23

They were all waiting for her to respond, even the god, and in an odd way, the sheer absurdity of the situation helped ground her a little. How the hell had all of this become her responsibility? She was a twenty-six-year-old college dropout who barely made ends meet working part-time jobs that she couldn't have cared less about. She hated being responsible for anything; she was selfish, and she gave up whenever things got hard. She was the worst possible person for Kel, Galin, or even this terrifying god to look to, yet it was her word all of them were waiting on.

Her eyes fixed on the god. By right of being the most terrifying, she decided it was the one she was going to answer first. "Galin's mother sent us to bring him home. Is… that okay with you?

"I'm not keeping him here," the god said, its lips pulling back in a grin that showed far too many teeth. "The boy stays of his own volition. Take him if you want, but I won't make him leave. The company of a human without even a drop of holy blood in their veins is better than the dark solitude that I lingered in for so long."

"So we can just... leave with him?" she asked, searching for a trick. It couldn't be this easy, could it? "You won't do anything to stop us? You won't hurt anyone?"

Its claws tightened on her shoulder. "Do you think me a liar, little priestess? I bear no ill will towards you. My word cannot be broken. Take him, then come back and speak with me once more. We shall come to an arrangement. You will be my voice, and I, your patron."

"Maybe," she said, her voice tight. She didn't want to promise something she definitely was not going to do, but she also didn't want to admit that there was no way in hell she was coming back here once they got Galin out.

It let go of her shoulder. Kel looked like he was about to explode with impatience, but Lyra thought the whole thing had gone rather well. She turned to Galin. "The god says you're free to go with us. He won't stop us, and he won't hurt anyone, so let's go. Your mother's outside; we shouldn't keep her waiting."

She held out her hand to him, but he shrank back, shaking his head with violent refusal.

"No, I can't go! Just tell them all to leave. I don't want to go back. Please don't make me, priestess."

The god chuckled, pacing around her so it could loom over Galin. "The boy got what he prayed for, and he regrets it. What a sad thing, yet it is a tale older than I am."

"Tell me what it's saying," Kel said. "It's your job to be our eyes, priestess. Our eyes and our ears."

"It's saying Galin got what he prayed for and now he regrets it, which is why he doesn't want to leave," she said. "But I don't know what that means. I thought he came here to try to bring his sister back to life." And how absurd was it that she was saying those words with a straight face? "But she's obviously not here."

"She's here," Galin whispered. Something about his countenance changed. He seemed to shrink in on himself, and his eyes became more frightened. "I'm here." The girl's voice came out of his mouth this time. Lyra stared at him in horror, finally beginning to connect the dots.

"What did you do, idiot boy?" Kel asked, his voice thick with anger as he turned toward him.

"I'm a girl," Galin's mouth said. "My name is Yarra, and I didn't do anything wrong. Galin says this isn't my fault; it's the bad man's fault, but he's gone now."

Lyra stared at the boy who was speaking with the voice of a six-year-old girl. Slowly, her eyes drifted to the lanky, lupine god, which was still looming over Galin, dark pride practically oozing from its inhuman body.

"What did you do?" she asked, her voice not far above a whisper. "I don't understand. Does he think he's Yarra?"

"He doesn't merely think it, priestess, it is the truth. He gave the offering and he made the prayer, and I answered it. But the sacrifice was not enough to bring her back, both body and soul. The balance was too close to even. I did the best I could with the offering he made. Her soul is returned from the place where spirits linger, and she has a body that is hale and whole. It is what he asked for."

"He says he put her soul in Galin's body," Lyra recited before Kel could ask.. "I don't understand. Is that even possible? Do people really have souls?"

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She was beginning to panic; she knew it, but there wasn't anything she could do about it. If souls were real, what happened when people died? Did they linger forever, or was there really a heaven and hell, or some other afterlife, like reincarnation? It didn't escape her notice that there were words for both things in Moldaran, which meant the people of this world had similar concepts.

If she died here, today, did she have an eternity of torment to look forward to?

Yarra began to cry, then a moment later, she was Galin again. There was no flash of light or clap of thunder to mark the change, but now that she was paying attention, Lyra could tell the difference in their body language and posture. Kel gazed at him in a sort of resigned horror, his eyes shadowed in the dim light.

"It didn't do what I asked it for," Galen said, his young voice full of anger. "I asked it to bring her back, and make sure her body was whole again, not some rotting corpse. I did everything right, but it just... it put her inside of me and it won't take her out."

"It said the offering wasn't enough," Lyra said, swallowing against the wave of nausea that rose as the full horror of what the god had done to Galin hit her. "Maybe... maybe you could reverse it with another offering?"

"I've been praying and praying, and it refuses to do anything else," Galen said. "You ask it, priestess, please. This is not what I wanted."

She looked to the god for an answer to Galin's request. Kel cut in before it could respond, addressing Galin.

"What offering did you make?"

She held up a finger to gesture for Kel to wait as the god said, "If he wishes to offer her soul to me, I will gladly take it so it no longer burdens him. Tell him to kneel before me and make the sacrifice. It will only hurt for a moment."

"What would happen to Yarra's... her soul?" Lyra asked.

"It would become mine, priestess. That is the way of these things."

She shook her head. "That doesn't seem right. She's just a kid. She didn't agree to any of this."

"What's it saying?" Galin asked.

"Answer my question first," Kel said to Galin. "What did you offer it? What did you sacrifice? The goat wasn't enough for this."

Galin paled and looked away. "It doesn't matter. I just want to undo it."

"Answer the question!"

"It's none of your business," Galen retorted, backing away until he hit the wall. "I'm asking the priestess for help. It's herjob. You're just a sentinel. You can't see or hear the god any more than I can."

"You're wrong. I am a paladin, and I carry a holy relic of the saints," Kel said, raising his sword and twisting it so the metal glinted in the faint light coming through the fissure. "Cleansing the world of sin is my duty in the eyes of the Great God. Now, answer the question, or I will be forced to take you to one of the temples in Ersgath and wring the answer out of you there."

"He made me two offerings," the god rumbles close behind her. "Offerings of life and death and blood, spilled here in my ancient shrine. First, the goat, so he could pray for a boon that would help him uncover his sister's killer, then he sacrificed the man who killed her to bring her soul back. Your paladin will kill him for this. He is but a tool of the Great God, and he will cut the boy down, no matter that you've come to rescue him. Say the word, priestess, and it is his blood that will be spilled instead."

"Kel isn't going to hurt him," Lyra said. She hesitated when Kel didn't say anything. "Right? The god says you're going to cut Galen down, but we're here to help him. He's just a kid."

"He's old enough to know what he did was a sin," Kel said, resolved. He tightened his grip on his sword and moved toward Galin. "It is my duty to cleanse his soul with the relic I carry."

"What does that mean?"

"He's going to kill me!" Galin's voice was high and frightened. Lyra saw his gaze dart toward the dark tunnel entrance, and he began edging toward it as he spoke. "Priestess, please stop him. I just wanted to get my sister back. I didn't hurt anyone who didn't deserve it. I swear, ask the god! I made sure the man I brought here to sacrifice was the one who killed Yarra. It was only fair. She was six years old! She trusted him, and he lured her out into the woods and slit her throat. I sacrificed him to the god, but only to bring her back. That shouldn't be a sin. What he did should be the sin."

"You sacrificed a human life," Kel said. "You have committed a sin in the eyes of the Great God, Galin. It is not upon us to decide what sin is, only to avoid it. You may close your eyes if you wish. I know you are frightened, but it will be a much kinder end than what the Great God would give you on God's Day."

He stepped toward Galin, raising his sword. Lyra felt a moment of pure shock. Was Kel, the same man who had offered to escort her across the country without a single cent of payment, really going to murder a thirteen-year-old boy?

Galin certainly seemed to think so. He dropped to his knees so hard Lyra could hear the thud of them hitting the cavern floor and bowed low, his forehead scraping the stone.

"Please, god of the cave, whose name has long since been lost, hear my prayers and grant me your holy protection. I don't want to die!"

"No!" Lyra shouted as Kel swung the sword down.

She didn't have time to think, she just lunged forward and slammed into him, at the same time as a dark blur flashed past her. Something hit her across her ribs, hard, and she went spinning away from Kel, only to crash into Galin. Kel stumbled the opposite direction, and she stared with horror at the ragged claw marks that had torn through the metal of his plate armor.

She shifted, trying to disentangle herself from Galin, but something was wrong. Her side was wet for some reason. When she looked down, she saw a spreading patch of darkness across her torso and on the cavern floor. She touched her ribs and found that her tunic was torn. When she lifted her fingers, which were slick and red, she realized that the dark stain that was spreading underneath her was blood.