I looked over my shoulder. Sure enough, everyone else was staying back. I was left to approach the old woman, pipe and all. It’s fine. You’ve got a sword.

“What about it?” I kept a guarded hand on the pommel. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the Abyssal Blade- it wasn’t any good as a cooking knife, it was heavy, and it was cursed- but it had just fended off some ghosts that wanted to kill me, so I felt I owed it at least a mild defense.

She leaned forward and into the light. Her face was a little familiar to me, although I couldn’t trace it. Her hands were liver-spotted as she tapped out the pipe, and her accent was distinctly eastern. She’d travelled a long way for this temple. “Used to be mine,” she said. “You’ve gotten it wet. Shame on you!”

I looked down instinctively (I had wiped it off, hadn’t I?) which was when the pipe hit me in the center of my forehead. She threw hard for an old woman!

For a second I only saw sparks. It wasn’t that large, but that pipe was solid. The center of my forehead throbbed as I stumbled back, hissing in pain and putting a hand up to the injury as I glared up at her. “What was that for?”

“No reflexes,” she said. “Too trusting, not even wearing armor, haven’t trained in a good few years if you’ve trained at all. Show me your callouses!”

I took it back. I didn’t want to train at all. I rubbed at the forming bruise on my forehead. “What about my callouses?”

“Need to know how soft you are,” she said. “Obviously! If I’m depending on you, I’m going to have to start somewhere.”

“You’ve gotten the wrong idea. I’m not a-”

What was her deal? I had never asked her to train me, if that was her goal.

I thought I recognized where she was familiar from now, though. Now that she mentioned recognizing the blade, I remembered the conversation in the shack above the waterfall. The memory of the stew made my stomach grumble.

The woman had mentioned her aunt inside the temple. How she had once been a paladin. I had just assumed that anyone of that advanced age would never survive that long inside- everyone else had been here for weeks, but she had been here since the summer if she’d donated the blade on her way up. Wrong again, Elysia.

“You were a paladin the day you picked up the blade,” she said. She beckoned me forward. “Now show me your hands!”

I glanced over my shoulder again. Duran was noticably staring at the molding of the doorframe, Apis was staring at his feet, and Balbinus was twiddling his thumbs. Useless! I was being attacked in plain sight, and not a single one of them was rescuing me.

I sighed. “It’s more of a consulting thing,” I said. “And it’s not my fault there aren’t a lot of big swords around for hire.” At that, I thought I felt the blade heat up a little. Had I managed to bring Andrena into the conversation again?

As I stepped forward and offered my hands to the woman, though, it cooled. It must have been my imagination. It felt like it took her years to stare at my fingers, humming and rotating them, tisking.

“Well,” she said. “I suppose it could be worse, but not much.”

I tugged my hand out of hers and glared. It was hard to maintain rage, though, when she looked like she was one good stiff wind away from death. She hadn’t even bothered to retrieve her pipe, but she was still wheezing after every sentence. “I did fine the last time I fought.”

A complete lie, of course, but she didn’t need to know that.

“Who were you fighting, a newborn?” She leaned back and tapped a finger on her jaw. “You use your hands daily,” she said. “From the rest of your build, and the apron, I’d guess you’re a cook. You have all the wrong habits, and you’re old enough that you’re set in your ways. You’re probably stubborn, cantakerous, and worst of all, you’re out of shape. But you’re the one the God chose, ah?”

“Goddess,” I managed, after pulling my pride back into shape. She wasn’t wrong. I just didn’t usually think of myself in such terms.

She squinted. “You don’t seem all that truthful to me.”

“The other one,” I managed. “Andrena.”

At that, I had finally shut her up. She leaned forward, finally looking over my shoulder at the group behind me. “All of them? They’re dedicated to Andrena too?”

I heard a shifting. Eventually, Duran said, “I’m thinking about it?”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“I grew up in her temple,” offered Apis.

“After this, I’m never praying again,” said Balbinus. “But I like Teuthida more. I’m not one much for pickles.”

“Looks like the fields of the dead finally froze over,” said the old woman. “Gods below and beyond! Andrena? Really?”

“You can ask her yourself,” I said. “I wasn’t the one that-”

She waved me off. “Oh, I know. You can’t stop it when you’re chosen. I remember it like it was yesterday…”

“Um,” said Duran, who had clearly decided that he was part of the conversation now. “Who are you, exactly? And why are you here?”

“Ah, sorry. I never introduced myself, did I? I’m Aemilia. My god’s gone. Ruined my years of dedication and holy destruction,” she said. “Thought I would fix my afterlife by giving up and pretending to like squid. Just my luck Teuthida’s gone and gotten herself captured too!”

She pointed at me. I stepped back in self-defense, just in case she had anything else to throw. “Good thing you’re here. I knew it was all part of the pantheon’s plan when I gave up that sword after drinking all night at that horrible inn!”

I was losing track of the theological thread. “I thought you didn’t like Andrena.”

“Any port in a storm,” she said. “Necromantical problems require Paladinological solutions. I thought my goose was cooked when I saw that woman steal the Voice- I had to pretend I was dead, and it gave me a cramp in my lower back like nothing else- but now that you’ve got the blade back in action, I don’t give a rat’s ass if you’re pledged to the god of small fish. Just use it well and we might actually get out of here.”

“The Voice was here?” That was another unpleasant surprise. I remembered my conversation with my ex-husband’s secretary.

He had been convinced she was up to no good. What had I done to deserve this? I had fixed her. I had put her on a committee, a punishment fit for any criminal, and I’d even made her answer questions for the public. She should be trapped in the Capital for the next twenty years listening to complaints. The Pantheon knew the Capital generated problems endlessly.

So how had she gotten all the way north in time to poke around in her main temple?

“Oh, yes,” Aemilia said. “She’s captured now. No thanks to you! You should be defending her!”

“She’s a murderer! I-” I stopped. Why was I arguing with this woman? “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “She was fighting those ghost things?”

“Sure enough,” said the Aemilia. “Lost, too. Your generation, so soft. Back in my day….”

Bold words from a generation who had lost a war so badly the entire empire had collapsed. I sighed. “Well, this has been nice.” I leaned down and lifted up her pipe, offering it to her. “Thank you for the warning. I’ll keep an eye out for those… ghost… things. Have you seen a man about this tall-” I gestured- “With messy hair, that smells of alchohol and-”

“The innkeeper? He was the woman that stole the Voice.” She leaned forward. “Glowing green eyes. I haven’t seen the like in many years.”

I stopped moving. Just like that, a puzzle piece clicked into place. Of course. Durandus I was a sniveling coward. He hated new ideas, temples, leaving his comfortable inn, not drinking for more than two hours, and prayer in general. He never would have dedicated himself to this.

How long had it been? How had no one else noticed?

“Right,” I managed. “Do you know how to get into-”

“Not so fast,” Aemelia said. “You’ve got my blade. I’m not going to let you leave without being able to use it.”

“Sorry?”

“Oh, you will be.”

For an old woman, she moved fast. I jumped back- I had learned my lesson from the pipe- as she jumped out of her seat and scrambled to the top of the pile of trash. The furniture creaked as she scrambled up, standing on the top.

“First, we’ll work on reflexes,” she said. “You’ve got a semi-functional shield there. Deflect with it.” I glanced down. “It’s a piece of plate,” I said. “It’s not even my size.”

“You can’t be picky, girl! This is war!”

Before I could argue- for one thing, I hadn’t been a girl in about twenty years- she was throwing a chair down at me and I had to jump out of the way. It crashed against the opposite wall and fell apart in a clatter.

I stared up at her. She laughed.

I looked back at the door, but all of the cowards with me had run entirely away. I was alone. Great. I tried to run, too, but another piece of furniture- a couch- skidded down the pile as she shoved it off and fell perfectly in front of it, blocking my path.

I was beginning to see why her niece had been so confident in her survival. Clearly, something was keeping her alive and strong beyond the normal. “We should stop this before someone gets hurt,” I said.

I straightened up and grabbed one of the leather straps on the edge of the plate mail- meant to hold it on, I thought, although I’d never worn the stuff- and held it up like a clumsy shield. It swung uncomfortably.

“Getting hurt is the point!” she said, and threw a wooden vase down. I ducked behind the plate armor.

With a clang, the vase bounced off. I peered out, just to duck back behind again. Another chair was coming down. I couldn’t move as quickly behind the shield, so I only made it halfway as the chair bounced down. It hit the side of the armor, pushing me over.

“You’ll have to be faster than that!” she shouted.

I was still struggling to get up when the next piece of furniture started falling- it looked like a side table. I rolled and pulled the plate over my head. With a crash, it broke over me.

“That’s more like it!”

I shoved myself up, fuelled only by rage. “You can’t just throw furniture at people!” A sculpture of Cabellus came flying at me. I ducked, letting it hit the doorframe. “It’s not polite,” I added.

When another sculpture- this one of Teuthida- came towards me and I barely dodged it, letting it rattle off of the plate, I decided I’d had enough. I leaned down and picked it up, lobbing it towards Aemelia. It went wide (the statue was a weird shape and I wasn’t a great shot) but her hand thrust out and grabbed the statue by the tentacle.

Instead of throwing it back, she slid down the pile, surprisingly coordinated. I stepped back as she stood up in front of me, stooped and smaller than I’d anticipated. She held up the statue, poking it towards me. “Take it!”

I reached out and lifted it out of her hands. “Well, it’s a start,” she said. “I can see why she chose you. You’re mean as a hornet when someone angers you. We’ll work on the blade tomorrow.”

Statue still in my hands, I walked over and took a seat on the couch where it had slid to block the door. Beyond, I could see Apis ducking for cover, although Duran and Balbinus had both hidden better. “I suppose it’s not optional.”

“Cheer up,” she said. “I’ll share some of my shared fish and stored food with you if you’ll cook, ah?”