Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Gods Don’t Eat, They Watch
Lyssena
The last thing Lyssena expected was honey.
In a room made of darkness, seeing this pop of color made her chest tighten with homesickness, and she realized how much she missed her home.
She didn’t know if a day had already passed or not, as there were no windows to tell the passage of time, and she wouldn’t dare ask her god, not when he had just spared her life and was now feeding her with a loaf of bread and honey.
She didn’t know if it was right to miss the family that had sold her, fattened her, and cared for her only to hand her over to the highest bidder.
If her father had simply wanted her to marry a good man, he could have chosen any one of the villagers she knew.
There were plenty of men of marriageable age.
The baker’s eldest son, for example, or the family living on the farm near their house, with seven children, four of whom were older than her, and the rest only slightly younger.
These men weren’t wealthy, but they weren’t poor either.
But her father had chosen a cruel, wealthy knight instead, and hadn’t even told her until it was already done.
So Lyssena buried all those false hopes deep within herself and decided, instead, to enjoy this strange and lovely bread that had been given to her.
“Would you join me?” she asked Erevos, tearing a piece of the soft loaf between her fingers. It was warm and puffy, practically sighing steam, and Lyssena couldn’t wait to dip it into the honey and take the biggest bite.
“I made it for you, songbird. Eat,” he said, and poured a generous stream of honey onto the plate.
Lyssena chose to take the first bite as it was, saving the dip for the next. And the taste, when it met her tongue, was divine.
The loaf was so soft, so cloudy and light in her mouth, that she let out a long hum as she chewed, eyes fluttering shut from the sheer joy of it.
It was, without question, the best bread she had ever eaten.
Lyssena thought of the many possible reasons Erevos would call her songbird, but she was far too busy tearing pieces from the massive loaf, chewing greedily, dipping them into the honey again and again, her mouth far too occupied and her hunger far too loud to dwell on the answer for long.
All Erevos did was add more honey to her plate, while his other hand held her waist with gentle pressure, keeping her balanced on his lap so she wouldn’t fall.
Erevos was big—so big—that her feet dangled high above the ground, swinging freely.
Lyssena wasn’t considered short by human standards, not at all, but Erevos was so tall that even if she had been the tallest human alive, she still would have found her feet suspended in the air.
Perhaps not as high as they were now, but dangling all the same.
As she finished chewing her very last bite, Erevos reached into the eggshell-colored box once more and retrieved a cup made of glass, and Lyssena’s eyes widened with surprise.
She studied the beautiful cup in wonder, only to be further amazed when Erevos, with a flick of his fingers, opened a drawer to their right—one she hadn’t even noticed was there—and another matching glass floated out and set itself gently on the table before them.
Then Erevos poured water into the cup and offered it to her.
Lyssena stood in a room that looked nothing like the first one she had turned into an armory. This one was far more elegant.
It looked like a room a princess might live in, if that princess adored the color black.
In the center stood a massive bed with tall, carved posts that supported a roof draped in sheer, silky fabric, which fell softly from both sides like shadow-woven curtains.
Beneath it lay a round carpet that looked as though it had been made from fur, plush, and deep under her feet.
Against one wall stood an enormous closet, and beside it a table where she had just eaten her bread and honey, paired with a single chair, both perfectly matched in design and material.
Surprisingly, everything was coordinated, and, of course, it was all black. Everything here, too, was made from shadow.
It looked like the kind of room the wealthiest daughter in the world might own, one who had never been denied a thing in her life, and Lyssena stood on that thick, fur-like carpet and blinked.
“I can’t even believe I’d ever see a place like that,” she murmured to herself while grabbing the chair and moving it near the drawers that Erevos had summoned water from.
The chair was sturdy enough to support Erevos’s weight, and Lyssena was feeling brave, so she climbed onto it and reached for the top drawer.
She had to rise onto her toes to reach it, stretching just enough to grab the handle, but her curiosity was stronger than her caution, and she needed to know what else might be hidden inside.
Lyssena found a collection of beautiful, dark glass plates, cups, and spoons.
Next time, she thought with a small smile, I could eat honey with a spoon, if her god would give her more.
From the look he had given her earlier, she had a strong feeling that he just might.
Erevos had looked as though he enjoyed her eating, almost as if he were the one tasting the food, and Lyssena couldn’t help but wonder what gods ate.
If they ate anything at all.
There were so many questions bubbling inside her, questions she longed to ask, and she was only waiting for the right moment to let them out. But what that moment would look like, or how she would recognize it, she simply didn’t know.
She knew she could look at him now, and that he was kind, and for now, that felt like enough.
But eventually, sooner or later, Lyssena knew she would get bored if she was left to do nothing; she also knew that soon, she would need to relieve herself, and she had no idea where or how she was supposed to do that in a place like this—shadows and all.
She wondered if there were other humans in this place, tucked into homes by other gods like hers. If this were something that gods did, each choosing a human to care for in their own strange way.
She wondered so much, and still couldn’t ask. But she would.
When the time was right.
Erevos had said he would be right back, and Lyssena decided that, since her god had been nothing but kind to her so far, maybe she was allowed to peek around and take a closer look at what this strange, beautiful space had to offer.
So she did.
And she began with a deep breath.