Conversion by Mitchell Hogan

Conversion by Mitchell Hogan

Author:Mitchell Hogan [Hogan, Mitchell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-08-03T16:00:00+00:00


Anskar awoke to find Vilintia lying naked beside him. The scent of their lovemaking clung to his nostrils. It seemed a remedy; a ward against the stench of the earth-tide.

“Were you watching me while I slept?” he asked as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

She smiled and traced patterns on his face with her fingertips. He pulled them to his lips and kissed them.

It was still dark outside, but there was no more sound of music, just the occasional muted moan or distant laugh from deeper in the forest.

“It’ll soon be dawn,” Vilintia said.

Once, Anskar would have felt the thrill of anticipation as he rose and waited for the dawn-tide, but not any longer. He was surprised to find he no longer viewed it as a loss—more as a liberation.

He had never felt the tides before the implantation of his catalyst, and that alone made him question just how natural his dawn- and dusk-tide ability had been. What was it about mainlanders—about their culture—that severed the link with the tides, or at least caused their repositories to atrophy to the point they needed the help of a crystal? Zek had told him the Soreshi made no use of catalysts, and neither did the Niyandrians. Although Vilintia’s repositories were underdeveloped, as were Carred’s. He smiled to himself. She compensated in other ways, though.

“What’s the matter?” Vilintia said. “Why so pensive?”

There was concern in her eyes, as if she thought he were dissatisfied with her.

“Last night…” he said. “Were you making up for lost time?”

She frowned, then seemed to get it. “All those years of celibacy, you mean? Theltek, I was a dozy cow.”

When she kissed him, he responded fiercely, aware all the time that this was not love. It wasn’t even a need for closeness. It felt more primal. Akin to hunger.

When they had finished and lay in each other’s arms, the east side of the tent was bathed in red as the sun finally rose.

“So, you like how we celebrate our feast days?” Vilintia asked.

“Drinking, dancing, and feasting, you mean?”

“And making love,” Vilintia added. “We weren’t the only ones, you can be sure of that.”

Anskar smiled, and though she smiled too, a new sadness entered Vilintia’s eyes.

She encircled his wrist with her fingers, feeling the vambrace that invisibly adorned his forearm. “It glowed a little during the night,” she said.

“Jagonath was bright. The vambrace is visible under moonlight. I thought my mother wanted me to learn from it, so I could make a full suit of Armor of Divinity. In Wintotashum, I started to try. We procured the necessary components, had access to a forge hot enough to work divine alloy… I even stole the necromancer Tain’s notes from the Scriptorium.”

“But you made no progress?”

“A little, but it soon came to a stop.”

“What happened?”

“People died.” Hrothyr, Bonavir, Braga. “I suppose that’s why my mother sent Carred to find a suit of armor from the past: I’m taking too long.”

Vilintia dabbed at her eye with a finger.

“I’m sorry,” Anskar said.



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