Arther Leonheart. Silvien Catmouth. Melsa and Arthur Dogtail.

  Any fucking idea what each of them is? Or are the names not obvious enough? For real now, Leonheart at least sounds cool, but Catmouth? Dogtail? Are we deadass?

  No? You don’t know? Not even a bloody guess? Let me aid you then.

  Arther Leonheart is a lion man. Silvien Catmouth is a cat woman. Melsa and Arthur Dogtail, the mother and son pair, are dog folk.

  Also, pointing out the obvious, ignoring the atrocious naming sense, they all had to lick the blood of my finger to be able to free them. And besides the judgment that Julia may have been preparing to hurl at me from the afterlife because of Silvien and Ephe’s Directive, having a boy have to watch his mother embarrassingly suck the blood of my finger made me feel awkward in a way I didn’t think imaginable.

  “Question,” I said out loud to the four freed beastmen in front of me. “Why is his name Arther and your son’s name Arthur? Is that a coincidence, or?”

  “Not a coincidence,” Melsa smiled sadly, openly speaking now that she was free. “Arther had taken care of me and helped me during labor. Without his aid, I would have long been dead by now, and to show my appreciation, I named my son after him. Although…”

  The moment she trailed off, somewhat embarrassed, Arther sighed. “She thought my name was Arthur, not Arther.”

  I can see the confusion.

  “I-I thought he had an accent and didn’t know how to say his name,” Melsa stuttered, cheeks crimson from embarrassment.

  Not even double-checking?

  So yes, this was more or less the situation I currently found myself facing.

  Which meant one thing: we had to stay near the cave for another full day and try to brainstorm how in God’s holy name we were supposed to care for these people. At least for a while. Preferably without the whole lot of them dying.

  Still, between looting the bastards I’d killed of every valuable they had, foraging for anything edible, and boiling water for everyone, we actually got to know each other better. Enough that conversations even became pleasant.

  Everyone except Silvien.

  She said almost nothing, just one quiet “thank you,” plus nearly crying when she received the full bowl of soup I made for her. After that, silence. She was the truly quiet sort, more withdrawn into herself than the others. Even Arthur, the tiny dog boy, was more talkative and infinitely braver than she was, to the point he kept tugging at my coat and singing, poorly may I add, directly into my ear.

  “Forgive him, Your Grace,” Melsa repeated every single time her son did anything.

  But honestly, her apologies bothered me more than the kid climbing me like a tree. Because it only meant Stevin’s ridiculous propaganda about me had reached her ears, too, making me sigh in pure disbelief at what my life was now.

  A day later, with no more surprise visits from random encounters, we were finally back on the road.

  And somehow, I ended up walking dead center in the formation, with Enna and Airina flanking me on both sides like two extremely lethal, and extremely female, bodyguards.

  Which meant I only needed to do one thing: I began silently praying to my dead wife for forgiveness.

  Why?

  Safety reasons.

  Julia had been the jealous type in life. Not the unhinged kind, just the sort who ran background checks on any woman who stood within a two-meter radius of me, even though the only places I ever went were work, the grocery store, and wherever she dragged me out for fresh air so I “didn’t become a cryptid.”

  So in a way, I had been just as innocent on Earth as I was now in this world.

  But you never know. A woman’s jealousy might very well surpass spacetime, dimensional boundaries, and the thin veil between life and death if it meant ensuring my “proper husband behavior,” as she called it.

  “Your Grace,” Enna said, cutting right through the extremely important inner monologue I was having. “There are things we need to talk about later this evening. Alone.”

  “Alone?” I blinked. “What for?”

  “The future.”

  The future? What do you mean by the future, woman?

  But since she clearly had no intention of elaborating now, I doubted she would’ve explained it even if I pried. So I simply nodded, and we continued through the gorgeous forest, stopping whenever Arthur’s complaints hit that particular pitch only a tired four-year-old can achieve.

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  Melsa, twenty-seven, apparently, though she wasn’t entirely sure herself, did her best to soothe him. And really, no one blamed the boy. Newly freed, exhausted, four years old, and full of energy… he had every right to whine. The only person who seemed bothered by him was Enna.

  Her issue wasn’t the child being loud. It wasn’t even racism, as Stevin assumed. It was the child being born out of wedlock. A “sin,” she kept calling it, despite the obvious fact that Melsa had been the victim who was brought to Arthur's making, not the culprit.

  It was one of the few things she and I absolutely did not see eye to eye on as of late, no matter how much logic, empathy, or common sense I threw at her during the day. But then again, she was a priestess. And from what I’d gathered, the High Temples served doctrine for breakfast, dogma for lunch, and religious fanaticism as dessert after dinner.

  No wonder her moral compass was spinning like a drunk French sailor.

  Once night fell, and the watch rounds were settled between Stevin, Airina, and Enna, with Enna taking first watch, the others went to sleep.

  Finally, after half an hour, she signaled me to follow. So we slipped away from the small fire, never going far from camp, but far enough that the half-asleep wouldn’t overhear whatever dramatic confession she had loaded on her tongue.

  Except… after five full minutes of walking through pitch-dark forest, Enna still hadn’t said a single word. She just walked beside me, silent, which for some reason made my nerves itch.

  “Great conversation we’ve got going,” I said, stating the obvious. “Really makes me wonder what you dragged me out here to talk about.”

  “Ah. Yes.” She muttered, as if only just now remembering why we were here at all. “Your Grace… may I ask a question?”

  “Depends on the question.” I shrugged.

  She nodded, clearing her throat.

  “Are you a Vampire?”

  Fuck. Relia is listening to all of this from between my clothes.

  “Yes,” I sighed, lying.

  “Are you a God?”

  I nearly choked on my own saliva as I turned toward her.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Will you come with me to a High Temple once Stevin’s ordeal is over?” she asked instead, completely switching topics.

  So we’re just ignoring the literal ‘are you a God’ bit?

  “Why?”

  She stopped walking. Even in the darkness, her orange eyes were visible, looking at me. “Will you?”

  “Alright, hold on,” I exhaled. “I don’t even know what I’m eating for dinner tomorrow. Let’s first handle Stevin’s situation, secure the beastfolk’s safety, and then we can talk temples. What’s with the sudden existential interrogation?”

  “I feel like you are either a divine being… or some sort of charming evil,” she said quietly.

  Hold on now, I'm just a human who had to double down on the vampire lie after you idiots spammed it so hard it became canon. And please, be careful with the compliments before Julia in the Heavens thinks you’re serious.

  “I’m neither,” I groaned, starting to walk again. “And stop testing me with bullshit, just like you two did when you planned to attack me. Have you no trust in me, Enna? Even after all this?”

  “I do, Your Grace,” she said, panic creeping into her voice. “That’s the problem.”

  What an absolute moron.

  “If that’s all you wanted, Enna, then go back to camp.” I waved her off and kept walking, happily ignoring whatever further nonsense she tried to throw my way.

  And honestly, I was a Court Jester too, for thinking she had something genuinely important to say, after the way she’d hyped this secretive midnight talk earlier in the day.

  “Come out, Relia,” I said the moment I stopped near a random lakeshore, ten minutes deeper into the nowhere I chose to walk toward.

  Relia’s shadowy form materialized at once, chuckling. “That was disappointing.”

  “I know,” I sighed. “But that’s Enna for you.”

  “Not what I meant,” she purred as she stepped closer. “Your heartbeat. You were expecting something.”

  False accusation. Julia, do NOT listen to this ancient woman.

  “I- I just expected her to say something more… I don’t know, important?” I stuttered for absolutely no reason.

  “Oh? Is that so?” she grinned. “Very well, Your Grace. Then, is it feeding time?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, to let Relia loose on my arteries, but on the opposite side of the lake, figures began to appear out of the forest. Women. Shining. Wrapped in thin, see-through veils, gliding above ground across the shore toward the water.

  [Warning.]

  [High Concentration of Illusionary Magic Detected.]

  [Do Not Stare at Them.]

  But Ephe’s warning came too late.

  Relia’s fangs sank into my neck just as my eyes focused on the beautiful figures.

  And the only word I managed, the only name my mind could summon, was from yet another Romanian folklore that made its way into this world.

  “Ielele.”

  The Mistresses of the Wind were here. And they were gorgeous, reminding me of an old song I heard once back on Earth.

  You, Iele,

  Mistresses,

  Enemies of the People,

  Rulers of the Wind.

  Ladies of the Earth,

  You fly through the air,

  On the grass you slide,

  On the waves you thread.

  You walk in faraway places,

  On lakes, woods, and nothingness,

  Where the Priest does not sing,

  Where the girl does not play.

  You walk in the wind’s mouth,

  Striking at the shackles of the world.

  Oh, Iele, Mistresses.

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