“Like that, two steps back, turn to the left, arms to the side and… yeah! You got it!”

Issima was having fun, which surprised her and would probably make any who knew her faint out of shock.

She was actually enjoying teaching the dance to this strange young man, he had zero knowledge about dancing, but he caught up fast and made the moves fluidly.

The music stopped, it would be a few seconds before the next song started.

“You got talent for this, Ethan. You learned the dance moves perfectly.”

Issima said with a grin.

“Yeah, and it only took me the whole song to learn them.”

Ethan answered and twisted his lips into a forced smile, he had a bit of a red face, maybe the embarrassment didn’t let him have as much fun as her? Whatever the case, Issima was having fun, so she decided to not tease him too much.

“Ah, don’t be like that! it’s your first dance, you did great. A new song will start now; do you want to dance again?”

“Well, we are already here, alright.”

He sighed, looking like someone resigned to doing a tedious chore.

“Hey, don’t make that face, is dancing with me such a bother to you?”

Issima made a moue, she knew he wasn’t really bothered by her but by the act of dancing, but he didn’t have to be so dramatic about it.

“Not at all!”

Ethan hurriedly shook his head and waved his hands in front of him.

“It’s just that I’m not accustomed to this, I can’t enjoy the dance to its fullest if I’m focusing on learning the moves, I imagine that you aren’t enjoying as much as you could if you were dancing with someone who knew about this.”

Issima looked at him as the musicians started a new song, it was a softer and slower song than the last one.

“Dummy, I’m having plenty of fun.”

She said in a soft voice, then smiled and wrapped one hand across his waist and took his hand with the other, getting closer to him. Ethan was taller than her by only a few cms, her forehead being at the same height as his mouth.

To her surprise, Ethan matched posture and embraced her waist too, then started to move back and forth in short steps.

“Eh? You know this one?”

“Not really, the rhythm is different, but this posture reminds me of a dance from my homeland, we call it a waltz.”

“Interesting, we call it Sama’i. I’ll lead and show you how’s done.”

“Good, I was getting worried I’d have to do it.”

She slapped his shoulder playfully and they laughed a bit, the initial awkwardness between them had diminished a bit.

The musicians played faster now, the notes flowing one after the other at a steady pace, metered and a rhythmic structure.

“Where do you come from, Ethan?”

Issima asked raising her head to look into his eyes, hazel meeting honey.

“I come from very far, a whole world of distance away. Everything here is very different from what I know.”

Issima raised her eyebrows in surprise, his comment sounded like a joke, but there was… melancholy in his eyes.

“So far? Is it across the sea or…?”

She left the question hanging, waiting for him to clarify.

He looked troubled for a bit, hesitating on how to answer her question. Finally, he took a deep breath and decided to speak.

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Try and we’ll see.”

She smiled at him, and her eyes were full of curiosity.

“Very well. I can’t tell you where my homeland is, at least, not yet. But I can tell you this: it’s very far from here.”

Ethan sighed, took a deep breath and continued.

“The country I come from is called the United States, though my parents were from different countries, they moved there due to studies and work in their youth. I was raised in a metropolis called New York, a very big city, with buildings that aimed to touch the clouds in the sky, abundance of food and entertainment, although the people were always hurrying to their jobs in vehicles in wide streets, people from all professions and classes lived together. There were problems, sure, we had criminals and issues local and foreign. It wasn’t a paradise, but it was a good place.”

They spun in the dance, Issima leading while Ethan absent-mindedly followed her move, letting his body move on instincts he didn’t know he possessed while his mind recalled memories from home and he tried to form words that didn’t reveal too much of it.

He failed.

He knew it was foolish to go around telling other people he was from a different world; he knew it was absurd to tell such thing to a total stranger and he also knew anyone might think he was crazy or perhaps try to find out how to get to his home.

But did it matter? His world was gone, the people there were all dead, and it wasn’t like people could just go there so easily.

Besides, he had his Master. Navin had told him to not depend on him, but he also told him to feel free to do and talk about anything he wanted so long as he was within moral limits, this should be fine.

Another part of him simply didn’t care at all, he wanted to talk about his home, his friends, his city. He missed talking about TV shows, movies, and songs. He missed playing video games, yet he hadn’t touched his console in the days he had been here, he also hadn’t even looked at his smartphone despite having those things stored inside his Spatial Ring.

He felt like an idiot each time he thought about it, but he simply couldn’t do it, whether it was fear or something else that made him hesitate and give up on trying to use things from home, he didn’t know.

He raised his head and looked at the stars and two moons in the sky, such an alien image for him, and yet so beautiful.

He looked back down and found Issima looking at him.

He smiled, it was a bittersweet smile but it was genuine. He kept talking, and once the dam was burst there was no stopping the flood.

“Your land is fascinating; you know? I had never seen a culture like this, so rich and… magical. We don’t have magic back home, not even impressive mystical martial arts like yours. Although we don’t have any monsters like those in the desert, so that’s a bright side.”

Ethan laughed a bit, like the resigned laugh of a tired man, self-mocking and bitter. It wasn’t the laughter of a young boy.

“We have stories about monsters and beasts, though. Tales from writers, poets and singers who narrate the mysteries of faraway lands and exotic monsters of unknown origin from the ancient past, but those were all fantasy, made-up stories. The reality I have seen here is very different.”

“You don’t have mages in your country, this Union of States? Well, mages aren’t exactly common, but the absence of monsters and beasts is certainly a good thing. Our economy would suffer if there were no longer any beasts, but that’s because we live in this desert, countries in other places have their own ways to survive, and even we could find other sources of income given enough time.”

Issima shrugged, she had grown up fighting both beasts and people; a land with food and peace sounded pretty much like a paradise to her, but she knew that every country had their own issues to deal with.

“My country extracted resources from the land, minerals, oil and stuff like that, we then used those resources to create products of all kinds in industries. You could say it’s our own version of magic; we used our intelligence and joined efforts to achieve things that were only fantasy and myth in years of the past. Ah, it’s United States, not Union of States.”

He smiled, this time a bit more cheerfully, even teasingly.

“What if I told you that people could fly in the sky? I bet there are flight spells and artifacts that can do that, but we managed to do it without magic, we used technology and science to explore the world, innovate and create new things. Medicines to cure diseases, heart transplants, light bulbs to illuminate the streets and homes, modifying crops so they would grow faster and larger, devices to communicate with people on the other side of the globe, recording videos to watch scenes happening over and over again, vehicles that moved faster than any horse, and so much more I could spend years and never end talking about them.”

Issima stared at him, he was talking about crazy, absurd things, and yet… he was speaking the truth. There was a fervor in his words, a certainty, he talked like someone who had witnessed and experienced these things personally.

She knew that look, something she had seen on the envoys at the Assembly carrying news, stories and products from other countries and presenting them to the Elders and Clans.

There were times those envoys would be called insane until they presented evidence of their findings, and then everyone would have to accept that their fantastic stories were true.

In a world full of magic, the wildest fantasies were only a few tries by a madman away from turning into reality.

“Your homeland sounds like a fantastical place; it must be nice to have a peaceful place with wealth and so many wonders.”

Issima said while thinking about his words, it was a fantastical place indeed; if it was real, she would like to see it one day. She noticed that his expression changed a bit, it was a rueful smile, like he was thinking about something funny, absurd and sad at the same time.

Ethan let out a short mirthless laughter.

“I suppose. The monsters were just stories back home, but then real threat were the people themselves, some becoming worse than monsters. From petty thieves to murderers, indirect long-reaching problems like corrupt politicians who wore smiles while damaging the country and more immediate threats like terrorist bombing and school shootings. Children grew up in a contradictory belief of knowing that police were there to protect you so you should call for their help at any need, yet you should stay away from them lest they dig up any nasty secrets you had and find a reason to put you in jail. Countries divided themselves with people looking for the smallest excuse to offend, humiliate and hurt each other. People used technology to create more ways to kill each other and cause destruction, producing new weapons all over the globe at the same rate other advancements were made. Absurd, don’t you think? In a place where we could have just gotten along, people fought for all kind of stupid reasons.”

Issima looked at him, she didn’t know what to say, she hadn’t expected him to speak so openly and at length about his land, however now she was glad that he did it, even if she didn’t understand some of the things he spoke of.

Some terms were strange to her. Terrorist bombing? Police? She noticed a while ago that he wasn’t actually speaking Sahbadian language, but using magic to translate, which wasn’t exactly rare for her since she had seen many envoys and ambassadors using translation spells, but this spell was something else.

This spell didn’t simply translate words from one language to another, it conveyed the meaning and intention behind those words, it was almost like directly transmitting thoughts.

She got the feeling that terrorist bombings were ‘attacks with fire and explosions to the civil population with the purpose of causing panic and terror’ while also the thought that it wasn’t a method for war, but an attack made in times of peace to innocents. It carried a different connotation that using fire spells and Skills during battles, it was more akin to the raiding and burning of farms and homes of villagers by bandits.

Police were ‘guards from the government, responsible for the prevention and detection of crime and the maintenance of public order’. Wasn’t that the same as the Watch from any city? She got the impression it wasn’t exactly the same, it was more… organized? A civil force trained into professionals who enforced the law.

He had twice mentioned a ‘globe’ now, she thought he was speaking about scrying orbs or a similar artifact when he first spoke about communication, but now she was certain that wasn’t the case.

But what she got from the translation made no sense, the world was flat, not a globe. What was he talking about?

What was this magic? It went beyond any translation spell she had seen or heard about. This was borderline on creating an image inside her head. He sounded honest when he said his people didn’t have magic, but this was definitely an advanced spell.

Maybe he met someone who put an enchantment on him? Hiring someone for such a job was expensive but a real possibility.

Issima shook her head putting aside those thoughts, she would have time to think about it later, or maybe even ask him directly. She focused again on what Ethan was saying.

“One day I will return there, and I will fix it. I will change things, not just at home, but for my whole world. I will make sure that strife never again breaks my world apart, be it a war of gods or mortals, I won’t let them shatter my home, never again.”

There was a savage golden glow in his eyes for an instant and Issima’s heart jumped in her chest. His last words were borderline blasphemy, but he didn’t care at all; Issima wasn’t a devoted worshipper of the Gods, she had been raised to dedicate her faith and loyalty to her Clan and the Ancestors, but even so, she wouldn’t utter those words so nonchalantly, nor would most of the people she knew.

She looked around, no one seemed to be looking in their direction but she knew that wasn’t a necessity when eavesdropping.

She returned her gaze to Ethan, the blazing flame behind his eyes receded, returning his eyes to the color of honey. Was it just a trick of the light? No, she was certain of what she had seen.

He closed his eyes and exhaled. When he opened his eyes again, he had regained composure.

“Sorry, and thank you for listening to my rants.”

Issima looked at him in silence, her lips slightly apart due to the previous surprise, then she nodded, her expression softened into a small smile.

“Not at all, I’m glad you told me that much, I think there’s more to that story, but I won’t ask. I’m sorry, I pried into a sensitive subject without meaning to.”

“No, you couldn’t have known, it was a normal question to ask. It was me who vented up my thoughts to you.”

Ethan shook his head and came up with an idea to change the subject.

“In fact, now that I told you about my home, then tell me about yours, Elder Kareb said that you come from a place called Thaliss?”

Issima’s lips turned upwards, it was a good change of subject, to a path from where she could swerve the conversation towards her desired goal.

She was curious about what he had said before, particularly one part near the end: “my world” he said, and if one takes into account how he doesn’t know about anything in this place…

Well, that was a question for another time. The list kept getting annoyingly larger with every passing minute, but she had more urgent things to ask.

“Yes, my homeland is a special place, Thaliss is a region southwest from here. It’s within the Sahbadia Kingdom’s territory, but we are not their subjects, we are an Assembly of different Clans sharing a common origin, we have been allies with the Kingdom since hundreds of years ago.”

“Oh, not a vassal state, but an enclave, eh? To maintain sovereignty within the territory of another country it means you guys are pretty strong, right? Is everyone there a Sword Dancer?”

Ethan was each time more curious about them, he was wondering if it was ok to talk about what he saw during their dance. He might end up looking like a smartass pretending to know more about the dance than the practitioners, or he might offend them if he figured out something he shouldn’t have; his Master had said before that Cultivators were very secretive about their arts and would not hesitate to kill to protect those, so it might be a similar case with Sword Dancers.

Either way, he was curious about a lot of things, so he would ask about other stuff instead.

The Sama’i performance ended, and the musicians changed to another song, fast and lively.

“Oh, not at all.”

Issima laughed heartily and made a dismissive fanning gesture with her hand, apparently amused at the notion.

“Although we are one of the few places that train Sword Dancers and our main force of warriors is composed of those, we are not exclusively swordsmen, we are proud of our artisans and blacksmiths too. It is very common for outside people to speak of the glory and honor of a warrior, they often forget about the masterwork sword that enabled that glory and the hard labor of the hands that forged it.”

She raised a finger as she spoke, like lecturing someone in a school or reciting a text from memory.

“Another important tradition among our warriors is music, we practice dancing, playing instruments and also singing. Such practices are essential for us, more than in other places, because they pass down the teachings from our ancestors.”

“Amazing. So your people’s warriors aren’t just battle-oriented, but artists in a broader sense, you are more complex than one would expect.”

Ethan had expected the Sword Dancers to be more than mere dancers or fighters after looking at their performance, but getting more information about their culture gave him a better image of them, a culture that could hide messages and battle techniques inside a dance was sure to have profound traditions and customs.

Issima straightened her back, sticking her chest out with pride.

“Of course! We are a noble lineage that couldn’t be subdued by Sahbadia nor erased by the harsh sands of the desert!”

She pointed with her thumb at her own heart with the other hand on her hip.

“The dance we performed earlier? It’s called the Dance of Four Forms, and there are very few teams capable of performing it correctly, even if most of us have learned it since infancy.”

At this point, her eyes glittered, although she had enjoyed talking and dancing with Ethan, this was the reason she started all this.

“What do you think of our dance? You were watching our performance very intently, as I recall.”

Ethan blinked in surprise. Not at the question or the fact that she knew he was watching, the fact that they turned towards him at the end of the dance and that she wasted no time to come and ask him for a dance were kind of telling, once he thought about it.

What surprised him was the intensity of her eyes, there was a… desire there, something beyond mere curiosity, like a thirst that hadn’t been quenched in a long time.

“Is it really ok for me to discuss about that dance?”

Ethan asked cautiously, he didn’t want to offend her accidentally, she was asking his opinion about it so he was probably safe from that, but it was better to make sure.

Issima nodded slowly but firmly.

“I think it was a marvelous performance, truly fascinating. I couldn’t take my eyes away during the dance, I had never seen a similar performance in my life.”

At his words, Issima nodded with a small grin.

“Thank you, but my question goes a bit beyond that, and I think you know what I meant, don’t you?”

She said, dropping the pretense now and crossing her arms over her chest.

Her grin widened, the musicians were going for another song, yet they hadn’t danced through the last song, they were just standing in front of each other talking while they ignored the world around them, and curiously it seemed that everyone else was ignoring them too.

Only now did Issima notice that. It was definitely strange, but something to think about later.

She watched as Ethan sighed and rotated his shoulders.

“Alright, you win. I saw something in your dance, you are right.”

“I knew it!”

Issima made a fist pump right there, raising her voice unconsciously.

She hurriedly looked around, but just as she had noticed before, no one even turned to their direction, everyone around was dancing, drinking, eating or talking while keeping a good distance away from them.

Now it was very obvious something magical was going on, and a bit creepy, if she was honest with herself.

She looked a bit warily at Ethan, but he either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care. He kept talking as he was before, except now he had an amused look on his face, he might be laughing inside his head about her fist pump.

“Let me ask you something first, can that dance, the Dance of Four Forms, be performed by a single Sword Dancer?”

Issima frowned, she didn’t have to think about the answer.

“No, that’s a team dance, it must be performed by four dancers together and wielding different types of weapons each, otherwise it’s incomplete.”

Ethan nodded upon hearing her answer, pondering seriously about something before continuing.

“I think I’m right on assuming that was something done to hide the truth of that dance, I bet your people have many other arts like that, disguising a martial art as a dance and mixing up fake moves in between, and taking it to the point of dividing the moves into four parts.”

Ethan laughed lightly, he had read stuff like that before in mangas and novels, ancient traditions of martial artists hiding their secrets in plain sight.

A living example of it was right in front of him, and most importantly, he had discovered a secret that the own successor of that art didn’t know about. He might have gained insight on that secret by mere chance, and he was certain that despite the vision he experienced he was far from actually being able to use those techniques, but if he followed the Intent he had seen on during the performance, he could make out the actual moves of a different ‘dance’, the real dance.

And that was the secret Issima wanted, it might be more valuable than he could possibly understand, there was no way for him to appreciate it on the same level as the practitioners would, it wasn’t a legacy for him, after all. He hadn’t been raised to pursue those teachings.

“So you saw it? The true form of the dance?”

Issima asked softly, barely containing the mixture of emotions she was experiencing.

Many thoughts passed through Ethan’s mind, thoughts of asking things, the temptation of extorting something from her Clan in exchange of teaching them what he had discovered, he could probably get a fortune out of them. Some dark and lowly thoughts whispered about Issima being a beautiful woman who might be willing to do anything to recover a lost art of her clan and might be very grateful for his help in this matter.

He recalled multiple stories he had read and watched throughout his life, tales of the hero gaining a female companion out of gratitude after saving her or providing help to her family, many of those stories ended with the hero started a relationship with said female companion, especially in the stories with a harem setting.

After all, who would do such a big favor out of simple goodwill without asking anything in return?

Ethan would.

Such thoughts were pointless and stupid, so he discarded them completely without consideration.

There was really no temptation to be had here.

Money and fortunes were no temptation for someone who was already rich, lands and goods were irrelevant for him as he wasn’t even from this world and planned to explore it before traveling to another realm of existence.

He had all his material needs supplied by his Master, so those were useless to bait him.

Issima was beautiful and he found her attractive, but he wasn’t the kind of scum that would ask for sexual favors in exchange of help. He was only 14 and might not have experience in that area of life, but he was raised with good morals, he was not a degenerate.

He would never be able to face his parents again if he did such low acts of perversion, that was a line he wouldn’t cross.

And lastly, but not less important, a thought that lingered in the back of his mind: if he actually had tried to do that, he might be stopped and beaten up by his Master before actually doing it.

Sure, his Master so far had been kind and nice, joking around and at most mock-hitting him with a toy hammer, but it would be foolish to forget that his Master was, despite his refusal to be called such, a God.

And everything so far indicated that he was the most powerful one. What’s more, with all the other deities dead in the war that had triggered the events of their meeting, it would be more accurate to call him the God.

It would be incredibly stupid and borderline suicidal to disregard the only warning that such deity had given him upon accepting him as a Disciple: sinking into depravity is forbidden.

Thinking about it now, Ethan found it very strange that such thought was the last thing he took into consideration when making his decision, when it seemed all the more important and an immediate impediment to actually extorting any reward from sharing his knowledge.

He wasn’t sure if it would work, but Ethan yelled inside his mind.

Master, are you messing with my head or something?

Urged by a sudden impulse, Ethan looked up.

There was no sign of the Phoenix around, but for a second Ethan could swear that he saw the stars in the sky arranged to form the word ‘NO’ in a very big and clear manner, displaying the message in the vault of heavens.

He blinked twice, and the word was gone, with the stars no longer aligned into such messed up formation.

It might have been an illusion, and he really hoped that was the case, because messing with dozens of stars was something he hoped his Master wouldn’t do for something so childish as answering a simple yes/no question.

He might need to have a conversation with his Master later tonight, the result of which he was uncertain, it might even be pointless, but he felt he needed to do it, at least to have a clear conscience.

Ethan nodded decisively.

“I did. I can show you now if you want or we can wait until a better time─”

“There’s no better time than right now!”

Issima jumped up and grabbed his hands.

“Show me, please.”

Ethan looked around. Nobody was looking at them, everyone near them was focused on dancing, and chatting among themselves, and even those people were quite a few meters away from him and Issima.

Channeling Qi to his eyes, he noticed there was a barrier set in place around them, a very similar barrier to the one his Master had set in his room at the inn twice now.

Another proof that his Master was watching him right now, as he said he would, before vanishing and letting him be dragged into this feast by Kareb.

The mind-affecting theory was starting to gain strength, now they were definitely going to have a conversation later.

And of course his Master decided to dispel the barrier now of all times.

“Alright, I’ll show you what I saw, but I think this isn’t a good place to do that, right?”

Issima immediately noticed that some people started looking at them, so whatever effect was happening before was gone.

“Ok, come with me.”

She took him by the hand and let him out of the plaza, quite like she had taken him to the dance floor, but now there was a certainty and greater excitement in her stride.

She would find out now what secret he had glimpsed from the Dance of Four Forms, she would make him show it in front of the others later, but right now she wanted to see it, and she didn’t want to wait.

In the head table of the feast in the plaza, four men sat together.

Each one was powerful and influential on their own right, and they had discussed matters of importance for the whole nation in the span of a couple dozen minutes.

Cunning as they were, they also were decisive, these men were no strangers to war, and war was precisely the subject of their conversation.

“So we have an agreement.”

The second prince of Sahbadia spoke with a raised cup of wine.

In front of him, a member of the Assembly from Thaliss and veteran of countless battles raised a cup of his own.

“We have an agreement.”

Edek clinked his cup with the prince and they both drank them completely.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, Your Highness, I have some kids to look after and I must prepare your message to the Assembly. I assure you, we will have a satisfactory answer in a few days.”

“Thank you, Elder Edek. By all means, don’t let me hold you here. It was a pleasure and honor conversing with you, may we meet again and enjoy a feast more calmly.”

“May the Ancestors hear your good wishes, Your Highness.”

“Ah, there they are!”

Right as Edek was standing up from his seat, Kareb raised his voice suddenly.

Every head on the table turned to him, and then to the direction he was pointing.

On the border of the dancing area, a pair of youngsters were walking away while holding hands.

To be precise, the girl seemed eager to go somewhere else and was pulling the hand of the lad who walked just a bit behind her.

To be more precise, Ethan and Issima were walking away in a hurry toward some unknown place, and the district in that direction was… the red-light district of the city.

“Eh, I think you might have to pay me 10 gold coins, Elder Kareb?”

“Night is young, Your Highness. We have no definite proof yet.”

“Fair enough, we’ll ask Ethan later… or tomorrow maybe.”

Edek was truly surprised by what he saw, had Issima fallen into some spell? That was unlikely, but it was just as unlikely that she was actually willing to spend the night together with a stranger, no matter how interesting individual he might be.

He frowned, had the lad asked for a sexual favor in exchange for something? It was a possibility, but then she wouldn’t be eagerly leading the way.

It wouldn’t do any good to jump into conclusions, but he needed to get moving now.

“Then, until next time, Your Highness, General, Elder.”

Edek bowed slightly towards each of them as he talked and turned around to leave, he hurried towards the other young Sword Dancers, he wouldn’t take them with him to follow Issima, he didn’t want to lead to a misunderstanding, it'd be better if he saw to this matter personally.

But he needed to tell them he was going somewhere else, and give instructions for their return to their rooms.

Then he would follow Issima and find out what was going on.