Free The Prophecy Con (Rogues of the Republic) by Patrick Weekes

the goddess had spoken in her dreams and marked her for sacred duty. It had sometimes been trying, but always satisfying.
    Then she’d been transformed into a death priestess for a time as part of a divine mandate to save the world. She’d gotten a magical talking warhammer and the ability to command the spirits of the dead in the bargain.
    “So,” said the young man, “you’re a love priestess. How do I get women to have sex with me?”
    “ Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is,” Ghylspwr said in a tiny sarcastic whisper. Desidora glared at him in warning. As a spirit of the ancients now possessing a warhammer, Ghylspwr had a vocabulary of only three phrases, but he managed to make himself understood far better than most people would have guessed.
    “The key to getting women to love you,” she said to the young man on the other side of the divider, “is to stop thinking of it as the end goal and start thinking of it as the enjoyable result of becoming a more interesting person.” Even though he couldn’t see her, Desidora put a smile on her face. That usually helped. “After all, the first step to gaining the love of others is to love yourself.”
    “Oh, I can’t do that,” said the young man. “My bed is really squeaky, and my parents get angry when they catch me.”
    Desidora was sincerely relieved to be a love priestess again, with no worries about draining the life out of someone in a fit of anger or projecting an aura that redecorated the room in a skulls-and-gargoyles theme.
    Still, some part of her missed having the power to destroy things that annoyed her.
    “What I’m saying,” she said, glaring again at Ghylspwr before he could say anything, “is that the reason the women you know go after jerks is because those jerks are confident and do interesting things. So one way to start would be to develop one of your hobbies or interests, like . . .” She squinted. The divider blocked her view of the young man—ostensibly to protect his privacy despite the fact that she recognized his voice from the jeweler’s shop three streets over—but with the eyes of a love priestess, she could see his aura. Athletics? No. Art? No. Music? No. Acting? No . . . but he at least enjoyed going to performances, so, “. . . theatre,” she finished. “You’re fortunate to live in Heaven’s Spire, which has a number of acting troupes, some of them even friendly to beginners. Maybe you could try out for a part. Or even volunteer to work on the sets as a way to meet people?”
    “What, like I’m supposed to paint stairs for some stupid show, and that’s going to get some woman to have sex with me?” The young man snorted. “They always go for the jerk in the lead, even though he’ll never treat them right, like I would.”
    Desidora picked up Ghylspwr, just for comfort. “You have to start somewhere.”
    “Nah, I’d have to go do work like every night, and what if nobody started liking me after all that work?” said the young man who lived off his parents’ money and spent most of his evenings sitting in the local kahva-house glaring at people or trying to find ways to love himself without waking up his parents. “Aren’t there tricks you can give me, like things I can say to get women to have sex with me? I heard that if you kind of insult a girl, but then turn it into asking her out for a date, her head gets confused?”
    A knock sounded on the door to Desidora’s side of the consulting booth, and it opened a moment later. A young priest poked his head in, looking apologetic and embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Sister. I have an urgent request from a justicar that—”
    “No, of course, absolutely.” Desidora was out of the booth before the priest had finished his sentence. “You can take over for me, I’m sure. Good luck.” The young priest blinked, and Desidora realized she was holding Ghylspwr in something that was just a little too close to a fighting position.
    She lowered Ghylspwr and gave warm