One question that is a constant source of debate among the religious: is it that the god has been lost? Or is it the god who has lost interest in us?

-Lost: An Examination of Sarosi Religion

“Any news?” Pel asked, as we rested between practice bouts. We were still on the ‘break foreign power to escape increasingly dangerous situations’ portion of the training, and I wasn’t sure if the fact that I only had to do this once a week was a benefit, or if it made the buildup of dread all the worse.

“No sign of Desten Metako,” I answered. “I’ve asked around about him, but he went downcity after his departure from the family. He could be anywhere. Gossip is helpful for the big things, not so useful for finding him years later.”

“You still think he’s a probability?”

I shrugged. “Could be. Unlikely, though. From what I’ve heard, that entire branch of Metako all have pink power like Aneeyha. Does people’s power change colour as they get older?”

Pel shook his head. “Not usually. It can shift slightly, like the difference between mine and Fylen's, but most of the time it remains stable.”

“Could you verify his power colour with Anneyha next time you see her? I think we might be able to cross Desten Metako off the list, but I want to make sure.”

Pelys nodded. “Sure.”

“Anything more on the Varon Destens?”

“Vess is trying to track down Desten 7. He’s a trader, and spends a lot of time traveling. From what we’ve found, he has a wife and young child, and is traveling even more than usual.”

I frowned. “He’s spending less time at home now?”

“It seems so.”

“Is it a financial problem? Is he barely getting by?”

“Vess didn’t mention anything about that. He's going to try approaching the wife and see if she knows where he might be this time of year. He's not touring, but aside from that we haven't found much."

"So for Varon that leaves 6 and 7 as the only ones we haven't met. I don’t suppose you know any locals we could set on Desten Metako’s trail?"

“No, I’ve never been the one to befriend everyone in every city we visit. That’s more Let and Lan’s thing.”

“I found a house he owned for several years. Want to come see if the new owners know anything about him?”

Pel laughed. “Are you trying to distract me from our lessons?”

“No, but I do think that figuring out whether Fylen’s brother-in-law is the one who killed him is a bit more important.”

“Alright, but once we get back we are going to continue where we left off."

"And what if I can never manage it?"

"You will. It's not as hard as you think."

"Says the one who regularly makes everything harder than it has to be."

Pel only smiled.

“You find anything else about Leetan?” I asked. “Like who tried to kill us with your cube thing?”

He shook his head. “I’m the only one who was there. Just you and me.”

“I know what I saw. Someone was pushing on the outside of the box with red power. You hired someone to scare me.”

“Just me.”

“But your power is blue!”

“Yes it is.”

“I saw something red.”

“There was no red. No one interfered. I changed the way my walls worked to scare you, yes, but I didn’t need to hire a third party for that.”

“So what was the red?!”

Pelys sighed. “I didn’t see any red. You were probably just imagining it. It had been a long stressful day, and I know you’re not used to this sort of danger. If you want to go back to touring and leave the investigating to me, you’ve been a big help setting us on the right track with Desten. I think we can take it from here.”

“No. I need to do this.” For Fylen if nothing else. Even if I get nothing out of it in the end, I couldn’t steal his daughter’s power and future and pretend everything was fine. If the only thing I could do was bring Desten to justice, then that’s what I would do.

“Alright.” Pelys stood. “Then lead on.”

I loved being able to fly on my own. It felt like I’d matured or advanced in some fundamental way; the independence of not relying on others to get around was empowering and freeing. I thought back to my early weeks wandering around in Varon, trying to figure out why no one had carriages, and shook my head at the memory. Carriages would be worse than useless here.

We arrived at the house. It was a pretty impressive one by downcity standards, but I felt a little uncomfortable landing outside it. It had tiny narrow pathways leading to it, no wide porch or balconies for easy arrival and departure. Dust from the cracked mud of the walk puffed into the air with each step I took. Pel was suppressing any dust with a faint blue shimmer by his feet, but I had no idea how to replicate his feat.

Pel didn’t hesitate. He strode up to the door and knocked firmly.

A moment later, a woman opened the door, then took a step back and bowed deeply. “Apologies, eirns. How may I serve you?”

Something about her looked strange, flat, unreal. It took me a moment to realize it was the dimness of her skin, the eyes with no glow, the utter lack of casual illumination emanating from her. I’d grown so used to the glow of power around everyone I interacted with that she looked unnatural, almost inhuman. The realization made me distinctly uncomfortable.

Pel had no such problem. “We need to find the previous owners of this house, Desten Metako and Rinett Lesari.”

The woman didn’t look up as she answered. “Yes, eirn. If I can help in any way, I will.”

“Do you know where they went?”

“No, eirn, apologies, I do not.”

“Did you ever meet them?”

“No, eirn. My father bought the house for me and my sister. I do not know who sold it to him.”

Pelys nodded, and turned to leave. The woman bowed again, looking relieved.

“Is your father still alive?” I asked. “Do you know where we could find him?” It was a long shot, but it was the only potential lead we had.

“No, eirn. He is dead. Apologies.”

“It’s alright. I’m sorry we scared you. You’ve done nothing wrong. Have a good day.”

I stepped into the sky, power beginning to draw the protective sphere around me, Pelys a blue light hanging in the air waiting for me to catch up.

“Well, now you’ve had a nice rest,” he said, as soon as I was close, “I have an idea for a new exercise we can try on the way back.”

“Please no. It’s hard enough flying this far as it is.”

“No excuses. You still haven’t disrupted even a single speck of my power yet. You haven't even been able to form your power into a burst at all. This is the most basic attack you’ll ever encounter and forms a foundation for everything that comes later. So I want you to drop your own aura and fly with mine instead.”

“No. You’ll do something horrible to me in midair, and I do not want to fall.”

“I get the feeling you don’t trust me,” Pel said, but he was grinning.

“That’s because I don’t. You’ve made my life miserable one too many times for me to ever trust you again.”

“But you can’t deny you’re making more progress now than in your whole safe comfortable life so far. The problem with scholarly pursuits is that it can blind you to the alternative options that would benefit you more. You can only meditate so far before the benefits begin to decline. My training methods guarantee full returns on time invested. Would you really rather spend years slowly focusing on how to create a disruption pulse? Or spend a week being frustrated and then have it out of the way for good?”

“I’d rather go to bed.”

“Not an option. Besides, we’ve hardly gotten started!”

I tried to ignore him and fly on, but he was faster.

“If you don’t bring down your bubble voluntarily, I’ll do it myself,” he warned.

I tried to fly faster.

“Ah, well.” He popped my bubble with the same pulse he’d used to disrupt my flying back at the chasm, then surrounded me with a sphere of his own blue power almost in the same instant.

“Why does it have to be yours?”

“Because I had an idea,” Pelys said.

I did not like the look on his face.

The bubble began to fog up, hampering my ability to see through it clearly. Then the fog became droplets of water, that ran down the interior surface and began pooling at the bottom.

“Pel? What are you doing?”

“Simple. You pop the bubble, and the water will fall out. If you don’t, it’ll keep accumulating and fill it up long before we reach the city. Your choice.”

“I don’t know how to pop it!”

“Push the power out in a spike until you contact something you want destroyed, then use the contact to disperse it. It’s simple.”

So he’d said. Many times. I could barely even imagine a spike of power, let alone use it to disperse someone else’s.

The water reached my toes, soaking through my shoe.

“I hate you.”

“No time for emotion. Action! Break it now!”

I tried flying faster, but Pel was always right beside me, keeping up the water generation. In fact, he seemed to be making it appear faster the further I flew.

The city was a good twenty minutes away, and at this rate the water would reach my face in less than half that. It crept up my ankles, a personal puddle I couldn’t escape.

“Pell…”

“I believe in you,” he called cheerfully, but did nothing to help.

I sighed. And here I’d hoped to avoid almost drowning today.

It took three hours to reach the city. I did not drown, but I did not manage to break his bubble either. I did spend a great deal of time choking and dying and panicking and cursing Pelys’s name. We parted ways shortly after returning, him to attend to some duties he’d been conveniently neglecting all morning, myself to anyplace not occupied by Pel.

I spent the afternoon recovering, and avoiding Desten. He seemed on edge, more than usual, and I wondered if he’d been trying to spread his message of joy and hope and been rebuffed, or if something else had happened. Maybe he was just anxious being in the same house as unstable me.

I didn’t offer to help him prepare arguments, and he didn’t ask. He seemed to have switched focus, performing some sort of research project with lots of cross-referencing in obscure tomes and sending out for new books on an almost hourly basis. Whatever it was, he seemed fully absorbed in it, and I left him to it.

The remainder of Metako week passed strangely quickly, and almost enjoyably. I didn’t end up getting to a verdis game. I’d been distracted and preoccupied and didn’t have the emotional energy for a gathering of that many people. By the time I mustered the energy to care, the final Metako game had already ended. It would be fine. We were going to overlap with Ryshglide next week in Raysh, and there would plenty of opportunities for me to get to a sport event if the inclination struck me again.

I did attend the final event of the week, as I hoped the rumors would have run their course and died down, and Desten mentioned they’d be doing a live carving exhibition at the end. That, I very much wanted to see.

The rumors had not died down. Perhaps that’s why Desten seemed so withdrawn and irritable. But I avoided hanging around him too closely, and he avoided attracting attention, and we got through the socializing portion of the night without further incident.

I spent some time wandering around, listening to snatches of conversation. At least half of it was no longer about me, and the ones that were about me seemed to have morphed into something so unlike reality as to be barely recognizable. I wondered if they’d even recognize me from the stories at this rate. I had apparently grown glowing pink fangs, a thousand tentacles, and kidnapped three important nobles before retreating with them into my dark lair. Until, three hours later, I emerged and there was no sign of my victims.

Yeahhhh. Sounds plausible. I’d never written anything so stupidly fanciful even in my most extreme commissions. Sure, there were some weird ones, but honestly the vast majority included fictionalized versions of the commissioner performing unrealistic feats of heroism, destruction, or romance.

I wondered what my downcity customers would think if I wrote up a record of my adventures as a fake noble? Would it be seen as too dull? Or would the realism make them believe it? Maybe if I was ever outed and had to flee for my life, that’s what I would do. Make an underground tell-all about the boring lives of the nobles and their tedious partying.

This couple, for instance: they stood by a window, complaining to each other.

“Why have they been so lax with their lightshows this year? Two years ago they were everywhere. Now, hardly one a week if we’re so fortunate. What have they been doing?”

“I know,” bemoaned her partner. “It’s as though they think that making us wait between displays makes them better somehow. If they’d put their effort into improving the quality rather than decreasing the quantity, maybe they’d see better results.”

“And what about the poor light artists? This used to be a big chance for them to show their stuff, get out there. But no, one stupid over-reacher setting half of one city on fire, and they’re forced to go small. It’s not like anyone was hurt.”

“Right? They were just mad because they had to reschedule their reverse match, I’m sure. The leagues put up a big fuss about it, and they were major supporters of this stupid law. Sellouts.”

I wandered on, leaving them to their well-trodden discussion.

The next group was discussing me. Or, rather, one woman was telling a story to an enraptured crowd.

“—and a warrior from Sarosa had to come in to put a stop to it! You should have seen it, pink and blue magic clashing, sparks flying everywhere. I had to hide behind a curtain, it was so bright I could scarcely look!”

I shook my head and continued my meandering.

Finally, the main event arrived, and we all filed into the theatre. The stage was dominated by a massive block of stone on an elevated platform, slowly rotating, illuminated by lines of light painted around the ceiling in shades of orange and yellow.

Four artists emerged onto the stage, each taking position at one corner of the block. They bowed to the audience, then whipped their power into scythes of red, orange, or yellow light that began spinning around them with expert control, two blades to each artist.

Chips of stone flew as they began to carve off pieces. Music pulsed in the background in time to their movements. It was almost a dance as they moved back and forth, crossing in front and behind each other as they each focused on their own task but never colliding either with their bodies or power.

Slowly, the block began to take shape. Mountains appeared, then were refined into an ever sharper picture. Ravines were carved, rivers cut through the lower areas and off the edge of the section. One whole edge became a river ravine, uneven and somehow familiar.

As they continued to move around the rotating scene, I felt almost dizzy at the realization. This was Metako itself. The entire territory, carved out with unbelievable precision. A waist-high mountain range that perfectly echoed the reality outside.

And they didn’t stop there. Cities began to take shape, tiny buildings casting tiny shadows as the carving rotated in the light of the false sun overhead. Mines, downcity towns and roads, tiny individual trees. I was watching them do it right in front of me, and I still hardly believed it.

Then the two artists with orange power stopped carving and left for a moment, returning with a smaller box of stones. They stood to the side, out of the spotlight. Each selected a stone, then held it in front of them with their power, rotating it faster and faster. The stones began to distort, crumbling to powder, but before I could figure out what they were doing my attention was drawn back to the main central carving.

The fire user had begun to heat up the entire thing. It glowed at the edges as he ran an unshaped mass of yellow-flame power over it, and then the two others stepped forward. Their stones had disintegrated completely, leaving them with a floating collection of dust. They funneled it onto the glowing sections with perfect precision, and it immediately melted into the glowing whole. They continued in this way for some time, moving their way across the carving just behind the fire artist.

I hadn’t been paying attention to the red-power user, but now realized that he stood at the back of the carving, doing something with a dozen quick tiny blades that darted in and out of the air before him. I couldn’t see from this angle what exactly it was.

Then, the early portions of the work began to cool, and there was an audible gasp as we realized what they’d been doing.

The rivers were blue and silver, rippled as though by true waves. The mountains’ surface had changed, from the flat uniform grey to a richly textured imitation of reality. Instead of merely shaped like Metako, now it looked like Metako. Exactly. I could fly up right now and, looking down, I swear it would’ve matched the carving perfectly.

The colorists finished their work, and all four stepped back. The lights brightened, revealing the full finished carving in all its glory.

If I hadn’t watched the entire procedure, I’d have sworn they’d simply shrunk down a piece of reality to place in front of us.

The applause was deafening. I heard someone in the back say, “That’s how we do it!” and someone else joined in with “METAKO!”

I applauded as hard as anyone, feeling more at home than I had at any of the other events. Something about Metako spoke to me in a way the other houses hadn’t. The mastery of creation and performance was something laudable, something I yearned to replicate.

Once I finished with this Desten crusade, I hadn’t had a plan for what to do next. But now, I thought, I might want to move here. Find someone to teach me. The sheer beauty of creating something so magnificent was something I wanted.

I barely paid attention as they auctioned off the finished model, only vaguely noting that it sold for more than I’d have earned in decades. I was lost in the sudden clarity that had overtaken me.

For the first time, being Astesh no longer felt like a burden. Perhaps, it could also be a new beginning. A second chance at defining who I wanted to be.

For the first time since I’d realized the depth of the trouble I was in, I felt truly hopeful for the future.