The shrine fell into its usual rhythm after breakfast.Garima sat alone at the large wooden desk in her room.Sunlight came through the window at a long angle. A blank sheet of paper sat in front of her.
She picked up the quill. Lost in thought. About everything that had happened until now.
"Okay," she said to nobody. "Letter to the King."
She dipped the quill, in the carved ink pot.
"Dear Your Majesty—" she said under her breath. She stopped writing and scratched it out immediately.
It felt wrong. But what could she use? "Respected."?She had written letters during exams or applications to the principal asking for leave. But never to someone so important like a king.
She pressed the quill too hard and left a blot.
"How did people do this before email," she muttered.
Garima stared at the blank page until the ink on her quill began to dry. What exactly was she supposed to tell the King? The sword?. The word 'Anchor'? About her visions? None of it were visions that everyone believed. They were chapters of a story she had written in a haze of sleepless nights. She knew the ending of some events, remembered pieces of others, but the timeline had become a tangled knot in her own head. She hadn't written dates. She had written whatever scene came to mind and thought she would sort it out later. That later had never come. If she wrote everything she remembered, she could send an entire kingdom into panic over events she wasn't even certain belonged to this point in time. And if she admitted she didn't know, what would happen to the Goddess? Cosmo was only a Medium. She had never claimed herself as Goddess. It was Garima who intended to raise her as a true Goddess one day, someone people could turn to with hope. Until then, she would have to protect that image. She lowered the quill to the paper. The King would receive the truth.
"To His Majesty, King Cirius Renaldin,
I hope this letter finds Your Majesty in good health.
I have spent the morning reflecting upon the questions contained within your letter. I believe it is best that I answer only what I know with certainty and not allow speculation to become truth.
Regarding the sword and the word it spoke, I cannot yet explain why it chose to address me in such a manner. The word it uttered was "Anchor." While I do not know its complete significance, I believe it describes one who steadies or supports. Beyond this understanding, I cannot honestly claim further knowledge. To do so would be to mislead both Your Majesty and those who place their trust in me.
As for whether a speaking sword appears within the historical records of the Shrine, I have found no such reference.Priestess Agatha has likewise been unable to recall any mention of it within the texts presently available to us. It may exist in records yet undiscovered, or it may be something entirely new. At present, I cannot say which is true.
Your Majesty also inquired about the visions.
Since my arrival, they have come only as fragments. They cannot be summoned by my own will, nor do they arrive with explanation. They are incomplete, often without time or context, making certainty difficult.
Among these fragments, Domnur has appeared more than once.
I have seen signs of hardship surrounding that land. Whether these visions concern the present or a future yet to come, I do not know. For that reason, I hesitate to speak of them as certainty, for incomplete visions may lead others to unnecessary fear.
It is because of these repeated visions that I humbly request Your Majesty's permission to travel to Domnur.
I believe that witnessing the place with my own eyes may reveal what these fragments cannot. If there is danger, I hope to understand it before it reaches the people. If there is no danger, then my doubts will be put to rest without causing needless alarm.
Should Your Majesty grant this request, I shall make every effort to conduct myself with prudence and return once my purpose there is fulfilled.
I remain grateful for Your Majesty's trust and pray that my actions may continue to serve the kingdom.
With deepest respect,
Garima"
She folded the letter.
Pressed her thumb to the wax.
"There," she said. "My first official Saintess correspondence."
She sat back and felt absurdly pleased with herself.
Then she felt a soft vibration.
She reached into her robe and pulled out the artifact. She had tried to speak with Cosmo this morning before practice. Now she was trying to communicate. The artifact grew warm in her palm.
Garima looked at it for a long moment.
If she answered, Cosmo would ask what had happened. She would have to tell her she wanted to go to Domnur. What if Cosmo told her to wait. To be careful. To gather more information. It was sensible advice. It was probably the right advice.
But Domnur did not have the luxury of waiting.
The artifact pulsed once more.
Garima closed her fingers around it until the warmth faded.
"I'm sorry, Cosmo," she whispered. "Just this once. Let me decide."
A few moments later, the connection died on its own.
She set it on the desk beside the letter and looked at it for a moment. Where was Cosmo when she needed her. The question had stopped feeling rhetorical.
A knock came at the door.
"Garima?"
"Come in."
Riley entered carrying a book tucked under his arm.
"I came for today's lesson," he said. "Zihan and Ava won't come today."
Garima blinked. "Oh."
She had completely forgotten.
Riley looked at the letter on the desk. Then at the ink blots on the discarded letters beside it. At last he looked at the artifact sitting next to the wax seal.
"...Busy?"
"I was." She stood. "Actually — I want to visit someone today. A scholar."
Riley tilted his head. "Oh. So no lesson?"
"Why not join me? It could count as a practical lesson."
"Does it work like that?"
"It will." Garima said. "Let me give this letter to Agatha first, then we will go."
Far away—somewhere beyond the world. Cosmo sat. She lowered her hand slowly.
Garima did not answer.
She watched the signal fade. Watched Garima set the artifact down and stand and say something to the young priest and move toward the door with the forward momentum she carried everywhere.
"Good." Cosmo thought.
Garima calling meant Garima needed her. Garima not reaching her meant Garima would manage without her. Would grow without her. Would become exactly the kind of capable, embedded, trusted figure.
A Garima who had learned to rely on this world was a Garima who would stop asking her.
Good,she thought again.
—
Agatha was still in the archive hall, writing something on a small tablet.
"Agatha."
"Hm."
"I wrote the letter." She said, "Can you send it."
"Okay I will."
"I need one more thing. The scholar. The one who catalogs flora."
Agatha looked up from the tablet. She stared at her for a moment and nodded.
"Scholar Nela." Agatha said. "Go to the south market. She lives in a stone house. There are vines on the walls. Don't eat anything she offers you without asking what it is first."
"I wasn't going to eat random plants."
"Who is going with you?"
"Riley," she said.
"Take a Sentinel with you," Agatha said.
"Senti—what?"
"Who can use a weapon."
"Oh, okay."
---
Only Riley was supposed to accompany her.
By the time she reached the courtyard Robby had materialised beside them with a spear over his shoulder and the expression of someone who had definitely not just been looking for a reason to leave the shrine.
Garima raised an eyebrow. Was he a Senti-something? Was Dylan a Senti too?
"I heard you're going out," he said. "Riley told me about it."
"We're visiting a scholar."
"I know."
"It will mostly be plant discussion."
"I know."
Riley looked at him. "You just wanted to skip the afternoon inventory."
Robby considered this. "...The inventory will still be there when I get back."
Garima looked between them and sighed. "You can come."
He grinned immediately.
---
The city moved around— people bowing, children appearing from nowhere to wave, a merchant pressing something into her hands before she could protest. She had stopped trying to refuse. Refusal caused more disruption than acceptance.
But she was still not used to it.
"I don't think I'll ever get used to this," she said.
"You won't," Riley said.
"It's a nice feeling." Robby laughed. "Being looked at."
Garima ignored him.
Scholar Nela's house was farthest from the city. Vines covered the walls. It looked cared for. Bundles of drying plants hung from every available surface. Clay jars lined the shelves, labeled in small careful script. The whole house smelled of dried leaves.
The scholar herself was in her sixties, small build with sharp eyes. It took three calls to make her come out. She had been in the middle of grinding something when they arrived. She looked at Garima and let out a surprised expression.
"Your Holiness," she said.
"Madam Nela," Garima said quickly. " Since you seem to know me, there is no need for further introductions. I came to ask about some plants. Agatha told me about you."
Nela stopped. "Plants," she said. "What about them?"
"Specifically — what do you actually know about the plants you catalog? Not just where they grow and what they look like. What do they "do"?"
Nela looked at her. Her expression softened but her eyes gleamed— like interest sharpening.
"What do they do?" Nela hummed. "That's an interesting question."
Most of the afternoon went like that.
Nela knew properties the way a cartographer knew about terrain. The roots that caused the body to cool. The bark that worked like adhesive when grinded into powder and mixed with water dried leaves that produced a sustained bitterness that the body responded to in ways she had documented. Most of it she had experimented on herself.
"Responded how?" Garima asked.
"The energy responds differently," Nela said. "But it should be taken with food. Or else it causes mild poisoning."
Garima was very still. It was most likely gastritis and vomiting after consuming something so bitter.
"Show me that one," she said.
Nela produced a dried leaf from a jar. Dark. Narrow. The smell was unpleasant.
Garima held it. Turned it over.
In her world this property had a name. A mechanism. A reason the body responded to it that had been studied and documented and turned into treatment for people whose blood carried too much sugar and not enough signal to manage it. In Ayurveda.
In this world it was just a leaf that made energy flow differently and called vomiting and nobody had thought to ask why.
"What do you do with the information?" Garima asked. "After you document it."
"Record it," Nela said. "For self interest. My main job is to provide resources for the Academy to teach students. I catalogue things. This is a hobby I do on the side."
"But nobody uses the plants themselves."
"Why would they?" Nela set down her grinding tool. "Energy is more precise. More reliable. You direct it where it needs to go. Flora is not always reliable. There were times I almost died of poison."
"Yes," Garima said slowly. "You need to stop doing that, there are safer ways to study it."
Nela looked at her.
"But you can make use of what you already know. You know a flora and what it does to the body," Garima continued. "The flora does it every time. And energy flows. Even without a healer. Without cost." She paused. "For people who can't access healers."
The room was quiet.
Nela looked at her bewildered.
"That's not how it works here," she said.
"I know," Garima said. "I'm asking what would happen if it did."
She didn't push further. Didn't explain what she was actually thinking about — Conrad's mother, the cost of healing magic, the people who managed their conditions alone in houses without enough food let alone enough coin for a mage.
Nela was still looking at the leaf.
"I would need to know what the body actually needs," she said finally. "Not just how energy moves through it. What it "needs". In specific terms."
"I know some of that," Garima said.
Nela looked at her sharply.
"From the Goddess?" she asked.
Garima smiled. "From what I know."
Neither of them said anything for a moment. Then Nela opened a fresh page in her catalog.
"Come back," she said. "Bring what you know. I'll bring what I have."
Garima felt lightheaded. Maybe from standing for so long. Or the mixed herbs smell was affecting her. She didn't know. But she felt happy.
"I'll bring food too," she said. "This could take a while."
Nela almost smiled. "Don't bring anything sweet."
Garima stared at her. With a small smile.
On the walk back Riley looked at her notes.
"That was interesting."
"Very." Garima said.
"So these flora would work."
"If we do it correctly. They will help."
He was quiet for a moment. Then — "Then we can treat people? She also mentioned poison."
"Some poison in small amounts." She said seriously. "--are medicine. Our goal is small doses and careful testing."
Priest Robby followed behind them with a blank face.
Garima looked at the shrine coming into view at the end of the road.
"Keepi it a secret," she said. "For now."
—
Four unfamiliar foldgrazers stood outside the shrine with a carriage with intricate patterns. It didn't look like the royal carriage she had ridden once. But still it was majestic. It must belong to some noble.
Priest Robby stopped walking.
"We have visitors."
In the courtyard Dylan and Ava stood with a middle-aged man in dark blue. He turned when he heard them approach.
His expression changed a little. He stepped forward. Placed one hand across his chest and bowed.
"Your Holiness."
Dylan looked oddly happy. Even Ava's face looked bright.
"Garim—Your Holiness," he said carefully. "This is Viscount Rabban. My father."
Garima looked at the man. Then at Dylan and Ava.
Their father, she smiled. The Viscount Rabban whose children had stood before a king with drawn weapons because of her.
She inclined her head.
"Viscount," she said. "I've been hoping to meet you."
Which was true.
She had been hoping to meet him since the night in the carriage when two very young people told her their family would have fallen if things had gone differently.
She owed him gratitude.
Possibly considerably more than that