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“I comprehend the nature of your concerns,” Relias replied calmly as he sat cross-legged in his tent. “But your fears are of no moment. Epiales incurred a divine curse from Euphridia, condemned to be bound to a grotesque physical form so that all who would lay eyes upon him would know of his ultimate act of evil.”
“So where is his corpse now?” I fretted, still unnerved by the idea that he might not be as dead as we all had hoped.
“His physical remains no longer inhabit this realm. They were consecrated and consumed by sanctified flames, his ashes scattered to the eight winds,” he explained as he rose with deliberate grace. “As he had no rightful place in this world to begin with, his return is an utter impossibility. This truth also extends to his sinful shades; once exorcised, they will trouble us no more.”
Nora patted me on the back. “Well, there’s one less thing to worry about then!”
Hey… you started it!
“While I’m honored you came to me immediately to discuss your apprehension,” Relias proceeded cautiously. “I must confess some surprise that such knowledge was beyond your awareness. Had you sought counsel regarding these matters with another, it undoubtedly would have provoked considerable consternation.”
I turned to Nora with a hidden smile. “He just called us stupid, didn’t he?”
“No!” he yelped before she could answer. “What I meant was… Certainly... I…”
Nora’s right; it is way too easy…
“It’s true, though,” Nora admitted. “It would have been a dead giveaway that we aren’t the experts we’re pretending to be. No one will be too worried about what I have to say when we reach the holy city, but you have a whole other hurdle to clear.”
“Yeah… I’m sure I will have to come up with at least one heroic speech.” I scratched my cheek. “It would help if it was coherent…”
“It would be my honor to compose an address on your behalf,” Relias swiftly proposed. “There would be ample opportunity to rehearse it during our journey.”
“Mmm… I think my knowledge deficit goes a little deeper than that, though. What if I get questioned? Well… more like when.”
“I shall stand ever by your side!” he declared. “I assure you, this time, I shall not falter in my duty to you!”
Was… he not getting the point? “Relias, I need to be able to speak for myself. While I do appreciate your proclamations of protection—”
“Yes, no, you are right, of course… Forgive me. I simply must not fail in my obligations to you or Her Holiness ever, ever again. Whatever you need of me, I will provide, be it my very life!” He threw himself down on the ground before us.
It all finally made sense. His swift and bold denunciations of other’s selfishness, his fancy words to hide behind, and his self-imposed suffering. “Relias…” I knelt. “Do you think Euphridia is displeased with you?”
“How could she not be?” he lifted his head slightly, his face almost ashen.
“Didn’t Nora tell you what Euphridia said about you?” I glanced at her, but she just shrugged.
“You… you talked with her? Directly?” Horror glittered in his eyes as he began to tremble. “What is my doom to be, then?”
I choked a bit at the word doom. “Relias… she said you’re quite capable. She didn’t say anything bad about you at all! And she certainly didn’t talk of any divine punishment!” Well, not for him, anyway.
“Then… she may have truly forgiven me…”
“More important is to forgive yourself first, I think.” I offered him a hand to stand up.
Taking his hand in mine, he squeezed lightly before gazing upwards. “Would you forgive me if you were her?”
Oh, put those baby blues away!
It would have been easy to say yes, but it just didn’t feel right. “I don’t see anything needing forgiveness,” I replied. “You’re doing the best that you can. What else could she possibly ask of you?”
He stood up with my aid. “There is a certain comfort in your words,” he said with a small smile. “To think, I counseled you yesterday to stay true to yourself, and yet today, I am the one who has truly benefited from that advice.”
“So, you’ll coach her, then?” Nora asked.
“And you as well, Lady Nora,” Relias confirmed. “I believe you will also benefit greatly from my tutelage.”
A rather strange look crossed her face. “You’re… planning lectures in your head as we speak, aren’t you?”
“Nora!” I snorted.
“Why do I have to be included?” Nora objected. “I thought I was done with formal education already!”
“The pursuit of education should be lifelong.” Relias shook his head whimsically. “Just for that… I shall give you a taste of what to look forward to in such endless hours of study.”
Nora and I looked at each other with wide eyes. Did he actually possess a sense of humor somewhere under there?
“I think that’s one point for him,” I chuckled.
Something started rustling on the other side of the tent flaps. “I’m only here to let you know that Tetora demands—” Vernie stopped, recognizing that Relias was not alone.
“Morning!” I tried waving but was pretty much ignored.
“Oh. Well. Anyway, Tetora says our horses are ready,” she exclaimed before turning resolutely back to the entrance.
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“Wait,” I called. “Why are you in such a hurry?”
“We’re moving out,” she muttered, her stiff back facing us. “Can’t keep them waiting.”
“Vernie…” Relias started walking toward her. “I—”
“Later.” She bolted out of the tent.
I threw my hands up in the air. “How am I supposed to apologize on her behalf if she won’t hold still long enough to let me get words out?”
“Apologize?” Relias blinked. “What does Vernie have to apologize for? I’m the one who—”
“Stop that right now,” I stomped my foot. “And she’s the one who said a bunch of nasty things about you, right?”
A slight look of confusion crossed his face. “That was a long time ago, under extreme duress,” he eventually objected. “I never took her words to heart…”
“Well, she is sorry, not that you can tell by how she’s acting,” I grumbled. “I don’t think I can count this attempt, though. I won’t consider the quest complete until you two reconcile.”
Relias rubbed at his chin. “Perhaps a bottle of wine may mollify her…”
“Don’t get her back on the bandwagon,” Nora objected. “She’s been dry for weeks now.”
“She… no longer imbibes? This is… Laverna we are discussing, correct?”
“The very same,” I quipped.
“Truly, the world comes at me while I am unaware…” he marveled. “I beseech you, enlighten me—have there been additional significant transformations within our esteemed Order of Gold?”
“None that I know of,” I replied quickly, feeling it wasn’t my place to talk about Aleph and Tetora’s current relationship status.
“Hey!” an unfamiliar voice shouted from outside. “You’re making it hard to break down the camp when you’re gathering moss in the middle of it!”
“Ah… At once, at once!” Relias scrambled to grab his belongings quickly. “You should probably prepare for departure as well.”
Nora and I nodded before exiting the tent. Outside, about a dozen men and women had gathered, breaking down a row of tents in quick succession while another group carried them toward the wagons.
“Tell His Holiness to drop the spell on yours when you’re done packing,” one of the workers advised, adjusting a pack over his shoulder. “Can’t touch it otherwise.”
“Right, I’ll—” I froze, abruptly drawn to his golden, reptilian eyes with sharp-slit pupils.
“Captain Lightbringer, are you alright?” he asked, waving his hand to catch my attention.
“Uh… I…” Except for the color, they were just like his. “Er…”
“We forgot where our tent is,” Nora answered as I continued my stupor. “That way… right?” she gestured in the general direction we were headed as she shoved me on.
“You can’t miss it, you know, because of all the magic sparkles?” he called after us sarcastically.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” she hissed in my ear as she frog-marched me back to our tent.
“D…demon!” I gasped. “He looks just like one!”
“Rude! That’s just one of the snakes—or are you saying you saw demonic animus?” Her grip relaxed a little.
I stopped, pushing my weight back on her. “No... it was the eyes… his eyes look just like that!”
“Like a snake hybrid’s?”
“Yes and… oh…” I faltered. “No wonder they didn’t think anything of his face…”
“I admit their look startled me at first, but you can’t just gawk like a country bumpkin!”
“I know, I know… it’s hard enough for me not to stare at Relias… but now this? And those eyelashes…” I sighed helplessly.
“Hold up… You were staring at him because you found him attractive?”
“Well, yeah…” I admitted. “Why would I bother to stare otherwise?”
Nora spun me around to scrutinize my face. “Girl…”
“That’s how demons trick you,” I explained as if I was an expert. “They take a form that makes you go weak in the knees, one way or another!”
After several aborted attempts to reply, she finally gave up and shook her head at me in silence.
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“Has anyone seen Alastor?” one of the nearby laborers asked his buddy as Nora and I, laden with our packed supplies, headed to rendezvous with the rest of our group. “He wasn’t at morning mess.”
“Probably slacking off somewhere,” a second laborer replied with a nonchalant grunt, wiping sweat from his brow. “I heard he’s been watching the archers train.”
Another shook his head as he packed a wooden crate into the nearby supply wagon. “He was on night duty the night before last. I ain’t seen him since.”
Their conversation lulled as three holy knights approached, causing them to halt what they were doing. The armored trio encircled the first laborer, cutting him off from the rest. They were two human men and a female dog-hybrid, all clad in refined armor with a soft aura of silver touching them.
“You! Arms in the air!” the younger of the two human knights commanded in a haughty tone as he brandished a large wooden club.
“Remember, we’re only gathering information at this point,” the older one warned. “We don’t have enough information to take action.”
The dog hybrid, her reserved demeanor suggesting a bit more maturity than the one waving a club around, stuck to the sidelines, arms folded with spiked knuckles adorning her gauntlets.
Nora and I paused in our tracks, the commotion drawing our attention.
“What’s this all about?” the laborer stammered nervously.
“We found half a dozen bolts in your packs,” the club-wielding knight accused. “Care to explain?”
“I ain’t got no use for such things!” the laborer vehemently objected. “I don’t have an arbalest!”
The knight grabbed him by the front of his shirt and raised the club threateningly. “You sure of that? Seems one went missing the other day from the quartermaster’s depot.”
“I swear I had nothing to do with it!” the laborer pleaded.
Nora rushed over to intervene. “An arbalest? Like the one that assassin tried to use on Relias yesterday?”
Amid all the chaos and deliberation of the last twenty-four hours, I had forgotten about the crossbow-wielding sniper who would have gotten a clean shot on Relias had I not tackled him first. “Oh right…” I scratched my cheek, still embarrassed by the memory of ending up on top of him like that.
The older knight waved his hand dismissively. “Let him down. Sounds like we missed one of those damn infiltrating cultists.”
“Cultists? What’s their dogma?” Nora asked before grimacing slightly. “No… no pun intended, of course,” she apologized to the silent dog-eared dame. It was unclear if she took any offense as her face remained stoic, merely raising an eyebrow.
“They believe Euphridia will come back when His Holiness stands for his final judgment,” scoffed the older knight. “Some people will believe anything, even if it’s just demonic propaganda.”
Maybe… it was a good thing he went into penitence…
The first knight released the laborer, only to threaten him again with his wooden cudgel. “How can you be so sure it wasn’t this one?”
“Because I lit him on fire, and I don’t see any burns on this man,” Nora replied, crossing her arms defiantly. “I’m telling you, you’ve got the wrong guy.”
“You’d know that if you had joined this morning’s standup,” the older knight added in rebuke.
“Doesn’t explain the bolts in his tent,” the younger knight insisted. “Damn commoners, acting like—”
“That is quite enough!” I interjected firmly. “Release him immediately!” Great. Now we have to worry about clashes between classes here, too? Typical but tedious. Did Euphridia need to copy all that nonsense from the real world, too?
With a sneer of contempt, the foolhardy knight turned to glower at me. “I only report to Captain Corwin! Not some weak imposter—”
The dame suddenly stepped forward and struck her obnoxious companion across the face with a glowing, open-handed slap, eliciting a sharp smacking sound as he flew back and hit the ground, dropping his club in the process. Even without the spikes making contact, that had to hurt!
“I’ll be sure to tell His Holiness what you called her,” she said with a satisfied smirk, watching him struggle at her feet. “Before he heals you—if he heals you.”
Is a hero also allowed to hero-worship?
“Thank you,” I said gratefully.
“Captain,” she bowed deeply. “It’s merely my duty to ensure my brothers and sisters comply with orders. I certainly won’t take any personal gratification inflicting pain on this son of a donkey.”
While I couldn’t see it, I did hear the smile in her voice. Could I ask her for an autograph, or would that be insulting?
“Still, you have my appreciation,” I replied. “His as well, no doubt.” I gestured to the trembling laborer who was fixing his linen shirt.
“Well, off to confess our sins,” she said with a cheerful grin as she helped the wobbly knight stand. Come now, Sir Burro!”
As we watched the trio leave, I asked Nora, “Do you think that’s his covenant name?”
“In this world?” Nora questioned my question. “I’d say 50/50 chance.”
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