“Yeah, sure,” Sally shrugged, not quite knowing how to reply to the offer. It seemed like something Dekantists would kill for, to have someone so high-up to guide them through their First. The people at Lovesse certainly seemed to think so. “Seems… fun, I suppose?”

  Fortunately, Lucy’s bright smile and shining eyes said more than enough for both of them.

  25. Anointment – September 5, Year 216

  To Sally’s eyes, Ancora was a monster of a city. Keringa and Southwall had a popution upwards of ten-thousand people. The Bite, if you count Greenwatch and Redwatch, had slightly more than that, somewhere between eleven to twelve-thousand people. Gadeon, the second rgest city in the Grand Circuit by a wide margin, hovered around twenty thousand people. The other cities – Corton, Lovesse, Bridgers, Cardinar, Rostgate – had comparatively small poputions.

  Ancora housed one hundred thousand people. It, alone, held more people than the rest of the Grand Circuit had combined and was the oldest city in the Circuits to boot, though Gadeon liked to pretend otherwise. If its visitors are to be believed, Ancora was the only city of a size comparable to those found in the great states east, south and west of the Circuits. If the Anteeri were the beating heart of the Circuits, then Ancora was that of the Anteeri.

  And then, at the center of the city – the heart of the heart of the heart of the Circuits – lied the first water treatment facility, built with the Ante’s very own hands. The first source of ready-made, easy-to-use water the Circuits could produce in vast, no, limitless quantities. The fist vertebrae in the backbone of Anteeri, and thus Circuit, life.

  Sally imagined how the pce must’ve once looked: a great, giant, squat and square building of immense smooth, solid grey walls buried half in the waters of Lake Prior. Back then, so short after the apocalypse, when all that was left of humanity were but a few people eking out a living in tiny wooden shacks, leathery huts, rocky caves or sandy abodes, it would’ve been a domineering structure, towering over the horizon and the waters behind it. Its dull fa?ade would’ve been bold in the blue and red of its surroundings, a defying edifice in the face of cruel death.

  Very little of that was left now. Its once domineering size id low in the domineering size of the city that’d once been built in its shadow, but now spread out around it like a hive does its queen.

  But while its tyrannical luster, the defiance it promised, had long since faded by now, that was not to say it wasn’t still the focal point of the entire city. Its smooth grey walls were now hidden behind decorative mosaic tiles, colorfully id out in, on the whole, aesthetically pleasing geometric patrons and, in particur, detailed scenes of the Ante’s and his follower’s words and deeds. The focus on blue colors combined with red lower to the ground made the building blend into the water, nd and sky surrounding it, making the art on it pop out and seem as if it was floating in the ether, etched into the fabric of reality itself. Instead of a giant fist once wielded against the wastend, it was now the prized jewel of a crowned city.

  Thus, it made sense that it now served as the home of the Praesidium.

  Lucy had left her after they arrived at the treatment facility turned temple. They’d said their goodbyes, and Sally promised to watch the anointment they would prepare for her – be it ter in the evening today, tomorrow or next week – while Lucy had promised she’d wait for her here tonight to guide Sally through the First Sip.

  To say Sally wasn’t anxious would be a lie. To say she wasn’t excited would also be a lie. She was very much looking forward to it, specifically to what the ke’s ‘gift’ to her would be. What she expected – and was almost certain would actually happen – was that she would receive some vision or knowledge reted to her blessings.

  It was the only thing that made sense, right? If she’d been blessed for a specific future, to do a specific thing or something like that, this was the moment to inform her what it was that she needed to do. And if she was given this things merely incidentally by Lucy’s ‘divine’, then this would be the way gain knowledge about the how and why of it.

  Either way, there would be an answer, the answer, the one she’d been looking for from the day she woke up in the gully, the reason she’d wanted to find her brother, why anything at all.

  And then, after she finally got her answer? She would move on. She would decide her own future. Become the greatest runner the Circuits ever knew, a redeemed Warden ready to protect the Vils – all of them – with greater ferocity than ever before seen, a traveler or caravaner discovering the nds beyond the Circuits or even beyond the surrounding states. Or become something else entirely.

  But that would have to wait until tonight. For now, she had a job to do.

  X

  She didn’t have the address of the milliner’s residence or pce of business, nor was she given a route or directions on where to go by their former teacher. All she had been given was her target’s trade, and their name: Duran Harner.

  Still, Sally had the determinization and the stamina to make up for what she cked in knowledge. Thus, despite the size of the city, Sally managed to find the pce she’d been looking for: Harner’s Hattery & Clothing. It took her over four hours to do so, but that didn’t matter.

  The outside of the building was very unlike that of his teacher, Ange Millier, back in Southwall. Not that Sally had expected them to be the same, since unlike the ever-changing styles of Southwall’s houses, Ancora had always preferred the multi-stories sandstone blocks of the Circuits as their go-to style. The only simirity between the two shops was the sign that each had on their storefronts, bearing the name of their respective enterprises.

  But while the outside betrayed nothing of the retion between Ange and Durran, once she entered it, it became immediately obvious the two were master and apprentice. The way the hats and clothes look, the yout of the shop, the way their products were showcased to customers; it all bore striking simirities.

  When Sally entered, no bell rang on her arrival, but the man appeared instantly from the back – his presumed workspace – to greet her. The man was nearing middle-age, though he had yet to get any grey in his hair nor his short, well-groomed beard – unless he had already started dyeing them back to their original bck. He wore a suit in the Grandie style – three piece, mix of bck and white – but had, on closer inspection, carefully woven decorative patterns of the same color on its clothes, nearly unseen but for the relief it gave.

  “Hi there! Can I help you?” He asked, moving towards the store’s counter. Unlike his presumed master, the man gave no stern impression. Instead, he seemed to be all-kindness all the time.

  “Duran Harner, correct?” Sally asked, just to be sure.

  “Yup, that’s me – got something for me then?” Duran asked in return.

  “Good guess,” Sally said, moving towards the counter. “Got a letter and a box from your teacher back in Southwall.” She pced her bag on top of the desk, retrieved the items and id them out on the table.

  “Not much of a guess, really,” the man made conversation as he took the letter from the counter. “I’ve only ever had couriers asking if I was who I was. The rest just assume I’m him. Do I owe you anything, or…?” He asked Sally, opening the letter without looking.

  “Nope, made the delivery as part of a deal. Got a good discount on a hat I purchased as a gift,” Sally replied.

  “Ha, typical!” He ughed, eyes turning to the letter. “She likes to py tough, but in reality she’s… just…” Duran trailed off, absorbed by the contents of the letter.

  Sally saw the man’s eyes move rapidly, almost panicky, as he read, his jaw set and his countenance becoming more grim by the moment.

  “Something wrong?” Sally asked, intrigued. She’d hate to be the bearer of bad news, though she hadn’t seen any signs of it when she’d been handed the letter and the little box back in Southwall. Then again, it had been a while. She could’ve just forgotten it.

  The man remained silent for a moment longer, reading the tter thoroughly, before moving to the box. He opened it, either not caring or not remembering that Sally was still in the shop, and retrieved a metal object out of it: a key.

  “It’s the key to her shop,” he replied, eyeing the silvery key with disbelief.

  “For the one in Southwall?” Sally asked, to which the man gave an absentminded nod in response. “Why would she do that?” Sally sure hadn’t seen any sign of it at the time; the woman’s shop had been stocked and open for business, not ready to be abandoned at a moment’s notice.

  “The letter said that things were stirring in Southwall, that some of the higher-up Arcanist’s were pnning something. Made her feel uncomfortable, so she left, heading back south.” His tone of voice then shifted from disbelief to anger. “First that whole affair in Cardinar, now Southwall-”

  “Wait, an affair in Cardinar?” Sally asked, uncomprehending.

  “What- ah, you came from the west, then,” he said, apparently coming to a conclusion. “About a week or so ago, a runner arrived from Rostgate with a message that the gates of Cardinar had been closed – with no one allowed in or out – and that a Leagueran fg had been spotted flying its walls!”

  Sally froze, mind overclocking to find some sembnce of logic, of rationality in an increasingly chaotic world. “First the Lake and the Greennds, and now this…” her voice spoke, unbidden.

  “Wait, what? The Greennds?” The hatter asked, his turn to be surprised.

  “We travelled from Southwall to Lake Majestic and from there to Keringa,” Sally expined, providing further context. “Some military arm of the Merkahni have killed a Demon in the Greennds, secured an alliance with the Marshen, then used it and some secret deals with The Bite and Keringa to build a settlement – Green Providence – at Lake Majestic. Hell, they’ve all but taken the Green!”

  Sally’s mind raced as she id it all out once more. The Green Circuit and the Merkahni, now Cardinar to the League, combined with the deal between the Vils and the Grandies…

  The Circuits had always seemed so stable. Whether it was despite or because of the dangers that lurked within them, the polities of the Circuits change only rarely, and when they do, always at the hand of demons or something like it.

  The people that lived within them, despite their rivalry, antagonism and sometimes full-blown hostility toward one another, rarely interfered with each other like this. There hadn’t been a single instance of one city going after another, let alone something like a takeover the Leaguerans apparently performed.

  Both sat in silence for a while, contempting the changes happening to the Circuits, when the sound of bells echoed out across the city, first coming from the direction of the ke before others took up the call. Both startled at the noise, moving into a panic before Duran seemed to remember something. Sally, seeing the man realize what was going on, shot him a questioning look.

  “No worries, no worries! Just unfortunate timing!” The man ughed nervously, voice shaky and hand on his heart. “Man, that scared the shit out of me,” he said with a sigh, tension leaving him.

  Sally, however, was not yet soothed. “What’s going on?”

  “The bells, they’re sounding for the anointment of another Most High,” the man expined, smiling, clearing the counter and stowing their items underneath in a hurry.

  Sally blinked at that. “Wow, they work fast.”

  “What?” The hatter asked, rising from behind the counter. “The priests announced it like, what, a week ago? City’s been preparing for days!”

  “Huh,” Sally exhaled. Did someone have a vision about us or something?

  “You wanna go and watch together?” Duran asked, picking up a hat and making his way to the front door.

  “Oh yeah, of course,” Sally replied, following the man. “You know that friend I talked about? The one I bought the hat for?” Sally asked, smile on her face.

  They stepped out onto the street, and she saw they weren’t the only ones. It was as if the entire city had been mobilized!

  “Yeah?” Duran asked, turning his neck to look at her, though continuing to walk towards the ke.

  “She’s the one getting anointed,” Sally revealed, ughing as the man stumbled.

  X

  Sally didn’t know how Lucy had done it, but a few of the temple guards – robe-cd men and women wearing ceremonial bronze cuirasses and spears for the event – recognized her and led her to a location closer to the ceremony. Then again, she supposed one-armed woman of her features weren’t common.

  She tried to get the guards to allow Duran to come with, but they’d been firm he wasn’t allowed. Which was understandable, she supposed, if unfortunate. Thankfully, Duran simply appreciated the attempt before quickly running off to try and find a better viewing spot.

  The anointment didn’t take pce, as Sally had assumed, inside the Praesidium’s temple, but instead at a specially built pier some distance away. Its causeway was an incredibly wide one made of stone – over fifty feet, she guessed, though it was hard to tell with the people on it – that led to a rge open pza out in the water, with a semi-circle of terraced benches at the back, facing the city.

  She was given a seat on one of the benches, not quite the first row but not all the way in the back either. She preferred it anyhow, the slightly elevated position allowing her a much clearer view on the whole event.

  Everything was packed to the gills. On the beaches, so far away from where Sally sat, hundreds, likely thousands of people gathered, all of them eager to get a glimpse of a newly minted Most High. Sally doubted any of them could see anything; it was simply too far away and there were numerous people blocking the view from the shore. Nevertheless, the fact that they couldn’t yet still tried to see Lucy’s big moment made Sally feel honored on Lucy’s behalf.

  The benches were stuffed with important-looking people all rubbing shoulders with one another, and the stage was crowded with priests, all bearing different robes. One style of robe she recognized from Cardinar – a white robe with a blue sash and a red, upside-down V-shaped red hat – and others were simir to Lucy’s – an undecorated light blue – though they too bore the same red headwear. Others wore purple, dark blue, sun-yellow or green robes, some with and some without a blue-colored sash, but every single priest-looking person wore the same red hat.

  Then there were the aforementioned temple guard, decked out in bronze. She saw that some of them bore rifles – specifically the ones standing on top of the terraced benches – and those lining the causeway to the stage bore bronze shields as well as spears. Finally, there were two at the end of the causeway with spears at least twenty feet long, pointing at the sky. Both bore at their tips two long, yet comparatively thin streamers, one in blue and one in red, that fluttered in the wind.

  And at the center of it all, by the hole in the stage through which the water of Lake Prior visibly flowed, was Lucy. She was kneeling on cushions at the edge of said hole, hands csped together in prayer. Aside from the priests, she was fnked by two more temple guards, a giant bronze gong and smoking sticks of a kind Sally didn’t recognize stuck in strangely porous, bulbous red urns.

  One of the priests hit the gong thrice and the cacophony that came with such a rge gathering slowly ground to a halt.

  “Blessed people of Ancora,” the priest – a man – began, calmly speaking without so much as raising his voice. Instead, it had a strange, insistent reverb to his voice that made it feel like he was speaking directly in front of her. Likely some kind of spell to make it be heard from everywhere. “‘Protect these people from harm, as I protect you. Teach these people about life, as the water taught you. Grant these people your love, as the divine loves you.’ These are the words our Prophet spoke to his first apostles, as he ordained their first disciples. These are the words that, to this very day, our priests speak to you, oh faithful followers of the Ante, when you take your First Sip.”

  The man let the words linger for a moment, before continuing. “Here before us is someone who has lived by these words, has breathed its essence, understood its purpose and embodied its commandments. For this, she has been Six-Times-Blessed by our Prophet and for this, she became a Praeses of our community.”

  Again, he let the words linger. “But now, she has gone above and beyond. She, spurred by blessed vision, has wandered to the holy three and circled our nds, braved its dangers and overcome it! She has experienced terror, beauty and humility at the holy pces, and learned from it! She has seen our doom averted, our future promised, and our peace removed, and understood it!

  “She has given her soul to our Prophet and for this, our Prophet has given her a chance! A chance to partake once more! A chance to ascend Most High! A chance to become Seven-Times-Blessed!”

  Cheers erupted at the end of the speech. People on the beach, seated beside Sally, among the guards and even amongst the priests, everyone began shouting, yelling, praising and blessing Lucy. Sally was stunned for a moment before she, too, became infected by the surrounding cheer. She rose from her seat and began hollering and shouting with joy, a faint prickling in her eye.

  Sally didn’t fully understand what was going on, didn’t have the context, the education nor the cultural legacy that allowed her to grasp the full contents of the ceremony. But pride suffused her nevertheless! That was her friend there, sitting in the midst of raucous cheer! Surrounded by people that looked at her with such zeal, such adoration, a passion of a kind Sally could barely fathom!

  The st time she’d felt this proud was when she was given the title of junior Warden, and now she felt it on behalf of someone else! It was an odd feeling, leaving her light-headed through pure joy as she was swept along the emotions of the crowd.

  Then, the gong sounded three times again, and the mood slowly began to calm once more. “Now, let the candidate speak her words, be they final or the first of someone new!”

  Those words shot a cold through Sally veins. So swept along by joy had she been that she’d forgotten the dangers this represented. Every Sip carried a risk of death, increasingly so with every Sip taken. The death toll increased with every Sip, and from the Fourth Sip on most didn’t make it. The Fifth had such a low survival rate that it became the threshold for the Praesidium, the governing body of the rgest city in the Circuits! And Sally was now on her Seventh, a thing so rare the entire city had come out to watch!

  The Seventh must be special, Sally reasoned with herself. The Seventh is holy, it must be an exception! Why else would the Praesidium turn the whole city upside down for this, if they weren’t absolutely sure it would succeed? Why else would someone have had a vision that they had to prepare for Lucy’s arrival today? But rational these thoughts might be, they did little to calm her worry.

  She’ll be fine, Sally thought, seeking another avenue of comfort. She didn’t do this on a whim. She saw it, in her vision! But no matter how far Sally dug, she found no memory of Lucy ever mentioning it. Yes, she had a vision that she needed to do a pilgrimage before taken the Seventh, a pilgrimage that she had to and did complete with Sally by her side, as she’d been shown during her Sixth.

  But Lucy never said she would succeed. Icy cws grasped her heart at the thought.

  “People of Ancora!” Lucy shouted, voice carrying clearly even without spellwork. “Dekantists of all ways, all bends and all courses, hear me! Hear of my pride and my folly!” The procmation caused some murmurs among the crowd. For an acceptance speech, it was an odd opening.

  “For a decade, from age fourteen, have I bored with love for the faith, assured in the knowledge it would be returned! For a decade, from age fourteen, have I given myself to the water, assured in the knowledge I would be embraced by the Prophet! For a decade, from age fourteen, have I believed myself destined, assured in the knowledge of my ascension! I believed myself great when I was small, rich when I was poor, above when I was low!

  “But now, I possess no more false knowledge! Now, I know but one thing: to have faith! I have seen fate thwarted by wicked hand, divine intervention and human cunning! I have seen greatness spill from sand, seen horror in water and seen healing in shed blood! I have seen the Circuits changeless and chained from within, yet be changed from without!

  “Now, all I have left is faith! Faith that the lesson’s I have learned, the actions I have taken and the love I hold are enough for our Prophet to embrace me one final time!” The cheer picked up again at her final words, the rest of her speech seeming all but forgotten to the majority of the crowd.

  But Sally’s thoughts lingered on them. She had recognized her own changes, but had she recognized Lucy’s? Her friend had always seemed so sure of herself, of her future, but doubts had crept in unnoticed. The Lucy she’d first met would have never worked together with the Merkahni, before they found Green Providence and the death of a Demon. Had thought herself all-knowing on the faith, before encountering the Hiynite. Had been dismissive of outsider magic, before learning of bone-mending.

  And these were the only ones she could now, in hindsight, recognize. Who knows how many more there were, how many she’d missed while blinded by her egotism? Only now did it really come to Sally, that Lucy’s journey was of equal, if not greater importance than her own troubles.

  I’m a bad friend, Sally thought. And now this might be our st moment together, separated by a distance that might as well be a thousand miles. Now, more than ever, she wished she could stand by her side one more time.

  Again, the gong sounded three times, and again, the crowd settled. “So these words have been heard, so they have been recorded! Now, drink from the most holy of kes, and experience your bliss!” The man spoke, and Sally prepared herself for the crowd to erupt once more, but it remained quiet.

  Lucy bowed her head towards the water, ying ft over the cushions. She scooped from it with a single hand and put the hand toward her mouth, drinking the handful of water. Then, she returned towards her prior kneeling position and started praying once more.

  Sally’s heart beat furiously in her chest, watching Lucy with eagle-eyed focus to see if anything went wrong, if she was about to watch her friend die. She could see it all even from this distance, the same experience coming over her as when she had done battle with the cannibal, the Demon, the bloodfiend. An intense focus, slowed time, sharpened perception and supernatural abilities all aimed squarely at her friend’s condition.

  Lucy swayed but didn’t fall. Her breath hitched but didn’t falter. Her eyes blinked rapidly but didn’t close. And then, thankfully, it was over.

  Lucy shot a look out towards the benches. For a moment, their eyes met and Sally saw how widened they were, how in awe, and how horrified. Sally gave her a smile – no doubt a strained one, considering how tense she was – trying to comfort her friend from, and Lucy returned a small one, one no less strained than her own.

  Then, her friend stood up and turned toward the priest. They began to talk, and Sally expected some sort of procmation to come, but they remained talking.

  Murmurs began to spread outward from the pair, first to the other priests, then carried to the guards, then to the onlookers on the terrace and beyond.

  Eventually, they reached Sally. A vision had been had, and a portent of doom uttered.