Chapter 298: The Saint and the Dragon’s Rage

Ophelia crossed the square with the calm of someone walking through her own house.

She did not grope. She did not slow. She stepped around a tipped bucket, skirted a puddle, and passed between two stalls without brushing the canvas. Her blindness did not hinder her in the least.

She stopped beside Kellar and turned her face toward the statues.

"So this was what I saw," said Ophelia.

Kellar startled and took half a step back.

"I thought you were asleep," said Kellar.

"I do not need to sleep," said she. "I live and breathe by the great Bear God."

Kellar stared at her. Her face was lifted and calm, and the purple light of the statues fell on her filmed eyes.

"What did you see?" asked Kellar.

"A great golden wave," answered Ophelia. "It filled the whole valley. Blessing. The earth will be more fertile and the animals will breed faster. The game will multiply on its own."

Kellar said nothing.

"But there are beings that are angry," she went on. "There is a giant lizard that is not at all happy with what has just happened."

"You can see even that?" asked Kellar.

"I can see everything, master," said Ophelia, and her voice did not rise. "The Bear God shows me everything I cannot see and beyond what can be seen. Nothing is hidden from my eyes."

Kellar looked at her a long while.

"I would like to know how you see," said Kellar.

Ophelia tilted her head.

"That is not difficult," said she. "Watch."

She came closer, laid both open hands on his temples, and closed her eyes. Kellar felt the pulse in her thumbs, quick and even, and then a heat that entered through the sides of his face.

Ophelia’s eyes opened and shone a clean gold.

The world turned over.

Kellar blinked and the valley was no longer the valley. It was like using his own skill, the Eyes of the Tribe Lord, but multiplied to the point of vertigo. He could see the forces where they lay, the weight of the earth, the damp, the seams of stone. He could see every beast. Every one. Where they slept, where they whelped, where they hid.

"So that is where they hide," said Kellar.

And then his gaze went off on its own toward the ash valley.

Two golden eyes, with a center as black and as deep as an abyss, looked back at him.

Kellar did not look away.

The eyes were surprised. It showed. Since their birth no living being had existed able to hold their stare without cowering, and he was the absolute summit of power. And there he stood, a man in a square, throwing the challenge back.

The red dragon roared at the sky and took off with a single beat of its wings.

The gust of air brought down half the roof of a pen. The bulk climbed, wheeled over the ash valley, and began spitting fire in every direction, in a fan, aiming at nothing.

"Come out from wherever you are hiding!" shouted the dragon. "How dare you trespass upon the territory of this supreme being?!"

The roar shook the earth end to end.

In the forest, the beasts stayed where they were. Not one moved a centimeter. Not the hunters, not the sleepers, not the mothers. All with their snouts low, waiting for the great dragon’s fury to pass without finding them.

Kellar kept watching.

And then, slowly, the eyes went out.

On the far side of the forest, the dragon was left alone with its fire and its roar. It searched everywhere. Behind every crag of the ash valley, in every crack, under every ledge. There was not a trace of the strange being that had looked at it.

The dragon settled again, folded its wings, and stayed still a good while, head low and smoke seeping from between its teeth.

It did not understand how a being could hide from it that way.

Ophelia released Kellar’s temples and her air went out of her at once.

She folded, hands on her thighs, and gasped. The gasp came long and ugly, the kind that cannot be hidden. Using that power had not been as easy as she made it sound.

Kellar caught her by the arm before she went down.

"Are you all right?" asked Kellar. "Did something happen to you?"

"Only a minor matter," said Ophelia, still breathing badly. "Nothing important."

"You are panting like a dog."

"The air leaves me for a while," said she. "Then it comes back."

Kellar helped her upright. Ophelia braced on his arm, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and lifted her face.

"Then I suppose you know the great Bear God blessed me," said Kellar.

Ophelia shook her head.

"I cannot see anything through you, master," said she. "The Bear God shows me everyone, but you are like a void. I cannot see you. I cannot understand you. Your decisions and your designs are as incomprehensible to me as they are sacred. As much as the Bear God’s own."

Kellar looked at her sidelong.

"Truly?"

"I cannot lie to the envoy of the Bear God," said Ophelia.

Kellar held his silence a few seconds. Then he let out a short laugh through his nose.

"Then I suppose the Bear God let me give you the surprise," said Kellar. "From this day forth, you are the saint of the Bear God’s church."

A golden pillar burst around Ophelia and rose straight to the heavens.

It was a flash, a fraction of a second, and it went out. The statue of the Bear God cast a dark gleam from its helm.

And before Kellar, in the air, a staff materialized.

It was short, of a dirty gold, almost coffee. The lower end was a smooth round and the upper, an open bear’s mouth, roaring.

It fell and Kellar caught it before it touched the ground.

[Saint of the Bear God’s Cult Named]

[Reward: Staff of the Bear God]