Vestiges of a Lost World, Part 3

GALARDOS WAITED inside the ruins of his grand hall, with Gromni sitting next to him. They’d been busy salvaging supplies when Alaiel contacted him telepathically, saying there was something urgent to report.

This was seldom good news, but when Galardos asked her to elaborate, the wolf only replied with a hesitant: “Uhh… You have to see this…”

Something was fucked. No way around it — it had to be.

To the demigod’s surprise, the people who entered the ruins weren’t only Alaiel and Milla. The Seraph was among them, all smiles and sunshine. At the very least, she seemed to be in good spirits, even though she was wearing the clothes of the dead abductor Alaiel had brought with her.

Fortunately, the Seraph didn’t appear to be so picky.

“Maaan, what a mess you made!” said the angel, looking around like a child seeing a wreckage. “You really went wild in here, huh? I can barely recognize the place.”

Galardos raised an eyebrow. Other angels had visited the Irilithan before, but certainly not this one. What could she possibly mean by that?

“Master,” said Alaiel, scrambling for the right words, “this is… the Seraph.”

Well, that much was evident. Galardos was old, not stupid.

Nevertheless, seeing the angel before him, his courtly etiquette kicked in.

“It is an honor to make your acquaintance, Mistress,” said the demigod with a deep, respectful bow. “I am Galardos Alessia, former heir of my house. I regret that my Astral Sanctuary is in such poor condition to accommodate you, but nonetheless, I hope you can make yourself at home during your stay.”

He pledged his hospitality to her, meager as it was.

The Seraph, on the other hand, appeared elated by the demigod’s display.

She puffed out her chest and pressed her fists against her hips, radiating haughtiness and pride so dazzling that it almost lit up the ruined hall.

“Mwahaha! That’s right! Bow before me, mortals! Gawk at me in wonder, for I am the high and mighty… Whoever I am!”

Silence fell upon the room.

“Did she hit her head?” Galardos asked Alaiel through a telepathic link.

The wolf’s eyes were shut tightly, for she couldn’t bear facing her master.

“She’s lost her memories. I probed her mind, but I couldn’t see anything. Only pain.”

Despite the telepathy, Galardos misunderstood the nuance of Alaiel’s words.

He thought the wolf had found some clues about the tragedy that had befallen the angel, but Alaiel meant the words literally — when she peered into her memory, she couldn’t make heads from tails of it, and she swiftly got the worst headache of her life.

Unaware of this, the demigod reached into the Seraph’s mind and —

“Bloody hells!” he winced, snapping the connection shut.

Just what kind of madness had he looked upon?

“Bloody hells indeed, you bastard!” snapped the angel, ignoring the mind reading attempt. “This place was beautiful! Just look at what you’ve done! Oh, the nerve of you.”

Galardos struggled to piece even his own thoughts together after meeting her wreck of a brain, giving the angel a chance to elaborate.

“Do you guys know what happened here?” she turned to Milla and Gromni. “This mad bastard destroyed the Irilithan himself! He went crazy after the Empress cursed him, and he tore this place down to the ground!”

“What!?” shot all the voices in the room. Gromni and Milla from the revelation, but Galardos and Alaiel from the fact that the angel even knew about those events.

“The Empress cursed him!?” asked Milla in horror.

“Wait, wait! How do you know about this?” interrupted the demigod.

Precious few people were privy to the events that happened that day, and he was dead certain this Seraph couldn’t be one of them.

Yet the angel gave him a confused look, as if all of this were common knowledge.

“What do you mean how do I know? Of course I do.

“You were supposed to mentor the princess, but she was a bitch, so you slapped her. Then you tossed her out of her carriage, and she got herself abducted by some moles from the Kathenian Republic.

“You got framed for it at first, but you managed to rescue her within the day.

“Emperor Damien found out about it, he didn’t take it well, and off he went to war. Then he kicked the bucket, and his missus went batshit. She tortured you half to death, placed one hell of a curse on you, and then you went batshit! You came back to the Irilithan, kicked everyone out, and wrecked the place to hell. That’s about it, no?”

She left out the part of how Galardos almost killed Alaiel, but yeah. That was about it.

A painfully simplified version of the events that got Galardos into self-imposed exile.

“Please stop leaking state secrets,” the demigod implored.

He was on the verge of having an aneurysm, but he didn’t dare to strike the angel yet.

“Oh, fine,” said the Seraph with a sigh. “I’ll do you a solid and shut up.”

At last, a miracle.

“But these are your choombas, you know?” she continued, having kept her word for a whole two seconds. “You ought to open up to them! Bare your soul for a moment, have some trust.”

Part of the demigod was beginning to wish that his resurrection ritual hadn’t worked.

“Fine, fine!” he said, increasingly exasperated. “I’ll explain everything, but you must swear not to tell anyone else, especially from the Great Houses. And you have to tell me how you learned of all this.”

The Seraph had revealed information Galardos hadn’t told a soul about. The only people in the know were himself, Alaiel and a few of members of the Imperial Family, and the whole matter was a scandal so big it could spark a civil war if it came to light.

So who in the world leaked it to the angel?

“Oh, I wonder. Who was the naughty little bird?” the Seraph played coy.

“Could it be…” pondered Milla, “Back when she hijacked your spell, could she have seen your memories?”

Magic was commanded by a person’s soul, so if the angel made direct contact with Galardos at the time, then it would be plausible for her to have read his mind.

“Hah. Now that you mention it, I do have a ton of memories of his,” the Seraph pondered. “Curious. I can’t remember a thing about myself, but I could tell you about his first crush from a thousand years ago, or the pranks he pulled on his mom when she wasn’t looking.”

Galardos shuddered at her words.

Embarrassing stories aside, if what the Seraph said was true, then that meant she gained access to a thousand years’ worth of classified information about the Imperial military and matters of state... and she didn’t seem in the least hesitant to share it.

“Oh, and I’ve also got some memories of yours,” the Seraph turned to Milla, as the latter daydreamed in embarrassment about Galardos’ dirty laundry.

“She’s got a mad crush on you, ya know?” the angel whispered, scooting over to the demigod. “If you make a move, you can take her anytime.”

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SAYING!?” rang out Milla’s scream.

She bum rushed the angel and wrapped an arm around her neck, grinding her skull with the other hand.

“TAKE IT BACK! TAKE IT BACK, YOU DEVIL!!”

“Waaaah!! I’m joking, I’m joking!”

Galardos closed his eyes and pinched the middle of his brow, dearly wishing for divine intervention. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think he’d died and gone to hell.

Alas, the sonorous grumble of the dwarf’s stomach told him otherwise.

Galardos and company were very much alive, and ravenously hungry.

“Man, we’re all starving!” said the angel, jumping at the chance to parley with Milla. “Let’s go grab some grub, how about that? You did find supplies, right? Right!?”

Luckily for her, they did.

“Yeah, let’s go with that…” said Galardos, exhausted beyond belief.

At this point, he’d go with just about anything to keep that gremlin’s mouth shut…