When I came to, I thought I’d died again.

  The ceiling arched high above me in ribbed stone, torchlight crawling along its curves like nervous insects. The air smelled of wax, incense, and old iron. Candles ringed the bed I lay on, their flames steady, almost reverent, as if they knew better than to flicker. For a moment I wondered if this was some local interpretation of a church, or if the gods here had simply copied the aesthetic wholesale and called it tradition.

  At the foot of the bed stood the same minotaur man from before. Only now, instead of civic garb, he wore vestments unmistakably reminiscent of a Catholic priest. Layered cloth, embroidered symbols, a stole resting heavy across his broad shoulders. Seeing a horned, furred giant dressed like a confessor did strange things to my already fragile sense of reality.

  Another figure stood facing him. Tall. Thin. Wrapped in dark robes that drank the torchlight instead of reflecting it.

  “He’s Omega Worthless,” the robed man spat. His voice was sharp, surgical. “Pathetic. Pointless.”

  The minotaur sighed, slow and deep, like a bellows forced to behave. “Vallion. If you were not needed, I would bar you from these doors and never look back.”

  “Fucq that, Horatio. Fucq that entirely.” Vallion jabbed a finger in my direction, even though I hadn’t moved. “You can go eat the bullshit you spew out on both ends. He’s a worthless scumbag. He’s got one of those watching over him. Which means he’s completely worthless. Useless. Spent.”

  Horatio shook his head again, horns casting long shadows against the stone. “Language, Vallion. Language. If you refuse to speak permitted words in the eyes of our many cherished, then I will be required to ask you to leave. Just because his bonded does not align with your views does not mean it aligns with no one’s. Your god may only value the corporeal undead. That is not the creed of all faiths. Stand down. Before I make you.”

  Vallion laughed, a thin, mirthless sound. “Again. Fucq that. If you actually believed that spill, you wouldn’t have him in the center room. The only reason you dragged him here is because your scrying found a new source. And that source scrys to him.”

  A new source.

  My stomach sank, or at least I thought it did. Hard to tell, given my current… arboreal circumstances.

  A resource? What could they possibly mean? Am I about to be eaten?

  Unlikely, my lord, Sophitia replied, calm as ever. Both of these men are of the cloth, though not of the same banner. To be a man of the cloth here is to forgo all meat.

  I’m a tree person, I pointed out weakly.

  With a fungal colony housed within you and demonstrable sentience, she continued, you do not qualify as meat by their doctrines. For those purposes, you need not worry.

  I stared at the ceiling again, listening to the crackle of torches and the muted hostility between two powerful strangers arguing over my worth like I wasn’t lying right there.

  Thanks, Sophitia, I thought. That helps. A lot.

  My headache pulsed in agreement, and somewhere between the candles, the church, and the word resource, I began to suspect that waking up had been a mistake.

  Horatio’s posture changed.

  It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but the air felt heavier for it. His hooves planted wider against the stone, vestments settling as though they themselves understood the weight of what was about to be said. When he spoke again, his voice no longer carried the patient warmth of a caretaker. It rang with authority, layered and resonant, like a cathedral bell struck with intent.

  “Vallion. I will re-inform you.”

  Each word landed separately. Deliberately.

  “You. Are. A. Guest. A necessary one. One I welcome.” His green eyes burned beneath the torchlight. “But as the caretaker of these walls, and the one chosen to host this sanctuary, I swear to all the cherished ones above and the infernal ones below…”

  The candles nearest him guttered, flames bowing outward as if pushed by an unseen wind.

  “I. Will. Smite. You.”

  The word carried weight. Not threat. Promise.

  “If you cannot hold your tongue, then leave. For I will not bear such words within halls granted to me by the divine and the profane alike.” His horns dipped forward, shadow swallowing his face. “Do. I. Make. Myself. Clear?”

  For a heartbeat, Vallion looked as though he might actually listen.

  Then his lips curled.

  “You’ll really side with a Shikigami who shackles himself to one of those stone abominations of the dead?” His voice sharpened, cutting past reverence and straight into cruelty. “Really? Didn’t your wife die from petrification, Horatio?”

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  The temperature dropped. I felt it even from the bed, a sudden chill crawling through bark and leaf alike.

  “Do you not understand,” Vallion pressed on, relentless, “that this is just another Jeskar in the making? Another walking catastrophe waiting to happen? Do you truly want to repeat that disaster?”

  The silence that followed was deafening.

  Horatio’s breath hitched once. Just once. His hands clenched at his sides, thick fingers curling until the leather of his gloves creaked. When he spoke again, the grief in his voice was raw, unhidden, and infinitely more terrifying than anger.

  “You do not condemn the innocent because of the guilty, Vallion.”

  The torches flared.

  “You do not rewrite sin to fit your fear.”

  He took a single step forward. Stone cracked beneath his hoof.

  “LEAVE. NOW.”

  The word echoed, not just through the chamber, but through me. Through my bones, my sap, my thoughts. Whatever power had chosen Horatio did not merely listen to him.

  It agreed.

  Vallion’s mouth opened, perhaps to spit one last venomous word, but nothing came. He stiffened, jaw tight, then turned sharply, robes snapping like a wounded thing as he strode toward the exit.

  The doors slammed behind him with finality.

  The candles steadied. The pressure eased. Horatio exhaled slowly, shoulders sagging beneath the weight of old grief and fresh fury.

  Only then did he turn back toward me.

  “Please forgive that insufferable, egotist child,” Horatio said, the edge gone from his voice, replaced by something weary but sincere. “I have known you were awake for some time. And he knew it too. That is why he began spitting his vile venom.” A faint, rueful huff escaped him. “I would say welcome to an ‘in-between,’ but for you… this would be more of a welcome back to an ‘in-between.’ How I wish our language had kinder, clearer words for such spaces.”

  He bowed.

  Not the curt nod of obligation, nor the rigid dip of hierarchy, but a full, deliberate bow. Formal. Warm. Kind. The kind of gesture meant to reassure rather than impress.

  I pushed myself upright, the bed far softer than anything I’d expected. Only then did I realize I wasn’t wearing my robe anymore.

  Instead, I’d been dressed.

  Fitted trousers sat comfortably at my waist, paired with a long-sleeved shirt whose cuffs hugged my wrists without constricting them. A scarf rested loosely around my neck, fastened with a brass brooch etched in a simple, looping pattern that felt old in a comforting way. Both my hands were covered in thick, white woolen gloves, warm and surprisingly soft against bark and grain.

  The colors were muted. Natural. Whites, browns, greys, blacks. The sort of palette you’d expect to find on a sheep grazing in a foggy field rather than on someone who’d crawled out of a sewer half-dead from mana sickness.

  It felt… intentional. Considerate.

  “Do forgive us for removing your robe,” Horatio said gently, following my gaze. “However, cleanliness is next to godliness. And I regret to inform you it smelled quite strongly of the sewer you were in, child.” A pause, then a softer correction. “My name, as that insufferable idiot kept repeating, is Horatio. May I have yours, so I may stop calling you ‘child,’ seeing as you are not one?”

  “Morgan,” I said, awkwardly attempting to mirror his bow.

  He waved a hand immediately, dismissing the gesture before I could finish.

  “None of that, Morgan. You are, in many ways, my forcibly invited guest. And that obligates me to courtesy, whether asylum or elysium demands it.” His expression eased into something almost amused. “A host who forgets his duties is no host at all.”

  His gaze shifted, not to my face, but to the space just behind my shoulder.

  “And who,” he asked calmly, “is the spirit who walks with you?”

  My stomach tightened.

  “My lord has granted me the name Sophitia, Lord Horatio,” Sophitia said aloud, her voice clear and composed.

  I froze. I knew those with spiritual sight could see her. Hearing her was another matter entirely.

  Horatio did not hesitate.

  He bowed again.

  Deeper this time. Respectful. Earnest.

  “The honor is mine, Lady Sophitia,” he said without a hint of doubt.

  Only then did he turn back to me, folding his hands together as if settling something heavy but long expected.

  “Stroy told me about you, Morgan. About how you manifested in his bed, of all places,” Horatio continued, his tone carrying the faintest trace of dry humor. “Twinworlders are… uncommon would be generous. Rare enough that most clerics go their entire lives without ever meeting one. Stroy, unfortunately or fortunately depending on your perspective, has dealt with three this year alone.”

  That made my stomach drop.

  “Still,” he went on, “the strangest part was not your arrival itself. It was that I was told to expect you.” His eyes met mine, steady and unblinking. “You were supposed to be brought to me. Trained by me. Shepherded, in more ways than one, by me.”

  I suddenly felt very small.

  “Your Sphere,” Horatio said, tapping two fingers lightly against his own chest, “was meant to assist in the training of a new generation of Saints and Shields. Thorn himself requested that I, pardon the phrasing, shield you, Morgan, from forces he could not—or would not—name.”

  Sophitia stirred behind me, a quiet presence sharpening.

  “I know,” Horatio said calmly, as if responding to something unspoken, “that the games of the divine and the bargains of the profane are bound by silence. There are rules even gods pretend not to break. But I also know this—” his voice softened, “—when a destined soul stands in front of me, I recognize it.”

  He exhaled slowly, the weight of it all finally catching up to him.

  “Morgan,” Horatio said, rubbing a hand over his face, “your appearance solved one crisis unironically and immediately… while creating an entirely new one.”

  My throat tightened. “That sounds… bad.”

  “It is,” he replied without cruelty. Then, after a pause, he looked at me with renewed focus. “Tell me. Are you aware of the rarest resource your Sphere possesses?”

  “Uhh… no?” I said, thinking back to my inventory. “From what I can tell, it has some basic herbs, spiderweb silk, venom—”

  He shook his head.

  “Salt,” Horatio said plainly. “You must come from a world rich in it.”

  I blinked.

  “A history lesson is in order, young Morgan,” he added gravely, “or you’ll be eaten by the queen herself when you see her in a few weeks.”

  Wait. What?