city. We destroyed a few square kilometres of land and now the area looks like a moonscape.

And that was without either side resorting to mass destruction, which surprised me a little to be honest. Enwick may not have access to a spell on the scale of a nuke like Shade does, but he, or at least one of his minions, must have something similar. I suppose he really wanted the city back, instead of destroying it.

“What are you thinking about?” Miraven asks me with an innocent expression on her face.

I start babbling. “Aw, just about how horrible this realm is. But don't worry, my husband and I will create something that's worth living for. We want for our daughter to live in a nice world. And I am thinking about one or two siblings. Being a succubus makes the entire process incredibly easy, but I am not sure if I want to take the pain again so soon. Maybe I will wait for a while.”

Miraven's expression turns sour, but just for a moment. It's a slight twitch at the corner of her mouth, one wrinkle more at the corner of her eye. If I hadn't been looking for it, even I wouldn't have noticed. I guess she isn't all that bad. But I suppose I've given her enough chances by now. A shame. Well, maybe she really is getting blackmailed.

“Oh, look! Isn't that your boyfriend?” I point somewhere into the crowd on the plaza. Of course there is nobody there. I just want to startle her. Especially since she isn't in a relationship.

Miraven's expression turns surprised and then troubled. Her eyes follow my finger. “I have no boy-”

I form a fist and give her a good whack, hitting the spot right under her ear. A passive protective barrier breaks as my fist overwhelms it through sheer strength. It's enough to shut her down instantly.

To stop her from falling backwards I grab her shoulder and lower her onto the table. She is quite the paranoid one to run around with a passive protective spell. Luckily such measures stand no chance against a determined attack.

I take a sip from my juice and watch the others approaching. Nobody on the street realized that I hit Miraven. It happened so fast that most lows probably wouldn't see it even if they stood right in front of us.

Too bad that she didn't talk on her own, or at least sought out our help. I guess we have to interrogate her once she is properly restrained.

.