When I wake up (because I did, in fact, fall asleep), it’s to the gentle sound of wind blowing in through a window and rustling the draping cloth above me. I don’t really feel like getting up, and a combination of being naturally lazy and in a perfect state of comfort allows me to doze in and out of wakefulness for a time.

  When I finally do open my eyes it’s to the sight of a place I don’t recognize and for a long moment I can’t remember where I am or how I got here. Only when the events of the previous day come back to me do I toss the covers back and get up to look around.

  The first thing I notice is that this place is fucking fancy. Marble floors in beautiful patterns, high arched ceilings from which colorful cloth drapes and half the room’s walls are open to an expansive balcony (this one with an actual railing to prevent walk-offs) from which I have a fantastic view of the palace and or temple complex (not sure which it is), the city and even the land beyond. It’s absolutely breathtaking. My room seems to be at the very pinnacle of the entire city.

  Going back inside I notice the second thing that maybe should’ve been the first. I can’t see the door I came in from. It’s not that there’s not a door, it’s just not the one I entered the room through. I know I tired when I got here and not paying as much attention as perhaps I should have been, but I could’ve sworn that I entered with Ja’karis and then walked in a straight line to the bed.

  Puzzled, I decide to extend my look about to try and figure this out. It soon becomes apparent that Ja’karis hadn’t misspoken when he said “chambers” instead of “room”. Everything I could possibly need is here with a room of its own, and a few rooms whose purpose I’m not sure what they even are. This place is like a pent house just for me. If a pent house was magical and also on steroids.

  There’s a roman style bath with oversized pools of varying temperatures, next to a sauna and message room. Half of the bath has a slightly alien architectural take on a normal roman bath look while the other half has translucent water filled walls in which colorful aquatic animals swim about in. Some I recognize as normal (but beautiful) fish and others I don’t because I’ve never seen finger sized glowing mermaids before, their oversized liquid eyes watching me back with curiosity from behind the leaves of a decorative underwater plant.

  There is a comfortable study with the classic fireplace and giant animal skin rug, leather furniture and bookshelves full of instruments I didn’t recognize next to old books and notebooks full of someone else’s handwriting. Alongside them are the occasional specimen of mineral or plant with a handwritten note attached that usually said something like Odd little thing, produces a thirty minute period of forgetfulness when powdered and blown in face. Injectable? The place exudes warmth and curiosity with traces left by someone’s eccentric mind.

  Next to the study is a library that I quickly realize might not actually have an end, the rows of bookshelves seemingly going on forever. I accidentally find out it will show an array of books on any topic you want as long as you think about it with intention, the change happening with a barely audible rustle and shift. It's fascinating and a bit unsettling, since it makes it feel like the library is alive, but that's also kind of amazing. Luckily, the exit also appears as soon as I want it or I might’ve gotten lost in there and found out the hard way if the library was the kind of alive thing that needs to eat.

  The appearance of the exit gives me an idea which I immediately give a try by thinking of my bed. Suddenly, instead of the hallway outside the library I can see my bedroom through the library door. I don’t step through immediately, instead taking the time to try and summon the various rooms I’d already been to only to have them to appear instead a second later. Setting the space back the normal hallway I find myself grinning like a loon. This place is just the coolest thing I've ever seen, and that includes a god's closet. This is just too much fun, the idea of actually getting to live in what amounts to a literal magic clubhouse is amazing, and it's with a long lost sense of wonder that I continue looking through the place.

  There’s a sitting room with plenty of comfortable chairs and sofas set around an open fireplace, all sent into an indent into the floor. There’s a pool room for swimming, a training room with weapons, what looked like a wine room that I don’t think has actual wine in it (wine’s not supposed to glow, I don't think), a solarium (a room I’m fairly certain is meant solely for the purpose of comfortable napping), a conservatory with all kinds of plants growing inside, some of which I would’ve sworn twitch when I get too near. A room for games, a room with nothing but inscriptions etched into the walls, a laboratory with vials and ingredients and other strange stuff.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  There is all just too much to see that I give up before getting through it all because my stomach reminds me that I'm hungry. Apparently the only room this place doesn’t have is a kitchen. Though I suppose I could’ve just not found it yet.

  I stand in place and try to summon the kitchen, feeling a bit like Dorothy with her ruby slippers thinking there's no place like home. Except it doesn't work in my case. So yeah, no kitchen.

  Deciding to get ready for the day before I go about calling for people to feed me, I summon the bathroom. I manage to get the rest of the way out of the toga thing and clean up in one of the warmer pools using a soap with a faint but pleasant scent. Once out I notice an alcove with towels and dry myself off. I hadn’t looked around in my room for it earlier, but this place must have a closet and with any luck it will have something in there I can wear.

  Wrapping a towel around my waist as a stopgap I go back to my bedroom the normal way to pick up my mask from my bed, but don’t put it on yet. I still don’t know what I look like, other than I seem to have gotten Artos’ skin tone.

  There’s another door in the bedroom I hadn’t gone through earlier and there I find a large dressing room with full length mirrors and walls displaying male style clothing accessories. I get a bit distracted from my goal of self reflection because beyond that is a vast closet that reminds me of the endless library, full of clothes alongside equipment set up in display cases. Fortunately for my curiosity the cases have little explanations written in the same hand as the notes from the study about what they hold. There are matte black boots with that give an impression of softness with a description that says Makes no noise, ever. Great for sneaking, next to a pair of blue earrings that say Makes charming and charismatic. Party bling. There are gloves that Gather information by touch and a dagger that is Unhealable, makes super dead and a coat that Becomes whatever is needed, great for any occasion.

  There are too many to look at all of them, so I instead settle for doing that later and try out the library method, turning to the hanging clothes and wishing for a simple, comfortable outfit I can wear. It works immediately as, with a rustle, the clothes around me change. I spend a few minutes picking something out as even normal clothes are a bit different here so there are some surprises and the closet is a bit fast and loose with the definition of comfortable, but in the end I find a pair of pants, boots that fit like a glove and a shirt that's just right kind of loose.

  Grabbing them I head back out to the dressing room but don’t yet put them on, instead moving to a nearby mirror to get a better look at myself. And when I do I finally understand a couple things. Like, why Artos was so confident that he, Gwen and I are now related and that thing he’d mumbled about it being hard to hid that I have stigmata from both of them.

  Golden eyes stare back at me, intriguing and inquisitive and inherently inhuman. It’s the only physical thing I can point to that reminds me of Gwen, but it’s a big one. The rest of me, my olive skin tone, thick black hair and what I can only call roguish good looks, they all come from Artos. I look younger than my twenty-three years, maybe late teens now, but if anything that just makes me look like Artos’ kid brother since the god himself hardly looks old enough to be my dad. The point is, we totally look related.

  I can only assume drinking his blood has something to do with it, but that doesn’t explain how I’m also related to Gwen. It’s a puzzle, but one that doesn’t hold my attention for long as my eyes zero in on what I can only assume are my stigmata. Primarily the golden one on my face. It’s mostly on my forehead, looking like a filigree crown that disappears into my hair. I suspect it wraps all the way about my head. But that’s not all, it continues down and surrounds my eyes like a kind of mask with what looks like a couple highly artistic molten golden tears running down my cheeks. It makes me wonder if that’s why Artos put black tears on my mask.

  I’ll say one thing for it, it is incredibly beautiful, giving an aura of holiness, gentle authority and purity. Yet at the same time it also kind of looks like my golden crown in melting on my head, lending it an air of tragic loss and sorrow. It's a surprise to be sure, but I’m not even that upset that I was born with a magic face tattoo. Rather, what comes to mind when I first see it is the fact that literally everyone in that giant room must’ve seen this when I first showed up. And if I can tell that this one isn't the one I got from Artos, than I'm willing to bet that all those people could too.

  No, the one from Artos I find on my back. It's a dark, eight pointed star resting between my shoulder blades, surrounded by a beautiful design in black that’s reminiscent of thorns and dying flowers. It invokes a sense of irresistible awe shadowed by an ominous sense of foreboding. As if it represents something amazing you can’t help but want to draw near to, despite knowing the cost of experiencing something so inherently beyond you is death. It’s all very serious and alluringly macabre and would’ve also been very visible (I suspect by design) through that toga thing. Thankfully the only people who would’ve seen my back are the four from yesterday.

  So I guess that confirms that the designs on my mask are reflections of my stigmata.

  It also confirms that I will be wearing a mask for the rest of my life. I suppose it's a good thing I was planning on doing that anyway. Then I realize Artos totally knew but hadn't said a thing about it during our entire conversation. So yeah, still an asshole.