Kire inhaled sharply as she looked at Ruli. Back to Ziad. She hadn’t gone back there since they had killed the Kartaian scouts sent to capture her. “Are you sure?” she asked him. She almost said he didn’t have to, that she could investigate the temple by herself, though she could also guess what he would say to that. “We can talk to the Ziadi and Envy first. Investigate the temple in the morning.” 

“Well, dragons kinda make sense when these two are concerned, right?” Myka said, pointing her thumb at Kire and Daryll. “Dragons are the closest thing to gods, and the Emperor is the god’s avatar on earth before the crown and the church parted ways at some point.”
Daryll opened his mouth, then nodded. “Didn’t expect the pirate to say that, if I’m being honest,” he said. 
Myka snorted at that. “I was a mercenary hired by lords, and then I became a pirate, remember? You pick up a lot of stuff along the way in my many job descriptions.” 

“Valid point.” Daryll took the statuette, observing it. “How did this come here? Through Off-worlders, most likely?” He wondered aloud. “We share a language, and now there’s traces of this goddess here. Could be that our two worlds have been interacting with one another for ages.” He paused, thinking it over. “Wonder if any of the people who had the visions have Off-worlder blood in them? Might be a way to look at their lineages. Or descended from notable Amrian families with ties to old magic, like ours or the Gemini. I could look into that while you look into this goddess business back in Ziad.”