The Mountain God Sleeps On Its Back by Sam Farren

Author:Sam Farren [Farren, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-02-17T23:00:00+00:00

Twenty.

They set up one tent that night. They joined Thorn and curled up by his side. Laslin kept her arms tight around Avery, and Avery clung to the letter she had not let go of but to let Laslin read.

“I do not mean to doubt You, and I apologise if I have already asked,” Avery murmured. “But You are quite certain there was nothing wrong with them when You were in Vaelos, aren’t You?”

Laslin pressed her nose to the top of Avery’s head. She didn’t answer straight away and let the question hang in the air. Avery could not stand to hear too much at once, truths least of all.

“There was nothing. I would’ve felt it, would’ve cleansed it,” Laslin whispered. “It was sudden. Quick.”

“Painless too, one would hope. There one moment and gone the next. What is the meaning of that?”

Laslin wished she knew. She wished the Mark on her arm was worth a damn, and she wished the gods were what Avery needed them to be, right there and then.

“I should’ve been there,” Avery continued. “Or—gods, no. No, I couldn’t have dealt with that. I’d have fallen to pieces, and that is the last thing little Malik needs. Absurd, isn’t it? Here I am, wishing I had been there, yet if I had, I would wish to be anywhere else.”

Laslin stroked Avery’s hair. What could she say? She did not understand death, did not know how to scorn it, mock it; she did not understand the pull of the inevitable or how to rally against that which could not be defeated.

All she had were facts.

Taryn had died three weeks ago. They had been standing, talking, and then they were not. Something in their skull ruptured. It had been sudden, quick, painless, pointless, hollow and hurting.

Laslin did not understand death, but she understood Avery’s pain.

“I thought things would be different. I thought I would go on some grand journey with You and return years later to find that nothing had changed in Vaelos, while I had stories enough to make an occasion of every dinner. I thought I would return and Malik would look older, while Taryn did not, and I thought they would be proud of me, and—and—”

Avery sucked a breath between her teeth, doing what little she could not to cry.

“They were proud of you. I could tell in the way they spoke about you and the things they wrote. They told me I’d never find anyone more loyal, and they were right,” Laslin said.

Avery clung tighter to her.

“The last time I saw them was after Your little rabbit-trap adventure. I burst into their house, boasting that I was to accompany a god through the forest, and do You know what they said to me? Through the forest? Careful, Avery. A few days with you, and She will never let you leave Her side. They laughed, and I batted them away, telling them they were absurd. But they knew me better than I gave them credit for. Some part of them knew this would happen,” Avery murmured.

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