Jewel looked upon the old cantor structure.

  It reminded her a bit of the Capital’s meeting hall. Far smaller perhaps, but there was the same working of stone, made all in one shape. Thirteen pillars joined to a dome of a ceiling.

  However unlike Mathias’ feasting hall the original foundations had been mostly left untouched.

  Later structures had instead been built up around it in an embracing ring of other stonework and tiled roofs.

  With an open gap to welcome visitors.

  The sound of one of the Vah’s headwaters gently sang beneath the murmur of the rest of the temple grounds.

  Jewel’s first stop on the tour.

  After her Father this was the closest of her direct vassals to Valasect.

  Before even Kliatbatrn or Kaeketeh!

  And yet she’d never been here before.

  Despite the normal route taken from Rochford over and through the forest paths of Viznove the next closest direct vassal of the county was a temple fortress of some means and its present keeper north from the main road.

  Bitta of Thuringia, once widowed and now maiden of Nerthus.

  A Goddess of Chariots apparently?

  Jewel didn't know much as she had barely dealt with the woman. All of her temple vassals mostly concerned themselves with the matters of the gods and those lands owned by them.

  Not the affairs of an earthly government.

  Jewel had been in a few temples in her time.

  Every village and hamlet had a shrine tender at least. And although apart like the scattered skies of their business the temples collectively acted somewhat like a guild or a wizardly circle.

  Still they didn't cause tumults or complain.

  Jewel had not needed to politic with any of her divinely associated vassals at all.

  Not a deal needed to be made or favor owed. No tithes to be loosened, no greed to satisfy.

  Jewel considered every of these details as she walked under the stone dome. Noted the weathered nature of the rocks. The creeping vines. Efforts were made to try and keep things clean. Kill the climbing vegetation at the roots.

  But the bare surface still held moss and pale green things at its greatest heights.

  There were no murals in gold or silver to be found in that shadowed space either.

  Just solid stone worked together by long centuries old sorcery.

  It was a peaceful place. Jewel hoped this would go better than some engagements with priests.

  If it was not for the deeply concerning manner in which nearly every god she ever dealt with stumbled, faltered, ignored or otherwise failed to acknowledge Jewel she’d find the divinely associated vassals the very best behaved of all of them.

  It was a relief honestly to have a secure group of nine vassals within her lands that Jewel could trust to merely move as the rest of Viznove did.

  The many different flavors of mortal authority and intercessors for the divine had relatively narrow concerns. Which Jewel had slowly pieced together with the more obscure records her family had collected in Rochford.

  Temple workers as she could gather were concerned almost entirely with keeping people dealing with as few gods as possible.

  Which did not cause them to deeply involve themselves in politics.

  Jewel had avoided visiting most temples for her reign so far out of courtesy. Her very presence at best disquieted those that worked with the heavens. At worst? There was a great deal of distrust she seemed to attract from the servants of gods.

  But then again it was their role to be cautious about offending their patrons.

  The disasters in their records were made in often dry words, but they wove a tapestry.

  Villages left empty of man or beast.

  Farm animals made into a teeming plague which devoured all things, even the flesh of men.

  A localized region of eternal sun which baked the soil hard as pottery.

  Inundations of rain which swamped all arable land.

  Washed away cities.

  A thousand people caught in a fevered dance until they bled out from the sores on their feet.

  Guardian beasts and star-touched animals which formed interdictions that none but a single family may pass.

  And that was only the records that Jewel’s family had access to.

  Fragments mostly given to them from the temples themselves over her family’s history of being a primary supplier of good Rochford vellum and parchment. As she took up position under the dome to await acknowledgement and welcome she considered what she knew and did not.

  The protocol for entering a dominion of Nerthus herself was simple enough. So had she been advised in letters at least. Jewel had sent the proper supplications and sacrifices.

  She might be a countess, she might even have some special place as a Tyrant Wyrm but even a High King or queen needed to give the divines proper respects.

  Even if Jewel was somehow exempt the star sent retribution?

  What of Viznove?

  She had seen allusions to far worse disasters than those in her family’s records. Things that had occurred in antiquity.

  Fragments from old Cantor mentioned whole sky vaults that witnesses say were so utterly transformed by divine acts that all who lived within them perished. Trade routes diverted, tunnels and sky ways collapsed, filled in or otherwise closed to keep whatever miracles had been enacted upon the earth contained and separate.

  Mountains moved just to contain the horrors that could come from trifling with the divine.

  And even further back were more terrible legends and myths.

  Stories told and retold in the murmur of the people and the temples.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Versions vary from one temple to another. From one village to the next. But scholars had collected and written them down too and the accounts found their way to Rochford.

  No, she would not insult the heavens.

  Jewel held herself high, her entourage stood as in a parade.

  Sparing no insult and every honor.

  Jewel could feel the shifting attention of the divine in the late afternoon shade of this ancient building. Possibly Nerthus herself?

  Then came their hosts.

  Figures in robes exited from the surrounding buildings. Holding an earthenware bowl each. From ahead Jewel saw the high priestess Bitta stepping smoothly forward. Jewel waited as the sharp touch of both divine interventions and the warmer, softer whisper of faux flame mingled within the thirteen bowls brought together.

  She focused on holding herself solemnly even as the stories of apocalypses echoed in her heart.

  Tales of when cliffs opened up and released bitter water to fill an entire skyvault. Drowning all within. Scouring earth, tree and stone to nothing in its terrible violence. A roar so vast and terrible it had slain nine in ten who heard it even from the vantage of a skyway.

  There was a rattle of bound offerings of wood, herb and incense. Smoke rising to the dome above.

  The figures knelt around Jewel, Paul, Gem and Murial. Raising the bowls aloft. Vessels empty to the observation of the eye, but near overflowing with the light of faux flame Jewel knew only her wyrm eyes could see.

  And then true, actual fire ignited in each. Held aloft by two hands from twelve of the kneeling figures that bore them.

  Only Bitta remained standing, but unlike the others her hands no longer held the bowl.

  The clay held instead by the bindings of sorcery and divinity before her splayed hands. Hovering between Jewel and the priestess.

  At the wroth of the gods mountains had torn open with clouds of smoke that turned men and women to stone where they stood.

  Divinity could be so much fiercer and more horrific than this trifle.

  The woman in white robes and a simple veil splayed out her fingers, presented her chest and throat under the pale linen.

  She spoke words to the darkness above them which Jewel did not know.

  Old words from old ways.

  Possibly from entirely forgotten distant places.

  The deep shadows of the dome were only the faintest imitation of a night sky’s darkness held against the late sun above them.

  As the chant rose Jewel could sense the faintest brushing of the divine’s sharply cutting sweeps within the world around them. Seeping up and out from the bowls surrounding her. Not in any kind of working she knew.

  But a presence, an acknowledgement.

  Jewel gave her vassal the benefit of trust in this. It was planned, it was known, it was proper to bring one’s patron god to acknowledge one's mortal liege.

  And accommodations had been found and made for Jewel’s peculiar interactions with the divine.

  Bitta would host her goddess.

  To act as a conduit.

  Jewel trusted the priestess in this. For all that Jewel disquieted the star’s servants on earth their efforts did work.

  Disasters had been prevented.

  No apocalypses were confirmed to have occurred since old Cantor. Tsulogothulan had further verified that no wizard in their immediate circle or beyond recalled such either.

  Although Wizards were a bit unreliable about reporting anything outside of their interest.

  Even Urul would probably notice if an entire vault was flooded and washed away.

  For centuries at least the effort of the god’s intermediaries had prevented disaster.

  It seemed that the temples across the realm and beyond were succeeding.

  Which was a worthy calling no matter their opinions of her.

  Jewel could respect averting such disasters. She appreciated not having to worry that random chunks of the Ridgetails’ vault would be washed away like a clump of mud dropped into the River Vah because someone offended the wrong god.

  Hence the audiences she planned with each of her direct temple vassals and her attending this ritual.

  The chanting continued and then at last a presence closed on the priestess. On all thirteen who had surrounded Jewel and her entourage.

  A force seeping from the dark of the temple’s dome.

  It was close. Jewel could feel it.

  Jewel did not yet even know this particular woman.

  Like the others she paid her tithes, she presumably secured the safety of her land and her own vassals.

  She had provided levies, captains, footmen and arms for war in the past.

  But like the others she did not get involved in the politics of Viznove except for those goods she produced for trade from her demesne.

  Little that touched the discourse between a Countess and her Vassals.

  Which is why Jewel’s visit on this tour was only the fifth time that she shared the same air with Bitta of Thuringia.

  And now she watched as the woman was pulled away.

  Shucked out of herself as the divinity she served slid into her and the other twelve priests.

  Slipped between the meat and bones of the woman. Lit up behind her eyes with a light Jewel had to confirm via Gem was actually there.

  And then at last as one thirteen mortal throats spoke with something that was anything but.

  “Jewel, Countess Wyrm of Viznove and the people within. I, Nerthus, welcome you to those lands once given me.”

  Jewel dipped her head in a modicum of respect.

  And was relieved to see that the glowing light behind Bitta’s eyes turned properly to track her as she did so.

  Well at least this one could see her properly now.

  “I am grateful for your welcome, Nerthus. Is there anything which I need to address within your domain under my protection?”

  The thing which watched from behind the priestess’ eyes shifted and moved. Like edges cutting through the flesh of a fruit. Yet leaving none but the faintest signs of its passing in the woman’s body.

  The voices spoke in unison again.

  “There is naught which I would impose on the path of you, a conquering wyrm. Your fate is not mine to command.”

  Jewel dips her head again in respect but not subservience.

  “Then are there concerns for my people within your remit?”

  The face of the priestess was pulled, contorted, twisted by a puzzled confusion. And then a more deeply wrinkled frown of concern.

  At last the voice emerged softly and carefully.

  “My chariot is lost and unseen to many of your people. It rides naught but a few trails. I shine upon less than a fragment of a fragment of your fields. If it were to ride further, more of your people’s roads would taste my light and my boons would be theirs.”

  Jewel considered those words carefully, before speaking as she had been taught too when dealing with the divine.

  “I will consider such with my vassal and your servant. But if that is all?”

  The thing that was within Bitta nodded her head.

  Jewel dipped her own in acknowledgement.

  “Then go in peace, Nerthus and thanks to you.”

  And then with a rush of divinity the presence was gone.

  Bitta slumped to her knees. The other figures who had been worn trembled under the sudden strain of holding their bowls aloft.

  Straining to lower them in unison.

  All thirteen settling as one gentle chime of clay on stone.

  And then there was quiet but for the distant sound of the stream.

  Jewel could hear the hearts and breaths of her entourage and the struggling thirteen that had borne the presence of a god within them.

  A dry rasp of a voice filling the silence from the crumpled figure before Jewel.

  “It’s quite the inconvenience accommodating your peculiarities my countess.”

  Jewel huffed a bit at that.

  The real work of the evening was now beginning.