Taera smiled, a slow, knowing curve of her lips that held no warmth. “I bet you constantly question why you were chosen, don’t you? Why the System, or your God, or whatever you pray to, made a paladin out of a flawed, pain-wracked man like you.”

  I nodded, the truth of it a dull ache deeper than the physical one. “Yeah. Pretty much every day. I am not that great of a guy. Stole lots of candy as a little boy. Broke a few hearts. Killed someone once who probably didn’t need to die. I’m not the paragon from the storybooks.”

  She smiled, and this time it held a shred of genuine, if cynical, respect. “That’s exactly why. Not just the questioning, but your entire rant. THAT is the core of being a Paladin. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about putting the good of others above your own, even when—especially when—it costs you everything you personally want. Not in a celibate, ascetic, patting-yourself-on-the-back way, but when it really, truly hurts, you choose the course that you believe is pure. You’re willing to walk away from the one thing that could save you to protect her.”

  “I cannot understand that. I’ve never been able to truly feel that impulse. I have always acted from enlightened self-interest. Scrot, even this grand quest the System gave me. The stick? The existential threat? The only reason I have the slightest interest is because of that reward, and because I LIVE here. It’s hard to enjoy your perfect new body when you and everyone else in the galaxy is dead.”

  “But you,” she continued, her black eyes pinning me in place, “you are a silver-ranked divine paladin, just a breath away from gold, on the verge of true immortality, with a string of heroic victories behind you that would fill an epic and an unbelievable future ahead of you… and you are willing to throw it all away and give up just for the chance to save an ugly little goblin and give her a better life. I don’t understand that kind of calculus, David Wasserman, but I respect the hell out of the answer.”

  “For an empath who can feel the emotional weather of the entire ship, you don’t see too well,” I countered, a flicker of my own defiance rising. “I am not giving up.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “No?” she asked, a perfectly sculpted eyebrow rising.

  “No. I am still going to fight to the bitter, bloody end. I’m not throwing in the towel. I have fought more hopeless battles than you can possibly imagine, even at your age. I intend to win this one, too. And if I do, if I find a way to scour this necrosis from my soul without taking hers down with me, I will happily bond that ugly little goblin, and I’ll ask for a goblin body of my own when the System remakes me at Gold, and then I’ll take her home to her nameless little scrothole of a world and fill her full of babies until we both die of old age in a pile of grandchildren. You forget, bonding works both ways. It’s not a master-servant thing. It’s a fusion. I have seen her aura, felt it, and I desperately want it, more than I’ve wanted anything in my entire life. So no, I am not giving up, Commander. I am preparing for the worst and praying for the best. There’s a difference.”

  “Well, add me to your prayers too, then,” she said, her tone dry.

  “How’s that?”

  She growled, a low, surprisingly organic sound of frustration. “Because I want my rewards too, dammit! So I can’t give up on you either, you self-sacrificing idiot! Remember, my quest benchmarks are tied to your survival and her advancement. If you deviate or die, I am completely scrotted, and it will be all your fault! If I lose my chance at that stupid kiss on a stupid bridge because you decided to be a martyr, I swear to God I will find a way to haunt you and make your afterlife even more of a hell than your life is right this minute, so you had better not give up!”

  She finished her tirade and smiled winningly at me, the storm vanishing as if it had never been. “So please, don’t be a complete dolt. Let’s go see your ugly little goblin and ask her to fix that silvery piece of scrot on your spine that’s putting you into such a loser mindset, shall we?”

  I couldn’t help but return the smile, however faintly. The woman—the entity—was exhausting, but she was never boring. “Yes, ma’am. But I do have one question that’s just killing me.”

  “Which is?”

  “What’s with the lock thing? On the bridge?”