It was far too early when a noise pulled me from my slumber. I had no real idea how long I had been asleep; I only knew it hadn’t been long enough. However, living in the Changed world had thoroughly trained me to wake whenever someone came too close while I was sleeping. In this case, opening the door of the shrine caused enough of a disturbance to rip me from the deep sleep I had fallen into after my conversation with Lady Hecate, and despite my exhaustion, I was glad that it had.

  “What happened to you?!” I couldn’t keep the concern out of my voice when Lia stepped into the shrine. Her clothes were covered in gore and dirt, what exposed skin she had looked a little scorched, and the stench wafting off her body was enough to be classified as an area of effect attack. To make matters worse, I could see the dim light of an early morning outside, meaning she had almost been caught out in the sun, which explained her scorched state, but not the rest.

  “Are you alright?” I continued, unable to keep from worrying about my daughter, especially after our conversation that night.

  “Yes, I think I am,” she replied, pausing for a second or two at the end, before adding, “Mother.”

  The address was enough to wash away a number of my fears and worries, making me smile despite myself.

  “Would it be okay if I cleaned you up? You managed to get a bit dirty, and the smell is…” I asked, unwilling to push in this instance.

  “Yes, thanks,” she nodded, and I pulled her aside so I could get to work. It didn’t take long to fill the small alcove I had conjured with dirt and grime from the water I used to wash off my daughter, and soon after, Lia stood before me, completely bare while her clothes were still in the process of getting cleaned.

  “Thank you, Mother,” she spoke, her voice unusually quiet. “I apologise for worrying you,” she added, and I had to wave her off.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” I promised, stepping forward to pull her into a hug, after quickly banishing the moisture still clinging to her. It was just a little awkward, given that she didn’t have a stitch of clothes on her, but that didn’t matter at that moment. She was my daughter, and I felt she needed that bit of reassurance.

  “You learned about a disturbing bit of reality, and it freaked you out. You are here now, and that’s good enough for me,” I added, simply holding her for a few minutes.

  “Would you like to talk about it, or maybe assist with your injuries?” I asked, my gaze going to the parts the rising sun outside had scorched.

  “They’ll heal,” she shrugged, “But I won’t say no to your help.”

  Another boulder dropped off my heart, as the only real way I could help with injuries like that was by providing her additional power through feeding her blood. Reinforcing the binding on her and the bond between us. This was ultimate proof that my daughter wasn’t rejecting me, but had accepted in her heart and mind that the binding wasn’t malicious. It might have started out as a leash to control her but by now, it was just an afterthought, a remnant of something I couldn’t have done better at the time. Something our relationship had outgrown but couldn’t be cut because it had become part of her.

  To facilitate the feeding, I poked a hole in my arm, letting blood from out freely, only to notice the smirk on Lia’s face. Then, she suddenly knelt down in complete submission, her eyes downcast.

  “Allow me, Mistress,” she asked, her voice soft, barely audible, and absolutely servile and submissive. Her demeanour made me recoil in horror, a feeling that only reinforced itself when I noticed what was going on. Lia was using the manners I had made her use right after her creation, when I had treated her as a minion or weapon, instead of as my daughter.

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  “Stop that,” I tried to command, only to realise that my voice was a lot weaker than I would have liked. My distaste for the current situation had knocked me for a loop, leading me to plead rather than command.

  “Please never act like this again,” I asked Lia, after she had taken in the Blood and the Astral Power I had infused into it.

  “Can’t promise that,” Lia replied with a smirk on her face, clearly amused by the situation. “It’s a little too amusing to give such a blanket promise, especially with our respective lifespans involved.” She paused again, raising one finger to her lips as if she had to consider something carefully.

  “I mean, think about it,” she continued, her tone now completely teasing, “There’s a good chance that you’ll become one or two Goddesses in the future. Who, but the Pale Lady, the ruler of the freezing night, would I want to worship as the First Vampire? Well, maybe the Mother, though I’m not sure I’d be completely at ease with the rest of that triad-deity, you know? The Maiden can be such a brat, and I don’t really know the Grandmother; that crone is a little absent and distant.”

  “Get dressed, brat,” I growled, trying to hide the amusement I was feeling at her teasing. “But it’s something you should consider for the future. One idea I had to remove the troublesome aspects of the binding and bond was to transfer the binding from my physical, mortal aspect to either of the two divine aspects. If that were possible, I think that you would be able to draw upon them at will, simply because divine aspects aren’t bound to a physical body. You might have to drain more Astral Power to make up for inefficiencies in transfer or something like that, but I think it would be possible,” I explained, only to amend the idea with, “Maybe. If it turns out to work,” and add a shrug at the end, making it clear that I wasn’t certain this would be possible.

  “I see,” Lia nodded as she turned to the stairs leading up into the tower, “I’ll think about it, I promise. But, for now, I think I’ll be okay with the binding. It was just a shock,” she admitted, before walking up the stairs.

  After she was gone, I busied myself cleaning up the mess she had dragged into the tower, turning the dirty water to Ice and tossing it outside, before focusing on the clothes. The mindless work gave me a bit of mental space to consider the situation, and it made me feel quite grateful that it had worked out as well as it had.

  Now, I only had to make things work with the transfer of Lia’s bond, or maybe the other idea I had, to unravel it from my person and let the threads wrap around her in some way, would work out. It wasn’t something I had looked into just yet, but I would at some point.

  Additionally, with this mess now on the way to being mended, we could continue on our little bonding project and keep driving the people of the Blessed City insane. Or, well, even more insane than they already were. Because I was firmly convinced that anyone who willingly lived in that den of militaristic fanatics, heatstroke and ponies had to be insane, but that might be a different type of insanity.

  We had neglected them a little these last few days, ever since it had turned out that Lorgar was even less stable than I thought. I wanted their town to crumble, not turn into a charnel house. Though if I were being honest with myself, I’d rather see it turn into a charnel house than remain as it is now. The current state of the town, the combination of security and enforced obedience, was a recipe for success, or disaster, depending on the perspective. While I didn’t want everyone living in the Blessed City to die, I knew it was a sacrifice I would be willing to make, as long as their deaths didn’t result in additional divine curses targeting me. So far, our subtle and covert approach had kept Lorgar from targeting us here in Jademoon Tower, which was quite impressive. Or disappointing.

  It either meant Lorgar was a lot less perceptive and intelligent than I thought, that he was playing some long game or that he was under orders to leave us alone here. All three were plausible and troublesome in their own right. It all depended on the circumstances and the ultimate results of all this, something I couldn’t even try to predict, as I lacked information about various variables.

  After letting out a soft growl, I pushed the entire mess out of my mind, planning to focus on different topics. If things turned truly troublesome, I could take my family and move to the Nexus tower, unless Sunna decided to go for the nuclear option and use her celestial laser, or whatever it had been that destroyed me on Mundus at the end.