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Eothas is going to Ukaizo. He's going to stop the Wheel.
Caron wakes, the world swimming around him, in a court of fools who would see the cycle end before they began to think of compromise. He thinks at least that this pirate captain—a woman he's never met, because he has no purpose for pirates—can admit explicitly that she'd rather die in the last generation of the cycle than make deals. He can respect her honesty, even if she makes him sicker than the rest of them.
The cycle is going to end, and he is the only one who seems to truly care.
Still, he goes to Hazanui Karū's office, because if the choice must be made he will choose stability. If he must choose an ally in the end of days, he will choose a strong one. Her engineers are still working, and he hesitates to take her offer, though he knows he will. He can allow himself ignorance of the plans she refuses to discuss without his oath in hand until her engineers finish the marvel that will let him defy the will of the gods.
The old will of the gods. It is not their current will. He understands that they change, has seen them change—has been the architect of that change, even, for Abydon—but it is still hard to think things have changed so much.
Woedica's book of laws burns in his pack. He does not open it, cannot stand to, until—
He would go to the Temple of Rikuhu and pray, but Berath has never met him at their altar. Instead, he goes to sea.
It is several days sailing before the vision claims him, as he lies on his bed watching the whorls and knots in the wood of the ceiling. He has done little else since leaving Neketaka. Aloth has tried in his quiet way to pull Caron out of the darkness he has descended into, and Edér and Xoti have tried in their less quiet ways, but Caron refuses to be budged by anything but the gods.
And the gods bicker like kith.
Caron has not questioned the gods. He has not interfered in their arguments, and he does not now. He lets it wash over him, and he answers the questions he is asked but is otherwise silent. He stares hard at the Pallid Knight's face when she makes herself known. Tries to embed every line of it into his memory to carry with him: because he would remember his goddess's face for the rest of his life, however short that may be, and because she is more beautiful to Caron than any person he has ever known.
And because he would know which arguments she agrees with, though she does not add her voice to them.
He is not sure.
He is not sure what his god wills.
But the Pallid Knight bids him plead to Eothas—plead what? She does not say, and Caron does not know, cannot ask.
When the world, the In-Between, begins to darken around him, Caron finds himself speaking, the words coming before he can stop them. "What happens if I fail?" It is a moment of great weakness, when he has been given his task. He regrets it as soon as he has said it, as soon as he realizes he is saying it, and he does not wish to be weak in front of his god.
But the Pallid Knight says, "You will not fail," and the words ring through his soul, ring through both chimes he carries in his chest as her godlike and her herald. He is hers if he is anything.
He will not fail, he thinks. Dares to hope. How can he fail, if Berath has said he will succeed? How can he fail, with his goddess's trust in him?
But he does not know what he will plead.