Anton wanted to drive the carriage through the night to get back in time to do… something. Aris wasn’t sure what. Suliel had talked him out of it, convincing him that the horses and the rest of the entourage needed rest, even if he didn’t.

  Kelsey had even helped, despite the image of Anton charging recklessly down the road at night, sword in hand, being one that she found vastly appealing.

  “Not that it matters—because I’ve got this,” she insisted, “But you’d never make it in time, in the unlikely event that you’re needed. It may have taken us a couple of days to get to the Hungry Depths’ depths, but I just don’t have that much spatial expansion in place yet. One way or the other, they’ll be done before you get there.”

  Anton grunted and settled back in his seat with disappointment.

  “Keep us updated, at least,” he said.

  “Sure thing, boss,” Kelsey agreed. Seeing that she’d convinced him, she switched topics. “Boy, that sligg sure was stacked when it came to Spatial Manipulation,” she said with a grin.

  “What?” Anton asked.

  “She was stacked, I said,” Kelsey repeated. “She had huge tracts of land.”

  Aris sighed. Anton was her dream man, but sometimes he could be quite dense.

  They stopped for the night at the inn that Suliel had booked for them, which was still an unfamiliar experience for Aris. As an adventurer, she hadn’t known where she would be even one day in advance, so Anton had just found them an inn that had a room. That wouldn’t work with a party of… Aris didn’t know the exact number, but it filled three carriages.

  Aris was more used to the other end of advanced bookings. Her father had often received large orders of bread and pastries when merchant caravans were due. Now, Aris was the one ordering.

  Or, more accurately, Suliel was. She’d taken care of everything on this trip. Not by herself, of course, she’d given orders that had covered every aspect of their journey. Even now, she was occupied with making sure there was a bed for every servant, a hot meal for everyone and that Anton was well supplied with victuals.

  It wasn’t until dinner was half over that Suliel could relax. When she finally did, she slumped against her husband in exhaustion.

  “All done for the day?” Anton asked affectionately. He put his arm around her to prevent her from falling forward onto the table.

  “Mmn,” Suliel mumbled.

  “You’ve taken good care of everyone, and we’re all very grateful,” Anton said gently.

  “Mmn,” Suliel replied.

  “I should stay up for a bit and mingle,” Anton said. “How about I put you to bed and you have a nice, long rest for tomorrow.”

  “Mmn!” Suliel complained. Aris hid a grin. When Suliel got like this, it wasn’t because she was tired. It was the weight of responsibilities was wearing her down. She wanted that lifted. She wanted to be… babied was one way of putting it.

  Anton knew that as well as Aris did. He could be dense sometimes, but he did learn.

  “Alright, then,” he said, and scooped Suliel up as if she were as light as a feather.

  The tavern room let out a cheer, which must have embarrassed Suliel terribly. She buried her face in Anton’s chest as he carried her upstairs. Aris and Kelsey followed after.

  What Suliel really liked, when she got like this, was to be thrown over Anton’s shoulder like she was a sack of flour. Aris sometimes joined in as a counterbalance. Not that she was needed, Anton could carry them both easily. However, this was in public, and the inn’s staircase was narrow and didn’t have much headroom, so Suliel had to settle for being cradled in Anton’s arms.

  The stairs weren’t the only thing that was cramped. Suliel had tried, but there wasn’t a public inn that had beds with enough room for the four of them. They’d had to make do with two beds and a chair for Kelsey.

  Kelsey, unhelpful as always, sprawled on that chair with her legs apart.

  “Gonna put on a show for me?” she asked. Aris ignored her.

  “Here,” she said, holding her arms out for Suliel. Anton lowered Suliel’s legs to the floor and leaned her into Aris’s arms.

  “Aris…” Suliel moaned.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Aris conceded. “You can have him first. Let me help you with your dress.”

  Suliel went limp, barely supporting herself and letting Aris do all the work of undressing her. Aris knew it was partly learned helplessness from always having a maid, and mostly from Suliel wanting to be a passive recipient of care.

  Anton took care of his own clothes, and Aris enjoyed her view of his broad back… and other parts. Kelsey gave an appreciative whistle.

  “Here,” Aris said when he turned around. “One naked Suliel.”

  Suliel gave a little squeal when Anton picked her up and kissed her.

  “Are you going to…” he said leadingly when he broke off.

  “Nah, there’s something I have to take care of downstairs,” Aris said. “I’ll come back for the second round.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “Understood,” Anton said with a smile. Aris smiled back. Aside from surviving the horribly dangerous situations his Class put him in, the best part of Anton’s high abilities was how they enabled him to keep going until both his wives were completely satisfied.

  Plus Kelsey.

  “Try to keep it down enough that they don’t hear you down there,” she advised the pair.

  “And you—” she glared at Kelsey. “If you must make comments, don’t shout them.”

  “No one appreciates my colour commentary,” Kelsey mourned.

  “Off-colour commentary,” Aris told her, and left them to it.

  The noise level had increased when Aris got back down to the common room. She wasn’t sure if it was because the eating had stopped while the drinking had just gotten started, or if it was because the crowd felt freer to let loose in the absence of their lord and lady.

  It was also possible that the crowd knew exactly what Suliel and Anton were getting up to upstairs and were talking louder to cover the sound of it. Aris chose not to investigate. She got a pint of ale—a humble commoner’s drink— and made her way over to her target.

  Tyla had found herself a quiet corner and was sipping a tankard of her own behind a small table. Aris pulled up a chair and sat down opposite.

  “Lady Nos!” Tyla exclaimed, sitting up straighter and looking alarmed. “I thought you were—”

  “None of that, Tyla,” Aris cut her off. “I wasn’t Lady Nos when we were sailing back to Kirido.”

  “Aris, then,” Tyla said warily. “What can I do for you, my- Aris?”

  “We need to have a little talk,” Aris stated firmly.

  “About what?”

  “About what’s been eating you,” Aris said.

  “Nothing’s been—people might avoid me because of my race, but that doesn’t bother me—”

  “I know it doesn’t,” Aris said. “I know you’re drinking alone because you don’t like crowds, and you don’t mind that you’re not welcomed among the commonfolk.”

  “Then—”

  “But something has changed,” Aris insisted. “The way you’re avoiding Anton and me. You’re feeling guilty about something.”

  Tyla looked away. “I… haven’t done anything to you that I should feel guilty about.”

  “Uh-huh,” Aris said, unconvinced. “Well, you might be right about that. We’d know if you did something to us.”

  “Then—”

  “But that doesn’t cover every possibility, does it? If not to us, then to someone else, and the only other person you interact with is Kelsey. And that turns it around because she’s all about doing things she shouldn’t. So now I’m thinking that she did something to make you feel guilty.”

  Tyla’s gaze was fixed resolutely into her tankard.

  “She didn’t… I agreed to do it,” she said despondently.

  “I know how little that means,” Aris snorted. “You let her run all over you, you’d agree to whatever she wants.”

  “How can I not?” Tyla protested. “She is a Numina, a guide for my people!”

  “She’s a monster who makes other monsters to kill people,” Aris said flatly. “I think there might be a person in there, too, but I don’t think she’s much like the Numina that you have back home.”

  “She is… not,” Tyla admitted. “That might just be because she can speak freely. Our Numina are more constrained. But if she is so terrible… why do you let her travel with you? Why let her into your homes?”

  Aris sighed. “She was going to take Anton away, you know? He’s the one she wants, all the rest of us are just… a bonus.”

  “What does she want him for?”

  “Who knows?” Aris grimaced. “But he took one of her deals. She saved his life; he didn’t have a choice. But she… owns him. And she was going to take him away.”

  “But she didn’t. Did you make a deal as well?”

  “I would have,” Aris confessed. “I offered. I would have done anything, but she refused. I think, now, that it was because she didn’t want Anton to think less of her.”

  “She made you strong… without a deal?”

  “She helped me,” Aris said, with a vicious emphasis on the word. “She had me chop at zombies with a shortsword until I collapsed. She broke my arm and then fed me a healing potion. I was screaming in pain, and she told Anton I was fine.”

  “But you healed. You got a Unique Class.”

  “She gave me my guns,” Aris agreed. “She helped me become what I am. But it was only because she thought she could use me to motivate and protect Anton. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that she cares for you or me.”

  Tyla nodded slowly. “She said she was helping me get stronger, to burn out a weakness that I had.”

  “What weakness?”

  Tyla winced. “With… sex. Since I was captured, I haven’t… been able to think about men in the same way as before.”

  “That’s understandable,” Aris said gently. “Some of the other girls have had problems as well. Let me guess, she tried to switch you over to women?”

  “At first,” Tyla said softly. “But I don’t… I’ve never thought of women that way.”

  “I’d hope that she accepted that,” Aris muttered. “For someone who isn’t interested in sex, she sure is obsessed with it.”

  “That actually was a part of it,” Tyla said. “It wasn’t just about me.”

  “Oh, it’s never about you. It’s always about her, and what she needs.” Aris glowered at a Kelsey that was only there in her imagination.

  “Perhaps,” Tyla agreed, not wanting to argue about it. “Something about Mel occupying Kelsey’s sex drive. She wanted to observe the two of us having sex, to see how the magic flowed.”

  “That’s… strange, but not unusually so, for Kelsey. I suppose she told you that it would also help you ‘get over it’?”

  “Yes,” Tyla admitted miserably.

  “But Mel’s a girl, isn’t she? Not your type?”

  “Communing with Kelsey…” Tyla tried to find the words. “It’s like a dream? But it feels real. But it’s like a dream, and Kelsey controls it. She can make anything happen, so she turned Mel into a man.”

  “I suppose that makes sense… but you’re not—you’re skittish around men as well.”

  “Afraid is more accurate. But it’s not every man.”

  It took a moment for Aris to make the connection. Then her brow furrowed as the copper penny dropped.

  “Ah. It wasn’t Zaphar that she turned into, was it?”

  “No,” Tyla admitted.

  “And now I see where the guilt was coming from.”

  “Yes,” Tyla confessed.

  Aris sighed and leaned back in her chair. “I’m not going to beat you up,” she said.

  Tyla jerked in surprise. “The other girls said—but I won’t go near him, I swear! I never intended to!”

  “Yeah, the other girls,” Aris muttered. “Look, you know Anton wasn’t born with those good looks, that smooth caramel skin and those chisled abs.”

  Tyla curled up in her chair, burying her nose in her drink. “Please don’t remind me,” she whimpered.

  “He was born with really low Charisma,” Aris explained. “The other kids used to tease him about it. But his parents got him levelling really early, and Delver has a free point.”

  “He put it in Charisma?” Tyla asked.

  “Yeah. It didn’t show immediately, but they stopped teasing him when he got to Tier Two earlier than any of them. But before that, before he even started levelling, we had an understanding.”

  “Why, if his looks were that bad?” Tyla asked. Aris shot her a look, and Tyla buried her face in her tankard again. “I mean—never mind.”

  “He was strong and he was kind,” Aris said. “That was enough for me. But by the time he’d reached Level ten, people were starting to realise that I’d lucked out in terms of looks as well. That was when the other girls started coming after him.”

  Aris frowned, thinking about the past. “I was lucky enough to be born with a high Charisma, but I had high Strength too, at least for a first-tier. Discussions got… heated.”

  “That is what I was told.”

  “Well, I’m wiser, if not much older,” Aris said. “Anton already has another wife, and for some reason, Kelsey is interested in getting him more.”

  “She is? I thought it was just because—”

  “She makes use of what she finds,” Aris said. “To what end, I don’t know. It can be hard to tell her whims from the strange things she’s serious about. I’ll speak to her about it. Not tonight, there are some… other things I need to do first.”

  She didn’t mention that the first of these was to tell Anton everything. Tyla had already suffered enough embarrassment for one night.

  You don't think your companions are even real!

  can't do.