GRP Chapter 13

Mariaeks turned over Samthyeon's question in her mind. How are you feeling? Without thinking, she reached back to touch the nape of her neck. Why did it ache. As though she'd been struck. She was quite certain she had been watching the morning sun when her memory had simply cut off—so what had happened?

"I'm glad to hear you're all right."

Samthyeon had deftly heard and answered words she had never actually spoken. Mariaeks was still puzzling over this when he continued.

"Before I relay the fortress's position, there is something I would like to ask you, Mariaeks. Is it possible that you had previously announced your intention to visit, or made an appointment in advance?"

Announced your intention? Made an appointment? Was that all it would have taken? While she had trembled in the cold, scaling the outer wall through the agony of fingers and toes threatening to break off—all that effort, all that suffering, negated by a single question.

"Have you?"

Samthyeon asked again. Mariaeks forced open her throat, which kept cracking under the tension, and pushed out a single word.

"No."

"I see. Then—may I understand Mariaeks's actions, which consisted of breaking and entering the fortress without authorization, threatening the commander of this fortress and Anir of Olgidphaenn, Lord Garthe, with a fearsome dagger, issuing death threats, and proceeding to actually attempt to pierce his heart in an effort to kill him—not as a conflict born from a simple failure of communication or the transmission of information, but as an act of aggression and hostility?"

Mariaeks froze, her expression blank. Threats. Attempted murder. Failure to communicate. Aggression. Hostile act. She knew the words, but having them arrayed before her for the first time made her head swim.

'Wait—the one who stabbed the heart—'

Wasn't that the man now claiming to have been threatened? The hand holding the dagger had certainly been Mariaeks's. But the act itself, when examined, amounted to Garthe's own self-inflicted wound.

"No— that—"

She tried to protest, to shed even a little of the weight bearing down on her. Samthyeon gave her no opening.

"You may be thinking: it's only one human life—but he is not 'only one human life.' The Anir's health has bearing on the hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of people living under his protection. This is a very serious matter for us. So I would ask you to answer clearly. What has brought you to our fortress?"

Throughout all of this—the talk of hostile acts against humans, of a very serious matter—Samthyeon had not shown the slightest agitation. He spoke with a calm face that looked mildly irritable and deeply tired, no more. It was the businesslike manner of someone interested only in establishing facts. Mariaeks shrank. It produced a different kind of discomfort than facing someone in open anger.

"I understand you've been holding my spirits captive."

"We have not so much as touched a hair on the spirits, so please set your mind at ease."

Even in the act of reassuring her, Samthyeon managed to prick her conscience.

"They're children I care for. Return them to me."

"I'm afraid we cannot do that."

Samthyeon answered quickly, as though he had been waiting for it.

"The two spirits have been periodically stealing from the people of this settlement. You may not be aware, Mariaeks, but winter food stores carry a value that cannot simply be converted to coin. They carry the weight of lives."

Mariaeks inwardly sighed. When she had asked where on earth they were getting their ingredients, Ullri and Baen had answered: The worthless human creatures, in worship of the master's beauty and greatness, do hereby offer unto the altar. But Mariaeks had wandered the mountainside near the border for quite some time while searching for them, and found no such altar. They had described it as built from gold and marble, the size of a frost giant's fist—hardly something one would miss, if it existed. So the altar did not exist. And offerings placed upon a nonexistent altar also did not exist.

Recalling the warm meals that had appeared faithfully every single morning, Mariaeks recognized that Samthyeon was telling the truth. She could not bring herself to blame the spirits for what they'd done, though. She understood all too well that it had been for her sake.

"Do you know why the spirits were stealing human food? Did you perhaps order them to?"

Mariaeks hesitated. That she needed to eat regularly—it meant her divine body could not sustain itself on divine power alone. Not a single weak god in all of Heimdrykze answered to that description. Not even a newborn spirit. There were even demigods with human blood in their veins who needed nothing more than breath to survive. The need to eat—to consume food without exception—was her most guarded, shameful blight.

But it was not only her desire to conceal this secret weakness that kept her silent. It was the nature of living things to press down upon those weaker than themselves. Mariaeks believed Samthyeon regarded her as a god of Heimdrykze, and that even as an intruder, she was receiving a certain measure of treatment on those grounds.

If the truth emerged—that Ullri and Baen had stolen the ingredients out of necessity, and thus that her own imperfections were laid bare—their manner would certainly change. She could roughly predict what that change would look like. Such changes tended to follow a familiar pattern.

Mariaeks kept her mouth firmly shut and said nothing. Samthyeon, who had been watching her closely, passed over the unanswered question without ceremony and continued.

"This is not the territory of the gods, Mariaeks. It is the territory of humans. Olgidphaenn has its own laws. By the ruling of Olgidphaenn's Anir, the hero Lord Garthe..."

Samthyeon's eyes moved from Mariaeks to the side. Mariaeks followed his gaze to where Garthe sat. The hero Garthe smiled like a villain.

"Summary execution."

Before she could even register the meaning of the words, her chest filled with something she had no word for. Anger. Sadness. Horror. And then—that crushing, internal congestion that wouldn't let her breathe. She could not define it with words so simple, and was only confused.

Mariaeks set the confusion aside and tried to calculate what she could actually do at this moment. The answer came quickly. There was nothing she could do. So she stayed where she was. What had she crossed the river for? The courage that had driven her there seemed to have been shredded beneath the man's gaze, ground to dust.

Mariaeks looked at the human hero. For all that he was treating another person's life like a plaything, not the faintest trace of discomfort or guilt showed on his face—not even the low pleasure of a petty man enjoying cruelty. The man was simply very indifferent. Not performing indifference—he genuinely felt none. Because deciding another person's life and death was simply what his position demanded, and he had the power to match it.

She felt that no sharp blade and no agonizing pain would leave so much as a scratch on Garthe. Like the gods of Heimdrykze she knew, he seemed a complete and flawless being. Even the cold gaze that pressed others down beneath it said the same thing.

"Mariaeks. The Anir was only joking."

"A joke?"

Garthe turned the word over quietly. He appeared to find it without a ready category.

Samthyeon raised a hand, half-covering his mouth, and whispered to Garthe—angled so only he could see it: "Kindly shut up."

Then Samthyeon turned back to Mariaeks and continued.

"He's quite the prankster, you see."

"You are the first person to have said that about me."

Samthyeon continued as though he were simply doing what needed doing. Mariaeks was the only one being tossed about by a situation she had no power over.

"Regardless of the reason, a loss has been incurred on our side. I'm afraid we cannot simply return the spirits to you."

Mariaeks felt she would have retched up everything she had eaten over all that time, if she could—just to give it back. But those ingredients had already become blood and flesh.

"Then I'll return what was lost. Whatever the amount."

"That becomes a rather complicated matter. The thefts were repeated many times over, and there appear to be incidents we were unable to account for. The full extent is difficult to determine. Add to that the question of compensation for the psychological distress the Anir will require time to recover from—as a result of Mariaeks's intrusion—and the corresponding sum becomes very hard to estimate. And even if we were to calculate a figure, there exists the possibility that the two parties' differing claims would prevent any smooth agreement from being reached."

The more Samthyeon twisted the situation, the more severe the situation felt. Mariaeks took it out on the poor bedding, twisting it in her fists. Samthyeon had been quietly watching this; his expression shifted from deeply tired to marginally less so. His voice brightened, by the smallest amount.

"And so I have prepared one alternative. Olgidphaenn is engaged in research on Heimdrykze, the divine territory, and the many gods who live within it. But as Mariaeks herself must be aware, it is an extraordinarily dangerous place—one where an ordinary human cannot so much as set foot."

Mariaeks nodded slightly, in the manner of someone following along.

"And yet Mariaeks has, as if by fate, come to Olgidphaenn—which opens another path entirely. If you would assist with our research, we will return the spirits to you."

"Assist how?"

"Allow us to keep you here and observe you. Answer our questions from time to time. The more actively you cooperate, the sooner the research will conclude. We estimate somewhere between six months at best, a year at the outside."

Mariaeks blinked. Six months at best, a year at the outside. For another god it might seem a short while, but for Mariaeks it felt impossibly long. And it was not simply that she disliked humans, or found the place unfamiliar.

'Precious Mariaeks. You would never leave me, would you?'

Since hearing those words, Mariaeks had not crossed the river that marked Heimdrykze's border. She had not left even the small temple she called home.