Aclysia had indeed stolen that dress. It wasn’t much. Well, it was much for a farmer’s dress. The cloth was of high-quality, had been treated well enough that it never once had needed to be sewn back together and definitely looked custom made. Only that last point was why Aclysia had taken this particular one.

She would have been happy to wear a modified potato sack. No, not happy, but willing to. Just something with which to cover her pale skin was a great improvement from her recent lifestyle. All she had done these last few days was wander around, remain unseen as best she could and gnaw on leaves to keep her energy up.

Meat would have been a much better way of feeding herself, but she abhorred the idea of killing an animal to make her own day easier. She wasn’t a predator like Apexus or Reysha. She understood that they needed to eat flesh, she didn’t take umbrage with anyone doing so. Quite easily, she was even willing to help others hunt. Just she, herself, didn’t want to partake in such a thing when she could avoid it. Eating leaves created barely more energy than the motion needed to eat and digest them, but it would be enough for her.

Maybe, however, she would have to overcome that inhibition soon in order to create as much of an energy reserve as she, alone, could. After all, she was going to attend the Day of the First Ascension. Watch out for Reysha, first from the crowd, then from the air.

The crowd was the reason why she had stolen this modified dress. It had a special cut to it, the back being free, allowing Aclysia to have her wings out, while also possessing an attached cape that hid her back. The purpose of this was clearly for a winged kind of humanoid to be able to wear them comfortably while also hiding them from gaze or weather conditions.

Races with wings were a rarity, as gods had to compromise on a few things. There was a very much outspoken covenant between them that none of their spark-gifted creations could be exceedingly more powerful than another. The gold standard for this was the human. Average in basically every aspect and equally gifted for all kinds of magic.

A secondary agreement was that, theoretically, all races could multiply with one another. Staying within a certain frame of sizes, shapes, power and such things helped in that regard. Trying to pair a giant with a gnome was difficult, but not impossible. Not that there weren’t huge differences regardless.

For a race to gain the ability to fly they had to, generally, give up a number of different things. Weight was the first thing to go, accompanied by height in most cases. Certain internal organs may be needed, internal gas bags that took some extra weight off. Hollow bones to compensate the strong back muscles. If the flight was magically supported or entirely on the back of it, then that would mean their magic cortexes, or enablers depending on which person taught, were modified. It made general spellcrafting harder for them than for other, less modified species.

Aclysia didn’t know what kind of humanoid the owner of this dress had been, but it had to be a magically supported one. Otherwise, they would hardly be so tall that the green-brown dress fit Aclysia. Not perfectly, it was a bit loose around her chest and the skirt was shorter than she would have liked, but pretty well all things considered. That she had found a fitting dress after days of searching had been a lucky break.

‘Tomorrow,’ Aclysia thought, plucking another leaf from a nearby bush and shoving it in her mouth. It tasted bland; a bit bitter all things considered. She made sure she wasn’t accidentally eating any bugs. This time only partially because she would have felt bad for killing them. Sure, she did think of bugs as animals, be it less intelligent ones, but she wasn’t that careful about life that she watched her step to not trample an ant. It was one thing to be respectful of values, it was an entirely different problem if one was dominated by them to the point of paralysis.

Half of the reason why she was looking out for them was that she didn’t like eating bugs. They squirmed if they were larva and they crunched disgustingly when they were properly grown. She liked neither feeling in her mouth. In the first place, she disliked eating. It would have been best if she had someone to drain mana off.

“…Apexus…”

Although her mind went to the memory of her awakener as well, it wasn’t actually Aclysia who either thought or mumbled that to herself. It was a distant sound. Somewhere from the direction of the cities outskirts from where she had stolen that dress. She hadn’t moved too far away. In an attempt to conserve energy and remain hidden, she only moved on foot by night. It wasn’t particularly effective, but she could always flee into the air in the worst case.

Moving by day just wasn’t too feasible. The stolen dress alone was quite unique, so she didn’t want to go anywhere with it unless she knew there were a lot of people around to act as cover. Similarly, she felt she herself stood out too much. Even with her wings hidden and her white hair hidden poorly under a piece of cloth she had bound around her head she remained ludicrously pale for the inhabitant of a summer leaf. That and she was beautiful. She didn’t think that to flatter herself, as a matter of fact, right now that was more trouble than it was worth.

“…APEXUS…”

There was that scream again, a female voice. What reason would someone have to scream his name twice in the evening of a nice day? In the northern outskirts of the farming ring around Heralry, no less?

There were two possible answers she could come up with. One was significantly more likely than the other. Either this was Reysha changing her voice and throwing a fit in public or somebody was trying to lure her out. Of course, the redheaded tiger girl was insane, sometimes incoherent, clearly immoral to the core and focused on her own desires, but Aclysia also knew her to be focused to a task, once she chose it. If her goal was to assassinate the Cardinal, then parading around like this in public would have been rather counter-productive.

So, the second one reason was so much more likely that it almost insulted her that somebody would even try. The voice also sounded remotely familiar. She had heard it before, but only a few times.

“APEXUS… ALIVE…” it echoed through the trees and Aclysia could feel her heartstrings taut. Anger and sadness rose to the surface. Even now they used his name to try and hurt her? The idea that they really would show around his core at the parade tomorrow didn’t seem so unrealistic now. If she had any wisdom at all, she would have just gotten up and walked away. This was clearly a trap.

Yet, instead, she got closer to hear exactly what was being shouted.

It wasn’t that she entirely relied on her ability to fly. If the enemy was smart and had the resources, and she believed the Church to have both, then they would have prepared something, be it as little as an ambush to pin her down. She wasn’t a Rogue, she wasn’t even the slightest bit adept at sneaking, so her steps soon caused rustles and snaps.

‘Why can’t I ever think logically about you, darling?’ she asked a person that wasn’t with her, to the best of her knowledge, would never be again. Even that little gush of hope that his name presented to her, she needed to go and hear all of it. The smart thing would have been to turn the other way. There was no way this was Reysha. There was no way this was the truth and yet…

She spotted the blonde woman between the trees. A square face, not ugly, but with harder edges than was traditionally considered beautiful. Dark eyebrows that seemed a bit odd contrasted to her beautiful blonde hair and blue eyes that scanned around searchingly. That her gaze flew past Aclysia just made clear that she was at awful at finding people hiding as Aclysia was at hiding. The metal fairy just happened to wear clothes that harmonized with the colour of the forest and the underbrush itself was brilliant cover.

“APEXUS IS ALIVE, DO YOU HEAR, ACLYSIA? APEXUS IS ALIVE!” she screamed, over and over again. The only people around her where a few farmers, scratching their heads in the distance. Not a single soul of the Church in sight, only the one Priestess in pure-white robes, stained with the dust of a hot day.

Aclysia covered her mouth with her hand, trying to stop herself from sobbing. Could it be true? No, how dare this person try something this blatant… But maybe? No, no, no, her comrades had to lay in wait somewhere around, this couldn’t be…

Mehily turned in her direction and Aclysia froze. Had she spotted her after all? Their eyes seemed to meet for a moment. The sky was getting red, the sun setting on a clear sky. Fading light reflected in the Priestess eyes. “It’s getting late, isn’t it?” she mumbled to herself, just loud enough for Aclysia to hear.

The expression that settled on her face, now that she had stopped shouting, caused Aclysia’s grief to overflow and blur her vision. Before her she saw someone who was alone, helpless, with too many questions on their mind and no easy answers in grasp. Someone who regretted a number of choices on their path.

‘Perhaps I am just imagining this,’ the metal fairy thought as she slowly rose out of the underbrush and started walking. ‘Perhaps I just see myself. Perhaps I just want to hope where it doesn’t make sense but… please, father, Hashahin, you thirty-one other gods, you one true Progenitor, please, let me have faith in your creations and show me that not all is lost.’

Mehily looked at the angel as she stepped out of the forest, their eyes meeting in earnest. The tears that flowed down her face didn’t match with the resolute expression she wore. Before the Priestess knew it, a question escaped her lips. “Has my faith been rewarded?”

Aclysia could only answer with the first thing that came to her mind. “Did you come here believing or did you come here obeying?”