I had remembered wrong. Basteing Day was five days out, which meant second sun would rise tomorrow.

It was set to be a scorcher.

At the moment, I'd unbuttoned my uniform, if only to let it vent in the godblessed breeze. We'd passed the hottest part of the day, a fact I was grateful for sleeping through as, even in white, I was already sweating.

Then again, I was a thick man with a lot of dark hair...

I eyed a couple of kids with jealousy as they pinwheeled along like tumbleweeds full of laughter. They weren't sweating...

Nevermind, I was grumbling again.

I kept to the dirt paths under the awnings of shops, greeting each of the shopkeeps and making pleasantries as I passed by. We had put in cobblestone years ago. Chalk-quartz, named for its resemblance to both. A strong, milky stone which held up well to the stress of hoof and heel, it littered the fields and thus was readily available.

The locals has used it for a long time in building their homes, using the bright color to keep the heat out.

That was the point. Keep the temperatures down. It worked, to a point, certainly keeping the breeze cooler than out in the fields. But when walking on it, the reflected light could leave sunburns if you stayed too long, like swimming in water on a bright day.

Not the brightest idea, I suppose.

But it matched the people, at least in the bright ferocity of their hearts, if not in the tones of their skin. This was a hot, grassy land, and the people here grew dark for it.

Jo and I tanned significantly in the summer months. I more than he, given house Ararat had been further from the capital, closer to Faen than any other house.

Poor Kel burned all year round. I'd never asked, but I expected that played a role in his desire to take the far quests and spend so much time Inside the empire.

He belonged in the forests.

I belonged... well, where did I belong?

A pair of young guards waved wildly at me from their post at the door of the training grounds. They bounced on their feet, as if at any moment they'd rush me, but something held them back. If I had seen this a decade ago, I'd have berated them for being too casual. Now...?

Now I wished they'd rush me.

"Gilly! Forent!" I yelled. They responded like pups. "How does the day treat you?"

"Like spoilt milk," Forent grimaced, waving at his underarms. He was dark in hair like me, and properly filled out as a man should be, and I wasn't jealous of him in the slightest. Even in this heat, he was clad in full gear, the thick leathers and wooden scalemail of a fully embraced gikkaro: the local's word for something akin to soldier.

They had no unified army before I appeared and their language reflected it. Frankly, we still had no unified army. More so, we had hunters.

Hunters, trained to hunt humans, and do so together.

Wolves, perhaps. Or their cousins, the brittlespine.

Gilly ignored the question and threw his arms around me. An absolutely plain-looking young man, average in nearly every way. "It's good to have you back, da."

"Where're you looking?" I tried at a rebuke, but couldn't put any weight behind it.

He looked up at me and beamed, knowing full well I was just as happy to see him, and unlikely to care much about his carefree attitude. We were a peaceful town that had never seen a fight.

Well, the locals had. But neither Gilly nor Forent were locals, and even the locals stopped fighting each other before I found either of the two orphans.

Excuse me. Ex-orphans.

I beckoned Forent over and pulled him into a group hug by the back of his neck. He'd always been shyer than Gilly to accept affection from men. That just wasn't done on the Inside.

"It's good to be back, boys." And then I clapped both of them on their helmets hard enough to catch their attention. "I won't tell Nissom about you losing focus. But if he catches you, I won't stop him either."

They balked, looked at each other, and snapped to with a salute.

I patted their shoulders as I walked between them and pushed open the doors to the training grounds. As they parted, a strong wind pushed against me from within, making the doors heavier.

It was a peculiarity of local design. Great chasms in the earth had taught their engineers to design tunnels which accelerated the wind. Doors like these were easy to open for the first handspan or three, but suddenly grew heavy as the wind began channeling through.

On a windy enough day, they could snap shut with force enough to break a man's arm, or remove fingers entirely.

It would throw off any attackers trying to break through, for sure. The initial ease would make the enemy think the doors would open fast and put their thrust into it. But in the moments when the doors grew heavy, in the few seconds gap of confusion, the defenders could get a few spear thrusts in to good effect. Then, when the attackers let off, the wind would snap the door shut.

It suited the locals. Brilliant, and terrifying.

Ragi-mo suutre gofuta. Kill them with the wind. Or more literally: by the rage of god's breath, bring to a close. A moto of the locals, and of Nissom from Outside.

I moved through the tunnel, the thunderclap of the door echoing past me, heralding my arrival.

Nissom stood at the far entrance, on the sand-strewn training field, dark as a cliff over churning waters. His hair, the grey of stormy clouds, braided and clasped with silver and beastiron.

Older than me.

The only man I would spend a fortune to keep from fighting.

"Nissom! Friend, Thakiil mal lo-kkune." May it go well with the second sun. A greeting in his language.

He had noticed me, but gave no outward sign.

I knew this because the man missed nothing.

Even if chained and half blind from a whipping, he would not miss the ant crawling from a fracture in the wall by his feet and by that have calculated the exact design of the structure and where to place the force of a pull, so as to bring down the wall and put the tip of the chain in your eye in the same action.

Yes, if I had to fight him, I would probably win. But it was only a 'probably', and I'd likely come out crippled in some way. He was weaker than me. Slower. But his genius...

Some men have talent, but don't make effort, and it goes to waste. Some make effort, but never go as far those with both talent and effort both.

I had both.

But then there was Nissom, who had talent, effort, and genius to boot. It lay in his placement. He saw things in an instant which took me much planning to see.

But for all his gifting, he was also... cracked.

He understood the movement of bodies.

But he did not understand the movement of people.

I reached out and he turned my way, grabbing my arm above the wrist. I did the same. The local way of greeting a fellow gikkaro. People tell me my arms feel like stone wrapped in leather. His arm felt like iron.

But he took my hand like a puppet, going through the motions.

I say he turned my way because he did not look at me. His eyes rarely looked at anything. There was a glaze, a slight unfocused look at all times. Not distracted, no. He was taking in everything all at once.

His face itself reminded me of a sculpture I'd seen in a master artisan's workshop by the palace. I'd complemented the work. But the master had scoffed, saying it was unfinished and still needed polishing. It had been unusual, sharp angles giving the impression of a man, but not yet realistic. I liked it.

If the sculptor had met Nissom, he would understand his work was quite realistic.

And yet...

"The top five buttons on your uniform are undone," Nissom said.

It wasn't a rebuke. Nissom didn't rebuke anyone. He stated facts and did what was necessary to fix what he viewed as flaws.

With others, that could become severely unpleasant. There were many reasons his people fought before I came, and he was most of them.

With me, he learned to merely tell me what I had done which he disliked.

He was a damn frustrating man. But I could never get truly mad at him, for there was no malice in him, only an odd, mechanical mannerism. I'd learned this long ago.

I had also learned I would get nowhere with him if I didn't fix it immediately, so I dutifully buttoned up my uniform.

I glanced at the young men, scrapping about in the yard, feet kicking up the sands. I wanted to ask about them. But Nissom would not understand really what I was asking about, so I held back.

I chose my next words carefully. "Tell me, friend. Do your legends include examples of a god catching a sickness like men do?"

Silence.

I could almost imagine the fingers of a merchant in his head, flickering on an abacus, taktaktaktaktaktaktaktakta-

"Four."

That was more than I was expecting.

"Would you tell them to me?"

"Yes. When Kwensola, mother of the sun, gave birth, a great red drop fell to the earth. 'Oh, my child! Is it a man?' she cried, and a man rose out of the bloody soil, blood and soil, a manchild. She screamed as her pains came upon her once more, great droplets of sweat falling to the earth like rain-"

And he proceeded to quote an entire chapter from their sacred stories. I politely waited for him to end, at which point he asked if he had shared too much.

"Yes," I said simply.

He took bluntness well, never even remotely offended. He also asked these kinds of questions with fair regularity, though less so in recently years. But it did not feel like a relationship, more so like he memorized our patterns of speech and behavior.

"Where should I have stopped?" he asked.

Hm, that was tricky question. But I suggested, "Once they stop writing about the symptoms."

He nodded, and launched into the second example, anticipating I would ask for it. The story was the same sort as the other, a god mother giving birth, only this time experiencing what we called morning sickness.

Not exactly the kind of sickness I was thinking of.

Plus, these were accounts of creation: before mankind existed, or at our inception. Those weren't eye witness accounts, which is what I was more so looking for.

Then again, I didn't exactly come to Nissom for that, did I? Very unlike the rumors and historical accounts of the gods as told on the Inside, here in the Outside, Nissom's people told a different kind of story. Myth. Something truer than history or rumor.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Not that I believed in his people's stories. I just found them more sensible, considering the finitude and corruption of mankind. The recording of history was a human endeavor and, as such, was inherently flawed. But a myth? Only a myth suggested an inhuman source, and as such, only a myth had the potential to be wholly just...

Nissom began a third story.

"And when they brought forth a stone from the land of his birth, his legs lost their strength. He wavered as a drunk man wavers and could not leap over the goads. And pallor covered his face, and great drops of sweat fell from his face like rain, and light fell from his eyes, and his tongue grew fat in his mouth-"

And he stopped.

I waited, then asked, "Is there more?"

"No. That is where the symptoms end."

Ah. "Who is the man?"

"He is Lel-Ka, last son of those who dwell in Ton-Kreep. He was abandoned as a child, sent away in safety when his homeland was destroyed. His lineage is unknown, raised by-"

I gave a silent sigh and a resigned smile, and waited for him to stop.

He went on for quite some time.

----------------------------------------

A man caught me when I was halfway back to the guild. Jackar, an ex-bandit. The one with a bit of a lope to his walk, as if used to moving quickly and quietly.

Gee, I wonder where he got that...

"Master Outsider! Friend," he called me, waving with a pleasant expression, if a bit bashful, as a wolf keeps its tail low before its alpha. "Miss Miri sent me after you. We-" He autocorrected, "She has words for you. I mean, she has news for you. She's not upset or anything-"

"I know, man," and I gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

He glanced at his shoulder with a touch of embarrassment, but didn't cringe away like he used to. Improvement. He was not a new acquisition. But neither was he entirely used to our ways.

It was different, that way, with men rather than children. Even the women, however rare they were, generally took to us quick as the children. Or close to it. But the men...

I remembered it myself, in my early years after the exile.

Long used to living in a drought of affection, the grounds of a my heart were harder than most, especially women or children. Like cracked earth, sooner to flood than drink in the rain. I had to be broken, first. Tilled like the fields, and softened. But even then, in the early years, affection was almost more painful than the breaking.

"Come, walk back with me," I said. "Did she say what the news was?"

He fell in beside and slightly behind me. "No." Then he belatedly added, "Master Outsider."

I snorted. "You don't have to call me master, you know."

"It... feels wrong, if I don't." But he didn't tack 'master' on at the end. "But... it feels wrong, if I do. Also, I mean. It feels wrong also. It also feels wrong. Eh..."

Everyone had their tics and habits. Jackar felt his words and had a bit of an obsession, or a compulsion, to find the way to say a thing to avoid being misunderstood.

To use fighting as an example, he was the kind of man who was always on the lookout for harm, saw it in every flinch and twitch of a finger, and thereby was very easy to trick with a feint.

They took advantage of him, back on the Inside. It was easy to.

"It's okay if we don't understand you at first," I told him. "We can figure it out. You're safe here," and I threw an arm around him and kept walking.

Being a much weaker man, his feet stuttered as the new connection between us forced him to find my pace and match it. The exact speed we were going would keep him off balance, so I slowed down enough to make it work for him.

"...safe. Okay, thanks, I guess." He didn't look at me when he said it.

We walked in comfortable silence.

Well, comfortable for me, anyhow.

"Can I come with you next time?" he asked. "Inside."

"What does Nissom say of your fighting skill?"

He cringed. "This is gonna sound like an excuse..."

"So say it anyway. Some excuses are just explanations. It's my job to determine what is what, and I can't vindicate you if you say nothing at all."

"...fair. Then, in that case, I think he expects too much of me. Of us. Of anyone. He's too much of a perfectionist. He's constantly correcting me, pointing out where I'm wrong and never saying where I've got better. It's ...discouraging."

I grimaced. "You have a point about Nissom there. But even I've never been able to change that about him. What do your mates say?" I asked, referring to those who had been training with him.

"...I haven't asked. I mean, they're not trainers or anything."

"But they can point out where they got you in a spar before, where now they can't."

"...fair."

"And what if I praised you?"

He actually looked at me for once in the conversation. "...but you haven't seen me train. You wouldn't know if I've got better."

"Would it make you happy anyhow?"

"...probably."

"That would be great!" I said extra loud, slapping him on the back extra hard. He stumbled, and he glowered at me behind that involuntary smile of his. But he caught himself sooner than the last time I'd done that. His stance was better, his response swifter, with less unnecessary movement.

"Then perhaps you don't need to hear truth about your skill," I continued, "but only need to know you're well-liked. Life is easier when all you need is need a mote of encouragement."

We stopped outside the great wooden doors to the guildhall, carved with the symbol of a rose covered in thorns. Commons just on the other side, and Miki likely at her desk, we'd reached our destination. But my talk with him wasn't done, so I turned to face him, patiently waited for his reply.

I didn't have to wait long.

"...but you won't take me until Nissom graduates me." It wasn't a question. His shoulders slumped in resignation, like a dog who didn't get the treat he asked for.

I didn't like that.

"Correct," I replied.

"...so what's the point of being happy as your praise? I still need to know if I'm getting better." A dark shadow crossed beneath his face, beneath the skin. A hint of the old Jackar, like a growl deep in the throat.

A whiff of bitterness like a bad wind.

"Any encouragement received will strengthen a man, and any strength will make you do better."

He looked away, and by his posture I could tell me words were no longer sinking into him.

He was closing off.

I thought about telling him about how he hadn't stumbled when I struck him. But I didn't want to feed this mindset. He protested at Nissom being a perfectionist. But for all Nissom was hard as cracked earth and cold as the northern sea, his pupils excelled under him, finding their encouragement elsewhere. Given time, they all stopped being irritated by the man.

No, Nissom was perfect in war. But he was not a perfectionist. If you left him alone, he would leave you alone.

Jackar was different. He struggled to leave himself alone, eating away at his own spirits like a dog caught in a trap. He was easily distracted, preoccupied with his own perceived faults.

I couldn't rely on somebody distracted like that. Worse, they couldn't rely on themselves. Good, skilled men died on the battlefield for a second's distraction, be it their own, or their squadmate's.

No, I wasn't going to send this man to his death just because he asked.

I wanted him on my team. I wanted to take him with us! So we trained him. We put Nissom in charge of the newest recruits because nobody else was so perfect as him. He could carve the martial errors out of a man like a surgeon carves out a bullet.

Likewise, I was in charge of carving out the errors from their hearts. And right now, that meant not strengthening Jackar's reliance on his perception of success. So for all that he didn't stumble as much when I struck him, I put the thought away for another time. No, right now, what Jackar needed was something he did not want...

"Jackar, go see Vander."

"...what?! What did-" He cut himself off and began to pull away from me. "I didn't do anything wrong..." Yet even as he spoke it, he trailed off, tone lifting it into a question.

The poor man doubted himself too much.

I gripped him by the arm, grounding him and keeping his spirits near. I looked him hard in the eyes. He looked away at first, but managed to hold my gaze, which was a good sign. "Do you trust me?"

"...yes, Master Outsider."

Dammit.

"Then, when you sit with Vander, tell him everything. You know he is patient. And please, don't call me master. Of all people, you would do well to call me Gareth."

He held himself, an arm across his body, hand clenching the other arm. An old habit. One I hadn't seen in quite some time.

His spirits were so low, so quiet. The walls were back. For as much as I wanted to encourage him, he would hear nothing I could say.

"...some of my stuff is still in the commons," he muttered. Likely to explain why he hadn't left yet.

We entered, and I left him to his business. I saw his mates greet him, their faces and posture changing as they noticed his mood. One of the guys reached for him, but he shook off the touch and gathered up his things. One of the others looked to me.

I did not give a reassuring smile or wave, and walked away.

----------------------------------------

Miri was, in fact, at her desk. She had also been waiting for me and saw the display with Jackar and his mates.

"Did you send him with the news, knowing what would happen," I asked as we approached each other.

"Yes, but no. I saw he couldn't feel his friends laughter."

I grunted in reply. On one hand, Vander was one of the best men here. On the other hand, it hurt me to send Jackar to him, which left me in a rare mood, contrary emotions swirling like the place where oceans meet.

"So, you had news?"

She held my gaze and tilted her head, as if drilling into me. "Your boy is well."

"...excuse me? You mean he's doing better?"

"No, I mean he is well, and pretending he is not."

She was not one to mistake this and I took her word as truth. I rocked back on my heels, looking up into the rafters, at nothing, in order to give myself space to process the news. "But he was burning up this morning."

"I know."

Right, she was the one to put the rag on his head.

"...you now, Nissom had something strange to say."

She merely waited, her way of saying 'go on.'

"Come, walk with me." And I moved us towards the hallways, in the direction of the kid, but also back where people were few, and less likely to overhear. "His stories were creation myth, a few accounts of morning sickness or birthpains in god-mothers. But one differed, speaking of a god-man who lost his powers when exposed to a rock from his home country. It didn't seem like sickness so much as weakness, though. But..."

I trailed off.

She understood, putting a finger to her lips in thought. "Solace of the Twin Suns had his suns swallowed by Nightmaker's black orb in the desolation of Shallath," she mused. "Tiny-Mercy, the Goddess in Faen, can cure any affliction, even curses placed by the gods. These set precedence for gods canceling each others' powers."

"So even if they can't get sick, if one could perhaps cancel their ...diving gifting, so to speak ...then they could?"

"It is sensible."

I suddenly stopped, the icyhot prickling of good fear cascading through my skin. "So, if he is the little god, then his powers have returned."

"...it is sensible."

I held her gaze. She did not falter and neither did I.

"...he is young. Perhaps his powers..."

But Miri said what I already knew. "Do not underestimate the might of a god."

Yes, I knew that better than anyone. "Do we let on...?"

"That we think he is a god?" She shook her head. "No, not yet. He pretended to still be sick with me. Why?"

"To remain seeming as a normal boy, I imagine. Which is strange behavior, given how all the other gods flaunt who they are. Even the little god is rumored to show his powers wantonly."

"It would be good to recall those powers," she advised me.

I nodded. "But still, why hide? To infiltrate? Odd plan, if that is the aim. He could have just pretended to be a normal boy."

She pursed her lips. "You were not as cautious with this one, him being sick and all."

"True, but I also did not find him on the road."

She tilted her head at that. A bang finally fell loose again. She, of course, tucked it back behind a fair ear.

I began to explain, "The drake made all kinds of a fuss and ran off into the woods as if..." Oh. "Then, perhaps he has the power to draw aggression." It was a known ability of some of the gods. "But that also works on men, and I felt nothing."

"Perhaps they can make it more selective."

"But we're also saying he didn't have his powers."

"No, we're suggesting that his divine immunity had been canceled. Perhaps intentionally..."

"...then to draw me to him with the aggression of the drake, and pull on my heartstrings when I was already exhausted out of my mind, all to infliltrate as a normal boy." I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes, scratching at my beard. "It's brilliant, if you know me. But also tremendously convoluted. It also suggests he is working with another god, the one who canceled out his blessing, as I doubt they can just turn them off on their own. And why? If they want to destroy us, just two could do that!"

"You are Gareth GodKiller."

"You suggest they fear me? Miri! The Wickerman took down a battalion before I got him, and even then, I've never been more scared in my life! Gool, a dragon, was an easier fight!"

"I never said the gods are rational, Gareth GodKiller." And she smirked. "Did they witness the fight? If not, then all they have is the same stories which men have inflated over the decades."

"...you suggest they think me greater than I am?"

"I suggest they may know things about how gods come into existence. Kel says some of the people whispered things of you before your exile, and then you did what none could think of doing."

"...you suggest they think me a god? Woman!" A smile took my face and in turn I took her arm and shook her. Gently, mind you. "Woman! You're mad."

Her eyes shone like the night, clear as bathwater, shimmerent with silent laughter. "I suggest they don't know. Perhaps that's why they would send a boy to get close to you. Who else can get under the skin of Gareth OrphanHunter?"

I peered down at Miri, allowing her to see how perplexed and amused the name made me feel. It had a certain indecency, a certain violence to it that I did not dislike. "Who calls me that, woman?"

"I do."

I let her go. "Hmph. So then. If the intent is to trick me, then do we let him think he has succeeded?"

"If they only want information, then he may flee when he has it. If we never give it, he may push us to expose it, which will likely end in a fight. Do you think he has the patience for a long game like that? He is a child."

"If he is a god, he may have more patience."

"If he is a god, he may have less."

I outright ripped a laugh right then and there, only to clap a hand over my mouth, looking down both ends of the hallway we had stopped in. We were close enough to the guest wing that he may have heard that.

Hm, what kind of hearing did a god have? Or magicks for listening?

I lowered my voice. "I am not Kel. It seems best to me to skip past all the games and expose him here and now, when we have the advantage of choosing when and where. You say Kel will be back tomorrow?"

She nodded.

"Then it shall be then. Go, tell Nissom, Cheshur, and Tennsy of this. Tennsy will have a good mind for where to stage the thing."

"Tennsy is not yet back."

I snapped my fingers in frustration. "Fine, then it will be in the training grounds. Nissom is most intimate with that place, so he will be at his best there."

Miri nodded and I turned to go.

"Gareth," she said, catching my arm with a hand. She rarely did that. Her eyes shown with concern like skies after rain. "What if we are wrong?"

"And he is not a god?"

"And he is a god and a boy?"

Sometimes I was not the best with understanding others. She must have seen that on my face, as she clarified, "an orphan, Gareth. An orphaned god."

A memory played in my mind from the night before. It came to me clearer now. The boy had put up a fuss as the bathsteward tried to take him from me-

No, when I tried to give him to the steward.

Don't let me go, don't let me go, don't let-

Was he trying to stick to his mark even under the delusion of a sickness? Was it all a lie, even the sickness, some great illusion? No, if it was an illusion, he would have kept it going. Miri would not have been able to see it for a lie.

I turned away from her, suddenly tired. A great weight hung on my heart, chest tight with the burden of a ruler who fears he just might be too weak to save those under his rule.

I heaved a sigh and straightened my shoulders. "Then I need to remember I am well-liked by our god. Only then can I be strong enough to try."

I had to try. To be strong enough to defeat a god without killing him. And she knew it.

Four men. Our best fighters.

Would it be enough?

I set off down the hallway to find a little god.