“That you could come to fulfill the prophecy?” he asked her. “Well, I won’t say we knew it would be you. It was known that someone of the faith would come, who is so destined, though. The diviners were accurate to the very minute. And just as well—you try holding a crowd together for very long, if the chosen one turns out to be late.” He chuckled a little at his own words. “But it’s you. You’re the one. You will destroy Darvezian. Armes blesses your venture, believe it.”

This had been what she wanted, of course, but the words seemed to fall emptily between them. She should let him flick some blessed water on her forehead and be very grateful and basically just go, really, but instead she felt her lips move, and out came the words, “Does he?” almost plaintively.

She was horrified at her own ingratitude, but the Potentate seemed to understand. “Child,” he said, “sit, please. You’re giving me a pain in the neck looking at you.”

She found a chair—not marble, thankfully—and dragged it over. Not even servants were allowed in the Potentate’s chambers unless they were also ranking priests, and apparently none of the man’s staff felt that rearranging the furniture or serving drinks was sufficiently holy for them.

“Armes blesses you,” he told her. “I say he does, anyway. I’m the Potentate, who’s to argue? A thousand years ago, the divine Armes saw that mankind lived in sin and suffering and without hope, and he went into the Higher Realms and returned with his gift. Since then we are born to the Light, though often we stray; we are able to recognize the Dark for what it is, though often we are tempted and fall.” He sighed and rubbed at his face. “How lucky we are compared to the Ghantishmen or those others born to the Dark, eh? At least we are given the hope of salvation.”

“Yes, Father,” because some sort of confirmation was presumably in order.

“And we feel the Light, we priests, and we draw upon it, and its power against the Dark is undeniable. At least we have that, eh? Can you imagine if all we had was Armes’s assurance, without proof of the might that backed up his promise? Would there even be a church, if it was all based on faith?”

“But I have faith—!” she burst out.