The man’s eyes twitched and glanced every which way. But then…he stopped, looked Belissar in the eye, and then turned his gaze down with a heavy sigh.

“…it matters not. My life is over, I will not end it with yet another failure. Kill me if you must.”

Belissar glared at the man but he refused to raise his head anymore. Belissar turned to the young man.

“Who is he, by the way? Why did you bring an old man like that with you?”

The young man rubbed his chin.

“He’s an augur. I don’t fully get it but they’re supposed to divine the will of the gods, especially regarding Towers? I’m not sure how but he was the one who figured out where to go. Our…commander claimed a god spoke to the augur and told us where to go.”

Belissar blinked at that.

“A…god led you here?”

Belissar frowned. If the gods were getting involved…then the situation could be worse than he thought. He had thought the Tower Lords had lied about the gods disproving of peasants and beastkin after he was blessed by the God of Bees…but now a god had led the Tower Lords straight to him? Now that he thought about it, it was true that the gods were not a united monolith. They were individuals, unique and separate from one another. They could be different, and they could even be at odds with one another.

So…perhaps the God of Bees and the God of Fire didn’t care too much about him and the karnuq controlling a Tower…but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a god who did.

Belissar narrowed his eyes at the augur.

“Which god did you speak with? And what did they say?”

But the augur did not respond any further. Belissar continued glaring at him for a while…but then he paused. And then Belissar started to laugh. The augur glanced up at him, but Belissar ignored him now.

“Well, that’s fine. If you don’t want to tell us, we’ll just ask the gods ourselves.”

Belissar nodded to Niobee and she flew out of the prison. It didn’t take her long to reach the karnuq settlement proper, and the beehouse there. Her queen mother stepped out of the hive as she approached.

“Worker!”

“Queen mother!”

The two crawled over each other a bit before Niobee began to dance.

“King has a question for Queen of All Bees! Evil humans said a god sent them to King, wants to know which one and why!”

The queen paused for a moment before beginning an unsteady dance.

“…not sure. Queen of All Bees talks to me, not sure how to ask…”

But then she froze and her eyes began to glow with golden light. A moment later the glow faded and she began to dance quickly.

“Queen of All Bees said she did! Wanted to help me find worker and Hive-Builder! Amazing! Incredible! Queen of All Bees best queen of all bees!”

Niobee joined her in the celebratory dance.

Back in the prison, Belissar had a massive grin on his face. He couldn’t help but laugh, to the point that everyone in the room was staring at him. He hardly even noticed. He bowed his head on the spot.

“Truly, thank you. I can’t thank you enough for this.”

He took a deep breath, letting his joy and gratitude wash over him as he exhaled it with a smile. Only then did he notice everyone staring at him. Metsaitti tilted his head.

“Sacred Den Master?”

Belissar turned to him, a smile still on his face.

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“We asked the oracle and the God of Bees responded. There’s no problem after all, she’s the one who sent them. She wanted to help the oracle get here.”

The augur froze, his eyes going wide.

“Ora…cle? That…that must be a lie. There were no oracles with us. Unless…no, the three of us are the only ones left and it’s not any of us. There’s no one else it could be.”

Belissar shrugged. Well, the augur didn’t seem helpful and he already knew which god he had spoken to, so instead of responding to him Belissar turned to the young man.

“Ok, you said we shouldn’t expect the Tower Lords to show up again. Are you sure about that?”

The young man jumped at being addressed but began to rub his chin.

“Um, fairly sure. We travelled a long way and skipped over several Towers on the way. We barely made the last leg of the journey, it was about as far as the wyverns could fly in one go. If we hadn’t found your Tower, we wouldn’t have been able to turn back. So, even if anyone cared where we went, it would take them a long time to follow us, I think. I’m not sure how they’d make the last leg either. Our captain wanted to turn around, but our commander ordered us onward because he believed the gods were leading us…which I guess was actually true? It would have been a suicidal decision if he hadn’t been right, I guess.”

Belissar crossed his arms and rubbed his chin.

“So, we should have time. Since you’re not reporting back, maybe they’ll think you died.”

The young man furrowed his brow.

“That’s…the augur over there did something before we entered the Tower. A magic ritual of some sort. I think it’s supposed to let the Tower Lords know we arrived at a Tower, or something?”

Belissar turned to glare at the augur again. The augur glared at the young man in turn, but said nothing. Belissar instead sent a message to the Fourth of the Seventh.

“Hi, Fourth of the Seventh? Can you scout the area around the Tower? We’re looking for some sort of magic ritual or formation or something. It looks like…”

Belissar paused and turned to the young man.

“Um, do you know what it looked like?”

The young man frowned.

“I didn’t get a great look…but it was carved into the dirt? I think it was glowing green at one point.”

Belissar nodded and relayed as much to the Fourth of the Seventh.

“Ok! Will!”

He watched as the Fourth of the Seventh began to organize a scouting party and sighed.

So…the Tower Lords might know where his Tower was after all. But at the same time…they were apparently quite far away, with several other Towers between them and a long, unbroken stretch of the Hunger at the end. Likewise, this particular party had not been expected to survive. So, there was no guarantee the Tower Lords would follow them even if they had passed a message back. Even if they did, they would not arrive immediately.

So, they would have some time to prepare. But they would need to prepare, for it was still possible the Tower Lords would follow this party’s path one day. Belissar nodded to himself.

The young man seemed to have shared as much as he knew, and the augur still refused to speak. The most urgent questions were answered in any case and Belissar knew enough to guide his immediate actions.

And that meant it was time to ask what he really wanted to know.

“Thank you. Now, let me ask you something important.”

The young man gulped as Belissar focused in on him.

“Tell me about the bees, and how you brought them with you.”

The young man froze, and then tilted his head.

“Um, the bees, Tower Keeper sir?”

Belissar nodded, holding his intense gaze. The young man gulped.

“Um, ok. I found them at the bottom of my pack at one of the rest points. I’m not sure how they got there…but they didn’t sting me when I found the hive. I…” The young man’s face fell. “…I didn’t want to hurt anything else at that point, so I figured I’d let them be. I thought they’d sting me when we took off again or when I needed something from the pack, but they stayed surprisingly docile…”

As the young man spoke, the augur slowly turned his gaze to them.

“Bees? What bees…”

His eyes began to go wide as the young man continued his tale.

“There…was a hive of bees traveling with us?”

And then…the color of the god who set their path, the banners of the Tower, and the defenders that had struck Ruckanos down all flickered in the augur’s mind…along with the Tower Lord’s claim that there was an oracle…

The augur’s face began to pale.

But Belissar wasn’t paying attention to him. He began to subconsciously smile as the young man described their journey.

“And then I wondered how they were getting water, so I figured I’d share a bit. I tried to get them to leave at that point since we had found a nice purified zone, but they refused to budge. At first I thought it was that they considered the pack their home…but it sounds like there was something else going on?”

Belissar nodded.

“Yes. The queen is intelligent and can speak with the God of Bees. She was trying to make it here.”

The young man blinked, staring blankly into space.

“I…see?”

Belissar chuckled and smiled at him.

“She was also one of the queens from my bees in the village.”

The young man’s eyes went wide and quivered.

“…the one we burned?”

Belissar nodded.

“So…thank you, for taking care of her and helping us reunite. That’s why I’m not going to kill you now. So, um, let me know if you need anything. I can’t let you go but…I’ll take care of you like you took care of her.”

The young man didn’t respond. Belissar wait for a bit, then shrugged and turned to leave. He turned to Metsaitti.

“Make sure the young man is comfortable. Um, let me know if you need me to speak with him or something. The others…well, we’ll see when the other guy wakes up. The old guy can just…stay here, I guess.”

Metsaitti saluted.

“As you command.”

And with a nod to Metsaitti, Belissar left. Leaving the two humans lost in their thoughts.