The hard ropes of the tent didn't slide in Elizeus' calloused hands as he pulled the giant kitchen tent into place. Altin was beside him, pulling hard against the ropes. His little brother enjoyed helping out around camp, though it was not truly required of him yet. Once this tent was up, they could start on pitching their own tent, and then finally go to sleep after the tiring journey and shock of finding the bones of their queen. Not to mention the worry he'd felt at seeing Asena like that.

Not that Elizeus would ever mention it. Emotions made things messy and feelings were like chinks in armor that left the wearer vulnerable to attack. Elizeus would only allow himself one gap in his armour and that was Altin. There was no room for anything else, too many chinks meant that Elizeus ran the risk of not being around to protect Altin. His brother was the only reason he was still alive; Elizeus was fairly certain that without Altin needing him, he would have let himself die or taken his own life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Elizeus lay awake, staring at the folds in the fabric of his and Altin's tent, playing over the day's events in his head. So interesting how Daesyn had made a saint. They were all from times of old, and Elizeus hadn't considered that they had to be made saints in the first place.

It led him to wonder what other things could be made too. Elizeus sat up and slinked out of the tent--a feat harder than it seemed due to his height and bulk--trying to avoid waking the brother he'd cared for nearly nine years.

Elizeus didn't bother knocking before throwing the flaps of Daesyn's tent open and ducking inside. The older man was seated at his writing desk, scribbling something. In addition to being the camp priest and wise old sage, Daesyn was also the camp's mail keeper and as such had a veritable menagerie of messenger birds inside his tent.

They squawked and cawed as Elizeus walked over the old man. At nearly eighty three, Daesyn's black hair had already turned to a silvery gray and his brown skin had turned paper-thin, dotted with liver spots.

"Hello," He said, chipper for the late hour, but then again the priest was habitually in a good mood. "What can I do you for, Elizeus?"

Elizeus only craned his head to see what Daesyn was writing, he turned the paper so Elizeus could better see. They weren't words at all, but designs for a large domed structure. At the top of the plans in Daesyn's elegant looping hand were the words "Chapel of the Saintess Queen".

"All the other Saints have chapels." He said, almost giddily. He patted a stack of wax-sealed letters to the right of him. There were so many that the stack was nearly tipping over. "And once these go out, we'll need one."

Elizeus picked one up and broke the white wax seal that was in the shape of a feather. Daesyn had painted the tip of it gold. He was definitely a clever man. Symbols held great power.

The letter was addressed to the Keeper of the Chapel of Saintess Blyana, Patron of Strength. Elizeus could only guess that the rest were to the other Keepers of chapels.

"I addressed them to the leaders of all the known caravans too." Daesyn added, he had resumed drawing and marking points on the chapel. He must have been tired, his hand must hurt from writing so many letters, but he looked as fresh as morning dew.

Elizeus nodded and began reading.

Dearest Keeper of the Lady Blyana,

I write to you as an awe stricken man. I have found the Chapel of Photine, Lady Protector of the Pregnant and Keeper of Lost Children. It is a humble structure and appears to be made from the grove of oaks that mark her martyrdom, almost as if the forest had made it itself. I can only surmise that the elves of Saintess Vanadey erected it.

Keeper, you can imagine my surprise, I had not known that a chapel had been made, nor did I know that Our Lady--the late Queen Photine--had been christened a Saintess. Inside the Chapel lies the bones of Our Saintess Queen. I implore you to come and see the holy sight for yourself; you too will be struck by the sight of it.

I believe our Saintess if sending us a sign, though a humble man such as I cannot decipher such a divine thing.

--A simple man begs for your aid.

There were coordinates to their spot enclosed. Elizeus looked up at Daesyn, eyes narrowed. "There are a few problems with this."

That was an understatement, there were a million things wrong with the letter. There was no chapel. No divine message. Daesyn knew about the new Saintess, he'd been the one to christen her.

Daesyn waved him off with a swipe of his pen through the air. "You needn't worry, son. I've got it all planned out." He tapped his pen against his temple. "We're starting building on the chapel tomorrow.'

Elizeus started. "What?" The old man had to be going crazy.

Daesyn scoffed. "Think about it, boy. Think! This," he tapped the plans for the chapel. "Is how we're going to end this whole mess." At Elizeus' blank look, he explained. "We, this caravan, fight against warlords and their hordes. We occasionally take out entire hordes. But to what goal, to what avail? Where one horde member dies, another takes up his gun. Where one warlord is taken out, another rises. It is a cycle, a vicious, unending, redundant cycle." His words were calm, but there was a gleam in his eyes, like moonlight reflecting off a sharpened blade. "It's rather like treating the symptoms of a tumor instead of cutting it out and finishing the war."

"And you're finishing a war?"

"No," Daesyn smiled. "I'm beginning it. We've been fighting skirmishes. War has not yet been declared." His smile turned wistful. "I want Vanya to never have to worry about being in one place for too long, or about roving groups of men. I want my granddaughter to be able to rest easy and know that all is well. This life isn't living, it's merely surviving, existing and I want my Vanya and any children she might have to be able to live as I did before all of this."

The old priest was right, Elizeus realized with a start. They were always going to be more warlords and more hordes for them to fight. They'd never truly be safe if they kept on like this.

Altin would never be safe, he would never live. Altin had been just three years old when the country had gone to hell. The realization struck Elizeus like a bullet to the heart: Altin had never known anything different than this existence; he had never lived, only survived.

'Think' Daesyn had said. He was trying to end this by starting a war. It was as if the sun was rising, the night turning to dawn and Elizeus could finally see. "You're making Queen Photine a martyr to rally behind." He drawled finally and the old man nodded, a small smile began to spread across his lips.

And Elizeus smiled too, the white of his teeth standing out against the dark of his skin. It wasn't a happy kind of smile, but the cunning grin of a fox. "There's something we need to add."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Elizeus' hand cramped from rewriting all of Daesyn's letters, his eyelids were heavy from the night without sleep, but he watched as birds flew across the sky, letters tied to their feet. There were still a few left in Daesyn's tent, their letters carefully tucked away and waiting. Those ones were to people nearby who, if sent now, would arrive too soon and find the Chapel of the Saintess Queen (though it now bore a different name thanks to Elizeus) still in construction.

At breakfast, Daesyn had told the camp some parts of the plan, mostly about the chapel and how they would attempt to gather people into their ranks to end the chaos of Astos once and for all. At the current moment, his squad--save Asena who was resting in the med tent after her attack yesterday--was cutting down trees from the outskirts of the forest for the wood they'd need for the chapel. Elizeus himself was trying to put the part of the plan that had been his idea into motion. It began with talking to Isolde.