Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1913: Happiness

The study went quiet.

"???" Feng’s grape missed her mouth entirely and bounced off the windowsill.

"The dwarves." Felicity gasped. "Overnight?! You walked in there and walked back out with a kingdom?!"

"They were weakened from recent events."

Feng stared at the wall. "You’re still incomprehensible."

"So cool!!" the Queen of Vraven beamed, in the voice of a girl whose own morning had been about paperwork.

Then she pouted. "Wait, why didn’t you bring me with you? I get that Feng is quite useless, but what about me?"

"Hey. What did you just say?"

As the two friends were about to enter a hissing contest, Quinlan stepped back, pulled a sphere of clean water out of the air, and walked through it.

He twisted the air into a wind that stripped the wet off him before it touched the carpet, and [Synchra] rippled from battle-plate into casual black.

"This, too, is a sight I’ll never get used to..." Feng muttered, watching the used water fold itself out of existence.

Felicity applauded the performance.

"Where are Sera and Iris?" he asked.

The bounce went out of the young queen. "Still in the infirmary wing... Sera hasn’t come out all night."

Quinlan nodded. On his way out he ruffled Felicity’s hair, then Feng’s.

"Hey... I’m not a little kid..." grumbled Feng, and leaned into it anyway.

...

The royal infirmary occupied the stillest wing of the palace. Tall windows ran its whole length, pouring morning light across white linen and polished floor, and the air held the clean bite of healer’s herbs over the sugared smell of fresh salve.

Beds stood made and waiting down both sides, curtains tied back, basins filled for patients who had not arrived. Out past the far arch, a fountain in the recovery garden kept up a small, steady sound.

Only one bed at the end of the ward was occupied. Quinlan crossed all that hush to reach it.

Seraphiel stood where she had sat all night. Barefoot on the cold marble, golden hair dulled by exhaustion. Healing light gathered at her fingertips, sank into the girl under the blanket, and did nothing whatsoever. She was already gathering more.

Iris Ravenclaw lay small against the pillows, black hair spread, splinted arm resting over the covers, her eyes shut. Asleep, the Demon of Vengeance simply looked like a young woman.

Quinlan laid a hand on Sera’s shoulder.

She jumped hard enough to rock back on her heels. "?!" Her head whipped around, and the relief on her face crumpled straight into frustration.

"I can’t heal her." Her voice was frayed at both ends. "Her class takes everything I pour in and burns it as fuel instead of mending her. She had that spell, [Severance of Mercy], that similarly debilitated her. I think that just got upgraded alongside her class."

[Severance of Mercy] was a spell that transmuted a Child of Reckoning’s pain into raw power instead of mending wounds. Healing Iris too early meant burning through the stockpile she’d been building with every hit.

Quinlan let out a breath and shook his head at the unfairness of the whole thing, then sat down on the edge of the bed. His fingers slid into the black strands spread across the pillow, slow and careful.

"You poor thing... When will you be able to catch a break?" His voice stayed low. "You went from Child of Agony to Child of Reckoning to the Demon of Vengeance. Your revenge is finally finished, and you already decided you won’t rest until every innocent child is safe. It’s as if you cursed yourself for the rest of your life."

Sera sighed, tender and bone-tired, and shifted around to sit close against him on the bed’s edge. His free hand settled on her thigh. Her fingers joined his.

"She’ll never fully heal from her childhood. I know that. I’ve accepted that." Her thumb traced a slow line at Iris’s temple. "But at least... must she keep suffering in the present too?"

Light flared at her fingertips again, harder this time. She poured until her hands shook and the glow guttered out between them, and under the blanket the splinted arm stayed exactly as broken as before.

"Why can’t I heal her?!"

Her voice broke apart on the last word, and the tears she had refused herself for hours finally spilled over.

Seraphiel had carried dying allies through an entire war and lost almost none of them. Now a broken arm and exhausted body had refused her all night, attempt after attempt. The helplessness sat in the healer’s chest and would not move.

Quinlan took her shaking hands out of the air before they could gather any more light and folded them into his own, and he kept them there until they stopped trying.

"I’m afraid it has to be this way. She built herself around suffering. It has become more than a constant in her life. She now lives and breathes it, deriving immense power from it."

Sera lifted her head.

"The power her class carries would tear her mortal body apart. The pain that won’t close is likely the balance holding everything together. Wash the cost away, and the class might take her instead."

Sera bit her lip.

"Maybe it eases as she levels," he added, hand returning to stroking Iris’s hair.

"Stop petting me."

The growl arrived fully formed from the pillows. Red eyes opened.

"And stop pitying me. I’m fine."

"?!" Sera’s spine snapped straight. "You! You kept your eyes closed the entire night, and the second Quin shows up, you’re awake?! What are you, some sleeper agent who only activates when her dashing prince walks into the room?!"

Iris regarded the elf with flat, lethal calm. "I woke up because you two can’t shut up."

Sera puffed her chest out in triumph. "That’s not true. I was talking to you the whole night! Caught you!"

"..." Iris decided to ignore the elf.

"Don’t ignore me!"

"..."

Then Iris looked at Quinlan, and the irritation went out of her face.

"My revenge is complete..." she said.

Quinlan nodded, smiling.

"Your mother and the little hero can rest easy now. The Ravenclaw name stands restored, and their beloved Iris didn’t kill herself avenging them." He tilted his head at her. "They must be glad."

Iris didn’t answer. The ward’s hush stretched out between the three of them, and the morning light kept moving across the blanket.

"Quinlan." She was looking at the window now, not at him. "Your lover... I..."

His finger landed on her lips.

"Iris Ravenclaw." He was not amused. "You can’t be serious. I help you achieve your revenge, and you think you’re obligated to part your legs for me?"

She looked away, and her voice went thin.

"That’s the only thing I can give you... You deserve so much more, but I can’t... I have nothing else to give..."

The girl who had walked through an entire life of hell without once bending looked, right then, more fragile than any injury had ever made her.

So Quinlan pinched her cheek.

He took hold and pulled, and his expression was visibly, thoroughly irritated.

"I swear. You two are on exactly the same wavelength. You’ve both forced me into pinching your cheeks in a single morning."

"Wha-!" Iris’s bewilderment fought the stretch of her own face. "Don’t compare me to that flat board of a-"

Sera giggled, leaned in, and got two fingers on the cheek Quinlan hadn’t taken. "How did you know who Quin was talking about?"

"!!"

Iris refused to answer. Held by a cheek on either side, she aimed her glare at a fixed point on the far wall and pretended with her entire being that neither of them existed. She managed it with the outraged dignity of a cornered squirrel.

"Now listen well, you hopeless woman," Quinlan sighed, cheek firmly in custody. "I cherish you every bit as much as I cherish my lovers. In some ways, what you and I share runs even deeper. I want nothing more than to watch you smile one day with none of your past’s weight left on you. A full, brilliant smile, radiant like the morning sun. That’s what I want from you."

He nodded along with his own solemn words.

"I don’t know what the future holds for us. I don’t know what you need to get there. My heart is bottomless, there’s always a room for you. And Quinlan Junior is a mighty warrior who has never once backed down from a challenge. He’d manage just fine."

Sera bit down on a laugh and lost.

Iris snarled at him, and the two sets of fingers on her face pulled every tooth out of it. "Stop your creepy bragging and get to the point...!!"

So he let go and leaned in, and the teasing left his voice entirely.

"Long story short. Whether as your good friend, whether as your fervent lover, whether as a distant observer... I don’t care."

Then he leaned down and kissed her forehead.

"All I want is to see you happy."

Iris went rigid.

Her whole life, enemies had been for cutting and problems had been for punching, and grief had been beaten into a training wall until it behaved. Nothing in that arsenal applied to such sweet words and a forehead kiss, and the system failure crawled across her face in real time.

Her mouth opened, closed, and opened again with nothing loaded in it. Red climbed from her neck to the tips of her ears.

"Nn." Whatever that was, it was not a word.

Then her good hand shot up, fisted in his collar, and hauled him the rest of the way down.

Iris devoured his lips, hungry and graceless, all commitment and no technique, her eyes screwed shut like she was bracing for a blow.

She broke it just as suddenly, shoving him back to arm’s length, upright in the bed now, scarlet to the hairline and breathing hard.

"Nothing happened," she informed the room.

"It very much did!!" Sera screeched. "You can’t just erase-"

Then the bed creaked, and Iris was off it like a released spring.

Her good arm scooped Seraphiel clean off the mattress and folded the elf over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Sera went up with a squeak, her hair swinging down Iris’s back, and Iris was already marching for the doors.

"Wha- Iris?! I spent the entire night healing you and now I’m being kidnapped?!"

The complaint bounced off without effect.

"I think I can be healed now. Get to work."

"Hah? Drop the attitude, young lady, or I’ll teach you respect!"

"Go ahead."

"I’m getting mixed signals over here," Quinlan called after them. "Wait. Is this you asking to be friends with benefits? No strings attached?"

He shook his head. "I’m not the kind of guy who’d go for that, but for my beloved Iris..."

Without breaking stride, Iris raised her splinted arm just enough to show him one finger.

The middle one, to be specific.

He snickered. "And where are you two going?"

"Portal!" Iris demanded, without turning around. "Kill. Destroy. Level up."

The Primordial Villain’s grin went wide, and his hand was already rising.

"Sounds like a plan."

It was time to move on.