I’m not sure if Holiday realizes what he’s suggesting. Am I really supposed to trust the Eldemari to create an oath between the two of us? While an End ascendant would succeed at breaking Maria’s oaths, I’d rather avoid putting myself in a precarious position.

Sensing my concern, Maria pulls a sheet of clean paper seemingly out of nowhere. “This was made by me, but I made it weeks ago. It’s a standard life-death oath.”

Holiday’s eyes light up. “Oh, wonderful. I love looking at oaths.”

Maria gingerly flicks the oath into his hands. “Please inspect it and ensure there’s nothing unsatisfactory.”

He holds it up and rubs the paper between his fingers. “Could you read it out loud to me? Please repeat yourself twice.”

Holiday is holding the oath at an odd angle, but I can recognize a few words at a distance...and they’re in Luxish.

“I, the contractor, do swear on my life and death to...” Maria trails off. “We’d specify the conditions of the oath here.”

She repeats the first part of the oath again for Holiday before proceeding.

“Even should I be under the effects of charm or compulsion...” She trails off again, making a circular motion with her fingers. “We’d repeat the condition again, then say, I willingly weigh my words against the counterweight of life: May the scale remain ever in balance.”

The oath sounds like every other life-death oath until the end, when its language evokes the symbol of a scale: an image of justice. I can’t find anything in the oath that is unsatisfactory, but that’s because the actual oath conditions haven’t been penned yet.

Maria inclines her head in my direction. “Dunai, you can write out the conditions in your own words, to be vetted by myself and ultimately approved by Crimson Teeth, if he agrees.”

I consider what the two of us stand to gain. Maria will learn the state of her soul. As for myself...if I find that Maria’s soul is in jeopardy, I may have leverage over her if I can find a way to keep her from dying.

But in reality, why would I bother intervening, even if I could? I was thinking that if I were able to contact our old world, I could call in a political favor, perhaps ask Maria to solidify the position of the SPU in the Ho’ostar peninsula.

But the more I think about it, the less sense that plan makes. Maria’s debt might be useful if I could contact our old world now, but Achemiss is three years away: Even if I find someone else to teach me how to contact our old world, the Eldemari’s political favor would likely still come after the western conflict has already elapsed, rendering it useless.

Why, then, should I help Maria, aside from my own curiosity, aside from the triviality of the effort?

“If you look at Sezakuin’s soul, I’ll give you a plane compass,” Holiday says, jolting me from my thoughts.

It doesn’t surprise me that Holiday anticipates that I’d refuse to assess Maria’s soul. What does surprise me is that he cares enough about Maria to offer me incentive. I feel like I’m missing something, but perhaps probing Maria’s soul will give me insight into Holiday’s angle. “What does it do?”

“It will point the way to weak points between planes. It’s useful in a place like this where weak boundaries are hard to come by. With it, instead of wandering for weeks to escape this zone, you’ll be able to cut a doorway into another land free of withered monotony.”

That sounds like more than a simple compass. “You’ve had this kind of compass on you the entire time?”

“Of course. But mine hasn’t been pointing in a clear direction since we’ve arrived, only confirming how terrible this place is to visit.”

Maria takes in a deep breath. “While this conversation is stimulating, I’d like to keep us on track. Dunai, have you drafted your conditions?”

Considering that I was going to refuse the offer until a few seconds ago, I haven’t, but I can try to come up with something reasonable.

“How is this? I, the contractor, do swear on my life and death to inspect and analyze the state of Maria’s soul. I swear to never divulge the state of her soul to anyone besides herself and Crimson Teeth without her permission. I swear to abstain from violence while verifying the state of her soul, leaving it as I found it. Even if under the effects of charm or compulsion, I will not act against her soul nor divulge soul-related information to anyone besides herself and Crimson Teeth without her permission. I willingly weigh my words against the counterweight of life: May the scale remain ever in balance.”

The oath says nothing to restrict Crimson Teeth from divulging information, nor does it restrict me from doing anything to her soul after I’ve verified its state of being.

Maria rubs at the corner of an eye, then sighs. “For the record, I’d normally negotiate for at least thirty minutes on something like this. As it is, I’m exhausted and have limited time, so I’m going to limit my criticism to one point: You mention ‘permission,’ but don't clarify what kind of permission I would need to give. If you amend the oath to state ‘written permission, given freely,’ I’ll agree.”

I nod. “Fine.”

Holiday smiles and presents the oath to Maria. “If you wouldn’t mind recording the terms as Dunai stated them?”

Maria turns to me. “Care to repeat them?”

“Crimson Teeth, why don’t you repeat them exactly with the agreed-upon substitution,” I suggest adroitly, struggling to remember how I worded everything in the first place.

He repeats the oath out loud to Maria while I look over her shoulder, ensuring that her hand copies Holiday’s utterances exactly. While it’s a bit disconcerting to hear Holiday state the words in Swellish only to see Maria pen them in Luxish, as far as I can tell she’s writing the terms we agreed upon.

At the end, she hands me the official oath. “State it out loud, then tear it in half.”

I repeat the oath–by this point I’m growing tired of hearing it–and then rip it down the center.

“Maria...” I mutter, wincing. “It didn’t rip right.” Somehow the sheet of paper tore in three.

She rolls her eyes. “It’s of no consequence. Now, can you get this over with?”

I waste no time setting about my inspection of Maria’s soul. While Holiday’s body thrummed with ethereal energy and required deft control to inspect, Maria’s ethereal body is relatively mundane: I don’t even need to be touching her to send my own ethereal essence probing through her vessels and into her heart.

I could’ve inspected her soul by force without a contract, potentially without her even noticing. But that kind of violation during this strange detente...it’s a petty violence with no witnesses. I’m glad I asked for permission.

Maria’s soul is healthily anchored to her vessels, but is slightly tattered, small shards of soul separate from the central mass. More importantly, it’s unlike Holiday’s: I can touch her soul, sever it—and if I can, so can others.

“It’s as you suspected,” I say as I withdraw my threads of ethereal from Maria’s body. “Her soul is actually here.”

Holiday frowns. “Perhaps you shouldn’t leave this place, Sezakuin. You’ll die. Vizier’s Crown is a mundane hell, but that’s what makes it safe. The second you leave here things will be far different.”

Maria and I look at each other in confusion. “What would endanger her soul?” I ask.

Holiday looks between the two of us, then sighs. “I never thought teaching ascendants would be so harrowing.” He blows off the top of his head without any sort of gesture, his skull exploding like a smashed watermelon and dousing us in gore.

Holiday’s body disappears in a cloud of gold dust that disintegrates like mist into the air. Most of him disappears, but traces of gore remain.

Maria flicks her moistened fingers. “What...?” she whispers, lips curling in disgust. She ignites her already-bare arms to clean up while I use my practice to draw tissue and blood from my clothes.

On the ground, the black snake threads its thin tail through an assortment of rings and rests its head atop a shiny black boot misted in red. “He’ll be back momentarily.”

Sure enough, Holiday is soon visible sprinting over the ground...with bare feet. He looks like he’s moving faster now than when he was flying, each stride pulverizing a crater into the earth. If I didn’t know better I would have thought him a dual wind-earth elementalist.

He stops before us with a final bound, showering us in dusty debris. He pats his clothes–an ineffectual gesture–and scoops up the snake while stepping into his boots. “You’ll want to get yourselves persistent clothing or you’ll come back nude.” He takes his rings off the snake’s tail one by one and replaces them on his fingers. Finally, his entire body flashes red.

“You use ascendant energy for everything–flying, running, even prestidigitation,” Maria notes. “How versatile.”

Holiday scoffs. “It’s not like Beginning or whatever you call it will get the dirt out of my clothes.” Now that he mentions it, I realize that he’s no longer coated in dust, his clothes and skin as unblemished as in the Long Hall.

I hum in polite acknowledgment. “To return to what we were discussing before...your point is that Maria won’t come back if she dies. Her body and soul will sever: Even if she’s regenerated, her soul won’t be.”

“Precisely. So if she wants to live, she should stay here.”

“...But didn’t you say that we’d die of thirst here?” Maria states, narrowing her eyes. “I’d be dead all the same.”

“And that’s why I gave you the compass, so you could find a section of the plane that’s weak. You could live here most of the time and break into the other plane for food and water as needed.”

“But it’s Dunai’s compass, not mine.”

“You just need to follow him until he finds a weak point in the veil. He’ll go ahead and you’ll stay behind, safe,” Holiday explains.

Maria’s mouth pops open and she blinks a few times before ultimately closing her eyes and bowing her head. “Let’s just find the way out of this place.”