Studying the bookshelf, I did my best to not just… act out.

I was in the mansion of the family who I had harmed. The owners of the ship I’d sunk.

Right now I was alone, in an office, waiting for the woman named Flora to show up. Rapti had wanted to join me in this meeting, but I had not allowed it. Thankfully she had understood. Especially since now the odds of it going badly were rather high.

Slowly glancing up the bookshelf, I glared at the ceiling above me. It, like most of this mansion, was old but built nicely and kept clean. But I cared not for its craftsmanship or its age. Instead I cared about the being a floor above me. One that was unmistakable.

A saint was in the room above me. A weaker one, but a saint all the same.

Sighing as I looked back down to the shelf, I tried again to find something to distract me. It was proving difficult, especially since all of the books and objects on the shelf were simple ledgers and accounts mixed with the odd knickknack. There was nothing in this office, though well made and full of pricier items, worth my attention.

The door to the room was open, but it was still odd I had been left alone. I had been brought her by a servant, one who had seemed annoyed I had bothered them. It was time to prepare for lunch, and I had interrupted it. But I had not felt that should have justified my being abandoned in what was obviously an important room.

Though, odds are I had been left alone for the same reason I had so readily been invited in.

The moment I had mentioned my name I had been given permission to enter. That the master of the house, this Flora, had been waiting for me.

Had she been doing so because of Rapti mentioning me, or the saint though, I wonder?

Guess I’ll find out soon enough…

I sighed as I stepped away from the bookshelf and went to grab one of the chairs before the lone desk in the room. The desk was completely clean, not even a pen was upon it, but I could tell that was not because it wasn’t seeing use. The desk had countless little marks and nicks from age and wear, from writing upon it and stuff being placed down onto it a tad too roughly. Odds are this desk was as old as this mansion, and likely older too than most of the humans in it if it not all of them.

Sitting carefully into the chair, I wondered if I’d not ever walked down this street before. We weren’t near the docks, but we also weren’t in some hidden corner community either. There was little doubt in my mind I had not at least a few times in the last few decades walked this way while examining Nevi… yet not once had I ever sensed a saint here. Even as weak as she was, it was noticeable. I had noticed before Rapti had even pointed out which house we had been heading to, nearly a block away.

Which meant this saint was either new here… or I had somehow miraculously missed her every time I was in town. Hard to imagine, but not impossible…

Really. I was upset, but not surprised… though I felt I should be.

Saints were indicators of godly activity. The more divine power being thrown around in the world, the more saints were born. So I should not be surprised at all to have so suddenly been encountering more and more of them… but by my parents it was infuriating to accept it.

It was of course my job to protect the Society and its members. That obviously included moments like this, where outsiders either learned of our existence or caught wind of it. Contacting with those individuals, determining if they were a threat or not and then acting on such information was one of my main tasks as protector. One I was usually very good at.

But I was far from in the mood to be dealing with such things. Let alone another saint.

If anything I was more upset over the fact I was being side-tracked again.

My foes had just threatened to kill Renn, and here I was twiddling my thumbs over something as mundane as a saint! By my parents I was about to…

“Lord Vim.”

I turned, but stayed seated as I watched an older woman walk into the room. She entered alone, but another person was outside of the room and walking away. Another older woman who looked like she was hurrying away. Likely sent on some task. Sent for guards maybe?

“Flora?” I asked as the woman approached.

She nodded a little unsurely, likely because she wasn’t sure why I had not gotten up to greet her. “Yes… Flora Nevilla. I’m glad to finally meet you…” She went quiet, staring at me in a way that I was rather used to.

Slowly standing, as to mask my sigh, I nodded and held out a hand. “I don’t look like much, no. But it’s easier to be like this than not,” I said, knowing what she was thinking. Many of my own people had such a look on their faces when they first met me, having usually expected something more than I was.

Renn had looked at me rather similarly when we had first met, though I don’t think she remembers doing so. Which was funny since she remembered everything else.

“I… I’m sorry. That was terribly rude of me. But yes… I had expected someone a tad different, though to be honest I’m not sure what I expected,” Flora said as she took my hand and shook it. I noted as she did that her hand was rough, not anything like one would expect from a woman who had been born into wealth and lived behind a desk. Rapti and Kaley had mentioned she had suffered in her youth. Terribly so. If they had spoken truth, then I now knew several things about this woman. She knew pain and hardship. She was wise and cunning, able to run enterprises beyond just a mere shop or two… and now I also knew she had experienced hard labor, and knew it well, based off her hard hands.

“My own people expect me to be a monster of a man, or at least to have a horn or two. Sorry to disappoint,” I said.

Flora laughed softly as she nodded. “Yes…! I had expected something like that, I think,” she admitted as our hands separated.

I nodded gently and gestured to the door. “May I close that?”

“Hm? Oh. Forgive me. Yes,” she herself took charge and did so as she spoke, answering me vocally and by closing the door herself.

“Thank you,” I said as I went to sit back down.

Flora didn’t join me immediately, choosing instead to stare at me for a moment… and when she finally did, she did not sit behind her desk but instead in the other chair beside me. She turned a little, to face me directly.

I sat up a bit, realizing she was taking this rather seriously… and then waited to hear what she had to say.

Was she going to blackmail me? Threaten? Speak of prophecies? Maybe beg for my assistance, or something? To ask for more money for the damage I’d done to her and hers, or something else entirely…?

It was too bad Renn wasn’t here. She likely would have enjoyed this. At least more than I was. A lot more.

“You sunk my boat,” Flora then said.

“It’s nice to meet you too,” I said back.

She blinked in shock, and then laughed at me. “How stoic!”

I let her laugh for a moment, and once she calmed down enough I went ahead and spoke some more. “I believe I’ve already apologized for destroying your ship. I did so with money, a lot of it,” I said.

Flora slowly nodded at me. “Yes. You had, hadn’t you…?” she said with a smirk, and a small twinkle in her eye.

I didn’t like the way she was looking at me. It was the kind of look Renn gave me when I had a snack she wanted to pilfer. But in this woman’s case it wasn’t outright hunger, or lust, it was… maybe desire? But it didn’t seem to be a basic desire. Maybe she really did just want something from me, or from the Society, maybe I could end this without having to kill her and all who she’s associated with…

“I don’t know what you are… what any of you are, but I know you’re not human,” Flora then said. She sat up a bit straighter, her smirk disappearing as she put on a business expression of calmness and surety. “I know there are many of you, and you’re as powerful as you are wealthy. To the point of tossing around a few golden coins is as simple a matter as it would be for me a bag of flour,” she said.

Bag of flour…? Her business must deal mostly in food or something. “I care not for flattery,” I said simply.

Flora blinked again in shock, but didn’t laugh this time… instead she reached behind her waist. I wasn’t too worried of her drawing a weapon, for obvious reasons, but I had to admit I was a little surprised when she revealed a small envelope.

It was one made with thick paper, and it looked to have many papers inside of it. She hesitated a moment, staring deeply at it as if it was precious… and then held it out to me.

I didn’t take it.

“Please,” she begged.

Studying her for a small moment, and the look of strange desperation on her face… I decided to go ahead and take it. Before I could flip it around and open it though, she told me what it was.

“That is the deed to everything I own.”

I paused, my fingers going still as they stopped opening it. “Excuse me…?”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“I know to you, to your kind, material objects may very well be worthless. A means to an end, maybe. But it is all I have. All I possess, all we can possess. That or our very blood and our lives, is all I can offer to you… all that I can think of, at least,” Flora said softly, suddenly sounding unsure of herself.

Before, during our meeting, I had seen the woman who had ran a business empire. Now I just saw a typical human. A human woman, suddenly unsure of herself and… scared, maybe?

“And why are you giving me anything?” I asked her as I put the letter down on my lap.

“I want you to take my daughter.”

My eye twitched as the feeling of the saint above me became ever more apparent. “I don’t have the time or patience for this…” I started to say, shaking my head as I did.

“Please…! She’s… different. Like you,” Flora said quickly.

“Excuse me?” I asked again.

The woman gulped and grabbed at the end of her shirt. Strongly enough to give me a glance of her figure and stomach, one that told me she wasn’t as old as I had thought she was. She was in rather good shape. “Her eyes glow,” she whispered.

My calf twitched.

“She whispers about dreams… One’s I’ve… been trying to ignore. But do you know what she dreamt but a week before you sunk my ship…?” Flora asked as her eyes dug into my own.

“That I sunk it,” I said simply.

Flora perked up; making her shirt stretch so much it made noises in complaint as she did. “You know!?”

I sighed at her and glanced at the door. It was still shut, of course. “How long have you known?” I asked.

“That my daughter was special…? Since her birth, I mean her eyes have been glowing since…”

I waved her words away, with the hand that still held her letter. It flopped with a funny sound thanks to its thick paper as I waved it at her. “About us,” I clarified.

“Oh… well, in theory my whole life. My grandmother had spoken of your kind since I was born, telling us stories and legends and stuff… but I was only sure once my daughter was born, and started telling me of her dreams. She spoke of people with animal parts, like cat ears and,” Flora started to speak, rather quickly, and I felt my gut wrench and coil as I again waved her down.

“And so you think your daughter is one of us,” I said swiftly, to stop her from saying something I didn’t want to hear. Of all traits to pick out she chose that!? Damn saints! Damn them!

Flora blinked wildly at me for a moment, and then briskly nodded. “Um… yes? Isn’t she…? How could she not be a spirit, what with her powers and…?”

“Why is this the first time I’ve heard of her or from you then? Me and my people have been frequenting this city since its inception, why not until now have you shown yourself to us?” I asked, discarding her misunderstanding. It made sense for her to think so, obviously. To her we were likely like her daughter, or she like us. Of course this girl was most undoubtedly just a human, but she was a saint… and that did in a way make her kin to a degree, but not entirely.

“Because it wasn’t until recently she started to speak of you, and then she had that dream that you sunk the ship… and that I’d be visited by a nun carrying gold, and…”

My head went numb as Flora mumbled for a few moments, speaking of how she met Rapti… or rather how Rapti met her niece, who then involved Flora. She spoke highly of Rapti, but I didn’t care much for her opinion on Rapti’s personality or kindness. Rapti was spoken highly by everyone, at least in terms of her personality, so that wasn’t a shock to hear.

But everything else…?

So the saint upstairs was her daughter. One who of course has had prophetic dreams. And this was why she, why they, knew of our existence and why she had wanted to meet me. The saint has had prophecies of us, of me and… maybe Renn… So…

I had to close my eyes and focus, as to not break the chair I was in or the whole house around me… no, even the whole city. I focused deeply, breathing slowly and evenly as I contained my wrath.

I hated saints. I hated their dreams. I hated the powers that gave birth to them, and granted them vision. Damn them all and forevermore. May the day come I can finally rid the world of all divinity and…

Stop, Vim.

Not only would mother never have allowed me to indulge in such wrath, I have vowed against it. And… and if this saint really has dreamed of Renn… then it was not my place to rob my lovely wife of a friend, or whatever experience she was meant to have with her.

Even if I hated this, despised it, the reality was here and now before me. And it was my job, as protector and son of my parents, to do what I had sworn to.

A saint had been born to a human family. One that was smart enough to know their child was special, and needed more than they could give. And it just so happened it was I who was sitting before her, getting involved, in this moment. I and my damned wife who seemed to draw the world’s attention every time I looked away…!

“We’ve kept her in the house… keeping her safe, but it’s become so difficult… People are starting to ask questions, and even family members are starting to question! Just last month my cousin requested my daughter, to meet her, because he has a business partner who’s son needs a wife! I’ll not be able to hide her forever, let alone keep her happy, and I know fate has so much more planned for her than to live here, trapped in a small building hiding from the world…!” Flora continued rambling, and I realized I had missed quite a bit. She’d gone from talking about Rapti to her own daughter, and how she had been… protecting her?

Yes. Flora was on the verge of tears. She was shifting and twitching, half a moment from losing her collective cool, and looked every bit a stressed out mother. As if talking about an unruly or sickly child she had no idea how to properly care for, or something like it.

This woman was not a threat to me or the Society. Not in a real way. She was a threat to a certain degree, housing a saint and knowing of our existence… but…

In reality she was more a threat to herself, and her daughter, than anything else.

And she was basically begging me for help, wasn’t she? Begging us, the Society, for help. Because she believed that her daughter was one of us. A non-human. A spirit, as she had called us.

This wasn’t the first time I’d experienced this, but it’s been a long time since it last happened. A very long time, especially for a saint.

I needed to stay calm. To be rational, but also compassionate.

After all… even though I hated this scenario, all it meant, and saints and divinity… I had no right to outright hate a poor soul who was obviously in need.

Not only would the Society not permit me to ignore her, neither would Renn. Nor too would my own ethos.

“How many know of her?” I asked, doing my best to focus on the task at hand.

Flora focused on me, gulped and nodded. “Me and two others. My sister and my chamberlain, one who has served my family her whole life,” she said.

The woman she’d just been with, likely. “Her father?”

She shook her head, rather quickly. “I was raped down south on one of my first outings,” she said, and kept it at that.

“Aren’t you married…?” I asked. Even in the Nation of the Blind or its outcroppings, such as here, a woman in charge of such industry was rare. Too rare, usually such women masked their influence with a husband or something like it.

“Legally, yes I am. But not really. The man I’m married to, Harvy, may not even exist anymore. My father reached out to a family friend who lives in Telmik years ago, I formally married one of his sons but only met him during the ceremony way back then. I’ve not seen or corresponded with him since,” Flora answered honestly, and swiftly.

I didn’t like hearing of such a detailed life, since it told me a lot. A lot about her and her circumstances… and how most of it was centered on her daughter, the saint. A saint born from assault.

This poor woman’s been struggling, by the sounds of it nearly alone, for a long time.

When Renn did hear of this she’s undoubtedly going to ask me, again, why so many of us suffered such fates. And per usual I’ll not have an answer for her. Not a real one at least.

“You did that all to hide her existence, to protect her,” I said knowingly after Flora went quiet.

She nodded softly. “Yes.”

Taking in a deep breath, I sighed it out and silently praised myself. I’d not broken a thing, by the look and sounds of it. Not a floorboard had cracked, not a window or brick… I was getting good at this. “How old is she?” I asked.

“She’ll be twelve in three days.”

Twelve…!? I almost wanted to flinch. How young! But that made a lot of sense, since any older would have made it weird. In fact, the simple fact it had taken twelve years for her to have brought attention to either herself or us was a miracle on its own in a way…

“Do you know what you’re asking of me…? Really?” I asked the mother of a broken home.

Flora didn’t hesitate to nod. “I do.”

“You’ll never see her again,” I threatened.

The woman blinked watery eyes but nodded again. “I know.”

Sitting forward a bit, I held her gaze and lowered my voice. “And if it comes to pass that her life ever ends up being in danger because of you, your family or associates… I’ll obliterate you. I will cull all of you, this whole town if need be, to protect her. With a fury you simply cannot comprehend,” I warned some more.

She grabbed her shirt even harder, but nodded once again. “All that does is prove my decision correct. Take her. Protect her. Please.”

Damn. She was serious. And real. This was not a mother looking to offset a burden… but one struggling to do the right thing. She knew she couldn’t properly raise or support her daughter and as such is giving her to those she believed capable of doing so.

Glancing down to my lap, I shifted the letter. “All your wealth,” I stated.

“For her.”

“You’ll be left with…?”

She gave me a sad smile. “I’ll make do. I always have. Always will.”

Hm. I’d think she was hinting that she left herself some, but odds are she hadn’t. Even this house was likely included in this envelope. She was genuinely giving it all away, what was likely generations of wealth and power… all for her daughter.

I couldn’t hate that.

Tapping the envelope against my thigh, I wondered what Renn would say. I knew what she’d do, of course. I knew exactly what she’d do, and even what she’d have already done.

My wife would not take just the girl.

But the Society had rules. I had rules.

A woman who was willing to sacrifice such wealth for her child… a child she knew she cannot properly care or protect… Especially one born from a moment of pure distress to boot? Yes. Renn would take her too. In a heartbeat. This was exactly the type of person Renn loved, and did so dearly.

I wonder if Rapti had known this would happen. Probably had. She hadn’t outright lied to me about not knowing what she wanted, but…

“Please… please, Lord Vim, I…” Flora began to speak, but as she did so she finally broke. Tears began to flow as she coughed, she seemed to be trying to stop herself from crying but wasn’t doing too good a job at it.

Likely had just thought I was about to say no, so had started to panic.

But I couldn’t say no.

But that didn’t mean I could just outright agree so readily, either…

Standing up, I went ahead and slipped her envelope into my pocket. I did so in a way that I was sure she had seen it, even through her fit of tears, and then nodded down at her.

“Show me the girl. Before either of us get too worked up we should first see if I’m really who she foresaw, don’t you think?” I suggested.

Flora sniffed as she smirked and stood, though a bit unsteadily. “Yes! Right! You got to make sure, right?” she said hurriedly as she grew excited.

“Clean up a bit before we go. Don’t let her see you like this,” I said gently.

She hesitated a moment, but then nodded. “Right… you’re right. She’s a spunky little thing, but is still a little girl…” Flora then gave me an odd smile, one that made my heart hurt a little. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

“Many times,” I said softly.

She sniffed as she stepped towards the door. “I bet… I’m glad to hear it, to be honest. We’ll stop at the lavatory first then head upstairs.”

“Lead the way.”

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