It really was a lake.
At Akasha's reminder, Fu Qian sized up the destination before him.
The surface was perfectly still. He couldn't even see what lay beneath it, but there was no doubt it was water.
Before coming, he'd worried the place might be some kind of cesspit with a polished exterior. As it turned out, there wasn't a trace of odor. If anything, the air felt oddly refreshing.
And within this perfect circle, there wasn't a living thing in sight.
"Quit dawdling."
The impatient voice came soon after.
It wasn't Akasha, of course. She was clearly still lost in memories of past failures.
But the crystal who had been following them all this way couldn't hold back once the two of them finally reached their destination. In almost an instant, she bounded forward several steps and reached the lakeshore.
"The longer we delay, the greater the risk to Ballard and the others."
That made sense, but she was a demigod. Wasn't she a little too impatient?
Watching Ice Wolf's "serious" expression, Fu Qian thought to himself.
At the bar, she had been quite dismissive of the talk about "fire," yet her actions had been decidedly unusual. She'd practically demanded that Ballard take her to see the prophet.
He'd found it strange at the time. He'd thought that although she seemed uninterested in fire, she might, like so many others, yearn for freedom and want to use this as a chance to test the prophet's attitude.
But from what she'd just said to Akasha, she might be so concerned about the flame for the sake of her best friend.
Akasha had been brief just now, but it wasn't hard to imagine that her rebirth had practically used that friend of the crystal's as a vessel, allowing Akasha to take