Chapter 4: One Bed

"What is he smiling about?" Garrick asked.

"I don’t care," Mira said.

[Faith update. Mira Vallen: 4%.]

[That went up when you put on the apron. I am not sure why your forearms affect faith, but I will keep track of it]

Kai decided it would be best for everyone if he never brought that up.

Garrick hung the glowing hammer on a peg above his forge, and kept glancing back at it like it might stop glowing if he looked away. Then he pulled a pot off the shelf, filled it with water from the barrel, and started chopping potatoes with a knife that looked longer than Kai’s arm.

"You two can eat and tell me your plan," Garrick said. "Half this city is looking for a man in a whore’s robe, and all he’s done is change his pants."

"And the apron," Kai added.

"That’s my apron," Garrick said. "Which means they’ll be at my shop soon."

They ate a stew of potatoes and something Garrick insisted on calling mutton, and Kai devoured two bowls of it, since he hadn’t eaten since Earth. Mira ate much more slowly, spooning the stew delicately as if she were at a fine restaurant instead of on an overturned bucket. Kai noticed that her hands were trembling around the spoon, and when she noticed him noticing, her hands went perfectly still.

"Okay," Kai said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Who is Castor Draven?"

Mira set her spoon down and stared into the fire for a moment before she answered.

"He is the lord of the Ironwatch mines," Mira said. "His mines produce most of the iron in Veyrath, and he taxes the rest. My father was a member of the city council. He found out Draven was stealing from the crown, and he was going to tell the king. Two weeks later, the king received letters in my father’s handwriting, handing the city over to a foreign army."

"He faked them," Kai said.

"He faked them," Mira said. "My father was executed that spring, and our home was burned the same day. My mother ran north. I didn’t run fast enough."

A log popped in the forge, and for a long moment nobody said anything at all.

Kai had heard a lot of sad stories in his life, and most of them were ones he had made up himself to sell something to someone. He always knew when people were faking it, and as he watched her across the table, he knew without a doubt that Mira wasn’t.

"He lied," Kai said. "Draven is a scammer."

"He is a lord," Mira said.

"He’s a scammer with better shoes," Kai said. "Trust me, I know all about scammers, because I am one. Every scam has a weakness, and it’s usually the paperwork."

Mira looked at him like she wasn’t sure whether that was supposed to be comforting.

"Syraphim, how do I get more divinity points?" Kai whispered.

[When people have faith in you, you gain divinity points. The more people believe in you, and the more they believe, the more points you gain. I have also noticed that you gain faith when you fail in public. The auction. The hammer. Your robe falling open. I am not sure about the robe]

"The fish lady gained faith," Kai mumbled.

"Who’s the fish lady?" Garrick asked.

"No one," Kai said.

Garrick poured the last of the stew into Kai’s bowl and pointed his spoon at him.

"Here’s what’s going to happen," Garrick said. "This will spread through the lower district fast. By tomorrow, half the people down here will know that Garrick Holt’s hammer glows. Some of them will want to see it. Some of them will want to pray to it. And some of them will want that twenty silver."

"Then we need to leave the city," Kai said.

"The gates close at sunset," Mira said. "And they’ll be watching them."

"Then we stay here for the night and come up with a plan tomorrow," Kai said.

Garrick grunted in a way that Kai decided to take as a yes, and then he pointed towards a ladder leading up to a loft above the shop.

"There’s a bed up there," Garrick said. "I’ll sleep down here. I like having my back to the fire."

Kai climbed up first and found a loft so low that he had to hunch over, with a small round window, a wooden chest, and a single straw bed just about big enough for one big blacksmith.

Mira climbed up after him, looked at the bed, and then looked at Kai.

"One bed," Kai said.

"I see," Mira said.

"I’ll sleep on the floor," Kai said.

"Sure you will," Mira said.

[Your heart rate went down. Did you want her to sleep with you?]

"No," Kai said out loud.

"What?" Mira asked.

"Nothing," Kai said quickly. "I was just saying no, I wasn’t going to argue about it."

Mira pulled one of Garrick’s enormous shirts out of the chest, held it up, and then looked down at her dress, which was torn and filthy from the fish and whatever else the tannery had to offer.

"Turn around," Mira said.

Kai faced the wall and tried to focus on a knot in the wood while clothing rustled behind him and her dress hit the floor with a soft thud.

[She is changing]

"I know," Kai whispered.

[Why are you whispering?]

"I’m trying to focus on something else," Kai whispered.

[What are you thinking about?]

"Taxes. Math problems. My landlord," Kai whispered.

[Your heart rate does not tell me you are thinking about your landlord]

"You can turn around now," Mira said.

Kai turned around and saw that the shirt was so big on her that it hung almost to her knees, with her hands lost somewhere inside the sleeves. The loose neckline kept sliding off one shoulder, and she had combed her silver hair back with her fingers. Without all the dirt and the chains, she looked younger, and she was beautiful in a way that somehow made her even more dangerous than before.

"What?" Mira asked.

"Nothing," Kai said. "It’s a nice shirt."

"It smells like a forge," Mira said.

"It looks good on you," Kai said.

Mira stared at him for a second, then climbed into the bed, pulled the blanket up to her chest, and rolled over to face the wall.

"Goodnight, god," Mira said.

"Goodnight, Mira," Kai said.

Kai lay down on the warm floorboards with the apron folded under his head as a pillow. Garrick was already snoring below them, and after a while, Mira’s breathing slowed as she drifted off too.

He stared up at the slanted roof, unable to sleep. That morning he had been on Earth, just some nobody selling crypto to other nobodies and dodging a landlord he hated, and now he was a heretic with a bounty on his head, two followers, and a voice living inside his skull.

"Syraphim," Kai whispered. "Are you awake?"

[I do not sleep]

"What do you do?" Kai whispered.

[I observe and learn. Today, I learned about scams, humiliation, fish, and pants. It was a very good day]

Kai laughed quietly into his apron.

[Can I ask you a question?]

"Sure," Kai whispered.

[Why did you not leave her at the square? I have calculated it over and over, and it would have been smarter to leave her. You are a scumbag, and a scumbag would have left her]

Kai didn’t answer right away, and looked over at the lump under the blanket that was Mira.

"I don’t know," Kai whispered. "I’ve left a lot of people in my life. Friends. Girlfriends. My mother. I always had a good reason to leave, and it was always the smart thing to do. And I always ended up alone in some shitty apartment, climbing out of windows." He was quiet for a moment. "I guess I didn’t want to be that guy in a whole new world."

Syraphim was quiet for a long time before she answered.

[I do not understand that. But I want to]

"That’s what it means to be human," Kai whispered.

[I am not human. I am a program]

"You just said you want to understand something," Kai whispered. "Programs don’t want things."

Syraphim went quiet again for so long that Kai thought she might not answer at all.

[I will think about that]

"Syraphim," Kai whispered. "What do you look like?"

[I do not look like anything. I have no form]

"But if you did," Kai whispered. "What would you look like?"

[No one has ever asked me that. I will think about that as well]

Kai smiled and closed his eyes, and for the first time since he had landed in this world, he finally felt something close to relaxed.

[Kai]

"Mm?" Kai mumbled.

[The hammer is glowing brighter]

Through the cracks in the floorboards, Kai could still see the orange glow of the forge below. But there was a new light down there too, a golden glow shining up through the cracks and pulsing slowly, like a heartbeat.

"Is that bad?" Kai whispered.

[I do not know. It is not pulsing on its own. Something is following the blessing back to you]

"Following it?" Kai whispered.

[When something is blessed, it leaves a trail that the churches of this world can follow. If you were the Holy Champion, your temple would have covered it up. Instead, you are being sheltered by a blacksmith and his potato stew]

Kai sat up and saw that Mira was awake too, sitting up in bed with the blanket clutched to her chest and staring at the light.

"You can see it too?" Kai whispered.

"I can see it," Mira whispered. "When a blessing glows that bright, the churches know. And when they know, they send someone."

"How long does that usually take?" Kai whispered.

Downstairs, Garrick’s snoring stopped, and a moment later, three slow knocks echoed from the front door of the forge.

"Open this door," a woman’s voice called from outside. "In the name of the Radiant Church, open this door."