The main church of Maricall, a symbol of spiritual authority, was situated just outside the inner market, close enough for merchants to pray on their way to work and for nobles to seem like they mingled with commoners without actually stepping in mud. Smart position.

  It wasn’t the magnificent United Church that the capital that nobles liked to brag about. While many churches existed in a count’s city, House Marcellis seemed to favor this one in particular.

  Wide stone steps, worn with time, led up to tall, imposing iron-banded doors.

  Above them, a gorgeous marble carving depicted a serene woman beneath a lush flowering tree, one hand gently resting on an open book, the other held palm-up as if catching snow.

  We stopped at the foot of the steps.

  “I appreciate that you two agreed to come for confirmation,” Elayne said beside me. “The Count doesn’t believe you’re lying, but seeing the Ascension Quest in a temple will allow us to know the exact details. This will facilitate the next discussions."

  “We’re not offended,” I said. “If I were in his chair, I’d want to see it with my own eyes too. Words are cheap.”

  Ragna rolled one shoulder. “Well I don’t mind using churches as long as your gods don’t try to climb into my head,” she said, not bothering to whisper. "I know some of them like doing that.”

  Ilyra gave her a curious look. She’d dressed down from the cobalt coat, but “dressed down” for an heir still meant a fitted tunic with embroidery I could have bought a horse with.

  “You sound as if you have a long history with the Gods of Heaven,” she said with amusement. “I thought the Valtherians were very… particular about the divine company they keep.”

  Ragna’s mouth flattened. “We are. Guess that's why they’re staring.”

  I followed her gaze.

  Priests and acolytes dressed in pale blue robes stood just inside the doors. Some were old, others young, but all shared the same tense expression and sidelong glances. It was obvious that civilized priests didn’t appreciate savage blood drinkers on their steps.

  “Is there a problem?” I asked, glancing nervously at the others. “They’re looking at us as if we're covered in something worse than blood."

  Ragna’s expression went from relaxed to stone in a breath. I’d seen that look before whenever conversation turned to gods.

  “It’s because of the divine cult,” she said. “We Valtherians worship the god of the cult, Demon God Mara, and the Twelve Gods’ priests don’t like that much.”

  I blinked. “The Demon God Mara?” I’d heard that name before, the Shaman had tasked me to visit his temple for the Class choice before he inevitably found out that I could interact with the class choice process on my own. “Why the issue? Even if he’s a Demon God, he’s still a God, yes?”

  I heard that name the first time when the Shaman told me to visit a Temple of Mara and get my Class options checked.

  However I'd nearly forgotten about him, and thought the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult simply worshiped the infamous Heavenly Demon. It was a little odd.

  “Huh Thorvyn, how do you not know the reason?” Ragna looked stunned.

  “I just have a bad memory sometimes,” I tried to excuse myself.

  Ilyra rested a gloved hand lightly on the rail as we started up the steps. “Ragna, correct me if I’m wrong. I don’t know much about the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, but if we were to assume that the cult is a kingdom, then the Heavenly Demon is the king of that kingdom, correct?” she said, and Ragna nodded. “So then the Demon God Mara is the god they all worship, yes?”

  “Yup, that's right," Ragna admitted.

  Elayne added, “Demon God Mara is so interesting and mysterious though. As far as I’m aware, his origin is unknown. Since your tribe worships him, do you guys know? I know he reportedly appeared around three hundred years ago, first among what people now call the ‘new gods,’ although he is not counted among the Twelve. Some bards call him the Thirteenth God, but most churches would consider that blasphemous.”

  Ragna turned her head, a genuine surprise crossing her face. “You guys know quite a lot for non believers,” she said. “Not bad. Most continent dwellers just shout about demons and heresy. And no, I don’t know where he came from either. I think mother knows.”

  Ilyra laughed softly. “I graduated from Waybound Academy,” she said. “Their library has more tomes on foreign gods and cults than some churches have on their own. If you listen to the right lecturers and ignore the more hysterical sermons, you can learn quite a bit.”

  Ragna and I shared a look. Everyone and their mother is from Waybound, I thought. At least they’re all pretty strong for their age, which proves it's a good place.

  We stepped through the doors.

  The air inside felt cooler. Light from high windows cast colored bars, catching dust and illuminating the pale stone floor. Wooden benches lined the space toward the altar, where a white stone carving depicted a woman beneath a flowering tree with plum blossoms on her robes, her serene expression inviting reverence.

  Ragna’s shoulders, which had been slightly hunched since we’d approached the church, eased. “Oh,” she said. “It’s Rinvara!”

  Elayne shot her a sideways glance. “You recognize her?” she asked. “I’m surprised the volcanic islands also honor our Graceful Goddess. I had assumed Mara’s presence crowded out other names.”

  “Of course we do,” Ragna said, sounding almost insulted. “Rinvara is a dangerous goddess. That’s why she earned Mara’s approval!”

  Elayne frowned. “Dangerous, you say?” she repeated. “Strange…” She gestured toward the statue, where someone had carved the title in neat letters into the base.

  The Plum Blossom That Outwaited Winter, Rinvara

  Goddess of Scholars and Fertility.

  “How can the Goddess of Scholars be dangerous? We worship her as a kind and graceful goddess,” Elayne finished.

  Ragna scowled at the inscription. “Huh. That’s only half of it. We are savages, we don’t care about her scholarly heart,” she said. “Among us she’s known as the Orchard of White Death, the Ninth Tail of the Killing Storm. If she wanted to, she could drown whole islands in petals and poison. Calling her just a goddess of books and babies is… narrow.”

  Elayne opened her mouth, closed it again, and looked at Ilyra as if to ask whether this was madness or theology.

  I cleared my throat.

  “Different cultures emphasize different aspects of the same being,” I said. “What looks like a gentle snow to one valley might be a buried village to another. If Rinvara showed the Valtherians her storm face and you her patient scholar face, you’d both be right.”

  Ragna made a grudging sound. “Yeah, but why will you worship a weaker aspect of a deity? That doesn’t make sense,” she argued. “Whatever. I guess she likes her books too. But don’t act like she’s harmless.”

  The two girls remained quiet, unwilling to argue about theology before the Goddess’ statue. Ragna smiled as if she’d won and stepped forward until she stood at the base of the statue and looked up at it.

  “Hey,” she said quietly. “It’s been a while.”

  Elayne let out a small, disbelieving breath. Ilyra’s lips twitched. “You really just talk to them like that?” Ilyra asked, half to me.

  “Only to the ones she likes. Don’t count on her being friendly with the other Eleven.” I said, also surprised at that.

  She’d seemed pretty pissed at the Demi-God General’s monument, and yet now she looked chill. I assume that was because this Goddess had earned Mara’s approval? Whatever that meant.

  Before Ilyra could reply, something changed in the air.

  The faint smell of incense was suddenly cut by a fresher scent – sharp and sweet at once. Small white shapes appeared above Ragna’s head, then multiplied. Plum blossoms fell from nothing, spinning lazily down around her like someone had shaken the branches of an invisible tree.

  They brushed her shoulders and hair, but none landed on the floor.

  The nearest priests froze. One dropped his stack of hymn tablets. Petals drifted through his fingers and vanished before they could touch the stone.

  I caught myself staring.

  “Ah, they smell as wonderful as always,” Ragna said, closing her eyes and breathing in. She lifted a hand and let a blossom brush her fingers. “How’s the old wolf doing?” A moment later she scowled. “Come on, don’t be so jealous, I like you too. I remember my promise, you know? I plan to visit the eastern continent and visit your main temple after this.”

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  The petals swirled once more and dissolved into faint motes of light.

  Silence stretched for a few heartbeats.

  Ilyra’s eyes were wide. Elayne’s mouth had fallen open far enough to make her look much younger than she usually did.

  Even I had to fight the urge to look up and check whether some mage with a flower affinity was perched in the rafters as a joke.

  Without runes or magic circles, and with everyone else stunned, Ragna appeared delightfully content, as if she had happily reconnected with an old aunt while out shopping at the market.

  “You… can speak to Goddess Rinvara,” Ilyra said slowly. It wasn’t a question.

  Ragna shrugged. “Yeah, I spoke to her once or twice before, I wasn't sure if she would answer this time,” she said. “She was bored while I was bleeding. We had some time. She remembers.”

  A dozen little puzzle pieces shifted in my head.

  It's no surprise that Yrsa was disappointed with Ragna’s slow growth back home. When your daughter had god-touched instincts and made the rest of the tribe experience visions when she screamed as a child, you wouldn’t just want her to become "moderately strong."

  You’d expect her to make a mark on the world.

  It also made sense why she always got offended by churches and temples more than normal Valtherians maybe, since she could see who was behind those stones.

  Considering that, her brother surpassing her would have felt like an insult to fate itself. Yrsa wanted a lot more from her daughter. But that’s a conversation for later, I told myself.

  For now, we were here for something more practical.

  I stepped up beside Ragna and glanced at the statue. “We’re supposed to be proving a point,” I said quietly. “Think you can ask our divine lady to help with that?”

  Ragna snorted.

  “Of course,” she said. Then she raised her voice a little, not enough to turn it into a performance. “Lady Rinvara, I’ve got an annoying System Quest stuck to me. These people don’t believe it’s real. Would you mind showing them?”

  The gemstones in the statue’s brooch glimmered once.

  A soft light washed out from the stone feet, crawling up over Ragna’s boots and into her skin. The System obliged.

  [Ascension Quest: Guard a Noble Heir]

  Objective: Protect Lady Ilyra Marcellis, Ensure her Safety for 31 Days.

  Progress: Day 4 / 31

  Reward: Advancement to Fifth Ascension.

  The letters appeared before Ragna at chest height, clear and bright, suspended in the air. Not just for Ragna and me, I saw them reflected in Ilyra’s eyes.

  Elayne’s hand went to her sword hilt on instinct, then stopped when she realized there was no attack coming, only words.

  “So it's true,” she said, voice low. “The System really bound you to her protection.”

  Ilyra stepped closer, studying the floating text as if it were a new spell construct. “Day four,” she murmured. “So it began before the caravan?”

  “Started the moment we accepted that escort, it seems,” Ragna said. “We figured it was just a normal quest until the wording set in. Thirty?one continuous days is a long time to shadow someone like you.”

  “Someone like me?” Ilyra echoed.

  “A noble heir with so many enemies and a bad fiancé,” Ragna said bluntly. “I hate the stupid System but it doesn't hand out month?long protection jobs by accident.”

  Ilyra’s jaw tightened at the word fiancé. She folded her arms.

  “The timing is… interesting,” she admitted. “The same week we receive two quiet warnings from the capital about ‘stability in the east,’ and Velkor happens to have mercenaries in position to snatch me off a field.”

  “The System has a knack for assigning quests just before everything goes up in flames,” I said. “Trust me on that.”

  One of the older priests finally found his tongue. He hadn’t been standing close, but he must have seen the miracle. So he walked up to us in slow step. “My Lady,” he said to Ilyra, voice unsteady, “this… I have never seen a god answer so lightly to a barbarian’s call.”

  Ilyra glanced at him, then at Ragna, then shrugged slightly.

  “Perhaps our friends from Valtheria are more complex than they appear,” she said. “Or perhaps we should be grateful that Rinvara chose to respond to anyone at all in our lands, that shows she hadn’t abandoned us. Our troubles may soon be resolved.”

  She turned back to us.

  "In any case, this makes everything very clear,” she said, her voice steady and confident despite the weight of the situation. “We’ll take the necessary steps to ensure you’re nearby at all times. If the System insists on having you as my guardian for a whole month, I’d be a fool to argue against it.”

  Ragna's eyes sparkled with enthusiasm as she beamed. “It’s refreshing to meet someone who is easy to convince. I hope the month will be over quickly!”

  I had a feeling it wouldn't. If the System thought to assign Ilyra a personal guard despite being a count’s daughter, always guarded by knights, something terrible was coming for her. I wouldn’t be surprised, if a little sad, if she ended up dead during this month.

  ****

  Ilyra returned to her chambers and sat by the tall window. She watched the last light catch on the inner wall.

  From here the city looked peaceful. The market’s noise was just a gentle hum, and the Caedran Line outside the walls looked like a faint thread winding through the greenery. Only the unusually tight patrols on the ramparts signaled how narrowly today had avoided catastrophe.

  She leaned her cheek into her hand and let her eyes wander over the tower tops without really seeing them.

  Elayne stood near the door, arms folded, helm under one arm. She watched Ilyra for a while before speaking.

  She noticed your silence since leaving the church and asked, “I expected you to start shouting about Velkor and worried fathers by now. What’s bothering you?”

  “I’m thinking,” Ilyra said lightly, without looking away from the window.

  Elayne snorted, "That’s what worries me. You always make that same face when you’re plotting something terrible for someone. Is this about young master Lothar?”

  Ilyra’s lips twitched, but she didn’t give in to her anger toward that bastard. Her mind was elsewhere.

  The Valtherians had been… more than she expected.

  When she had first heard “barbarians from the volcanic islands,” she’d pictured muscles, loud noise, and occasionally useful brutality. Good for dealing with bandits and for impressing smallfolk with stories. Not for reshaping the fate of kingdoms.

  Then Thorvyn and Ragna had walked into Maricall, and the picture had shifted.

  Isolde has struck a jackpot, huh? She knew the current Thalassarian Queen; when that young girl had been a first-year at Waybound, Ilyra had been in her fourth year. They weren’t close, but they did share a few meals together.

  She knew about the recent Thalassarian situation, including both the official updates and the whispered gossip among the more curious nobles. There was the talk of a barbarian fighting like an avatar of a forgotten dragon god, and another who could bring down thunder like some mythical god. Much of it had to be exaggerated, she was sure, but after today’s incident, she wasn’t sure by how much.

  Putting faces to those rumors made them feel much less like stories.

  Ragna seemed straightforward at first glance – strong, loud, and direct. She was the type of woman who enjoyed lifting boulders and would laugh whenever anyone challenged her strength. However, beneath that exterior, Rinvara responded to her like an old friend, even when she was speaking comfortably about Demon God Mara that most Ethenian priests would not even dare to mention.

  Thorvyn was simpler.

  At first glance, he appeared to be just another strong barbarian, characterized by his muscular build. But he was quiet for a barbarian. Which suited his size, she assumed, however that wasn’t the Valtherian way, was it?

  But yes, he was much less interesting than Ragna. Though he was pretty strong. He had dismissed saving her as “being in the right place at the right time,” but his movements during Elayne’s retelling of his fight against the Red Ridge had not sounded like luck.

  Valtherians on their own were already a dangerous resource.

  Their highest legendary rank, the Magmaborn, stood at Ninth Ascension – on par with the Ethenian demi?gods. There were few of these in the entire world, and each one could shift borders or overthrow kingdoms. Ethenia’s Ninth Ascensions almost never involved imperial matters, they were the ‘trump cards’ of noble houses that didn’t step into any matter unless necessary. House Marcellis did have a trump card too, but not at 9th Ascension.

  But now…

  Even within Valtheria, Ragna and Thorvyn had to be special. She’d heard the current generation of Valtherians were sent out on a pilgrimage, but she had no doubt that the ordinary barbarians would not have succeeded in the struggles of Thalassaria. Someone in that molten nest had marked them out as future pillars.

  Well, Ragna at least, Ilyra thought. Thorvyn might just be the lucky quiet one who got dragged along.

  The way Ragna had spoken to Rinvara suggested she had been noticed early and pulled into the orbit of beings usually too far above mortals to care. And again, Magmaborn… that person would surely notice Ragna and support her. If Ilyra could bind Ragna to House Marcellis, even loosely, many things would change.

  Her House was not what it had been.

  The endless ambergrain fields were a relic of better years. Contracts diminished, rivals encircled, and the Emperor observed the western borders with the attention he typically reserved for matters that were either useful or potential threats.

  She had been raised knowing everyone had placed their bets on her.

  If she succeeded at the upcoming Mythborn Trials, her House would regain leverage. An heir who shone on the Empire’s greatest stage attracted contracts and favors. An heir who failed became a convenient example of “inevitable decline.”

  Right now, every ambitious lord in three provinces was watching to see which she would be.

  If those same people also saw two Valtherians at her back, and perhaps felt the faint shadow of the Gerholt the Magmaborn watching the moves around her, some of their braver ideas might die in the cradle.

  Valtheria valued its own. If young juniors like Thorvyn and Ragna chose to stand with Marcellis, there was a chance that the living disaster looming even above their volcanic throne would take an interest in whoever threatened them.

  That kind of interest could keep even an imperial minister up at night. All of that made her next thought feel less like whimsy and more like strategy.

  If I can make them mine, even a little…

  Not in chains. She had no wish to shackle them as Velkor tried to shackle her. But ties of loyalty, debt, maybe even affection. The sort of bonds that made people choose your land over another when the world started to split.

  Elayne shifted her weight.

  “That plotting look has to be the scariest to date,” she said. “I’m starting to miss when your plans stopped at annoying young master Velkor at every opportunity.”

  Ilyra laughed softly and finally turned from the window.

  “I still plan to annoy Velkor whenever possible,” she said, then her expression grew serious. “But our board just grew, Elayne. We’d be fools not to see that.”

  Elayne frowned. “You mean Ragna’s Ascension Quest?” she asked. “Or the fact that Rinvara herself seems to approve of her?”

  “Both,” Ilyra said. She considered for a heartbeat, then smiled, the kind of smile that usually made junior officers nervous. “Mostly I was thinking about what to do with Thorvyn.”

  Elayne raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, what to do with him?”

  “He’s not the main character here, but rather the medium through which I’ll get what I want. First I need to target him,” Ilyra said. She let her gaze drift back to the window for a moment, then fixed it on Elayne with a clearer light in her eyes.

  “...Target in what sense?”

  “I’ve decided something,” she said.

  Elayne straightened. “And what’s that…”

  “I’m going to tame Thorvyn Valteria,” Ilyra said calmly. “And when that’s done, I’ll see about the girl as well.”