'I have to accept that she will always lie and manipulate those around her, even her family, if it means keeping them safe.' Orion' s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of her stirring.
"Are you alright? How are the girls?" Jirni said the moment she opened her eyes.
"I'm fine, dummy, and so are our baby girls. It's you who are in a hospital bed." He said, forcing her to lie down.
"Thank the gods." Jirni felt weak and tired, yet she couldn't afford to sleep.
"Look, I've thought a lot about our situation." Orion said. "If you stay at the Myrok household, you will have to worry about Thrud as well now. The moment that madwoman learns how you ruined all of her plans, you'd become her main target and-"
Jirni chuckled at how stiff and funny he was while trying to act cold and logical.
"Scratch that. The Kingdom will deal with Thrud and if the copycat dares to come near you, I'll kill them on the spot. What I'm trying to say is that I'm willing to give us a second chance."
"Thank you." Jirni took his hand, letting her emotions go for the first time in her life.
Orion lifted her from the bed enough to embrace her. Despite her weakened state, Jirni mustered the strength to hold him while crying tears of joy on his shoulder until exhaustion made her lose consciousness again.
***
Over a mana geyser at the borders of the Nestrar Region, Golden Griffon academy
Thrud looked at her communication amulet, where all the runes of the Doppelgangers in Ruham had disappeared but one. That single rune was now blinking, pulling at her mind until she would accept the incoming call.
"Sevenus, jam the signal and start the academy. It's unlikely that the Royals have already pinpointed our location, but I'm not taking any risk." The Mad Queen said while crushing the mystical amulet between her fingers.
"What do you mean?" The Headmaster of the Golden Griffon asked.
"Reffa has been captured. Otherwise they would have called me right after the slaughter of their brethren." Thrud replied. "I don't know how much the Royals have discovered about my plan, but now that my Doppelgangers are burned, there's no time to waste.
"We need to move swiftly before the presence of my Skinwalkers is exposed as well. Alert all my loyal followers that the war has just begun."
***
Griffon Kingdom, Village of Lutia, a few days later.
"I'm glad to hear that everything is solved between your parents." Lith said while offering the girls some more tea. "By the way, how did my weapon perform?"
"Pretty well, but the bullets are too fast and too brittle. You can't redirect them even with dimensional magic in the case you miss your target nor can they pierce through their first target." Friya said.
"Well, that was to be expected." Lith replied. "If they were slow, an Awakened would dodge them even without Full Guard. To make the bullets more resilient, instead, I would need to increase their size.
"It would require a bigger device, which I can't make with just one Earth Root."
"Why didn't you use something made of a relatively cheap enchanted metal, like Orichalcum?"
"I tried that and the effect is just the same. Unless the bullet has enough mass, it either explodes on impact or it deforms so much that its trajectory becomes unpredictable." Lith replied.
'There is also the problem that my notions of aerodynamics are too shallow and that the random amount of Adamant in the Orichalcum makes it almost impossible to have two bullets behave the same way, but that's beyond the point.' He actually thought.
"Also, this thing takes too much time between shots. It's useless in close combat and from a distance, the slightest mistake makes you miss your target entirely." Friya sighed.
"That's why I gave it to you. You can alternate between the sword and my weapon thanks to dimensional spirit magic whereas a regular person would be a sitting duck after the first shot." Lith said.
"Speaking of regular people, don't even think about making it bigger. I could barely stand the recoil as it is with fusion magic. That said, I had to answer a few questions about how I took down two Doppelgangers and now you are the proud inventor of two tier one Forbidden magic devices." Friya made a toast to that with her cup.
"Well, at least that should keep the Royals off your back for a while." Solus offered the girls the latest batch of her homemade cookies. "We have saved the Nestrar region and reaffirmed Lith's reputation as a Forgemaster.
"Now that we are also back to Lutia, no one will dare to look down on us anymore."
"About that." Quylla broke the cookie with her hands to test its hardness before biting it, just to be safe. "Why are you back to Lutia and how can Solus stay in her human form even inside the house?"
"I had overstayed my welcome." Lith replied with a sigh. "Grandma told me that I was free to stay longer, but only if I accepted to work for her. As for Solus, we left the tower in the Trawn woods.
"It's too far to use its powers, but close enough for her to keep her body even without the Sage Staff."
"I don't last long and Lith has to bring me back to the tower once per hour, but during that time I can have a normal life." Solus's dazzling smile stunned a young farmhand who tripped on his own feet while staring at her through an open window.
Unlike the other guests, the girl that Lord Verhen had brought back from the Desert didn't behave like a noble. Solus had fun helping Elina with the kids and the house chores so the people of Lutia thought that she was a maid the Verhens had hired to replace Zinya.
Many farmers looked forward to introducing themselves or their sons to her.
"What's the big difference between working for the Kingdom and for Salaark?" Phloria looked at Solus, wondering what had happened in the Desert and if it wasn't better for her to move on with her life.
"It's not big, it's huge." Lith replied. "The Royals have no idea of what I'm capable of and they send me on missions that they consider hard for me only when it's strictly necessary.
"Salaark, instead, knows exactly the scope of my abilities and she wouldn't hesitate to demand my services just like she does with any other member of her nest. The freedom that I enjoy in the Kingdom is something that even the Empire cannot offer me."
"How can you be so sure?" Phloria asked.
"Because I asked the Empress. She knows that I'm an Awakened and Leegaain's blood at that. Between the famine and the undead, she is so desperate for help that she offered me to become her right-hand man. After I prove my loyalty, of course." Lith scoffed at the idea.
"Wow, from country noble to vice-head of one of the three great countries sounds like a dream." Friya whistled in approval.
"You mean a nightmare. I would have lots of responsibilities, people to order around, and missions to carry out whenever the Empress even suspects the presence of Awakened. Thanks, but no thanks.." Lith replied.
