One by one, as the evening turned to night to midnight, they began leaving.

  First went Tiana, saying that she had drills to lead in the morning and she had to make sure her ‘boys and girls’ didn’t overdo it on the alcohol. Next was Archie, who grumbled something about feeling sleepy for once. Not long after she turned around and saw that Fred was gone, seemingly having disappeared into thin air.

  Afterwards everyone excused themselves and left, although none of them spoke of going to sleep.

  In the end, she was left alone with Ravenspoken.

  With the King of Crows.

  They sat in silence, the only sound in the room being the slow clinking of the man’s spoon inside his teacup – because yes, they’d been served tea and sweetcakes in the end.

  Finally, he spoke: “I never thought I’d have the honor of meeting an arachne.”

  A chuckle escaped her lips, low and bitter: “Really? I’ve met a lot of people who’d disagree with you.”

  He shrugged, lifting his spoon and hitting it against the rim of the cup gently to get the last drops of tea off: “Can’t say you’re wrong. But I am me, and they are them. And I’m honored.”

  There was no attempt at excusing those people, no desire to console her, just a mere will to distinguish himself from the others. It was as if he was saying ‘I’m different, I’m better’. He seemed to be a better person than most, at least if the people he surrounded himself with were any indication: like attracts like and all that.

  Still, she hadn’t really interacted with him, for all that she’d felt his happiness and calm throughout the whole dinner, emanating from him as if it had been an aura, so she was certain the connection between these people was genuine.

  So she decided to do something… risky. And asked an uncomfortable question: “What happened to your hands?”

  The [King] didn’t flinch, nor look uncomfortable. Instead he set down his spoon and took a long, slow, sip from his cup, savoring every drop.

  He put it down, the clack of ceramic against ceramic so loud in the empty, silent, room, and looked at his scarred hands. A small, bitter, smile crept to his lips, and she could feel a spark of hatred form, quickly drowned by a flood of calm. He had long since accepted what had happened to him, apparently.

  “As you’ve probably already found out, I wasn’t always a [King].”

  Isse nodded, getting ready for a long winded explanation: “Yes, I heard you were a [Storyteller] before. Not exactly a safe job if you don’t have a license, or so Albert said.”

  A pinch of amusement entered the man’s calm, an eyebrow quirking upwards: “‘Was’ a [Storyteller]? What, you think I stopped? I still find the time to go tell my tales to my people. Only them, sadly, but history has a habit of repeating itself and someone else like me will come around sooner or later.”

  History has a habit of repeating itself, repeated – ha, repeated-repeated – Siidi in the back of her mind. For some reason those words seemed to resonate with the old soul.

  “Anyways, a long, long time ago, even before I was a [Storyteller], I was a [Sorcerer].”

  Isse’s eyebrow shot up into her hairline. In the blink of an eye she changed her perspective, seeing the world as strings and mana. The man in front of her was practically cocooned in threads, but she quickly dismissed those, instead looking deeper, towards his so –

  “No need to do that,” his voice broke her concentration.

  “I know. I don’t have any mana in me. Or, at least, I have just as much as the ambient mana around me,” there was a hint of self deprecation and humor mixed in those words, as if it was his fault that he was so mundane in that aspect.

  “I used to have a pretty sizable Mana Pool back in the day, you have to if you want to be a [Sorcerer].”

  Another raised eyebrow on the arachne’s side, another question wishing to be answered: “Why?”

  The [King] looked at her with a raised eyebrow of his own, although his curiosity was tinted by surprise: “You don’t know?”

  “My lessons on magic were centered around [Mages] and the way they work. As far as I know a [Sorcerer] is the same thing with a different name, although, seeing your reaction, I may be wrong?”

  He nodded: “Well, color me surprised. A [Mage] that doesn’t look down on a [Sorcerer]. In a way, we’re two sides of the same coin. The main difference lies in how we approach magic: [Mages] are studious, they learn and create patterns and through those they bend the world to their will. It is, in a way, gentle. Then there’s us [Sorcerers]: we don’t care about any of that. We take the Mana, bitch slap it on what we’re working with, and with sheer force of will we make it do what we want to do. It is, by my own admission, far more inelegant and definitely more taxing, but we’re a lot less limited than [Mages] in what we can do.”

  A chuckle escaped his lips at the end: “Well, I say we, but I’m no [Sorcerer]. Not anymore.”

  I remember what the World Shapers could do, started Siidi, so either what he’s saying is bullshit, or I fear what a truly powerful sorcerer could actually do.

  He sighed then – interrupting that line of thought –, looking down at his hands, turning them this way and that. She noticed only then how crooked the fingers were, as if someone had taken a hammer to the hands and the bones had fixed themselves wrong.

  “To answer your first question, a long time ago I worked for someone powerful and dangerous. One day, I displeased them greatly, and they did… this –” he motioned first at one of his hands, then at his chest “ – to punish me. Sealed my mana away, broke my hands, skinned them. It… it was not pleasant.”

  “Being reductive, aren’t we?” the gentle sarcasm felt like friendly ribbing as it came out of her mouth. She couldn’t contain herself and, truth be told, it felt good to not care about such things. And this place felt safe enough for it.

  “Yes, well, I don’t think describing in minute detail the agony of having your skin peeled off your fingers in strips while someone also powders your bones with a blacksmith’s hammer is an appropriate topic of discussion for such a fine evening.”

  A crow nearby cawed in agreement, making Isse jump in place as she hadn’t noticed it coming close.

  Now that she looked at it, the room was rapidly filling up with the black animals.

  And, when next she looked at Ravenspoken, she saw a familiar crow sitting on his shoulder: Huginn. The talking crow… maybe. If she hadn’t hallucinated him talking to her.

  “That crow is Huginn, right?” she asked. She recognized his white feathers.

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  “He is,” answered Ravenspoken, nodding his head.

  “I am truly delighted that you recognize my illustrious personage, milady Issekina. It truly warms my heart and has made my day that much better.”

  Isse’s eyes widened and she pointed a finger at the damned bird, shouting: “SO YOU CAN TALK! I thought I’d gone insane when you started saying only ‘I want a cracker’!”

  The crow tilted his little head to the side and, even though she couldn’t tell, she was certain that he was smiling smugly: “In my defense, my fine lady, I did indeed desire that absolutely delightful cracker you fed me.”

  Isse was ready to shout at the bird for making her feel like she’d gone insane, but then Ravenspoken raised his hand, stopping her with a glance. His hand then rose higher and scritched Huginn under the chin: “I’m sorry for the way my companion acted, but he doesn’t like to talk to just anyone. He and his used to speak only to me and Mr Henricks. The others think they’re just ‘normal birds’ even now, that only I can speak to them through a Skill.”

  He smiled at her: “So, consider yourself special.”

  She huffed, shaking her head: “I’ve long since found out that being special isn’t such a blessing.”

  Huginn made a long, crowing, sound that reminded her a lot of laughter, before saying: “And that is one of the reasons we speak to you, my lady! Not merely because you are one of the spider folk, but also because thou hast seen and been through much.”

  Isse wanted to glare at the bird, but she couldn’t deny the truth of that statement.

  “So,” she asked, looking back at the man, “What now?”

  Ravenspoken looked thoughtful for a while, until he shrugged: “Now, well, it’s up to you.”

  “Up to me? Just like that?”

  “Yes. That’s one of the core principles of this kingdom: it’s all up to you. You could try your hand at something new, or you could train one of your Classes, or even attempt to evolve it in some strange fashion. We can help provide the right challenges for that.”

  He looked down at his cup, taking it in his hands: “Or you could just rest. You could spend your days relaxing, thinking about nothing and worrying even less. Certainly none of us would judge you for it, we all did just that for a while after we settled down.”

  A sip, slow and surprisingly loud in the ensuing silence, followed by more words. She would’ve liked to call them meaningless, mere platitudes that would shatter in the face of reality, and yet… she also wanted to believe them.

  “Just know this: no matter what, as long as you’re here, you’ll be safe. You, and your kids.”

  Siidi had told her to try and let go of her worries.

  And she wanted to do that so much. She wanted to just relax, to forget her fear and live. But how could she? In all the meanings one could assign to that simple question. How could she relax? In what manner? And, at the same time, how could she allow herself to relax? Did she have the right to that? To calm and peace? Every time she’d thought that she had gained just that the world had come around to shatter her newfound reality. So was it even worth it?

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said Ravenspoken.

  Huginn had sat down on his shoulder, his eyes half lidded as he looked at her, waiting for something.

  “It’s the same question we’ve all asked ourselves. ‘How do we stop worrying?’”

  His cup clinked as he put it down, the sound reverberating in the room, an echo, a memory of a similar conversation having happened five more times, or maybe even more, maybe for every single citizen of this strange fortress city-state. She thought she could see it, too: a goblin and this man, sitting in a log cabin; Fred, in a bar, sitting on a comfortable chair, looking at his teacup as if the leaves inside could’ve told him what to do next; Nivera, trying to understand the nuances of drinking tea in the company of others while also trying not to get offended on behalf of the tea leaves, all of this while sitting in front of a blanket on the jungle floor;

  Henricks, standing at the entrance to a dungeon in the mountains, looking at the teacup with an indecipherable expression; Tiana, sitting in a tent, throwing back the contents of her cup as if she was drinking a shot of something strong.

  She blinked, and suddenly those visions were gone. Looking up, Ravenspoken’s expression didn’t seem to have changed at all, and yet she was certain he’d just done something.

  “Let me give you the answer I learned a long time ago.”

  He shuffled around in his seat, putting his elbows on his knees while crossing his arms. In that moment, with his spine bent forwards, his face as serious as a soldier’s, his ravaged hands clasped in front of him, he looked a decade older, and ten times as regal.

  This is what a true [King] should look like, they both thought at the same time.

  “It’s impossible. You can, and you won’t, stop. Not after everything you’ve been through. You will always flinch at the slightest sound that reminds you of those who hurt you; you will always find comfort only in those things that you make for yourself; you will always, no matter what, fear that the end will come. It is natural, and trying to force someone to forgive and forget would be the greatest mistake I could ever make.

  “But, you can move on. You can walk through life as you are, carrying your burdens and chains, learning to live with them, growing stronger thanks to them. It is a sad truth of this world that the only way to learn anything truly meaningful one must suffer: you’ve suffered, now, it’s time to learn from that.

  “The best thing you can do, in my opinion, is to make something out of the wounds the world inflicted upon you. Create something to make your life better. In short, be selfish! This kingdom was built upon selfishness. Archie wanted to create a place where he could feel safe, and so this city was born; Fred wanted to keep doing his job, but be kind about it, and so he became a [Minister]; Nivera saw the jungles around her grow corrupted with the blood of those who came to destroy her, she wanted to make something beautiful, and now look at her garden.

  “They were all selfish, the fact that their selfishness helped other people is an added bonus. So, this is my final tip for you: be selfish. Think about yourself. And then, if you want, think about how what you desire can help those you care about.”

  He settled back down, relaxing into a more comfortable position.

  Huginn spoke next, his voice for once low, serious even: “Good words, lad. Good words. The right ones.”

  A small smile creased Ravenspoken’s lips: “I learned from the best.”

  Isse didn’t hear that interaction. Instead she played and replayed the words she’d just heard, Siidi’s soul hugging her from the inside, making her feel warm and comfortable.

  We can be selfish, sister. Just a bit.

  Yes, she had to think about the children. They’d hatch soon.

  Nope, not just them. They’re their own kind of selfishness. No, I meant something for you and you alone. Something that will be yours only.

  But what did she have already that she could want to make greater? Well, she had her magic, which she hadn’t had a chance to train well ever since… ever since Grandmother’s death. And she still wanted to learn to play her violin, both because she wished to create beautiful melodies and because she was certain that the Relic still held within itself some grand, hidden, power.

  Power…

  “What if I wanted power? Pure, unadulterated, power,” she asked aloud without even realizing.

  Ravenspoken looked up at her, the finger he’d been using to scritch Huginn under his chin stopping – to the crow’s great sadness.

  “Power is easy to give, Issekina –”

  “Please… Isse is fine.”

  He nodded: “Isse then. As I said, power is easy to give, because it doesn’t mean anything. It all depends on what kind of power you desire. Do you wish to be able to punch someone’s heart out in a single strike? Or perhaps you wish to become a World Shaper, like the arachne who came before you? Or maybe you want something less tangible?”

  Without thinking, she answered: “All of it. I want the power to keep what is mine safe, power enough that the entire world will give me one look and think ‘It’s not worth it, no matter how I think about it’.”

  The [Storyteller] turned [King], who was, in truth, quite old now, smiled, the words ‘the exuberance of youth’ coming to mind: “You desire much. But, I guess, I did say you had to be selfish. Very well. If it is power you wish for, then I will help you get it.”

  He turned towards the crow on his shoulder: “And you’ll have to help. I don’t know anything about their magic after all.”

  Huginn crowed, a strangely joyous sound this time around.

  “Now people? People I understand well, so I’ll be the one helping you with that. The others will join in their own ways.”

  He looked her over, his eyes settling for a few moments on her spider half, then rising higher, towards her face, then higher still, settling over her hair.

  “Tell me, have you ever considered becoming a [Princess]?”