19

The woman prostrated herself in front of Lyra when she didn't answer right away, her forehead pressed to the road and her arms extended, palms up. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed into the dirt. Lyra had never been more uncomfortable in her life. She looked from the woman to Kel, who had a pained expression on his face.

"What do I do?" she hissed at him.

"It's your choice, priestess. I understand that you have a pressing reason to get to the city as quickly as possible, but it is your duty as a member of the wandering clergy to help where you can. I will not make this decision for you."

"Please," the woman sobbed. "Please, the god has already wounded my husband. It could kill my son at any time. He is a good boy. He is."

Lyra wanted to walk away. She wanted to tell the woman she couldn't do this, whatever this was. That it wasn't her responsibility, no matter what Kel said. She hated responsibility. She had dropped out of college because it was too much responsibility, for goodness’ sakes. She had rehomed her pet fish because it was too much responsibility.

And she could just walk away from this. She knew she could because Kel wasn't going to make her do it, and she didn't think he would let anyone else make her do it either. So far, he was the only person she had seen who had a sword, which probably meant there weren't that many people who would argue with him if they decided to walk right on through the town and not look back.

She could apologize to the woman, tell Kel she wanted to hurry through the town and camp out in the wilderness tonight. She could go on her way to Heliotheopoli and then home, leaving this woman and her son to whatever fate awaited them.

The words were on her tongue, a refusal, but somehow she couldn't force them out. It was the crying that did it, the heart-wrenching sobs the woman was making that seemed to reach inside Lyra's chest and squeeze her own heart in involuntary sympathy.

"I don't know what you expect me to do," she said after a long pause in which the woman's sobs were the only sound she heard.

"If there is a god involved, priestess, simply talking to them may be enough."

"Please, just call me Lyra," she told Kel, dragging a hand down her face. "Stop calling me priestess, it weirds me out."

"The matter stands." He paused. "If a simple conversation with the god is enough to fix whatever this woman's son is involved in, then perhaps the delay would be worth it."

She had to help now, didn't she? She couldn't let some woman's kid get killed just because she didn't want to have a conversation, dammit.

Sighing, she crouched in front of the crying woman. "What's your name?"

"Perra," she said, still looking at the ground. "I'm Perra and my son is Galin."

"I guess... if you tell us more about what's going on, I'll try to help?"

She thought the obvious lack of confidence in her voice might discourage the woman, but Perra was nothing but grateful as she bowed even lower, pressing herself into the red dirt, and said, "Thank you! Thank you, priestess. I will give you anything you want in return. My family doesn't have much, but all of it is yours."

"Get up," Kel said. She couldn't tell if he was glad she was helping or if he wished she had told the woman to leave them be, or if he didn't care. His face was expressionless as he reached down to help the woman to her feet. "Take us into town so the priestess can speak with the god at your temple. We will need traveling supplies — food, primarily — and beds for both of us tonight."

"Yes, of course," Perra said as she got to her feet. "Anything you — Kel?"

She squinted into his face, clear recognition in her eyes. He frowned. "Do you know me?"

"Of course I do, your sister was that priestess who..." She trailed off. "Well, I saw you with Priestess Lora a couple of years ago. I heard you were back in Kyokami. You have my condolences."

He grunted, and the woman turned her attention back to Lyra, though her gaze was fixed upon her tunic instead of her face. "This way, please, priestess. I will take you to our temple. We haven't had any clergy in town since—well, it's been years. We've been keeping the temple up as well as we can, but without a way to speak to Saofoth, we can't do much besides the basics."

"Saofoth?" Lyra asked. "Is that the god?"

Perra nodded, though it was more of a bow, as she led the way down the road toward her village. "His lιən is limited. He helps with the orchard, making sure the trees are watered even in the dry season and keeping the pests away from our peaches. Perhaps he can help, perhaps not. You can also speak to Bria, Galin's friend." Her lips pressed together in a thin line. "She's just a girl, and I know I shouldn't blame her, but she should have told someone before things went so far."

"So, Saofoth is the god he's in trouble with?" Lyra asked, trying to keep up with the names. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kel turn his head to look at the woman as if he too was waiting for her answer.

"N-no," Perra stammered. She kept her eyes averted, not looking either of them in the face. "Perhaps it is best if you speak with Saofoth and Bria to get the full story. He's a good boy. He really is. He didn't mean any harm."

Lyra glanced over at Kel, who met her gaze with a hint of worry in his blue eyes. Something was afoot here, and it seemed like she wasn't the only one who thought so.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Lokokami turned out to be much like Kyokami, with a few notable differences. The buildings were in the same style, all of them except the temple. Where Towr's temple hadn't been much different from the houses besides the lack of windows and the pillars supporting the overhang in front, the temple in Lokokami looked more like a garden than a building. Pristine stone walls enclosed a large plot of land in the center of the village, just off the road on the right side. The walls were made out of the same pale grey stone as the other buildings and came up to Lyra's shoulder. There was a metal gate blocking the entrance, and the pillars on either side of the gate were decorated with carvings of branches, leaves, and fruit.

Where Kyokami had gardens and, behind the buildings, small fields, Lokokami had trees. Fruit trees. Peach trees, to be exact. Roughly half of them were currently bearing the fuzzy pinkish fruit, and the trees that weren't in fruit were budding with pink flowers. They grew in yards, in between the buildings, and in the temple's orchard, as Lyra saw when Perra opened the gate.

"Through here, priestess. I will fetch Bria. I believe she's with her mother at the moment, so it shouldn't be long."

Perra bowed to Lyra again and backed away before hurrying down the road. Lyra paused at the gate, looking after her. She and Kel had drawn attention from the moment they stepped into the village, and more than a few people were watching them from the side of the road or gazing out at them from their doorways

Uncomfortable, Lyra slipped past the gate and out of sight of their curious eyes. The orchard was unexpectedly beautiful. The peach trees in here were planted in neat rows, but all of them were small, most not much taller than Lyra. They looked old despite their height, with gnarled limbs and roots that had begun to creep up through the soil. All of the trees were budding and bearing fruit at the same time, and the air smelled of flowers and peaches.

"I must wait here, priestess," Kel said from behind her. "I cannot enter the temple."

"Why?" she asked, turning around to face him.

Before he could respond, the gate swung shut without either of them touching it. Her heart beat out a fast rhythm in her chest as she reached for it, remembering how Towr had slammed the door to her temple shut when Kel tried to get inside.

"Hello."

The voice was high-pitched, a child's, and it made Lyra just about jump out of her skin. She spun around to see a… figure standing on the crushed gravel path behind her.

Even though the figure couldn't have been more different from Towr, there was no doubt in her mind that this was the god she was supposed to speak to.

Where Towr had been tall, monochrome grey, slightly translucent, and clearly female or at least with feminine traits, this god had a child's body and was androgynous. Unlike Towr, he or she looked as solid and real as Kel did. Their hair was the pink-orange of peaches, and their skin was a light tan without any blemishes. Their eyes were what captivated her, though. They were the color of the sun, without any pupil, iris, or sclera, and seemed to give off a light she could feel the heat of on her skin.

"Hi," she said after pausing long enough to take the god in. "Are you Saofoth?"

The god nodded, their lips curving up into a joyous smile. "Priestess, it's been so long since I've been able to talk with anyone. Will you sit under my trees? Will you eat my fruit? Will you drink from my well? You're very welcome here."

"I just had some questions to ask about a missing boy, Galin."

Like a cloud covering the sun, Saofoth's eyes darkened. "He would have made a good priest. Come, let me show you my temple while we speak, priestess. Each of the trees has been named. A wandering priest named them for me two hundred years ago. Come see, come see!"

The gravel path made of crushed white rocks meandered through the small orchard. Lyra followed as the little god set off along it. She didn't like leaving Kel behind, but as long as she didn’t make any deals with this god, she should be fine, right?

"Look, this is the first one that was planted when my temple was built," Saofoth said, pausing in front of one of the trees. "It was also the first tree to be named."

It had never occurred to Lyra to name a tree, but it seemed the polite thing to do to crouch and read the little metal plaque that was set on the stone pedestal in front of the tree. Min. The other trees' names were similar; simple, one-syllable words that were either names or nonsense words or had some meaning in a language she didn't know, but the god seemed proud of them. She admired a few trees before drawing the god's attention back to the whole reason she was here.

"Your temple is lovely," she said politely. "But the woman, Perra, she said her son needed our help and it sounded urgent. What do you know about what happened to him? She said a god was involved. It wasn't you?"

Saofoth shook their head. "No. He prayed to me, but I could not give the boy what he asked for. Matters of life and death are not within my lιən." They giggled. "Unless it's a fruit tree, of course!"

"What did he want help with?" she asked, trying to ignore how creepy that giggle was.

"He wanted me to bring his sister back to life," the god said. "She was a sweet girl. She had just started worshiping at the festivals. She was only six, I think, or seven. You mortals age so quickly, it can be hard to keep track of."

"His sister died?" Lyra asked, thinking of the woman's heart-wrenching sobs. She said she lost her daughter recently, hadn’t she?

"No one told me the details," Saofoth said, pouting. "And she was not devoted to me, so I do not know what happened to her soul or when it departed her body, but I know there was much grief and anger in the village recently."

"So, Galin prayed to you to bring his sister back, and when you couldn't, he, what, asked another god?"

"Perhaps," Saofoth said slowly. "He was distraught, his soul crying out with his grief and his rage. I do not know what he did, priestess, and that is the truth of it, but I think it likely that he has committed a great sin. If you wish to save the boy, do not bring your paladin along when you go to look for him. His kind rarely overlook sins, even the sins of children. He was a sweet boy, once. If what I suspect is true, bring him back to my temple. If he will devote himself to me, I will shield him from the gaze of the Great God."

Lyra had the distinct feeling she was getting in over her head, but that had become a very familiar feeling over the past few days so she ignored it and pressed on anyway. She could figure out the details later—because there was no way in hell she was going to wander off on her own without Kel to find this kid.

"Do you know where he is right now? What he's doing?"

"I do not. He is not in the village or close by, but I cannot tell you more than that. But look, priestess, we draw near to my well and the guesthouse. Come see, and be welcome in my temple. Take a peach and drink from my well. There is much grief and darkness outside of these walls, but there is no reason to be anything but joyous within."

He skipped ahead of her, leading her toward a small, square building set at the back of the orchard. Lyra followed more slowly, her thoughts troubled.

All the talk of sin and paladins and devotion went over her head. She hadn't been religious at home, and she barely knew anything about how things worked in this world. She needed to talk to Kel, but Saofoth seemed to think he wouldn't be helpful in this.

She didn't trust these gods, but Towr had some reservations about Kel too. Neither god allowed him into their temples, and Towr had reacted violently when he tried to come in. Why? She wished she had spent the last day asking questions instead of plodding along silently and feeling bad for herself.

She wanted nothing more than to slip back through the gate, tell Kel they were leaving, and get out of the town before Perra came back. No matter what Kel said about the duty of a priestess, this wasn't her responsibility.

Only the knowledge that a child might die if she didn't keep her word and at least try to help made her keep following Saofoth down the path.