…The sea of the first sun is not infinite, despite popular beliefs in the Jarulam province. There is a land beyond: the peninsula of salt. The discovery of this peninsula is the event that cemented the spheric planet theory, as the Carradins knew about the salt peninsula already, but to them, it was situated west, beyond the ocean of orange clouds. Very little is known about the salt peninsula, as much of it has never been explored; only a handful of adventurers having ever dared to brave the dead land. The reason for this lack of interest is simple: there is nothing to explore. Two hundred miles of salt, with not even the slightest clue that suggests anything else. Many attempts have been made to exploit the infinite reserve, but only one enterprise has managed to maintain a mining colony on-site as of now. It is responsible for 60% of the Empire’s salt supply, but working conditions there have been said to be…

Imperial Domestic Policies, Chapter Two: Culture and Economics.

The staircase was singlehandedly lit up by the ray of light coming from the pyramidal roof of the mausoleum, but even then, it wasn’t dark. Nay was stepping down the steps carefully. They were anything but flat, their centre eaten through by the years of usage, the thousand of steps having been dug inside the rock. Some of the extremities were flatter, and some had some remainder of gold sheets plastered over them. The walls were white, and maybe it was those rather than the light that made it feel like it wasn’t dark inside. The runes inscribed in the stone were the only place with shadows, everything flat was reflecting some of the light. Nay had already gone twenty steps deep or so, and already she had seen more runes than ever before, without being able to recognize any of them. She was starting to wonder if those runes were not simply another language. The Hymerian existed for much longer than the Empire though, even in the oldest of history books, some people spoke Hymerian, so if it was another language, it had to be extremely old, beyond the records of even the Imperial library.

Nay descended and descended. The staircase had ninety degrees corners, she was walking in a square, but despite her long descent, the infinite lake of Rreico under her feet didn’t seem to be closer.

It was chilly at first, but the deeper she went, the higher the temperature. This and the fact that the mirrors were always at different spots and the runes were never the same, were the only things actually reassuring her that she was indeed going down, and not in some sort of strange loop.

It took her ten minutes of walking down non-stop for her journey to stop momentarily. After a corner, the staircase opened up in a room, cut in half by a wall just like the one that had prevented her entry into the mausoleum. The room was exactly the same as the first one where Green Tree was waiting for her, except there was a flat ceiling here.

In the middle of the wall was a grey mark in the shape of a hand.

Nay came closer to it, still checking for any traps or anything being even more out of the ordinary. She quickly decided to just put her hand on the mark.

The tingling sensation was the same as before, but the sound vibrating in her eardrums brought a different question.

“Where do the children go in war?”

Nay was flabbergasted. Then she remembered a song, or was it a poem? She wasn’t sure. It was quite a well-known one, most likely the most known piece of the one that was called the unknown bard. It was also the one she hated the most. Sage-brother Berth had taught it to her, her mother had taught her the song version, and archbishop Defin had spoken about it in length during one of their lessons about Trayx.

“They sink in tar.” Nay answered.

The wall under her hand vanished, and Nay went through it as if it had never existed. When she looked behind her, the wall was back in place. Then, when she examined the rest of the room, she wasn’t surprised to see nothing at all if not for another staircase going down, just like the one she had come from.

Something else caught her attention though, and Nay closed her eyes.

“Mhh.”

Without a shadow of a doubt, the Rreico of the calm sea was closer now. Nay grimaced: Like all kids, and maybe even more than most because she was friends with a story aficionado, she knew about the tales of heroes going to Trayx’ hell to get back their loved one. Usually, the stories focused on their trip to the calm sea. Sometimes they had to vanquish a dragon, or topple an evil empire, conquer a crypt full of monsters…but when they finally reached the calm sea, nothing happened to them, they had succeeded. Except for the one story where the hero died in the sea of Trayx, eaten by a boiling cetacean. But Nay was quite sure Fredere had made up that ending completely, he had told it during his very festive fifteen-year-old birthday, after all.

Nonetheless, to go to the calm sea of Trayx, as a living and breathing being, was probably risky. Was the Imperatrix trying to get rid of her? Trinne had assured her that Hyn needed her, and Green Tree had seemed completely honest. Nay sighed, she hadn’t come all this way just to fall back at the last second because she was scared of a boiling cetacean.

It took her ten more minutes to reach the next floor, and it was just like the two previous ones.

The temperature was still slowly rising but wasn’t as laborious as the upper-jungle yet. It had to be as hot, but there was no humidity here.

She approached the wall like the two others, and put her hand on the mark.

“Do you feel guilt?”

Once again, the question took her aback. Did she feel guilt? Guilt about what? Was the question about whether she was currently feeling guilty or not? Nay removed her hand. Nothing happened. Then she put her hand back on the mark.

“Do you feel guilt?”

Was it asking whether she could feel guilty or not? If that was it, the answer was rather simple. Nay had no idea if it would be the one letting her go through though. She thought about the guard, the woman she had pushed under Quar Birrebus’ sword.

Maggie. How weird that she hadn’t forgotten that name.

“Yes.” She answered.

The wall under her hand disappeared, and she crossed to the second part of the room.

The Rreico under her feet was close now.

She continued her long descent.

On the next floor, the voice that wasn’t a voice asked her another weird question.

“Who do you love?”

Once again, Nay had no idea what that meant.

“My little sister? My mother? Trinne? My dad?”

It wasn’t supposed to be an answer, but the wall still let her through.

She could feel the Rreico of the sea under her feet so strongly that it almost felt as if she was being swallowed by it.

She was coming close to the final floor.

The steps of the staircase were entirely covered in gold paper now and were completely flat. Nay was hot and breathing hard. She wasn’t looking forward to climbing back up.

When she finally reached the next floor, everything was the same except…the smell. The room had a very strong Tergee apple odor.

Nay’s stomach gurgled in response. She had eaten something while she was descending, but evidently, her physical effort was making her hungry again.

The Legio’s cheeks flushed slightly. She really hoped she wouldn’t make any shameful noise when meeting the God of death.

She touched the hand-shaped spot on the wall.

“Were you invited?”

She wasn’t ready for that question either.

“Invited? What? Erm…no? I’ve been sent here but…”

The wall didn’t budge.

“Biach. How do I even know if I’m invited or not? I didn’t get an invitation or anything, so no? I haven’t been invited?”

The wall stayed solid.

Nay sighed. It seemed that her trip down would end here. But, she had found what she was looking for in the first place. If the Trayx temple didn’t stop her from using the Conqueror’s miracle, she would be able to go here to explode peacefully. The thought made her a bit annoyed, but she didn’t know how to say it in a better way.

Her hand was still on the mark. She raised an eyebrow.

After all, why not? Green Tree had assured her that there was no danger here, even if she lied.

“I am invited.” She said.

The wall disappeared, and she immediately put a hand over her eyes as a blinding light hit her square on the face.

She tried to step back immediately, but her retreat was blocked by the wall. Nay turned to look at it, she had only crossed half of it, why was she entirely through?

She blinked wildly, getting used to the sudden increase in luminosity. The sky was blue and clear. But it wasn’t a sky, really. It was lacking the sun, after all. The most unsettling thing was the grass at her feet though. It wasn’t wild at all, clearly being taken care of, and in front of her was a fruit tree orchard. Tergiers, obviously, explaining the smell she had perceived before. Nay couldn’t see an end to the corridor of trees, but a hundred yards away from her, was a woman on a step-ladder plucking apples and putting them in a woven basket.

The woman stopped her action to look at the Legio. She raised her hand covered with a gardener’s glove and gave her big waves.

“Hiii! Come, come! You’re arriving at the right time, I need some help with today’s harvest.

“Uh uh.” Said Nay softly, her two hands on the wall behind her.

The woman in front of her was the most powerful God-Touched she had ever seen. Her Rreico was an ocean of pure darkness with stars inside. Nay recognized some similarities with her own rhythm of life, the unease the darkness was bringing her was just like her own. She had no idea if this woman had more or less power than her.

Nay decided to come closer.

The woman pointed at the ground next to the step-ladder. “I was a bit overzealous.”

Nay noticed three full baskets, all Tergee apples. Then her eyes turned back to look at the most obvious danger in this orchard.

The woman had a large smile, with her power there was no way to guess her age, but she had the appearance of a fifty-year old. Her face was round and she wasn’t thin, but not fat either. Her eyes were the colour of mist, grey, a bit like Nay's but not exactly the same either.

“Oh, you are much cuter than what I thought. Reading Hyn’s letter, I imagined you giant and with muscles everywhere.” The woman tried to step down from her ladder, but was slightly too excited, and slipped on a leaf that had fallen on one of the steps.

“Ahhh!”

In pure reflex, Nay caught the woman before she could hit the ground.

“Oh.” Said the woman with the monstruous Rreico. “Oops. Thanks.” She winked at the Legio.

“Are…Are you Trayx?” Nay asked in stupor.

“What? No, of course not. What is that for a question!?”

The middle-aged woman blew some air in her cheeks, and got out of Nay’s arms to get back on her feet. She dusted her knees off, then looked left and right as if to check that she wasn’t harmed.

“I am Doria, his wife. A pleasure meeting you. You are Nay, right?” Doria held her hand out to the Legio. Her smile and her monstrous Rreico were only expressing warmth and joy.

Nay shook her hand because, what else was she supposed to do?

“That’s it.”

“Trayx wanted to welcome you, but he’s a bit busy with all those banshees wanting to enter the temple. He’ll be there when he’ll have solved the problem. I think he’s also trying to convince the general’s spirit to stop with his foolishness, but that’s an entirely different problem. Could you take one of the baskets? I made an apple cake. I don’t have much choice in my food variety, unfortunately, but they are delicious.”

Nay did as the wife of the God of death asked, and she picked up two of the baskets.

“This way.” Doria pointed at a tree. Nay looked at it, puzzled. Then the orchard, the whole space around them flashed past as if they had entered Leïn’s train, the world spun around Nay, she couldn’t breathe…and she landed in front of a house, with a beautiful flower garden to her left and vegetable garden to her right. She was standing on a gravel path. Behind her stood the infinite orchard they had crossed at the speed of lightning.

She lost her balance, but Doria caught her. “Well, we’re even now! Not really. I’d really owe you if you could not mention the fact that I fell to my honey.” The wife of the God of death gave her a conniving wink.

“By Lebe.”

“Do you want to meet her? I’m afraid you would need to die first, and I don’t believe that is in our plans, is it?” Doria was asking that seriously.

“No…I…I do not wish to die.”

“That’s great. You’re still young, and I hate when kids die too soon. There is nothing worse. Follow me, follow me. And I apologize for the mess, I tried to clean things before you came but, well, I made cake, then I looked for tea, I am certain I still have some somewhere and…oh, I’m rambling again. Are you coming?”

The woman carried her basket with some difficulty, but she pushed her home’s door open, and entered the large stone house with a tiled roof. It really reminded Nay of Leïn’s countryside, even the architecture and the soft colours.

The Rreico was nothing like it at all. The gigantic rhythm of Doria wasn’t even coming close to the one just under their feet. Nay felt as if she was walking on the calm sea. She was breathing hard. She hadn’t felt even a speck of animosity, and she was hungry. She was being offered cake. That was what she focused on, not on her panic attack.

Once she felt calmer, Nay entered the home of the God of death, carrying two filled baskets of Tergee apples.