“Hit me now so that I can overcome them with our current therapy session.”
“Actually, I have good and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?” Kamila asked.
Lith knitted his brows in disbelief, tickling her skin. With Solus and the tower gone, his body in a weakened state, Orpal’s return, and the inevitable fight with the World Tree, one of Mogar’s most powerful beings, Lith doubted any news could be good.
“The good news.” He replied, hoping that no matter how small, he could use whatever silver lining he could find in his situation to plan ahead and deal with the bad news.
“Well, after your disappearance, I called everyone, including Baba Yaga.” Kamila said. “Not only did she help us capture you but she was also able to deduce the involvement of the World Tree from the fragments of Darwen armor.
“Thanks to that, Zoreth could contact Tezka and ask for his help. He says he has a way to find the Yggdrasill and has been working on that while you were still in your Abomination form.”
“Tezka is one of the most ancient and powerful creatures I know besides the Guardians.” Lith sighed in relief. “He is not the type to boast or pretend to care. If he said that he can do it, it means he’s confident in his plan.
“Locating the Yggdrasill’s Fringe is one less thing to worry about, but there’s still a million to go. Anything else?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Zoreth called the Organization and Yaga reached Silverwing. It’s not just the people who care about you who have assembled in the Desert but also those who care for Solus.
“You need all the help you can get to fight the World Tree and one more white core is a great addition to the team. Especially a white core with her own mage tower!”
“Her what?” Lith raised his head from his pillow abruptly to look Kamila in the eyes and make sure she was serious. “That doesn’t make sense. We visited her just a few months ago and Silverwing was nowhere near completing her tower.”
“And she still is.” Kamila replied. “That’s why Baba Yaga gave Silverwing a big hand to complete her project in time to rescue Solus. The Silverspire tower is sitting right next to Baba Yaga’s hunting cabin, about twenty meters in that direction.”
She pointed to the west wall of the bedroom.
“If we ignore dimensional displacement, of course. Otherwise we might actually be kilometers away from Silverspire. This place is so big that I’ve yet to finish visiting it.”
“Silverspire?” Lith echoed with a mocking scoff. “Silverwing named her tower? What is she? Five?”
“Well, I must admit the name is a bit pretentious but I think she did the right thing.” Kamila chuckled. “You have a tower, Baba Yaga has a tower, and now Silverwing does too.
“What are you going to do the next time you’re all assembled and someone asks about a generic tower? Speak all at once? Draw lots?”
“I had a tower.” Lith grunted, his expression turning sullen. “And I never bothered naming it because it already had a name. It’s Menadion’s tower and just mentioning it would put me in a world of trouble.”
“Solus is gone, not lost.” Kamila shook her head, bringing him back to his mood booster position. “And so is the tower. You are not alone anymore. You have lots of people you can trust and you’ve already revealed the existence of the tower to them.”
The Ernas girls, his family, Protector, Faluel, Nalrond, Morok, Valtak. They all knew about the tower and had never attempted to steal it. Not to mention those who knew Solus as Elphyn and still deeply cared for her.
“So you’d better find a new name, because calling it Menadion’s Tower would remind Solus of her mother and their death at Bytra’s hand constantly. Also, it’s not Menadion’s Tower anymore. It’s your tower as well.
“You may have not built it but you have changed it a lot.”
“Fine.” Lith nodded, appreciating both her tenderness and her talking about Solus’ rescue as if it was just a matter of when, not if. “I’ll need help, though. My naming sense sucks.”
“That’s’ the kind of problem I’d tackle any day.” Kamila massaged his scalp and back. “That’s it for the good news. Not much, but better than nothing. Ready for the bad news?”
“Hit me.”
“I’ve already asked Grandma, Grandpa, and all of your Divine Beast friends for help in the upcoming battle with the World Tree and most of them turned me down. Salaark needs the Phoenixes of her Nest to keep the Desert in check.
“Were they to go away in force at the same time, her enemies would cross the Desert’s borders and all those who until that moment didn’t dare to rebel against her rule would riot.”
It was the burden of tyranny. Salaark’s domain was the most orderly of the three great countries, but only because she controlled the land and people with an iron fist. The moment her grip loosened, chaos ensued.
“Valtak, Sinmara, and Surtr will help you for sure but there’s no telling if their children will do the same. As for the rest of the Dragon kin, they just don’t care about a random human, no matter how much you care for her.
“It’s your problem and without a reward, they have no reason to get involved. I didn’t have much to offer, even less after discovering you’ve lost all your accumulated treasures.” Kamila sighed.
“On top of that, I had no idea what you were willing to give away or how much you were planning to reveal about Solus and the tower.
“Without such crucial pieces of information, my hands were tied. I preferred to sit down and wait rather than make a mess that you would have to fix.” She lowered her gaze in embarrassment for being so indecisive.
“Damn, I’ve married a genius.” Lith’s voice sounded sincere before he kissed her deeply. “Thank you, Kami. Since you’ve already done all the research and groundwork, all that’s left for me to do is wait and find a way to put together a decent strike force.
“Maybe I can’t defeat the Tree but that’s not my goal to begin with. I just need to find Solus, get inside the Fringe, rescue her, and get out.”
“Is that any different?” She asked before demanding another kiss.
“Very.” He nodded. “The former would require a Guardian level offensive power and a prolonged battle with lots of casualties. The latter requires speed and intel above strength.
“Not to mention that once outside the Fringe, the strength of our enemy will be crippled. With Solus and the tower by my side, I can take on hundreds of elves by myself, let alone if I have four white cores and three more towers by my side.”
“Three?” Kamila echoed.
“Dawn is no white core but if she went all out to rescue me, you can bet my scaly ass she would do the same for Solus. I don’t like Dawn, but she’d do anything for Baba Yaga who in turn would do anything for Solus. It’s enough for me to trust her.”
