Chapter 222: Chapter 222

The man’s eyes twitched and glanced every which way. But then…he stopped, looked Belissar in the eye, and then turned his gaze down with a heavy sigh.

“…it matters not. My life is over, I will not end it with yet another failure. Kill me if you must.”

Belissar glared at the man but he refused to raise his head anymore. Belissar turned to the young man.

“Who is he, by the way? Why did you bring an old man like that with you?”

The young man rubbed his chin.

“He’s an augur. I don’t fully get it but they’re supposed to divine the will of the gods, especially regarding Towers? I’m not sure how but he was the one who figured out where to go. Our…commander claimed a god spoke to the augur and told us where to go.”

Belissar blinked at that.

“A…god led you here?”

Belissar frowned. If the gods were getting involved…then the situation could be worse than he thought. He had thought the Tower Lords had lied about the gods disproving of peasants and beastkin after he was blessed by the God of Bees…but now a god had led the Tower Lords straight to him? Now that he thought about it, it was true that the gods were not a united monolith. They were individuals, unique and separate from one another. They could be different, and they could even be at odds with one another.

Belissar paused and turned to the young man.

“Um, do you know what it looked like?”

The young man frowned.

“I didn’t get a great look…but it was carved into the dirt? I think it was glowing green at one point.”

Belissar nodded and relayed as much to the Fourth of the Seventh.

He watched as the Fourth of the Seventh began to organize a scouting party and sighed.

So…the Tower Lords might know where his Tower was after all. But at the same time…they were apparently quite far away, with several other Towers between them and a long, unbroken stretch of the Hunger at the end. Likewise, this particular party had not been expected to survive. So, there was no guarantee the Tower Lords would follow them even if they had passed a message back. Even if they did, they would not arrive immediately.

So, they would have some time to prepare. But they would need to prepare, for it was still possible the Tower Lords would follow this party’s path one day. Belissar nodded to himself.

The young man seemed to have shared as much as he knew, and the augur still refused to speak. The most urgent questions were answered in any case and Belissar knew enough to guide his immediate actions.

And that meant it was time to ask what he really wanted to know.

“Thank you. Now, let me ask you something important.”

The young man gulped as Belissar focused in on him.

“Tell me about the bees, and how you brought them with you.”

The young man froze, and then tilted his head.

“Um, the bees, Tower Keeper sir?”

Belissar nodded, holding his intense gaze. The young man gulped.

“Um, ok. I found them at the bottom of my pack at one of the rest points. I’m not sure how they got there…but they didn’t sting me when I found the hive. I…” The young man’s face fell. “…I didn’t want to hurt anything else at that point, so I figured I’d let them be. I thought they’d sting me when we took off again or when I needed something from the pack, but they stayed surprisingly docile…”

As the young man spoke, the augur slowly turned his gaze to them.

His eyes began to go wide as the young man continued his tale.

“There…was a hive of bees traveling with us?”

And then…the color of the god who set their path, the banners of the Tower, and the defenders that had struck Ruckanos down all flickered in the augur’s mind…along with the Tower Lord’s claim that there was an oracle…

The augur’s face began to pale.

But Belissar wasn’t paying attention to him. He began to subconsciously smile as the young man described their journey.

“And then I wondered how they were getting water, so I figured I’d share a bit. I tried to get them to leave at that point since we had found a nice purified zone, but they refused to budge. At first I thought it was that they considered the pack their home…but it sounds like there was something else going on?”

“Yes. The queen is intelligent and can speak with the God of Bees. She was trying to make it here.”

The young man blinked, staring blankly into space.

Belissar chuckled and smiled at him.

“She was also one of the queens from my bees in the village.”

The young man’s eyes went wide and quivered.

“…the one we burned?”

“So…thank you, for taking care of her and helping us reunite. That’s why I’m not going to kill you now. So, um, let me know if you need anything. I can’t let you go but…I’ll take care of you like you took care of her.”