I dropped in a few coins and lit my candle with the flame of another, piercing it on one of the iron spikes next to the others.
I closed my eyes, about to ask for… I didn’t know. Guidance, maybe. Or reassurance that I was doing the right thing.
The priestess stepped up beside me, taking my hand in hers. I bristled a little at the sudden contact, but then found her touch comforting and relaxed myself. “Is there a reason you seek Hecara’s counsel and not Ravaric’s?”
Much smaller shrines for the other gods could be found elsewhere in Cindralis. In fact, all of the city-states maintained places for their non-citizens to worship. But nothing ever compared to the grandeur and heavy, divine presence you felt in the patron deity’s temples.
“Because I need help with a witch,” I replied bluntly. “I figured Hecara might give me better advice.”
The priestess remained silent for a few moments and then said. “Perhaps. She could also tell you to fuck off.”
I caught the bark of laughter and surprise in my throat. “Come again?”
She shrugged, letting go of my hand. “I can smell the heartmoss on you, but it looks like the dose wasn’t strong enough to ward off your longing. Why fight so hard for someone who doesn’t want you? You will only do them harm if you keep up this useless pursuit.”
Useless to her, maybe. My soul said otherwise.
I sighed, running my hand down my face. “Maybe I just want to know why.”
“You likely already do, but your greed prevents you from seeing the truth. Demons are so like their creator.”
Heat flamed my cheeks. What the hell did this witch know? Did she really think she could reduce me to a stereotype based on the smell of an herb and a couple of vague requests? I wasn’t my dad, happy to make a runic even if it ultimately caused someone else’s pain and suffering. I was…
I was…
No, this wasn’t the same thing at all. I was chasing down bad people. Maybe sometimes someone innocent got caught in the fray, and yeah, that sucked, but it wasn’t my job to be judge and jury.
Everyone worked for money; I was no different. I’d just found a good, legal way to make a lot of it. That wasn’t something to be shamed for.
Besides, was it greedy to not want to die?
My anger pulsed, causing the flames on the candles to flare up a few feet, and the priestess gasped.
“I’ll get my witch and I’ll get my answers. With or without Hecara’s help.”
* * *
By the time I returned home, Arlen still hadn’t gotten back to me and I was running out of patience. I called, my blood pumping from the run-in at the temple.
“Ronaaan…”
I opened my mouth to speak when exaggerated moaning and the sound of wet skin slapping stopped me. “Wait… are you watchingpornright now? I told you I needed this done as soon as possible! I swear to Ravaric, if you’re putting this off—”
“You’ll do what, drive straight to Elmaris and personally put your boot up my ass? Calm down, I’vebeenworking. Nonstop. The porn is just in the background while I run my systems. And I was just about to call you anyway.”
I double-checked the time on my phone. I’d put him on the job six hours ago, so I was out at least another five thousand runics at this point. “So?”
“Fine, damn. And for the record, this guy was good, but rusty. Privacy coins, layered VPNs, fake emails — all the right moves, but the cracks were there. I scraped updates, domain data, metadata. Found a leak in an early build, an internal server name he missed, traced it to a privacy host. From there I ran linguistic analysis on coder forums — typing style was a match. Found an archived blog with a half-built app using thesame code quirks. The site went live a few days ago, but the bones? Five years old. He didn’t scrub it nearly as well as he thought.”
As soon as he said it was five years old, I knew it was Sage. And why did that fact make my dick hard again? The chokehold this little witch omega had on me was getting to insane levels. “Non-nerd terms… what does this all mean?”
“I got a location.”
I threw my head back and groaned. It was about fucking time, no thanks to Hecara. “Where is she?”
“She?A woman did this? Fuck, is she single?”
A growl erupted from my chest and Arlen laughed. “Yeah, I know. I don’t get between a bounty hunter and his bounty, right?”
