"You ask a lot of questions," she said.
"I want to know," Min Min admitted, voice low, almost defensive. "No one here talks about the outside. They just pray, work, and try to stay alive. I don't think that's how we should live."
His earnestness wasn't an act. She could see that. Most men who sat across from her in taverns tried to bargain, impress, or leer.
"As I already said," she went on, "I came from the Southern Spear Duchy. A place where the fields are fertile, the trade roads alive, and yet… the weak, people like you, don't have it much better than here. Further west, I hear it's even worse."
"But then… what about people like you? How is your life better than ours? Why would someone choose to be a martial artist, isn't that only more dangerous? For someone like me it's impossible to survive outside the town."
Her eyes flicked up at him. " You're not wrong about this. But the weak don't get to choose their lives. We do."
"Then why not teach everyone?"
Her smile faded, replaced by a faint trace of pity. "Because strength doesn't belong to everyone," she peeked a look at Min Min's hands, layed all over with caluses "It's not earned with effort alone. Without heritage you're doomed to stay a commoner. And you do not belong to a martial family."
Min Min's hands tightened around the table's edge. 'It doesn't matter what I do I will stay weak...'
The woman leaned back in her chair. "The martial families hoard everything. The rest can only pray."
"Yes… pray." The word left Min Min's lips without thinking, but then he realized something and suddenly relaxed his clenched hands, and looked up her quickly, "Does this mean… you don't pray to the Ox God?"
Her smile vanished in an instant. The faint warmth that had lingered in her eyes turned cold. "Please leave. I've told you enough."
But Min Min didn't move. His voice was low, almost trembling, but stubborn. "We're taught from the time we can walk… that the Ox God strikes down those who don't pray. That anyone who fails to kneel three times a day—morning, afternoon, evening—will become impure. That their life will be cursed, their body rotting." His throat tightened, but he forced the words out. "Does that not concern people like you?"
Something flickered in her eyes, not anger, not contempt. It was sadness. "Don't speak too loudly about such things."
Min Min let the warning register in his head, but he leaned forward, lowering his voice until it was nearly a breath. "I don't care if they hear me," he said simply. "I need to know. I would rather die than to let go of this opportunity. I need to know more from you."
Her face hardened at that.
"If you mean that," she said at last, voice low and flat, "you should understand what I'm saying next." She leaned in, forcing her lips down so the words were a blade meant only for him. "If I show you what you want to see, there is a chance I will have to make sure you never speak of it."
"You mean you will kill me?" Min Min's breath hitched.
She didn't flinch at his question. "Perhaps. Not because I like killing. Because some truths cannot be spread. Even if people like me are allowed to know of it, the common folks, the likes of the people in this town, are to stay unaware."
He swallowed. The idea of being silenced by the very person who offered truth should have terrified him; instead, if he were to describe it, relief was what he felt.
"Then show me," he said. "If your choice is to kill me afterward, do it. Don't keep me safe by keeping me stupid."
"You might just be the luckiest person alive that it's me to be sitting here with you. If you spoke this way to any other martial artist," she murmured, "you would already be dead."
Min Min blinked at her, unsure what she meant by that.
"When night falls, go where the chapel's shadow stretches the longest." She said with an edge of certainty. "Stand there and speak these words: 'All Gods fall. The Eye remains.'"
"If you don't come…" she paused, her gaze holding his, "then you'll die as soon as you fall asleep. Do you understand? There's no going back now."
Min Min's throat tightened. He nodded once, slowly.
The young woman reached for her cup again, but only stared into the peach-scented water. "I've lost my appetite," she said at last. Setting the cup down, she stood, placed a silver coin on the table, and was about to leave.
Min Min's eyes followed her hand as she set the coin down. "Wait," he said, "I never asked for your name?"
She glanced over her shoulder, her dark hair flicked back. "If I told you, it would have to be a fake name. Let's save ourselves the trouble."
With that, she turned and walked out of the tavern.
Outside, she slowed her pace once she was out of sight. A faint sigh escaped her lips. 'One soul,' she thought quietly, 'and he doesn't even know it. He saved someone, without meaning to.'
Min Min sat there, staring blankly at his beer for several long minutes. The tavern noise seemed muted.
Then, a hand clapped firmly on his back.
"Don't worry, son," the barkeep said.
Min Min looked up, confused.
"You're aiming too high," the barkeep added with a chuckle.
"Ahh… yes, yes," He pushed two silver coins across the table, leaving them neatly beside his mug.
The barkeep's eyebrows shot up. "What is this?"
"No need to thank me," Min Min said quietly, standing. He left all his money behind and walked to the door.
The barkeep frowned, worry knitting his brow. He called after him. "Hey! Don't do anything stupid just because she didn't accept you. There'll be more women in the future!"
Min Min didn't answer. He only paused at the door for a brief second, his eyes on the street outside, and then stepped into the night, the phrase the woman had given him was repeating in his mind.
'All Gods fall. The Eye remains.'