Isidorus didn’t make Tercius wait for long.

The temple was on the other side of the old city and the walk to their destination promised to take at least half an hour, if not more. One small blessing was that by the time Tercius and Isidorus had started their journey, the early morning crowd was thinned by at least half. It made navigating the streets much easier and frankly more palatable for him. Crowds had always suffocated him in a very physical and mental way and in all his years he had never managed to make himself go into one, if he had any kind of an alternative. Here, the only alternative would be to fly or run across the roofs, both of which he considered briefly, if only to entertain himself, but quickly dismissed on obvious grounds.

Then, to make matters worse, Isidorus started to ask questions about Tercius' mother.

An old friend of his mother’s or not, Tercius chose not to reveal to Isidorus what happened to her, who she married, or where their home was today. To the dozens of Isidorus' probing questions, Tercius gave non-answers or an outright “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you that.”. Tercius knew well enough that his behavior would sour the air between them, but what was the other choice?

Speak the truth and risk an errant word leaking now, just as his mother was finally starting to come out of her self-imposed social shell? Not bloody likely. The matter of the bounty on her head was solved, which he owed to Lux for, but you never knew with some people. For all intents and purposes, Valeria was gone and Petra was born in her place and she was finally free to go out and socialize without fearing that someone might recognize her, put a bag on her head, and haul her back to Spheros. Hells, if his mother didn't explicitly want this man to know that she was still alive and well, Tercius would have kept his mouth shut and just given him a double sum at the end of the visit to the temple or something like that.

A large part of him lamented that he didn’t do exactly that.

Still, as Tercius considered the matter further, he thought it unlikely that Isidorus would have agreed to take him to the temple, even with so much money on the line, if Tercius wasn't the son of Valeria and grandson of Portia. While Divine Balance itself would not begrudge a man a chance to earn coins, the same might not be true in the case of the clergy of Divine Balance. They might have fallen on difficult times in the borders of the Empire, where only the clergy of the New Divines freely converted new followers to their ever-growing flocks, but they still had considerable pull. If his Mentor was right about what lurked in the temple itself, then they had more pull than they let on.

As they passed through the old city districts, Tercius observed the orderly streets and carefully planned rows of two-story houses, many of whom had a business on the ground floor and a private residence on the upper one.

There was so much almost palpable history in the high walls and stones of the city and Tercius had the privilege to know some of it.

According to Tercius’ grandfather, whose family hailed from Spheros generations back, the main reason for that power had not been military nor economic power, although both of those were always quite high, but rather something else entirely. Ciron attributed Spheros’ historic power and importance on the surrounding lands solely to The Order of the Architect, a religious order of clergy who had been engineers, builders, and planners, who worshiped the Divine Architect by doing his work.

An Order that no longer existed.

When Spheros fell to the Empire, one of the first demands that the invaders had for the locals was for all the temples of the Divine Architect to be handed over to them. In return, all temples of other Divines were free to remain as they were. The clergy of the Divine Architect had been few even at the best of times, and although each member of the Order had wielded significant power of their own ultimately they caved in to the demand, if only for the sake of their families.

And so, the Empire’s Ministry of Architecture came to be, built on the foundations of the fallen Order.

Although the style of building was adapted to please Imperial eyes somewhere down the line, the underlying principles of construction of the Order remained the same and they were sent out into the world to follow the expansion of the Empire borders. If you’ve seen specific parts of the oldest city districts of Spheros and you had a habit to compare such things from time to time, which Tercius did, you could see something that would remind you of the city in each corner of the Empire.

Under the cover of a cloak and hood, the sweating Isidorus and the cautious Tercius headed for a gate and passed by a group of narrow-eyed city guards. Armed with spears, they observed Tercius and Isidorus as they approached. One of the guards sauntered forward with a grin on his face and Isidorus placed a small pouch on the waiting hand.

The man tossed the pouch up and down, the coins jiggling. “Pleasure doing business with you,”

The district they entered into made Tercius frown. Here it was, the evidence that clearly showed that keeping to an old identity in a new Empire had a cost.

Grass grew between the cracked stones of once properly cobbled streets. The houses were taller here, going past the mandate of the Empire, but most were little more than rubble. Few even visibly leaned on their neighbors, but even some of those that seemed structurally sound were visibly abandoned. Vines climbed up the cracked walls, while plants peeked through windows whose wooden shutters were in shambles and dust. Cats were everywhere. They moved around corners, lazed on the upper windows or even on the roofs, their tails lazily swishing in the wind. They kept looking at the two visitors with questions in their seemingly intelligent eyes. The occasional chicken freely wandered the streets, pecking the ground in search of sustenance. Here and there, a solitary man or woman tended to an overgrown garden. He saw a couple of children playing, while the rheumy eyes of elders bent with age watched them pass by.

In a district built to house thousands, hundreds lived. The place was not a ghost town yet, but that somehow made it even worse. This entire place seemed on a sure path to slow death and it looked like no one could stop it. Here was a place that would one day surely be haunted, everything seemed to scream.

Actually, it was highly likely that it already was. His eyes darted about, searching for signs of passage of the ethereal residents. He almost reached for {Energia Sight}, but then he remembered the words of caution that his Mentor and Mistress Prime'era gave him the earlier evening, and so he left the Skill be.

Step by step, they arrived closer to his goal, and all the while ignoring the need to look around and search for what could be there.

A stone wall that came to his chin blocked their path and they followed around it. Behind the wall was a thicket of tall trees, but neither could stop the top floors of the temple from being visible, the gray walls and yellow domes towering over the surroundings. Two lifelike statues stood on each side of the wide-open gate, that of a lion and a lioness. Fat horns of a ram curled around their ears, while feathered wings were on their large backs. As they approached the gate, Tercius stopped.

Divine Balance, M'ti'mya, Arbiter, Wielder of Scales were only some of the names of his grandmother's Divine. The Old Divine had been worshiped by the mortals of Sogean soil and sand for countless centuries, millennia even. Once upon a time, every major city and most of the bigger ones had a temple dedicated to it.

Today, the temple that stood before him was likely the last temple of any of the Old Ones to still stand in Spheros. Hells, it might even be one of the last to still stand in the lands of the Empire at large.

A path of stone led further in, through the dense copse of trees. Both Isidorus and Tercius removed their hoods and stopped to touch the ground on both sides of the path, the prayer of passing on their lips, mouthed but not uttered. Every single tree of the entire grove was planted atop the remains of a deceased believer and, much like his grandfather, his grandmother was also originally from Spheros. It was possible and highly likely that Tercius had some biological ancestors buried under some of the older trees. Without them, he would not be here. A little respect was the least he could offer, even if he was not a believer in their Divine.

He knew the rites, customs, as well as many prayers and songs, but his interest in them was more out of linguistic and anthropological curiosity than anything else. His rebirth did make him consider that something or someone was out there, manipulating events to be a certain way, but from the way he felt when he thought about a being like that he was less of a believer and more of a… skeptical lawyer with a tinfoil hat.

Although he was grateful for the gift, enough that he might even utter a prayer, he would also petition the court to uncover the true motives of the perpetrator and then, regardless of the motive, sue due to extreme privacy violation. If the option presented itself, his recommended punishment would be for the culprit to be reborn as a feeble infant. See how they like it.

Past the green graveyard were verdant gardens, full of medicinal flowers, plants and flowering bushes and even more trees, the branches bowing low from the weight of edible fruits. He saw a bush of yellow synar, a patch of meliana blooming with all the shades of blue, an enormous spread of dead man’s creeper crawling over a large rock, and more— all of it in just the first few steps from him. A true treasure trove of medicinal herbs was here, one that any brewer would kill to get their hands on and then rush ahead to start brewing potions that could halt age itself. The nobles would pay hand and fist for those. Unfortunately for both groups, the clergy of Divine Balance rarely grew anything more than was needed for them and their congregation.

Tercius paused, his breath taken away. With its carved columns and domed rooftops, the massive edifice of stone and marble was a masterwork of elegance and artwork, every surface of it full of stories that were carved for all to see. The entire building was in much better condition than any other building he saw out there, in the district. It was like time itself had stopped at the moment the temple was made, and now it refused to budge in fear of causing any kind of damage.

All by itself, that all but confirmed his Mentor’s warning as true.

It wasn’t that he doubted her, nor did he fail to see the fact that this temple was still standing defiantly against the onslaught of the pantheon of the Empire. It was beyond obvious that they had to have some kind of power to push back against the pressure. It was just... well, he was not quite sure what it was. Some kind of a desperate wish for an easier way forward?

Tercius released a slow breath as his ears grew hot. Keeping his outward calm was easy. The inner one, however, was a bit more difficult when his life might be at stake.

Mistress Prime’era assured him that her creation would work perfectly for at least another thirteen days, and some eight or so hours over that, but if she was wrong and the cloaking enchantment woven around his Well were to fail at a temple of all places, then he would become a husk of an infidel corpse before he knew what possessed him.

The thought almost made him chuckle. Actually, he would know what possessed him, wouldn't he?

What he wouldn’t know was just how many juvenile spirits had tried to do so, all at the same time, nor would he know how many fractions of a second it would take for his body and anima to be burnt away into nothingness from their forceful invasion.

Not that the answers would matter, being dead and all.

Or, in the case he was to be reborn yet again, the answers could prove to be of immense value for… something. You never knew these things ahead, so just in case it was better to collect and keep everything. The puzzle would arrange itself later, but only if enough of the pieces were already present.

Crossing over the long yard, Isidorus and Tercius passed by a couple of hard-working people who were knees deep in dirt and weeds. Two thin horizontal lines tattooed between their eyebrows spoke volumes. They were in the presence of a young priest and priestess of Divine Balance.

Isidorus greeted them with a bow. “Sister. Brother,”

The dark-skinned young woman was the first to look up, wiping the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. "Be welcome brothers,"

Tercius gave them a greeting, right before the priest at her side voiced back his own.

“What brings you our way, brothers?” the priest asked.

“I’m looking for brother Menesthios. Could you point me his way?” Isidorus asked.

The priestess nodded. “Around this time he should be at the back of the temple, tending to the animals,”

“Then we shall go there. Balance be with you, brother and sister,”

Two dirty fingers went to the tattoos on their foreheads and they slightly bowed their heads. ““Tread with Balance, brothers,””

The stone pathway led them further inwards, towards the temple itself. The massive double doors loomed ahead, but they turned past a large thicket of flowering bushes and followed the curvature of the temple through the garden.

Tercius shivered as a coldness crawled up his legs. The cold wave flowed over his back, only to settle on his shoulders and wrap itself around his neck. A probing hand rushed to scratch his neck and the tingles vanished before he could touch them.

Tercius stopped in place, his breath fast. His emerald eyes narrowed and darted about the bushes and trees. There was no hiding it, was there? He was told that the chance of it remaining a secret would be so minuscule that it was virtually nonexistent, but it still irked him that an unconscious response gave away an information so valuable. Whoever that was, or rather whatever that was, now they knew that he had a degree of sensitivity to magia.

What would that mean to them? Would it influence his plans in any way? Blazing Hells, they better not try to keep him here by force…

For once, he wished one of his Mentor’s predictions would turn out to be wrong…

“Are you coming?” Isidorus stood far ahead of him, almost out of view behind the greenery.

Tercius released a breath and ran to catch up.

Following the path took them away from the temple and towards a thicket, where a stone wall corralled one of the temple’s meat sources. Inside, a rotund man in a brown robe kept trying to shovel out the layer of fertile soil out of the pigsty, while the animal inhabitants got in his way.

Isidorus leaned on the stone wall of the enclosure and all the pigs rushed his way, likely expecting food. "Working hard, I see,"

The man turned their way. “Brother Isidorus!”

Short, balding, and rotund, brother Menesthios was a middle-aged man in possession of the biggest sideburns that Tercius ever saw. He also noticed that the tattoo on his forehead had an additional line, a vertical one that was right between the two horizontal ones. The man before them was a high priest.

The high priest bellowed a deep laugh, his prodigious belly shaking under his brown shirt.

“It gladdens my eyes to see you,” he said jovially. “It’s been too long since you’ve visited. Too long. And who is this with you?”

Isidorus spoke before Tercius could. “My young friend here needs to talk to you, if you could spare some time,”

"Well, of course, of course. A word exchanged between well-intentioned strangers does them both good. Well, you know my name, lad. Do you have one, or shall I just call you 'lad'?"

Again, Isidorus spoke before Tercius could. “You will not believe whose son he is,”

One massive eyebrow went up as the high priest leaned on the shovel he used. “Oh? So I know his parents then? Mother or father?”

“My name is Tercius,” Tercius now spoke before Isidorus could, interrupting the man’s words just as they reached his lips.

Menesthios looked first at Isidorus, then at him. The massive brown sideburns moved as the man smiled. “A fine name. Fine, indeed. It gladdens me to see new blood come to our temple."

“Your eminence, I—”

“I will have none of that “your eminence” here. We are all brothers and sisters in faith.”

“Err… very well. But you must know that I cannot be counted as a brother of the faith,” Tercius said.

Judging by the vertical line tattooed between the two horizontal ones, the man before him likely already knew of Tercius' lacking beliefs. This was a test, clearly. In all the stories, Divine Balance and its servants were always fond of those.

Isidorus looked at him with alarm in his eyes and Tercius felt a pang of shame color his cheeks. He had let the tailor assume certain things based on Tercius' background and coupled with Tercius' insinuation had led them where they were currently. Now the man plainly regretted not being more thorough.

Isidorus grabbed Tercius by the elbow, his eyes burning with betrayal. “What do you mean by that—”

Tercius rolled his shoulder, pulling his arm out of the man’s grasp with ease. Surprise colored the tailor’s face. It shouldn’t have. Tercius had spent his time on construction sites since he was a kid. Gardening and learning to wield a sword and a shield had been on his daily schedule for years. Running, occasional swimming, learning a musical instrument, and more…

Even with all that to occupy his time, the days when he had still had free time to fill up had been too many to count.

"My grandmother is a sister of the faith, and I have learned of Divine Balance from her, but my heart of faith is elsewhere,"

Nowhere, in matters of faith, but the man did not need to know that.

Still, his words calmed the dark-faced Isidorus visibly.

“Don’t mind the lad, brother. I’m sure that he has his reasons. And remember, everyone is welcome to our temple if they bear no ill intent in their hearts and minds.” The priest pointed at a table and a pair of wooden benches, hidden in the shade of a large tree. “Now, have a seat. I really must finish the work before the sun gets too high,”

In silence, Isidorus and Tercius sat where the high priest sent them and waited.

Out of nowhere, like a scarf of freezing silk a small touch of magia brushed off his neck. He stilled in his seat, then quickly turned around to take a look. There was nothing there. His instincts warned him to move and he shifted on the bench, feeling uncomfortable being so exposed.

Did something go wrong with the enchantment on his Well? He couldn't feel his magical organ the way he could just a day ago, so the Seal should still be working. Tercius swallowed. Rather than the enchantment failing and exposing his Well to the juveniles, which with him being an infidel would mean instant death, it was far more likely someone here was intrigued by him. He was a newcomer here and someone who could obviously feel magia.

In other words, he was interesting.

If there ever were a more powerful curse for drawing others towards yourself, he had yet to learn of it.

Something cold and rough, like sandpaper brushed against his elbow. His jaw clenched as he lifted his arm. The damned things were even licking him now.

Should he just make a temporary mental retreat away from this place? No… The organic disturbance of magia in his Channels that came with {Distant Mind} would be noticed by someone or something. He knew no spells for calming himself, but even if he knew those, this would be the last place he would use them. Using a spell in a temple might as well be classified as a suicide.

What else— Like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky, his Mentor's advice on {Power of Will} came to him.

The ways to {Power of Will} were many and they took years and even decades to properly walk, but for the magi the very first step towards the Skill was learning how to experience and process different states of mind— a concept that for magi encapsulated thoughts, feelings, pleasure, pain, and so on, especially those which were on the extreme sides of their respective spectrum.

Before speaking to him of details of how to start the path towards the Skill, his Mentor had admitted freely that even she found it difficult to always apply it.

Properly experiencing a state of mind started with defining each facet of the state, which sounded rather simple. In a way, you had to learn to create a little bit of distance from what you were experiencing, but never go as far as to sever things completely. The thoughts, the emotions, the physical reactions to the state, all had to be clearly divided and their roots found. The better defined each separate aspect was, the better the result would be.

He might at least try it. That way he would have something to occupy himself with.

So… where to start? It was his first real attempt on his own, so the obvious might be a good start.

He didn't like the position he was in, the inability to act in certain ways that he was used to, the restriction on the use of certain Skills that he was used to using. He didn't want to sit here and pretend that there was not a spirit or two or three slobbering on his elbows and touching his neck.

It all felt as if he was putting his hand into a dark hole, completely aware that something was lurking inside. In his case, the question was would whatever was inside bite him?

He didn't want to spend a second here, at this temple. He didn't want to be at the mercy of beings who could kill him in an instant solely because he had developed a magical organ.

But he had to be here. For Rona. For Septimus. They were the reason he had to put his hands into the dark.

He… he didn’t want to die. He wanted to see everyone again. His parents, grandparents, siblings, familiar, uncle… even some people back at the Pyramid. He wanted to see this world, so strange and magical. He wanted to hike the tallest mountains and swim in the oceans. He couldn’t do any of that if he died, here and now.

That was it, wasn't it? HIs nerves were acting up because of an instinct of an animal that felt surrounded or cornered and was desperate for a way out. Fear of death and things unfinished.

Well, maybe he was onto something here. Now, what did his Mentor say was next?

Once the roots are known, then it was time to go back and experience everything properly.

Whether feeling desperation or hope, grief or happiness, wherever the body was freezing from the cold or if the flesh was cooking from an unbearable heat, no matter if the swirling thoughts were those of love for an enemy or those of contemplation of the murder of a loved one, it was important to never reject anything found or run away and hide from it. If something was there, denying its presence would only be harming yourself considerably. The truly important bit was to learn to experience all the states of mind without reacting to them.

Learning to act and react, properly, comes much later in the training.

As Tercius saw it, the process was a kind of endurance building that was designed to lead to an eventual establishment of new habits and introducing more conscious reactions to events.

Something cold brushed past his right leg and although Tercius’ whole body tensed, he swallowed the need to look down or jerk his leg away.

Endurance. Yes, that did sound like something that he would need right about now. He was not yet quite sure about what followed, but he would wait and see.

*** *** ***

Tercius had no idea how long the high priest took to shovel the manure out of the pigsty, but when the man finally ambled over and sat across from him he had to keep himself from letting out the mother of all sighs of relief. While he waited, he had gotten used to the presences that kept brushing against him, as much as one could get used to being suddenly jolted by cold invisible beings that were present around him in unknown numbers.

The high priest suddenly slapped the back of Isidorus’ hands with a bit too much force, making the tailor's face twitch.

“Why the gloom, brother?”

Isidorus gave a small smile and they talked, exchanging the regular personal inquiries– the state of their own health and that of some of the relatives they had in common and so on– and then the jovial eyes of the high priest turned to Tercius.

“So… How can I help you?”

Tercius took a deep breath, knowing that the time had come. “I am looking for two people and I am just here to ask about them, that’s all.”

“I see,” the high priest nodded. “I see. And who might these people be?”

"An older woman and a man. Both have black hair, although the woman has some gray in hers. She has green eyes and he has brown."

The last real information of where Septimus and Rona were was written with Septimus' own hand in this very temple. The wax-sealed letter had arrived with a traveling merchant to their family home in Nurium around five months ago, and on the finely written pages Septimus also revealed that he and Rona were going to seek help at the Monastery of Balance, a Heavens forsaken place hidden in one of the numberless valleys nestled somewhere on the Izmittor Mountains.

“The two of them stayed here, at this temple, around five months ago and—”

“And who are they to you, my boy?” the priest asked kindly.

Tercius released a breath he didn’t know he was holding. So he remembered them. “They…”

“I don’t tend to ask questions I don’t want the answers to,” the man’s eyes sharpened at Tercius’ hesitation. “Who are they to you?”

"They're family. The man is my father, the woman is my grandmother."

The priest hummed for a few moments and then nodded, his eyes relaxing. “So why hesitate to speak? It's plain to see, you know, and I have eyes. Those eyes she shared with you are rare around these parts. The jaw and nose and eyebrows that you have are the same ones found on that man that came here with her.”

“So… Can you tell me where they are?”

“Far away, lad. Far away.” the high priest said. “I’m afraid that I can’t share any more than that, not even with you,”

“They are my family. I need to know where they are. It’s a matter of urgency,”

The man showed Tercius his empty palms. "Alas, my brothers, sisters, and I are all bound on that matter. Only the Speaker can answer your question, should she choose to do so,"

Tercius swallowed the words that came to him. Speakers here, Speakers there, Speakers fucking everywhere. It was plain to see that the clergy and the magi shared common roots. Damn their history! He just wanted to know where Rona and Septimus were and then get them home in one piece.

So… Could he risk talking to this Speaker? What if he had to enter the temple? This could alter his plans somehow… But what if Rona and Septimus had gone elsewhere than their letter stated and he ended up wasting time by going to that monastery needlessly? That would alter his plans even more and then he would have to come here, again.

Tercius slowly nodded to himself. "Your e— brother Menesthios... Can I talk to the Speaker?"

“That is up to the Speaker. All I can do is ask if she'll have you,”

“Please, if you could …”

The high priest nodded and stood up. “Very well then. You can wait here. I may take a while,”

The priest walked away and left Tercius with a frowning Isidorus. The man had crossed his arms and spoke no words, for which Tercius was grateful. Still, it was time to complete his end of the deal. He took off his backpack and reached inside for the coin pouches he set aside for this.

“You can keep your money, boy,” Isidorus’ voice was deeper than any other time Tercius heard it. “I will have none of it.”

Tercius pushed the money towards the man. "Please, it's the least I can do to—"

Isidorus’ eyes were firm. “Do you have any idea, boy, what you did— no. I won’t get into this with you. It was my greed that led me here. Just… remove that from my sight. I won’t have any of it.”

"I need to tell you that my mother had nothing to do with the idea. She did ask me to bring you what I did, I mean, but the rest was all me." Tercius gave voice to the thing that was gnawing at him with almost the same sensation as that of the cold presence that kept touching him from time to time. It simply didn't sit right with Tercius that the man thought ill of Petra on his account. His oldest friend from a past life had a saying that all actions done and words spoken, no matter how small they might seem, would become a burden that would be carried for the rest of life by everyone who witnessed them.

There was something there, to that much he could agree.

Isidorus looked up, his face mired with some strange, dark expression. “I thought that… that she…”

"She would not approve of what I did, if she ever learned of it."

The man let out a deep sigh. "That's... a relief to hear."

“I am sorry for taking advantage of you. Truly.”

“So why do it then?”

Tercius shrugged a bit, his shoulders barely moving. "I could have searched for this place on my own, but I am in a hurry. Having someone to take me here was... expedient. I was also not sure if I could come here without someone to vouch for me and I know that you and your father are brothers of the faith... So I tried what I did and it worked... and now here we are..."

"And here we are…"

They lapsed into silence, each man with something on his mind. The few visible goats mowed the green grass down to its roots while bands of chickens pecked the ground in search of food. The pigs were heard over the sound of swaying trees, as the clergy of the temple slowly and methodically cared for the gardens that provided them food.

If not for the cold reception that Tercius continued to experience, then this place could have been some kind of a paradise.