The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

The images of the gods were everywhere. Any way I looked, whether it was up or down or straight ahead, painted eyes stared back at me from tables and shelves and overturned crates covered with cloth. I already knew there were a lot of gods in Heaven. But I hadn't grasped just how many until this moment.

Lodia had to gather up her robes to keep them from knocking over images as she wound through the room. "I know it's not ideal, but, um, it's the best we can do right now...."

I...see. I see. Yes, I see! Lodia, this is great!

She halted at the foot of another narrow staircase. "It is?"

Yes! You've satisfied the requirements to the letter – and you've made space for yourself to negotiate!

"I have?"

Yes! Just look at this setup!

Lodia looked. She didn't seem to see.

Any god whose image is in this room is going to be desperate to move downstairs, to gain visibility! But they are all in the Temple, which means they can only complain so much! And it's the Goddess of Life who distributes the offerings to them, so technically it makes no difference where their image is located. It's just an ego thing. That buys you wiggle room. This is brilliant! Whose idea was it?

"Uh.... I don't remember.... I think it just sort of happened?"

Then it was a great thing to just sort of happen. What's on the third floor?

Lodia started up the stairs, stepping cautiously and bracing her left palm against the wall. The steps, I realized, were so small that no adult could put their entire foot down flat. Lodia's heel hung off the edges, and she was essentially tiptoeing her way up.

I doubted it was an intentional architectural decision, but when I saw the third floor, I had to say that once more, it was perfect. It was almost enough to make you believe in Fate, for the entire third floor was a shrine to the Jade Emperor. His image loomed in the center, under the highest point of the slanted ceiling, as close to Heaven as you could get in this little town.

Perfect, I sighed. Just perfect.

Lodia cocked her head until the side of her jaw brushed my back. "Is it...?"

Yes. Because you have the three main gods at the door, welcoming everyone in and getting the most attention. Then you have the Jade Emperor on the top floor, presiding over all the rest. It keeps everyone happy – or at least prevents them from complaining too much. Which is about all you can hope for when the gods are involved.

Oops, maybe I shouldn't have said that. I waited for Lodia to protest, to push back against that very cynical description of Heaven. But even though she chewed the insides of her cheeks, she didn't utter a word. Hmmmm. My return wasn't causing her to regress to her Lychee Grove shyness, was it?

I need to let her go, I realized. It's better for her if I'm not constantly around to remind her of who she used to be. It's easier for her to be Matriarch if she doesn't feel self-conscious about me watching her.

A bittersweet thought, that.

And another thought: It wasn't that I needed to let her go. I needed to go.

I need to go to East Serica.

I broke the news to my friends in what I now thought of as Floridiana's study.

"Eassst Ssserica?!" Bobo popped up on her tail. "Are you going home to Claymouth?"

Behind her desk, Floridiana steepled her fingers. "It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to check up on the school. I am the headmistress."

Last time you checked, anyway, chortled Stripey, earning himself a glare.

I shook my head, swishing the tiny cape that Lodia had sewn for me. I wasn't planning to go back – partly because Aurelia had forbidden it and I didn't want to strain our alliance, at least, not until I had to – but speaking of Claymouth, when was the last time you went home?

A brief pause, while some of my friends calculated the elapsed time, some of them pondered the definition of "home," and the rest, who obviously had no idea that Floridiana had anything to do with a school, regarded her curiously.

"A while," confessed the travelling-mage-turned-headmistress-turned-travelling-mage. "I've been busy. On your behalf, I might add."

And I appreciate it.

From the way her eyebrows shot up, she'd been expecting a lot more sarcasm.

But no, I'm not going back to Claymouth. I need to go to the capital of East Serica. Where is it and what's it called?

Long, long ago, when I'd planned a festival by the banks of Black Sand Creek, back when I lived in Honeysuckle Croft and Stripey was my banker, I'd dreamed of hiring entertainers from the capital. (That, of course, was before he'd killed the idea with a lecture on personal finance.) I hadn't given a thought to the capital besides as a source of entertainment, though.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"No, no, back up. Why do you need to go to Norcap?" asked Floridiana.

Norcap? What a bizarre name for, well, anything.

Standing up on my hind legs, I puffed out my chest. Because I have been selected by Lady Fate to put the rightful Emperor on the throne.

Another pause, this time of gratifying shock.

The foxling broke it first. "Whaaaaat? What about me??? Aren't I the rightful Empress of all Serica???"

Whoever heard of a five-tailed fox empress? I snorted, but to my shock this time, I was the only one.

Could she really have developed a talent for proper governance in the time I'd been away? If so, I hadn't seen a hint of it since my return. She hadn't even grown a sixth tail.

Steelfang's steel fangs were on full display as he rumbled, "Weren't you the one who commanded her to re-forge the Serican Empire so she could annihilate it once more? Weren't you the one who made her Empress?"

Yes, well, so I had. But mostly to stop her from devouring that one human for dinner, and then to distract her from overrunning South Serica and turning the kingdom into a feeding ground for demons.

I stood up even straighter, pretending that I was once more Flos Piri the nine-tailed fox, whom Lady Fate had commanded to end a dynasty. Sphaera, young foxling, that was a test. In your current state of readiness, you are not nearly ready to scale the precipices of Heavenly politics.

She clenched her fists. "But I've worked so hard!"

Have you?

Unexpectedly, Stripey spoke up. His crane eyes were full of the same disapproval he'd leveled at me as a whistling duck. She has worked hard to follow your orders. She set up that fake battle outside Goldhill so you could give credit to the Kitchen God and trick all those people into making offerings in your Temple. She traveled back to West Serica to help you spread the Temple. She fought that oystragon whom the Dragon King of the Western Sea sent to kill Lodia.

And then she tried to murder Lodia!

"Only 'caussse ssshe got tricked."

Even Bobo chimed in to defend the foxling. What was going on here?

If she can get tricked so easily, then all the more reason not to put her on the throne.

"But I've worked so hard!" cried the foxling. "I've tried so hard to be exactly like you! I've been learning all about art and literature and natural philosophy and culture, just like you told me to!"

Floridiana nodded. "She has. I can attest to that. I have personally overseen her studies."

What? All of them were allied against me? I threw out my front legs in exasperation, which was the last insult that my trembling muscles could take. They spasmed, and I fell forward onto my belly, back legs quivering.

Are all of you proposing that we set her on the throne? Do you think she's ready?

That was a genuine question. I hadn't seen Sphaera for a couple years, and we foxes were fast learners. Maybe we could install her as an interim Empress. Maybe we could appoint her regent for Eldon until he came of age — no. She was a fox. She wasn't going to relinquish power once she had it.

"No." Floridiana echoed my thoughts. "She's studied hard since we arrived here, but she's not ready to rule."

That was the answer I'd hoped for.

"But ssshe will be!" Bobo protested. "It would be ssso sssad if ssshe worked ssso hard for nothing!"

Not for nothing, I said, buying myself time to come up with some alternative award. A consolation prize that would compensate her for losing the throne before she even planted her furry rump on it. Something to appease her so she didn't turn on us. Of course it wasn't for nothing.

Think, Piri! What precisely did you say to her? How can you twist – er, reinterpret – those words? What does she want most?

To be me. She wanted to be me, and then to surpass me, the me of five centuries ago.

Do you remember what we discussed when we first met? I asked, speaking slowly because I was trying to remember myself.

"We discussed a lot of things when we first met," she said in a low voice.

Oh no. I had to handle this better. I couldn't let her grow bitter and resentful at my treatment of her…as I had grown bitter and resentful at Lady Fate's treatment of me. At Heaven's treatment of me.

I had vowed to take down Heaven itself, hadn't I? After the Goddess of Life vivisected me the first time, back when she was granting my wish to keep my mind when I reincarnated? I had sworn I would, but since then, so much else had occupied my lives that I'd pushed it to the back of my mind. But that vow was still there. Heaven was a terrible system that treated everyone, even its own bureaucratic functionaries, terribly. Flicker, Aurelia, Glitter, the rest of the clerks, the Accountants — all of them were suffering. All of them had to be ready for a change.

At the time, I granted you these words, Sphaera: Ask not what you can do to equal events of the past, but what you can do to surpass them.

The foxling's gasp gave me hope that she was reconciling herself to ceding a throne she didn't even hold. "I remember! I remember now! You told me to reunify Serica and then take down Heaven."

I was pretty sure I'd never spoken those words myself, even if I'd heavily implied them.

Floridiana made a strangled noise, nearly a choke. Stripey, Bobo, and Steelfang, who'd been present at that meeting, didn't seem surprised.

"Is it time? Is it time to take down Heaven?" pressed the foxling.

Stars and demons, I seriously hoped no one in Heaven was watching. Don't say that! Never say that out loud. You never know who's listening.

She clapped her hands over her mouth.

Floridiana burst out, "You can't be serious! You can't seriously be planning to – "

Shh! Stripey shushed her.

The time has come for a change, Sphaera Algarum. For my friends' benefit, I added, The time has come to make this world a better place, and promptly felt my cheeks burn red-hot under my fur.

"We will!" cried Bobo.

Floridiana was so busy spluttering that she did actually choke on her own spit, and Stripey had to whack her on the back with his wing.

"I'll go tell 'Nelius. And Den." Steelfang flashed his teeth again. "I want to see his face when he hears this."

"And I'll go tell Lodia!" Bobo slithered after him. "Ssshe'll be ssso excited!"

Uh...she will? I hadn't thought the head of a Temple devoted to the gods would cheer on their overthrow.

"Yesss! We talked about it after you, um, the sssparrow you, died. We sssaid there's no point in re-founding the empire if it's going to be as awful as it usssed to be again. We sssaid we're going to make it better this time."

Yes, but –

"And Lodia sssaid we have to make it better for you. Ssso you didn't die in vain."

But that's the Empire! You were talking about the Empire, not –

"Ssso this is even better! If – " she bobbed her long neck up and down – "up there is better, then Earth will definitely be better! Yep yep, ssshe's gonna be ssso excccited!" And Bobo was off in a flash of green.

Oh, I said to no one in particular. Oh. Um. Goody?