Chapter 110: Making do

The moment Zaren cast his spell, Ash understood. She understood the many pieces that had needed to fall into place for them to have reached this moment. Not just everything leading to Zaren’s birth, though the idea that someone had managed to manipulate events so that a Shadowborn of Zaverrian descent would obtain the Jailer’s Blade at the apex of her enemies’ plans still boggled her mind.

No, she understood all the smaller things. Anyone else would have taken [Cursed Existence] and erected a barrier between them, but Zaren understood her loneliness far before he realized what it was. He’d given her a chance when anyone in their right mind would have taken the path that didn’t involve their soul being devoured so fully.

And because he’d chosen to give her that chance, she’d been able to influence him. His classes. His companions. Had Zaren taken [Cursed Existence], he never would have obtained the class of Soul Smith. If he doesn’t become a Soul Smith, he never forms a Link with her.

And without that Link, she doesn’t become Ash. She’d only recently understood just how much power she was siphoning from his Array. Many of his Links had refused to level because of it. Only Serena, as an agent of another goddess and someone who loved so fully, had managed to outgrow Ash’s unintentional drain. But it was all of that love, that empathy, that had built Ash back up brick by brick, bit by bit, until she had a foundation worthy of a goddess of souls.

There were so many others, such as Stella’s situation forcing him to take [Sever], that led to this moment that she couldn’t help but wonder if it was luck or fate that brought them here, but those were quandaries she could ruminate over at a later date.

Right now she had a heroic fool to save.

The moment he cast the spell that ripped the Blade’s own array asunder it was like someone had punched a hole in a dam. The entity that had been borne from millennia of stolen soul scraps screeched its rage and anguish as its lifeblood gushed out—completely unbeknownst to the mortals surrounding the blade, as they’d killed the only one capable of sensing such a thing—threatening to drag her along with it.

But she wasn’t going to go alone. Zaren’s soul, faded and torn, remained. There was so little left of the mortal she’d come to care for so very much that it terrified her, but she’d learned from the best how to push that fear down and deal with it at a more convenient time.

The Blade must have an occupant. She knew that the moment she tried to wrest him from its clutches. It was her imprisonment that cemented the Blade’s magic in the first place. With Zaren’s soul so empowered and unique, she knew he’d been put on this path to take her place in the Blade so that she could be free. So that the cosmos might stand a chance at stopping the scourge that threatened to destroy it.

But, to quote Zaren: Fuck that.

She wrapped her own Essence around him. Even separated from his mortal body, his soul refused to let go of those he cared about. His love for them was strong and so was theirs. Acting half out of instinct and half according to one of the many half-baked plans Rhallani had helped her come up with, Ash dove into that connection.

She drew upon the web of souls that tethered Zaren to this realm. The Blade would have tried to destroy them, but it was currently busy trying to patch the hole he’d punched in its magic. Hoping she wasn’t making things worse, she dove into that web.

She went to each and every occupant of that web save one and posed her question. Their conscious minds were unaware of her intrusion, but their souls answered eagerly. A mortal could deceive, but a soul could not. The souls would act according to their deepest desires and ideals without the need to weigh logic or emotion. That was good, because she couldn’t afford to waste even a second.

She posed her question, and they all responded exactly as she hoped. Every member of Zaren’s Array, even those who didn’t share his bed, cared for him deeply. Enough to sacrifice a portion of their own souls for him.She didn’t take much, but even a small amount of fifteen souls was an extraordinary amount of power. Some of that she funneled straight into Zaren, fanning the dying ember that was his own soul and buying her more time. The rest, assuming no others like her had been born in the last few thousand years, she did what only she could do.

She shaped it. She took the abundance of Soul Essence and formed it into a shape that wasn’t quite a living soul, but it was close enough to fool the Blade. And as she did, she realized she’d created something more than just a copy or a fake. Her essence mixed with Zaren’s and with all those who loved him to create something she didn’t fully understand. A seed. Something that wasn’t quite sentient, but had the potential to someday grow into something…more.

For a brief moment she contemplated finding another way. She found herself reluctant to leave this accidental creation here, but it took the choice from her hands. It stepped into the blade’s magic of its own will—whatever will it had—and immediately took the brunt of its assault. Before her connection to this creation faded, she felt its happiness. Its resolve. It would mimic them both, giving the Blade the appearance of being unchanged, until it was too late for their enemy to react.

The decision made for her, Ash let the current carry her from the blade. It spat her out into the cosmos, Zaren’s soul in hand, where for the first time in far longer than she could remember, she was free. Stars and planets and worlds stretched out endlessly before her. A literal universe of endless possibility.

But the soul in her hands tugged at the Links that were now strained impossibly thin. If she’d had a corporeal form she would have smiled. Yet another piece in the puzzle fell into place.

She’d barely reached adulthood when she’d been locked away. So many of her powers she’d never even had the chance to understand, and the ability to travel the cosmos was one of them. With her plane annihilated, there was nothing tethering her to any one place. It could have taken her decades, even centuries to find her way back to Kasidiel were it not for Zaren’s Links.

She let the pull guide her until she’d returned to the plane that had become her home. It carried her straight to his corpse, lying abandoned in the forgotten underground city where he’d given his life for her. The moment she was close enough the soul in her hands pulled and raged, refusing the call of the afterlife. Once again, his love for his companions saved him. It continued to tether him to this realm. Even in death, he refused to give up. It broke her heart to see his lifeless body lying on the cold, stone floor. Surrounding him were all the items he’d had in his storage at his time of death, deposited around his body in a perfect circle.

There were empty spaces where things had been taken. Money. Potions. Magical weapons. All that was left were a few changes of clothes, an oddly large number of shirts, rations, odds and ends, some nonmagical weapons, a set of camping gear, an enchanted compass, a variety of adventuring gear, and most of a destroyed golem.

Ignoring the pain she felt, she knelt down next to him. He was so peaceful in death. Were it not for the burns, bruises, cuts, and gaping gash in his stomach, he might have been sleeping. She leaned over and caressed his face with his soul still in her hand.

She’d been right. His death had been necessary for her freedom. Without separating fully from his mortal form, he never would have been able to go deep enough into the Jailer’s Blade to destroy her bindings. She felt as much anger as she did sorrow over it, but there was nothing she could do to change that fact. She was a goddess of souls, not time, after all.

She was reasonably certain reincarnation was within her wheelhouse, but not full resurrection. That meant it would be two more decades before he was a player in this game once again, and she had a feeling his harem wouldn’t be too pleased by that. Luckily, thanks to Rhallani, she had a backup plan.

Soul in hand, she pushed her fist into his chest. Then she leaned down so that her whispers would fall directly into his ears. Trepidation in her heart, she spoke. The Words came to her, both from what Rhallani had been able to find in her ancient Zaverrian journal and from the cosmos themselves. For a brief moment, she thought they might have come from her own memory as well.

Her Words echoed with the weight of fate itself as she spoke them. “The gods of this realm have forsaken their claim on you, Zaren Nocht.” Well, with one exception, but if she had a problem with it then she shouldn’t have gone and gotten herself captured.

“As a descendant of my realm, I claim you.” Warmth settled in her as a connection started to take place, overlapping and strengthening the Link already existing between them. “You who have served me. You who have saved me. You who would sacrifice not just your life, but your immortal soul in my service.”

The soul in her hand pulsed and began to grow hot. “Rise now as my Champion. My mortal protector. Live once more, so that you might do my bidding in this realm. So that you may be my hand in the places my immortal self cannot reach.” Her bidding would be for him to live a long and happy life, but the cosmos didn’t need to know that.

The tether between them snapped into place and he sucked in a rattling gasp of air. Elation soared through her as he took another breath. Then another. And another. He lived. His sacrifice had given her the power to raise him as her servant. There was every possibility that he’d be pissed about it, but she was fairly certain his harem would back her decision up.

This had been her plan. That he’d freely given her life while expecting nothing in return was the only reason his heart now beat. He couldn’t know of her plan because simply knowing there was a possibility of resurrection would have disqualified him, but it had all worked out.

He was alive.

Aaaaand he was also bleeding out again.

“Shitshitshit!” she cursed, instinctively trying to staunch the flow with incorporeal hands. He was a living mortal again, which meant she couldn’t touch him. Not directly. Not without frying his soul, at least, and that would be rather counterproductive.

Most of his injuries had at least closed with his resurrection, but the magic of the Jailer’s Blade was too destructive. She looked around frantically and her eyes fell on the golem. Zaren had banished it to his storage during Stella’s rescue and hadn’t taken it out since.

She sped to the golem’s side and plucked the soul from its chest. She’d barely formed the question before the soul had accepted, and she breathed a sigh of relief. That was half the problem taken care of, at least. Then she looked around the area and winced at what she knew she’d have to do next.

Zaren’s attackers had mostly left the signs of the massacre behind. Though they’d been blown all over the area, that meant she had six Ashai corpses to work with. There were also the two mostly-intact Malek corpses, as well as more than a few human bodies that Zaren had left behind in the city.

There were many ways a mortal could be tied to a god or goddess. A Chosen was given access to their power to complete a specific task. A Champion was raised as a reward for giving their life for a god. Neither of those would help her right now, so she opted for a third option that Rhallani had found but she’d initially discounted for… reasons.

So Ash took the soul and held it out in front of her, then she drew upon the corpses around her. She broke them down to their basest parts and essence and began shaping it around the soul, giving it form. Much of it was unusable or incompatible, but there was enough.

She posited the question of appearance to the soul, but all she got in return was an indifferent shrug. For a soul who’d been trapped in a suit of armor for decades, any body was going to be an upgrade. Considering Ash’s end goal, it was more than happy to leave the specifics to her.

Time to a goddess was an odd thing at times. For her, it felt like it took her ages to form each and every nerve and vessel, to make sure everything was in the correct place and that the body she created looked and operated as a twenty-year-old body should. Thankfully, in reality, it was mere seconds before her Avatar flashed into existence.

The resulting woman was tall, but still slightly shorter than Zaren would be. Long black hair with streaks of crimson woven through it fell halfway down her back. Her skin was mostly gray, mottled with dark blue in a symmetrical marbled pattern. Crimson eyes widened in surprise as she took in her four arms for a moment, then all four of them started to explore her voluptuous figure.

“Shit, your holiness,” Nell, Ash’s new Avatar, said, “I had a feeling leaving the looks to you would be a good idea, but damn.”

“Ash is fine, but can we appreciate our figure later?” Ash said hurriedly.Nell cursed. “On it.”

She sprinted for Zaren, digging into his supplies until she found a first aid kit. She seemed uncertain with her lower set of arms, so she mainly used them to hold things while she sewed Zaren shut. “Fucker’s lucky this didn’t hit anything important.”

“Pretty sure that was by design,” Ash said grimly.

Nell huffed. “Of course it was. Always has to be a badass, doesn’t he?”

Ash didn’t answer as she watched Nell patch him up. As Ash’s Avatar, Nell could see and speak with her. Unless she managed to convert a priestess, Nell would be the only one. She wasn’t even sure she’d be able to talk to Zaren like she had before now that the Blade was incapable of acting as intermediary. Now, unless Nell was acting her mouthpiece, the only way she could talk to people would be…

“Done,” Nell said, sitting back on her haunches. “Well, as done as I can be, at least. Pretty sure I did that right.”

Ash knelt down next to him. At some point, her see-through incorporeal form had taken on the same likeness as Nell’s new body, minus the second set of arms. She knew now wasn’t the time, but she couldn’t wait a second longer. “May I…?”

Nell grinned. “Hey, it’s your body. I’m just its tenant.”

Ash didn’t waste another second. She pulled on the tether that connected them, and in a flash she was inhabiting Nell’s body.

The first thing she realized was how cold she was. Nell still hadn’t donned any clothes, so she was fully nude. It made her smile. How long had it been since she’d felt something as simple as temperature? Then she nearly fell as she tried to move towards Zaren. Turns out being without physical form for several hundred years took a toll on hand-eye-coordination.

“Easy,” Nell said from somewhere in her mind, her amusement clear, “don’t go breaking us on day one.”

Ash didn’t grace her with a response as she leaned towards Zaren on her knees. She scooped him up gently and wrapped her arms around him. A sob escaped her as she cradled him to her chest. He was so warm. Every breath that passed his lips, warming her bare skin, felt like a miracle. That she could hold him with two arms, thread her fingers through his hair with a third, and feel his heartbeat with her fourth was utterly amazing.

Even seeing the world through his eyes and feeling things through the memories of the soul scraps she’d taken in had been heavily watered down. If this was what it felt like to hold someone else then why the hell did mortals ever even get out of bed?

“Uh, Ash?” Nell said. “Not to tell you what to do or anything, but we should probably get him somewhere warm. Normally I’d be all for you taking the reins, but maybe it’d be better to have me at the reins? You know, since I’ve already got this whole walking thing down?”

Ash scoffed, blinking back tears. Nell was right, of course, but that didn’t make her feel any better. Before she ceded control, however, she pressed a kiss to Zaren’s forehead. “There,” she whispered, her lips still close enough to touch, “you’ve gone and died. I sure hope you got it out of your system, because it’s gonna be a long, long time before I let you do that again.”

Then she ceded control of their body back to Nell and stepped aside. Nell quickly got to work gathering items. She shot a grimace towards Ash when she struggled to pull on a pair of Zaren’s pants. “Damn, Ash, did you have to give us so much ass?”

Ash shrugged, wondering if her goddess form could blush. “I was in a hurry?”

Nell arched a brow. “Uh huh. And it had nothing to do with Zaren really liking butts, then?”

“Wha—no! Of course not!”

Nell just rolled her eyes and picked up a shirt from the pile with a frown. “Who the fuck needs this many shirts? More importantly, how the hell…?”

She turned it around a few times, then looked down at herself. After a moment of contemplation, she shrugged. She pulled it over her head and her first set of arms, then she pulled the front down enough to cover her rather generous chest and tied it in the back, leaving her midriff exposed. Her nipples poked obviously through the shirt in the cold, but it was better than nothing.

Then she dumped one of the packs on the ground and started throwing in whatever she thought she might need. “You know, I think I could get used to having four arms. This kinda rules.” Once she’d gathered anything she might need, including strapping a few swords on her person, she went back to Zaren. “Any idea when he’ll wake?”

Ash could only shrug. “His body took a hell of a beating, then he quite literally died. If I’ve ever had a Champion before, I can’t remember it, so I’ve got nothing.”

Nell sighed, then she gingerly picked him up and draped him over her back. She struggled a bit with his weight, but Ash had made sure to give her a decently developed muscular structure for this reason. “What are the odds someone comes looking for him?”

Ash reached out with her godly senses. “There are no souls big enough to be people for miles and they think he’s dead. We should be fine, and even if we aren’t then I’ll at least have ample warning.”

“Thank fuck for that. Pretty sure I should get some practice in before I start taking this body into fights.” Nell took full advantage of her extra arms to get Zaren into a small, unassuming building near the outskirts of the abandoned city.

Once she’d gotten him settled on an ancient bed with one of his cloaks as a blanket, she turned to Ash and crossed all four arms. “What next?”

“We wait for him to wake, I suppose,” Ash said with a shrug. She hated that she couldn’t go to the others and tell them what had happened, but she wasn’t confident in her ability to communicate with Nell right now. All the rules surrounding what she could and couldn’t do had changed now that the Blade was no longer in the picture, which meant she was going to have to learn how to do everything from scratch.

Nell nodded. “Yeah, I can do that. We should have stuff for broth at least, and his paranoid ass didn’t go anywhere without a few canteens of water. Might have to go looking for a stream or something if he doesn’t wake in the next few days, though.”

When Ash cocked her head, she shrugged. “When you’re stuck in a suit of armor that can’t feel or talk, you notice things. Point is that we should be fine for now.”

“Good,” Ash said. Then she grinned. “That means I should have ample time to learn how to walk. Can’t go making a fool of myself for my big debut, right?”

Nell huffed, amusement swimming in her eyes. “Fine, fine. I guess a goddess who can barely stay standing isn’t all that threatening. But while we’re at it, we need to discuss boundaries.”

“Boundaries?”

Nell jabbed a finger with both of her left arms. “Don’ you thi—huh,” she said, looking at both arms that had snapped out with raised brows. Then she shook her head. “Don’t think I didn’t feel our body light up a minute ago.”

“I—that’s not—”

“Look, I get it. He’s a catch, and I definitely wouldn’t mind a roll in the hay with him, even with you in control. And I also respect the fact that I wouldn’t even have a body without you, and that you’re in charge here. I would just prefer we discuss how things are going to work since you can shove yourself in me whenever you feel like it.”

Ash wrinkled her nose. “Do you have to say it like that?”

“I most certainly do.”

“Fine. But like you said, we discuss it while I learn how to use the body. I haven’t had one in a really, really long time and I want to see if orgasms are all they’re cracked up to be.”

Nell smacked her forehead with two hands at once. “Fuck’s sake. Walking first.”

“Deal!”