I gave Rune a smug look. “So, I’m wrong, huh?”
Ignoring me, Rune simply looked at Endow and said, “Really? That’s how you’re going to leave it?”
She simply gave him a big grin and shrugged.
“Unbelievable,” Rune muttered, shaking his head in exasperation. Turning to me, he said, “Okay, I’m going to fix this with three simple words, and when I’m done, we’re not going to talk about this anymore.”
“Sure thing,” I agreed. “So what are the three words? That you love her?”
Rune gave me a steely look and declared, “She’s my sister.”
Chapter 62
It seemed as though Endow was never going to stop laughing after Rune’s comment. I simply sat there, cheeks turning red, as a lot of things suddenly became clear. Whenever he had made comments about staying away from Endow, it wasn’t in the vein of a jealous paramour; it was in the context of a protective older brother. (Or perhaps younger brother. Regardless, after my faux pas in regard to their relationship, I didn’t care to delve any more into the subject.)
“Well, Sherlock,” Rune said after a minute or two, “any more keen and brilliant observations you want to make?”
“Just that you guys really need to get that nepotism policy in place,” I noted.
“We’ll take it under advisement,” Rune stated without much enthusiasm. “Now that the sidebar conversations are out of the way, we need to ask you something.”
“Sure,” I said, happy to move on to another subject.
“Do you recall when you went exploring and I couldn’t find you?” asked Rune.
I nodded, saying, “Yeah.”
“Where exactly were you then?” he inquired.
I shrugged. “Some room — pitch black on the inside. I couldn’t see anything, even when I cycled my vision through the spectrum.”
“What happened while you were in there?” Endow chimed in.
“What happened?” I echoed. “Nothing. I couldn’t see anything, didn’t know where I was, so I left — although, to be honest, it was more like the room shoved me through the exit.”
Rune frowned. “About how long do you think you were in that room?”
I shrugged. “A couple of minutes, maybe. Like I said, I couldn’t see anything, so there was nothing to hang around for.”
Rune and Endow looked at each other for a moment, then the former said, “Relatively speaking, there were at least a couple of hours when I couldn’t find you. We think you were in that room during that time.”
I looked at them in confusion. “A couple of hours? No, that’s not possible.”
“We think you were in the Room of Ebon Enlightenment,” Endow remarked.
“I recall Ursula mentioning something about it,” I stated. “But she didn’t have a lot of details, just something about it answering questions you don’t know you have.”
“Like maybe figuring out that you’re carrying something that you didn’t know was on your person?” Rune suggested.
I didn’t say anything, choosing instead to reflect for a moment on what he was suggesting — that a purported visit to the Room of Ebon Enlightenment had resulted in me learning about my badge being the Kroten Yoso Va. It was possible, I suppose…
“Anyway,” Rune continued, “now that the major crisis is over, we need to address some things that happened while you’ve been here.”
“Such as?” I queried.
“You’ve bestowed gifts in the Cosmos Corridor,” Endow noted. “You’ve infiltrated one of the Four Frescos. You’ve also entered the Room of Ebon Enlightenment. These are all privileges granted solely to Incarnates.”
“I’m sorry,” I said sincerely. “I honestly didn’t know I was breaking any rules. Well, maybe with the gifts in the Cosmos Corridor I suspected that–”
“Jim, you’re misunderstanding,” Rune stated, cutting me off. “It’s not that Incarnates are the only ones permitted to do those things; it’s that Incarnates are the only ones who can do those things.”
“In other words,” Endow clarified, “it’s impossible for anyone else to do them.”
“I don’t understand,” I muttered, shaking my head in confusion, as if clearing out cobwebs. “What are you trying to say?”
“Isn’t it obvious, Jim?” asked Rune. “You are an Incarnate!”
THE END
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