Melissa McShane (28 page)

“Do you know what still gives Me pain, after all these centuries?” he said. “The new gods were right. Humanity could not survive in a world where seas raged out of their beds and

mountains walked on their roots like giants. But I could not bear to see them destroyed by the new gods. So I swore an oath.” Atenas stood up. “I swore that, were they destroyed, I would not accept My brothers’ spirits into My realm. Their unquiet ghosts would tear the world into its four quarters and wreak havoc upon the rest. It was not a truce, but it was enough.”

“So the gods took the old ones from their bodies and locked them away,” Zerafine said.

“Buried deep and under their watchful godlike eyes,” Atenas agreed. “And My oath stands.”

“But—the gods didn’t kill Your brother!” Zerafine said. “It was an accident. A stupid,

human
accident.”

“I cannot break my word,” Atenas said. “It would mean war, again, and your people will not survive it.”

“They’re going to be destroyed anyway, if You make his spirit go back,” Zerafine shouted,

“because we have nothing that can contain a ghost the size of a city. The record says You turned Your back on the new gods and Your face toward humanity! You may be fulfilling the demands of justice in turning this ghost away, but it is neither just nor merciful to make humanity pay the price! Why is there no other way?”

“Because the Lord Atenas is unwilling to pursue it,” said a voice like a thousand chiming bells. A woman emerged from the veils surrounding Atenas’s throne. Where he was black as

ebon, she was flowing honey, her skin and hair and eyes a thousand shades of what in the living world could only be called gold. Her robe of emerald green and lapis blue fell open over a lushly rounded body. She laid her hand on the god’s shoulder. “Atenas, hear me, I beg you,” she said.

“Kalindi. Speak.” His gaze rested on Zerafine.

“It has been a thousand years or more since we were at war. Even gods can change.”

“Change enough to give up a dream of conquest?”

Kalindi laughed, a sound even more bell-like than her speaking voice. “Atenas, there is

nothing left to conquer. Your brothers have slept peacefully these many years and their presence has blessed Our cities. We were wrong to force You to make that choice, and wrong not to see that We both wanted the same things. If I swear to You that We will not destroy your brothers, will You allow this one to return home? And the others, in their time?”

Zerafine became conscious that she was holding her breath and that she held the boy’s hand crushed in hers. “Will that serve both justice and mercy, My servant?” Atenas asked her.

“Surely that’s for You to judge, My Lord,” she whispered.

“This is not a case in which I trust My judgment. My desires are in conflict with My oath. I must leave it to you.”

Zerafine, stunned, could not breathe for a moment. “Why me?” she asked, her voice faint.

“Because you can see more clearly than I, in this matter. Because you came before Me with no desire other than to see justice done. Because you felt compassion enough to let My brother destroy you, for his sake. I cannot see where justice is in all of this. So you must.”

Zerafine looked into His fathomless eyes. She imagined what He must have seen, through

the centuries, what He must have felt to see the last of His family lost to him. “Justice should not be mocked by mercy,” she said. “But neither should mercy be denied for the sake of justice. Let Your new oath take the place of the old. Bring Your brother home.”

Atenas turned to look at the golden goddess, then reached out to touch the boy’s head. “I swear it,” He said.

A blast of arctic air threw Zerafine backward off her stool. A wild wind threaded with silver and blue blew around the throne, tore the mists to shreds and flashed star-like between the two gods. Atenas raised his hand to caress the wind and left it raised in salute as the old god spun away laughing and out of sight through the silver arch that had appeared beside the throne.

Zerafine struggled to her feet and was assisted by a large, black hand. It felt like ordinary skin, if a trifle cooler than human normal. “My thanks,” Atenas said.

“I am Your servant,” Zerafine said.

“You are the only servant of whom I have asked so much,” said the god. “You have earned

your place in My realm. But I think I owe you more than that. Ask, and I will do it for you.”

Zerafine’s heart pounded. “There is only one thing I want, Lord.”

“Name it.”

“I want—” funny how her spirit could get as dry-mouthed as her body—“I want to live out

my time in the human world. I want to finish everything I left undone.”

Atenas gave her a sad, compassionate look. “That is beyond My power, My servant. Your

body was damaged badly in your spirit’s journey here, and a further two days have passed since you left it. I could return you to your body, but you would not thank Me for it.”

Zerafine struggled not to cry. “I understand,” she whispered.
Goodbye, Gerrard.

Kalindi cleared her throat. Even that sounded like bells, tiny flittering ones. “You are not the only one whose power extends into the human world, Atenas,” she said.

Kalindi. The divine healer. “Would you—” Zerafine asked, unable to finish.

She gazed at Zerafine solemnly. “
He
will have to ask me for it,” she said. “I have already put myself in his power today. He must abase himself in return.”

Atenas looked grim. Then he knelt on one knee, crossed his arms over his chest, and bowed his head. “
Please
,” he said. Zerafine was too embarrassed to know where to look. That a god should lower himself on her behalf! It was...

...actually, Kalindi was smiling, and Atenas had tilted his head up just a little bit to wink at her. The Queen of Heaven burst out laughing. “Ah, stop it, my love, the girl won’t know what to think,” she said, caressing Atenas’s bald head. He took both her hands and rose to kiss her golden lips. “Remember,” he said, taking in Zerafine’s confounded expression, “even gods can change.”

Then he leaned over and pressed his lips against her forehead.

She woke lying in darkness that smelled of cloth and dry air, and knew immediately that her body was dead; no heartbeat, no breath, no blood rushing in her ears. In the next instant she felt herself filled with a tender warmth that washed through her, dizzying her so that for a moment she felt like a creature of pure spirit. Then it passed, leaving her slightly chilled and with a tingling sensation in...yes, surely that was skin and not spirit. She sat up and felt rapidly up and down the length of her body, across her head and her face, reassuring herself that she did still have a body and it wasn’t that of a rotting corpse. Her body was wearing a thin, sleeveless, ankle-length tunic that felt like silk, and the surface beneath her buttocks was rough stone. For a brief, panic-filled moment she thought she had already been interred, but then sense reasserted itself; she was lying on the altar in the shrine for the required three days before burial.

She slid off the altar and felt her way to the wall, then groped around until her fingers brushed wood. Was there no handle on this side? No, there it was. She wrenched at it—maybe she was feeling a little panicky after all—and felt it give, then pulled hard until it slid, ponderously, toward her.

The antechamber was lit with the traditional torches, but she could see, high above, light coming in through the ventilation shaft. Gerrard leaned against the wall, deeply asleep, his longstaff lying across his lap as if it had fallen from his hand. He would have been here the whole two days, guarding her body in death as in life, but even he had to sleep sometime. He was unshaven and the torches made the dark circles under his eyes more pronounced. He must have been exhausted to fall so solidly asleep that the sound of the door opening hadn’t roused him. He looked wonderful. She studied him, wondering how she could wake him without terrifying him.

In the end, realizing that was impossible, she prodded his leg with her toe and said, “Wake up.”

He went from sleep to alertness in a breath, but awkwardly, scrambling to stand and grab his staff in the same motion. Then he saw her and his mouth went slack. He looked at the sanctuary door, still ajar, back at her, then rubbed his eyes with his free hand and stared at her again. His lips moved soundlessly.

“I came back,” she said, and smiled. Then fear touched his eyes, and she said, “That

sounded far less ominous in my head.”

He dropped his staff on the floor with a clatter. He reached out to touch her arm, felt his way up to her shoulder, brushed her cheek, ran his fingers over her face as if he were a blind man.

Zerafine closed her eyes and smiled again. “I promise, it’s really me,” she told him. “And you’re not going to
believe
what happened while I was there.” She opened her eyes. There was so much pain and longing on his face that she began to cry. “Gerrard, sweetheart, say something,” she pleaded.

He reached out and drew her into his arms, crushing her in his embrace, saying her name

over and over again until great wracking sobs shook his whole body and he couldn’t speak

anymore. She put her arms around him and cried out all the fear and pain she’d felt, all the tension and the overwhelming presence of her god and the demand He had made of her. She

cried until she felt she could never cry again. She felt Gerrard stroking her hair. She wiped her eyes and her nose on his shirt and lifted her face to his. “I can’t breathe,” she said.

He loosened his grip just a little. “Don’t ask me to let go entirely,” he said, and she shook her head and tightened her own arms around him so he would know she had no intention of

going anywhere. He brushed his lips across her forehead. “Two days,” he said. “You were dead for two days. I had to carry your broken body through the streets of Portena to the shrine. It was

—Nacalia was disobedient, again, or I wouldn’t have made it back. I could barely see.” He kissed her forehead again, wound his fingers in her hair. “Please don’t ever do that again.”

“I don’t think it will be necessary,” she said, and kissed his mouth. His lips tasted like tears.

He kissed her in return, first gently, then with a sort of desperation that broke her heart even as it filled her with joy.

They broke apart, after a while. “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment in which they simply looked at one another, “I’m still a little overwhelmed by all of this. How could you even return?

Why aren’t you still there?”

Zerafine smiled. Her heart felt whisper-light. “I told you, you’re not going to believe what happened,” she said. “You’ll want to sit down.” Nestled into his lap—the thin silk of her tunic gave her no protection against the chilly marble of the floor—she poured out the whole story. He held his breath when she told him of her judgment, gave a short bark of laughter when she described Atenas bowing before Kalindi, then sat silent when she was finished.

“So if any of the other gods die, they’ll be able to find their own way to Atenas’s courts,” he finally said.

She leaned her cheek against his chest. “Yes. No human intervention necessary.”

“And you stood in judgment in Atenas’s court and changed a thousand-year-old oath sworn

by a god.”

“That’s the part that leaves me breathless with wonder. Atenas deferred judgment to me.

Who else in all of history can say that? I can’t tell you how humbling it was.”

Gerrard said, in a quiet voice, “I don’t know if I’m worthy of you anymore.”

Her head snapped up, and she was halfway to an outraged protest when she saw his mouth

quiver with a suppressed smile. “You—you are just—” Their conversation paused for a moment in favor of more pleasant activities involving lips and tongues and hands.

Later, Gerrard said, “And Atenas and Kalindi....”

“Are in love. Or whatever it is gods have in its place. It was—shocking, actually.”

“It could shake the foundations of two faiths. Are you going to tell anyone?”

“I don’t think anyone will believe it. And, really, what would it change? But yes, I’m going to tell the
Marathelos
and ask his advice. And then I’m going to tell Arland and watch his eyes pop out of his head.”

Gerrard laughed. “I was going to say that would be cruel,” he said, “but it occurred to me that you’d give him a whole new field of study and he would love you forever.”

Zerafine laid her head on Gerrard’s shoulder. “Just so long as
you
love me forever,” she said.

He slid his thumb along her cheekbone. “Forever and past forever.” His hand fell to her lap.

“What happens now?”

Zerafine thought about it. “First thing is to resurrect me,” she said. “That’s going to be interesting. I hope I don’t give people as much of a shock as I gave you. Did Berenica already send word to Atenar?”

“I don’t think so. It’s been a harrowing two days.”

“That’s something, anyway. Then the next thing we do is have Berenica marry us. I think I can say with some certainty that Atenas will accept our oath.”

“You’re amazingly confident that I’ll accept your proposal. What was your backup plan?”

“I was going to tempt you with my body, but you’d probably settle for a good dinner.” She squealed with delighted laughter as her
sentare
tickled her, then kissed her again, slow and sweet, like a promise.

“I’m going to take that as a ‘yes’,” she said, a little breathlessly. “After that...I guess we get back on the road. Visit Atenar, and then move on.”

Gerrard gave her a serious look. “Zerafine, you went to Atenas’s courts and returned. You can’t expect to go back to being an ordinary traveling
thelis
.”

“Why not? What should I do instead?”

Gerrard frowned, caught without a ready answer. “It just seems like you’ve done something so big that you’ll never be able to top it. How can you go back to traveling the roads and consoling those little ghosts and sitting in judgment in tiny towns that barely appreciate you?”