“Do you believe it?” I asked the priest. The question had plagued me since I’d first heard word of him gathering this cult. “Do you really think I’m a Saint?” “What I believe doesn’t matter,” he replied. “That’s what you’ve never understood. Do you know they’ve started building altars to you in Fjerda? In Fjerda, where they burn Grisha at the stake. There is a fine line between fear and veneration, Alina Starkov. I can move that line. That is the prize I offer you.”
