Chapter 208

Ainz felt his heart pound in his chest when he looked at the [Gate] in front of him. His eyes darted up and down the whorling vortex, the proof of magical skill beyond anything he'd yet to find in this world.

'In retrospect I should have been more concerned about using it the first time, I had no idea it would actually work after all. After things have settled down, I need to put Demiurge onto investigating the laws of magic…' Ainz thought, briefly glad to distract himself from his more immediate concern, which came roaring back an instant later.

'When I step through, I will see Albedo… it's been quite some time, she is the last Floor Guardian… revealing myself to the others, the common maids, the other Area Guardians, that will be easy compared to this. This is the hardest of all tasks… if only I hadn't done that to her…' The guilt weighed heavily on his soul.

He could not help but think of Shalltear and her urgent desire to be with him, the longing for an intimate touch that he just couldn't give to her… and knew without a doubt it was a thousand times worse for Albedo.

He swallowed, removed his mask, and wiped his face. The dreams he had of her only exacerbated his anxiety. He rubbed the ring on his hand against the glove which sheathed it. Nominally with it on, he needed neither sustenance nor rest. But his all too human spirit screamed for it anyway. "You've put this off long enough, she's probably wondering what is taking you so long. Do it!" He ordered himself, replaced his mask, and stepped through the [Gate].

Albedo stared at the space waiting for the gate again, and again, and again, and again. 'How long… How long?! How long?! How long?!' Her heart fluttered and pounded by turns while she waited for her beloved Master to appear before her. How many months since she'd seen him? How many nights had she lain alone and reached between her thighs to think of his body on top of her own, and all the things she craved to do with him and him alone?

'A virgin succubus is so… absurd.' She thought in wry moments of self awareness, yet her busy work, his absence, and the reticence of the only man she desired had kept her innocent.

But this was the day and the appointed hour he would reappear, and all her work and the work of the useful tools she'd found for her use… the elf slave, the curious peasant merchant, even the turned human in the north, all brought them to this moment.

The Holy Kingdom was ready to explode in civil war, it would take only one more push to make it happen.

Albedo wrung her hands, only her natural total control over her body kept nervous sweat at bay. 'Please… please appear… I can't take it anymore…' She felt like a bowstring drawn with an arrow nocked and ready to loose, but the powerful archer that held it neither relaxed his hold nor let her go. Her every fiber stretched to the point of breaking and despite holding on as best she could, she could bear not one more moment.

The whorling vortex appeared a half a moment later.

The crackling of power and magic held its pattern, the endless swirling, her beloved on the other side… half a world away, and yet he was also only one step from her, and all she could do was wait.

Her heart rose into her throat when he didn't immediately appear. Her bright eyes focused, stared at the vortex, "Come on… Come… please… appear… appear…" She felt that longing that had been stirring for months in her breast become like a tornado and tears welled in her eyes. Though she was fairly sure her Lord didn't know she knew, the fact that he was now 'fully male' at least was something she was aware of.

'I thought before he'd found a way in order for us to… but then why leave? Why not let me stay with him at night and work during the day…? Why keep me so far away from him…?' She wondered that far more often than she liked to admit, and the answers all terrified her.

Worst of all was the possibility that… 'He doesn't want me.' Only slightly worse was that… 'He enjoys my suffering…' That made her weep more than once, that he put abiding love in her only because he wanted to enjoy hurting her by not returning what he made her offer up to him with every fiber of her being.

She recalled in detail the moment it happened. Watching her God erase part of herself, the urgent wanton sluttiness her maker had built into her mind, it was surreal. 'I might be the only Guardian to have seen how they make us how we are…' It was a great privilege, like a child in awe of seeing a new life born, he took away part of herself, and then…

'Just like that, he wrote a new part of myself… an abiding and deep love for him and him alone… the way it exploded in my heart the very moment his work was done, the final act of true creation in Nazarick, and it was inside of me and me alone… I thought I was so blessed… but how long has it been, and I am still empty…?'

She swallowed hard, trying not to work herself up, her wings spread out in all their glory, for this meeting she even wore the clothes she wore in Nazarick, the white dress with the golden spider web over her breasts, a perfect look for their first meeting after so long apart.

And still the void lingered, and she found the limits of the control she had over her body. She could keep the sweat at bay, but her bright yellow eyes were overwhelmed, tears pooled like a pond which she swiftly wiped away so that they wouldn't blur her vision of his coming.

A footstep came through, everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Even though his foot touched the floor like anyone else who might walk along anywhere, such was his aura of command that he seemed to float, at least to her eyes. Like he was naturally above the world, his flowing robes and majestic air was every bit what she recalled and then some.

She tried to speak when the void vanished behind him. She opened her mouth to say, 'Welcome, Master. I can't wait to show you what I've done.' Her mouth closed. Nothing came out.

She opened it again as her arms opened like her wings at her side, she tried to say, 'Welcome, my Lord, to your next conquest.' Though whether she would have meant herself or the Kingdom or both even she couldn't have said.

Again her mouth closed, the moment hung between them.

Albedo broke.

"My love!" She cried with wild desperation and cast herself to her knees directly in front of him, her arms and wings wrapped around him at the thighs and she buried her face in his flowing robes and began to shake her head back and forth. "I've missed you… I've missed you! I've missed you! I've missed you… so much… I wanted you here for so long… thank you… I couldn't have waited another day… it was torture!" She did not, could not, close her mouth. The words tumbled out like water past a bursting dam, casting stone with wild abandon.

Ainz, for his part, froze. The reality of it all hit him with the force of a volcanic eruption. 'All this time,' He thought while she buried her face in his robes and lost all control over herself, 'I was thinking of myself and my own fears… this is what I left her to suffer… the child of one of my best friends… I knew she wanted me but…'

All that entailed, the longing that ate at her, the way it frustrated her, how she must have wondered why he sent her to work so far away and made her stay there to get it all done… guilt raged through him with the force of a typhoon storm.

As conflicted as he was, there was one thing Ainz knew. He loved them all. 'They're my children… and I hurt one of them…' The realization hit him like a punch in the gut, and all he wanted wasn't a kingdom, or an empire, or even his friends.

'I want her pain to stop… I don't want her to hurt…' That much he knew beyond any reason or doubt, and his hands with agonizing slowness, went around her to hold on to her back, which he began to stroke.

"I'm sorry, Albedo… I'm sorry… I didn't mean to do this to you…" He said, and that was all he said, over and over, until she could look up at him again.