16

The front door opened and Kel strode out, pushing Nira ahead of him, his fist clenched in the back of her shirt. He was wearing his armor and his sword, and he looked livid. If it weren’t for his niece, whom he was currently manhandling, Lyra would have been sorely tempted to run away again.

He paused when he saw her. “Good,” he grunted. “We were going to find you.”

“What’s going on?”

“Nira?” He glared down at the girl. “Tell her.”

Nira gulped and refused to meet Lyra’s eyes. “I didn’t know what would happen, I swear!”

“Tell. Her.”

“It’s my fault you’re here!”

Lyra blinked slowly into the silence that followed Nira’s statement. Her fault? She was an eight-year-old girl. How could she have had anything to do with it? But then Lyra remembered this was a world with gods — real gods and real power.

“What… What do you mean?” she stammered. “You know why I’m here?”

Kel let go of Nira, and she stumbled a few steps forward. She had dried tears on her face and her eyes were red and puffy. It was clear that whatever was going on had been happening for a while.

“Uncle Kel has been so sad since Aunt Lora died. He doesn’t have any friends, and he just goes to the alehouse and wanders around town alone all the time.”

“I don’t understand.”

Pausing to wipe her nose, Nira explained, “I made an offering and prayed really hard that the god would send someone for Uncle Kel to be friends with and go on adventures with again. I didn’t want him to be sad anymore. I didn’t think it worked, but now you’re here, and you’re going to the city with him, and you’re a priestess just like Aunt Lora. Only… this morning, Mama was talking about how sad you must be to be away from your family and how scared you must have been when you didn’t know what was going on, and I realized maybe I did a bad thing and Uncle Kel saw my face and made me tell.”

It took Lyra a few seconds to work through the word vomit, but when she did, she felt something curdle in her chest. “You were behind all of this?” She had to remind herself that Nira was a child and clenched her jaw shut to keep from the venomous words she wanted to say from spilling out.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Kel snapped. “She shouldn’t have been able to do something like this. It is immensely costly to ask a god to send someone to another continent, let alone another world. I don’t believe the offering she made was anywhere near the realm of what should’ve been accepted.”

“I found the most perfect apple in the whole orchard!” Nira said, sounding offended. “I looked for it every day for a week.”

“What shrine did you make the offering at?” Kel asked, his voice taut.

“The one in the orchard.”

His shoulders slumped in relief and he sighed. “What you did was foolish and dangerous, but I do not believe you are the reason Lyra is here.”

“She’s not?” Unlike him, she was more disappointed than relieved. She might have been angry at Nira, but at least she would have had a reason why all of this had happened.

“I know the shrine she is speaking of. It is ancient. The god’s name has been forgotten, and even Lora never managed to see or speak to it. If it is still there, then it is extremely weak. It would not have had the power to bring you here, even if it was within its lιən. Especially not for the price of an apple.”

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Lyra looked at the sniffling girl and sighed. Her anger and hope vanished as soon as they had come.

“But I prayed,” Nira whined. “And the god sent you.”

“Lyra herself said the Great God is the one who brought her here,” Kel said. “Perhaps I overreacted. But Nira, have you learned nothing? You should not make offerings to strange gods. You shouldn’t make offerings to any gods unless there is a priest or priestess there to guide you. You certainly shouldn’t be spending time around old shrines alone. If that god still lingers, something terrible could have happened to you.”

“Maybe it was a shrine to the Great God, you don’t know,” she muttered, crossing her arms. She looked somehow both ashamed and defiant.

“It wasn’t,” Kel said shortly, then he sighed again. “I’m sorry for shouting, Nira. Come back inside. I have to say goodbye to you and your mother, then Lyra and I must set out. This has delayed us.”

Still shaken from experiencing such a whirlwind of emotions, Lyra was content to wait outside while Kel finished gathering his things and said goodbye to his family. Gidal was already gone for the day, doing whatever it was he did for work, but Cora and Nira both came out with Kel a few minutes later to say goodbye to her. Nira hugged her around the waist, then tugged her down to whisper in her ear.

“Even if Uncle Kel is right and you’re not here because I prayed, will you still be his friend and cheer him up?”

“I’ll try.”

Cora hugged her too, and belatedly, Lyra remembered the rain boots and jacket and handed them over. “Here. These are from home, and I think they would draw too much attention while I’m traveling. They’re waterproof, so maybe they’ll be useful when the rainy season comes. I’d like you to have them.”

“This jacket is so brightly colored and cheerful,” Cora said, examining it happily. “Thank you, Lyra. We appreciate the gifts and we will take good care of them. I’m sure we will get much use out of them as the seasons change. Take care, both of you. When Kel writes to us after you arrive at Heliotheopoli, you should send a letter as well. I’m sure the whole village will be eager to hear whether you were able to find out why you were brought here.”

“I will,” she promised.

With that, Kel hefted his backpack and she did the same, and they set off down the road. Every time Lyra looked back, Cora and Nira were still waving goodbye. Marid called out a goodbye as well, and Lyra waved back, a bittersweet feeling in her chest. She hadn’t known any of these people for long, but it was a little sad, knowing she would never see them again.

She glanced at the temple, but Towr wasn’t visible. Sofia was sitting outside, licking the last dregs of tuna juice from her paws. Lyra waved to the cat, then turned to Kel.

“Oh, right before I left the temple, Towr did something to me. She said she was giving me her ‘Blessing of Learning; Language,’ and she touched my head. She wouldn’t give me a straight answer when I asked what she had done. What exactly did she do?”

“I do not know exactly what that blessing does, though I would imagine it will make it easier for you to learn new languages,” Kel said. “I keep forgetting you have no experience with the gods. Blessings are persistent influences, given by a god either to clergy or worshipers for acts of service. They always have positive effects, so it is not something that you should be worried about. What she did before, when she taught you Moldaran and took your own language away from you, that was a boon. Unlike blessings, boons don’t have lasting effects. They happen once and then they’re done.” He paused. “There are also curses, which may have lasting or ephemeral consequences, and are always negative for the person who receives them.”

“Like making someone blind if they don’t return library books?”

He nodded. “Yes. There may be some cases where it is not immediately clear whether something is a blessing, a boon, or a curse, but for the most part, the division is obvious.”

Lyra thought about it. She didn’t really feel any different, but Kel seemed paranoid enough when it came to the gods that she thought she could trust him when he said she had nothing to worry about. Hopefully, she would figure out what the blessing did eventually, but until then, at least she could rest easy with the knowledge that she hadn’t lost anything else.

“You really don’t think what Nira did has anything to do with why I’m here?” she asked. Zarad was outside again, but she simply nodded respectfully to Kel and ignored Lyra. It seemed like a sword commanded a different type of respect than her green tunic did.

“It is unlikely, but if you wish, we can visit the shrine she made the offering at before we leave. It is an old Aketian shrine, not much more than a pile of stones. I do not expect that we will find anything, but I have been wrong before.”

“I’d like to go see it,” she decided. She knew they had already been delayed this morning, but this felt important. If Kel was wrong and Nira’s prayers were what had brought her here, maybe they wouldn’t need to go all the way to the city after all. If she didn’t go see the shrine, she would spend the next few weeks wondering if not going had been a mistake.

“Very well,” he said. “We can pick some of the season’s last apples from the orchard to bring with us, so it will not be wasted time. We have already been delayed this morning. An extra hour won’t hurt.”