"I am," Saffron insisted. She didn't want to listen to this. This man, this priest, was mortal. He was weak in a way that denied its own weakness, because if he didn't, he--like every other mortal--wouldn't try so hard to live. Saffron was the one facing reality. She was the one accepting what she was.

It was mortals who went around thinking they were things they weren't.

"Necromancy is powerful. I was never able to use it. And I'm soft. Too soft to do much to help further the Temple's cause." She never had the stomach for death. That was why she was a healer. Even the Temple had uses for healers, weak as they were. That was how the world worked. The strong used the weak.

But she couldn't hold his gaze anymore. She'd hardly even held it before, only because of her indignation, and even then she had skirted around O'Reilly's eyes. He was so steady, so certain--there was something in his very presence which was quiet with, well, faith. Not the kind of faith Necromancers had. That was self-assurance. They were just afraid of something and believed they could solve it.

Saffron dropped her gaze to the floor, clutching her robe to hide the tremble in her hands. "I couldn't even have faith in its cause," she whispered. "I--"

Why was she even arguing? As if this man was worth arguing with? He was a mortal. The epitome of delusioned. And she was even worse. Needing help from them. At least this man knew what he was doing in his life. She'd never known. She still didn't know--she'd just followed the only man in the Temple she'd had any respect for. She barely even existed at all; just a blip on the radar of the universe.

What was the point in that?

She stood there, hunched and silent, gripping her robe and with her head bowed, her hair half-hiding the tears she couldn't stop.