Just a few days after Head Confessor Asli left her position in the Temple Priestesshood we heard reports that she was taking her message to the entire city. And she damn well knew whom to address it. Not the fat, rich merchants or the lazy nobles, but the less fortunate masses, the ones that felt the brunt of the Anchlesian occupation’s aftermath the hardest. They were ripe ears and hearts for the sort of things she said.

“Our Sis-” The young Confessor stopped to correct herself. “I mean… our former Sister has said, and I quote: ‘your suffering is proof that the Gods no longer favor Their Priestesses, who had abandoned their duties to Them and Ysle, only to yield to the Compact’s every whim! If that wasn’t bad enough, They had now turned their backs to Princess Shjasta as well, a child my former Sisters chose to better suit their needs!’.”

That Asli bitch certainly wasted no time flinging shit at us!

“Last night there was a commotion in the city’s Southern district,” the Confessor continued with her report. “A hundred people forced their way into the local Hospice, forcing the Healers to tend to their sick. The few Temple guards in the site were overwhelmed and had to wait for City guard reinforcements to control the situation.”

“By the Gods! Is Asli starting a revolt against us?” Old lady Zafira shook her head in disbelief. She placed her left hand over her temple as she lowered her head and frowned. “These tidings are making my headache worse!” She protested.

“Thank you for keeping us updated, Sister. Stay close to Asli’s activities, but be very discreet. We don’t know how the people will react if they find a Temple Confessor snooping around her gatherings,” Ankita, the new Head Confessor, instructed her subordinate.

The young Confessor nodded and bowed before leaving us. The three Emissaries listened to everything with concern, even going so far as to ask Axios, the Earl’s Magus, to use one of his fancy magic tricks to contact one of his peers in Yeonbrooke and transmit the news.

“This is bad,” Head Healer Nadya commented. “They think we are to blame for Ysle's problems.”

“Are we not, Sister?” the Head Fire-keeper asked. “Asli might have a point; we have conducted our affairs as if the occupation never happened. Before that most people had jobs. But now many can’t afford food, let alone healing!”

“Running the Hospices is quite expensive!” Nadya said in her Order’s defense. “We call upon the Divine Light to heal, sure, but we still need first aid supplies, as well as alchemical ingredients and potions for those few ills that healing magic alone cannot fix!”

I folded my arms and looked the other way around to appear uninterested. “You can always charge more to those that have more to spare, you know?”

“We could if we wish to hear daily complaints from the merchants about how ‘the Priestesses are going to ruin us’!” The Head Healer allowed herself a chuckle.

“So what? Let them bastards cry!” I retorted while turning my head towards Nadya. “Their concept of ‘ruin’ is going to bed with fewer coins in their pockets. They’ll still have their hearty breakfasts come next morning!”

“I think my Champion is right,” Shjasta said. “Maybe just a few extra Gold and they won’t notice it at all... “

“The point is, if you think hard and long enough about your problems, a-” the Old Mentoress coughed several times before continuing. “A solution might come up eventually. But inciting riots and harassing the Priestesses won’t solve anything at all!”

“With all due respect, Mother Zafira, I’m afraid Asli isn’t looking for a solution to Ysle’s problems.” Earl Lorrick intervened. “She’s looking to overthrow you by turning your people against you.”

“Well, no shit, Lord Obvious!” I chuckled.

The Earl frowned but didn’t complain; Shjasta however buried her elbow on my side while glaring at me sideways. "I mean... that is quite clear, Your Excellence," I rolled my eyes.

Due to the increasing tension on the streets the City guard, already spread thin, had to waste time cracking down on the protesters rather than the criminals; reports of violent crime were on the rise. This in turn caused the number of caravans entering Ysle to go down, as no merchant would risk their wares in an unstable place, causing shortages of certain goods. Food wasn’t much of an issue as the farms outside the city, watered by the aqueduct coming down the Temple Hill, produced most of what Ysleans ate.

But when a week later hungry looters raided the farms and set several granaries ablaze, we knew that food would soon become scarce, and this would agitate the people further.

It all came to a head just a fortnight after, when the Princess and her advisors had no choice but to order food rationing. In a city where most people skipped one or even two meals a day, this was hitting rock bottom; food prices spiraled out of control. So when news broke that a huge mob looted the Grand Bazaar, Ysle’s biggest marketplace, and that the ensuing confrontation with the City guard left more than a hundred dead and wounded as well as property damage, no one was really surprised.

Shjasta, however, was devastated by this. She wept when informed that among the dead and wounded were many children.

“I need to go and see it all for myself,” she said suddenly after putting herself back together. “It’s my responsibility as Princess to show our people that I’m with them, no matter what Asli says!”

“Your Highness, with all due respect, I strongly advise against that,” The Captain of the City Guard said. “The situation outside is tense. The people had taken to heart the former Head Confessor’s message. If you go out now you might be the target of their anger, and even with the Temple guards at your side, we can’t guarantee your safety outside the Temple Complex.”

“That’s even more reason for me to go out, Captain,” Shjasta insisted. “If I cower and hide, it'll give even more weight to Asli’s message.”

I’ll be damned! Shjasta turned out to have more guts than I imagined! She’s still quite naive about the harsh realities of life, not to mention a huge softie deep inside, but the events of the last weeks had somehow strengthened her resolve.

Maybe if the Priestesses had let her grow up a bit more before putting the Princess’ tiara on her brow, she might have turned out to be a good leader for her people. They picked her up way too soon!

But Shjasta had just become the scapegoat for all of Ysle’s woes, and no matter how well-intended her actions might be, her people wouldn't greet her warmly. I wasn't looking forward to facing a hundred angry, hungry people on her behalf for sure!

In any case, neither the Captain of the Guard nor the Temple’s bigwigs managed to dissuade her from going out and visit the looted Bazaar, so they had no choice but to provide the best possible protection. And as her Champion, I had to be right at her side, my hand glued to my sword’s hilt.

As soon as all preparations were complete we left the Temple Complex. The Guard Captain insisted on using a closed carriage for extra safety. And while I agreed with the idea, I also thought that having the Princess sitting in such a coach might actually work against her, making her look even more distant and disdainful of her people.

As the four horses attached to the carriage pulled it effortlessly across the streets, the people gathered at its passing, more out of curiosity than a desire to greet their ruler. A heavy escort of both Temple and City guards prevented anyone from getting too close.

I noticed that, while a few people did salute the Princess as we passed, they weren’t as effusive as during the Presentation ceremony. That was only about six moons ago, but felt like a fucking lifetime had already passed! The atmosphere in the city had changed.

As we feared the majority of the people showed clear signs of displeasure at our passing. And as I feared, being in the relative safety and isolation of the carriage, surrounded by heavily armed guards, only made us look worse in their eyes.

“Look at that… the City is bursting at the seams… and what does our Princess do? She goes out on a tour as if nothing’s happening!”

We heard several comments like that, and some even worse, as we got closer to the marketplace.

The Bazaar was located near the city’s center, right next to where the main aqueduct coming from the Temple Complex split into three lesser ones. The place looked like a damned warzone, with broken and burned down stalls and wares scattered around. People were still taking a look inside the abandoned crates and barrels to see if anything useful was spared the looters’ wrath. The mood around the place was the foulest by far.

This was gonna be one hell of a cheer-up visit!

“Are you sure you wanna go out? These people look like they will come to you, not precisely to greet us with open arms!” I said with concern. “I won’t think any less of you if you decide to leave now. Hell, even I wouldn’t want to be near this place right now!”

“Thank you for your concern, Wraith… But I’m going out,” Shjasta replied more decidedly than before.

“Besides, as long as my Champion is close, there’s nothing to be afraid of!” She added with a candid smile.

I rolled my eyes and shrugged. “Because the Gods chose me, right?” I groaned.

“Well… there’s that, yes!” She giggled. “But also because, while you are sometimes insufferable and often rude, I’ve seen you fighting in the Arena, and later when you escorted me out of the Temple after the Ceremony. You are a very skilled fighter!”

“Gee, thanks, Princess!” I exclaimed with sarcasm. “Hope I can fight as well against a thousand angry people!”

The carriage door opened and I stepped out first, Shjasta following me closely behind. The guards forced everyone to stand back and let us pass through. As we walked around the ravaged marketplace, the Princess’ face became burdened with great grief. She felt this all very personally.

“Gods… This reminds me of the occupation days. You could see the smoke rising from the ruined buildings from atop the Spire. You could even smell the blood! the Ravens used the Atrium as public execution grounds; at least one person was killed every day, and those monsters didn’t even bother to wash the gore away…”

“You lived in the Spire of the Princess then?” I suddenly recalled that in all this time being her Champion, I haven't even bothered to ask Shjasta about her own life!

“You didn’t know?” The Princess asked back, not less surprised. “I am the daughter of the late Princess Jaaha, my predecessor. Her Champion, Shiraz, was my father.”

I couldn't avoid smirking, even in our current situation. “So all those stories about the Princess and her Champion being intimate are-”

“Simply not gonna happen!” She interrupted me quite emphatically before adding, “besides, we have more important things to attend to right now.”

Shjasta motioned to the people that started gathering around us. The guards used their swords and halberds to keep them at bay, but with each passing second they pushed them back more violently.

“Have you come to gloat over the disaster you have caused because of your impiety, Princess?” One of the angry persons yelled.

“The Gods are punishing us all because you are mismanaging Their City!”

“She even has the Compact’s lapdogs as advisors in her palace, doing the Triumvirs’ bidding!”

“Please, please!” Shjasta exclaimed at the top of her lungs to make herself heard over the growing sea of insults hurled at her. “I know you are upset and angry at what’s happened around the city these last weeks. Gods know I feel the same way. You've heard many things about me and the Priestesses, and the reasons we have to support the Compact. And yet I have come here today to you, to share your grief and pain. Dark times are coming, but now more than ever we need to stand united!”

But her words fell on deaf ears; if anything, they only served to further infuriate the people surrounding us and our guards.

“What we need is that you step down and let a more capable person rule Ysle!”

“Who chose you, anyway? The same corrupt Priestesses that bowed to the Compact’s wishes!”

“Lady Asli is right… she’s unworthy of being our Princess!”

And just like that, the pent-up rage of the people boiled and exploded. They pushed harder at the guards, opening a small breach in their perimeter. The guards had weapons, of course, and didn’t hesitate to use them to gravely wound a few of the aggressors. But they were only a couple dozen against hundreds of raging people, and soon they overwhelmed our defenders.

“Let’s get the hell outta here before they cut our escape route off!” I said to Shjasta as I took my sword out of its scabbard.

“Don’t let her escape!”

The angry horde roared as they started to pour through the breached defenses. Everything happened so god-damned fast! I had no choice but to dispatch a few of them to make our way through. We almost made it to the carriage when two men grabbed Shjasta's left wrist, pulling her away from me.

“Wraith!” She yelled, her eyes wide open in fear. “Help me!”

I yelled, jumping at one of her captors and slashing his forearm. The man let Shjasta go as he held his wounded arm and receded. The other one tried to use all of his strength to pull the Princess towards him, but was stopped by one of the Temple guards, forcing him to release her.

“Your Highness, run!” She exclaimed before she was overtaken by the rabid people. She tried to get up but the pressure was too much, and she was washed away by the human tide.

The bastards trampled her to death as they got closer to us, but her sacrifice gave us enough time to get back to the carriage. I took Shjasta’s hand and pulled her closer to me.

“Let’s go, now!” I bellowed as I pushed her into the coach.

But before I had a chance to slip inside the carriage I was forced to deal with three rabid bastards. I kicked them away before dragging my ass in, closing the door at the same time the driver whipped the horses. The animals neighed loudly as they went galloping straight.

Several of the protesters, unable to reason anymore, put themselves in front of the carriage to stop it. The sounds their bones made when the horses trampled them and the coach’s wheels ran over what remained was enough to make Shjasta retch, covering her mouth with her hands to avoid throwing up.

“Oh, Gods! No!” She whimpered as tears started to flow down her cheeks. “I-”

I placed a hand over her shoulder. “You did what you could, but they're too poisoned to listen,” I said.

That god-damned Asli bitch sure did a good one rousing them!

As the coach rushed through the streets and left the raging mob behind I closed my eyes and sighed in relief. I opened them back when I felt Shjasta's slender arms surrounding my torso, her head pressing against my chest.

"Twice you've come to my aid, Champion," she whispered. "Thank you."

I hesitated to place my hand over her back, not wanting her to misinterpret my gesture. But when I finally did it her body relaxed almost instantly.

"Just doing my job," I murmured.