CHAPTER 86: SUCKS TO BE A CATALYST OF DESTRUCTION

This only meant we needed to start moving. Immediately.

I frowned at her.

"Then we need to leave now. The church can’t kill them if we aren’t here, right?"

Nisha sighed, folding her arms across her chest. My cloak — the one she’d torn apart to improvise a bra — was still wrapped around her.

"Does it make any difference though?" She shook her head slowly. "You think the church cares whether we’re here or not? This gives them a justification to deal with trash. Those Eternal Light bastards, they’ll swoop in and kill every damn person. Octavia. Poor Ephraim. The other villagers." Her jaw tightened. "Some of them, especially the women — I can see the nervousness in their eyes already. Turns out word has spread about a Heretic in the area. They’re suspecting us."

My frown deepened as I studied her face.

"You’re saying that no matter what we do... just because we crossed these people’s paths by chance, they’re fucked? They’re all going to die?"

Nisha nodded. "If this is Rivermarrow — the place for failed warriors — they strongly believe in the Lord of Conquest. Who knows, they might’ve grown to be religious followers of Tyrvas by now." She paused, letting that sink in. "Although they will die, this is exactly what we can use. We can make the people of Mishard rise against the hunters coming for us. If Mishard learns about a raid on this place, they’ll be angered. The Iron Cult won’t sit back and let some Light Paladins ride into their territory. They’ll fight out of spite." A cold pragmatism settled into her expression. "But it will benefit us."

She was thinking analytically. There was nothing we could do to stop what was coming, but there was something we could do to turn the situation in our favor.

There was something deeply unsettling about that.

’Why does it always have to be about us?’

Because we were fugitives. We were on the run. No — to say it properly, I was the fugitive. I was on the run, and I was weak, and I needed to take advantage of poor and innocent people just to protect myself.

I bit my lower lip, anger coiling tight in my chest. I was beginning to lose too much. I didn’t have to know these people personally, and their deaths wouldn’t hit me the way Lira’s had — nothing could — but it still pained me.

Innocent people would die just because they crossed paths with me. Even if their history with the church played a role, it was impossible to shake the thought that I was the catalyst for all of it.

The narrative would be simple: they died because they sheltered me.

I swallowed hard and sighed deeply, adding another weight to the growing burden in my heart.

’How many more?’

"We’re not far from the seaside, are we?" I asked quietly. "I’d like to be alone for a moment."

Nisha nodded. "Just go out and walk. You’ll find it easily."

I exhaled and pulled myself from the bed, groaning as the soreness in my body made itself known. She watched me go, concern flickering in her eyes before she hid it away.

***

I walked out of the room and into the village center.

Rivermarrow, to my surprise, was actually a fairly large village. The cottages were scattered in loose patterns, with low stone walls carving each family’s segment away from the others.

And yet, small doorways no taller than my waist punctured those walls, leading into neighboring sections. The whole place had a strange intimacy to it — separated but connected.

Ephraim’s house backed onto the ocean. Only a handful of people were outside at this hour. A group of men sat in front of his cottage, machetes and chewing sticks in hand, the smell of fish and salt heavy in the air.

I stepped out and lowered my head slightly in greeting.

"Oho, Ephraim — isn’t that your boy?"

Mr. Ephraim was among them, dismembering fish with the practiced ease of a butcher rather than a fisherman. He looked up at me.

"Young man, should you be up and about? Isn’t it cold?"

I offered a shy smile. "Absolutely not, sir. I’m totally alright." I gestured vaguely toward the water. "I just want to catch the ocean breeze for a few minutes."

"Haha! This one knows his stuff." One of the older men leaned back with a grin. "They say if you stick around long enough at this hour, you might catch some Aquarais bathing by the banks. Big titties and all."

"Aii, that nonsense had me sleeping by the riverbank for three days. I saw none of those."

"Good Lord of Conquest, that actually reminds me of the Longstream raid. Remember it, Docker?"

"Of course I remember. I broke my damn legs at that raid, you fool."

Somehow, the conversation drifted away from me and deeper into their own memories, giving me permission to move on. I continued walking and passed some women who were outside working, bent over baskets and nets. I greeted them, expecting the same easy warmth.

The air with them felt wrong.

It was easy to see they didn’t welcome me here. Their eyes lingered a beat too long, their responses clipped and wary.

’They know. Or they suspect.’

I felt a pang of something like guilt. I really would’ve avoided this place if I’d known what was going to happen. But at the same time — it’s that attitude of theirs that’ll get them killed. Could they not see how the men were perfectly chill with me just now?

I shook my head and kept walking, moving toward the openness where the village met the sea.

The land sloped gently downward, and I drifted along with the sand until I reached the water’s edge.

The ocean stretched out before me, vast and dark under the midnight sky. I looked around, half-wondering if I’d actually catch sight of any Aquarai — the native word for Merfolk.

I knew this from our Sol’Aethric language classes at the academy. It was the common tongue of the Central Continent, which in native speech was called Sol’Aethria — the land where the sun reigns. That translated to Solarium in common language, though most people just called it the Central Continent, since it sat at the center of the world of Ealdrim.

’There couldn’t actually be...’

I caught myself scanning the waves for movement and stopped.

Enough distractions.

I closed my eyes and turned my focus inward. To myself. To my soul.

The darkness behind my eyelids shifted — and then I was standing in the center of The Nave.

I looked around. No sign of Kassie anywhere.

As I stepped forward, a flash of red hair suddenly emerged from behind one of the pews.

"Kassie?"