I was in a place that wasn’t a place, and somehow I knew that this was not a dream. For one, I was far too aware of myself, of my heartbeat, my breath.

For another, I had been here before.

I stood in a dark plane that was both empty and filled. Everything in this place was nothing and everything at the same time, a simple change of perspective being all one needed to perceive one or the other.

This was the home of Inome, my nameless patron.

I had only been here once before, a very long time ago, and then it had been a matter of contracts, of creating a pact. Then, I had initiated the contact, a dusty forbidden tome guiding my path to this plane.

Now, though, I had been dragged here and I didn’t know why.

I stared off into the expanse that was and wasn’t, and soon enough the god made itself known. Rather than arriving at my location, it simply became the location, a hundred thousand crystalline facets each individually larger than Yaguan phasing in and out of the reality I was in.

From the vast emptiness that was the god came information, dense and compacted and almost incomprehensible. Inome communicated not through words but through the forcible movement of ideas, transferring countless complex thoughts in a single idea. Its message was so hard to comprehend and yet something I felt I understood on a fundamental level, as if it had always been a part of me.

Images flooded through my mind and filled the space around me. They were, I dimly realized, images of myself, recollections of events I’d caused through an outsider’s perspective.

In an infinitely long instant, the killing I’d done flowed through my mind, permeated the endless nothingness, and I saw the hatred I’d held earlier from a new viewpoint. Cold and hard and beautiful and wholly my own.

The nameless god’s message continued, and it expressed observation of me. Myself and one other, their form hazy and unidentifiable.

The vision concluded and I realized as the expanse began to fade away that it had told me of its [APPROVAL].

___________________

Sunlight was filtering through my eyelids.

I tried to open them and found them unwilling. It felt like there had been weights attached to them, dragging them down.

I tried again, putting genuine effort into the simple act of opening my own eyes, and I managed to open them partway, eyes in a half-squint.

I was truly and thoroughly exhausted. Once when I’d been younger, I’d challenged a passing adventurer to a footrace, and we’d run for hours and hours, travelling to the next village over and running through a full night. When I’d finally been forced to admit defeat, I had wanted to sleep for the next week, every muscle in my body screaming at me. This was at the very least on that level, if not quite a bit worse.

Everything came with a cost, it seemed.

“You’re finally awake,” a soft voice said. “You had me worried for a bit there.”

“You’re okay?” I asked, voice hoarse. Speaking was doable, at least.

“Because of you,” Jasmine said. “I can’t thank you enough.”

She had her hands clasped around my right hand, her touch warm and soft.

“I was… falling apart,” I croaked. “Noticing that’s not the case now.”

“You saved the Nacea oathholder,” Jasmine said. “I set the healing frame in place and he made it permanent.”

Nacea oath. Jasmine’s promise to tell me everything earlier floated to mind, and I told her as much.

“I’ll tell you before the day is out,” Jasmine said. “I need to make sure you’re alright first.”

She guided my hand back down to the ground and let go of it. I felt a vague pang of disappointment, but I dismissed it, reminding myself that there was still so much about her that she was hiding from me. Attachment was dangerous. I knew this.

And yet…

“You’ve been out for nearly six hours,” Jasmine said, brow creased. “I hope you can see why I was worried.”

She had cast a small spell, I noticed, the pattern spiraling and changing even though she wasn’t actively adding something to it. A diagnostic spell? I recognized the format, I was pretty sure.

“Happens,” I grunted. “Overdrew on my oath.”

“This is the second time in as many missions that you’ve done that,” Jasmine said. “If this becomes a recurring thing then we’re going to have to have a talk about how you treat yourself.”

I shook my head slowly, the action taking far more out of me than I wanted to admit. “This was different. Might be why I’m still out of action even with the healing.”

Jasmine muttered something in oathtongue, monitoring her spell, before she spoke to me again. “Different how?”

“I got stronger,” I said. “Last time, I overdrew normally, but this time…”

“Oath alignment?”

“I think,” I said. “A lot more powerful than normal, though.”

The memory that I had ignored during the fight was coming back, now. Oath alignment occurred when one entered a mental or physical state that their god preferred. The gods, removed from the material world as they were, still shone their favor on those following them from time to time.

“Oath alignment is well-documented,” Jasmine said. “It usually only offers a ten to twenty percent boost in terms of magic capacity, right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Rises to twenty to thirty with the… uh, the second pantheon, if I remember correctly.”

My tutors had always referred to the sixty-four second pantheon gods as the major non-core gods, but Jasmine’s terminology for it was probably more accurate.

“I was taught that the power well offered by each god for the process of alignment is constant,” Jasmine said. “So the same amount of power is spread across a greater number of aligned oathholders for the first pantheon.”

“Which would mean a god like mine, which I think I’m the only oathholder of, would offer a larger boost, yeah?” I said. “That makes sense.”

Except, I realized, that my statement wasn’t quite true. I had no idea who the hazy figure I’d seen during my visit from Inome earlier was, but it wasn’t too much of a stretch to assume they were similarly sworn. Something to keep track of, for sure.

“That’s good information to have,” Jasmine said. “But please, try to overdraw less. It’s really not good for you.”

“Don’t need to tell me twice,” I grumbled. “Charge into fewer fights and we’ll have less of a problem.”

“I’m sorry,” Jasmine said. “But look at what we did! The job wasn’t even compromised, and you saved four lives!”

Two of the adventuring party that had caused this whole problem were dead, then, gone beyond the capabilities of even two apparently competent Nacea oaths. Nice to know that the package had stayed intact, at least.

“One of those wouldn’t have needed saving if we hadn’t gone into this fight,” I sighed. “But if it makes your conscience lighter, that’s good.”

Jasmine didn’t seem fully satisfied with that response, but she didn’t press on.

“So about your pact with a god that you kept secret—“

“Hey, is our guardian angel up?” an unfamiliar voice shouted. “We were about to get started, if you want to join in!”

“You’re going to want in on this,” Jasmine said. “Michael captured one alive.”

“Michael? One of the adventurers?”

“Their Caël oath.”

“I might’ve caught the tail end of their fight,” I said. My voice had warmed up now, and it felt less like I was fighting to get even a word out and more like my throat was unnaturally dry and twisted.

“We’ve had the enemy bound since then, waiting for you,” Jasmine said.

“They have information, then?”

“Maybe.”

“Help me up, please? I don’t know if I can get to them on my own.”

Jasmine frowned. “Your overdraw hurt you a lot.”

“Did a number on me,” I agreed. “I got a temporary boost to magic that ruins, and I guess that means that I’m going to be just a little ruined for the time being.”

I was able to push myself off the ground into a seated position, at least, but my legs felt like overcooked noodles and I wasn’t totally sure I could walk properly.

I’d been laid down on top of a straw cot, I noted, probably moved out from what was now a burnt husk of an inn, but I was still in the same field that we’d fought in, grass and weeds gone to dust, trampled, scorched, and otherwise destroyed marking the entire region. To one side of me, a blanket had been strewn haphazardly on the floor. My blanket, presumably, if Jasmine had insisted on keeping me warm through the night.

“Here we go,” the girl in question said.

She hooked her arms under mine and pulled, dragging me to my feet.

I tested out my legs and found them wanting, knees buckling with just a single step, bringing a burning that generally meant it was time to take a break.

“Can you get your left arm around me?” Jasmine asked.

I held it up best I could, grunting with effort, and Jasmine pulled it around her shoulders. She’d taken off her chainmail at some point before I’d woken up, letting my arm rest around the stiff fabric of the collar of her sky blue blouse.

Jasmine held her golden hair up for a second, allowing me to adjust my arm so it fit comfortably around her, then let it fall. It tickled a little, brushing against me, and I smiled without really knowing why.

She put her right arm around my waist, securing my steps with a gently powerful grip.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go see what this oathholder has to say.”

We moved at a glacial pace, slow enough that I had to wonder if she was feeling bothered by me dragging her down, but I turned to look at her and she smiled back at me, the morning sun casting a light glow onto her face.

She kept ahold of me and I leaned on her, and for a brief, golden moment, I felt safe.