Aaron’s hands twitched as they instinctively searched for the hilts of weapons no longer at his side. Surrounded by half a dozen guards in full plate armour, he could feel the pressure of Ascended auras pressing in around him. The energy rolled off them in steady waves. Not quite hostile but certainly a wordless warning, a wall of presence meant to intimidate as much as impress. Aaron suppressed the part of himself that assessed the display as preparation for a coordinated kill. Instead, he wondered how he and the others must appear from the outside. His face was matted with grease and dust, streaked with dried blood from every orifice, backed by dusty Saintesses who looked fresh from a battlefield and who had just happened to appear in the heart of a nation's capital.
He laughed suddenly. The sound was sharp and unexpected in the otherwise quiet courtyard.
Alex flinched and glanced at him. Her voice dropped to a hiss. “What’s so funny?”
Aaron shook his head slowly. “That old saying. Spiders are more afraid of you than you are of them.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s about perspective,” Aaron said as he rolled his shoulders and allowed his muscles to relax. The tension slipped from his stance as he let go of the seriousness that had gripped him since the teleport. “Think about it. Could they really keep us here if they really wanted to?”
He said it loudly enough that the nearest guard bristled. The others exchanged glances but held formation. They were disciplined, yes, but not immune to doubt.
Alex gave him a look, somewhere between wonder and panic. “Is this just another Tuesday for you?”
Aaron smiled. “It’s a nice change of pace. I don’t want to kill them… they don’t want to kill me…. I’m perfectly happy just standing here while they have their… aura measuring contest.”
“Aura? Is that what this pressure is?” Alex asked, her curiosity pushing past her nerves.
“Sure. I have one too. It’s a bit smaller but I’ve never really felt the need to overcompensate. I certainly wouldn’t wave it about in polite company.”
Alex suppressed a laugh that came out more as a choked cough. “Dick jokes? Really?”
“Men,” Debryn muttered as she watched the guards with narrowed eyes. Her tail flicked once. “Are you trying to provoke them?”
“Relax. They’re professionals,” Aaron said.
“They’re nervous,” Debryn replied.
“Look at that posture. Not a single trembling gauntlet or buckling knee. Besides, if they try anything with their swords… I am sure Magda will stop them.”
Magda, standing to the side with her eyes closed, twitched. A faint smile curved her lips. “Oh? I will, will I?”
“We all saw what was left of that ritual hall. A little wiggle of your shapely fingers and I doubt any harm will come to us,” Aaron said.
“I suppose they are shapely, aren’t they?” Magda’s eyes opened as she looked at her hands. The violet glow of her irises brightened as she gave Aaron a considering glance.
“Amongst other things,” Aaron said suggestively, wiggling his eyebrows for added effect.
“Really?” Debryn looked at him incredulously.
“Jeez. You’re a terrible flirt. Are you always like this?” Alex swatted his arm. “Aren’t we supposed to be holy or something?”
Aaron laughed. “Piety is for those who pray for miracles. We deliver them.”
“This is just one big joke to you, isn’t it?” Debryn said, despite crossing her arms, her overall twitchiness had dialed down.
“Sainthood is really what you make of it. Besides, what’s the point of living if you can’t laugh once in a while?”
The oppressive weight of the Ascended's auras gradually faded into the background as Aaron continued to joke and exchange innuendos. His light-hearted tone was no accident. Every quip and arched brow was calculated, each one gently chipping away at the tension clinging to the group. He had seen tension like this many times, in many warzones. Nervous men surrounded by other nervous men with too many weapons and too little sense. While today was unlikely to erupt in bloodshed, Aaron still judged it a good investment to condition his companions now, to help them learn to breathe and think even when pressure pressed in from all sides. There would be harder situations than this, and sooner than any of them would like.
In his last life, he had spent decades as little more than a freelance asset. Dropped into ruined realms under orders dictated by Magisterial overseers who barely understood the reality on the ground. Fight here. Fall back there. Hold the line with a mismatched squad of half-cooperative Saints and power-hungry Ascended who thought teamwork was beneath them. He had been a blunt tool in someone else’s hand, driven by obligation and survival.
This time felt different.
He glanced at the others. Alex was holding on through a blend of wide-eyed curiosity and post-traumatic shock, her composure maintained through sheer force of will. Debryn still radiated tension, but her earlier edge had softened which was a relief. That kind of sharp energy could get people killed. Magda, though drained and listless, had not faltered once since they pulled her from the rubble.
They were not refined. They did not move as one. But they were learning. They were growing on him. If they kept surviving and kept improving, they might become something formidable.
Like all Saints, he had answered the Calling. But unlike most, he had walked out of Evermarch before the Magisterium could assign him a position or bind him with orders and protocols. So focused had he been on his goals, the people he needed to find and rescue, that he had only just recognised something important. He did not need the Magisterium to dictate what mattered. They did not need to choose his path or the battles he would fight. Perhaps it was time to take sainthood into his own hands. And perhaps, along the way, build the kind of team he never knew he needed.
They were not there yet. But they could be.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
And if they won enough battles, earned enough victories, and grew strong enough in both power and purpose, then why should they not forge their own path?
The Queen of Lutharion strode back into the court, followed by Cassandra. Her presence was commanding enough to shift the atmosphere before she even spoke. Her gaze swept the group. Her expression was unreadable, regal and composed. Yet something in the set of her jaw hinted at a deeper emotion beneath the surface.
"The court is dismissed. These individuals are not prisoners and are to be treated as honoured guests of Isyndor. See to it that their possessions are returned at once. Prepare chambers and inform the steward they are to be addressed as foreign dignitaries."
The guards hesitated for only a moment before one snapped a salute. The rest broke formation with precise movements and left without a word. The pressure of their presence faded, leaving only the sound of clanking footsteps and distant market noise.
Cassandra gave a subtle sigh of relief. As the Queen turned to speak quietly with a chamberlain, Debryn stepped beside her and murmured under her breath. "We talked. Mostly about the mess we are in."
Cassandra nodded. "Good. My sister listened. Whether she can act on what we shared is another matter."
Aaron raised a brow. "Complications?"
"Potentially. It is hard to judge the full reality of the political situation here," Cassandra said. "But she is not a fool. If she did not think I had something worth saying or believed she could do nothing with it, we would still be in chains."
The Queen exchanged a few more words with her staff, then left without looking back. Her attendants moved quickly behind her. One of the remaining guards, now more at ease, motioned for the Saints to follow.
As they walked, Alex let out a long breath and rubbed her temples. "Okay. So why did that feel just as intense as being surrounded by demons?"
Aaron nodded. "Fear of a fight you do not want to win can feel just as heavy as the fear of fighting one you cannot afford to lose."
"That is... surprisingly poignant," Debryn said.
"I have my moments."
"What is next?" Cassandra asked.
"Next, we bathe. Like civilised people." Aaron answered
"That’s is your priority?" Debryn asked.
"Absolutely," Aaron replied. "You cannot plan the salvation of a realm while smelling like a battlefield. It is in the Saint handbook."
"We have handbooks?" Alex asked dubiously.
The palace interior stretched above them in vaulted arches. Sunlight streamed through coloured glass. Servants bowed low as they passed, their eyes drawn to the dishevelled figures walking the Queen’s halls.
Cassandra led with calm assurance but said little. Her mind seemed fixed on the path ahead.
Aaron stepped beside her. "So. She will hear us?"
"She will," Cassandra said. "Whether she acts depends on what we can show her."
Aaron gave a slow nod. "Before sunset, someone is going to try to kill her. Likely, demons, but she should be on guard for something more sinister"
That earned him a sharp glance. Aaron let their words wash past him. His mind was already elsewhere.
Assassins, battles, protection and plots. But first, a bath.
Hours later, Aaron stepped out of the private bathing chamber, steam curling around his shoulders as he towelled his hair dry. He wore nothing but the towel knotted around his waist and looked visibly more relaxed. The bruises were gone, the dried blood scrubbed clean. From across the suite, Alex gave an appreciative whistle. “Well, would you look at that? Turns out sainthood does come with perks, or should I say… pecks.”
Aaron blinked and looked up. “Wasn’t expecting company.”
Alex sat cross-legged on the bed within what was very much his room, the Hypercube hovering above one hand and what seemed to be a folded rod of spacetime in the other. “Don’t mind me. I was just... finishing up.”
“I can grab another room,” Aaron offered. “Unless you were in need of a show?”
She smirked. “Ehem, as much as I would appreciate the distraction, I actually needed you for something.”
Aaron stepped further in and sat beside her on the corner of the bed. “What do you need?”
Alex’s translucent stylus flicked across the air, the shimmering surface of the Hypercube reconfiguring in complex geometric spirals of refracted light. The more Aaron stared into the reality-bending artefact, the less it bothered him. “Give me about thirty seconds and I’ll show you.”
Her lips twitched into a grin as she tapped the air, the Hypercube pulsed and let out a soft ding. Alex threw up a fist in victory. “Yes!”
He raised a brow. “It dings? Was that a good ding or a uh-oh ding?”
“A good one. Definitely a good one,” she said, falling back onto the bed and stretching her arms out in relief. Then she sat up. “Now, can I borrow your Ring of Holding?”
Aaron tilted his head. “Sure... what are you up to?”
“While you were primping yourself, I was figuring out how not to feel like dead weight next time things go to shit,” she said. “Here.”
“I wasn’t primping.” Aaron complained.
She turned the cube towards him and, with a flick, the Vox Vitae, this time displaying a completely different interface, hovered in layered panes like a three-dimensional programming window. Aaron stared for a long moment in awe, then tentatively raised his hand to interact with it.
“This looks like Python,” he said, distracted by the novelty of interacting with an interface that has only ever been read-only.
“Thank you!” Alex grinned. “I was hoping you’d get that. I built a safe testing environment, sandboxed, in case you wanted to tinker later. You said you used to be an academic, I had a feeling your engineering brain would appreciate it.”
Aaron was visibly impressed. “This is incredible.”
“Thanks. But that’s not all.” She tapped a glowing header. “I linked the Ring of Holding’s contents to the Hypercube’s access protocols, piggybacking off our Sanctorum connection. It’s still a bit hacky, but it means the whole team can access anything in your ring now. Even if we’re nowhere near each other or the ring has been confiscated.”
Aaron blinked. “You’re telling me we have shared inventory now?”
“Bingo.”
“That’s... amazing.”
“Yeah, I haven't done much fighting, against demons and magic, I have no idea how to protect myself, so I guess I have to find other ways to be useful.”
“Really, Alex, you’ve no idea how useful this is. You’ve nothing to prove to anyone here. Hold your head high, True Saintess. You're already one of the most valuable people in this group.”
Alex hesitated, then looked away. “I just, I mean, in a fight, I’m not like you guys. I can’t turn buildings into rubble or slice demons in half.”
Aaron nodded. “Then don’t. You’ve already been playing support and doing it brilliantly. But if it ever gets that bad...”
He turned to his storage ring, tapped it twice, and materialised an old friend from home: a sleek black firearm with unmistakable lines.
“The FN SCAR. Reliable. Lightweight. Comfortable recoil. And it doesn’t care about magic.”
Alex’s jaw dropped. “You brought guns? And wait, why don’t you use them?”
“Just a few. For emergencies. As for why I don’t use them? We’ll eventually be facing creatures so tough that this,” Aaron patted the weapon in his hand. “won’t be effective against it. Not on its own, not without some special talent that I most likely won't have. Basically, the more I use swords, the better I get. And unless I was the Saint of Guns, the ceiling I will reach will be far higher and progress much faster if I stick with the weapons that mesh with my aspect. Maybe things will be different with you. I could imagine ways you’d enhance these with your space magic, or your Hypercube. Plus, you could probably go back to earth for a shopping trip if you ever ran out of bullets. Do you know basic gun safety and maintenance?”
She stared at the weapon in shock, then chuckled. “Yes, been on a range a few times, even fired full auto once or twice with my cousins, but I was never really a gun nut back home—not very Saintly, is it?”
Aaron smiled. "Turns out faith and firepower aren’t mutually exclusive. Now, shoo, take care of that and let me put some clothes on.”
