The city had the kind of coastal charm that made Veneri feel, against his will, a little annoyed. It was too good.
The streets curved with the natural rise of the land. Buildings were stacked in terraces of coral-colored brick and pale limestone. Their roofs were made of blue ceramic that looked like scales. It looked like a city that had grown out of the shoreline. Even the roads seemed to respect the sea, widening near the markets and narrowing into elegant passageways lined with banners, lanterns and hanging ropes of dried flowers.
Veneri rode on Bio's back through all of it, which turned out to be the smartest choice by accident. At Bio's height, he could see over the crowd instead of being swallowed by it. He saw the merchant districts first. They were broad lanes packed so tightly with stalls, carts, awnings and hanging signs. People moved through the crowd. Some were familiar humanoid forms. Others were tall and graceful. Some were broad and heavy.
Others had pale skin and sea-etched markings while others had horned faces or long ears or too many fingers to be ordinary. Others had animal bodies, insect bodies, hybrid bodies or those strange in-between forms that seemed completely normal to everyone there and only bizarre to outsiders. He saw a merchant with the torso of a woman and the lower half of a scaled serpent slithering around a stall piled high with spice jars. He saw a beetle-bodied trader with translucent wing covers selling metal charms. He saw a fox-headed courier. No one stared too long at anyone else. The city looked used to diversity in the same way the sea is used to storms.
The markets were enormous as well.
Vendors shouted prices. Bells rang. Wheels rattled over stone. Fishmongers called out their catch from inland basins filled with ice. Cloth sellers hung bolts of fabric in colors so vivid they looked almost wet. Jewelry stalls glittered under the sun. Food vendors fried, steamed, grilled and broiled things Veneri didn't bother trying to identify unless they smelled especially good. Every few steps, someone was trying to sell something useful, ceremonial or suspiciously expensive that definitely should not have been lying openly on a public table.
Then there were the Archivist Stones.
The market stalls sold them in little trays, in carved boxes, in bundles wrapped in cloth, in glass vials and in the sort of heavy display cases that implied the seller had been robbed before and intended not to be again. Veneri stopped looking at the architecture for a while because his eyes kept getting pulled towards the stones. He could see why they were valuable here. The natives of the Timeless Realm used them to prevent Decay, feeding on them the way a fire feeds on dry wood.
Veneri didn't need to. As a Split of Time, he wasn't subject to that same requirement, which was part of what made the whole scene feel mildly funny to him. Everyone here had to buy the thing he didn't need, while he could probably make more than some of the stalls if he felt bored enough.
He had the materials to do it too. White crystal was easy. The soul part was the challenge, but not an impossible one. Fool's Copy could copy the crystal form itself and with his Mystical Forger instincts, he could shape the rest. Archivist Stones were naturally made and mined but he could create them artificially if he wanted. Damaged souls were enough for the process if handled properly, especially when infused with Soul Energy. He didn't need to overcomplicate it. A soul, a compatible crystal shell and the right pressure of energy would make a high-quality stone. The city probably had entire industries built around this exact thing but the fact that he could do it himself meant he could have started a business if he wanted to.
He didn't want to.
The thought lasted about half a second before he dismissed it completely. He had no interest in spending the rest of his life becoming a merchant magnate in a pretty coastal city. He'd already spent too many decades becoming things he didn't ask for.
Still, he kept looking. Every stall had something different. Some sold relic maps, some sold sea charms and some sold bottled currents and shells. There were inns, apothecaries, boat-libs, food halls, cloth arcades and little side streets full of narrow shops where the ceilings were low and the shelves were crammed with oddities. One lane was entirely devoted to tools. Another seemed to sell only writing materials, inks, and archival supplies. A third was lined with tiny cafés where people sat in open windows and watched the sea while pretending they were not watching the passersby. The city was so large and so densely packed with life that by late afternoon, he still hadn't seen half of it.
He spent the whole day wandering and still felt like he'd barely scratched the surface. That was the part that impressed him most. He could see why people would travel here and stay for days, maybe weeks. There was too much to absorb in one pass. The place was built for living, not merely surviving. That alone made it feel alien after a century of war.
When evening finally started turning the sky gold, Veneri asked for directions to an inn that wasn't absurdly expensive and hopefully wouldn't smell like damp rope and alcohol. He got three different recommendations, two contradictory warnings and one deeply suspicious sales pitch before someone pointed him at a district closer to the water where the lodging looked respectable without being overdecorated.
That was how they ended up standing in front of Wavefront Hotels.
The name was a little too modern for the architecture around it, which made it amusing in its own way. The building itself still fit the city perfectly. It had an advanced medieval fantasy look with white walls, blue tile roofing, carved wave motifs around the windows and deep wooden balconies facing the sea. Lanterns hung in neat rows from the entrance. The doors were broad and reinforced with elegant metalwork that suggested the place expected a lot of travelers, and probably a fair amount of trouble.
Calling it a hotel was clearly a stretch, but not an insulting one. It looked comfortable. It was expensive enough to feel respectable, cheap enough to be achievable and civilized enough to suggest that someone there understood what tired people wanted at the end of a long day. Bio looked up at the sign, then back at him.
"Wavefront Hotels?"
"It's a little dramatic, I know."
"That's not what I meant."
"I know. It still works though."
The lights inside the hotel were warm and inviting. Someone at the desk was laughing softly with a guest. A faint scent of cooked herbs and clean linen drifted out through the doors.
"Let's see if this place's better than it looks.
He opened the door and went in.
They stepped inside and found a lobby that had a scent of wood, sea salt and expensive soap.
Wavefront Hotels was clearly not pretending to be humble. Blue glass lamps hung from fixtures, the floor was pale stone carved with wave patterns and the whole place carried that advanced medieval fantasy look that made it feel refined without turning it into a palace.
The receptionist was behind the front desk. She was impossible to ignore.
She was a tanned woman with a seductive build and a cheerful, easygoing personality that made her seem instantly friendly and instantly suspicious at the same time. She wore a bikini top with a shawl threaded in beads wrapped around her lower half. Horns curved from her head in a way that only made her look more beautiful. When she saw Veneri, her smile brightened at once.
"Welcome! What would you like, sir?"
Veneri rested one hand on the counter.
"I'm booking a room for the next few days, if possible."
Her smile stayed pleasant but there was a faint professional edge under it.
"We do have extra rooms available. They're the expensive ones, though. Ten thousand a day."
Veneri didn't even flinch. He reached into Fool's Copy and pulled out a massive fancy pouch like he was paying for bread instead of a small fortune.
"That's fine. I'm paying for everything else too. Food, facilities, anything I need from the hotel."
The receptionist hesitantly accepted the pouch and counted it with some sort of power without even bothering to fully open it. Her eyes widened a little more with every second. When she finished, she looked up at him with clear surprise.
"It's more than enough, actually. This would cover a month with full service."
"That's good enough for me."
"Wonderful. Then welcome to Wavefront Hotels. I'll personally take you to your room."
"Lead the way, Miss."
Biolumine walked after them in silence, still in cat form. The moment they started walking, Veneri's sharp senses caught the nearby chatter.
"How rich is he?" One man murmured from the side.
"Who knows?"
"Why's the receptionist treating him like that?"
"Maybe because he's rich. Maybe because he's also good-looking."
A few women were looking too. Veneri noticed but he didn't care. Compared to his beloveds, they were below average at best. None of them had Phaenora's openly lustful look or Elyonari's shameless flirtation, and that was before even getting into actual beauty. These people were just reacting the way people do when a very tall, very attractive man walks into a room with money and confidence.
The receptionist, meanwhile, was clearly trying.
She walked ahead with a sway that was definitely not accidental and kept glancing back just enough to make sure he was following. It was obvious she was trying to work him over with charm. Veneri noticed immediately and rolled his eyes.
Unfortunately, the receptionist noticed that too.
It stung her pride a little and he could tell. It was not enough to show openly. Her smile faded for half a second before she recovered. She kept going as if nothing had happened but the effort in her walk got a little more calmer after that. Biolumine, being Biolumine, looked like she wanted to say something but she didn't. She didn't want anyone to know she could talk and Veneri didn't have Sapphire Bond here to speak with her telepathically, so she stayed quiet and judged in silence instead.
They reached the upper floors. The room she led them to was clean, comfortable and far better than anything he'd expected for a hotel in a coastal city like this. She stopped at the door, turned and gave him another bright smile.
"If you need anything, I'll be at the receptionist area."
Veneri didn't even look at her. He was already checking the room layout.
"Thanks, Miss. I appreciate it."
That was it.
The receptionist's smile held but the hurt was there underneath it. She masked it well but not well enough to fool someone with his senses. She left looking professionally composed and personally disappointed.
The door shut behind her. Biolumine finally spoke after she laughed.
"She was trying really hard."
Veneri sighed and dropped his shoulders a little.
"Yeah. I noticed."
"Your Boon really is something."
"I'm gonna have to get used to it."
"That sounds like a problem for everyone else, honestly."
Veneri actually smiled at that.
°°°°°°°
He lay back on the bed and sighed.
It was almost unfair how comfortable it felt. The mattress gave under his weight. Biolumine, still in cat form, had already curled herself onto the floor. She exhaled Soul Energy in a thin stream from her maw. The heat spread across the stone until the whole floor for warm beneath her. She settled onto it at once, completely at peace, and fell asleep so quickly it was almost insulting. Veneri gave her a tired look, then sighed and turned his gaze to the ceiling.
For a while, he just stared.
The room was quiet. There was no battlefield noise, commands, blood or screaming.
Right now, he should have been somewhere else. He should've been with Elyonari and Adelasta, talking about what they'd do on vacation, listening to them argue over something trivial and letting Phaenora tease him until she got scolded for it. He would also hear Narisva act smug about something, feeling Asenane's quiet presence nearby. He should have been surrounded by them talking at once and crowding too close, making the room too loud.
Instead, he was in another realm at the edge of the universe, inside a coastal city that didn't know his name and didn't care to. He was also on a bed that was too large for one person and too quiet for a man who had once known what it felt like to sleep in the center of a storm of people he loved.
He could still remember the scent of them. He also remembered the first time they decided to sleep on the same bed.
There had been arguments over blankets, space, arguments over who had kicked who, and arguments that existed purely because none of them wanted to admit they liked being close to him more than they liked being comfortable.
That night they used rock paper scissors to decide who got to sleep on his left or right. He had taught them the game just so they could stop arguing long enough to actually lie down and naturally, that only made the game itself into another war. Elyonari had won his right because of her Extreme Luck, which had made Narisva accuse the whole match of being rigged before the result was even fully settled. Adelasta had won the left because her Mystic Eyes of Perception had apparently made her suspiciously good at reading everyone else's lies. Asenane and Narisva had both insisted the whole thing was unfair. Phaenora had laughed at all of them and called them sore losers, which only made them shout louder.
He just watched the whole mess unfold and only sighed.
And Elyonari, of course, had been especially flirty that night. She'd lean in with that shameless look of hers and said something that made the others immediately scold her before she could turn the entire bed into a problem. He remembered the exact feeling of their voices overlapping,
Then he slept. That was the part that hit hard.
Back then, he had not been alone. Even when they were bickering, even when they were being ridiculous, he had been surrounded by the kind of warmth that only came from people who love him. He had taken that for granted because he'd grown used to it being there.
Now he was alone in a hotel bed in a coastal city at the edge of the universe.
Veneri stared at the ceiling until his eyes started to ache, then let out a slow breath that felt heavier than it should have.
"It's really lonely."
He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to imagine the others asleep around him the way they used to be. It helped a little. It was not enough but it helped a little. He opened his eyes again and stared at the ceiling,.
"Maybe I shouldn't have... no. There's no need to regret it now, Vastarael. You made this decision and you must live by it."
He lay there in the warm, expensive bed, listening to Biolumine breathe on the floor and let the ache of missing his beloveds, thinking about one thing.
'What are they doing now?'