The Goddess of Ambition and Conquest naturally admired those who were ambitious and confident. So rather than angering her, Areth's seemingly arrogant words had amused her.
In fact, she had even managed to see her younger self in him.
The young Tiamat had been extremely fierce and unruly. Even before she became a goddess, she had been considered overly ambitious even among dragons. The ancient dragons who dwelled beneath the mountains had always told her the same thing.
"Know your place."
"Learn to wait."
"One day, your turn will come."
And every single time, Tiamat had only laughed at them. Because her greatest problem had never been a lack of power. Her problem was that the world had always seemed too small for her.
As she looked into Areth's face, she saw the person she had once been years ago. The same insolence. The same stubbornness. The same dangerous gleam in his eyes, one capable of either carrying a person to the very peak or throwing them into the abyss.
But she was not merely the goddess of ambition. She was also the goddess of conquest. As she grew older, she had cultivated the qualities that conquest demanded: planning, caution, patience.
The young man standing before her was every bit as ambitious as she had once been. But if he could also display the qualities that had made her the Goddess of Conquest... Then perhaps she had finally found the champion she had been searching for all this time.
With that thought, she made a small motion with her fingers.
A book suddenly appeared in her hand.
It looked identical to the one Areth had purchased, except that this one had a single Roman numeral etched into the bottom of the cover.
'I'
"I truly do like you," Tiamat said as she held the book out toward him. "So I will give you this."
The moment Areth took the book, the muscles in his shoulders tensed involuntarily.
It was heavy.
Not merely in the physical sense. It felt as though what he held in his hands was not a simple object made of leather and paper, but something sleeping within it. For a brief second, the eye upon the cover seemed to shift slightly, as though it were breathing.
At that exact moment, Tiamat produced a silver knife in her other hand.
Areth's gaze snapped to the blade at once. By reflex, he took half a step back with his right foot.
He did not reach for his waist, because he knew such a thing would be meaningless. If the being before him had wanted him dead, she could have done it before he even realized it. Even so, the caution in his eyes did not fade.
When Tiamat noticed, the corner of her lips curled upward.
"Relax," she said mockingly. "If I decide to kill you, I will not need a knife."
After saying that, she pressed the sharp tip of the blade against her own index finger.
Areth frowned.
When the silver knife touched a goddess's skin, it did not look like an ordinary blade cutting into flesh. It looked more like it was sinking into melting ice. A thin, elegant cut appeared upon Tiamat's finger. Then blood flowed.
But calling it blood almost felt wrong. The single drop that slid down her finger was not dark red. It was a shimmering liquid somewhere between gold and crimson, as though tiny flames danced within it.
Tiamat raised her other hand.
An old ring appeared between her fingers.
The ring was black, forged from a dark metal that resembled dragon scales. There was a small lid set into the top, and beneath that lid lay a hollow circular chamber.
Carefully, Tiamat let the blood dripping from her finger fall into that chamber.
The instant the drop landed, golden lines began to spread across the surface of the ring. Patterns resembling dragon scales spread over the entire thing.
For the briefest moment, Areth could have sworn he saw a tiny golden dragon opening and closing its eyes within the metal. Then Tiamat shut the lid.
Click-
At once, the pressure filling the room vanished. The crushing presence emanating from the blood had been sealed within the metal. Tiamat extended the ring toward him.
"Put it on."
Areth stared at the ring for several seconds.
At last, he tucked the book beneath his left arm and took it. The metal was warmer than he had expected. The moment he slid the ring onto his finger, images flashed before his eyes.
Cities burning beneath seas of flame. Kings falling to their knees. Dragons covering the sky. And above them all stood a woman, young but with savage eyes. The visions vanished as quickly as they had come.
Tiamat was watching him with an expression of satisfaction.
"You would never be able to read those books without that ring." she said.
Areth looked down at the book. He tried opening it again.
This time, the seals upon the cover glowed with crimson light, and the first page opened at once, as though it were a kneeling servant obeying its master.
"Now listen to me carefully, brat. There are ten books like that one, and no matter what, you must read them in order. Otherwise, the teachings within them will be useless."
She paused briefly.
"I do not know where the others are. I only ever possessed the first one. But you can probably find the rest by investigating my generals."
Areth slowly lifted his gaze from the book back to Tiamat.
"Thank you, my goddess... but why are you helping me this much? As far as I know, you have followers far stronger and more famous than I am. And on top of that, I am descended from the man who killed your generals... Normally, it is not the sort of thing a goddess like you would do."
For several seconds, Tiamat did not answer. At first, Areth thought she had not heard him. But then he saw the faintly mocking smile upon her face slowly disappear.
At last, Tiamat turned her gaze away from the terrifying yet magnificent view visible from her temple and looked back at him.
Her golden eyes locked directly onto his.
"Your great ancestor killed those I loved, yes," she said. "But they also died because they were weak."
Her voice darkened.
"If they had not fought among themselves and dragged the world into chaos... if they had remained united... then the man who would become your ancestor would not have been able to harm even a single claw upon their bodies."
The final words were filled with the resentment of a wound that still hurt, though the pain had long since begun to fade.
"And besides, you are not guilty of anything. Unlike your ancestor, who spent his life as a puppet of the Moon Goddess, you are more ambitious and more intelligent."
A faint smile returned to her lips.
"That is why I am investing in you. Besides, with or without me, it is obvious that you would grow stronger eventually. Everything is written in your eyes. You are every bit as greedy and ambitious as I was in my youth."
Areth was silent for several seconds. Tiamat's words struck him harder than he had expected. Because for the first time in his life, someone had called him greedy as though it were a virtue rather than an insult.
Even in the modern world, he had never been very different from the person he was now. He had always been the sort of person who sought power and was willing to ignore almost anything in pursuit of it.
Of course, that "power" could sometimes be something as simple as candy, beating the bullies at school, or overthrowing an incompetent boss at work.
Ever since childhood, because of that part of himself, he had always seen the same thing in people's eyes.
Discomfort.
Wariness.
Sometimes fear.
His desire for more had always unsettled them.
As time passed, he had become more human, of course. Certain experiences had forced him to grow. He could now look upon ordinary things and see the good within them as well.
But he had never changed who he truly was. No matter what he looked at, he always desired it. At best, he could hide those impulses. He could never erase them.
In the end, Areth smiled faintly.
"You think far too highly of me, my goddess."
Tiamat let out a short breath through her nose.
"No," she said. "I am simply very good at reading people."
Then she took several steps forward and lifted part of the temple floor. At once, a mirror appeared, showing the world below. Beneath the clouds stretched mountains, rivers, and cities. From here, they all looked like toys.
Tiamat raised her hand.
"Look."
Areth stepped beside her.
The goddess pointed toward the horizon.
"There is a king," she said. "He sits in his palace, believing himself powerful."
Then she pointed elsewhere.
"There is a mage. He believes he understands the secrets of the world."
Another place.
"And there is a general. He commands thousands of soldiers, yet he cannot even command his own fears."
Then her hand slowly lowered.
"They are all the same," she said calmly. "Small people. Small dreams. Small fears."
Areth looked at her face.
That familiar hunger had returned to her eyes. The endless, insatiable hunger that made the world seem too small for her.
"But you are different," Tiamat said.
Areth raised an eyebrow.
"Because when you look upon this view, you do not think about how beautiful it is." Slowly, Tiamat turned toward him. "You think about how much of it could belong to you."
Areth fell silent involuntarily. Because he could not deny it.
When he looked at those mountains, he saw borders.
When he looked at cities, he saw opportunities.
When he looked at people, he saw pieces upon a board.
Pieces that could be moved, if one played correctly.
Tiamat saw the expression that crossed his face for the briefest second. And she laughed. This time, there was no mockery in it. There was satisfaction.
"There," she said softly. "That is why I am helping you. Because I have a strong feeling that one day, you will become my perfect champion."
Then slowly, she raised her hand and stopped her finger just above the center of Areth's chest, directly over his heart.
"Because within here..."
For an instant, every drop of blood inside Areth burned like fire. It felt as though his veins were turning to steam. His heart pounded so violently that it seemed ready to burst from his chest, and within Tiamat's pupils he thought he could see the countless possibilities of his own future.
"there is either a ruler who will conquer the world... or a monster that will burn it."
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
"At least that's what I feel when I look at you."