Lysette sighed as she stood atop the dorm’s roof shortly before dusk. She’d spent most of the previous afternoon in the library, both looking for information about the interrelation between gods and their mortal followers, as well as to corroborate the stories that the two students had given her about the history of the Domark Cultivation Academy. She’d found a lot of information about the latter, and essentially nothing about the former that she didn’t already know.

Regarding the Academy and its history, the books she’d found more or less confirmed what the students had told her earlier. The history books had framed the decision a bit differently, praising the crown as making an ‘enlightened’ decision to magnanimously benefit the commoners, rather than making a necessary one to ensure the military had its pick of suitable bodies, but the timelines and general gist of the decision two hundred years ago tracked.

“Lady Lysette, if I may?” Nightshade flew down from high above and perched down into her arm, allowing Lysette to stroke her neck and wings a few times before continuing.

“It seems like you’ve been making quite the stir these past few weeks. I suppose the whole idea of staying undercover has fallen by the wayside?”

“I don’t like it either. But it’s as Serrena told me after our duel. Something about my presence just draws people to me like monarchs to milkweed.”

“While I wish not to begrudge your decision-making too much, My Lady, I did have a feeling that something like this would happen. Even if most sapient beings aren’t able to directly place it into so many words, they will feel a degree of unconscious reverence toward any being with a Divine Spark.”

“And you didn’t tell me this before?”

“I was under the impression you were planning to lay low. I didn’t realize you’d so quickly become the talk of the town.”

Lysette stopped stroking Nightshade’s wings for a moment, just long enough to express her displeasure with the sass before continuing.

“I was. But it’s just been one thing after another. And all because of that feeling in my very being that I couldn’t shake. The one that compelled me to defend Danitha against all reason and sense.

“And what will you do now, Lady Lysette?”

“It seems my very presence is starting a rebellion on campus. My followers, for lack of a better word, are starting to gain power almost as quickly as I am. I’ve even heard about a fan club forming around me. Can you look into that over the next couple of days?”

“You’re very generous, I take it. I cannot speak from personal experience on the matter, but Lady Zarielle has said that most gods treat their followers as little more than servants. Or human batteries, to use her exact words. And, though I might disagree with your methods, I will do as you ask and look into this club you’ve mentioned.”

“I can’t just… do that, though, Nightshade. Some greater force compelled me to act to protect Danitha’s honor, to defend my dorm from Francis and Kiarra’s wrath, to help my followers rather than taking all their Essence for myself.”

“A greater force?”

“Yes. One which forced me to do things even when I thought the ideas were detrimental.”

“I see. I believe you may be manifesting your domain as a demigoddess.”

“Like how Zarielle is the Goddess of Darkness or Vorcal is the God of Fire?”

“Precisely, My Lady. Only Lady Zarielle could tell you for certain, but it may be that you are being compelled to act in a manner consistent with the domain you’ve chosen for yourself.”

“I don’t remember choosing a domain?” Lysette let out a quizzical stare as the sky grew dark. She would need to leave shortly to make it to the meeting.

“It works a little differently for the primordial deities than for those who were once mortal. But you will have to ask Zarielle yourself when next you see her.”

“Understood.” Lysette wasn’t quite sure if Nightshade really didn’t know anymore or was merely uninterested or unwilling to give any further information. “Well, I have yet another meeting I promised I’d go to, and, as much as I want more answers, they’ll have to wait. Take care of yourself.”

“That sounds like the sort of thing I should be telling you, Lady Lysette. Do remember the trust Lady Zarielle has placed in you.”

Lysette shook her head as she jumped over the rooftop fence and fell into a bed of large lavender bushes nestled up against the side of the dorms. She was pretty sure that a fall from that height wouldn’t actually do any damage to her beyond ruffling her hair and tearing her clothes, but she still allowed her body to dissolve into the shadows of the woody stems and slink down to the ground, emerging after taking a moment to survey the area and ensure that no eyes were there to witness her little stunt.

As she wandered toward the Sky Gardens on the northern outskirts of campus, she thought about Nightshade’s words. They did make sense, and reflecting upon them further, she had noticed that she’d gained strength and her Star shone brighter whenever she better understood herself and her purpose, as she’d previously called it. And as she ruminated further, thinking about when she felt fulfilled about her purpose— her domain— it was always tied to feelings of revenge or retaliation. Of making sure the wicked were not above comeuppance.

Justice seemed both too human and too broad for who she wanted to be. In her recent experiences, justice as a concept had always been so easily bent and swayed by the whims of power. No doubt Kiarra and her grandfather both believed they were acting in the name of so-called justice. And even Asterion, damned though he was, no doubt had twisted the meaning of that word to some sick and twisted ends.

No, the feelings she carried were more primal, less a function of the current order of either Aimarion or the Celestial Realm. A burning need to ensure to protect those she cared about and avenge those who she lost to the greed and malice of those more powerful than she was. Than she still is. The power to protect coupled with the power to defend. Retribution was close.

Reciprocity. That felt right. To those who were her friends, those who supported her, who treated her and those she cared about with fairness and kindness, she would repay in kind. She would lend her own divine power to those who wanted to grow as people and as Cultivators alongside her. And to those who wronged her and the people she cared about, she would dispense harm back to them without mercy or remorse.

Lysette, Demigoddess of Reciprocity. The epithet fit better than she ever thought possible. She took a long, deep breath, letting the words and newfound understanding within herself resonate through mind and body and Spark alike. She looked up at the night sky, still thankfully devoid of that detestable moon, and offered a quick prayer of thanks to Zarielle for gifting her this power and new lease on life.

Lysette still didn’t fully trust her— didn’t fully trust anyone except herself, were she honest. And she still considered the possibility that she’d be discarded once she’d outlived her usefulness. But that didn’t lessen the true gratitude she felt for what she’d been given, the opportunity to deliver the merciless vengeance on the god who had taken her family, her friends, her entire world from her on one cruel evening.

She let those memories resurface, reliving the moment when she saw Jacoub and Marcelle lying dead in their cottage. The moment she burned her fellow townsfolk’s bodies in a pyre, sending them off to the afterlife. The moment when she cradled her younger sister Celica’s lifeless body in her arms, screaming and pleading for her to come back. One breath, then another, letting those dormant feelings of anger and rage seep back to the forefront of her mind, revisiting the pain, the grief, the anguish she felt on that day.

And then, with her newfound domain now at the forefront of her mind, she reflected those feelings of anger into animosity at those who had taken that which was hers. She reflected upon the words she said just before her rebirth: ‘Zarielle, let us make them suffer!’ That must have been the moment when she was reborn, and something about her mental state in the instant her body and mind surged with her then-nascent Divine Spark must have caused her to subconsciously choose that domain for herself.

She reiterated the oath she’d taken. She would topple the entire Church of Asterion. She would bring its patron to his knees. And she would exact Reciprocity upon him, taking everything from him just as he had done to her. In doing so, she would also provide her Reciprocity back to her own patron.

With her motivation and mindset now aligned more strongly with her domain, a new rush of strength coursed through her—without even visiting her Cultivation realm, Lysette knew this was the telltale sign of her Star brightening just a bit more. Every fiber of her being was filled with yet more strength, but it was also a strength to be shared with those who were worthy of her help.

Dusk had fallen and the blue hour descended upon Domark, with stars peeking out to begin their nightly dance above the heavens. A beautiful sight, and as she looked ahead, already about fifty students had gathered, with about twenty more amassing from the west. Lysette could hear their individual conversations when she focused on them, and decided to lay low for a few moments, just listening in and watching before she made her approach.

One conversation in particular angered Lysette. A simple case of accidentally bumping into one of the young nobles while on a run about two weeks ago. Something deserving a brief apology and a little more care, no doubt. But instead, the aggrieved party demanded a hundred gold— a year’s salary back when she worked as an herbalist— for, to quote the speaker, ‘irreparably tarnishing and ruining these fine garments with commoner stink’. And when the student protested that he was unable to pay such a ridiculous sum, the young noble and his entourage took turns kicking him to, again quoting, ‘remind him of his place.’

It wasn’t the only such anecdote she heard. Another student told of a time last school year when she had been forcibly used as a footrest for a noble for a week following a minor scuffle, and a third student spoke of an accusation of assault being fabricated and presented to the school’s disciplinary hearing board. There was no corroborating evidence and no witnesses to the alleged incident, but the student making the allegations was from a noble house with strong ties directly to the crown and therefore the Academy’s funding. And so the accused student was found guilty in a sham investigation and confined to the dorms for an entire month, unable to access any of the Academy’s resources for training, research, or Cultivation.

And, after her experience with Kiarra, Lysette had no reason to disbelieve any of them. In her case, it was even worse, with Kiarra all but making up a reason to be aggrieved. All so she could assert dominance and try to teach Lysette about ‘knowing her place’. A situation which backfired only because Lysette just so happened to secretly be a demigoddess with an Essence coefficient three times higher than she had presented, and a full sixty percent above even the most elite member of the class otherwise. One who had also gained quite a bit more strength even since the entrance exam, and who would continue to Cultivate and train much faster than her fellow classmates. But also one more than willing to share her power with those who were worthy of her gifts.

She had yet to commit to any action regarding this group in particular, but would listen to the rest of their stories and hear their requests. And so she headed over to where the students had gathered, just at the base of the floating staircase that led up to the dueling arena atop the Sky Gardens Tower, eager to listen and learn, and dispense Reciprocity as she saw fit.