As it turned out, dealing with the bodies wasn’t that difficult. Navraj, despite being shaken up, knew just what to do.

“He broke into my meeting location,” Navraj said. “And killed my door guard. We’re completely justified in all this.”

“I’m not sure the city guard will agree,” Xerxes replied dryly, looking at the bodies and the blood.

Navraj tsked. “I mean in the eyes of the Father. The guard will never find out what happened here.” He stepped over and put a hand on Xerxes’ shoulder. “I’ll never forget what you did here today. You saved my life.”

Xerxes’ eyes flitted to Katayoun’s. “We saved your life,” he said.

Navraj nodded. “And I owe the two of you because of it. For now, just leave. I’ll take care of this mess. I’m skipping the normal vetting process and authorizing you to attend regular meetings.” Reaching into a pocket he pulled out a slip of brown paper ‌he had folded into a square. “Memorize the address there, and the knocking pattern, then destroy the paper. By fire, preferably. Show up next week at the second hour after noon. Meeting locations change monthly, and the next one is the last one at this ‌location, so don’t miss it.”

Xerxes took the paper. “Understood. So… we’ll just see ourselves out?”

Navraj nodded. “Go the way you came. Close the door behind you. I’ll put the bar in place later.”

Thus ended their initial meeting with the Cult of the Eternal Father.

Out in the bazaar, Xerxes and Katayoun walked in silence until they were a good distance from the meeting location. Then Katayoun grabbed his arm and sagged against him.

“Whoa, you okay?” he said, reaching his free hand over and putting it on her forearm.

“I’m fine,” she replied. “But… that was insane. You could have died!”

“No,” he said. “I had you there.”

She was looking up into his eyes, her face was inches from his. Her lips….

No, it’s too soon for that.

They found a public fountain in an out-of-the-way alley where Xerxes washed most of the blood off himself. However, the clothing was too far gone, so they bought some replacement pieces. After that, they wandered the bazaar arm-in-arm for a time. They eventually left, heading to a part of town north of the school where they found a quiet place to have dinner together.

“So we’re in,” Katayoun said.

“The cult, you mean?”

“Yeah. I thought it’d be more difficult. Other than the nearly dying.”

He laughed. “Hopefully that means the hard part is over. But, if we’re going to start going to meetings, then, well….”

“We need to explain why we go missing on Restday afternoons. Well, that’s simple. We just make our relationship public.”

A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth, but he suppressed it. “In that case… I think I should give you this.”

He pulled out the choker he’d hoped to give her in the original fateful Operation: Kat Walk. He gave it to her.

She took it. “Xerxes, this is amazing. It must have cost a fortune.”

“That’s what I snuck into the dorm to give you that night.”

Smiling, she unclasped the choker and put it around her neck. “It fits perfectly. How does it look?”

“Beautiful.”

The rest of the dinner was amazing. Xerxes wished the night could just go on forever. But they had to go back.

After changing back into their normal clothing, they returned to the school hand-in-hand. People saw them, and Xerxes knew that rumors would fly. He hurried back to his dorm.

The Humusi Swordmasters were all there lounging around, which was good, because it gave him his chance to tell them himself.

“My man!” Jad exclaimed.

Kashtiliash just nodded.

Enusat let out a whoop. “Next time I’ll ‘ave your back when we sneak to the girl’s dorms!”

That’s not going to happen, Xerxes thought, but given the excited atmosphere in the room, he said nothing.

Word spread like wildfire. The rumor mill in the Sin-Amuhhu Institute of Military Magic was such a well-oiled machine that even Mystic Rabya was in the know the following morning.

“I heard the good news,” she said, her face expressionless as she eyed Xerxes.

Xerxes’ heart thumped in his chest as he suddenly wondered if he and Katayoun had broken some school rule that he didn’t know about.

Rabya shifted her gaze from Xerxes to Katayoun, and the ghost of a smile appeared on her face. “Just don’t get distracted from your studies, got it?”

Katayoun nodded, and Xerxes did the same.

The day flew by. Lecture. Training. Meditation. Rune study.

The week flew by. There was an increasing emphasis on the military aspects of their future duties. Chain of command. Following orders. Learning troop movements. There was an entire class about interactions between mages and Unsighted soldiers. Rabya worded everything delicately as she explained that the soldiers were ‘conditioned’ to follow mages with utter loyalty, never questioning direct orders except under the most extreme circumstances. There was a lot that mages, whether commanding officers or not, could do to foster loyalty and teamwork. However, Xerxes got the impression that ‘brainwashed’ might be a better word to use regarding the soldiers’ training.

Rabya summed it up by saying it was just one way mages helped the Pontifarch keep order in the empire.

He started joining Katayoun in the library. And enjoying it.

Back on Mannemid, he’d never been a fan of reading books, at least outside of rune study. Gandash had been a library person, and had always tried to drag Xerxes and Bel along. It never worked.

But for some reason, studying with Katayoun just felt right. It wasn’t as though they held hands, or leaned up against each other when they read. Just being in her presence was enough to ground him.

He tried to convince her to join the sword practice sessions, but she wasn’t interested. However, she supported his passion for it; when the Swordmasters gathered, she refused to let him spend time with her instead.

“The Epitome has been important to you for a long time, and it’ll stay that way forever,” she said. “I’m not going to let you get distracted by me.”

When he told the Swordmasters about that, they marveled.

“Don’t let this one get away,” Jad said.

“I second that,” Kashtiliash added.

And he had no intention of doing anything of the kind. The Swordmasters liked her, and she seemed fond of them. Life was perfect.

Then came the cult meeting. He’d assumed they would meet in a shadowy room with candles everywhere, while wearing deep-hooding cloaks. There would be chanting, knives, snakes, blood, and a sacrifice to a summoned Abhorrent.

Instead, there was a twenty-minute lecture by Navraj about the ‘true’ story of the Pontifarch, most of which revolved around trying to convince everyone that he was born as an ordinary human named Bukru. Xerxes didn’t care one way or another if the Pontifarch used to be named Bukru—or still was for that matter. But he found the story difficult to believe, despite the supposed ‘historical’ proof Navraj provided.

After the lecture, Navraj passed around a bowl for donations.

Wait a second, Xerxes thought. Is this whole cult thing just a scam?

He put a mina in before passing the bowl along. There were only ten people present for the meeting including Xerxes and Katayoun, so the process didn’t take long.

“And now, for some refreshments,” Navraj said, whereupon they had some pastries and wine.

Later, on the way back to the school, Katayoun said, “That was… interesting.”

“If you say so,” Xerxes said. “If this wasn’t some critical mission, I think I might have passed out from boredom.”

She laughed.

Weeks passed.