Sounds like the sort of thing where you - start with apologizing, usually, and then go from there.

:I think I'm - almost ready...:

Yfandes is visibly drooping with utter exhaustion, though. 

Well, there's - magic for that?

...Wow, is there? Sure. She would appreciate that, then. ...And maybe practicing her apology until she feels like she can actually say it to Vanyel. And then she wants to go to him, where - actually she has no idea where he is right now. She's been shielding him out so thoroughly. Far away, north...? 

Yeah. He'll call Leareth, once she's ready. 

He rests his hands against her and lifts some of her fatigue.

It helps. She's still tired but she can think more clearly, again. And start planning out her apology. 

She's so scared. But she knows what's ahead of her, now, and she can do her best to be brave. 

When Leareth gets up at dawn, Vanyel is still asleep and he still hasn't heard anything from the paladins in the south. Though a quick scrying check of the area shows Yfandes looking...a lot less distressed? That's something. 

He stomps on the urge to procrastinate on his meeting with Rovira by checking in on various other preparations that have been fully delegated and do not at all need his personal attention yet. He heads to the shrine room. 

Rovira and one of the other paladins are working on a translation of their holy book. 

That would be interesting to help with, actually - it’s just in no way a justifiable use of Leareth’s time, right now. 

“I need to speak with you about something important,” he says to Rovira.

"Of course." 

The other paladin leaves.

If Leareth were capable of feeling fear then this would be terrifying. Iomedae was right. He couldn't have been ready to do this, otherwise. Not this fast. 

He sits down. 

"I have a contingency setup for my immortality," he says quietly. "It - is almost certainly very Evil when used. Which I hope would not come up - a Resurrection is almost certain to be faster, and Iomedae will almost certainly have a stronger claim on my soul than the local gods. And by the time my natural lifespan in this body is over, I am certain I can find another method... But I have not dismantled the spell yet. Doing so...will be fairly irreversible. The only possible circumstance where I can imagine it mattering is - if Iomedae loses here thoroughly enough that She lacks the resources to bring me back, or even to claim my soul. Which seems unlikely, but...that is what I would be giving up." 

"Living phylactery?" asks Rovira, looking not very fazed by this. "I - hmmm. Can you get them back with a resurrection? Can you make an arrangement with a volunteer?"

"- I am not sure exactly what that means in your world's magic terms. I do not currently have it set up such that I have any idea which - whose - body I will take next. The spell is tied to my original bloodline descendants, but that was two thousand years ago so there are a huge number of them; the other trigger is a child using mage-gift to cast a fire spell for the first time, which is...inherently very hard to predict. I suppose I could get them back if we had any way to make sure Iomedae would get their soul, rather than one of the local gods, but - the local gods do not like me and would be disinclined to commit to cooperating, I think." 

She nods. 

"I want to think about this."

"That makes sense. I appreciate that you are - willing to consider the cost of dismantling it now. Though I have already agreed with Iomedae that I will do so, immediately, if your people ask." 

He ducks his head. "...I did have another question. Not an urgent one, though." 

"Yes?"

"I have noticed that most of you spend a great deal of time praying, even when you are not specifically trying to reach Iomedae and speak directly. I...am curious what you are actually doing, when you do that? And - what purpose it serves - it seems to me that it is probably important and I ought to understand how to do it?" 

"Oh! Uh, it's useful as a - habit of mind? For - noticing if there are things you aren't thinking about, or things you're confused about, for noticing if you're having a harder time than usual, or if there's something you haven't been able to put down. It's about - so, it'd be a poor use of Iomedae's resources to counsel me about my feelings when nothing particularly important is up, right, but ideally, once we've won, once there's no greater battles to fight, She'd be there - as a friend, as someone who loves us, as someone who we love - and prayer is reaching for that..."

"I see. ...I think. So it is - a little like a meditation, for...quieting one's mind to make it easier to notice thoughts you are avoiding? And - a little like the exercise where you imagine a conversation with a person you know, to get a different angle on a problem, except in this case the person is Iomedae? ...Is it customary or allowed to do it with pen and paper so you can write down anything you do notice." 

" - you can do that if it's helpful to you, though I wouldn't say it's conventional - and I'd worry about you being scryable while you wrote it -"

"- Fair enough. Though I ought really have that same worry about any time I am taking notes since that is - often. ...I do it in a personal cipher that nobody else knows and that would be difficult to decode unless someone obtained very extensive samples of it and were exceptionally clever and well-resourced. I should figure out how to shield this facility against Golarion scrying as well as our kind, though."

"I'd be happy to help with that. Have you checked that the personal cipher doesn't yield to translation magic - they usually don't, but sometimes if it's more like a language than a code -"

"That is a very good point! Can any of your people cast the translation spell that works on writing - I should also ask Zahra, I suppose -" 

"Yes, I can cast Comprehend Languages for you, and if it doesn't work for me I wouldn't expect it to work for anyone."

"I would appreciate that. And then I think I will pray for a while, before I try to make plans on how to safely test interplanar Velgarth Gates to Golarion."