CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Krayson paced the inn's common hall. He pulled out a pocket watch to check the hour and grimaced. It'd only been half a minute since he last checked, but every second he delayed felt like an hour.

It would've once been possible to reach Eastrun from Westrun before nightfall. With the state of Westrun and the rail lines in shambles after Elise's attack, it had taken Krayson's party until close to midnight just to reach populated areas. Another hour of ascending to the higher levels, and it was no longer feasible to continue without resting.

Necessary, Krayson tried to remind himself. Walking in on fiends and whatever else while weighed down by fatigue was tantamount to suicide. Even with a full-night's sleep, the odds didn't look good. Krayson could acknowledge the importance of renting a handful of rooms at an inn while also fume about how long it took some members of the group to start the day.

One, at least, was up and ready to move out at the same time he was.

Pacifica sipped at her morning tea and glanced Krayson's way over the rim of her cup. A plate of the crumbs remaining from her breakfast was soon taken away by the lone serving maid on duty at this hour. "Did I ever tell you about my grandfather, Krayson? King Vasili the Romov?"

A dismissive grunt was halfway out of Krayson's throat before he stopped himself. He'd had a number of opportunities to foster a small fear of invoking Pacifica's displeasure. He'd prefer to not have another.

He stopped in place and turned to face her. "I don't believe so. Might this be a cautionary tale about wearing out a floor's varnish with my pacing?"

Pacifica quirked a smile. "Not in particular, but it does have to do with patience in leadership."

Krayson cocked his head to the side. "Is that what I am? The leader?"

"Waves save us, but I think you might be."

He moaned anxiously.

"Oh, believe me, I relate to that sentiment."

"The sentiment of not wanting to be the leader, or the sentiment of not wanting me to be the leader?"

Pacifica laughed. "I was going to say the first one, but it's so hard to resist claiming the second, too."

Krayson pursed his lips and resumed pacing. "I thought fiend hunters would be the type to sleep with one eye open and wake before dawn."

Pacifica sighed. "I took them for the type who doesn't set out unprepared. Goodman Hunter strikes me as a lot of things, but a dilly-dally isn't one of them."

"What about the other one," Krayson asked. He decided he should take Pacifica's hint and abandoned his laps around the common hall. Pulling out a chair, he sat across from her at her table.

"Irsa?"

Krayson nodded.

"I think she's what Ban would call... untested steel."

Krayson shrugged. "She's killed a fiend, if you believe what they say."

"I've no reason not to, but I can't imagine one dead fiend makes someone a fiend hunter. If I have my measure of her right, I think Irsa would agree with me. She recognizes that she has a lot to learn, and that's why she so plainly defers to Rex."

Krayson nodded in understanding, then looked up. "You're good at reading people."

Pacifica took another sip, probably to hide the spots of color appearing in her cheeks. "I like to think so, but it's mostly due to hydromancy."

"I'm bad at reading people."

Pacifica glanced over her cup again and was kind enough not to voice her agreement.

"For instance," Krayson continued, "I never knew what to make of you. Do you remember when we first met?"

"I remember I walked in on you and Reyn about to pull knives on each other."

"A misunderstanding only."

"As you say," Pacifica said a little too lightly.

Krayson wondered if she harbored a little grudge over his early friction with Reyn. He didn't think it was deserved if she did. "You defied my every expectation of an Altieri princess," he said. "You explained a lot of things to me when you had no obligation to."

"I don't think that's true," Pacifica said. "With all that was going on, I felt like I needed to do everything I could for someone bringing a bloodsong to Enfri."

A twinge of anxiety appeared in Krayson's stomach. He didn't want to imagine how things could've been worse if Enfri accepted the Merovech's bloodsong. Pacifica would still be dead, and Shan Alee would be led by the world's most powerful arcanist. The deck was stacked against him enough as it was.

"Still" Krayson continued, "I didn't understand what you tried to tell me at the time, and I think a lot could've been easier if I had."

"How so?"

"Maybe I wouldn't have left," Krayson said. "It took a week on my own and stumbling across the Rampart to realize where I needed to be."

Pacifica smiled. "With Saveen?"

Krayson nodded.

"If I may ask," Pacifica said, setting her teacup aside and clasping her hands in front of her face, "how exactly would you define your relationship with our Bastion?"

Krayson bowed his head and gripped his hair in tight fists.

"Oh no." Pacifica leaned forward. "That bad, eh?"

He nodded again.

"This might seem an odd question, but which is harder for you? Describing your feelings about Saveen or the worry that how you feel might hurt her?"

"Both?"

Pacifica clucked her tongue. "No cheating. Pick one."

"What's keeping Adar?"

She slapped a palm on the table. "No changing the subject, either."

"It's not that I think it would hurt her," Krayson grumbled. "I don't want to disappoint her."

Pacifica raised an eyebrow. "I see. Does that mean you think she has expectations of you?"

"You mean she doesn't?"

"Well," Pacifica said with a shrug, "you can't really say anyone has no expectations of everyone around them. I expect Reyn to love me as much as I love her. I expect Ban to do the right thing when there's a choice to make. I expect you to amuse when salacious topics come up."

Krayson scowled.

"That's the risk that being around others carries. You expect them to be them, and the greatest trial is knowing who they truly are, so your expectations match with reality. However, the worst problems arise when you start expecting them to stop being them."

"I'm not sure what you're trying to tell me," Krayson said with narrowed eyes.

"Saveen doesn't have that problem," Pacifica said. "She's only ever wanted you to be you. She chose to stick around you because she likes who you are."

Krayson waited for an additional barb. Something like "waves only know why", or "spirits help the poor thing". Pacifica defied expectations again by holding back.

"So," Krayson began, hoping to sort through what Pacifica tried to tell him, "going by what you said, my problem is I don't have a handle on who Saveen truly is?"

Pacifica shrugged in sympathy. "Not a complete handle, no."

Krayson could accept that. He was the one who said he was bad at reading people.

"I think you can be forgiven that. Saveen's a tough nut to crack. Very little of what's really going on inside her ever makes it to the surface." Pacifica smiled broadly. "Except with you. She wears her heart on her sleeve when she's with you."

"Making my failure to understand her all the more damning," Krayson muttered.

"I don't think so," Pacifica said reassuringly. "I mean, to me and half of everyone else, it's obvious. It's one of those things you need an outsider's perspective on to get the whole picture."

"Really? Because I feel like an idiot for not getting it."

Pacifica pursed her lips and sighed. "I'm torn about this. On the one hand, I think I should tell you everything and spare you the agony. On the other, I can't help but think it'd be of more value if you figured it out on your own."

Krayson felt his mouth fall open. "You mean, you know?"

"About exactly what Saveen wants from you?"

"All seven thunders!"

Pacifica scoffed. "At least you didn't call me 'woman' that time. Nice to see you've kicked that habit. It always felt like a slur coming at the tail end of a Teulite phrase."

"You do know women rule Teularon, don't you? The Tiger King only commands the Horde, not the nation."

Pacifica rolled her eyes. "You're changing the subject again. I've plenty to say about Teulite gender segregation, but that's not the topic. Saveen is."

Krayson made an anxious sound and was unsure of what scared him more, knowing or not knowing. "Does she want... romantical things?"

"That's not a word," Pacifica scolded. "And no, she doesn't. Not necessarily."

"That last 'not necessarily' part worries me."

Pacifica smiled. "Would it help if I said I fancied you not that long ago."

"What?" Krayson squawked. "Good gods, why?"

Her eyes narrowed. "That's a very good question. I think it's because there really is something attractive about an earnest manner, despite being paired with your particular brand of social awkwardness." She grimaced and looked away. "Waves save me, maybe because of it."

"I don't see how this is supposed to help."

Pacifica let out a long, tired exhale. "Maybe it wasn't. Maybe I just wanted to get that off my chest because I've been feeling guilty about it, now that I'm with Reyn. But, what you can take from it is that you're not so unlovable as you might think you are."

"I don't..." Krayson balked and reconsidered. "Maybe I did think that."

"Saveen loves you," Pacifica said, "and don't bother denying how much you love her. Whatever form that love takes is entirely up to the two of you. Fullwynist philosophy is clear on that subject. A love needn't be romantic love to be true love." Pacifica started to blush. "As for... other things... By the same token, you could say a romantic love needn't be sexual love."

It was like Krayson got hit in the face by a bucket of icy water. He recalled Reyn once told him something very similar, that romance and sexuality could and should be considered separate entities. Every person's experience with them was unique.

Yet there remained— in Krayson's opinion— the most glaring issue he faced in that regard. He didn't know if he was capable of romantic love. He had little if any evidence that he was. Even if his broken imprint would allow it, Krayson's love would be a shadow of what it should've been.

Saveen deserved so much more than a ghost.

"Waves," Pacifica said in awe. "Now, that was a journey of facial expressions. Bravo, Brother Joshuan. I could spend the rest of the day unpacking what I just witnessed."

Krayson hardly heard her. "There's one other thing that concerns me," he said quietly.

"What would that be?"

"Do you find it at all strange I may be considering a romantic relationship with a giant, fire-breathing reptile?"

Pacifica gave him a flat look. "My paramour has a seal tail and gets people hot and bothered just by talking. Her betrothed drinks blood. I think you need a touch of perspective, Brother Joshuan."

Krayson nodded. "Aye, as you say."

A sound of footsteps down the staircase drew their attention, and both turned to see Adar descending from the upper story. He had an amazed look on his face as his eyes remained locked on the window above the landing.

"All well, love?" Pacifica asked.

"I cannot look away from the view," he replied. "This city defies comprehension. I would never have imagined mortals capable of building such things as these spires."

"Me neither," Pacifica said. "I've been trying not to think about it, because it makes Ecclesia look like a farming village in comparison." She gave Krayson a searching look. "I suppose our bumpkin sides are showing."

Krayson shook his head. "Even those who live here often become struck by the magnitude of the city. Few take it for granted."

"How many humans live in this city?" Adar asked, coming to sit at their table.

"Approximately fifteen million," Krayson said. "Half of Althandor's population."

"Waves," Pacifica muttered. "That's more than in all of Altier Nashal."

Rex and Devara followed Adar down from the upper story. The fiend hunter carried his enormous crossbow on a sling across his back. Devara carefully picked the last grains of sleep from her eyes in a way that she wouldn't smudge her cosmetics.

"And all of those folk are packed into thirty-six square leagues," Rex said.

"It's not so crowded when you consider the city's verticality," Devara said.

Rex grunted, and Krayson couldn't tell if the twist in his lip was a sneer or just how his face sat around his scars. He got the impression that while Rex appeared more familiar with the Spired City than everyone else besides Krayson and Devara, he didn't relish being there.

Pacifica finished the last of her tea. "Shall I call the maid to bring you all meals, or would you prefer to leave sooner?"

"Best nab a few rolls for the road," Rex grumbled. He hesitated before knuckling his forehead. "My lady."

"Where's your apprentice?" Krayson asked.

"Her own sort of prep work," Rex said sourly, dropping into a chair at the table. "Won't take but a moment longer. Early riser, that lass, but plate makes for a lengthy kitting up."

Krayson glanced up the stairs. He could all but feel his feet itching with the need to continue on. "You should all eat," he said. "I'll go up and see if Irsa may require assistance."

Rex grunted and set his crossbow leaning against a table leg. "Best leave a lass to her business, but do what you want. I'm not a chaperone."

Krayson arced an eyebrow in his direction. It sounded to him like Rex thought he meant to walk in on Irsa changing. Was that sort of thing common in young men? "At the least, I can tell her food is coming. Perhaps it will inspire haste."

"Could do," Rex allowed. "Just remember to knock. She's a good lass of repute, that girl, so no funny business. I like her for my boy, you hear?"

Pacifica offered Krayson a sympathetic shrug and waved him off. Krayson returned her a nod and set up the stairs. He recalled Irsa's room was two doors down from his own, so it wasn't difficult to locate. Standing outside her door, he strained his ears for the sound of rustling clothes, the splash of bathwater, or any other sign that he was intruding on a situation he had no business inserting himself into. What he did hear confused him, because he overheard a low murmur of conversation on the other side of the door.

Everyone else is in the common room, he thought. Who could she be speaking to? A sending?

Krayson had his hand raised to knock on the doorframe, but a surge of paranoia kept it from landing. He didn't know Irsa, and he didn't count Heron or Devara's testimony as adequate reasons to trust her. For all he knew, either of the fiend hunters or both could be thralls. Krayson let a hand slip underneath his robe to grip the handle of his knife while the other performed a somatic for a localized privacy ward over the door. Spellcraft in place, Krayson reached for the door and cautiously slid it open without any sound reaching inside.

He dropped the ward and heard the conversation more clearly.

"It's all I know," Irsa said. She stood over by the window and looked out onto the city. Her back was to Krayson, and she didn't appear to notice his entry. She was both dressed and in her armor. There didn't appear to be any reason left for her to still be in her room. "What more can you want of me?"

Krayson crept another step in through the door.

"That's not helpful!" Irsa protested. It came in response to something Krayson hadn't heard. "I did what you asked and followed Rex here. You think I wanted to leave home?"

Krayson had heard of arcane research into silent sendings. One of a sending's drawbacks was how the sent voice and responses to it could be overheard. There'd been times on contracts for the Order where Krayson had a hiding spot compromised because someone wished to talk. However, he hadn't heard of anyone developing spellcraft like that.

"You said I had to," Irsa said, unaware of Krayson's presence, "and for whatever reason, I fell for it."

Krayson furrowed his brow and took another step closer. A sense of this being familiar tickled at the back of his mind. He felt that he'd experienced this exact thing, only from Irsa's side of it.

"Because, you still haven't answered my question!" Irsa shouted. "Waves and tides, but why can't you ever say anything plain?"

Jaw dropping, Krayson took his hand away from his knife and stood straight. "Thunders crash on my head," he said in wonder.

Irsa near jumped right out of her hauberk. Her hand shot to her half blade, and she had it nearly all the way out of its scabbard by the time her feet were back on the floorboards. She fell into a ready stance and gaped at Krayson as if he'd sprouted fangs and horns. "What're you doing?"

"I can't believe it," Krayson whispered.

Irsa's surprise was waxing into anger, but the red in her cheeks might've also come from a healthy measure of embarrassment. Her hand didn't leave her sword. She didn't draw it fully, but she didn't return it to its scabbard, either. "Step into the wrong room or somethin'?" she asked. "What you staring at, Blood Runner?"

"A blessed saint," Krayson said. "Apparently."

Her eyes darkened. "That's crazy talk."

Krayson came closer while she backed away with each step he took. "Crazy as talking to oneself in an empty room? Talking to no one, or at least nobody anyone but you can hear? Crazy as getting vagary as your only answer? I suppose it is crazy talk." He kept advancing until her back was to a wall. "Crazy, unless you know what it's like to hear a god in your head."

With her lips slightly parted, Irsa's eyes flickered up and down the length of him. Her grip on her sword tightened. "You... you hear her, too?"

"Her? No." Krayson noted that he might've been within reach of her sword if she decided to draw it, so he eased back a step. "I assume that means you've a different patron than I do. When they talk to me, I hear Kumo the Great Spider. They are the god of memory and fate."

Irsa's eye twitched. "She's... surprised to hear Kumo has a saint. She says she'd almost forgotten what it's like to be surprised by them. I didn't think she could even be surprised."

Krayson cocked his head to the side in question. "Who is she?"

Irsa swallowed, and her voice took on a frightened quality. Not for fear of her patron, but for revealing something she'd kept hidden until now. "Her name's Nashal. We call her the White Lady back home."

"Goddess of knowing and portent," Krayson said with a nod. "The patron deity of Altier Nashal and the originator of hydromancy. I know of her."

"You do? Most folk in the north think she's a folk tale."

"I know people who've spoken to her."

Irsa's eyes went wide. "Other saints?"

Krayson shook his head. "No. Spoken more... directly. As I understand it, Lord Ban went into her tower, and..."

"The rune knight?" Irsa exclaimed. "The Lord Karst? She calls him the Second."

It occurred to Krayson that if Irsa had a goddess' ear, she might know more of what was going on in the world than most others he'd met. It came as a sudden and profound relief to not feel as alone.

A conspicuously absent source of torment chose then to insert their opinion. My counterpart always did choose warriors as her saints. Nashal is nothing if not unoriginal.

"What," Krayson growled to the side, "you don't like her?"

Do not misunderstand me, my saint. My adoration does not prevent me from seeing her flaws. Just as hers does not prevent her from seeing mine. Ours was always the most harmonious of divine alliances. Kumo made a grumpy sound of discontent. That is, up until she agreed to help imprison me, but you don't need to hear about my baggage.

"All seven thunders, but I hate you."

The feeling is mutual, my saint. We are too alike, you and I.

There wasn't anything the thundering bug could've said more insulting.

Krayson jumped when he heard a click of Irsa's sword dropping back into her scabbard. Oddly, Irsa seemed just as startled by it as Krayson.

"Just now," she said, timid, "you were talking to him?"

"Them," Krayson corrected gently. "The Great Spider has no gender until they want to."

"Ah. Aye, as you say. Not my business. That means you're their... blessed saint? Like me with the White Lady?"

Krayson hummed an affirmative. He assumed Irsa didn't want word of this getting around, so he went to close the door. "Does Rex know about you?"

She looked away. "Maybe. I don't think so, but I'm sure he thinks something's off about me."

Krayson raised an eyebrow. "Yet, he still wants to betroth you to his son?"

"Makes you wonder what's wrong with the boy," Irsa sighed. "I'm not half so keen as Rex is about it. Strange enough that his son's named Rex, too."

"I thought it's common enough to name children after a parent."

"Yeah, but so's his grandfather and greatfather. There's been a Rex Hunter somewhere in the world since the Queen Founder, I'd wager. That's weird, Blood Runner, sir. Weirdly charming, but still weird."

Krayson couldn't argue, but he wasn't altogether concerned with how long there'd been or would be people named Rex. "When did you become a saint?" he asked instead.

"Don't really know," Irsa said. She shuffled her feet on the floorboards in discomfort over speaking of this. "Depends on what counts as starting, I guess. It began strange, like an errant thought here or there, and I didn't figure at first the voice wasn't mine."

"It was much the same with me," Krayson said. "I thought Kumo was a hallucination, then I heard them again. They answered when I spoke back."

Irsa nodded slowly. "Sounds about right."

"Perhaps you could tell me of the first time you heard Nashal?"

"I didn't really hear anything that first time," Irsa said. "It was maybe four months back, when Rex came to Makurov to kill that fiend. Things were going bad. The fiend had busted one of my ribs already, the kids it took were halfway dead from starving and sickness, and Rex had to go toe to toe with the monster on his own. He was barely keeping ahead of it and wouldn't last much longer."

Krayson situated his robes and sat down on her bed to listen. Irsa didn't look at him as she recounted the story. She had a faraway expression, like she had trouble distinguishing what really happened from a dream. Absently, she touched at the hilt of the full blade strapped to her back.

"There were dead knights in the fiend's lair. Long dead, longer than the fiend could've been there. It was trying to make the kids eat the rot off their corpses to make them wendigos. One of the bodies... had this." She closed her eyes. "I'm just nobody from nowhere. There was never any shot for me to be a paladin, and only paladins can use weapons like this. You can barely even pick them up without magic in you, but..."

Krayson leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. "Something changed. Help came."

Irsa bit her lip before continuing. "I saw... I don't know what I saw. I prayed hard to any god who'd listen. Then, a flash. I saw a place I never saw before. And eyes. I saw her eyes, too. Black and empty, with starlight deep inside them. Before I knew what I was doing, I started moving. I dragged this full blade behind me. When I got to the fiend, I somehow could lift the sword up. Then I killed the fiend." She pawed at her forehead. "Rex said something strange, that I'd been glowing when I struck, but I don't know what he meant by it. After it was over, we got the kids back home, Rex got his pay, but right after he left... I got..."

"Go on."

"I got this feeling. Like I needed to go with him. I tried to take my mind off it and went out to the woods again. No matter how long I tried, I couldn't pick the full blade up again. Whatever happened before couldn't work again, so... I did somethin' stupid."

Krayson blinked. "You're in good company, then. We've elevated stupidity to an art form."

"Nah, this was really stupid. I went looking for the White Lady."

Krayson smirked. "You'd be surprised how many people I know who can match that exact level of stupid. I take it you went to follow the stories that anyone can go to the White Lady with a single question and receive a true answer."

Irsa nodded. "It took days, but I found her tower. More like it found me, really. Unbelievable as that might sound. I must've been leagues away from where I ended up, but I just looked up eventually, and there it was. 'Spirited away', they call it, and it happened to me."

"She allowed you into her tower, then?"

"Aye. Walked in, but when my foot landed, I was somewhere else. Somewhere not in this world."

"The spirit world. Her tower lies on a convergence of ley lines, and those can sometimes be used as doorways between our two realms."

She glanced his way. "Almost sounds like you actually believe me."

Krayson nodded. "I've been to the Ethereum to meet my god, too. Nothing you've said so far comes without precedent."

Irsa scratched at the back of her head. "Aye. Suppose not."

"So? What did you ask her?"

It surprised him when Irsa blushed. Not just blushed, she nearly looked like someone miscast a polymorphy spell to turn her halfway into a tomato.

"That's not... err... That's not really all that important, Blood Runner, sir."

"I won't invade your privacy, in that case. And please, call me Krayson."

"Aye, Krayson, sir. I can do that."

"Sir is unnecessary, also. If not your answer, what did the White Lady tell you to name you her saint?"

"That's just the thing. She didn't give me an answer, but she..." Irsa shivered. "She said she didn't often appear to people who go to her like she did with me. She said she'd only done it twice before, first to the original Karst and then to the rune knight. It's because she said I was... Waves, but it didn't make any sense to me. Something about my threads being parallel to hers or somethin' weird like that." Irsa leaned her back against the wall and sank down to a sitting position. "Nashal told me if my thread stayed with the fiend hunter, I'd get my answer."

Krayson wrinkled his nose in displeasure. "Seems unfair. Nothing in the legends about the White Lady tell of needing to jump through hoops to get a question answered."

Irsa threw a hand in the air in agreement. "Thank you. Was what I said. Ever since then, I hear her talk to me in my head, and nobody else can hear her. She helped me catch up with Rex in Leyrshore, told me where he'd be and all that. She'll say odd stuff now and again, but never gives me information I can actually floundering use."

"It's the worst," Krayson groused. "You and I are in complete alignment on the uselessness of gods."

Irsa leaned her head back against the wall and laughed. "See, I knew you weren't stuffed up your own arse."

"I'd like to reinforce that opinion, if you'll allow it."

"How so?"

"I think I can explain some of what happened to you." Just to be certain he wasn't speaking clouds, Krayson observed Irsa with his witch sight. "I can tell you why you were able to wield a full blade, for instance."

Her eyes lit up with an almost childlike eagerness. "Yeah?"

Krayson nodded. "You manifested a self-enchantment."

"I what now?"

"You used sorcery. You willed magic into being by wishing to be stronger, and you instinctively made it happen."

"That's somethin' what can happen?"

"On occasion," Krayson said. "Potential sorcerers more often require purposeful mental exercises to affect the Weave for the first time, but spontaneous spellcasting isn't unheard of."

Irsa looked dumbfounded. "I'm a... sorceress, then?"

"Yes," Krayson said. "I can see with my witch sight that your ether is tethered to one of the five paths. Sorcery is the only one known to happen in the way you describe, as the other four all require a certain level of knowledge about how the spells are cast." He felt a ghost of something stir and smiled. "If I know Altieri parlance well enough, that would make you a will knight."

It was unexpected, so Krayson didn't know what to make of it when Irsa went pale as a sheet.

"You mean... I'm already a paladin?"

"Is that troubling?"

Irsa looked straight ahead and got a sour expression. "That's what I asked her. I asked how I could become a paladin." She looked up at the ceiling. "Oh, sod off. You don't gotta sound so floundering smug about it."

He couldn't articulate why, but it pleased Krayson immeasurably to see a second example of saint on deity friction. "This might sound strange, but does your vision ever play odd tricks on you? Like you're seeing threads woven all around?"

Irsa's eyes snapped towards him. "Yeah! What is that?"

"Ethersight," Krayson chuckled. "It's one of the more potent tools sorcerers use to learn their spellcraft. I'm not an expert on sorcery, but I imagine Lady Devara could offer a few pointers to get you started in crafting your own manifestations."

"Because she's a..."

"All royal assassins are sorcerers," Krayson confirmed. "All but Lady Heron, who's a witch like I am."

"I dunno. You both seem alright to me."

Krayson blinked. "I meant as in..."

Irsa held up a palm. "I know what you meant," she laughed. Looking at a spot on the wall across the room, Irsa had a contented look about her. "So... I'm a paladin, eh? I asked how to be one when I already was, so Nashal told me how to be her saint instead."

"Seems so," Krayson replied. "You were someone close enough to her in the web of Fate that she could speak to you, and you came to her. Nashal knows with certainty what the future holds, so maybe she saw that if she made someone like you a saint, the demons can be beaten."

Irsa chewed the inside of her cheek, seemingly receiving words from her goddess. "She tells me that's only if Kumo hasn't mucked with Fate too much, whatever that means."

The nerve of her, Kumo grumbled.

"Hush, you nuisance," Krayson scolded. "The saints are talking."

Kumo harrumphed.

Krayson stood and walked forward to offer Irsa his hand. "The first step will be to deal with the demon and his fiends in the Spired City. Breakfast is waiting, if you're still willing to come along on this ride."

Irsa eyed his hand, smiled, and linked her hand with his. She let him assist her to her feet. "Aye, that I am. Lead the way, Krayson. I'll follow."

As they left her room and locked the door behind them, Irsa cast a sidelong look at Krayson. "You never said how you got rolled up in all this saint business."

Krayson blew out his lips. "That's a story. I suppose it all started when a bad contract got me locked in the Highest King's dungeon."

"Waves and tides, I like this already."

Throughout the meal that followed and leaving the inn for the nearest train station, Krayson recounted for Irsa the tale of his final contract for the Order. Throughout, Irsa couldn't take her eyes off of him.