Serrated Love's Deceit

Chapter 19: War

I have gone up the mountains and back down. I have come across a lot of lost beings seeking sanctuary. They have built more village houses around the mansion. We have all been receiving training from the old warrior and we have gotten better at fighting. We have made a public garden and farm that we all tend to and a nearby natural spring helps us to maintain them. Everything was lovely until messengers from the neighboring realms gave invitations to see their overlords.

I sit on my granite throne sitting in the main hall of the regal wardrobe. I have been practicing controlling my phantom arm abilities with the old warrior. That has been challenging. The three messengers look at me with invitations inscribed in other languages in their hands. I have learned to detach phantom beings I control from the green phantom goo that makes up my phantom arms. I look at the messengers with a bored look as I lay unconventionally in one of the two huge granite thrones. My first husband must have thought we'd spend a lot of time in the wardrobe together because there is two of everything in the main area of this place. I place my hand under my chin and readjust in the seat. My small phantom assistants, that look like green translucent cherubs, come to collect some ecto-plasma from me to feed the plants in the garden and barter to farmers with it. I haven't let the warriors that I have collected yet know about the legion of phantom soldiers I have created. Anything I learn I teach my phantoms through our mental connection and network. The war I'm planning to fight is not here and I shouldn't drag them into my problems. It's my battle to fight.

I shrug at the messengers and agree to visit their realms briefly. "You all can give me the tour of your realms right now. I'll be taking some of my guards and this tour should be done before the nightfall." I say and smile. One of them narrows their eyes at me. He clears his throat and shakes his head.
"I can't agree to that. My king wants to have a long meeting with you since a lot of your guards are the rejects of our realm." He says. I raise a brow.

"It seems like you and your king are too invested in what rejects are doing. Don't you think?" I chuckle.

"My king will explain to you why they were banished from our realm." I look up at the golden lights on the ceiling. Silver and gold weave across every part of the domed high ceiling. It is beautiful and so detailed. Should I check on him or at least thank him for this place? Fine that is what I'll do after the tour today. "The tour will be short. I'm busy and have many things to do today so..." I say and shrug.

"That won't do. If I go back to my king with this information, it will be seen as a failure. You're obviously not doing anything right now. You're laying down on your throne." He huffs.

"What I'm doing now is not what I will be doing later... You know what. Tell your king that I am rejecting his invitation. Since I am so busy and all. He doesn't need to see a royal you deem a lazy being anyway, right?" I say and smile. He lunges at me and two of my guards place their swords on his jugular. Me and the other guards follow the other two guards outside of our realm to a waterfall that all the realms encircle. We stop at the lion realm first, it was a kingdom of cats and at the heart of it was a tawny haired bipedal lion. He has lionesses with the female builds similar to his body as his wives. They lay around his palace. "Where is your husband? Do you have one? Every female deserves to be protected. You can become my wife if you want." He says and winks at me with one of his amber eyes. I smile. I had one sister-wife and my first marriage crumbled. I don't think I'll be able to handle multiple sister-wives.

"No, I like being the sole ruler of my realm." I smile.

"My offer still stands any time you want it."

So he can speak telepathically as well. All the lost beings I found couldn't do that. Impressive. We leave the cat people's realm and go to the rope gate kingdom. "Where does your ruler live?" I ask the messenger.