GRP Chapter 25

Every table was packed so densely with plates there was no room to set down another cup. Hard bread and butter, stew, rough spirits, roasted meat, stir-fried meat, steamed meat, minced meat.

Unlike the food of the continent, which layered fragrance and flavor through spices and vegetables and fruits, northern food was thoroughly unadorned. But true to a region that knew no path but meat, their preparations were without rival. The surface of the lean meat, browned to a perfect golden-brown, ran with a smooth, flowing sheen. The rich smell of fat intensified by fire—deep and nutty—worked its way into every sense.

Mariaeks's mouth filled with saliva. The hunger she had felt since Ullri and Baen began quietly reducing her portions had arrived now as something closer to pain. Her stomach had passed stinging and burning and arrived at something that felt like tearing, and pain had risen throughout her body. It was not a sensation she had never experienced before. It was simply one that refused to become familiar.

Mariaeks pressed a hand against her aching stomach and thought of a man. Garthe, with his ever-cool smile.

'He said it would take at least two weeks.'

The problem was that he was excessively capable. Three days only. Barely enough time to learn the castle's layout, following Oze's guidance once a day. She had been on the verge of beginning to properly search for food when Garthe returned. There was little she could do in front of a human who grew hostile at the mere meeting of eyes. She would need to be as inconspicuous as possible, which meant refraining from wandering the castle in search of food.

In other words: if she came away from this tavern empty-handed, she would starve.

Against the urgency in her mind, the situation was turning increasingly unfavorable.

"Oh, I imagine that must have stung, Mariaeks."

"That wasn't really how he meant it."

Mariaeks felt the pitying gazes directed at her and was inwardly disconcerted. Her plan had been to steal food once the drinking men grew loose enough not to notice. With them watching her this closely, she could barely breathe without calculating its effect.

"The Anir gets a little on edge right after battle, you see."

He was not merely a little on edge right after battle. He was a great deal on edge at all times.

"The fear of death that tends to follow a battle where your life was on the line... the stress that comes from that... well, something along those lines."

Mariaeks blinked.

She could not understand what they were saying. Garthe had fought a battle where his life was on the line, and therefore felt fear of death?

Looking more carefully, she saw they were wearing uncomfortable expressions as well. It appeared they were at least dimly aware they had said something nonsensical.

The awkward atmosphere and the nonsense continued for some time. Only after a while did Mariaeks realize they were trying to offer her comfort. On account of her near-collapse from Garthe's killing intent. That embarrassing display. She had felt a genuine flash of fear that she might die. But this had not settled inside her as a particularly significant event. It was a matter of degree. Fear was simply what she had been feeling since the moment she met him.

The man's gaze was like a sword. Not simply because they shared a color—a sword's nature was, in essence, to kill, and what Garthe's eyes held was solely the will to do so. However warmly he might press his lips to a cheek and offer a smiling welcome, the nature inside it did not change. It held Olgidphaenn's cold the way solid metal does, and kept its edge bright.

Mariaeks thought, moreover, that she had survived this long only through a combination of Garthe's unpredictability and a certain amount of good fortune.

In short: she was in an extremely fortunate situation.

It seemed she should at least go through the motions of receiving their consolation. Mariaeks nodded. For all that they looked as rough and blunt as could be, they had their delicate sides. Even so, her gaze remained fixed on the food on the table.

Mariaeks's face, expressionless as a doll's, showed nothing of what she thought or wanted. To an onlooker, it might have looked like the extreme heartache of someone unreachable by any comfort. Anguished gazes poured toward her.

Mariaeks didn't know it, but she was, in fact, a figure of considerable importance among Garthe's men. She was the one responsible for a welcome change. She had managed, no less, to round off some small portion of Garthe's sharp edges. Of course, a spike with slightly rounded tips was still a spike. But to those who had known Garthe until now, it was as if the sky and the earth had switched places.

Moreover, the Garthe who seemed to exist in order to fight gods was said to be sharing a room with Mariaeks, the great god of Heimdrykze. Since Garthe's subtle changes had begun from that point, they had concluded it was not unreasonable to suppose that some kind of emotional current ran between the man and the god. What was commonly called love.

A concept that had never existed for Garthe in all his life.

Perhaps it could be explained this way: where any other hero would have dozens or hundreds of romantic rumors attached to their name, Garthe had none. Not a single one. He had never shown not only romantic feeling for anyone but even basic human warmth or compassion directed toward another person. Honestly, the monsters that ate humans seemed more likely to love humans than Garthe did. At least a monster could be said to like humans, on account of finding them delicious.

But love was a mysterious and magnificent force—the kind that could make rough, bearded men who did nothing but curse start producing baby sounds. Something along those lines was probably at work, they supposed.

And the other party was hardly ordinary.

Even in the eyes of men who had traveled every corner of the continent and encountered beautiful and powerful gods by the hundreds and thousands, Mariaeks was distinctly special. Her dazzling silver hair scattered fragments of rainbow across the snowfield, iridescent in five colors, and the eyes shining transparently within the elegance of her gaze were, truly, the kind of thing a god might have crafted. Skin that gleamed with the soft luster of pearl, and features so fine they seemed carved. And the stillness that surrounded her, which made her seem completely removed from this loud and chaotic space.

A beauty so blinding, and apparently full of secrets and mystery besides—there was nothing to be done about it. Mariaeks herself was scanning the room for prey because she was starving. But the men simply nodded among themselves: of course the Anir would show such unusual reactions; of course.

Garthe's reaction upon returning from the subjugation had been the same as always. But it was difficult to take this as evidence the effects of love had worn off. He had always been sharper than usual after battle.

What the men worried about was this: if Mariaeks, whose feelings had been hurt, were to get into a lovers' quarrel with Garthe over this, what would happen next? Love was a force that could round a person out—but it was also a terrible force that could drive them entirely to extremes. He was difficult enough already. If something went wrong on his romantic front, who could say how far he would go?

They absolutely had to make Mariaeks's mood at least a little better, and at the same time work things so that the walking personality disaster called Garthe came across as at least a somewhat acceptable person.

The five men thought hard, inside their heads, about their superior's virtues.

Appearance. Wealth. Strength.

…

Their gazes met in silence.

They recognized they were all thinking the same thing. The problem was that he possessed all the important elements, and nothing except those important elements. There was also the unresolved question of how much practical use a human's appearance and wealth would be to a god of blinding beauty living in snow-covered mountain ranges.

Strip out appearance and wealth, and there was only one thing left. Strength.

In truth, it was the element that made Garthe more a hero than anything else. But his men despaired.

What use was a show of strength in the face of love?

Their Anir was really quite lacking.

Even so, apart from what they actually thought, their mouths began producing praise for Garthe—words they had heard from others many times.

"This time around we expected the subjugation to take about a month, but he wrapped it up in three days, didn't he. The Anir really is something."

"How many fortresses have come down because of those things, how many people killed? Good grief, we couldn't even think about touching them... and he went alone to handle it. Truly extraordinary."

"Not a bone fragment left, all burned clean through. Even hundreds of monsters are clearly no match for the Anir. Ha!"

"Of course, of course. Any god on the continent would kneel before the Anir!"

They had forgotten that Mariaeks was the only god present, and carried on for quite some time.

The head of the Giant God of Ryvalle in a single stroke. A vast empire built by a demigod of dragon's blood, destroyed in a month. A hard-fought victory against the ancient god of the Paldoa Mountains after ten days and nights of relentless battle. Every joint and segment of the isopod god of Crescent Cape, broken apart.

They boasted of their superior's achievements with passion. Mariaeks let the words enter one ear and leave immediately. She was not particularly curious about Garthe's achievements, and in any case she was not in a situation where she could think of anything else with food in front of her.

Leaving Mariaeks entirely without interest, the story proceeded in reverse. Before long it arrived at the part titled: the birth of the hero Garthe.

"When we say a hero is 'born,' we don't mean they came out of a mother's womb. We mean they've accomplished their first heroic feat."

The men had a talent for chewing large pieces of meat exactly twice before swallowing. With each plate that emptied, something hollow spread through Mariaeks.

"Heroes are born as early as mid-teens, some as late as their thirties. Usually somewhere from the late teens to around twenty. You have to fight gods and monsters, so you need time to sharpen your strength."

Mariaeks looked at the cook sharpening a knife in the kitchen, her eyes somewhere farther than the steel.

"But our Anir, no less, no less..."

One man drew out his words while the men beside him drummed the table with both hands. The moment the drumming stopped, the man held out one hand fully spread and one with the fourth and fifth fingers folded down.

"Eight years old! He became a hero at no less than eight years old!"