21

Lyra didn't know what to say in response to Dalton's declaration, and it didn't seem like anyone else did either, because silence was all that followed his statement. Even the injured man, Galin's father, didn't say a word in defense of his son.

That didn't seem like a good sign to her, but what did she know? She worked part-time as a barista and the other part of the time as a secretary at a weird art studio she was pretty sure was a money laundering operation. She hadn't felt like she knew what was going on since she found herself standing in the middle of the road in Kyokami, dripping rain onto the dry ground.

This was just more of the same.

"I said I'd go talk to the god that's behind all of this," she said at last. "I guess we'll figure everything out then."

Both men bowed, though Dalton's motions were stiff. The injured man said, "Come, priestess, sentinel. My wife has supplies for you. I'll take you to our house to get them, then you should hurry on your way."

Perra met them outside of a little stone house, not much different from Cora's, though it was located more centrally in the village and as a result had a smaller yard. She handed packages wrapped in waxed fabric to Lyra and Kel, and she had an extra which she handed to Bria.

"I don't know how long it will take the priestess to help Galin," she said. "I've brought extra for your uncle, too, Bria." She glanced at Lyra, then averted her gaze. "Do you need anything else, or can we go, priestess?"

"Bria said it will take us an hour to get there, so let's get going," Lyra said.

The four of them; herself, Kel, Perra, and Bria, set out from Lokokami, not down the road, but north out of town through the trees, following Bria down a game trail. Galin's father stayed behind, citing his blood loss and reduced vision from his injury and worried he would slow them down. Dalton stood with the other villagers, watching them go silently. The back of Lyra's neck prickled with the feeling of their eyes on her.

With Kel and his sword, and Saofoth's warning ringing in her ears, she felt more like she was walking to an execution than going on a rescue mission.

"Where are you from, priestess?" Perra asked as Bria led them silently on through the forest. Lyra was glad for her guidance, because sometimes she couldn't even see the game trail. She was also glad to be wearing long pants and sleeves, because more than once already they had been forced to push through thorny vines or something Lyra was pretty sure was that itchweed plant Kel had shown her last night, and they had only been walking for a few minutes.

Perra' s voice was polite and curious, though it had a false ring to it. Lyra suspected she hoped small talk would help to ingratiate her, and she couldn't blame the woman for trying. It was her son's life on the line, after all.

It was just bad luck that she chose one of the topics Lyra probably shouldn't talk about. Kel and his family hadn't seemed too shocked by her circumstances, but she doubted everyone would react that way, and she didn't want to go around blabbering about being from another world. It was bound to get her in trouble eventually.

She decided to be vague but truthful, because that was easier to keep track of than outright lying. "I'm from a city on the coast, pretty far from here."

"What brings you this far east? It must have been a long journey."

"Has tradition changed so much? When did we begin questioning the clergy?" Kel interjected, his tone full of reprimand.

"My apologies," Perra said, her voice small. "I didn't mean any offense, priestess."

Lyra felt bad at her, but she also didn't want to keep answering questions she didn't have a clear answers for. Nothing about this situation was good, and coming up with lies or evasive answers while she was trying not to trip over roots was a lot to ask on top of everything else.

"It's all right," she said. "From the sound of it, it's been a while since you've had a priest or priestess in the area. Kel's right, though. I don't really want to talk about my journey."

"Of course. And you're correct; Lora was the last priestess who stopped in our town long enough to talk to our god. I believe we had at least one priest travel through since, but he didn't linger in Lokokami nor speak to any of us. Times are changing. When I was younger, we had at least a few with the holy blood come to stay in the temple each year."

"And before that, they came every month. Before that, every town had at least one member of the clergy devoted to their town's temple," Kel said. "The holy blood is dying out. We can no longer rely on them to speak to the gods on our behalf. The children should have known better than to pray to a god whose name they don't know. They had no way to know that a priestess would arrive shortly after they found themselves in trouble. It was reckless and foolish."

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"They made a mistake," Perra said. "That's all. They're too young to understand the consequences."

"No, we aren't," Bria said from ahead of them. "We knew it was dangerous. We aren't stupid just because we're not adults yet."

Lyra listened as Perra and Bria squabbled, glad that Perra had stopped asking her questions. She wondered if Kel had stepped in to stop her on purpose, because he could tell she was uncomfortable, or if he really was such a stickler for tradition.

Maybe both.

Even though she knew Bria needed to guide them to the cave, and Perra was Galin's mother, so of course she should be there, she found herself wishing she was alone with Kel. She wanted to ask him what she should expect from Galin and this nameless god, and what Saofoth meant when he talked about sin. She wanted to ask him why neither god allowed him in their temples, and why he didn't correct the villagers when they called him a sentinel instead of a paladin. None of those were topics she wanted to bring up in front of Perra and Bria, but there was no way to get Kel alone.

So she stumbled along through the forest, silently mulling over her questions in the privacy of her own head. The gradual incline of the ground wasn't noticeable at first, but after a while she realized they were climbing up a hill. Soon her legs were burning. They crested the top and went down the other side, but the relief was short-lived when they began to scale an even steeper hill.

Her heart was pounding and her lungs were heaving by the time they reached the top, but she was the only one who seemed to be having issues with the exertion. She had thought she was in decent shape, but walking to the grocery store and work had nothing on this. None of the others said anything about how much she was struggling, but she suspected that had more to do with her status of priestess than anything. Kel had made the climb in plate armor for God's sake, and he didn't seem bothered.

They were judging her silently, she just knew it.

She was glad when they started descending again, going down into the small valley between this hill and the next, but her stomach clenched when Bria called out, "Uncle!" and she realized they had arrived.

She didn't want to do this. What if she couldn't help? What if Galin was already dead? She had never seen a dead body before, let alone a kid's. She couldn't do this, but it was too late to back out now, miles away from Lokokami and deep in a dense forest.

A man sitting on a rock rose to his feet to wave at them, then did a visible double-take when his eyes landed on Lyra.

"Where did… a priestess?"

"She's journeying west, to the coast," Perra said. "We are lucky she came when she did, and that she agreed to help us. Perhaps it's a sign the Great God is smiling on Galin. Has he come out?"

"No. And I haven't gotten close to the cave, not since what happened to your husband. I can hear her, though, whenever the birds and insects grow quiet." He turned his attention to Lyra and bowed. "I am Erol. We are lucky to have you here, priestess. I hope you will be able to help."

"I'm Lyra," she said. Her lips died on It's nice to meet you. This probably wasn't the time to fall back on the manners that had been drilled into her since she was a child. Instead, she took a deep breath and imagined locking all of her doubt and anxiety away in a little box. It didn't help much, but it was worth a try. "I'll do my best."

"Do you know anything about this god?" Kel asked.

"No. Nothing more than Bria knows, and I'm sure she already told you what she did."

"Have the locals been worshipping it?"

Erol hesitated. His eyes darted to the side, and Lyra followed his gaze automatically. She could just barely pick out a dark fissure in the side of the hill. The cave. Her arms broke out in goosebumps. She didn't want to go in there.

"Now isn't the time to worry about crimes. I'm no law-man," Kel said. "If the priestess gets hurt because you withheld the truth, it'll mean your head."

"We haven't been worshipping it," he replied. "We didn't even know where the cave was, not for sure. But Galin and Bria, they sacrificed a goat to it a couple of days ago. And… it's possible a man has met his death in the cave as well, but no one has seen his body and Bria did not witness his death, if he is indeed dead."

"This is Dalton's brother, right?" Lyra asked. "We met him in the village."

"Yes. His name is Odal."

"So, I need to find the god and ask about Galin and Odal." She took another deep breath. "Sounds simple enough. I can do that."

"The rest of you, stay here. I will escort the priestess to the cave," Kel said. "Do not approach unless I call for you. Do not pray."

The others nodded their agreement and Lyra and Kel started forward. The fissure was twice as tall as she was, though it narrowed to a crack at the top. The bottom part of it was just wide enough for her to walk through without touching the sides. Old, moss-covered rocks littered the ground in front of it. Kel stopped about ten feet back, so she did too, her eyes glued to the darkness inside.

"This may not be wise," Kel said quietly, pitching his voice too low for the others to hear. "If this is a blood god, it will be dangerous. Even if it hasn't been worshipped for centuries, a blood sacrifice would give it enough power to harm you. Even worse if a man and a goat were both sacrificed to it."

Her mouth felt dry. "What am I supposed to do? Go back and tell them I changed my mind?"

"You have the right to do so, if you wish it."

She imagined the long walk back to Lokokami with Perra begging her to change her mind and Bria silently judging her for being a coward. Shame curled inside her chest. She didn't want to go forward and she couldn't go back.

"I will be right behind you if you wish to do this," Kel said when she didn't say anything.

"Really?" she looked at him in surprise. "I thought you couldn't go into temples."

"This isn't a temple," he said. "And this isn't a temple god. If it takes offense to my presence, I will have no reservations about defending myself with my blade."

He drew the sword from his hip and she stared at the shining metal. "Your sword can hurt gods?"

"It's a relic," he said, as if that explained everything.

To him, it probably did. She wanted to ask more, but her ears caught a sound coming from inside the cave; faint, but unmistakeable.

A girl was crying, somewhere in the dark.

"All right." She tried to sound braver than she felt, but her voice came out not much louder than a whisper. "Let's go find this god."