The Wrong Kind of Immortality

The warmth hit her first.

Not the warmth of summer—something deeper, more pervasive. Divine power, saturating the air the way moisture saturated a bathhouse. In Orthessa, divine power was something to be measured and restricted. Here, it was weather.

They had gated to a clearing just outside the city walls. The walls themselves were modest by Orthessa’s standards—stone and plaster, sun-bleached to a pale cream, built more for definition than defence. Beyond them, the upper levels of buildings were visible: terracotta rooftops, painted facades, the tops of colonnaded walkways catching the morning light. Somewhere deeper inside, temple spires rose above the skyline.

A queue had formed at the main gate. Merchants with carts, travellers on foot, a group of temple acolytes in matching robes. The checkpoint was staffed by guards who looked professional but unhurried—processing entrants with the practised ease of people who did this every day without expecting trouble.

Eirene and Orestis joined the queue. When their turn came, the guard—a stocky man with a neatly trimmed beard—looked them over.

“Names and purpose of visit?”

“Eirene Aretaios and Orestis Stathis. Research,” she replied.

“Duration?”

“Ongoing. We’ll be visiting regularly.”

“Does being a god’s Chosen grant any privileges here?” Orestis interrupted.

Eirene and the guard both turned to look at him, surprised.

The guard was looking at Orestis, likely expecting him to say something or demonstrate. However, Orestis, calm as ever, simply pointed a finger at her.

Eirene gave him an amused glance. Really?

Orestis shrugged, his expression carrying the faint implication that a certain goddess might as well be useful for something.

Since the guard was waiting, Eirene raised her hand and formed a small sphere of divine power above her palm—nothing dramatic in appearance, but the density she pushed into it was unmistakable. After all, in Nomyra, nearly everyone was devout enough to be able to use some measure of divine power; what set a Chosen apart was the quality and quantity they had access to.

She had no idea what was considered an acceptable margin for a chosen, so she kept pushing until the ambient divine power in the air seemed to lean toward the sphere, drawn by the concentration.

Several people in the queue nearby turned their heads. A woman leaned toward her companion, speaking under her breath. Another pointed in her direction. Even the guard’s demeanour shifted slightly—his professional neutrality warming by a fraction.

The guard nodded and set down his ledger. “No entry fee for Chosen or their immediate companions. And you’ll want to use the Curia gate on the eastern wall from now on—it’s reserved for Chosen, temple officials, and diplomatic staff. No queue. Just present yourself.”

Eirene inclined her head in thanks and stepped through the gate.

“That was convenient,” she said as they passed through. “I wonder what benefits they extend at the inns.”

It would be irrational to completely waive the fees—too much of a loss. But perhaps they would have a suitable discount.

“We should find somewhere nice to stay,” Eirene said, already thinking through the options. She knew a few areas near the river with a great view.

“Why would we do that?” Orestis asked. “We have a house.”

She stopped. Of course. There was no need to pay for accommodation when they already had a place they could return to in three seconds. Despite having access to magics that made distance irrelevant, she was still thinking like everyone else. She would need to fix that.

Leaving every evening and returning every morning was a good option. The only downside would be having to gate outside the city—exit was unrestricted, but gating into the city would require special passes.

“It would save us some money,” she agreed. “We still cannot gate in directly, but access to the Curia gate means we won’t have to wait in line.”

Orestis smiled. “Yes. If only a certain goddess had a temple in the city, her Chosen could gate directly inside the walls instead of walking the extra distance.”

Eleuthera’s voice came through the link almost immediately, warm with amusement: Tell him that you can go anywhere you want as my Chosen. If anyone objects, I’ll step in. As for him, though—he’s on his own.

Eirene relayed the message. Orestis accepted it with the resigned expression of a man who had expected precisely that answer.

They walked through a wide plaza paved in pale stone, already busy with morning foot traffic. The city hadn’t changed much since her last visit—alive, unhurried, and steeped in something sacred that no one here thought to comment on.

Nomyra was built for being outside. Colonnaded streets wide enough for market stalls on both sides and foot traffic down the centre. Painted plaster in warm colours—ochre, terracotta, dusty rose—with stonework details picked out in white. Open-air courtyards visible through archways. Rooftop gardens trailing greenery over balcony edges. The architecture was layered and generous, designed by people who assumed the weather would cooperate and built accordingly.

She glanced at Orestis. Most visitors to a new city showed at least some curiosity—a glance upward at the architecture, a pause at an unfamiliar sight. Orestis showed none. He walked with the steady, unimpressed pace of someone passing through a place that held no surprises.

“Have you been to Nomyra before?” she asked.

“Once or twice. A long time ago.”

She was still adjusting to what his words meant now. Where he was concerned, ‘a long time’ could mean anything from a few years to a few centuries.

“I was referring to your complete lack of traveller curiosity. Does this city not change much in the years to come?”

Orestis scanned the area—a cursory glance at the people and the architecture. “I suppose it does. But all cities feel the same after a while.”

She understood that. Not the specific knowledge—she hadn’t lived long enough for that—but the underlying observation. Beneath the different colours and customs, cities shared a grammar: where the money gathered, where the power sat, where the people who had neither found space to exist. She had noticed those patterns herself, during her brief travels.

As they moved deeper into the city, the streets grew busier. Priests in temple colours moved alongside merchants hauling goods, scholars carrying document cases, children darting between colonnades. At a street-side alcove, a healer worked on an old man’s shoulder, hands glowing with soft light. No one nearby paid the slightest attention.

Then the Divinarium came into view.

Even having seen it before, the sight commanded attention.

The building floated at the centre of the river—and the river was wide here, broad enough that the far bank looked softened by distance. The Divinarium floated in the air in tiers: multiple levels of open-air galleries supported by colonnades, each tier slightly narrower than the one below, stepping upward like a temple complex that had decided gravity was optional.

Arched walkways connected the levels. Scholars were visible on the upper galleries, moving between study alcoves open to the sky. Light passed through the structure freely—there were roofed sections, but much of it was open, designed to let the air and the ambient divine power flow through without obstruction.

No visible support held it above the water. No pillars descended to the riverbed. The structure simply hung there, its reflection shimmering on the surface below, held aloft by divine power whose signature had been deliberately obscured—no single god’s mark identifiable, ensuring no faith could claim precedence over the others.

Four bridges connected it to the banks—two from each side—slender arched structures that also lacked any support structures. They all stood firm in the air, carrying a steady stream of foot traffic in both directions.

“The Divinarium,” Eirene said. “That’s where we start. I have contacts there from my last visit.”

Orestis studied it. If the floating, tiered structure of galleries and colonnades impressed him, his expression gave nothing away.

“Lead the way,” he said.

They crossed the closest bridge and entered the Divinarium proper. Inside, the place smelled of ink, old paper, and the faint mineral scent of the river below. The interior matched the exterior—open galleries, high ceilings, light everywhere. Shelves lined the walls, but the centre of each tier was given over to open study space: tables, benches, and scholars working in focused silence or murmured conversation.

“This is where I first came after receiving Eleuthera’s Blessing, looking for information,” Eirene said, as they walked through the ground-floor gallery. “Not many people knew of her. The details that did exist were often contradictory. It was as if she had deliberately removed any consistent record of herself.”

“Most likely,” Orestis said. “She enjoys being a nuisance, but dislikes being bothered.”

Perks of being a goddess, Eleuthera offered through the link, entirely unrepentant.

Eirene left Orestis browsing the ground-floor stacks—or at least appearing to—and went upstairs to find her contacts.

She and Orestis had already prepared a cover story: someone Orestis knew—a neighbour’s family in Theramon—had a son who’d served in Kallistrate’s army. He’d come home with symptoms the Temple couldn’t explain or treat. Fatigue, aura instability, coordination loss.

Having witnessed the berserker incidents, and fearing their son’s time was running out, the family had reached out through Orestis’s mother, hoping he could help. The story was almost entirely true. The only fabrication was the personal connection.

And, as Orestis put it, he was already known throughout Thermon as a genius researcher—that had been Avra’s doing. It was actually very likely that someone would come forward with such a request. Besides, the underlying need was real enough that the lie barely registered.

Her contacts at the Divinarium remembered her. She described the condition, outlined what the Temple had tried, and asked if anyone in Nomyra was working on similar problems. The conversations were productive—her contacts took the symptoms seriously, asked good questions, and offered referrals to healers and scholars at other institutions.

From the Divinarium, they visited two more locations: a healing temple on the east bank where she’d met a senior practitioner during her previous stay, and an independent scholar who studied aura pathology from a small office near the southern market. Each conversation added more awareness of the problem, more names to consider, and more threads being planted in Nomyra’s healing community.

By the time she returned to Orestis on the ground floor, the information was spreading—which was exactly as intended. If they had left it to the natural course of events—with the Temple trying to suppress it or trying to solve it on their own—the news would not reach Nomyra for several months, at least.

“The cover story worked well,” she said, falling into step beside him as they walked along the river promenade. “Everyone took it seriously. I have referrals to three more practitioners, and my contact at the Divinarium said she’d raise it at their next inter-temple meeting.”

“Good. The wider the awareness, the faster the right person hears about it.”

The right person, in this case, was the future Saintess. With their efforts, the news would travel, and the Saintess would start working on the solution much earlier. And, since she and Orestis were the ones asking for help, it was likely she would reach out to them as well. From there, he would be able to guide the discovery without replacing it.

That was the course of action they both had agreed on: find the Saintess, don’t reveal the cure, and position themselves to help her without replacing her.

Orestis was adamant about not interfering with the discovery. He had seen what she would become; the Saintess would not just cure one illness—she would become a figure of enormous influence in healing. Her reputation, her methods, her students, her future contributions—all of it would stem from that breakthrough being hers. If Orestis handed the cure to someone else, they would solve one problem and lose everything that followed.

He’d framed it as a matter of efficiency: replacing the outcome (the cure) while destroying the system that would produce dozens of future outcomes (the Saintess’s career, influence, and legacy) was a poor trade.

Eirene had also reached the same conclusion, but from a different direction. Stealing the achievement would not just deprive the Saintess of credit—it would deprive her of the growth that would come from the struggle. The Saintess would become who she was because she wrestled with a problem no one else could solve. Take that away, and what remained would be a talented healer who never discovered her own ceiling.

“Did you ever meet her?” Eirene asked. “The Saintess.”

Orestis was quiet for a moment. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I was… distracted at the time.” He paused, then glanced at her. “It was soon after I learned that my parents had been killed.”

The words were simple and direct—offered without embellishment, without reaching for sympathy. A fact, given because she had asked and because he had promised to share.

It made sense now, his hostility toward the Temple. The depth of it—not political, not strategic, but personal. He had seen his parents killed by the Temple before, in another life, and had done everything in his power to prevent it from happening again.

The recall evasion, the carefully manufactured coincidence of his departure, the lengths he’d gone to—she’d recently heard the story from Avra, who’d spoken about it with the quiet pride of a mother who understood exactly what her son had done and why.

Eirene’s own family had been shielded from such things by status and wealth. She was aware of how fortunate that made her.

“I understand,” she said.

He smiled—small, genuine. “It doesn’t matter anymore. They’re both alive and well this time.”

This time. Two words that compressed an entire lifetime of loss and recovery into a single breath.

They walked in silence for a while.

“That’s everyone on my list,” Eirene said eventually. “All my contacts have been reached. The information is spreading.”

“There’s one more channel we can use,” Orestis said.

He stopped and scanned the promenade. His gaze settled on a man loitering near a side street—shifty, poorly dressed, watching the foot traffic with the particular alertness of someone whose livelihood depended on noticing things.

Orestis walked directly toward him.

“Where is the Low Market operating from these days?” he asked.

The man’s eyes narrowed. “Never heard of it.”

Orestis rolled his eyes, then raised his hand and channelled a sliver of profane-aligned divine power to his fingertip, tracing a small circle in the air. The mark hung for a moment, then faded.

“Oh.” The man’s expression shifted—wariness replaced by the cautious pragmatism of someone reclassifying a stranger from potential threat to potential client. “Lower docks. Past the fish market, second alley on the left.”

“Thanks,” Orestis said, and turned back toward Eirene.

The entire exchange had come as a surprise. Not the use of profane power—she knew he could draw from multiple divine sources. It was how casually he’d used it. A social credential, deployed with the same ease as flashing a guild seal. And the man hadn’t even blinked—which meant people using profane power as identification was common enough in certain circles that it warranted no comment.

“The Low Market?” she asked as he rejoined her.

“An information network. Most of the time.”

“Most of the time?”

“I’m sure criminal elements exist in their circles. But the Low Market itself is more of a neutral gathering. They have a poor reputation, mainly because most of their members worship dark-aligned gods.”

She considered that. It made sense. Not all dark gods were evil. It was just that most of those who worshipped them tended to operate outside the law—a matter of the Blessings offered by said gods being more suited to such endeavors.

I know where it is, Eleuthera said through the link. You can take a left from the promenade and cut through the temple district. It’s a good route.

The goddess’s voice carried an undercurrent of anticipation—a barely contained excitement that had nothing to do with dock directions.

Eirene knew that tone. It was the tone Eleuthera used when she was engineering a situation for her own amusement—usually at Orestis’s expense. She wondered if he’d never realised that his reactions only made the goddess want to pester him more. Probably not.

She also probably shouldn’t be helping the goddess with her pranks. But Eirene had to admit that most of it was amusing. And Eleuthera was her patron.

“I know the way. Let’s go through the temple district,” Eirene said.

Orestis shrugged. “Your city.”

They turned into the temple district. The architecture shifted—more ornate, more deliberate. Temples of varying sizes lined the streets, some grand enough to dominate entire blocks, others tucked into narrow plots between larger neighbours. Each one different: different gods, different aesthetics, different traditions sharing the same streets.

Eirene recognised most of them. The Temple of Mending, with its open doors and the faint glow of healing magic within. The Hall of Records, dedicated to a god of memory. A small shrine to a harvest deity, barely larger than a market stall, its altar covered in fresh fruit.

Then they passed the Temple of Proper Passage. Lyse’s temple.

It was an elegant building—pale stone, precise geometry, an air of meticulous order that extended even to the landscaping. The kind of place where every tile was placed with intention.

That was when Orestis stopped.

Eirene took two more steps before she noticed. She turned back. He was standing in the middle of the street, perfectly still, his expression reflecting something close to disbelief.

“Orestis? What is it?”

His lips moved, the words barely above a whisper. “It can’t be.”

She followed the direction of his gaze.

There, lounging against the outer wall was a young man—early twenties, perhaps. Fair-haired, with striking blue eyes visible even from this distance. He had the build of a fighter—broad-shouldered and lean—but his posture suggested no urgency whatsoever. He sat with his legs extended, arms folded across his chest, head tilted back against the stone, basking in the afternoon sun with the boneless ease of someone who had nothing to do and no intention of finding something.

He looked, for all purposes, like a vagrant who had chosen the most architecturally refined wall in the city to lounge against.

Eirene saw nothing remarkable about him—apart from being ridiculously good-looking. Nothing that should have produced the expression currently on Orestis’s face.

“Do you know him?” she asked.

Orestis didn’t answer. Instead, he drew heavily on divine power, wrapping dozens of layers of wards and enchantments around him—more than he ever did during even their most intense spars—before rushing straight for the vagrant.

Suddenly, Eleuthera was standing next to her, shoving a bag of popcorn into Eirene’s hands.

“I had a feeling they knew each other,” the goddess said, then threw a popcorn into her mouth.

Finally, we come to this point. I'd been planning this encounter for months, lol.

For those of you wondering how Eleuthera knows who this is; she first sees him in ch31.5 (a Patreon side chapter—it's just extra context; not required reading).