Chapter 212: A Tough One To Crack

I stared around the room, then at Kassie.

She was staring back.

Kassie wore the same mundane gown now and somehow managed to look like a noblewoman playing at poverty. A beautiful princess who’d lost her memory and remained blissfully unaware she was slumming it. The outfit was mediocre. She made it look intentional.

"I think we’ve been scammed?"

She tilted her head, confusion flickering across her features.

"What does it mean to be scammed?"

I considered explaining the word to her. After all, it wasn’t Ealdrimian. But then I looked around us at the cramped walls, the single sad window, the furniture that looked like it had survived three wars and lost all of them.

I grinned and gestured broadly at our accommodations.

"This. This is what it means to be scammed."

She studied the room with fresh eyes, then turned that cute dark frown on me.

"Swindled?"

"Exactly."

I nodded and collapsed onto the bed.

The impact rattled my spine. The mattress had all the give of packed earth, and for one disorienting moment I was back in that first instant of being summoned, my body slamming from comfortable chair to unforgiving stone floor.

’Ouchhhh...’

I didn’t make a fuss about it. Instead, I just looked at Kassie. She looked back. And for some reason, I was absolutely certain we were thinking the same thing.

’There’s only one bed...’

That was what occupied my mind, anyway.

Her gaze narrowed.

"Are you not going to check on her?"

"Check on her?" I blinked, genuinely blank for a moment. "Her who?"

It was only after the question left my mouth that I remembered.

"Magdalene." Kassie’s tone carried an edge of darkness.

I scoffed, sitting up straighter. "Of course! I was merely being rhetorical with you. I will check on her, obviously!" I laid back against the pillow, arranging myself with exaggerated care. "You keep watch here while I go see her, okay?"

Kassie moved without sound and settled into the chair.

I closed my eyes.

The scenery shifted, and I stood once again in the vast white cathedral.

No matter how many times I visited this place, the same questions struck me fresh. Why did my soul manifest as a cathedral? How could my soul be this impossibly vast? The pale columns stretched toward infinity. The silence pressed like something holy and terrible.

And there, in the center of the pews, just before the decrepit altar, Pyre Saint stood with her back to me.

Her rear view all privy to me.

And me alone.

Calling her shape an hourglass suddenly felt inadequate. Insulting, even. Her backside was perfectly rounded, her waist cresting and curving so cleanly that any sculptor who saw it would develop an obsession with lines. With curves. With the mathematical perfection of the human form pushed past reasonable limits.

Her body was a sin.

’I wonder how she managed to serve as a Saint with a body like that.’

I wasn’t judging. But I knew for a fact that religious men harbored the most monstrous kinds of desire. Having to see her every day, existing in the same space as that silhouette, would drive any sane man to madness.

I was already mad. And I was barely hanging on.

As I approached, she gave no indication of noticing me. Or maybe she’d sensed me the moment I entered.

’I don’t think that’s the case. Kassie didn’t sense me when I arrived, and she got lost in her naked sword art.’

Maybe they couldn’t sense me entering my own Soul Plane. That made a certain amount of sense.

But Magdalene didn’t turn around even as I reached her side.

I followed her gaze to the broken altar.

"Are you mesmerized by my altar?"

She didn’t answer immediately. The silence stretched past a second, then two.

"It looks familiar." Her voice was flat, contemplative. "But the fact that I don’t remember can only mean it is insignificant." She turned to face me, and something cold entered her eyes. "Like you are."

’Of course. Typical Maggie. Never misses a chance to twist the knife.’

I exhaled slowly.

"Should you even be standing around like this?"

Her expression darkened.

"You think something I’ve done a thousand times over is suddenly going to render me useless? This one time?"

"Well, you looked the part..." I muttered the last bit, but she heard it anyway. Her frown deepened into something that suggested she was imagining tearing my mouth clean off my face.

’God, I swear I hate being here!’

But at the same time, another part of me spoke.

’Just be patient with her. After all, Kassie had an attitude too, and we’re getting better now.’

I caught myself almost immediately.

’No. They aren’t the same. Kassie wasn’t actively trying to kill me...’

I paused for a moment.

’Uhm... yeah. They’re all just fucked up.’

"Not exactly, but..." I met her eyes, keeping my voice measured. "It’s burdening nonetheless. Maybe back when you were a Grand Inquisitor, no one cared about the weight of your flames. But this is different. Not only do I care what pain you endure, I share it."

Something shifted in Magdalene’s face. She didn’t respond, just stared past the altar at some distance I couldn’t perceive. Some memory, perhaps. Some old wound.

She closed her eyes. Sighed. Turned away.

"Well. You do not need to worry about me. I’m fine."

I studied her retreating form.

’Tough one to crack...’

But I could see the weak angle. The hairline fracture in her armor.

’Sooner or later, you’ll be mine too.’

The thought brought images unbidden. What would it feel like to grab that ass? Were they soft? Juicy? The urge to beg her, just once, to let me try was almost overwhelming.

But I knew very well what would happen if I tried anything in my Soul Plane.

Death. Immediate and creative death.

I heaved a sigh and watched her walk away. The two planets that made up her backside crashed against each other with each step, making her habit dress suffer beautifully for it.

’What an unfair world.’

I shook my head and exited the Soul Plane.

The moment I returned, the entire room shook. Glass shattered somewhere close, the sound scattering into my ear, and in the same instant Kassie blurred past my face. She spun through the air, legs whipping around, and slammed her foot into whoever, or whatever, had just crashed through the window.

For a moment, I pitied whoever that was going to be.