Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1816: Time to Depart

Mavena made it two steps before the world caught up with her. The inn’s bread-and-hearth air had swapped for open garden in a single stride, her stomach arrived a half-second behind the rest of her, and she stopped dead, knuckles whitening on the straps of her pack while her eyes tried to be everywhere at once.

”That’s...” Her voice came out younger than she’d have liked. She cleared it and tried again, aiming for professional. ”Portals are normal for you now. Okay. Noted.”

The pack deserved its own introduction. It towered over her shoulders, expedition-grade, bedroll and coiled rope and two full rows of potion loops, provisions for a fortnight strapped to a hunt scheduled to end by lunch. She had packed it herself and refused all commentary at the inn, reportedly.

Lyra stepped forward and offered one hand for it, a silent, practical courtesy aimed at the girl.

Mavena stepped back and gripped the straps harder. ”I’m the supporter.” Her chin came up, daring the Juggernaut to argue. ”Supporters carry the team’s equipment. Mom told me so!”

Apparently someone decided being a pack mule was the most important mission of her life.

Lucille watched her daughter plant her feet in front of the Juggernaut who could bench the inn, and pride swelled through her chest, warm and fierce.

Months of hiding half of herself behind a plain dress, wondering what her girl would think if she ever saw the axe in action, and here Mavena stood instead, strapped into a ridiculous pack, demanding to be useful in her mother’s world.

Lucille had imagined this going a hundred ways, but not one of them had felt this good.

”Mavena smells like warm bread,” Blossom smiled, sniffing. ”Blossom approves!”

”Uh... I’m glad...?” Mavena murmured, shy and confused.

”Alright, recruit.” Serika cracked her knuckles, grin blazing. ”Stay behind us, holler if you see anything move, and watch how your mom works. That last part’s the whole trip, honestly.”

Kitsara drifted closer, visibly wrestling with her entire personality. Her mouth opened. Lucille’s eyebrow rose. The fox’s mouth closed, reconsidered from the ground up, and finally produced, straining like she was lifting a wagon:

”What a... wonderfully practical bag.”

”Thank you,” Mavena said warily.

Quinlan flicked the next gate open onto pine forest and mountain air, the woods beyond already whispering with things that would deeply regret being nested near a trade road.

”Try to leave some of the valley standing,” he offered.

”No promises, baby.” Lucille kissed his cheek in passing.

”...Baby? I know he’s younger, but... Ugh...” Mavena mouthed, scandalized to her bones, and was still processing it when Serika steered her through the gate by the top of her pack, the rest of the hunting party flowing after them into the trees.

The seam closed on Blossom’s happy tail wag.

...

The garden had one departure left in it.

By Rosie’s tree, the five handmaidens slept on in the moss where devotion had felled them, and Emily was already directing a detachment of maids among the roots with blankets, stepping around flower crowns with professional respect.

Rosie sat among the roots with her feet swinging, watching the maids work, and giggled.

”They tried very hard.” She pointed at the nearest casualty, whose fingers were still tangled in a half-finished flower crown. ”She was last.”

Isveth knelt beside the dryad princess with Myrasyn a step behind, and bowed her head toward Quinlan across the garden. ”Thank you for allowing us to stay the night with her, Holy Son. It was a true blessing.” The thanks came out in the register she usually reserved for scripture.

Then Rosie looked toward the duo.

”Can Rosie come with you?”

Two sets of long elven ears went straight up.

Isveth leaned forward. ”Can you? Your tree...”

”Rosie’s roots go very, very far now.” Rosie kicked her feet once, demonstrating their independence from any root system. ”And Rosie has become very strong.”

She flexed one small green arm. The bicep that appeared was purely theoretical, the arm wobbled with the effort, and the effect was devastating. ”So the tree can’t hold Rosie back anymore. She can go wherever she wants in the whole of Iskaris!” A factual pause. ”She just can’t call on her powers if she’s too far away.”

Then all three of them turned to Quinlan, and three sets of pleading eyes landed on the terrace like a diplomatic incident in the making.

Quinlan took a long sip of his tea.

”Why not.” He tapped a finger against the rim. ”You’ve been a well-mannered young lady recently. You’ve earned a vacation.”

Rosie beamed. Myrasyn and Isveth beamed harder.

Then, with the unanimity of two people who had spent centuries making decisions at speed, both elves arrived at the same conclusion: if Rosie could not call upon the tree at range, she would need their help. Their protection. Their constant, devoted attention for every step of the journey.

Rosie could walk perfectly well without the tree. She had legs and balance and had been using both since before either of these women had learned her name. She did not correct them.

On the terrace, Seraphiel watched the whole performance over her teacup with sparkling eyes. Kaelira looked on with warm recognition; she knew craftsmanship when she saw it.

”Little one.” Myrasyn knelt before Rosie, as formally as if protocol demanded it. ”Would you allow me to carry you? Without your tree’s support, the journey may tire you.”

Rosie put a finger to her chin. She tilted her head to the left. Then to the right. Her brows drew together as though weighing a matter of considerable state importance.

”...Okay,” she decided at last, generous beyond measure. ”You may carry me.”

Myrasyn’s whole face lit up, ears and all, and the four-thousand-year-old monarch rose from her knees beaming so hard that her composure never stood a chance.

Small green hands settled on the queen’s shoulders, little legs found their seats on either side of Myrasyn’s neck, and Rosie took her throne with fingers sinking happily into lush blonde hair. The Queen of the Elves adjusted her passenger with the gravity of a coronation.

”Tomorrow,” Isveth said, to no one and to everyone, ”is my turn.”

”The schedule has not been finalized,” Myrasyn replied while refusing to meet the shrine maiden’s gaze.

”Bottomless greed is what brought down Elvardia. Don’t follow in its footsteps!” Isveth screeched, outraged.

Seraphiel arrived back from the house dressed for travel with luggage enough for a diplomatic mission, none of which, she explained, anyone was permitted to question.

Kaelira came last with a single neat pack and hovered half a step closer to Quinlan than usual, violet eyes fixed somewhere south of the horizon they were about to cross.

Quinlan looked over his traveling party. His daughter, mounted and smug about it. His first elf, smugger about the itinerary. His smith, quietly bracing to see her homeland again from the other side of a verdict. The elven queen and the elven faith’s leader, both still wearing last night under their eyes.

”Well then.” The day’s last gate tore open, tall and wide, its far side breathing cool forest air into the garden. ”Let’s go claim a nation.”