The sneering priest shook his head and pointed toward the blank-faced Juatan as he spoke.

“What’s with that look? I would think a ‘Guardian’ would have had better control over his flock. Then again, I guess that was asking too much of a barbarian. Yes, I remember you, Juatan. Given the ruckus you caused all those years ago, how would I not? Some no-name barbarian appears from nowhere, only to weasel his way into the Guardian academy. Even after all this time, people still talk about how you cheated to snatch your graduation position away from those more deserving.”

In response, Juatan stood taller and glared down at the priest through the bars.

“Is that what this is? Some petty noble upset he was beaten in a fair duel years ago? I’d have thought a few decades in the temple should have taught you a mote of humbleness, Priest Tarkhan?”

The priest’s face went red, and his eyes bulged but quickly returned to a calm sneer.

“Deny it all you wish. Your lies won’t help you this time. After hearing the rumors of what you did to my cousin when you arrived yesterday, I knew I made the right choice in protecting the Head Priest from your poisonous tongue. Then, after all that, you have the gall to attack a temple messenger?! You’ve dug your own grave this time, Guardian, and I’ll happily see you buried in it.”

Ganbaatar pushed himself up against the bars beside Juatan and yelled.

“What messenger! We told you we were the ones attacked!”

Tarkhan turned to Ganbaatar and sneered,

“Humph. So you say. Yet our real Guardians found no bodies, equipment, or even traces of this ‘black fire’ that you claim consumed them. On the other hand — ”

Tarkhan turned and gestured to the nearby doorway. A young man covered in bloodstained bandages entered the room. He walked with a slight limp, slowly, each step seeming to be a struggle. Upon seeing the Slatewalkers in the cell, he jumped, hiding behind the priest, as if afraid they could reach him from the bars.

Tarkhan patted the young man on his shoulder and turned back to the Slatewalkers, frowning.

“ — We have eyewitnesses that will attest to seeing the messager enter the inn, only to come running out several minutes later, covered in blood and yelling for help. Had a Guardian patrol not passed by at that moment, I shudder to think what you ruffians would have done to him.”

Ganbaatar pointed at the “messenger” and yelled, his face turning red.

“That’s elkcrap! We’ve never seen this man in our lives!”

Tarkhan rolled his eyes and responded.

“Riiight. As if that’s not something a child caught with his hand in the honeypot would say. But then I wouldn’t expect critical thinking from someone associated with such… company.”

Tarkhan turned his narrowed eyes to Juatan, frowning.

The priest turned to leave but spoke over his shoulder.

“Now, all that’s left is to wait for the Innkeeper to awaken and confirm the story. I was hoping to have you lot in a noose by the end of the day, but lucky for you, the healer doesn’t expect the man to wake for a few days more. Until then, you can spend the Darkest Night in a cell. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have more important matters to attend to.”

As he moved to leave, another voice called out from in the cell.

“Priest Tarkhan, whatever grievances you might have against us, you’re not a stupid man. Surely you can see that something doesn’t quite add up here?”

Tarkhan paused and turned to see a freshly awoken Kallik walk to the bars. He narrowed his eyes and responded.

“Don’t think your Adventurer mind games will work on me, Grassreader. I’ve heard quite a bit about you, and you’re just as bad as the barbarian. Don’t think the accords will keep you safe. I’ll be speaking with the Grassreader’s Council personally.”

Kallik shook her head and folded her arms.

“That’s a mistake, Priest Tarkhan, and you know it. If Head Priest Erden heard how — ”

Tarkhan took several steps forward, pointing at the Grassreader as a vein pulsed on the side of his neck.

“Head Priest Erden won’t hear of this, of any of this. He is a far busier man than most, and — ”

An unfamiliar voice called out behind the door, cutting the priest off.

“And why exactly wouldn’t I hear about this, Priest Tarkhan?”

Tarkhan froze, his eyes wide. Slowly, he turned and came face to face with an older man wearing ornate robes. The Head Priest was the picture of a kindly old grandfather whose wrinkled face told the story of a man more accustomed to laughing than otherwise. Yet the gentle smile and squinting eyes sent Priest Tarkhan shivering. Priest Tarkhan bowed deeply and spoke in a stuttering voice.

“S-Sir! Why are you h-here?! You don’t n-need to concern yourself with these… criminals! I can assure you, e-everything is well in hand!”

Head Priest Erden stroked his short, gray beard and stared down at the shaking priest. His smile slipped into a frown, and his eyes opened slightly, revealing concentric black and white rings. When he spoke, his voice was flat.

“You know I don’t like being kept out of the loop, Tarkhan. Please explain to me why you thought I would ignore allegations of one of our messengers being attacked?”

The old man turned and smiled fatherly at the injured “messenger.” The young man turned away and hid behind Tarkhan.

Tarkhan didn’t bother to rise as he spoke.

“Head Priest! I didn’t intend to overstep my boundaries! With the Darkest Night approaching, I only assumed that you would be far too busy to hear out such… outrageous claims from such dubious origin.”

Head Priest Erden nodded but asked in response.

“That’s true. This time of the year is quite busy. This year, more so than most. However, I distinctly remember that any information regarding the missing child was to be brought to me immediately, regardless of how minor it might seem. Yes?”

That got Tarkhan’s attention, and the priest stood, pointing as he cried.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

“Sir! You can’t possibly trust anything a barbarian like this has to say, let alone any of his compatriots! His kind are why we were forced to these prairies in the first place!”

Head Priest Erden tilted his head and raised a brow, then asked.

“Oh? And why would I not want to hear from the messengers sent by our own patron?”

Tarkhan stuttered, his brow furrowing as if unable to fully process the Head Priest’s words.

Head Priest Erden turned and called out behind him.

“These are your companions, correct, my new friend? Or has this old fool embarrassed himself?”

A new figure walked into the room and nodded his head, the same concentric black and white rings as the Head Priest’s staring daggers into Priest Tarkhan. His eyes only flickered over for a moment to the people in the cell before he spoke.

“Yes, sir, that’s them.”

Head Priest Erden nodded his head in understanding, while Priest Tarkhan could only stare at the young man’s eyes, his mouth opening and closing as if trying to speak, but no words would form.

Ganbaatar was the one to break that silence as he pushed himself up against the bars, grinning ear to ear as he laughed and yelled.

“YUTU! About time you woke up, you lazy bum!”

— — — — — —

Several hours earlier.

— —

Yutu slowly woke from a dream he couldn’t quite remember, of places and things he’d never seen or imagined before. They were strange dreams filled with equal parts wonder, excitement… and soul-chilling sorrow. Even now, in this liminal place between wakening and dreaming, he could feel that mind-numbing chill weight heavy on his soul. As if all sparks of warmth and joy had long faded, leaving cold, barren stone in its place.

Only the tiny embers hiding under the ash kept him from totally freezing over. Kept him from giving in to the call of lifeless, unmoving stone. And then… it was gone.

He was awake.

Yutu shot up in bed with a yell, reaching out for something he didn’t fully remember. His heart pounded painfully in his chest, and hot tears rolled down his cheek. Slowly, reality reasserted itself. Yutu looked around the room, unsure of where he was.

The last thing he remembered was fighting the Beast Lord. He’d just activated his formation after the Akh’lut pup and the strange spirit beast had appeared. They had the Beast Lord trounced, but then… he raised a shaking hand to his chest, feeling the bandages neatly wrapped there.

No… no, that wasn’t quite right either. There was more, he knew. But it was all hazy and distorted. He couldn’t rightly distinguish between what had been real and what had been a dream. Even so, one thing stood out in his memory as clear as day. A face. The face of a woman beautiful beyond words. A face touched by the sun, but perfect, as if carved from pure marble by the hands of a master artist.

And those eyes.

Deep, piercing eyes unlike anything he’d ever seen before, more gemstone than anything, yet alien, with concentric black and white rings of equal size converging into a pupil so black he felt like they had no bottom.

The sound of the door opening broke him from his daydreaming as an older woman walked in carrying a tray. Seeing Yutu sitting up, the woman jumped but smiled brightly as she spoke.

“You’re awake! Good! That’s good! We thought you might be out for a few days more, sonny. Don’t see many civilians come in with injuries as bad as yours. Lay back, lay back, don’t want to open up your wounds now.”

The woman walked forward with her tray, grinning ear to ear.

“I’ll let the doctor know you’re awake, and then we can see about getting you some food. How does — ”

Yutu turned to look at the woman, and she froze. She stared at the young man for a moment. Her mouth hung open, cut off mid-word, and her eyes widened. The tray slipped from her hands and clattered to the floor, medical tools and fresh bandages skidding across the floor.

The woman turned and bolted for the door, yelling at the top of her lungs.

“Doctor! DOCTOR!!!”

— —

Head Priest Erden sat at his desk and continued to tackle the seemingly never-ending pile of paperwork stacked on one side. Long were the days when he was a simple priest, tending to the flock and doing simple chores. No, now every stroke of his pen had the potential to shake entire cities and decide the fate of countless souls.

The Jadewalkers were only a middling city on the scale of the Radiant Sea and even a smaller one compared to some of the most prosperous cities on the Skybreaker continent. That didn’t mean being the spiritual leader for the entire city was easy, however. That wasn’t even considering the dozens of towns and villages under the Jadewalker banner, each with their own individual problems and needs.

It didn’t help that despite being recognized by the general public as a “religion,” the Temple of the Prima operated more like a sect or clan. Just one where their “sect leaders” happened to be the physical manifestation of natural forces. That meant all the drama, squabbling, and competition between the Prima factions that came along with it. Not that the Prima interacted with the mortal world much at all, to begin with.

Only Fēnghuǒ the Forgeking, Lord of Embers, remained active, though only to endlessly demand tribute from his followers to work on some grand project that only the higher-ups of the Temple even had an inkling about the details of.

The Herald of Storms had little contact with mortals to begin with. For good reasons, too, as both his temper and his blessing could be as destructive as his namesake.

While the Sleeping Child of the Deep preferred her never-ending war under the waves rather than dealing with the politics and schemes of the surface world.

As for his own Hearth Mother… well, it had been millennia since she’d been called that. Instead of the “Mother of Hearth and Home,” now these days she was more likely to be addressed as “Queen of the Underworld” or the Lady of Cold Stone. No one knew what caused such a drastic shift in their patron. What had caused all the warmth she’d once had for her people to flicker and die? If her siblings knew, none would say.

Many in the temple looked to take after their patron and become shining beacons of apathetic stoicism, unwavering and undaunted by any outside force. Yet just as many sought to keep the old ways. To remember when their faction sought not to be the ever-unchanging Stone but the sheltering and protecting Brick. The unmovable wall that stood between an uncaring world and its people. The warm hearth that welcomed you home after a long journey.

Head Priest Erden shook his head and stared down at the paper that had sat unsigned on his desk for several minutes. He’d let his mind wander again. He found it was happening more and more lately. Even as a peak [Sixth Circle] Mage, roughly equivalent to a [Golden Spirit] Cultivator, Head Priest Erden found himself starting to feel the tug of old age. He’d known he’d risked falling behind the curve when he took this position in the Radiant Sea almost a century ago, but how he missed the days when he could stand without clicking.

Erden put down his pen and stretched his old bones. Maybe it was time he finally thought about retiring. The senior priests had been nagging him about his successor for a while now, and he had to admit, having the time to do some proper mage work for once was appealing.

He glanced over at the enormous pile of papers he could have sworn were a few sheets larger than the last time he looked and sighed. Then again, he still had so — .

The door to Head Priest Erden’s office slammed open, and a young priest stumbled in, gasping for breath, his otherwise neat stone gray robes ruffled and sweat-stained.

“H-head *heave* Head Priest *huff* Erden!”

Head Priest Erden shot to his feet and moved to help the man.

“What?! What happened, my boy?”

The priest held out a hand, trying to check his breath. When he did, he pointed down the hall and said in gasping breaths.

“The *gasp* medical wing.”

— —

A few moments of light jogging later, Head Priest Erden rounded the corner to find a swarm of priests and acolytes crowding the hall, all trying to push their way in or see something inside.

He spent a moment trying to politely push his way through, to no avail. The Head Priest frowned and stepped back before clearing his throat.

AHEM!

The sound washed over the crowd like a wave, jostling a few and nearly toppling some of the younger acolytes. The crowd grew silent and turned, staring at the frowning Head Priest with wide eyes. As one, they bowed and scattered on the wind, leaving only a few ruffled-looking senior priests standing in the doorway. Head Priest Erden sighed and shook his head.

As the Head Priest approached, the guarding priests bowed and let him through.

Head Priest Erden walked through the doorway to see a different crowd this time. A small mix of doctors, nurses, and priests surrounded a young man sitting on the bed. The nurses poked and prodded the young man, taking various samples or changing his bandages, while the doctor shone a beam of light from his finger into the boy’s eyes, peering at something.

Hearing him approach, the doctor turned and smiled, saying,

“Ah! Head Priest Erden! I’m glad you could make it so quickly. I think you need to see this.”

Head Priest Erden raised an eyebrow and tilted his head. See what? What was so wrong with the boy that they had to pull him away from paperwork to deal with? He didn’t look like he was dying.

Head Priest Erden moved closer, and the boy turned to look at him. The Head Priest’s eyes shot open wide, and he froze. That was when two pairs of matching concentric black and white ringed eyes met each other for the first time.

Looking back, many years later, Head Priest Erden would realize it was also that moment the rusting gears of a clock that had laid dormant for millennia began to move once more.