“Service… for pilgrims?” Shelika’s brows knit, her voice clouded with doubt as she eyed the bartender behind the counter. His gaze weighed her figure, and irritation rose first. “What exactly do you mean by ‘service’?”
The barkeep wore a cleric’s stole too, a businesslike smile masking a thin, hard glint.
“Exactly what you think,” he said.
He flicked a look toward the inner hall— or the bar’s back room— a wordless nudge of the eyes.
Shelika turned and glanced down the bar.
A group of male pilgrims drank, accompanied by several female acolytes. At a glance, it looked ordinary.
Looking closer, the acolytes dressed to provoke, poses teasing, and the drinkers savored every move.
Seeing she’d seen, the barkeep smiled, all salesman warmth. “With a body like yours, miss— and that face— do what they do, and you’d be the headliner.”
Shelika’s brows tightened. Fresh color on her cheeks, refusal writ clear.
She wanted coin, and she wanted information. But not at the price of her dignity.
Resolved, she cut him a cold look and turned away. “No matter the pay, I refuse. Goodbye.”
The sudden no left him scrambling. “Eh— miss? Miss?!”
He’d cast her in a role— desperate, constrained— without a thought in his head.
Shelika walked straight out of the Temple of the God of Wine.
Outside, she glanced back at the dim entry corridor. A breath eased from her chest. “Whew… good thing they didn’t chase me.”
She had worried. His voice had spiked as she left. For a heartbeat she pictured a dozen black-clad bruisers, grabbing her if she refused.
She’d overthought it. The rules had her back. Any servitor of the Earth Mother falls under the strict oversight of the Earth Mother Grand Hall. They can’t force conversions, and they can’t demand tribute from the penniless.
To keep the empire steady, the Hall runs faith with order and hard lines. Not like the Light Deity’s church in the Heavenly Spirit Empire— they demand everyone bow to their god and his servitor gods, force tithes, and brand any faith outside their system as heresy.
Even so, the Earth Mother’s side isn’t all warm soil and good harvests. Some of her servitor gods are truly vile.
From what Shelika knows, one pillar among the Earth Mother’s ten direct servitors— the Deity of Hidden Desires, who governs the cravings in a person’s heart— by Nordland’s public morals, that god is vicious to the core.
Its evil lies in the office itself: it stirs and steers the darkness inside human desire.
Unloved by common folk, yet embraced by the Dark Spirit Empire’s military— the Shadowspirit Legion, to be exact.
They revere it and lay that power on prisoners of war in a rite called apostolic conversion, turning them into Night Disciples.
Of course, the Deity of Hidden Desires isn’t the only one who can craft Night Disciples. Many servitor gods, even the Earth Mother herself, can do so directly.
By then the bright moon had climbed high. The five-colored divine glow, dim at dusk, began to blaze across the night.
Shelika, of the Dark Blood Clan, stood in that light and felt her body thrum with life.
Soon the surge felt familiar. Her thoughts settled.
“Where do I work next?”
She walked as she weighed it, checking several temples in the entertainment quarter— lively spots fit for a job and for gathering information.
Every stop disappointed her. She kept defaulting to Fulin’s past-life lens— that of a model citizen.
In that role, these places offered tidy jobs— bartender, server, bouncer— paid work where a person could listen and learn.
But she wasn’t that person tonight. She was Shelika— a Dark Blood beauty with arresting looks. Even among the Blood Clan’s sea of stunners, her face and figure were top shelf.
No stranger looked at her with a normal gaze.
That “peerless beauty” tag had become her biggest obstacle to honest work in the Holy City.
In the entertainment quarter, priests courting devotees hardly missed a chance to push her toward selling charm.
It troubled her.
Three hours slid by. Deep night arrived.
She gazed at the street, lush with neon life even at midnight, and sighed. “Sigh… time to try a different place.”
Life’s tough. Even a bloodborn sighs.
If the entertainment quarter was a thicket of bawdy houses, the business street would be more proper.
The Holy City’s business street gathers specialty shops, restaurants, and banks. The central exchange sits there too.
Shelika refused to believe she couldn’t find work there.
She was already in the outer district. The business street was close— just a block away. The map showed a shortcut through the alley ahead.
She followed the map and stepped into the narrow lane.
At once, a sour stink coated the air.
Not the filth of rot— more like bodies unwashed for months. Nasty all the same.
She caught the smell and finally noticed them— a dozen pilgrims in grimy clothes, huddled in the alley’s corners, shelters patched from broken cardboard.
They heard her steps and stared out from their boxes, eyes wary.
“So even the Holy City has beggars…” she muttered as she walked.
Everywhere breeds distance between rich and poor. Temples fat with incense drip wealth, yet these pitiful pilgrims can’t secure three meals.
To Shelika, the fault sits with them too. They could have lived decently elsewhere, yet they sold it all to come here.
Even if the gods are real, don’t they know religion’s a game for the rich? Why beg for divine relief instead of earning with your own hands?
She spared them a helpless glance and dropped a few rupees. She didn’t stay to watch them fight over the coins, but slipped through the alley at a quick pace.
She left the ill-omened lane behind. The scene brightened again— back to a busy boulevard under a five-colored sky, jeweled with lamps, just as before.
