The Sword and The Shadow

Eirinn’s eyes were closed. Her face would be the envy of any woman that saw it and men would crave it, but Pyro alone saw it. He didn’t appear surprised.

He was a god, Eirinn a mere mortal, why would he have any leaning towards her? The gap between them was not one of mere power, they were two completely different existences. Did the rock lust after water? He might admire the girl’s beauty, but she could not move him.

Eirinn was completely oblivious to the god’s thoughts. His power completely overwhelmed her and made her mind shut down. She only remembered a brief instant of white light, the next moment of consciousness was after everything was over.

Even if she weren’t unconscious, though, she wouldn’t be shocked at her looks because she had no way to see them.

Pyro did inhale somewhat when he saw the light that burst out of her body.

The moment he inspected her net of fate and took a peek at fragments of her future, he decided to make her his devotee. He used a second divine spell to check her affinity.

Priests depended wholly on their god’s favor to grow stronger, but for some, even all the favor in the world would not be enough, while for others a little was enough to skyrocket in strength. The key was a person’s affinity to the particular god’s divine power.

It not only influenced how easily one could grow stronger but also how much energy was needed for a miracle, or how much a miracle would weaken between the god inspiring the miracle, and it actually happening. A priest prayed to his god for a miracle, and, if the god wished, the god responded by granting the priest some of his power, with which the priest would perform the miracle.

This was called ‘breathing’ a miracle. The divine energy, however, had to pass through the priest as a conduit in order to manifest a physical change in the world. The greater the priest’s affinity to said power, the less would be lost as it passed through the priest, the worse is affinity, the more lost and the weaker the miracle. In some bad cases the priest might receive enough power for a greater miracle, but so much would be lost that only enough for a minor miracle would be left.

This correlated little with the actual strata of the priests in question. Two priests with the same strata regularly differed greatly in their priestly abilities.

Deities themselves had limited divine power in any given moment, so they did not want to let it go to waste. As such, they carefully inspected devotee candidates and only picked those that met their standards, though these varied greatly from god to god. Whilst the strata of an individual was of little matter, the aspect and strength of their affinity was very important; it had to match the aspect of the deity’s power. Pyro’s divine power was almost purely light, as such his priests and priestesses had to have strong affinity with the light aspect.

So far, the most promising had been Hocke’s second prince, Alissanda. He was a light breaker, one that had incredibly high affinity at that. Pyro had only seen two such humans in several centuries. Anyone with such affinity was born to be His ambassador.

It was a shame, however, that Alissanda wasn’t interested in worshipping Him. He was deeply entrenched in the martial arts. He had mastered sacred light and holy impetus and was even among the top ranking knights on the continent.

The other light breaker was dead. He was far too unique. Pyro had never considered him as a possible devotee candidate. He would never have accepted becoming anyone’s devotee, anyway.

Now, however, Pyro had found another candidate, Eirinn. She wasn’t a light breaker, but her affinity was unmatched, even by the two other former candidates. She’d also kept her soul pure, despite having suffered for years, the world had not tainted her. Her wishes and desired matched his teachings so much it was as if she had come up with them herself.

Everything fell in place in this girl’s body and the light emanating from her was nothing less than completely blinding, even to a god. Her light shone brighter than even Alissanda’s, and, whilst his violently pierced everything it touched, hers was a gentle caress.

The light soon dissipated and the girl’s body slowly descended. Her eyes opened as her body settled into a calm seated position.

“What… what happened?” she asked, dazed.

The last thing she remembered was a blinding light. But, as her thoughts probed her memory, an idea surfaced, a thought that — for a moment — her scars had vanished.

“I am satisfied,” the god’s voice rang, “I’ve decided to accept you and make you my priestess.”

“Really?! Yay!” she cried happily. “–S-Sorry, that was rude of me,” she murmured a moment later, lowering her head.

But the god ignored her.

“I will give you a few blessings now.”

“You don’t have to! I’m satisfied with becoming a priestess. I don’t need anything else.”

How can I want more after being given so much? I’m not a greedy girl!

“You’re turning a god down, you know?”

“Aaaah, sorry… I didn’t mean to! Please forgive little Eirinn!”

“Alright, I won’t blame you. But you shan’t refuse my blessings.”

“…Alright…”

“Who’s the one giving the blessing?!”

Pyro felt a mix of anger and joy at how unwilling the girl appeared. He suddenly realized he didn’t have the bearing of a god. Alissanda had flat out refused him, and, even now, he had to force this girl to accept his blessings. Maybe it was because of his easy-going nature. He was not as forceful, domineering, or overpowering as some others. He knew of a few gods that would have turned Alissanda to dust the moment he refused them, some even earlier just for daring to be disrespectful.

“I give you four blessings. You may pick any one.”

“Okay.”

“You first option is great power. You will, of course, get some regardless, but, if you choose this blessing, you will get more. Instead of becoming just a level ten priestess, you will become a level 15 priestess, about equal to the same number of strata. This will be enough to sit at the head of my church.”

“I…”

Eirinn couldn’t bring herself to slaughter a chicken, she had no desire for power, but she understood how important it was. Leguna had to fight feral dogs for food because he was too weak, now, however, he could toss gold coins into the gutters out of boredom.

Will power let me have a better life? Can I help Leguna back?

She was about to agree, but the god did not give her the chance.

“Let me finish before you decide.”