The Villainess Harem Was Never Part of My Plan

Verity’s historical search yielded results considerably faster than Ethan had anticipated, and she summoned the core circle back to the Founding Cathedral within a fortnight, spreading a series of carefully compiled documents across her desk with the particular gravity of someone who understood exactly how much weight this discovery carried.

"I’ve identified seventeen confirmed invocations of the Founding texts’ duty across the past four centuries," Verity said, her voice carrying controlled, grim precision. "Iris and Mira represent the two most recent cases. The other fifteen span considerably further back, some so distant that I fear any hope of restoration may already be lost to time itself."

Ethan absorbed the number with fresh, sobering weight, understanding, watching Iris’s expression carry its own complicated grief at the revelation, exactly how much larger this investigation’s true scope had actually become.

"Fifteen more," Iris said quietly. "Fifteen more people, trapped the way I was, for however long their own erasures have persisted."

"We don’t know if all fifteen remain in a state comparable to yours," Verity cautioned. "The Founding texts describe considerable variation in how thoroughly individual erasures were performed, depending on the clergy who invoked the duty and the specific circumstances of each case. Some may have achieved full completion, their third thread genuinely severed rather than merely destabilized the way Vane’s ritual left yours. Others may exist in states we don’t yet fully understand."

[ Recommend prioritizing cases with the highest probability of genuine, recoverable liminal existence. Recommend beginning with the most recent cases predating Mira, working backward chronologically, given that older cases may present considerably more complex restoration challenges. ]

"Who’s next," Ethan asked, "chronologically, after Mira but before your full four-century list."

Verity consulted her documents with careful attention. "A boy named Samuel Ashford," she said, "erased approximately fifteen years ago, in the eastern provinces. The record is considerably sparser than what we eventually assembled regarding Iris or Mira, but it describes a similar pattern, a child exhibiting foreknowledge, clergy invoking the duty out of institutional pressure rather than deliberate cruelty."

Something in the name struck Ethan with sudden, unexpected familiarity, and he glanced toward the doorway, where Marcus, visiting from his new merchant guild responsibilities, had accompanied them out of continued interest in the investigation’s developments.

"Ashford," Marcus repeated slowly, his expression shifting through something considerably more personal than idle curiosity. "That’s my family’s name."

The room fell into sudden, startled silence, and Ethan watched Marcus’s composed, easy demeanor crack into something raw and uncertain, understanding, with fresh, vertiginous clarity, exactly how personal this next case had suddenly, unexpectedly become.

"Do you have a cousin," Verity asked carefully, "or distant relative, who might match this record’s timeline?"

Marcus was quiet for a long moment, working through family history with visible, difficult effort. "I had an older brother," he said finally, his voice carrying genuine shock. "Samuel. I was very young when he apparently... my parents told me he died, of a fever, when I was barely old enough to remember him clearly. I’ve always felt strange about it, honestly. Nobody in my family ever spoke of him easily, and the few memories I retain feel considerably more fragmented than ordinary childhood recollection typically allows."

[ CRITICAL. This suggests Marcus Ashford’s own family experienced a version of the same institutional erasure and memory-fragmentation documented in Mira’s case. Recommend immediate, careful follow-up. ]

"You’re certain," Ethan asked gently, understanding the weight this revelation carried for his friend.

"I don’t know how certain I can actually be," Marcus admitted, his composure visibly shaken. "That’s rather the point, isn’t it. If this is genuinely what happened to him, then my own memory of my brother has been deliberately fragmented, the same way Mira’s family struggled to properly remember her." He looked up, meeting Ethan’s eyes with fresh, raw urgency. "I need to know. Whatever this actually requires, Ethan, I need to know if my brother is still out there, somewhere, the way Iris was."

"Then we find out," Ethan said immediately, feeling the familiar, focused resolve settle over him. "Properly, carefully, the same way we approached everything else."

They traveled to the Ashford family estate within the week, Marcus leading them with visible, difficult tension, and found his parents considerably more shaken by the investigation’s implications than Ethan had fully anticipated.

"We were told he’d died of a fever," Lord Ashford said, his composed merchant-guild bearing cracking under the weight of the revelation, his wife seated beside him with tears already gathering in her eyes. "The Order’s own clergy handled the arrangements, offered considerable comfort during what we understood as a genuine, tragic loss. I confess, looking back now, the details always felt somewhat hazy, considerably more so than seems reasonable for losing a child."

"That haziness may not be accidental," Cecilia said gently. "We believe, based on similar cases, that your memory of the actual circumstances may have been deliberately fragmented as part of the erasure process."

Lady Ashford’s composure finally broke entirely, quiet, overwhelming grief spilling forth for a loss she’d apparently carried, uncertainly, for fifteen years. "I’ve always felt something was wrong," she admitted, "some persistent, nagging sense that our family’s history held a gap I couldn’t properly identify. I told myself it was simply grief, distorting memory the way grief often does. I never imagined it might be something considerably more deliberate."

Ethan watched Marcus absorb his parents’ grief with visible, difficult emotion, understanding, with fresh clarity, exactly how personally this particular case had become for the friend who’d anchored him through an entire year of impossible investigation.

"I want to try reaching him," Marcus said quietly, once his parents’ initial shock had settled into something more composed. "The way you reached Iris. If he’s still there, still waiting, I don’t want him to wait any longer than he already has."

[ Recommend proceeding carefully. Given Marcus’s personal connection, recommend Ethan lead the dream-contact attempt directly, with Marcus present as a supporting, rather than primary, connection point, similar to Mira’s earlier role in reaching Iris. ]

They arranged the attempt that same evening, Cecilia’s protective wards settling once more around the Ashford estate’s modest study, and Ethan closed his eyes, feeling the familiar, disorienting pull of dream-contact settle over him, Marcus’s anxious, hopeful presence anchoring beside him in the waking world.

The garden resolved around him, the same distorted, familiar proportions Ethan had come to recognize across every previous contact, though this time, considerably more overgrown and neglected than Iris’s own liminal space had ever appeared, weeds choking the fountain’s edges, the still water considerably darker and more stagnant than the golden, hopeful space Iris had occupied.

A young man sat at the fountain’s edge, older than the boy Marcus remembered, his form carrying the particular translucent uncertainty of someone who had existed, considerably longer than Iris had, at the exact threshold of forgetting entirely.

"Samuel," Ethan said carefully, approaching with gentle, deliberate caution.

The figure looked up, his expression carrying something considerably more fragile and uncertain than Iris’s own cautious hope had ever suggested. "Nobody’s spoken my name in longer than I can properly measure," Samuel said, his voice carrying a distant, fading quality that made Ethan’s chest tighten with fresh, urgent concern. "I’d nearly forgotten it myself."

[ CRITICAL. Subject Ashford’s liminal state appears considerably more advanced toward full erasure than either Iris or Mira’s cases. Recommend immediate priority intervention. ]

"Your brother sent me," Ethan said quickly. "Marcus. He’s been looking for you, without even knowing it, for fifteen years."

Something flickered across Samuel’s fading expression, fragile recognition breaking through his considerable uncertainty. "Marcus," he repeated softly. "I remember... a very small boy. I used to carry him on my shoulders, in our family’s garden." His translucent form flickered, unstable. "I don’t know how much longer I can hold onto that memory, or any memory. I feel myself fading, considerably faster than I think you understand."

"Then we don’t have time to waste," Ethan said, urgency sharpening his voice. "I need you to hold on, Samuel. However long it takes us to properly prepare, the way we prepared for Iris. Your brother’s waiting. Your family’s waiting. I promise you, we’re not going to let you fade away without trying everything we possibly can."

Samuel’s fragile, uncertain form carried something that might have been hope, breaking through fifteen years of gradual, terrible forgetting. "Please," he said quietly, his voice carrying genuine, desperate urgency. "Please hurry."

[ Synchronization: 100%. Stable. ] [ Recommend immediate return to waking consciousness. Subject Ashford’s condition requires urgent, expedited preparation, considerably faster than the timeline afforded to Iris’s own restoration. ]

Ethan gasped awake, finding Marcus’s anxious, hopeful expression waiting, and felt the weight of this fresh, urgent crisis settle over him with considerably more pressing weight than any previous case, understanding, with sudden, sobering clarity, that this newest Chapter of their investigation carried a ticking clock the others had never quite demanded so urgently.

"He’s still there," Ethan said quickly, "but Marcus, he’s fading. Considerably faster than Iris or Mira ever were. We need to move quickly, properly, but quickly, or I don’t think he’s going to survive long enough for us to bring him home."

Marcus’s expression carried fresh, fierce determination beneath his obvious fear. "Then tell me what you need," he said. "Whatever it takes, Ethan. I’ve spent this entire year watching you save everyone else. I’m not about to let my own brother be the exception."