As her father's armies began the march to the north, Kiera Blaine remained in her tent and continued to heal all in need. But when her father discovered that she was lingering behind, he issued a direct royal decree, summoning her to his side. She was forced to turn away a handful of elderly locals when the honor guard arrived to escort her away. It was dusk when she arrived at her father's tent. Her father was busy debating the logistics of the army with his generals. As such he refused to see her and the honor guard abandoned her to her own whims.

There was a Founder's Tomb directly to the north, and, like all Founder's Tombs, it featured an altar dedicated to Mother Summer and Father Winter, housed within a stone shrine. Those lost souls of the east, in the Theocracy of the Lawgiver, proclaimed eternal enmity with her ancient gods, but even they would never deface such a shrine. To do so would draw the ire of the Elder Saint.

Kiera commanded her servants to set up camp on the hill overlooking the Founder's Tomb. Within the privacy of her tent, her handmaidens set up a bath using a sawed-off wooden wine cask. Finally clean and smelling of scented oils, and garbed in a humble dark dress common to worshippers, she made her way into the shrine. The Eyes of Empire stood guard outside.

The chamber was dominated by two stone statues standing side-by-side. To Kiera's left stood the statue of Mother Summer, a young woman in a flowing dress holding a basket filled with fruits. By contrast, the fearsome Father Winter stood to the right. In one hand he held a rifle, and in the other a lantern. His trusty hunting hounds lounged lazily at his feet. Mother Summer was the goddess of fertility, kindness, empathy, and health. It was Mother Summer who founded the great Festival of Love, a gathering of young people from distant lands, so that they might get married and have healthy children. By contrast, Father Winter was a hateful demon who left his own children to the wolves if they were blind or deaf or their bodies were deformed.

All the men in the world (the fools) worshiped Father Winter, who gave them the strength to endure the horrors of the battlefield. All the women in the world worshiped Mother Summer, so that they might endure the pain of childbirth and in so doing fill their lives with love.

All the women in the world, except Sasha Varelion.

The Blue Wolf was clad in the famed armor of Varelion, the matron of her bloodline. It was constructed entirely of tightly-interlocking ethersteel scales, which were so old that they were coated in a thin sheen of verdigris. In the correct light, this gave the armor a blue-green color, iridescent like the shell of an insect or the feathers of a male bird. The armor fit her perfectly, revealing every curve of her feminine form. The scandal!

Lucia Aden knelt on the left, praying silently to Mother Summer, as was proper. Sasha was, as always, kneeling before the statue of Father Winter, and her prayers were anything but silent.

"I will crush them!" Sasha announced. "I will crush this false religion."

Kiera shuffled between them and knelt before the statue of Mother Summer. Thank you, she prayed silently. Thank you, Mother Summer, for giving me the strength to heal my father's men. Never before in my life have I seen such strength, and perhaps never again shall I witness it. I know that this strength was given to me by you, Mother Summer. Thank you.

"Father Winter," Sasha continued, "if you are real. If you are not just an ancient hoax, then you will give me the strength I need to smash their armies. You will give me the strength to rid this world of that abomination of a religion."

She often said such heretical things.

"Father Winter," Kiera said, "will not respond or even acknowledge a challenge so rooted in false faith."

"We shall see," Sasha replied. "I knew that I would find you here, Kiera, if I waited."

She ascended the shallow steps, spun around to face Lucia and Kiera, and plopped her bottom right on top of the altar itself. Kiera gasped. The sacrilege!

Then Sasha said: "I will now reveal to you both one of the cherished family secrets that has been passed down in my family since before the time of the Charlatan King. I will speak of the secret history of House Renna."

"True knowledge of the world before the war is very rare," Lucia said suspiciously. "The oculomancers wanted us to forget, and they were mostly successful in their efforts. My family remembers nothing. How do you know your information is accurate?"

"Lucia, my love, I would never lie to you. I heard this story from my great grandfather while he was alive, and he heard this story from his great grandmother, Varelion herself."

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"If that is true," Lucia said guardedly, "then what you offer us is priceless."

Sasha nodded.

"Renna the Witch, also known as Renna the Scientist, was a remarkably curious woman. One day, she became deeply curious about the true nature of religions. She asked her followers to fabricate one hundred unique Holy Books. Each one was complete with mythologies about how the world was created, answers to questions about the immortal soul and life after death, and other trappings of the religions of that time.

"Renna built one hundred walled cities, large and self-sufficient, with glass gardens to grow food in locations with access to a healthy water table. These became the Hundred Walled Cities of Renna. Each city was assigned a single Holy Book. Each city was designed to be impossible to leave. The cities were populated with enslaved people, who continued to reproduce for many generations, while being forced to convert to the religion in their Holy Book. After hundreds of years, these cities were overflowing with religious zealots, ready for the next phase of the experiment.

"Renna demolished the walls with explosives, causing them to collapse outward. The trapped people inside those cities were then free to leave. Thousands of fanatical believers flooded out of each city, and quickly discovered their equally-fanatical neighbors. Thus, the great Tournament of Religions began. Renna made a prediction about which religion would win this tournament. She predicted that one god, a fearsome omen of war, would be the final victor. But she was wrong.

"It took two hundred years for the war to end. The number of people who died during the war measured in the hundreds of millions. To Renna's surprise, the Church of the Lawgiver won the Tournament of Religions. Renna discovered why. The Lawgiver demanded a certain amount of time spent gambling with real money, at all ages. From early childhood, children strengthen the risk-taking muscle. This experience gives them a skill that they can use for their entire life, an intuitive understanding of when to gamble, and when to play it safe. The Church of the Lawgiver developed new technologies rapidly, while also having the standard trappings of religion, such as a class of warriors as well as the subjugation of women.

"Renna converted to the religion, and her son became the Primarch. The large population of devoted followers was the primary differentiating factor between Renna and her peers. It is why she was so successful during the war with the Charlatan King."

Kiera was so transfixed with the story that she did not notice Sir Zachary standing beside her until after Sasha finished speaking. "My beloved niece, must you freely share valuable family secrets with the other Heritors?"

"Hello uncle," Sasha replied with a perfectly innocent smile. "If I remember correctly, I ordered you to uncover some new valuable family secrets. Have you come to report your success?"

"I have," Zachary said. "Princess Kiera, Princess Lucia, might I be given a moment of privacy with my niece?"

"No," Sasha said. "Whatever you have to say, I want them to hear it as well."

"Not even the Eyes of Empire would dare listen to what I have to say," Zachary insisted.

"On behalf of my brother Corrin Varelion, the Emperor of Nydia, I command you to speak."

"As you like. First, I must report that I have allowed Heritor Maxius to escape."

"A tragedy," Sasha said dryly.

"I am surprised that the Elder Saint has allowed so many auras to be clustered in the same place for so long," Zachary continued. "Maxius escaped with the help of two of Lucia's men."

"Which ones?" Lucia demanded. "What are their names?"

"Seth and Quinn."

"I don't have anyone on my staff named Seth or Quinn," Lucia snapped.

"Peace, Lucia," Sasha said. "Me and Kiera both know that you would never help that creep."

"Perhaps I made a shallow assumption," Zachary admitted. "Two young men from eastern Lyn, named Seth and Quinn, were seen speaking with Maxius before he escaped. As far as I can tell, they were not spies. I followed the younger brother Quinn as he roamed around Castle Noxus. He was exhibiting some extremely strange behavior. At one point he was desperately attempting to catch a cat. He also frequently consulted with what appeared to be one-time cards encoded with sets of instructions. Later, he acquired what must have been a lockpicking kit. He gave this kit to Maxius and left, however, the oculomancers were not able to detect any intent to help Maxius before he did so."

"Did you figure out how?" Sasha asked excitedly.

"It is only a theory, but I was able to observe several of the instruction cards and I have very high confidence that my theory is correct. The instruction cards are designed to make people forget their long-term goals by subjecting them to completely meaningless and randomized tasks. The choice of which instruction to follow is entirely random, but some architect, skilled in probabilities, designed the cards such as to maximize the probability that some long-term goal will be achieved. The agent following the instructions never learns what that long-term goal is until after it has been accomplished, so the oculomancers will be unable to detect their intent."

"Damn!" Sasha said. "I should have guessed that those compulsive gamblers would concoct such a scheme. How foul!"

"My niece," Zachary said. "I have followed your command. Unless you have further orders, I shall return King Sullivan."

"You are free to go."

The Knight of Summer bowed and left.

"Kiera," Sasha said. "Now that you have heard my secret, it is my wish that you will join me in my quest. The Church of the Lawgiver must be destroyed."

"I don't know," Kiera said. "Perhaps I will be able to help later. Right now, I need to figure out why the bank gave me such a big aura."

"I agree," Lucia said. "I haven't been able to use ethermancy since Kiera started healing. Her aura could be the size of the whole damn continent for all we know."

"Will you at least accompany me to the bank in Grael Nydia?" Sasha asked.

"I would love to," Kiera said. "I have never seen the capital before."

"Excellent," Sasha said. "Our time together at the Eight Color Monastery was too brief. I very much will enjoy your company, Kiera. We shall leave in the morning."