The Slain Divine by David Dalglish

Author:David Dalglish [DALGLISH, DAVID]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-25T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 34

ARN

Does it always take this long?” Arn asked Thorda as the pair watched over Mari. His little chair creaked beneath him as he shifted his weight side to side. His lower back hurt. Too much sitting. Too much waiting. A price he’d pay, because he had no intention of leaving Mari’s bedside.

“This sickness?” Thorda asked. He stood with a washrag in one hand and a little tin pail of water heated with coals in the other. He wet the rag and then brushed it along Mari’s forehead with slow, careful precision. “There is no preventing it, but the time varies depending on how long she spent connected to the deity. With Endarius, her commingling lasted years.”

The memory of seeing Mari collapsed on the floor of the alehouse stabbed Arn’s gut worse than any dagger. He hid the discomfort with another shift of his weight. If only the Nameless woman had stayed with them, to soothe Mari when her fever spiked and her pain reached such a level she whimpered amid her dreams.

“Well, she’s kicked this before,” he said. “So she’ll kick it again. She always does.”

Thorda did not answer immediately. He dipped the cloth into the pail, wrung it out, and then lifted her left arm by the wrist. Carefully, he washed her skin from the elbow to her dainty fingers.

“Taking the power of the divine into mortal flesh is always a risk,” Thorda said. The heaviness to his voice ceased Arn’s squirming. “Something you should know well. Not everyone survives the paragon ritual.”

“But for me, or even something like what Cyrus is becoming, it’s a onetime struggle,” Arn said. “Why is it so different with Mari?”

“Because she herself is not becoming divine. She shares her body with the slain god, giving it life. She is a wooden bowl filled with fire and blood, and with each and every whispering, I pray she is not consumed. Her gifts were meant to be used sparingly, in quiet, prayerful moments among fellow believers. Never like this. Never in war.”

And yet she did so anyway. Was it courage on her part, or cruelty on her father’s? Arn didn’t know, nor was he equipped to judge. His homeland of Vashlee had been an honored member of Everlorn since long before he was born.

“But it’s free of her now. Endarius left her. Why then this sickness?”

Thorda switched arms. Arn suspected Mari didn’t need the attention so much as Thorda desired something, anything, to do to help his daughter.

“Nothing is so simple when it comes to gods. Mari suffers to take the divine within her, and when it departs, it takes a heavy toll.”

Did that mean it hurt when she transformed? Arn had never guessed. She was ever playful, even as the Lioness. Yet… yet that was a lie, wasn’t it? He’d seen her on Stasia’s wedding night. A swell of hurt dwelt within her, of a nature he didn’t fully understand. Perhaps this was a part of it.

“She never lets it show,” he said.

“She hides it well.

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