Lich for Hire

Catherine glanced at the wooden cup in Ambrose's hand and asked skeptically, "The same wager as before?"

Ambrose replied casually, "Of course. As long as you can take that cup out of the city, I'll do whatever you say."

Catherine eyed him several times, then snatched the cup and strode quickly out of the tavern.

But before long, she returned with her head hanging. Slamming the cup on the table, she fumed, "You set me up! I got stopped again when I tried to leave the city. They said leaving so quickly made me look suspicious. When they searched me, the cup got smashed!"

Ambrose smiled faintly. "It wasn't my doing, but rather the arrangement of fate. After failing twice, you should understand by now: some things may look simple, but they're impossible to accomplish. You're probably thinking that if you'd just pushed through and rushed out of the city, you'd have won. But it wouldn't matter. Once fate is set, no one can change it, not even the gods."

Ambrose had used his Loom of Fate to weave two failures for Catherine. No matter how hard she tried, victory would never have been possible.

Of course, such manipulation only worked for trivial matters. Asking Ambrose to weave a destiny where the Lyon Empire collapsed tomorrow was impossible. Attempting that would almost certainly cause the spell to fail, and he would suffer backlash from fate itself.

The ability was much like dipping an oar into the river of destiny and nudging the current slightly. Stirring up a few small eddies was easy enough. But trying to stop the entire river with a single oar would only snap it in half. Unless Ambrose himself became a dam across the river, attempting to alter the destinies of massive forces would inevitably end with him battered and broken.

Though Catherine didn't have the same grasp of fate that Ambrose did, she accepted Ambrose's explanation. She sighed and dropped the subject of Naomi. "If that's really how it works, diviners have it rough. They're basically slaves to fate."