39

Lyra didn't think she'd ever had such a conflicting brunch. The simple pleasure of good food, especially after spending so long without anything but travel rations, conflicted with the uncomfortable feeling that continued to grow the longer she was around the others.

Oleander, Calen, and Annali. The more they talked, the more Lyra felt like she had stumbled her way into a secret society or some sort of cult. They were unfailingly friendly to her, yet she knew that if she wasn't a priestess, they wouldn't have spared her a second glance.

But they weren't faking it. Oleander had seemed genuinely concerned about how safe she was traveling with Kel, and when Lyra pulled her tunic snd shirt up to show them the still-healing pinkish-red scars where the cave god had struck her, Annali gasped. When Lyra let her shirt fall, the other girl traced the stitched up slashes in the fabric.

"I can't believe a god hurt you," she whispered, her expression full of sympathy and horror. "I can't imagine Loreas doing something like that to anyone. I'll take you to the crypt and help you find a new tunic; I'm sure the god won't mind."

"I've been meaning to ask if you have ant spare ones," Lyra said. "Thanks. I hope I don't run into any gods like that god in the cave again."

"That's what blood gods do. They destroy and kill and hurt people. It doesn't matter what they were before. Why do you think making one is a great sin?" Calen stood up and his foot on the table. He was wearing a soft slipper identical to the ones Lyra had found in the closet. Pulling up one of his pant legs, he revealed a horrible, twisted scar on his calf, as if something had stolen a chunk of flesh from his leg. "When I first left home, I traveled with a paladin. My aunt, actually. One of the little villages to the north turned their temple god into a blood god. We were called to stop it. As soon as it learned we were there to kill it, it turned on me. Took a piece of my leg and half of my aunt's face before she killed it, and I decided the life of a wandering priest wasn't for me."

"Did your aunt survive?" Lyra asked, her voice barely above a whisper. She knew her eyes were wide, horrified. Beside her Annali looked like she was feeling sick. Oleander wore a grim expression, watching flatly as Calen pulled the hem of his pant leg back down and retook his seat.

"She was scarred, but yes. Well, she survived that, at least. It's been a few years since she's written, so my family can only assume the worst."

"I'm sorry."

He shook his head. "Don't be. She chose her path. All paladins are a little crazy; it's a sure road to an early grave. She went into this knowing it was going to kill her at some point. She accepted it."

"This is why you shouldn't keep traveling with yours," Oleander said gently. "I'm worried about you, Lyra. You looked exhausted when you got here, he let you get injured, and he's carrying an unregistered relic. Let him go. Find a normal sentinel, one who will keep you safe. Or… stay here. I know you want to visit the city, but Loreas would be glad to have you, and I'm sure all of us would too."

"Oh, please do," Annali said. "It would be nice to have someone new to talk to."

"There are a few other temples in town you could visit first, to see if you're interested, but I think most people would agree the Temple of Loreas will give you the most comfortable life," Calen said. "Besides, some of the others are more specialized, so you'd have to learn how to take care of horses or calculate taxes and whatnot. Here, you just have to be nice to people, clean once in a while, and make sure no one breaks the temple's dogma. Of course, you could specialize for an extra blessing, like Oleander did."

"The Blessing of the Happy Servant and the Blessing of Deep Rest," Oleander said before Lyra could ask the question that was on the tip of her tongue. "Loreas offers one blessing to her clergy when they devote themselves to her, and I chose Deep Rest, since it sounded nice to only have to sleep one or two hours each night. I have so much more time now. The Blessing of the Happy Servant lets me anticipate when a guest or one of the god's devoted followers needs something, often before they even know they need it. I'm hoping to be selected for High Priestess when Fjord dies — you probably won't meet him unless you stay, he's old and spends most of his time in his quarters — so I wanted something that would be a little more useful to the temple than my first blessing. I specialized in massage to get the second one, but there are a lot of options you could choose from."

"I can't stay," Lyra said. They were offering her an easy life here, and maybe if she knew there was no chance she could go home, she would take it, but for now, she still had hope. "It does sound nice, but I have something I have to do."

"I figured you'd say as much." Oleander gave her a wry smile. "When I spoke to Loreas about you this morning, she said your soul had been touched by the Great God and you have a calling. I do think you should get rid of your paladin and let us find you a good sentinel, though. You don't want to end up like Calen, or worse, like his aunt. There's so few wandering clergy now, the sentinels will be chomping at the bit to come and serve you. You could trade them out every week and never run out of fresh new faces."

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"I'm not going to 'get rid' of Kel," Lyra replied. "I trust him, and I don't want a different paladin -- or sentinal."

"You can trust all of them," Oleander said. "That's the point. They all take oaths to never willingly allow a drop of holy blood to be spilled. They have an even stronger taboo against harming the clergy than everyone else does, and it's also a crime in every single country I can think of. They would have to be completely insane to become an oathbreaker." She gave Lyra a meaningful look. "And a sentinel turned paladin, carrying an unregistered relic? If anyone's an oathbreaker, it's him. What happened to the last member of the clergy that he served?"

Kel's sister died, but Lyra knew admitting that wouldn't help convince Oleander that he wasn't a crazed killer, so she kept her mouth shut. Her stubborn silence must have been answer enough.

"You're going to end up just like whoever he was serving before, Lyra, mark my words. You're not supposed to get so attached to your sentinel, anyway. They're tools, so don't feel bad about trading up when you get the chance."

"People aren't tools," Lyra replied, pushing her plate away from her. Her food was only half gone, but regardless of how good it was, she had lost her appetite. "They aren't interchangeable."

"Lyra, you're missing the point. He has a weapon made out of the body parts of people like you and me, and if it's not registered that means, no one knows where it came from. He didn't get it from a temple, so it didn't come from a proper saint. And I'm willing to bet the last person he served died. It's so obvious what happened, you must be in love with him to be so willfully blind. Do you need me to spell it out for you? He killed the person he was oathbound to serve and protect even at the cost of his own life, and he cut open their body and he took their bones or their blood, and he forged their very essence, what made them holy, into his blade so he could kill gods. He committed the greatest sin he could, something that only another paladin's blade can cleanse from his soul. He has nothing left to lose. No reason not to kill you too and infuse every last piece of his armor with your blood, if he wants to."

Lyra felt a cold sort of anger, an anger that was mixed with fear, because Oleander's words were getting to her. She didtrust Kel; he had helped her when she needed it the most, and he had been patient with her, and she had been alone with him plenty and he'd never done anything that made her feel unsafe. But she didn't really know him, did she? She had only been here for a couple of weeks. She couldn't believe he had killed Lora, but she didn't know the story of his sister's death or who else was involved, and he had been willing to kill Galin, a thirteen year old boy.

She couldn't say he wasn't a killer, all she could say was she didn't think he would kill her.

"Loreas would be able to tell, wouldn't she?" she asked after a few moments in which she worked hard to keep herself from snapping back at the other woman. "If he had a sin on his soul, she would be able to tell."

Oleander hesitated. "There are ways to hide sins, but from what I've heard, they're all imperfect. So… yes, she would be able to tell. Will you ask her when you see her? I don't know what your feelings for him are, but if he does have a great sin on his soul, please promise me you'll find someone else to travel with you."

Lyra closed her eyes, trying to consider the other woman's request with a clear mind instead of letting the confusing mix of anger on Kel's behalf and fear that he wasn't someone she could trust after all make the decision for her.

She already didn't like how quick he had been to turn his sword on Galin. If he had a great sin on his own soul too, then she didn't think she would be able to bear the hypocrisy.

"All right," she said at last. "If Loreas can tell by looking at his soul that he killed a priest or priestess to make his relic, I'll try to find someone else to travel with instead. But please, drop it and stop talking about him like he's not a person. I don't have feelings for him — I've only known him for a couple weeks, for God's sake. But he's a human being, and he's someone who helped me when I had no one else to turn to, and he's… well, he's my friend, I guess."

"Fine," Oleander said, crossing her arms. "I still think you're being stupid, but I can't stop you. I'll just have to hope Loreas talks some sense into you. He's not your friend, Lyra. He's a glorified servant, at most. If you want friends, you need to look among the clergy, not among the mundane."

Annali was watching with wide eyes, and Calen's gaze darted back and forth between them while he ate, as if their argument was the best entertainment he'd had in a long time. Neither of them moved to stop her as Lyra rose from the table. The word 'mundane' was filled with so much disgust and dismissal that there was no doubt left in her mind that this priestess saw normal people as inherently lesser in a way that filled Lyra's mouth with a bitter taste. Two weeks ago, she had been a perfectly normal, mundane person. She felt just as blind as Oleander had accused her of being, because the signs had been all around her, hadn't they? She knew being a priestess was important, she just hadn't realized how important. This world had a two-caste system, and by some celestial accident, she was at the top. Everyone else just didn't matter.

It was a sin to harm someone with holy blood, but no one had said anything about it being a sin for her to harm those without.

"I'm going to go back to my room," she said, her voice even but more cold than she had ever heard it before. "I'll speak to the god when she's ready for me. Oh, and I'm expecting a note from someone in town. Please let me know if someone drops one off."

"Don't go. Why are you mad? I'm just pointing out the truth!"

She ignored Oleander and hurried through the dining hall, eager for some peace and quiet. A bath and a chance to think. That was all she needed. She needed to stop getting in arguments with people, and she needed to have a clear mind for tonight.

Tonight was important. Tonight, she was going to learn something important about why people from Earth were being brought here.