The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 299: The Voice Of...

Chapter 299: The Voice Of...

As news of Kir’s slaughtering of the slavers worked its way up Amrita’s branches, a sort of chaos began to unfold.

Word from Norneau that Ghostheart had departed finally began to circulate, as did the truth that he was now stalking the very heart of the Amrita Kingdom.

Anxious slaveowners approached the King’s ministers, hoping to offload the people they considered assets and property until mere days ago. At the same time, Syndicate warehouses began to suffer from theft and abandonment by their guards, as Kir took care of the more difficult locations in the crown of the world tree by slaughtering the guards and liberating the Syndicate’s captives.

True to her word, Imogen managed to quietly distribute copies of Kordia’s work detailing Ghostheart’s fight, which was limited to what Kir had accomplished in Norneau but still gave people an idea of what to expect and what his side of the story was.

The "more erudite" circles received copies of "Letters from Norneau," which laid out Kir’s arguments on increasing education and the practice of magic to levels that would make slavery completely unnecessary in any society with access to mana. Kir also had her watching for responses from Heaven’s embassy, but their silence left him with only concerns. He had to assume they didn’t need to say anything, given the vociferousness with which King Anmes denounced the "Demon Ghostheart," even going so far as to send out soldiers to protect the slaver families.

But behind the scenes, Imogen discovered a darker truth. Under the guise of protection, the crown was also assuming control of the Syndicate operations, handing them off to the two remaining family heads - Reginald Goldman and Amherst Fleecer - to continue business as usual. The girl Kir had let live, and even the heir of the Ertem family, were rapidly bought out and set aside, while house Nebima’s assets and slaves were downright seized.

A large amount of power and wealth was shifting hands, but thanks to this, Imogen was able to single out the location of most of the Syndicate’s gold.

Though they had offices on every branch, the roots of Amrita, every city in the Kingdom, and even one distant trade bank in Montmorency, the Consigliere Trust had only one vault.

Things would have been much simpler if the shifting wealth had actually, well, shifted. As things were, the shifts had more to do with changing the names of who owned what amount of gold in the vault, at least as far as the bookkeeping was concerned.

A quick inspection of the building showed that it was enchanted with more enchantments than all of Norneau’s walls combined... which made sense, given how old Amrita was compared to its younger sister city. Kir’s physical options were to nuke the place with magic or to cut off the branch it was attached to... which happened to include a large number of businesses and residences, being the merchant branch of the world tree’s crown.

Kir wasn’t about to involve that many innocents in his mission.

While he was contemplating what to do about defunding the slavers, Kir holed up in Imogen’s house, mostly staying in her library but also enjoying nights with Kordia and Stella in the guest house.

Stella, it turned out, was doing a remarkably good job imitating Kir. At least according to her.

Without access to the resources to make a new glamour ring, Kir would have to wait to return to Norneau before verifying the truth. If he showed up as he was, even with a physical disguise, he risked being identified by Daisy, Lapins, or anyone who might recall that there was a freaking statue of him on school grounds. Thanks, Lumin. Her idea of sticking a half-demon martyr in the nose of the students had indirectly managed to trap him in the position of having to remain a martyr.

Kordia had a bit of trouble keeping track of Stella owing to the fact that Lapins had finally made a move on her... a romantic one that she found herself entertaining and liking. Stella neither confirmed nor denied exercising her succubus powers in encouraging the "romance of two princesses"... but the fact she was writing again in her free time suggested she was at the very least using the situation for inspiration.

As frustrating as it was not to be where he was officially supposed to be in this situation, Kir was just grateful to have Stella willing to hold down the fort as "Professor Nasumi" while he burned down the local Syndicate. But still, in the daylight hours, he found himself with an unconscionable amount of downtime.

So when Imogent came to him with a proposal to meet a few of her friends, Kir was wary but bored enough to accept.

"I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised," she promised.

Kir was not pleasantly surprised that night as he entered the second-story parlor, only to find Lumin and a raven-haired elven man waiting for him.

"Oh don’t look so surprised. Imogen contacted me as soon as she understood your situation. Now please sit, Professor."

Kir sat and accepted a cup of tea, which he could smell had bergamot in it. Imogen sat after he did, and once everyone had their tea to their liking the introductions began.

"This is Kir Gale, Brigit and Darlae’s boy. Kir, this is Quilliam Mnemosyne," Imogen gestured.

"Mnemosyne, as in memory?" Kir blurted out without thinking, causing the elf’s eyebrows to rise and his light smile to disappear.

"How do you know that?" Quilliam asked, his voice, a gentle tenor, falling to just above a whisper as his grey eyes bored into him.

Kir could feel Kiryu’s enraged attention. "Why the fuck did you just translate that?"

"You’re in my head, you know why!"

The elf cleared his throat.

"I’ve... seen the word around... in old records..." Kir answered.

Quilliam looked at Lumin, who shrugged. "Who knows what I’ve got kicking around the library."

"You should. That’s why you run the Academy."

Imogen cleared her throat politely, staring at them both over her cup of tea. "Quill, that’s not what we came here to discuss."

"What are we here to discuss?" Kir asked, his tail twitching with annoyance.

Quilliam let out a small sigh and leaned back in his seat. "We are here to discuss helping you out of your... situation. I understand you recently lost a very expensive item, one that the people we represent paid for. An illusional."

"Guess it’s cult time at last." Kiryu snarked, and Kir ignored him.

"I did not so much lose it as have it explode on my finger," Kir replied, assuming he was talking about the glamour ring.

"And yet you remain remarkably intact... despite a complex magical formation of one-hundred-twenty-eight complimentary runes exploding ’on your finger.’" "Such rare resilience, especially for a half-demon."

"The effects Lumin and I devised were small, even accumulated."

"The magic involved was not," Lumin said, undercutting Kir’s argument. "You should have reported if you were having problems with it."

"Aside from a slow buildup of heat, nothing went wrong until it exploded," Kir shot back.

"Regardless, I am here to make you an offer," Quilliam said. "The organization we belong to considers you a prospect for membership. If you were to join us, we can offer you a replacement glamour of the exact same specifications as the last. And as many as you need if you are unable to solve the... exploding problem."

"And in return?"

"In return, you will do as you have done. You will provide technology to Norneau and keep the city alive and independent of the major powers. Our organization will gather funds from these ventures, through Lumin, and provide additional support as needed provided you keep your individual role discreet. We will get access to what you know, and in return, you will get access to what we know. A partnership, and more if you prove willing to help our cause."

"And what do you know?" Kir asked.

Quilliam smiled. "We know what you are, for example. Half demon and half angel... there is a word for such a being."

Kir tensed, looking at Lumin, "You knew? All this time?"

"I had a suspicion on where I could get the knowledge. We tend to compartmentalize information for everyone’s safety."

"Who is we?"

"Just think of us as historians for now," Imogen said. "We remember the world as truthfully as possible, despite the words of kings, angels, and demons... For as far back as people have records."

Kir remembered a conversation had with the old history professor at the Academy. He couldn’t even recall the man’s name, but given the centuries of experience before him, Kir wondered if a conversation like this would have wound up being the vector of his life had he gone along with the man’s offer back then...

It was a long moment before he returned his mind to the present. "What am I?"

"We have yet to forge an agreement," Quilliam pointed out.

"Fine, dammit. I agree." Kir set down his tea and crossed his arms.

"Kid..." Kiryu said in a warning tone.

"Boy, think about what is being offered. Are you going to just agree even though it means you’ll barely see silver for all you create?" Lumin snapped. "Use your damn head and set some terms!"

"I am using my head," Kir said, his tone even and firm. "I don’t care about money. I care about figuring out my place in this world so it doesn’t kill me. I care about justice, equality, and truth more than some commodity. And now that your friends are dangling the last in front of my face, I am tired of this game we’ve been playing, Lumin. As long as you are willing to stay out of my personal life, then I’ll give you tech. I’ll show you things you never thought possible. I’ll make Norneau a fucking paradise. And in exchange, I want more than just resources and knowledge. I want your agreement that you will hear me out and support the world that I want to create."

It had been a long time since Kir was this worked up. Having his life jerked around from across time and space by his heritage, with only scraps of hatred added by the spirit of the lake, had worked itself into a knot of frustration that he’d had to ignore for too long.

At the end of his speech, the three elders were silently stunned.

Lumin looked impressed, for once. Quilliam had a calculating stare. Imogen looked concerned as her eyes flickered from Kir to her friends.

It was Lumin who broke the silence first. "I told you he has a way with words sometimes," she sipped her tea.

"I see that now," Quilliam set his down. "I had thought this would take more time. I’ll have to draft the contract overnight."

"Tell me what I am," Kir demanded.

A brief staring contest ensued.

It was broken when Imogen reached across the distance between chairs. "Quill..." she said, resting her hand on his arm.

The elf blinked, clearing his throat as if at a short loss before looking Kir in the eyes. "What you are... is a godling. A child that could only be produced by love that has been forbidden for millennia. Born of angel and demon, but beyond them and all the forms of the Myriad in power..."

"You are a metatron. It is a name that once meant the voice of a god... though which god, even we do not know. We assume one of the Triune. You are the love of an angel and a demon given form... and voice. And that means you are likely the single most powerful person across the triune worlds."

Kir’s heart beat faster at those words. Godling... the Voice had called him, that time he almost died.

"I’m still mortal though. I still bleed. I have almost died more times than I care to count."

"Even gods die, except perhaps the Three," Imogen said. "One of our goals is to find out why gods have been disappearing for the last few centuries."

Lumin spoke next, "The point is, with enough time you will probably reach the level of a god faster than us mere mortals... and with the power you have you are already a danger to the status quo... not that anyone in this room minds that."

Kir sat with this information in silence. He closed his eyes, and a small sense of relief bloomed within him.

He finally had a name for what he was... and the most unbelievable part was that it meant his father truly loved his mother.

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