“I need to speak with Solvei privately.”

Despite the fact that he could see their futures, as well as read their minds, Lex still found it puzzling how his other three wives had wildly differing responses to such a simple announcement.

I wonder what’s going on? was Nenet’s reaction, her unfiltered curiosity transmitted to him across their bond.

Mei Li, by contrast, was broadcasting a clear sense of approval. Matters of importance should always be discussed with the first wife in advance.

But the most pronounced reaction came from Nisha. What does he want with her when I’m right here?! she whined internally, overcome with jealousy.

Fortunately, she didn’t make an issue of her displeasure, settling for crossing her arms under her chest and scowling at Solvei as the other two led her away. Compared to how she’d reacted when she’d first met her fellow wives, it was a marked improvement in her behavior. Apparently, the time she’d spent getting to know the others had been worthwhile.

Which was for the best, since after his altercation with Spice, Lex was in no mood for dealing with more madness.

“What’s wrong?”

Solvei’s question – given voice as soon as the door closed behind the others – made Lex frown. He’d been regulating his emotions enough so that his discontent hadn’t been transmitted to her or his other wives, and yet according to his foresight Solvei would have asked that question in any future where he didn’t immediately cut her off. Nor was she simply assuming that his wish to speak with her alone meant that there was bad news; he could tell from her thoughts that she knew he was upset.

No, what bothered him was that Solvei didn’t know how she’d picked up on his state of mind, and yet was certain – and correct – about her conclusion. Just like everyone else around him, she’d been able to intuit and extrapolate from clues that she could neither consciously recognize nor expressly articulate. And just like when he’d been mortal, he couldn’t deconstruct what those clues were, despite his expanded senses, augmented intelligence, and ability to perceive both thoughts and the future.

As the Night Mare had promised, his inability to understand others was something that even his being a titan couldn’t transcend.

“Lex?”

Knowing, thanks to his foresight, that she’d be upset if he dismissed her inquiry, Lex decided that it was less trouble simply to tell her what she wanted to know.

“Spice – the succubus who made light of Branwen’s sacrifice – was accosting the males of Mei Li’s clan while they were bathing.”

Solvei’s eyes widened at that. “She was-”

“Rubbing their tails,” finished Lex. “Vigorously. At the base.”

Her concern was immediately replaced by bemusement, a snicker managing to slip past her lips before she regained control of herself. “That’s it?”

“Tails are an extremely important part of fox society, Solvei.” Lex had picked up that much from the minds of the distraught todds in the bathing area. “Touching them without permission is a major taboo in their culture, especially at the base.”

“I understand,” she replied, though across their bond Lex could still register levity in her emotions. “It’s just...for adlets, tail-pulling is something little boys do to the girls they like. Even the utvalgte see it as harmless.”

“Which is why Spice hasn’t done that to anyone else,” muttered Lex. “She only engages in activities that she knows result in the other party’s distress. But I didn’t want to speak with you privately so we could talk about her.”

The words caused her amusement to die off, and she took a deep breath before nodding at him.

“Sometime in the next three days,” he began, “I’ll have a meeting on the Astral Plane with Mihr, the-”

“I’m going with you,” blurted Solvei.

“I know.” According to his foresight, there was no other answer that Solvei would find acceptable.

As it was, she barely seemed to find that one acceptable, arching one eyebrow as she crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “What does that mean?”

“Exactly what I said,” answered Lex, cognizant of the anxiety that he was now registering from her. “When I go to meet with Mihr, I can bring two other people with me. I want you to be one of them.”

“Just like that?!”

Uncrossing her arms, she held them out at her sides, staring at him in what their link confirmed was incredulity. “You refuse to let me help you with Kryonex, had to save me from Burly Brawl, and wouldn’t let me go with you to Darkest Night even though I’d been there before, but now all of a sudden you’re alright with me going along to help you face whatever an archangel is, just like that?!”

“I’m not going to be ‘facing’ Mihr,” corrected Lex. According to his foresight, there was no explanation that would calm her down in the next six seconds, which meant that clarifying the nature of his upcoming conference should be the optimal path. “I’ve already given my word that this meeting will not descend into violence. We’re going to attempt to negotiate a resolution regarding his blockade, and if things don’t work out, then both sides will peacefully disengage.”

“Oh that’s reassuring!” she snapped. “Those elves just wanted to have a nice chat too, you know! And from what you told us, so did the Night Mare, or the Night Terror, or whatever she’s calling herself now! I’m sure those ‘angel’ things, who’re dead-set on not letting you go home, will-”

She cut herself off abruptly, turning away from him as she took several deep breaths. Silence filled the room as she collected herself, their bond making it clear that she was fighting to master her emotions. It was almost a full minute later when she spoke, her back still turned toward him.

“Why do you want me to go with you?”

From her words alone, Lex could have interpreted the question in any number of ways. But he could hear her thoughts, and that was enough to tell him what she was really asking:

Why do you want me to go with you if I’m too weak to be of any help?

But Lex didn’t answer her aloud, nor did he reply telepathically.

Instead, he reached into his pocket dimension...

And withdrew Kryonex’s eyeball, along with Gleipnir, the latter being what Odin had called the caparison of folded ice sheets Lex had taken from the defeated demigod.

Not bothering to use telekinesis, he simply willed them to float from his grasp and come to rest atop a small table nearby, within Solvei’s field of view.

Needless to say, the sight was enough to cut through her turmoil, and she blinked several times before finally turning look at him. “Do I even want to know what those are?”

Lex sighed inwardly, not looking forward to this next part.

“There’s something I haven’t told you about my fight with Kryonex...”

The foes he’d faced since becoming a titan had all been, without exception, too powerful for his wives to fight. While his ascendancy had made Solvei and Nenet – the only ones to have been bonded to him when he’d still been mortal – far more powerful, and assured that Mei Li and Nisha were similarly strong, their might had grown far less than his. Burly Brawl had, in that regard, proven to be the perfect example of just how far he’d outgrown his soul-bound companions: whereas Lex had found the lesser titan to be an irritant more than any kind of actual threat, Solvei had been hopelessly outclassed by him.

The result was that, while his wives could still offer indirect assistance – such as Mei Li’s reassurance during Gwynharwyf’s attack on his mind, or Nisha’s getting them out of Mare Occultum – Lex had been forced to fight alone for all intents and purposes since becoming a titan.

A side effect of that was that his wives had missed several bits of important information that he’d gained from the foes he fought.

One such being Kryonex’s revelation about having absorbed Hrothvitnir (or Nuti-Amaguk, as the adlets called him).

Although Lex had filled Solvei and the others in more than once after his recent battles, he’d held back several bits of information, the truth about the creator of the adlets and winter wolves being one of them.

He’d already introduced several major religious upheavals into Solvei’s tribe by slaying their ancestral foe Hvitdod, bringing their kin back from the dead, and introducing them to the Night Mare’s worship. Casually revealing that their creator had been killed and absorbed by a demigod they’d never heard of, and whom he’d then turned around and slain, had seemed...imprudent.

Particularly the part where he’d volunteered, and later confirmed to the leader of one of the cosmos’s strongest pantheons, to have Solvei inherit Hrothvitnir’s – or rather, Fenrir’s – powers via the eye Lex had plucked from his head.

Or that Kara had volunteered to help facilitate the process.

But Lex held none of those details back now, telling Solvei everything he’d learned about the creator of the adlets and winter wolves.

“...but all of this is only if you wish to try and inherit Fenrir’s power,” finished Lex several minutes later. “If you don’t, then I’ll turn the eye and the caparison over to Odin regardless of his objections and be done with them.”

Solvei didn’t reply immediately, instead looking at the eye with a blank expression, their bond telling him only that she was having trouble dealing with what he’d just told her.

Finally, she shuddered and looked away from it, her eyes lighting up with the same green-and-purple light his own had so often manifested as she telekinetically dragged the name-inscribed cloak over the huge eyeball.

“Let me see if I have this right,” she began at last. “You’re saying that Kryonex not only killed Hrothvitnir, but ate him.”

Lex almost interrupted to point out that it was far more complicated than that, but his foresight told him that she’d talk right over him if he did, so he instead remained silent.

“And now you want Kara to use those” – she jerked her thumb at the items on the table – “to turn me into the new Hrothvitnir, which means that someday I’ll have to kill some other god that I’ve never heard of named Odin.”

“That’s essentially correct, yes.”

Despite the soft laugh she gave then, the corners of her lips didn’t turn upward at all.

“It wasn’t that long ago when my biggest concerns were becoming a good enough hunter that my siblings would stop teasing me,” she muttered softly, “and worrying that I’d never be as skilled a shaman as my grandmother. Now my titan husband is asking me to become a being from ancient myth and grow powerful enough to become a god-slayer like him.”

Staggering over to a nearby couch, she sank onto it bonelessly, staring up at the ceiling. “How is this my life?”

There was a melancholy cast to her emotional state then, and it was enough to make Lex wince internally.

Do you regret having met me?

The telepathic message caused Solvei to snap out of her malaise, looking over at him with a shocked expression. What?

Has the turmoil I’ve brought into your life outweighed the joy? He moved alongside the couch she was laying on, kneeling down so he was at eye-level with her as he took one of her hands in his claw. Would you be happier right now if our paths had never crossed?

“Lex,” she murmured, her other hand coming up to press against his cheek. You know that I wouldn’t. If it wasn’t for you, my family would still be suffering under Bolverk. My parents and grandmother would still be dead. And neither part of me – Solvei or Akna – would have gotten to experience these feelings.

Closing his eyes, he leaned into her touch, not needing to ask what feelings she meant. Those feelings are why you’re considering accepting Hrothvitnir’s power, so that you can have strength enough to put yourself in harm’s way for my sake.

Like you have for mine.

He shook his head softly, the motion causing him to nuzzle her hand. It’s not the same. I’m your master, which means that when our wishes conflict, mine are paramount. If I want you to be away from danger, then that’s what happens, even if it makes you unhappy.

Her hand gave a gentle squeeze of his paw, and even though his eyes were closed, he could sense the small smile she was wearing now. Then why tell me about Hrothvitnir at all? Why not just give it back to Odin, regardless of all that stuff he said about fate?

Because I don’t want you to be unhappy with me. He stopped nuzzling her hand as he opened his eyes to look at her again, a condemned pony admitting his guilt. Because knowing that I’ve hurt you is worse than seeing you get hurt in battle.

“And why is that?” She murmured, fingers gently weaving through his mane. “Why does me being upset with you hurt worse than seeing me injured?”

He didn’t need to be able to see the future, or read her thoughts, to know the answer to that question.

“Because I love you.”

The kiss she planted on his lips then was soft and chaste, but the emotion that came through their bond then was as powerful as anything he’d ever felt from her.

I love you too.

For a long moment, neither of them said anything, both of them willfully lost in the moment, until at last Solvei pulled away from him. “I want you to do something for me.”

“What?” The question was perfunctory, his foresight telling him what she was about to ask him for...and it was enough to make him grimace inwardly.

“I don’t know if there’s a way to do this, but...can you make it so that I can talk to Kara?”

If not for the fact that he’d just admitted that it hurt him more to refuse her what she wanted than to put her at risk, he’d have rejected her request outright. As it was, he needed a moment to reconcile himself to what she was asking of him, since he’d be there to make sure the manipulative goddess didn’t try anything untoward. “I can use Nenet’s metamagic to expand on my communion spell,” he replied at last. “It should make it so that you’ll be able to participate when I contact her...”

He trailed off then, his stomach tightening as his foresight showed him what was about to happen.

“No, Lex,” murmured Solvei, sighing as she sat up. “I mean I want to talk to Kara by myself.”

“Carnelia? You here?”

Nenet felt silly asking that, having just been told by Lex that the brachina was outside helping to secure the village. Nevertheless, she waited for a few seconds after knocking on the pleasure devil’s door before gently pushing it open. She’d had too many bad experiences with her siblings back in Adagio’s mountain hideaway to feel comfortable otherwise.

Letting out a nervous breath as she slowly pushed the door open, the sphinx gingerly stuck her head in as she looked around, making sure she was alone before stepping inside and closing the door behind her.

It took her only a moment to spot what she was looking for.

Padding lightly across the room, Nenet smiled to herself as she saw the collection of staves in the corner...as well as the thick book next to them.

Master, just leave the rest of these to me! she vowed silently as she sat down on the nearby bed, folding her legs under her as she plunked the heavy tome down in front of her. I’ll have them all deciphered in no time!

The resolution filled her with excitement, imagining how happy he’d be when she finished. She knew he wanted these items he’d taken from Vystalaran identified, and while she was sure that Carnelia was doing a great job – she’d apparently already figured out the crystal ball that Mei Li had used to get in touch with her clan, as well as the staff used to bring them all here – she had other work to do now.

And I don’t, the sphinx knew. Which means that this is my chance to be helpful!

The silent declaration came with a twinge of guilt. Despite the fact that Lex had comforted her in her dream, she still felt bad about not having been able to save Branwen. Fortunately, her master had been able to bring her back – it was just another example of how incredible he was – and now that the vilderavn was in the process of being fully healed, Nenet knew she couldn’t afford to sit around and keep crying like she had been.

This time, she’d help out instead of just being a burden all the time.

With her mind made up, she turned toward the book...only to frown as she looked at the puzzle lock sealing the covers shut.

Hm, let’s see here. Looks like a chaocipher, and based on the configuration of the latches the key should only be twenty characters long. Hah, this won’t be hard at all!

Sure enough, she managed to have the entire thing decoded only a few minutes later, beaming as she opened the cover and turned to the title page.

Then her eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat.

“The Blessed Book of Infinite Spells.”

Author's Note

Lex tells Solvei about her being chosen to inherit Fenrir’s power, only to be caught off-guard as she asks to speak to Kara alone, while Nenet unlocks the magic book taken from Vystalaran!

What does Solvei want with Kara? And has Nenet really stumbled upon a limitless collection of spells?