In the Holy Empire, there were two individuals whose power stood above all others: The Divine Padin and The Divine Caster.

  Divine Padin Lawrence was renowned throughout the world as a strong and virtuous warrior.

  The Divine Caster Arieon the Wise, however, was a figure shrouded in mystery.

  Arieon rarely showed his face or power, only ever appearing when the Holy Empire faced a great crisis.

  Even when his research was released and praised, he remained hidden.

  Out of nowhere, Kel had been asked to meet him at Elvast, a city state ruled by the Trú Elves in the Holy Empire’s territory.

  Kel couldn’t refuse his invitation and had to leave Pilgrim’s Post immediately.

  She missed her own brother’s funeral.

  Kel considered running from her escorts to send Connor off, but those pns fell apart when she saw who her escort was.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kel,” Divine Padin Lawrence greeted her with a friendly smile. Standing beside him were two Padins. “This is Isabel and Christoph, two of my closest aides. Would you please follow us to meet with Lord Arieon?”

  Kel said nothing and mounted her horse.

  It was childish of her, but Kel refused to speak to any of her escorts throughout their journey, even when they spoke to her.

  Do they even know that I’m missing my brother’s funeral for this? Kel scowled at Isabel who was calling out to her, telling her how much of a great honour it was. She scoffed. How ridiculous.

  Once they were at Elvast, Kel was escorted behind the Elven Pace to the back of the city, outside of the walls to a luxurious stone mansion beside the Goddess’s Eye Lake. There were magical golems attending to it as if they were servants and guards.

  They secured their horses in the stables and entered the mansion itself.

  It was a vish pce with high oak ceilings and walls, with beautiful ornaments, artefacts and suits of armour decorating every room. There were metallic golems cleaning the hall so that it was near spotless.

  Kel had never seen such luxury before and it disgusted her.

  I want to go home.

  I want to see-. She hugged her arms as her loneliness threatened to consume her.

  She thought of the masked stranger she met under bizarre circumstances, she thought of his pain, of how isoted he had been, of the night he’d comforted her after she’d learnt of Connor’s death.

  I want to see him.

  “Lord Arieon, we’ve brought the adventurer you sent for.”

  “Come in.”

  Lawrence entered the room with his escorts and bowed to the elderly man on the emerald chair. Sat on a sofa beside him was a youthful looking man with bck hair and teal eyes, and a tall scythe tied up in a cloth beside him.

  The elderly gentleman was a bald, frail looking man wearing a battered white-gold cloak. He had milky-white eyes and both of his hands were resting atop a gorgeous wooden staff.

  “Blessings of the Goddess be with you, Divine Caster.”

  “And to you, Divine Padin. Come, sit and drop all that formal stuff.”

  Lawrence smiled. “As you wish, Lord Arieon.”

  Lawrence, Isabel and Christoph sat down on one of the other sofas across from the younger man, leaving Kel standing uncomfortably in the doorway.

  “Don’t just stand there, sit.”

  “Don’t pressure her like that, Isabel. You cannot force someone to do something that they don’t want to.” Arieon turned to Kel and smiled warmly. “I’m sorry about that, but, please, do have a seat, Kel. It doesn’t feel right making you stand like that whilst we talk.”

  Kel put a hand on her hips. “So, that doesn’t feel right to you, but stopping me from going to my brother’s funeral does?”

  “How dare you-!” Isabel’s words got caught in her throat. “…Funeral?”

  Kel gred at her. “Surprised? Here I am, the lucky one in a million, chosen to see the Divine Caster of legend and all I can think about is how much I hate this old man.” She shifted her gre to Arieon. “I bet you knew, didn’t you?” She turned back to Isabel. “Did you know he died at the Shadow Tombs, in the arms of the woman he loved?”

  “…I…”

  “I don’t care what you have to say. Any of you. You made me miss Connor’s funeral, I’ve shown my face like you wanted to and that’s it. I’m leaving.”

  “Don’t you want to catch your brother’s killer?” The young man on the other sofa called to her. “Don’t you want to make sure their sacrifices weren’t in vain?”

  “Like you care.”

  “Trust me, I know better than most what it’s like to lose those you love to monsters.”

  Kel gnced over her shoulder at the young man. “I’m Dante, the st surviving member of the Order.”

  Kel narrowed her eyes.

  There were few in Aangapea who didn’t know of Dante and the Order of Monster Hunters. They were a legendary group who slew dragons, behemoths, krakens and other gigantic, powerful monsters in groups as small as four.

  Alone, they were stronger than a whole battalion of the Holy Legion.

  As a group, they could’ve challenged the world’s armies and won.

  Dante was the st commander of the Order before the Draconic Wars three hundred years ago where the order was meant to have been wiped out.

  It was thanks to them that Dragons, Krakens, Behemoths and other dangerous monsters went extinct, and it was feared their teachings had been lost forever.

  “I thought you were dead.”

  Dante smiled wryly. “Most people do. Even after everyone else was sughtered, I survived. I stayed at White Rock all this time in my sorrow. You’re not at that stage yet, but you might be if you don’t get the satisfaction you need. Arieon wronged you, the Padins wronged you, but I didn’t. At the very least, all I can and would ask of you is that you hear them out, hear why this old git made you miss your brother’s funeral and why he might have a way to fill that hole in your heart before it swallows you.”

  Kel cast a gnce at Isabel’s guilt-ridden expression, then to Arieon who was still smiling warmly at her.

  It made her sick, but she knew that the Divines wouldn’t bring someone in to lie about being the legendary Dante.

  With a heavy sigh, Kel sat down on the st sofa and crossed her arms.

  “While it won’t mean much, allow me to apologise to you for-”

  “Don’t waste what breath you have left,” Kel hissed at Arieon.

  Dante smiled. “Best get on to it, old man.”

  Arieon lifted one hand up towards the ceiling and a rge scroll floated into his palm.

  “Exactly one hundred and twenty days ago, I sensed a great, dark disturbance in the Holy Empire.” Arieon id the scroll out on the table. “Whilst I do not know what it was or what caused it, it was such a foul, disturbing energy that I couldn’t get it out of my head. In all my seventy-eight years as the Divine Caster, I had never felt anything like it before.

  “I immediately began looking across the empire with my golems for any traces of that power, but found nothing. Then, I tried looking in my grimoires and tapestries to see if there was something in them that could give me a hint towards what I felt that day. As, I found nothing.

  “That was until that day in Stonefall, the day of the first murders, the beginning of the Great Disaster.”

  All the participants in the room, except for Dante, looked at Arieon as he spoke. Arieon took up his walking stick and pointed it at the map of the Holy Empire he’d id out. However, it was covered in scribbles of events, dates, times and how long each had sted.

  “On the 26th of Mine-en, members of the Sons of Tartarus were sughtered,” Arieon continued. “The crime was so brutal and so foreboding that I began to investigate it further.”

  “Just because of how brutal it was?” Kel whispered.

  “No. Because of how unexpected it was. Anyone who lives in Stonefall surely knows of the Sons of Tartarus and what would happen should you cross them, yet they were gutted and strung up like pigs.”

  “Which then happened again and again until the Sons of Tartarus were forced into hiding,” Lawrence added.

  “It’s precisely because of that that I was so drawn into this case. My first instinct was that this wasn’t a usual csh between underworld organisations. There was something about it that left a nasty taste in my mouth. It reminded me of that presence I felt and the scar it left on my soul.

  “So, I investigated the city as best I could and even went there in person.” Arieon shuddered. “It was then that I felt something truly disgusting.”

  “What did you feel?”

  “A great dark, evil power on those streets. During my visit, the city was caught up in a frenzy over the Great Disaster. As I was trying to break free from that crowd, for an instant, I felt that same dark essence again. I turned towards the roof of the cathedral but saw nothing there.

  “Not wanting to dawdle, I left the city as fast as I could knowing for certain that whatever began in Stonefall was directly reted to that presence.”

  “You’ve been talking about that for a while now, but what exactly was it?” Kel demanded.

  Christoph rose to reprimand her, but Isabel grasped his arm.

  “He wasn’t the only one who felt it. I felt it all the way at White Rock.”

  “You felt it all the way on the other side of Aangapea, Dante?”

  Dante nodded at Lawrence. “It was a sickly, gross feeling, the sort you’d get from seeing the most terrifying of beasts, like a vampire or one of the great dragons of old. That sort of crawling dread up your spine that makes you break out in a cold sweat even in the safety of your own home, the sort of feeling that something is going to kill you even if you can’t see it.”

  “And you felt that in Stonefall as well?”

  “I most certainly did. Whatever it is we felt four months ago is connected to the Great Disaster and, by extension, the murders in Stonefall and the destruction of Bck Port.”

  “If that’s the case, how do we deal with this threat? Should I have the Padins begin to investigate this matter exclusively?”

  “As excessive as that may be, it might be necessary,” Dante chimed in. “The more people we have in Stonefall, the quicker we find the connection to the disaster and the sooner we take the bastards down behind this.”

  “Yes, I agree-”

  “Why am I here?” Kel demanded.

  Confused, Christoph said, “To avenge your family and friends?”

  “Why me? Why not any of the adventurers who lost people that day? Why not the A-rankers we were friends with? Why not get the guild involved? They’d help out at the drop of the hat to avenge one of their own, especially if ordered to by the Divine Caster. Why just me?”

  Arieon leant forward. “Because Themis herself told me that your destiny was tied to the Great Disaster.”

  “What?”

  “We Divines are often visited by Themis herself in our sleep, though sometimes it is for nothing more than a few words of comfort to relieve our burdens for a short while. Other times, it is to preach her warnings to the world. Some of the higher-ranking bishops also get these oracles from time to time. We Divines usually get one or two a week.”

  “It’s as he says, Kel. She speaks to us and guides us as we dream. Then, when we wake, we act as she wishes us to.”

  “…And Themis herself told you that you needed me? Why?”

  “Who’s to say?” Arieon mused. “Who are we to question Themis’s teachings? Kel, you have been chosen by Themis to help us stop the Great Disaster and defeat the darkness lurking behind it.

  “This is your destiny.”

  ***

  After talking about the Great Disaster for a few more hours, Arieon invited them all to dine with him.

  It was te in the day by the time they finished and Arieon insisted that they stay the night.

  Kel could neither rex nor fall asleep inside Arieon’s mansion.

  She tossed and turned uncomfortably in bed for an hour before giving up. She went down to the keside to try and clear her head.

  The st month had been the worst time of her life.

  Connor, Alisa and Tiergan were dead.

  She’d missed Connor’s funeral.

  She’d been summoned against her will to meet with the Divine Caster, and now she had been told that the Great Goddess Themis herself chose her to fight the darkness pguing the empire, restricting what she could do with her own life.

  “What a sick joke,” Kel muttered as she threw a rock into the water. She then picked up another few rocks from the ground beside her and started throwing them too.

  “I’ve heard that if you throw a heart shaped rock into the ke at the right time of night, a great golden fish will leap out of the water and swallow it, granting your heart’s desires,” Dante said with a friendly smile as he approached her. “Couldn’t sleep?”

  Kel threw a stone into the ke. “Thought that was obvious. You?”

  “I haven’t been able to sleep in a long time.” Dante sat down a few feet beside her and took up a rge stone of his own. “The first time I ever got to do something like this was a White Rock when I was thirteen. I’d just been accepted into the Order and me and my mates were done on the cliffs and decided to see who could throw a rock the furthest. Whoever won got to order the rest to do anything they wanted for the rest of the day.” Dante chuckled a little. “I was so weak back then I could barely throw it ten metres.”

  Dante wound his arm back and threw the stone a hundred metres across the ke; it sank with a satisfying plop into the water.

  “And you’re telling me why?”

  “If I’m being honest, I don’t really know how to talk to other people anymore. Until today, the st time I spoke to someone was a hundred years ago and all I said was goodbye.” Dante picked up a ft stone and gently brushed it with his thumb. “Palin, the st other member of the Order. Now, it’s just me at White Rock. Well, sometimes there are robbers who come to visit that don’t ever leave.” Dante ughed a little but Kel’s expression remained unchanged. “What do you think you’ll do about Arieon’s offer?”

  “What can I do?” Kel threw her st rock into the water. “The Divine Caster’s told me that Themis wants me and, like everything as of tely, I don’t have a choice in the matter.”

  “You do.”

  “No, I really don’t. I didn’t have a choice when my brother went south and died, I didn’t have a choice when people told me not to let their deaths be in vain as they offered fake ptitudes, and I didn’t have a choice when I was summoned here. If word ever got out that I’d defied Themis’s will, I’d be lynched or burnt alive, even by my own mother.”

  “Why didn’t you go south with your brother?”

  “Is that your roundabout way of saying I’d be better off dead?”

  “Heavens, no. If that were the case, I’d tell it to you straight, like I did with Arieon when he called me up here. Do you know what I told him when he called out to me?”

  “Fuck off?”

  “Damn right. I told him to fuck right off because I was done fighting monsters and demons. I was done with the lot, but I realised something. I’m the st of my Order, the st one that stands in the thickest darkness to defend everyone in Aangapea. If I don’t do what I can for my fallen comrades and the people we risked our lives to protect, I’d be betraying them.”

  “I’m not ever doing what Arieon wants me to do.”

  “Fair enough, but, Kel, what does your brother want you to do?”

  “…My brother?”

  “Surely, he must’ve had a reason for you to stay behind, right? A job, a mission or a role only you could perform and that he trusted you to do?”

  The st conversation she’d ever had with her brother surfaced in her mind.

  “Kel, I want you to stay behind,” Connor told her. “It’s not because I don’t think you’re strong enough or because I’m scared something will happen, but you’re the one I trust the most to look into the murders at Stonefall and I want you to uncover the truth behind them. Don’t worry if you can’t do it alone because we’ll be back home in a month to help you.”

  The st thing Connor asked me to do. Tears formed in her eyes. He had me stay behind because he trusted me, because he knew I could find out the truth and help stop it.

  Dante smiled. “It seems you found your brother’s st wish.”

  Kel wiped her tears. “Yeah.”

  “Then, do you think you can help us for your brother and not that old fart?”

  Kel ughed a little, showing Dante a truly happy smile for the first time since they’d met. “Yeah.”

  ***

  “Didn’t think you’d still be up.”

  Sat on a sofa with a solemn expression on her face, Isabel weakly looked up at Lawrence and held up high a half-drunk gss of gin. “Thought it’d be a waste not to sample some of the finest before we left.”

  Lawrence ughed and sat beside her. “How’s the taste?”

  Isabel shrugged. “Not my preference, but does the job.”

  “…What’s wrong?”

  She scoffed. “You can’t figure it out?”

  “I can. Just thought it’d be best if you said it yourself.”

  Isabel took a small sip of what was left in her gss. “When I was a kid, my mum always told me stories about the Divines. She told me about how they were Themis’s greatest weapons, how they defeated evil monsters and protected the empire from harm. She said that it would be a small miracle to see one from a distance, let alone ever talk to one.

  “Mum always said that they were strong, kind people who Themis spoke to.” Isabel smiled wryly. “I’d always dreamt of becoming a Divine one day. As I got older, I realised that that wasn’t going to happen and aimed to be a Padin instead and, here I am; best friends with a Divine.”

  Lawrence smiled back.

  “But Kel didn’t feel that way about you or Lord Arieon. She was angry about being summoned by the heroes I admired. Even when I tried to talk to her on the way here, all I did was talk about mundane stuff and praise you guys, saying how honoured she must feel.” Isabel scoffed. “I could see the way she looked at me, at all of us, and never once asked what was wrong. I never asked a single question about her.”

  “In your defence, I never told you about her circumstances.”

  “And I’m just as guilty for not asking. ‘Oh, she’s just an adventurer?'’” Isabel sighed. “I don’t have the right to be upset when I’m responsible for making Kel more miserable than she already was.”

  The two sat awkwardly in silence for a few moments before Lawrence spoke up.

  “When I was a kid, I thought the same thing you did. My folks said it’d never happen, so I began training in secret when I was four. I worked on my muscles, my stamina and my sword skills, pushing everyone else my age away. In my mind, I didn’t have time to waste on things like pying with friends or helping my parents around the house.

  “I ended up leaving home when I was thirteen to become a Padin. I didn’t even tell my parents I was leaving. It was a waste of time in my eyes. Even at the keep, all I did was study and train. I didn’t try to get along with anyone and, then, it happened. I was chosen.”

  Lawrence chuckled bitterly. “I had finally made my dream come true and wanted to tell someone…but I didn’t have anyone to tell. No one congratuted me, not really, not from the bottom of their hearts. It was only once I’d become the Divine Padin that I realised just how little it really meant to me in the end.

  “I wrote back to my parents and people I knew back at the capital and never got a letter back. My parents had died when I was seventeen, a year before I’d become the Divine Padin. The kids I’d know had grown up and forgotten my name, even their parents had. When I went back to the capital and realised how alone I was, I didn’t want to be the Divine Padin anymore.”

  “…Do you still feel that way now?”

  “Sometimes,” he whispered with a sombre expression. “Then again.” His gentle smile returned. “If I hadn’t ever become the Divine Padin, I wouldn’t have met you or the others, saved the people I have and seen the things I have. Isabel, you’re far too young to be looking back on the mistakes you’ve made. Save that for when you’re my age and spend your time now trying to find ways of fixing your mistakes.”

  He lightly patted her head, then left.

  “What should I say to her?”

  Lawrence gnced over his shoulder and, with a reassuring smile on his face, said, “Just tell her what you told me and apologise while you still have the time.”

  ***

  “The Great Goddess herself speaks to you? I wonder if they’d kill themselves if I told them it’d benefit the empire?”

  Eris giggled as she watched Kel’s next morning, somewhat revitalised, as she did her early morning training.

  She apologised to Lawrence, Christoph and Isabel, who apologised back, and they all pledged to work together to stop the Great Disaster.

  “The stage was already almost perfect before David arrived, but I had to nudge the narrative just a little bit to make it more interesting. It’s such a shame that out of all the adventurers who went to Bck Port that the st handful just so happened to be precious to you, Kel. Isn’t it even a bigger shame that David was the one who killed them all?”

  To Eris’s delight, as Kel walked around Elvast, she ended up running into a disguised David and the two talked happily to one another.

  On the way to the city, Kel had written to David and asked to meet up at the city’s famous water fountain.

  The two kissed, linked hands and happily began walking around the city.

  “Ah, I want to see the look on her face when she realises who David really is,” Eris sweetly moaned, stretching out her hand towards the image floating before her.

  Eris smiled a cruel, yet sweet, smile at them.

  “I can’t wait.”