In this world that Fyra created, I had been to all the kingdoms (at least, all of them this century; who knew what another hundred years would bring?), and Alfreyad was the last. It was smack in the middle of the continent on the coast of the Inside Sea. It had a lot of variety; it had mountains, the coast, lots of forests, and plains. It was pretty. And boring. I had hopes that a country loosely named after my sister would have a bit more pinash.

  I had been here before, a couple hundred years ago, but it was a political mess at the time. I despise politics and there wasn’t anything else to interest me, so I left without exploring much. Prior to that I had run into some Alfreyadan missionaries on the road a few times, preaching the divine salvation that could be found in the Eternal Hearth, Alfreyad’s religion and supposed caretakers of the One Fire. It was hardly different than any other religions in the world. It wasn’t until recently when I was in Estorlath that there was talk of something else, something that missionaries had never mentioned before when trying to collect souls. Something called the One Fire…

  In Estorlath I’d only heard whispers and rumors, but those were intriguing enough. I’d been all around this world Fyra created and I thought I’d seen everything, but this was the first I’d heard about the One Fire. It was probably something that the humans made up for themselves. Still, it was best to check and see. The details about it outside of the kingdom were vague, but how Alfreyad managed to keep this thing a secret from the rest of the world for this long was an amazing feat. Kingdoms were always spying and gossiping about each other, and this was a juicy cut of information. From what I’d heard, the One Fire was a remarkable source of goodness and light and miracles. If half the rumors about the thing were true, then every kingdom with any sense would be trying to send in dignitaries or spies just to get a peek.

  The only consistent details among the drabble were that they worshiped it as some deity and supposedly it was a link to an ancient god, but precious little information escaped the kingdom’s borders. The Aquan dynasty had closed Alfreyad’s borders three hundred-odd years ago to all trade and missionary work following years of plague and famine, fully supported by the Eternal Hearth. The declaration brought chaos and riots at the time, which is why I left almost as soon as I’d arrived, but it seemingly worked to solve their issues. Alfreyad prospered under the Aquans.

  Unfortunately, the divine solution the Aquans wrought also spurred fear and distrust of any outsiders and the borders remained closed. Nothing got in, nothing got out, and any information regarding the One Fire became a most guarded secret.

  The Ashfalls seemed to be a much more progressive family than their predecessors. They had been in power about two hundred years or so, but it’d only been in the last few decades that the borders had even opened as much as they were. It had been an unpopular decision so they were only opened to trade from neighboring kingdoms and only through the river that ran by the capitol. Ships came, stayed in Darluth for a few days at most, and then left again. That was the extent of Alfreyad’s relationship with the outside world.

  That being said, maybe there was something to their strategy of solitude, even if it did mean that they were at best a handful of decades behind the rest of the world in their advancement. Alfreyad was known worldwide for its astounding track record of peace. The last “war” they fought in was a hundred years ago, but it was such a nothing war that I don’t even remember it. For all I or anyone else knew, they could have been at war with their own shadows, realized their mistake, and declared victory.

  I spent my first few days in Darluth asking around about the One Fire, taking on the guise of a simple merchant, but it was clear I was an outsider. I tried to enter the cathedral for mass, but I wasn’t allowed to leave the merchant quarter under the pretense of, “keeping visitors out of unscrupulous areas, for your own safety, of course.” I kept poking around until one bartender said, “Yer askin’ about the One Fire? Well, if you have to ask, then no one will tell you nothin’. Proves yer just one o’ them folks that come in on the Coolar. Could be in cahoots with the Abyss.”

  There it was. At the heart of everything, Alfreyad wanted to ensure that the One Fire stayed out of the hands of the Abyss, who, according to the Eternal Hearth, wished to destroy it.

  Abyss. Not just Abyss, but Abyss. I fought hard to keep from rolling my eyes at the bartender.

  That being said, their strategy of secrecy was effective, because Abyss was having a hell of a time.

  Alright, I thought to myself. Guess I’ve got to blend in a bit more.

  I left Darluth and headed to the outer towns. I watched and I listened, a tiny puff of smoke, picking up the customs and speech of Alfreyad. I paid attention to the standard of dress, how Alfreyadans typically look, and once I learned all I could from one town, I moved just a little bit closer to Darluth and did the same at the next town. It took me months, but eventually I picked up enough that I could pass for an Alfreyadan. Only then did I head back to Darluth with the goal of sneaking into the Grand Cathedral of the Eternal Hearth.

  I shed the merchant disguise and adopted something a bit more inconspicuous - a butterfly. I wafted around the shops and stalls, loitered on dining room windows, even took the time to try and find a single priest to follow to a brothel or bar so I could eavesdrop, but not a single one stepped outside of its walls for weeks. I did get attacked by some birds and accidentally flew into a spider web, which inspired me to change tracks.

  I roosted high above the cathedral entrance one Mass-day, peering over the snout of a fearsome gargoyle disguised as a pigeon. A few people were trickling in, but I needed to wait until there was a sizeable crowd. I got my wish soon enough; within minutes the line was teeming with people from the lower class - faded and dirtied wimples and cloth hats dotted the square below me.

  I took flight, gave one flap of my pigeon wings before shifting into a thin wisp of smoke, barely visible to the human eye. I sunk to the ground and wove myself around the people’s feet, slithering into the cathedral and into a distant shadowy corner where I transformed into the smallest, fastest thing I could think of - a spider.

  I hid in my corner until mass had started properly. It was my best chance to search the cathedral without being detected. I skittered along the baseboards and searched out with my consciousness. If this One Fire lived up to the standards of what I’d heard, I’d certainly be able to feel its power radiating through the area.

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  I felt nothing, but I didn’t let that stop me. I’d spent plenty of time with the sorcerers in Mistra, Shadad, and Ledan, the Sister Kingdoms, who were skilled enough to hide most of the evidence of their works; backward as Alfreyad was, it wasn’t impossible that they had discovered similar works. Magic was outlawed in Alfreyad, but they would have a defense against it all the same.

  The cathedral layout was rigid. Perfectly straight hallways met perfectly perpendicularly to other equally straight hallways to form a grid, presumably with uniform rooms in the spaces between. The hallways themselves were austere. There was little to no excessive decoration besides the intricate detailing in the masonry and marble statues, presumably of saints or well-regarded priests long dead. Oil lamps sat in little alcoves at equal intervals, providing the only light. The only windows in the cathedral were located at the top of the building.

  Sounds of chanting through the sanctum rumbled through the halls, the repeated words of a thousand voices sounding like a dreaming dragon as they reverberated off the stone. I peeked under the cracks of a few doors, but it was doubtful that I would find the One Fire so easily. After seeing priories and libraries and cloak closests I eventually gave up checking these ground floor rooms altogether. I paused and rested my eight legs in a corner, keeping a few eyes on a cat at the end of the hallway as I thought.

  If I were going to hide a mystical, powerful artifact, one so precious to me that I would regard it as the focal point of an entire religion, then I would want to keep it in one of two places - someplace safe, or someplace grand. I looked around me, picturing the general layout of the cathedral. The most likely places for the One Fire to be are the top of the building, as far away from the populus as possible; down below, deep in a vault; or on display in the sanctum.

  Mass was still in progress, so searching the sanctum now would be unwise, but I hadn’t seen a staircase on the main floor. It was possible that the stairs were in a room that I’d skipped over. I scurried back up the hall to the farthest intersection, assuming that a staircase would more likely be towards the outside of the building. I was within a few breaths of the hallway when I sensed movement in my periphery. I froze.

  The cat, probably a mouser, had been giving itself a bath mere moments ago but now it spotted me. It was now crouched low to the ground. Its bushy calico tail swished back and forth and its bright yellow eyes were locked on me, pupils wide.

  “Fuck,” I thought.

  The cat started to take slow, careful steps towards me. I stayed perfectly still, hoping that it would lose interest, but next thing I knew, it was extending a inquisitive paw carefully before batting me across the hall. I rushed away but the cat followed, bounding and chirping. I waited until it was almost on me before I shifted quickly into a larger, shadowy cat and hissed, arching my back and puffing my hair. The cat yowled and turned tail, scampering back up the hallway.

  A young acolyte appeared around a corner to investigate the sound and saw the cat running up the hall towards the sanctum. “Clovis!” he called, running after the cat. “No, you can’t go in there!”

  I shifted back into a spider and continued up the hall, thoroughly searching rooms and crevices. I eventually found the staircase behind a door that I’d assumed had led to a closet.

  I spent weeks in the cathedral, searching floor by floor for the One Fire. I ran into Clovis a few more times, but he recognized me now and kept his distance, occasionally growling at me if I got too close. I searched each floor as thoroughly as I could, taking the form of smoke in the night, but I never found evidence as to where the One Fire was kept. Even the sanctum, which was large and lovely, had nothing that could tell me where the One Fire was. It did have an impressive model of it, but pretty as it was, it radiated no power.

  All the evidence I had told me that this One Fire didn’t exist and that the Eternal Hearth was a sham. It wouldn’t be the first time religions persisted based on lies. Still, something tugged at me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something to this theory.

  A couple months went by and I’d had enough. Enough of sermons, enough of tormenting Clovis, enough of stone. I needed to get out. I shifted into a fly and zoomed out the front door when next it was open, heading for the closest empty alley and changed into my favorite human form - a huntress from a long-dead people. I made my way to the merchant quarter to find myself a pub where I could soak my sorrows in a stein of ale and sulk.

  I found a place where the beer wasn’t too warm and the bread not too tough. I nursed my drink and listened to the conversations around me, relieved to finally eavesdrop on conversations that didn’t involve alms, hymns, and scriptures.

  “ - the priests opening the games.”

  I sat up and listened closer. The priests doing something of the cathedral? I turned my head slightly, and out of the corner of my eye I caught the two men, cobblers by the look of them, having a pint and gossiping before reopening their shop for the afternoon. I mentaly named them Apple and Peach.

  “Hopefully they keep the sermon short this year,” said the balding cobbler, which was Apple. “Last year they took so long, I thought about reopening the shop, just to pass the time.”

  “Doubt it,” said Peach, scratching at the thin layer of fuzz that was his closely shaven head. “You know how the priests are; if they ain’t squabblin’ over whether the Spark or Ember denomination has the origins of the One Fire right, then they’re evangelizing ‘til even the sun itself wants a break. I hope they tell them that the games start an hour earlier than they do, then they might actually start close to on time.”

  Apple and Peach chuckled and took swigs of their beer. “Started placing bets on who you think will win this year?” Peach asked.

  “Nah, I don’t until they actually release the line up. Worse odds since everyone’s already been bettin’, but the first year I laid down some coin early, turns out the bastard broke his ankle the week before the games. Never again.”

  “Captain Tammer of the second section’s supposed to have entered himself this year,” Peach said. “He’s a strong bet. Hardly a day goes by you don’t see him training.”

  “I do pity anyone who decides to go up against him. If anyone’s got a strong chance at winning, it’s him.”

  “What do you think he’ll ask for?”

  Apple wiped his nose and took another drink before answering. I hurriedly took a drink, too, trying not to look too suspicious.

  “He’s got a sweetheart and a family back home, I’ve heard. Wants to bring them to Darluth eventually. He’ll probably ask the king to bring’em so he can get married and start a family.”

  “As good a reason as any, but it might be better to ask for a whole stack of gold. The gold can get his family here soon enough, and then he could have some left over. When the reward for winning the games is a boon from King Daern no matter how big or small, you should really think big.”

  A boon from the king no matter how big or small…

  I took another drink to hide the grin that peeked at the corner of my mouth.