I wasn´t brought back directly towards the mansion as I endured the three nights and days of spiritual cleansing or whatever, but rather asked the coachman to bring me towards the royal palace. Naturally, Mary, Tom and I conversed via letters during these three days and thus, I was relayed the king´s invitation. Interestingly enough, I wasn’t led towards the throne room directly, but towards one of the four towers which were facing northwards going by the centre of the palace. This alone signaled a change in our relationship which did make me a bit happy.

This tower was even higher than the royal palace itself and I had to admit that the view on the circular balcony around it was quite nice. An endless sea of houses presented itself below us as we leaned onto the merlon and enjoyed the cold, but gentle autumn breeze. He didn´t wear his normal clothing, but rather a pair of wool pants and a thick jerkin. I could find nothing majestical at him during this meeting, but that was probably on purpose to appease the gods somewhat.

“What do you see?” He asked and pointed towards the city. I didn´t expect this question in particular but assumed he wanted to test me again.

“A city, your majesty.” I said plainly and turned towards him.

“And here I was, hoping for a rather sophisticated answer that somehow included the gods. Why this simple one, your holiness?” I laughed loudly, not because of his statement, but rather because of how he addressed me.

“Lucy, just Lucy please.” I said and extended my hand towards him.

“Alphonso.” He gripped my hand tightly and shook it. “But only if we are alone, I hope you understand.”

“Likewise. Apparently, I now have a few churches which would despise me if I lowered myself in front of you.” I claimed unhappily and sighed loudly. For a few seconds, I was thinking of asking for his help just because it would be easy to solve quite a lot of problems this way … but I didn’t want to be indebted towards him.

“So you came to the same conclusion as me? The churches right now are too devided for a single leader.” He asked and raised an eyebrow in the process. If his conclusion was that the position of the saint sounded nice on the surface, but was rather complicated in reality, then yes, I absolutely agreed. But none of us wanted to show our cards in front of the other for real. The situation was way too complex to play with open cards.

“Apparently.” I mused and looked into the distance. I wanted to be as ambiguous as possible, mostly because he couldn’t have figured out everything. There was the possibility that some of the churches stood behind me, which sadly wasn’t the case at all. Well, they would surely come to my aid if I was in a pinch, but otherwise, not so much.

Together, we watched the bustling city for a few more minutes until he pushed himself off the merlon.

“I give you free rein within all of the kingdom, as long as your actions contribute to humanity´s prosperity.” He said and looked deep into my eyes. In his, I found none of the reverence I noticed in the eyes of the coachman for example, but deep blue neutrality. At least it underlined his position.

He still didn´t want peace with the elves, this much was clear after his statement. But I may have interpreted humanity´s prosperity a little different than he did, and so I just ignored it completely. In the first place, who was he to question my holy actions?

“Thank you very much.” I answered, smiling from ear to ear. On the one hand, I was already doing whatever I wanted, but free reign as Lucy White was exactly what I needed. The ability to do things before asking for permission was very welcome after all.

“But I have to remind you this is a secular state. No church ever managed to seep into the politics of this country.” And that … was a challenge. A challenge I was more than willing to accept.

“Mostly because they keep quarrelling amongst themselves, which is very comfortable for you, isn´t it?” I asked, still smiling like a cookie in the oven.

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” He said sternly, but I could see the lie clearly. He was obviously profiting from the fractured faiths in this country as he could play them out against each other as he saw fit. After all, the king collected the taxes for the churches and gave them out as he pleased. Every church that stood against him, would ultimately see its funds run out rather quickly. On the flipside, no church could ever openly try to appease the king, because all the other faiths would pry it apart like hungry hyenas going by an unspoken rule. Thus, the state was fundamentally secularized, if a single person didn´t manage to unite all the faiths among his or her. Like a saint for example. Or a pope who managed to reform the churches in the face of a crisis.

I had no idea how I ever wanted to achieve that, nor did I necessarily need to, but he was certainly worried about this possibility.

“On another topic, who is your dad?” He asked and looked into my eyes sternly. This god who called himself my father was the only one he needed to worry about for now. But not even a hundred years of torture would result in me, calling Aska ‘Father’.

“The farmer who died a few days ago, if you understand what I mean.” I said and smirked. As far as I was aware, he didn´t spread the word yet that my father was divine but rather kept it a secret, which was in all honestly, perfect for me. I needed to stay close to the general citizen which meant stopping from being too saintly.

“If you wish.” He said, but I could see the desire to find out more about my origin in his eyes. I assumed this conversation was over as he waved a nearby butler towards us and turned away to leave, obviously without the usual bowing this time. “How old are you again?” He asked, which made me stop in my tracks. Suddenly, I had an excellent idea to solve a few of my problems in one go.

“I´ll only tell you if you promise to keep it a secret for now.” He nodded after a short pause in which I stood up on my toes, held my hands behind my back and tried to reach his right ear with my mouth. As soon as he understood what I was trying to do, he leaned downwards, presenting me his very vulnerable neck. “Seventeen. I stopped ageing as I turned ten. But that needs to be kept a secret, at least for now.”

“Understandable.” He stood uprights again, while I let go of him as well. “If you allow the question: Why now? Why are you appearing now?”

He had way too much faith in my intellect. He either assumed I was a monster who could control everything behind the scenes or followed some godly plan. Well, both of them could very well be true, so I had to scratch my cheek because of the absurdity of this question. Was I there because Aska brought me on this path, or because of my own actions? Destiny, or free will?

I shrugged my shoulders, decided to keep it as ambiguous as possible, and did what the goddess did to me.

“The humans, living two hundred years from now, will understand. Maybe.” I said and strolled towards the butler who was waiting at a respectable distance.