This time, Sophia did glance towards Amy. She didn’t immediately find her, but she did see Dav; he was just tall enough to be easy to find. He wasn’t nearly as far away as she’d hoped. There were just too many people to move quickly, especially when most of them seemed to be headed towards the Temple, not away. Sophia reluctantly followed Aric over to the line, which was at least a dozen people longer by the time they made it across the street.

  “My last Challenge was Castles in the Sky, with the apple monkeys,” Aric added. “I really want to do that full Challenge in the future; that’s one of the reasons I wanted On Wings of Air; it’s not a real flight Ability, but it gives you the chance to develop one with your upgrade, and…”

  The line was long enough that Sophia started to change her opinion of Aric a little. When he talked about things he cared about, like his own Sphere and the Challenges he’d seen, he was actually a pretty good conversationalist. It was only when he tried to hit on her that he was seriously annoying and bothersome, mostly because he just didn’t leave well enough alone.

  Fortunately, he didn’t try to hit on her once while they were in line. He just talked a lot, which was more tolerable.

  Unfortunately, it quickly became obvious that, now that she was in line, Sophia was stuck. No one was leaving the line, so even if Amy was far enough away to not be connected to Sophia, she’d be noticed. That seemed like a bad idea if there was actual fighting, even if it was just a riot or something. Fortunately, the line was moving relatively quickly; she’d probably be able to leave in half an hour. She could wait that long, and she was absolutely certain she could put up with Aric that long, too.

  The line led down a long hallway to a full-length deep red curtain. A pair of men stood near the curtain, one on either side. The one on the right seemed to be letting people past the curtain in small groups whenever others emerged from behind it. Sophia wanted to ask what was back there, but she knew she’d see soon enough and she didn’t want to look like she didn’t know what was going on.

  Shortly or so after they made it into the building, Sophia heard from Dav; they’d made it off the street the Broken Temple was on and were looking at Mihandrel’s Marvelous Mixtures. She hated having to admit she was stuck unless she wanted to make a scene, but realistically, Aric hadn’t given her a good reason to run.

  Instead, he was describing the fighting during the last tournament held by the Broken Temple. She hadn’t even known they held tournaments! She’d have expected them to be held by the Registry, but according the Aric, the Vocational Registries didn’t do that; they encouraged others to handle it, and in Izel that meant the Broken Temple “or a few other groups but the Temple’s Tournament is the prestigious one, of course.”

  The fights were apparently spectacular, held on giant stages managed by Professionals that specialized in massive events like that. To Sophia’s ears, it sounded like a massive sporting event, complete with betting. There were several events that could be won, but Aric was the most interested in the second upgrade demonstrations. They were done by people who’d made it past Level Ten, and that made them flashy and fun to watch.

  Sophia was pretty sure that he’d reversed the cause and effect, that they were flashy because people wanted to show off when they were doing a demonstration, but she didn’t doubt that they were both flashy and done by people above Level Ten.

  She was just about to ask for more details on how people were picked to give demos when they made it to the curtain and Aric stopped talking. Sophia took a good look at him; he was flexing his hand and bouncing up and down, like he was nervous or anxious. Or maybe it was anticipation? “You seem twitchy?”

  Sophia wanted to facepalm the moment the words were out of her mouth. Of all the ways to ask why he seemed nervous, why did she pick that one?

  “I’m just …” Aric straightened his shoulders and turned towards Sophia. “The last Hallowing was most of a year ago. I didn’t have a chance then; I was only Level Three and didn’t have the Wisps to push myself to Level Four. I wasn’t expecting another Hallowing for years, but I can’t pass up this chance when I’ve just gotten the Wisps to reach Level Four … not enough to upgrade, just enough to reach the level, but it means I have a better chance to Hallow.”

  Sophia felt a new lump form in her stomach. This wasn’t butterflies; it was a rock that said she’d made a very bad mistake, and the mistake wasn’t following Aric into the building. It was entering a temple of the Broken Lord.

  She hadn’t felt any Faith when she walked up to the Temple, or even when she walked through the open doors, so she’d assumed it was safe. She still didn’t feel any sign of divine attention. That could mean that there wasn’t any, that she couldn’t sense it, or that the Broken Lord was paying attention to something else but might shift his attention at any moment.

  For example, if she got too close to someone he was giving a Hallow to.

  Stolen story; please report.

  It was much, much too late to run, but she started making plans anyway. There was absolutely no chance she’d get away if she tried to go through the packed street, even if she disregarded the armed attendants. She also didn’t have any way to go invisible or move really quickly.

  What she did have was wings, and from what Amy said that was unusual at Level Two. It wasn’t common before the second upgrade, though the higher your Level was, the more likely you had some way to either fly or to reach things you weren’t next to. It became necessary, because the monsters would have those Abilities. The building wasn’t that large; could she reach the back and jump out a window? If she could dive under the ledge the Temple was on or climb up into the area near the light-crystal, she could probably use one of her Echoes as a decoy. The normal Echo was smaller than she was, but her wings were pretty similar.

  It was a half-baked plan, but it was all she had. Sophia hoped she wouldn’t have to use it.

  Maybe she was wrong about what a Hallowing was?

  Sophia turned to Aric. “Uh, can you tell me about a Hallowing? What is it?”

  Aric looked startled. Sophia guessed that meant he thought everyone knew what it meant. It took him a moment to recover. “Oh, uh, right, I guess you did have to ask a lot of basic stuff, didn’t you?”

  Sophia huffed. She wasn’t good at acting, but she didn’t have to fake the annoyance, just the words. She avoided mentioning that Amy was helping; she didn’t want to remind him of Amy even if Aric was unlikely to recognize her at this point. “My family isn’t Called, so I never learned this stuff.”

  “Right, well, you know your Sphere, your Vocation?” Aric didn’t pause for Sophia to answer his clearly rhetorical question. “A Hallow is a different type of Sphere, a better Vocation granted by the Broken Lord to aid his followers. A few of them are granted as the first Sphere, but most are granted later, at the first or even second upgrade. A Hallowing is where they’re granted, where the Broken Lord reaches out to his followers and gifts them with a measure of his power.”

  Sophia nodded slowly. She’d only heard of the type that were given out initially, but that wasn’t a surprise; she wasn’t at a point where it was relevant and it was also highly likely that only the Broken Lord gave out Hallows later, at least to the general public. The other Patrons simply didn’t have the same level of power. It also wasn’t surprising that Aric talked about them as if the Broken Lord was the only person who could hand them out; Sophia was certain that was what the Broken Temple told their people.

  The Wanderer’s warning made it clear that she needed to hide her Hallow at least as much as Amy needed to hide her identity as Los’en’s niece.

  A mutter a few feet away drew Sophia’s attention. The curtain was drawn back as a group of four exited the room. Three were male and one was female and they all seemed to be about the same age; they were the group that had been right in front of Aric and Sophia. None of them seemed happy, but none of them seemed particularly sad or disappointed, either.

  “Most people aren’t Hallowed,” Aric added, “But we keep trying. There will be a few new Hallowed tonight and a great celebration as they reveal the Broken Lord’s wishes. I hope to be one of them, but -”

  “You can go on in,” the attendant next to Aric stated firmly. “Don’t take too long; a Hallowing will make itself known quickly, and there are many others waiting.”

  Aric ducked under the curtain as the attendant held it to the side. Sophia followed, but stopped the moment she was inside as the curtain fell back into place behind her.

  The new room, or perhaps just part of the long, wide corridor, was lit by a crystal in the stone ceiling that pointed a directional spotlight on the cloth-covered table ahead of them. A red curtain hid whatever was behind the table, while stone walls and a stone floor identical to the ones on the other side of the curtain behind them defined the rest of the space. It should have seemed spare and undecorated.

  It didn’t.

  The cloth ahead of Sophia was colorful and highly decorated, but that wasn’t what filled the room. Instead, it was the pieces of a broken sword that lay on the cloth that grabbed Sophia’s attention. They glowed with a sullen deep red light that made Sophia nervous. It wasn’t a light she recognized; it wasn’t any of the forms of magic she knew.

  It felt more like Faith, but if it was Faith, it was a Faith that was twisted and warped, given in anger and hopelessness instead of joy and hope.

  Sophia’s horrified pause gave Aric plenty of time to make his way up to the waist-high platform. He reached out and touched the sword’s hilt as if he wanted to pick it up, as if he didn’t see the coating of horror it carried, but it didn’t move at all.

  He tried again. This time, Sophia was certain he wasn’t just touching it; he was actively trying to move it with no luck at all. Aric sighed and seemed to slump a little. “Still no luck for me. I haven’t placed those Wisps yet, I know that’ll make Hallowing more likely but I’ll need so many more Wisps to truly get ready for my upgrade…”

  “Don’t,” Sophia found herself recommending. “If the Broken Lord doesn’t want you now, he won’t want you more after you’ve made your future more difficult.”

  Aric sighed and shook his head. “You believe in a far kinder Broken Lord than I do. It’s an act of faith, that the Broken Lord will accept me and make me someone who can recover from my act. If he doesn’t choose me, it’s up to me to fix it and become what he wants me to be.”

  “It’s not about kindness,” Sophia insisted. “It’s about sense. It’s stupid to make your followers hurt themselves so that you can heal them; there are far better ways to demonstrate faith.”

  Sophia isn’t talking about the Broken Lord right now, but Aric doesn’t know that. How could he?