I stared around the room, then at Kassie.
She was staring back.
Kassie wore the sa mundane gown now and sohow managed to look like a noblewoman playing at poverty. A beautiful princess who’d lost her mory and remained blissfully unaware she was slumming it. The outfit was diocre. She made it look intentional.
"I think we’ve been scamd?"
She tilted her head, confusion flickering across her features.
"What does it an to be scamd?"
I considered explaining the word to her. After all, it wasn’t Ealdrimian. But then I looked around us at the cramped walls, the single sad window, the furniture that looked like it had survived three wars and lost all of them.
I grinned and gestured broadly at our accommodations.
"This. This is what it ans to be scamd."
She studied the room with fresh eyes, then turned that cute dark frown on .
"Swindled?"
"Exactly."
I nodded and collapsed onto the bed.
The impact rattled my spine. The mattress had all the give of packed earth, and for one disorienting mont I was back in that first instant of being summoned, my body slamming from comfortable chair to unforgiving stone floor.
’Ouchhhh...’
I didn’t make a fuss about it. Instead, I just looked at Kassie. She looked back. And for so reason, I was absolutely certain we were thinking the sa thing.
’There’s only one bed...’
That was what occupied my mind, anyway.
Her gaze narrowed.
"Are you not going to check on her?"
"Check on her?" I blinked, genuinely blank for a mont. "Her who?"
It was only after the question left my mouth that I rembered.
"Magdalene." Kassie’s tone carried an edge of darkness.
I scoffed, sitting up straighter. "Of course! I was rely being rhetorical with you. I will check on her, obviously!" I laid back against the pillow, arranging myself with exaggerated care. "You keep watch here while I go see her, okay?"
Kassie moved without sound and settled into the chair.
I closed my eyes.
The scenery shifted, and I stood once again in the vast white cathedral.
No matter how many tis I visited this place, the sa questions struck fresh. Why did my soul manifest as a cathedral? How could my soul be this impossibly vast? The pale columns stretched toward infinity. The silence pressed like sothing holy and terrible.
And there, in the center of the pews, just before the decrepit altar, Pyre Saint stood with her back to .
Her rear view all privy to .
And alone.
Calling her shape an hourglass suddenly felt inadequate. Insulting, even. Her backside was perfectly rounded, her waist cresting and curving so cleanly that any sculptor who saw it would develop an obsession with lines. With curves. With the mathematical perfection of the human form pushed past reasonable limits.
Her body was a sin.
’I wonder how she managed to serve as a Saint with a body like that.’
I wasn’t judging. But I knew for a fact that religious n harbored the most monstrous kinds of desire. Having to see her every day, existing in the sa space as that silhouette, would drive any sane man to madness.
I was already mad. And I was barely hanging on.
As I approached, she gave no indication of noticing . Or maybe she’d sensed the mont I entered.
’I don’t think that’s the case. Kassie didn’t sense when I arrived, and she got lost in her naked sword art.’
Maybe they couldn’t sense entering my own Soul Plane. That made a certain amount of sense.
But Magdalene didn’t turn around even as I reached her side.
I followed her gaze to the broken altar.
"Are you srized by my altar?"
She didn’t answer imdiately. The silence stretched past a second, then two.
"It looks familiar." Her voice was flat, contemplative. "But the fact that I don’t rember can only an it is insignificant." She turned to face , and sothing cold entered her eyes. "Like you are."
’Of course. Typical Maggie. Never misses a chance to twist the knife.’
I exhaled slowly.
"Should you even be standing around like this?"
Her expression darkened.
"You think sothing I’ve done a thousand tis over is suddenly going to render useless? This one ti?"
"Well, you looked the part..." I muttered the last bit, but she heard it anyway. Her frown deepened into sothing that suggested she was imagining tearing my mouth clean off my face.
’God, I swear I hate being here!’
But at the sa ti, another part of spoke.
’Just be patient with her. After all, Kassie had an attitude too, and we’re getting better now.’
I caught myself almost imdiately.
’No. They aren’t the sa. Kassie wasn’t actively trying to kill ...’
I paused for a mont.
’Uhm... yeah. They’re all just fucked up.’
"Not exactly, but..." I t her eyes, keeping my voice asured. "It’s burdening nonetheless. Maybe back when you were a Grand Inquisitor, no one cared about the weight of your flas. But this is different. Not only do I care what pain you endure, I share it."
Sothing shifted in Magdalene’s face. She didn’t respond, just stared past the altar at so distance I couldn’t perceive. So mory, perhaps. So old wound.
She closed her eyes. Sighed. Turned away.
"Well. You do not need to worry about . I’m fine."
I studied her retreating form.
’Tough one to crack...’
But I could see the weak angle. The hairline fracture in her armor.
’Sooner or later, you’ll be mine too.’
The thought brought images unbidden. What would it feel like to grab that ass? Were they soft? Juicy? The urge to beg her, just once, to let try was almost overwhelming.
But I knew very well what would happen if I tried anything in my Soul Plane.
Death. Imdiate and creative death.
I heaved a sigh and watched her walk away. The two planets that made up her backside crashed against each other with each step, making her habit dress suffer beautifully for it.
’What an unfair world.’
I shook my head and exited the Soul Plane.
The mont I returned, the entire room shook. Glass shattered sowhere close, the sound scattering into my ear, and in the sa instant Kassie blurred past my face. She spun through the air, legs whipping around, and slamd her foot into whoever, or whatever, had just crashed through the window.
For a mont, I pitied whoever that was going to be.
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