Kaeleth fell silent, the weight of Celestina's suggestion hanging between them like a guillotine blade suspended by a fraying rope. The air in the throne room grew frigid, charged with the static of divine implications.
"You have been without an apostle for eighteen years," Celestina said, her voice cutting through the stillness with clinical detachment. "Your last three all died in circumstances that the temporal domain's operational requirements produced sacrifices to the very mechanics of your power."
"Since then, you have been using our contract arrangement as a convenient substitute for the Apostle relationship. But a contract is a transaction; an apostle is a weapon."
"Apostle selection requires more than mere utility, Celestina... It requires the mortal to be suitable to be a vessel capable of containing the strain without shattering," Kaeleth warned.
"I know exactly who is suitable," she countered.
