It took a few days for Ekari to get the pass to travel on Lyka, but once she did it was a simple task to get there. There was a portal leading to Lyka only a short distance from the portal that led to Asihanya, under the same Dome.

Lyka was different from what Rissa had expected. Unlike most of the worlds they’d passed through on the way to Berinath, Lyka wasn’t mostly wilderness with a few small cities. At least, the parts they were getting to see weren’t.

Instead, Lyka was a massive city complex. Everywhere they went was full of people or the signs of people; there was scattered greenery, but it was all clearly cropland. It wasn’t dense in the way Rissa had heard some cities on Earth were; it wasn’t even as dense as her home, New York City. Few of the buildings were over four stories tall and most were only one or two.

There were still people everywhere.

There was something else about Lyka that bothered Rissa, but it took her a few days to put it together and realize that it wasn’t just one thing.

The buildings on Lyka were ancient. She could feel just how old they were, and they far outlived even the old Roman ruins Rissa had seen on Earth. She’d never been to China, but she was certain these buildings - which were still in use! - likely dated from before most of what she’d see there, as well.

It wasn’t just the age of some buildings, though. It was that almost all of them were ancient. There was basically no urban renewal happening, just shoring up the old building and making it last longer. The ones that weren’t ancient were the few buildings that were taller and they were all from about the same time period, roughly two or three centuries before.

The churches of Lykandeon.

The churches seemed to be the only buildings allowed to use color, just like the acolytes were the only people who really seemed to wear color. Everything else was in neutral shades and earth tones. It would have been depressing even if that was the only thing wrong with Lyka.

Apparently, there were both older and newer churches on Lyka, depending on when “the wonder of Eternity was realized” in an area. At only a couple of centuries, the area they were in, bluntly called Sector 47B, was relatively new to the Eternal Church. They would pass through more established areas on the way to the only portal to Zon that they would be permitted to use.

It creeped Rissa out. The buildings were the first straw, but as they moved on from Sector 47B, Rissa was able to see more of the people and they creeped her out as well. Every hour, there was a brief pause where everyone faced towards the nearest church. Every greeting and farewell called on the blessing of “the Eternal”.

The fact that they were “as yet uncommitted” meant that they were surrounded by acolytes of the Church at all times. Rissa couldn’t tell how much of the behavior was because of that and how much was genuine. What she could tell was that many people were terrified of the acolytes; even those who weren’t were usually cautious.

The acolytes very clearly didn’t care about the people. That could have been a bad thing, but in this case Rissa thought it was probably good; not only did they not care to help, they also didn’t care enough to hurt. It was clear that not all acolytes were so indifferent.

It was a terrible atmosphere for an empath, but Rissa couldn’t turn her empathy off. She’d never been able to and if anything it seemed even stronger on Lyka.

The one good part about traveling through a planet-sized city owned by a theocracy was that they had good roads. The buildings were plain and boring and the people were terrified, but at least they were able to keep moving.

Well, there was one other questionably good thing. Since they were “uncommitted” and surrounded by acolytes, they always had large, fancy suites reserved for them when they stopped for the night. The fact that the entrances and exits all went through areas controlled by the acolytes guarding them didn’t escape anyone’s notice, but it also wasn’t anything any of them could change without serious consequences, so they pretended they hadn’t noticed.

Four days into the trip across Lyka, Rissa got up in the morning, headed out of her room into the common area, and found Ekari very quietly panicking as she moved things around the room, apparently preparing for company. “Ekari? What’s wrong?”

“Wrong?” Ekari froze and looked up at Rissa, a slightly puzzled expression on her face. If Rissa couldn’t sense her emotions, she wouldn’t know that Ekari was far more nervous than her calm, if determined, exterior showed. “Nothing is wrong. I recommend dressing up a bit today. My mother, High Priestess Karin, will be coming to join us for lunch, since we are near a portal that happens to lead to the area of Aeon she was visiting.”

That certainly explained why Ekari was able to get them passes to cross Lyka; her mother was a High Priestess. It certainly didn’t explain the feelings Rissa could feel from Ekari at the thought of her mother’s visit. It wasn’t just extreme anxiety; there was also more than a little sadness.

None of the emotions were shown in Ekari’s face or movements.

A High Priestess visiting could be useful for the trip or it could be disastrous. Rissa would have preferred if all authority figured just stayed away, but it seemed that was no longer an option.

Rissa shook her head at herself then headed into her room to put on one of the “nice” outfits she’d brought; there were advantages to having several Tutorial backpacks available and she’d made sure to pack everything any of the more experienced travelers had suggested. Oddly enough, it was Ekari who’d suggested that she bring some clothes suitable for meeting powerful people in a formal setting.

She’s also taken Ekari’s advice on what that meant. Strangely enough, it wasn’t the same as it would have been on Earth; Ekari’s recommendation was that she bring something that she could move and fight in and that also showed off Serenity’s colors. The style was apparently not important as long as it was in good shape and in Serenity’s colors.

Rissa found the idea of wearing something that was deep blue, deep purple, and silver a little strange. She didn’t really want to have it be just those plain colors.

Ekari had repeated “Serenity’s colors” enough that Rissa had twigged onto the fact that it wasn’t really about the colors, it was about Serenity, and asked if using his symbol would be a good idea. Ekari seemed quite happy with that idea, so Rissa had changed the plan. She bought several colors of leggings - black, dark blue, dark purple, and silver-gray - and had some shirts custom-ordered. She ordered options with both embroidery and garment printing on several different shirt colors and styles.

She even had versions made up with the word “Friend” in both English and Bridge. She wasn’t certain if other people saw it in English or not, but she always had. From what Ita had mentioned, Rissa had a strong suspicion that it varied.

It was definitely convenient to be able to simply afford to try the different combinations and see what worked. She’d ended up with way more than she could actually bring with her, but that was fine. She’d left behind most of the options but packed enough that she could have some choices depending on the circumstances.

For this, she fell back on her childhood training. Black with accents in color was always acceptable; there was a reason a little black dress was in so many womens’ closets. Stretchy black pants and a black babydoll T-shirt with elbow-length sleeves would work fine. The shirt had a small version of Serenity’s paired winged planets logo on the front, placed the same way as it was on Serenity himself, with a larger version on the back. Rissa had checked with Ekari back on Earth and found out that it was entirely acceptable for what Ekari thought of as “more formal attire” because it tastefully showed off Rissa’s allegiance.

It was several hours before High Priestess Karin arrived and Ekari called Rissa out to the common area. Rissa noticed that none of the others had joined them; she was certain that was Ekari’s choice. Rissa wasn’t about to argue; Ekari surely knew her mother better than Rissa did, and she didn’t know of any reason the others would be necessary.

“You must be Rissa. Welcome to Lyka. I am High Priestess Karin.” High Priestess Karin was already in the common room when Rissa entered.

High Priestess Karin was a thin, tall woman, about the same height as Serenity when he was a chimera, taller than either her daughter or Rissa. Her dark brown hair was peppered with silver streaks but her face only showed limited lines. There was a similarity between her and Ekari, something about the shape of her face, but Karin’s face had none of the expressiveness Ekari normally showed, only the calm smile she clearly intended to make Rissa relax. Rissa could already guess where Ekari had learned the control she had and was grateful that Ekari chose not to always use it.

The emotions Rissa felt from Karin only reinforced Rissa’s concern about Ekari’s past; for some reason, Karin seemed to be in a strange state of content happiness without any of the transitory emotions Rissa normally felt from people, almost as if the smile on her face was setting her emotions rather than the other way around. Rissa wasn’t certain what to think of it, but she knew that she probably wasn’t going to get anything useful from her empathy.

“Yes, I’m Rissa. It’s nice to meet you; I’m afraid Ekari hasn’t said much about you.” Rissa paced forward and found herself a seat. However disconcerting the High Priestess was, she needed to maintain her own stability, and that meant not letting the situation drive her reactions too much.

It might mean that it was time to try to look ahead again. Rissa didn’t want to return to the Timestream, but there might not be another good option. It depended on how this meeting went.

The High Priestess’s attention sharpened as Rissa came closer. “The symbol you wear. What is it?”

Rissa glanced down at it, then touched it with her right hand. It felt cool and smooth, more like touching the mark on Serenity’s chest scales than like touching a pattern on a shirt. It also seemed to shimmer the same way, a way she hadn’t been able to replicate in any of the images she had. “This? This is Serenity’s symbol.”

A spike of desperate hope was followed by a wave of rage. The emotions never touched the High Priestess’s face, leaving Rissa wondering if she’d imagined them. Her emotions were the same calm, placid lake they had been since Rissa first felt them.

“This is the same Serenity you are traveling to meet, the one whose child you bear?” At Rissa’s nod, the High Priestess asked her earlier question differently. “Do you know what the mark means?”

Rissa shrugged slightly. “I know what Serenity thinks it means. I also know what I think it means.” Ambiguity could be good, and this seemed like one of those times. She very well knew that Serenity thought of it as pieces, but Rissa thought of it as a whole. Once looked at that way, the meaning was obvious.

The High Priestess frowned. “What do you think it is?”

Rissa grinned and gave the absolutely correct and completely useless answer. “It’s who Serenity wants to be, of course.”