Glimpses 61
Heir Consort Maxwell Bitterly fled from the pink-haired goddess he’d just summoned. It was hard to think of Harmony as anything other than that when he summoned her as that oversized avatar. Every time he did, flickers of her life crossed over, hints of how he could help.
What am I, fish guts? Saccerate complained inside his freaking soul, with a whining echo she had after he drained so much chaos energy for the summon.
Then there was that knot of fate that said he WOULD marry Princess Rosaline Highsmythe. When did he become a cursed main character in some awful play? And wasn’t the old mentor who taught you everything supposed to die instead of chasing you around all wrinkly and naked-like?
Max double-checked the bushes to make sure Abbess Violet wouldn’t jump out of them again. Chaos, as she explained, was about risks that changed or revealed different outcomes of the paths of people you interact with. Remnants of the fickle fans of legends and legacies, often conflated with curses, chaos was more about creative outcomes of potential possibilities. Not the type of thing a stuffed-up knight should have played with. And to hear the old woman mope every other visit about how Harmony didn’t take up the seed, and instead traded it for something so practical like [Investigative Awareness], Max would have thought he’d killed her puppy.
He still didn’t get it, but as long as the old woman prescribed time entertaining courtesans and pleasure houses as one source, he wasn’t one to complain. Demanding he take those rotten courtesans up on their offers to seduce him, and then allow saccerate to play with restrictions felt slightly rotten. “That old spirit knows how to build up energy,” was her lecture.
Nothing waited in the bushes, and the teleportation circle was clear. Stepping inside. Max said the passcode. “Humperdink.”
The stretching sensation itched the new vines, and transition always tangled his beard. Sadly, joining in on Tyler’s victory celebration would have to wait. No, this paired circle sat in the consort's estate outside Naewauld, a gift basket of a compound filled with snakes and poison muffins.
“Welcome back, consort!” Squeaked a blonde maid in an outfit that would have had Tyler questioning selecting it, even in his lewdest moments. Delicious poison muffins.
“I told you that you don’t have to wait for me, Candy.“ Yes, that was her real name, as much as someone who could be a queen’s hand has real names. The discussion Bates had given him on that topic had been informative and frightening.
“What is on today’s schedule?” Max asked.
“As Heir Rosline’s singularly sworn agent of chaos, your advisors have you going to Naewauld’s weedy patches to spread some silver to change lives and spread word of her goodwill.”
Authority work. Energy work. Buying goodwill. Paying to build chaos. For very little changed paths or built bonds of authority more than money for the destitute. The assumptions about his class and profession were tied up in being her fated mate, as long as he continued to support Rose. All supported by the title earned in the Ascendant Games, making those lies more believable.
“And this arrived.“ Candy handed over a letter.
The magical seal itched his fingers, not tamper-proof but close. Designed only to be opened by the target recipient. The faint scent of rose oil and the wax seal of the Highsmythe family decorated the envelope postmarked from Miskatonic’s Arkham Elite Academy.
“Rose.” Max breathed, his heart straining. Fate-fueled love mixed with rage and sorrow twisted inside his soul.
Oh, that bitch. Saccerate grumbled, still mad about what happened.
Fate bond, what fetid manure; they should just call it a trauma bond. He leaned on his title to look like a Real Boy at this arrival. One quick prayer to Harmony White later, he handed the sealed letter back to Candy. “Put it in my study. We have silver to share in her name.”
Having your personal path toyed with was another way chaos energy filled a soul, and even after summoning Harmony, with that letter he could feel it raging back to life. The flowers in Max's hair and beard sparkled as he prepared himself to flee again.