#palis

“Listen to that? Is that how you would have spoken to me, if you’d come here first? I doubt that’s the case. Still, if you think you are so much different than the hero, Casteval, you can continue to try to raise him, to give him the tools he needs to slay the dragon, to punish the betrayer, to rescue the weak, and make those who cannot help their natures pay for crimes they can’t stop committing.”

“I don’t even know where to go next,” Casteval admitted.

“You still need the blood and I doubt you are willing to kill yourself to give it to him,” again he was speaking in riddles and Casteval wished that these people would speak in simple, coherent, sentences, just for a day, or an hour, or five minutes. “But the body, the true body, not just the soul but what would be reborn, is in the Forest of Potential, well off of the beaten path. I suppose the blood may be there as well.”

“How do I get the blood?” Casteval asked, inching forward in his seat. He hadn’t wanted to ask the dragon anymore questions. “How do I raise him?”

Geinif thought on that for a moment before admitted his ignorance, “You may have to fight for the blood or ask for it or bleed it. For raising him, that is something I do not know. It is not something that I have ever tried to do, nor anyone else. I suppose there aren’t many people left to try to imagine his return. Perhaps, that his why his old foes are growing so restless.”

He spoke quietly then, turning to look out the window, out into the brightness outside. They could hardly see through the glare. “You will need to take the light with you, I hear you have your own.”

Casteval nodded.

“Good. The walls here are full of pock marks, as I’m sure you noticed. They are where the freshly dead dropped down from, but they were once the means of travel. One of them will get you where you need to go.”

“How will I know which one?”

“Perhaps a friend will guide you,” he shrugged, not just looking out the window with his eyeless head but walking to the translucent wall. He pointed as something, someone, wandering in the light, looking lost, looking tired. “There is your ally, they will take you where you need to go, if you trust them.”

“Thank you,” Casteval said, though he did not feel too much gratitude. While Geinif had told him so new things and had cleared out the horror of being the true Casteval, his demeanor was one of a bully and that was not something that Casteval could commend. He stood, half expecting Geinif to escort him back into the main building of the Temple, but was instead ignored. That was fine. It was not too difficult to find his way back.

At the counter he saw Arnestie on one knee, arms wrapped around Palisse. She wasn’t crying, the redness of her eyes had faded back to their normal honey color, but she held onto xim all the same. Cursette was behind the counter, reading the book that Palisse had abandoned.

Upon seeing Casteval, Palisse and Arnestie pulled away from each other and she hurried over, bowing to him as if that were a custom that anyone still upheld. He didn’t know when she had died, there was a chance it was still a thing when she was alive.

“I’m sorry!” she whimpered, her head still down, her eyes not meeting his, “I shouldn’t have told you all that, I should have double checked first. I didn’t know what I was talking about. I caused you undue anxiety. I’m so sorry.”

“Hey,” he put a hand out, resting it on her shoulder, “that’s alright. You gave me more information than you were probably supposed to and I don’t mind if it wasn’t all true. It was true to the extent of your knowledge.”

She looked at him then and her face was so relieved that he couldn’t hold her inaccuracies against her. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”