Cass's next stop was the temple. It floated over the river on the wide spire, its towering glass walls shimmering in the afternoon sun.

Alyx was waiting for her outside with Kelstor. The crowd hung around them, holding a respectful buffer of several yards around the dragon. Most passed by quickly, trying to look like they were focused on their business. A few stopped and stared up at Kelstor, his horns glistening in the sun. But every eye was staring, whether or not they meant to. If it bothered the knight or dragon, they didn't show it.

"You didn't have to come," Cass said as she stepped out of the crowd. The crowd's eyes added her to their gaze. Cass's skin prickled under the weight.

Alyx snorted. "And let you walk into a temple unsupervised?"

"What does that mean?"

Alyx shot Salos on Cass's shoulder an incredulous look.

He shook his head dejectedly in return.

"You are two for two for meeting gods in temples, for one," Alyx said. "And last time you were kidnapped."

Cass scratched the back of her head. That wasn't wrong. But, "That wouldn't happen again." Right?

Salos rolled his eyes.

Alyx shook her head. "Come on, we're causing a scene here."

"I wouldn't have on my own," Cass grumbled, but followed Alyx into the building.

You're coming too? Cass asked Salos. He'd dipped out when she'd visited the temple in Hervet. She was pretty sure it was his history with Alacrity that had made him hesitant to enter before, rather than some aversion as a demon, but she didn't fault him for wanting to avoid the place.

The statue of Alacrity loomed over the main room, inhumanly large and imposing, her crimson dragon twisting around her waist. People crowded around it, even busier today than it had been the day before.

Obviously. He stuck his nose up.

She didn't miss the tension coiled like springs down his feline body or the reverberating reservation along their bond.

I really will be okay, Cass said. There is no way anyone would do something to me here a second time.

You claimed you would stay out of trouble before I absorbed the soul piece, and look where I found you. I am not letting you lure me into a false sense of safety.

Cass shook her head. He could be as stubborn as she was when it suited him.

Alyx led the way through the room, the crowd splitting around them.

A priest hurried to meet them, a slender man with dark hair and pale skin, dressed in the blue of Alacrity. "Dame Aretios, welcome to the temple. What brings the dame here today?"

"My friend and I had some questions," Alyx said.

"I will prepare a room." The priest bowed his head. "Would Lord Kelstor like to wait here or in the gardens for the dame?"

"Oh." The word slipped from Alyx's mouth like an escaping sigh. "Right." She looked up at Kelstor, his shoulders stood far taller than the internal cathedral doors. How had they gotten him in or out of the basement? How had the duchess's dragon fit through here? She was even bigger, and Kelstor barely fit.

"The gardens," Kelstor said. "There is a good spot for napping, if memory serves."

"Very good, my lord," the priest said and waved over another priest. "Please let this one help you. My lady, if you would follow me."

He led them out of the main room and into the private corridor, Alyx glancing over her shoulder to Kelstor the whole way.

Cass tensed as they stepped out of the public eye. This was the way the priest of Fortitude had taken her the other day. But they turned into a wide room before they reached the stairs at the end of the corridor, and Cass relaxed.

The priest gestured to the chairs, seating himself on one side of the table. Alyx sat across from him, and Cass slipped into the chair at her side.

"Welcome again, my lady," the priest said. "What questions may I answer today?"

Alyx glanced at Cass.

Her turn. "I had questions about Champions."

"Indeed?" The priest glanced from Cass to Alyx and then back to Cass. "What about them?"

"Which gods have them, to start with." The man the other day had answered that much, but Cass was unwilling to blindly believe everything he had told her given what had followed.

"Yes? Well. Our Lady Alacrity has chosen recently our Fioreya Ahdain Veldor. Lord Strength has a Champion based in Celestine's capital, Soarntal, and Lord Will's operates mostly within the Empire. They have served their gods well for the last many years. Lady Fortitude selected one of her paladins last year, and she has been making rounds of the Empire, last I heard. "

Cass nodded. This matched what she'd heard yesterday. "So, Dexterity, Endurance, Resolve, Vitality, and Perception don't have Champions?"

He hesitated. "That is probably correct. It is speculated Lord Dexterity may have a secret Champion as he is known for his desire to remain shrouded in mystery. Master Resolve similarly avoids the public eye and may have directed a Champion of theirs to do the same."

"That leaves Endurance, Vitality, and Perception," Cass commented.

He nodded. "Endurance has only chosen a Champion twice in recorded history. And Vitality's most recent Champion died two years ago, ironically, succumbing to old age."

"And Perception?" Cass asked.

"We would likely know if Perception had a champion. They would have announced it with the fanfare befitting their domain."

Cass was inclined to agree, more because the god had offered her the position than for any other reason. Though there was always the possibility the god might kill their previous champion to make room for her.

Cass tensed at the thought. Why was that a realistic possibility? She took a deep breath.

No, did they need to go that far? Even gods had to have difficulty just murdering people, right?

"Can gods change their Champions once picked?" she asked.

He hesitated. "There is a story of a Champion angering their patron so greatly that the god cursed them and withdrew their blessings. It is unclear how accurate that story is, as it is from a previous age."

Elenseth of Will, Salos muttered across their bond. She died a hundred or so years before my time. Well. I say died, but her undead, screaming corpse was still standing strong, water pouring from her mouth and eyes in an endless font of liquid mana last I checked.

What? Cass glanced at him, her eyes widening.

As I understand it, Salos said, she betrayed her goddess, so the goddess twisted one of her blessings. Instead of endless Focus to use in declaring Will's will, it exploded out of her body indefinitely, for any worthy to claim and use. Her body turned to stone, but, supposedly, her mind was left very alive and in endless agony.

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Cass grimaced. Are all curses that unpleasant?

Salos shrugged. None I've heard of are nice. It is a curse after all.

Wait, I thought only demons could cast curses? You said that they come at the cost of the caster's soul.

Salos shifted uncomfortably. It's an old story. It's probably not true.

That she was 'cursed' or that the god did it? Cass asked.

I don't know, Salos admitted. Does it matter?

It mattered a lot, but maybe not now. Hopefully not now.

She put a pin in it and returned her focus to the priest. "Do Champions ever retire? Or part on non-cursing terms?"

"The previous Champion of Fortitude retired," the priest said.

Cass let out a breath of relief she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"But no new Champion was chosen until he died," the priest continued. "Only the gods know if that was because he was still the Champion according to the system or if Lady Fortitude simply had no need of a new Champion until after his death."

And there it was. Cass suppressed a sigh.

Perception had said they'd let Cass quit if she wanted when they'd offered her the position. They'd said they would take back any boons, which had sounded fair, but did that actually mean they'd curse her like in the story of Will's champion? Or was it closer to the retirement the priest described of Fortitude's Champion?

And would Kaye or Robin's god be as magnanimous about it? An image of Robin turned to stone, water pouring from his open, silently screaming mouth flashed across her sight. She shuddered but shook the image away.

Finding them was the first step. She could worry about what happened next after she knew where they were.

"Endurance, Vitality, and Perception, you said," Cass repeated. "Maybe Dexterity or Resolve. They don't have a champion."

He nodded.

That was half of the gods. Even removing Perception from that list, it was too many.

It also didn't match what Dexterity had told her.

"Oh, I do see why Perception is fond of you and why Strength couldn't be bothered," Dexterity had said to her as she'd left the temple. The god had implied it was Strength that had summoned her and that it was to Strength that Perception had traded one of her siblings for Cass.

There were three explanations for this contradiction.

1. Dexterity was messing with her. He was the god of betrayal and demons. Would it be out of character for him to lie?

2. Strength did not intend to use her sibling as a Champion. It was only Cass's assumption that was what the gods wanted from them based solely on Perception's actions. But, just because that was what Perception wanted, didn't mean that was what every god wanted.

3. Strength's Champion was being replaced. Either it had just happened and word hadn't gotten here yet or it was about to.

How much should I trust Dexterity? Cass asked Salos, running down her thought process for him.

Hm. Hard to say. Trusting the gods is not something I would do in this age. But the gap between truth and lies is far from a narrow line.

So hold what he said under advisement, but don't go trekking across the world about it?

I suppose, Salos said.

"Between Strength, Endurance, and Vitality, who has a stronghold closest to here?" Cass asked.

The priest raised an eyebrow at her list. "Vitality is closest. Her holy temple is in Brighchess in the Koralis Kingdom. The journey is about a month when the winds over the sea are favorable.

"Strength is a close second. I mentioned his Champion is based in Soarntal, which is the capital of the kingdom to the north. This time of year, that will be closer to two months. Possibly longer if the Kingdom shifting is faster this year."

Cass stared at him, her confusion loud on her face.

He stared back, his frown an indication he understood she was confused but clearly not understanding why.

Cass glanced at Alyx.

"The Kingdom is on a separate Continental plate," Alyx said.

Cass shook her head. That sounded like plate tectonics, but that seemed unlikely given that they were on floating land masses.

"The Continent—the Kailz Continent—is made up of three plates. They grind past each other as the entire continent floats through the aether. In winter, we're as close to the Kingdom's plate as the Jottena Peninsula gets. But it is already moving away from us at this point in the year."

"The plates move?" Cass repeated. That in and of itself wasn't strange. The continental plates of Earth moved too. But that was on the grand timescale of planets, not "Over the course of a year?"

Alyx nodded.

Cass shook her head. She couldn't imagine how that worked. Surely it would be endless earthquakes and lifeless rolling rock along that seem. Maybe it was. No one said people lived on that boundary.

"And what about Endurance?" Cass asked, choosing to move along rather than dwell on this new and disturbing fact.

"Endurance is far less centralized than the other two. She has a large temple on the Far Continent, but most of her devout prefer to honor her through travel rather than great works," the priest said.

"But she does have a strong following in Myratos and many of the other isles," Alyx said softly. There was something tender about the way she said Myratos.

Cass glanced at her, but Alyx didn't elaborate further, and the priest continued without noticing. "True. The Isles favor her and Perception both."

"Where is that?" Cass asked.

"The Isles float in the Sea of Spires, off the gulf, circling the Elysian Gyre at the sea's center," Alyx answered. That gyre was where her Stormcaller's stone had come from.

"Is that on the way to Brighchess?"

Alyx waffled her hand. "Eh. I've heard that it depends on the aether currents."

"Is there anything else I can help you with?" the priest asked.

Cass flipped through her questions and shook her head. She'd gotten what she'd needed from the priest.

He looked at Alyx, ignoring Cass.

"That will be all," Alyx said, standing.

"Very good." He shot up after her, scrambling to the door to get it for her. "Please visit again, dame, if you find yourself with more questions."

"Sure," Alyx said with a wave as they left.

Any of those places sound familiar to you? Cass added to Salos as they followed Alyx out of the building.

None of the names are familiar, no, but the Gyre—from its description and location—might be what I knew as the Eternal Storm. The Custodia had a base there once. I doubt we could find it without more information, though.

Unless another soul piece is there, Cass suggested.

Horror flickered over their bond. She wouldn't have. They wouldn't have let her. If they'd known, they would have stopped her.

So, one vote for the Elysian Gyre and the surrounding Isles, Cass said.

This isn't a vote, Salos snorted. You need to go where you think has the best shot at finding your loved ones. And that sounds like that would be Strength's stronghold in the kingdom.

"What do you think, Alyx?" Cass asked instead of acknowledging Salos's answer. "Where should we go next?"

"Aren't we leaving because you picked?" Alyx asked as they stepped outside and into the temple's garden. The sun was bright and warm on her skin. The breeze pulled at her clothes, asking her to play.

"What? No." Cass shook her head. "That narrowed it down a lot, but we've got at least three choices still."

"Should we go back inside?" Alyx asked.

"He can't divine where my sibling is," Cass said with a sigh. She stopped mid-step. "He can't, right? That's not a thing people can do with magic, is it?"

She was going to feel really dumb if there was a magic 'find my siblings' spell. Dumb but happy.

Alyx shook her head. "Maybe if you had something that linked back to them."

Cass sighed. Well, so much for that. "Either way, I have three leads. I was asking if you had a preference."

Alyx rubbed at her sword's pommel in thought. She definitely had a preference. Alyx would've just said 'no' if she didn't. This silent debating was out of character.

"Did you want to go to that Myratos place?" Cass guessed.

Alyx flinched.

"What's there?" Cass asked.

Alyx's hand tightened on her sword pommel. "My mother's from there. Or so I'd heard. I'm not in a hurry to visit. It's just something I should do someday."

"Got it, so two votes for the isles," Cass said.

"It isn't a vote," Salos hissed aloud.

"It probably shouldn't be," Alyx agreed. "You have a specific goal. A time-sensitive goal. I can always visit later."

"But all three options are equally likely," Cass said. Sort of. Depending on how much trust she put in the words of the gods.

Neither Alyx nor Salos looked particularly convinced.

"We're all traveling together," Cass said. "You two have as much say in where we're going as I do."

Alyx shook her head.

"Look, the way I see it, we have two directions before us. Either we go to that Brighchess place across the sea, stopping in as many isles as we need to along the way, one of which could easily be Myratos, hitting two potential god's strongholds; or we go north to Soarntal and visit one." When she put it like that, the decision seemed fairly straightforward.

They had all the reasons to travel through the gyre to Brighchess and Vitality's stronghold. There was just one to travel north to the Celestine Kingdom and Strength's stronghold.

Alyx and Salos exchanged an uncomfortable look.

"But Dexterity—" Salos started to say.

Cass cut him off. "It's not just about whether I trust the gods." Her lack of trust in the gods was an uncomfortably large part of her reluctance to go north, but, "It's also about what I expect to find when I get there.

"Strength supposedly has a Champion. That means there is a solid chance my sibling is just next in line for the position. They are probably, relatively safe. There is probably some time before Strength makes them the actual Champion, if that's even the plan."

Probably. There were several other options, but they weren't unique to Strength.

"On the other hand, if my sibling was claimed by either Vitality or Endurance, they may be made a Champion any time now. And I think it will be harder to go home if they are already a Champion. If I can get to them before they are officially made Champion, things will be much simpler."

Again, probably. For all she knew, god-curses were very real and as applicable to Champion candidates as Champions.

"That makes some sense," Salos allowed. Incredulity crept into his voice and across their bond, but he didn't launch a real objection.

"If you're sure," Alyx said. "I'd appreciate it if we could stop in Myratos. Thank you."

"I don't see why that would be a problem," Cass said.

There was still so much she didn't know. So much no one but the gods themselves might know.

But she had to act anyway. For herself. For her friends. For Kaye and Robin, wherever they were.

"Let them be in Myratos," she whispered as they walked away from the temple. "Let them be in Brighchess."

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