I felt like how Vim sometimes looked.

My exhaustion was my own fault though, not like his own.

Another day without sleep. This combined with our rough trip here from Hornslo, and the days without sleep which I had there thanks to the dangers of the nearby fires, were starting to take a toll upon me.

Yet I had no one to blame but myself. After all not only was I safe here in the Cathedral, in this mansio, I had nothing to stop me from sleeping.

No one was bothering me. I had no dire duties to tend to. I was in no hurry or needing to flee…

In fact I had a wonderful bed. Below me now. The same one Vim and I had slept on when we had been here, even.

Yet even though its softness called for me, I felt no desire to crawl under its blankets. Instead I kept on reading.

Shifting a little, I turned another page. I had to do so carefully, since the pages had started to rip in their old age.

Celine’s letter had been three separate things. The first was a genuine letter. To me. Addressed to “His Heart.”

It was obvious the meaning. It wasn’t just the implication of the one who had captured Vim’s heart, but something deeper. Something more precious.

She had phrased it that way on purpose, and I knew as to the why.

After all, Vim didn’t have a heart. Per his own words.

Celine had known Vim better than I had thought.

Her letter, the first one, was simple all things considered. It simply asked me to be the one he needed to be. To be there for him. To love him. To help him. And thus in turn, help the Society and the world along the way. If one read between the lines a little, it was clear she was trying to ask me to make sure that Vim continued to be the Societies Protector. Although she didn’t outright say it, it was clear what she meant.

Particularly the most interesting bit of the first letter was her mention of helping Vim accomplish what the gods had set him forth to do.

It meant in her eyes, in her opinion, Vim had a genuine purpose. One given to him by a higher power.

It worried me, since I wasn’t sure if it meant she had simply believed so or if it was the truth. She had been a real saint. A powerful one. Even Vim had mentioned that Celine had been one of the greatest saints he’d ever known.

Yet… the way she phrased it…

If she was speaking literally… and did indeed intend to mean, and imply, that Vim had been created for a genuine purpose…

What was I then to think of his aversion to them? His very creators?

Especially since I had to admit something I’d not really considered before.

The gods were, or at least had been, real. And Vim himself was proof of it. He spoke of them not as something distant and vague, but instead something real. Something annoying, even.

He spoke of gods the same way I spoke of my family. Something that had been very real, yet wished with all our hearts hadn’t been. So it was… an odd thing to consider.

Vim after all hated gods… and although he may sometimes make snide remarks of their lack of godliness, he at the same time has not once denied they had existed.

Which meant there was a very good chance Celine’s words were not figurative but literal. Maybe Vim really did have a purpose he needed to fulfill, and I needed to help him do so.

I’d talk to him about it once he returned.

For now though I needed to worry about her other two letters.

The second had been several pages long. And seemingly written long before she had met Vim. Her first few sentences had described it to be her ninetieth time writing them. Meaning she had kept track of how often she had re-wrote them. Though if she had re-wrote them so often out of need, because of losing the letters or them fading and falling apart from time as the ones in my hands were, or if she had needed to add and change them as the years passed, I had no way to tell.

The second letter was her telling me, the Heart of Vim as she called me, that it was now my job to guide him. It spoke about how Vim, for all his greatness, was like a ship upon the ocean. One without a sail or rudder. That if he did not have such things, given and used by others, he was almost as useless as a bucket with a hole in it.

Which was funny since Vim had at one time made a joke that buckets were supposed to have holes. I wonder if there was a correlation there.

“He doesn’t know about these, though,” I whispered ever so gently as I turned another page.

The third letter was a list of prophecies. Dreams. Things that Celine had foreseen, and that had yet to come to pass before her death. Things she had fretted over.

Things that had concerned Vim.

There weren’t many. It was only two pages long, and most seemed a little… jumbled. For instance the first page, in the beginning of it, spoke of a kingdom of non-humans. One that had tried to be an oasis in a dry ocean. A kingdom that Vim, and his heart… which was me, needed to keep a watchful eye upon it. To not allow it to fall.

Regrettably I feel that her prophecy was too late.

Merit’s Kingdom had been dubbed by Vim and others to be an oasis. And it had fallen long ago.

I gulped as I slid my fingers ever so gently down the decrepit pages. I read her prophecies, one by one, and decided that only three seemed like something I should really worry over. The rest were like the kingdom of an oasis. Prophecies that seemed to have little information to rely on, or something that had likely already long since happened.

The first was about a friend. It said someone important to Vim would arise to try and take his place. And that we shouldn’t let it happen, or else the world will suffer greatly. It bothered me because of the vote that was getting ready to happen. What if they were related somehow? I couldn’t think of any supposed friend he had who could replace Vim though, so maybe I was reading into it too much. Could it mean one of those monarch friends he spoke of? It was hard to imagine a normal person being capable of doing what he does.

The second, on the back of the first page which was scrawled alone without any others… meaning it had been added after, as if an afterthought: spoke of a monarch that eats the dreams of those who are awake. It said Vim needed to hunt it down or the world would end.

That scared me, because I believed it. And because it made me very wary of its meaning.

A monarch that eats the dreams of those who are awake.

Could it have something to do with how Vim’s not been able to sleep lately? It was a long-shot of a connection, but I couldn't outright think of anything else that may be related to it.

I shook my head as I turned the page once more, to the last page in the book.

The last prophecy, which was also the very last entry in Celine’s little book of a letter to me… was something troubling. Something that had kept me up through the night.

“Don’t let your daughter touch the moon,” I whispered as I read it again.

Blinking heavy eyes, I felt like trembling.

What a statement. What a warning. How was I supposed to interpret that?

Don’t let your daughter touch the moon.

That was it. Nothing more. Most of the other prophecies had a few sentences at least, but this one was simple and to the point.

Would Vim understand the meaning if I showed it to him?

Celine had not mentioned anywhere in the letters that I shouldn’t, or couldn’t, share with Vim. Yet Randle had told me that Celine had specifically told him not to let Vim see them.

The why was obvious. Vim likely would have destroyed them. But now that I'd read them, multiple times even, I'd never forget them. Although I wanted to cherish them, and keep them forever, I'd not mind exchanging this booklet of letters for Vim's insight.

Was it fine to show him now…? Or should I continue keeping them a secret?

After all, these prophecies… although most seemed un-noteworthy to me, there was little odds that Vim wouldn’t find them far more serious. He may well see each and every one as dangerously foreboding as the last one was to me.

And troubling indeed that one was…

This had been her letter to me. Not to Vim.

That meant the daughter she spoke of was mine.

My daughter.

Granted… by all counts said daughter should be Vim’s too, but…

Well…

If it had been addressed to Vim, although it would have troubled me… it would have also not made me panic as readily. After all Vim was old. And would likely live far, far, longer than me. Which meant him having a daughter with someone else wasn’t just a possibility, but likely something guaranteed. It was a simple fact of life that I didn’t want to acknowledge, but knew was there deep down anyway.

But this hadn’t been her letter for him, but for me.

So it was my daughter she spoke about. My daughter she prophesied.

How did that work? How had she known I'd be a jaguar, yet not know my name? Or maybe she had, but didn't feel the need to put it to paper? Maybe it was her attempt to keep me safe, so that if anyone read these letters they'd not be able to immediately deduce they were for me? Like the Chronicler, or Randle, for example?

Taking a deep breath I slowly closed Celine’s letter. I made sure to not let any of the pages shift or fall out of place, since a few were loose and no longer bound to the binding. Randle had apologized for its condition, but I couldn’t fault him for it. It was actually surprising it had lasted this long, really. Even if it had supposedly been sealed into a vault, away from all elements, all this time.

And it hadn’t been the only thing either…

Reaching over to pick up the heart, I frowned at it.

“Is that you great-uncle?” I asked it.

The black orb, which did indeed look like a cat’s eye, didn’t seem to acknowledge my touch or question at all. It was a little warm, like the others had been that I’ve touched, but this one seemingly didn’t pulse as often Miss Beak’s had done. I'd only felt that heart-beat like pulse twice since being given it.

Randle had called it the Orb of Night. It was an apt name, I suppose, since the inside of the heart did look like the pitch black of a night sky. The tiny little circular things floating around did kind of look like stars, I guess…

But why call it orb and not heart? Or was that just his way, Celine’s way, of keeping sure no one would put one and two together if they heard its name. Kind of like how she had not used my name in her letters?

Heart of Night made it clear it was a monarch’s heart. While Orb of Night just implied a strange orb. Maybe a weird jewel, even. A typical thing to find in a church's vault, maybe?

Running my thumb along it, I sighed a little.

So my great elder had indeed been a monarch. I mean… it was kind of obvious, but…

“I wonder how Celine got your heart, though,” I wondered.

Randle had only been told that the one to become Vim’s heart would be a descendant of this orb. He had no idea where she had gotten it, when, or how. And from what I’d been able to gather from what little we had spoken about…

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Randle hadn’t wanted to get very involved at all. Either his hate for Vim was strong enough to keep him from getting too interested in me, or the things around me, or his faith was so pure he simply didn't have any desire to know what he wasn't supposed to.

Still… I turned the heart a bit, and watched how the strange eye shape inside it seemed to turn too. As if it was always staring at me, no matter which angle I peered into the orb. It was unsettling, honestly.

Did this mean that Celine had been alive when I had been too? After all I had helped kill the elder. The witch and I had done so together.

It meant that this was either not actually the heart of my elder, at least not the one I knew personally, or…

“I’m a lot older than I thought…” I mumbled at the possible reality.

It was possible, of course. I told everyone I was roughly two hundred because it felt like I was. I had watched Lujic grow from a young boy to a withered old man. I had watched him sire and raise several generations of children. I had watched Nory grow old too. And I had watched, from a distance, my friend the witch’s family grow into a large village.

I based my age off them. Off the kids and Nory’s lives. They had grown old, and then died. One after the other. With a few years between, give and take, and I claimed two hundred years of age.

Yet the reality was I had no idea. How long had I lived at home? With my family? How long before that snake had shown up, and the witch? How long had I spent with the witch? How long had I spent traveling alone, before I ran into Lujic and Ginny? And how long after that had it been, really, before I ran into Nory?

What if I was three or four hundred years old all this time…? If not older…?

“Hopefully Vim doesn’t think I’m too old now,” I mumbled.

Would he be able to tell if this heart was related to me somehow? Something told me he’d be able to tell.

Also…

Staring deep into the eye-like heart, I wondered if maybe this was another option for me.

He had asked Narli, back at the Keep, if I had been able to absorb Miss Beak’s heart. She had never told me, and seemingly him, the answer… but something told me that was because there was none to give. It had been a difficult idea in the first place, seemingly, but…

What if it was the heart of my elder…?

That meant it was of my blood, wasn’t it? Or rather, I was of its?

Then… if so…

Footsteps drew my attention from the heart in my hand, and once I confirmed someone was walking up the stairs… I went to slide the heart under the nearby pillows.

I hid the heart as Sillti stepped in front of the room’s door and pushed it open. It hadn’t been closed, but it had been just barely about to be. It smoothly creaked as it slid open and she gave me a kind smile upon realizing I was still awake. “Renn, a man named Randle is here to see you,” she told me.

Oh…?

I turned my head, and thus my ears a little… and sure enough, yes. I heard Randle talking to Angie downstairs.

I really was tired. Usually I’d have noticed him opening the gate, let alone talking to Sillti and Angie.

Actually it was a good thing it had been Sillti who had come up here and not Angie. My hat was off my head, sitting nearby the edge of the bed.

I went to putting it on, but didn’t have any pins. The last few Vim had made me had broken yesterday. I had taken my hat off a little too harshly, in both my exhaustion and negligence. I had been focused on Celine’s letter.

“You look tired Renn,” Sillti said as I clambered off the bed. I left Celine’s book on it, and the heart beneath the pillows. Sillti and Angie both didn’t enter my room; they had each chosen their own rooms down the hall.

And even if they did I doubted either of them would know what they were, or would do anything to them. At worst they might read the book, but I genuinely didn’t mind that. Celine’s little letter had been personal but not very revealing honestly.

“I am, to be honest,” I told Sillti the truth as I stepped out of my room and we both headed for the stairs.

“Is it because Vim’s not here, Renn?” Sillti asked softly.

I paused in front of the stairwell, and frowned.

Was it…?

For some reason that made a lot of sense.

“I’m sure he’ll be back soon. He’s Vim after all,” Sillti said kindly.

Smiling at her, I nodded. “He is. But that’s the problem, he has no concept of time at all,” I said with a sigh as I stepped down the stairwell.

Sillti giggled, and as we descended to the first floor… I realized it was oddly quiet.

Leaving the stairs, I found Randle and Angie near the table. The two were frowning at each other.

“Angie…?” I asked. What was wrong? Had something happened? There was an odd heaviness to the air and…

“Why did no one mention she was a bison?” Randle asked.

“Huh…?”

I frowned as I watched Angie scratch the side of her head. Her thick hair sounded odd.

“Wait…!” Sillti stepped forward, and giggled happily. “You are, aren’t you!” she happily said.

“No one ever asked,” Angie said simply.

Feeling a little light-headed, I groaned as I realized how obvious it actually was.

Not only was her hair thick. Too thick for a normal human, she was odd herself. All of us had noted her strange maturity for her age.

“Well if this is the case I’m of course even more willing to help, but…” Randle shifted a little and looked upset.

Right. She didn’t belong in a human orphanage at all then.

“Angie you should have said something,” I said gently.

“I thought it was obvious,” Angie mumbled.

It had been. How had no one noticed? “How come Oplar didn’t notice?” Sillti asked as she stepped up to Angie and ran her fingers into the girl’s thick hair.

Watching the way Sillti brushed Angie’s hair, I felt a little jealous. I wanted to touch it too. Was it like Merit’s hair?

“I love Oplar but she’s never been the most observant creature,” Randle said with a sigh.

Oh…? I wonder if I should take offense to that or not. Since I was supposed to be the very definition of such a creature.

“So what’s this about an orphanage?” Angie then asked stiffly.

Randle smiled gently down to the young girl, unafraid to face her glare. “Nothing you need to worry about any longer. I had been told you had been a human, young bison. Since you are obviously not, you belong amongst us. The Society. Not human children,” Randle said plainly.

“What’s it like?” Angie asked, as if she hadn't just heard Randle's lovely little comment about where she belonged.

“The orphanages…? Well… like schools, mostly. We’ve found dedicating the children to learning and simple chores for most of the day keeps them not only out of trouble, but helps them further along down the road. Plus it lets us find the ones with sharp minds and instincts, and put them to good use if they’d like to become something more than they are,” Randle said swiftly.

Interested I stepped forward. “Is it nearby?” I asked.

“The one here is indeed nearby. It’s to the south of the Cathedral, between the Cathedral and the Pulpit.”

Pulpit…?

Randle noticed my confusion and smiled at me. “The large building where we give sermons,” he explained.

Ah… I nodded. He spoke of that large theater like room, with the large platform they gave sermons from. That meant it was near those weird arches and towers. The ones that led to the market roads. I’d walked through them before.

“Is it fun?” Angie asked further, not even caring for my and Randle’s conversation.

“The orphanage…? Well… It can be, I suppose. Many children laugh and play most of the time there. I don’t allow hardships upon them. Though to be honest the orphanages elsewhere sometimes have issues. We have one in a city to our north, near the border, that regretfully I had to shut down a few decades ago. I found out the priests there were selling the children to northern nobles,” Randle said.

Jeez he really was honest. Even to children.

I wonder if that was one of the events Oplar had spoken of. One of which he had sent Vim to correct and handle.

I could only imagine how furious Vim would have been. Selling children was the very opposite of his belief in free will, after all.

Angie shifted a little. “That doesn’t sound fun at all,” she mumbled.

He chuckled softly. “No. It hadn’t been. But I am proud to say for every child who we’ve failed, there have been well over a dozen or more we’ve helped prop up to become better than they ever could have been without us. Many of the children who grow up under our watchful eyes end up becoming prominent people. And not just as members of the church, but the Society too. Many of them help us in ways you’d never imagine,” Randle said, speaking proudly of his project.

“Hm…” Angie hummed up at the priest, and I wondered if she was interested.

Surely she’d not ask to live there right…?

Wait…

“Angie… what of your family?” I asked.

“Gone. I told you that,” she said calmly.

I shifted and felt horrible. So they really had all died…? In those fires…?

If so then why hadn’t Vim returned already?

Randle sighed gently at us. “Well… I’m going to go get Jelti. Renn, would you please accompany me?” Randle then asked.

Frowning at him, I wondered what he was scheming. I did actually have things I wanted to ask him, but to be honest I was tired. But I knew better than to let my annoyance show or interfere as I nodded. “Sure. Okay,” I said.

“Thank you. I’ll be back later. Shall we have lunch together? I’d like to hear both of your stories if you’d be willing to share them,” Randle asked both Sillti and Angie.

“Oh? Sure…?” Angie frowned but nodded.

“Mhm…” Sillti nodded too, but not as firmly. I knew why, though.

Her story was not one she really wanted to share, after all.

Randle smiled and nodded and then turned, to head for the door. I was about to follow him… but paused and realized something.

“You’re a bison,” I said down to the girl.

“Yeah?”

“I see…” I reached up and took my hat off. Angie tilted her head at me as I smiled down and flicked an ear at her. “I’m a type of cat,” I told her.

“I know. I saw your ears while traveling. You should be a little more careful,” Angie said simply.

My shoulders drooped a little as Sillti giggled and patted Angie’s shoulders. “Now, now! Maybe she just instinctively knew you were a bison all along!” Sillti said, coming to my defense.

“Hmph. Though I admit I didn’t realize you had a tail until last night. So that at least you hid well,” Angie said as she glanced down.

Was it visible…? No. it wasn’t. It was still firmly tucked away beneath my leather skirt.

“Ah. I saw that too. It had been poking out a little when you returned last night, Renn,” Sillti said gently.

I sighed. “Great. Don’t let Vim know,” I said.

“Oh I will!” Sillti said with a grin.

Groaning at her, I stepped away as I put my hat back on. Randle had paused at the door, and hadn’t opened it yet. Likely because I had taken my hat off.

“It is a little odd none of you had noticed,” Randle said gently as he opened the door and we left the house.

“Yes. Now that I think about it I think she had noticed what I was when we first met. She had sat with me and Oplar and ate, and she had acted a little odd for a young girl at the time,” I said as Randle closed the door behind us.

“Hm… from what I can remember she is young though? I believe she’s only a decade or so old,” Randle said.

“Oh…?” I paused a moment in front of the gate and glanced back at the house. “Then why does she act so mature for her age?” I asked.

“Some of our kind are like that. Humans can get like that too. Especially ones who suffered trauma,” Randle said as I opened the gate.

“Trauma like her family dying in front of her,” I said as I understood.

“Yes. I’m surprised you asked of them so blatantly. I figured you for a more gentle soul, particularly towards children,” Randle said as I stepped aside to let him through first. I didn’t know if he was strong enough to open or close the gate or not. Though he likely was, since he had arrived alone it seemed.

Sillti hadn’t been strong enough. And I wasn’t sure yet if Angie was either now… I had assumed she hadn’t been, but…

“Some things need to be asked even when it hurts to do so,” I said simply as I shut the gate behind him.

“Isn’t that the truth…” Randle whispered with a sigh.

I waited a moment to tell which way we were to go. Randle shook his head, still lamenting over what I’d said, and then stepped to the left. I followed him down the hallway, heading away from the direction where I’d normally go to typically find another member here. The Chronicler’s office was the other way.

“Why are we to get Jelti?” I asked.

“Now that I know young Angie is one of us, she needs to be properly assessed. To make sure she’s okay. Physically and mentally. Jelti is the best for such things, when it comes to children. She’s very good with them,” Randle said.

Ah… “Did she seem hurt to you?” I asked. I hadn’t thought she was.

“No. But one must never be too careful when it comes to children,” he said.

Right… he was very protective of kids…

Somehow that made him a good man in my eyes. “Are you married, Randle?” I asked.

“Huh…? No. I’m a man of the cloth,” he said.

“And that means…?”

“That I’m to never wed. Plus even if I wanted to, I’m too old now, so it is of no matter,” Randle said simply.

Frowning at that, I wondered if he meant that in… certain ways.

If so then it was likely not wise to ask what he had thought of Sillti. Plus it may be rude to ask anyway, if he took his faith that seriously.

“You seem tired Renn. Are you well?” Randle then asked.

I noted the gentle tone he had used. He had been utterly genuine in his worry.

“I am. I’m just… I have a lot on my mind is all,” I told him the truth.

I knew he didn’t want us talking about Celine’s letter, or the heart. In fact he may never again bring them up to me.

Honestly I couldn’t blame him. Although this section of the Cathedral was not as frequented as other parts, it was still a place where you were commonly running into people. People of the cloth mostly. Randle and I were alone in this hallway right now, but I knew better than to think the stuff we were saying couldn’t be heard elsewhere.

There were other floors above us. Some of the windows were open. A few doors we passed, although closed, I knew likely had people just behind them. Plus here in these stone halls, voices carried oddly.

And who was to know who was friend and who was foe? At least, for Randle. Thanks to his split with the Chronicler.

“Of that I have no doubt. I hope soon Vim returns and you can rest easy. Is there anything I could do for you until then?” Randle asked.

Huh… “I think I’m okay,” I said carefully. That wasn’t his attempt at inviting me to have a private conversation, was it?

“All the same. I’m always here, Renn. I know not if you’ve ever confessed or not but it is a very relieving commitment. I cannot count how many times I’ve heard of the perfect night of sleep people have gotten after confessing. They say it is a bliss unlike any other,” Randle said.

Oh. Maybe he was just being… well… himself. A priest.

“I confess to Vim sometimes,” I told him.

Randle stopped walking.

Keeping myself from smirking, I watched as the man’s face furrowed in troubled confusion. He was having difficulty with processing what I’d just said.

“He gets all flustered, too, when I do,” I told Randle.

The holy man closed his eyes, took a deep breath and smiled as he sighed. “I bet he does.”