Chapter 4
Theron blinked his eyes open. Light poured in through the window, filtering down the room in beams of sunlight. Something’s different. He didn’t feel… renewed. But something had settled in him now, grounding rather than oppressive. A sense of direction, he realized.
Then the pain came crashing back. Not physical, but far deeper. The same aching emptiness of regret and grief, like a knife scraping inside his lungs, stealing his breath. It was a horrible, wretched feeling of imbalance. Soon though, something else stirred within him. A flicker. A spark. Not fear or regret. Something steadier. Determination. The steady pulse of endurance. Strength rising again to mend what had been broken.
He lay there for some time, letting the light pour through him. Breathing through it. Allowing the thought to move in. When he finally moved, he wasn’t surprised to see his friend beside him.
Talla had taken her place by the fire, her spine bent as she stirred the ladle through the battered black pot that always seemed to hang there, no matter the season or time of day. Heat shimmered above it, and a thin veil of steam curled into the air. The sharp scent of onions and dried herbs lingered. Theron wasn’t sure how long she had been there, or how long he had been awake. He knew he had come through a deep sickness. Or perhaps it had been something else, something that took the shape of illness. That time was a blur, a stretch of pain and emptiness, with memories drifting in and out like moths slipping through a hole in the roof. All he knew for certain was that he was slowly feeling like himself again, albeit very weak. The world felt cold and sharp, and Talla was watching him with the judgment you’d reserve for someone you didn’t quite trust.
He tried to move, but his muscles twitched and balked. His knuckles were scraped raw from whatever he’d done in those feverish hours, and his fingers were stiff from digging into his wool blanket. He dragged his eyes slowly around the room and then focused them on the matron again. He traced the way the silver in her hair caught firelight and the way her lips pressed together in tight lines as she counted the rotation of the ladle.
Neither of them said anything for a long while. Talla eventually set the ladle down, wiping her hands not on her skirt but on a cloth she’d brought specifically for the job. She folded it with ritual care, with the movement of someone who needed to keep her hands busy so she didn’t do something rash like fling the entire pot at his head.
When she finally spoke, her words were like a stone being thrown into his face. “You’re a Gods-blessed.”
Not a question, and straight to the point. She might as well have said, “The sky is blue,” or “The harvest is late.” Just a simple, brutal statement of fact.
Theron’s fingers, which had been tugging at the blanket’s edge, went still. He considered closing his eyes and pretending to be asleep. But Talla was not one to be fooled by such things. And besides, she’d stood so long and quietly staring across the room at him, he knew she would not let him out of this easily.
“What makes you say that?” he said. It was neither an outright challenge nor an invitation, but somewhere between the two. His voice was hoarse, and every word scored deep with old pain, but the words came out steady and controlled.
She turned and looked down at the pot again, keeping her eyes trained on the surface of the broth as it twitched with tiny bubbles. “You’ve never been sick until now,” she said, the words as plain as fenceposts. And she ruminated on past wonders she’d had for the years she’d known him. “Never broken a bone. Don’t limp when you twist an ankle in the deep mud. You keep secrets. Your eyes always show more than you tell. When you cut yourself, the scar fades within a week. You heal too quickly. You’ve lived here for years, and you haven’t aged a day.” She ticked each one off on her fingers, still not meeting his eyes. “And I have just seen you recover from a sickness so terrible it would have killed most ordinary men. Strong men, like my Henrik. And you recovered within days, and I do not for a moment think that this was a natural sickness. Something has happened to you.”
Theron blinked and let her words sear their way in. He turned his head away from her and toward the bubbling stew, avoiding her relentless gaze.
Talla continued, but her voice was softer now. “And you spoke in a language I’ve never heard. A beautiful language. My heart broke to hear it. It sounded like something to pray to, not something a fevered man should spit out.”
Theron closed his eyes and tried to dredge up the memories. There was a woman’s face, blurry at the edges, singing in the same tongue. He could taste the syllables, heavy and bright on his tongue, and for a moment was afraid to speak in case the words came out wrong and betrayed him.
He took a breath and released it through his nose, the heat of it curling in the cold air. “People tell stories about the Gods-blessed,” he said. “I don’t believe half of them.”
“Neither do I.” Talla leaned back on her stool and crossed her arms. “But I know a miracle when I see one. You should be dead.” Her eyes were hard as glass. “How old are you, really?”
He hesitated, feeling the question tug at the worst of his memories. “Old.”
She snorted. “That’s not an answer.”
He shrugged, and the movement sent a line of pain down his spine. “Older than I look.”
Talla narrowed her eyes. “Older than my father?”
“Maybe a little.”
She grunted, the sound both skeptical and amused. Theron didn’t look a day over thirty. “And what does it mean to be blessed by the gods? Are you cursed too?”
Theron let the silence stretch between them. He listened to the creaks of the walls and the snap of the fire. Then he said, “There’s a cost, always.”
“What kind of cost?”
He flexed his hands, trying to find an answer that didn’t sound like a fairy tale. “I’ve buried more friends than I can remember,” he said quietly, mournfully. “Watched whole towns die while I just kept going. Every time I survive something that should have killed me, it takes something. Little pieces. Your memory. Your sleep. Your hope.” He paused, feeling the words drag up through him like stones. “It’s not a blessing. Not really.”
She nodded, just once. “That’s what I thought.”
They sat there together in the hush, neither of them moving for a time. The fire spat and hissed, but the cold still pressed in, regardless.
At last, she got up and ladled the soup into a bowl. There was only enough for him, he realized, as she brought it over, holding it in one hand and setting it beside his cot. “Eat what you can. We need you back on your feet soon.”
He looked up at her, noting the tightness at the corners of her mouth, the lines of worry cut deep by too many years of bad news.
“Thank you,” he said, and meant it.
Talla’s lips twitched, a near smile. “Stubborn man. Don’t die before you finish your soup. I’ll be back shortly.”
She turned and left the room, her footsteps slow and measured.
Theron pushed himself up into a sitting position with a wince, took the bowl in both hands and blew across the surface of the soup. The steam smelled like home, but he was suddenly, sharply aware of how far away home really was.
He ate in silence, thoughts of all the things he should have said, and all the things he never would.
She was back before the bowl was empty. Talla always had the softest of footsteps for such a rotund woman, and she usually had something in her arms, like bread or laundry, or a basket of winter apples. This time it was two more bowls, steam curling from the rims, and a heel of fresh bread balanced carefully along one wrist.
Theron tried not to look like he’d been waiting for her. He was starving, and this current bowl of stew would not be enough to dull the hunger pangs. But she caught him anyway and gave a little knowing smile. Those eyes of hers don’t miss a thing.
She set the bowls on the small table and nudged one toward him, then claimed the chair across from his cot. She folded her hands and looked at him, not unkindly, but with that careful assessment she saved for the small children of the village who tested her patience.
“Eat,” she said. “It helps.”
He reached over and broke off a chunk of bread and chewed, slow and methodically, the crust scratching the roof of his mouth. It was the most delicious meal he could remember having in a long while. She watched him do it, like she was waiting for him to speak first, but she should have known better.
After a moment, she took up her own bowl and spooned the soup in measured, thoughtful sips. The only sounds were the gentle clink of metal on wood and the faraway drone of the wind working through the eaves.
“I’ve only ever heard stories of Gods-blessed,” she said at last. But her voice was softer than he’d expected. “Never met one, at least not knowingly. Some say you’re immortal. Some say that you’re prophets, or monsters, or both. I know only that people generally fear you, and the Dominion hunts you down. Whether to destroy you or use you, nobody knows.”
Theron set his spoon down and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Stories have a way of growing legs,” he said. “Most of what you’ve heard is probably nonsense.”
She smiled, but it was thin, brittle. “Maybe so. But I’ve watched you, Theron. You know too much, and you say too little. You’ve been hiding in Wyrnhollow for a long time now. And then you go and survive things no person has a right to survive.”
He shrugged, the gesture resigned rather than proud. “Luck, mostly. Or bad luck, depending on how you see it.”
She leaned in, elbows on her knees. “And the language? The one you spoke when you were burning up last night? I have never heard its like.”
He hesitated, another memory coming back to him in splinters. The memory of that deep, beautiful light. Horrible light. A woman’s face, her hand as it clutched his, and words that tasted like honey. He looked away, pretending to be fascinated by the way the morning light turned the frost on his window to diamonds.
“It appears,” he said, “the fever dredged up old things. Places I’ve been, people I used to know. I’m sure it was just ramblings and hallucinations.”
She shook her head, a slow, deliberate motion. “You’re not fooling me, Theron. You either tell me now, or I take your food and leave.”
He couldn’t help but smile. She always had a way of poking at the parts of him he tried hardest to keep hidden.
Talla waited, letting the silence do the heavy lifting. He felt it pressing on him, the urge to fill it with something meaningful.
So he did.
“It isn’t what you think,” he said, stirring the soup as if it might tell him some secret. “Being marked by the gods doesn’t make you special. It doesn’t give you answers, or purpose, or any kind of peace.” He paused, searching for the right words. “It just means you survive when others don’t. It means you see things you’d rather not see. It gives you power that you’d rather not have. And every time you get through something like war, famine, or loss, it leaves a mark. Not on the skin. Deeper.”
She nodded, as if she’d been expecting as much.
“And the language?” she prompted.
He let the spoon rest. “There are old words. Older than the Dominion, older than the Endless War, older than anyone remembers. Sometimes they slip out when I’m not careful.”
“And what did you say?” She asked, eyes narrowing.
He frowned, searching the ruins of memory. “I asked for forgiveness.”
Talla considered that, then took another sip of her broth. “Did you get it?”
“No,” he said, gazing deeply into his bowl. “Not yet.”
She stared at him long and level. “So you’re punishing yourself, eh? Is that why you live out here on the edge of everything? Feeding the hungry, hiding in your little stone hut, never taking more than you need? Or are you truly hiding?”
He shrugged. “I’m not hiding, but it’s easier to lose yourself in hard work than in the memories. This seemed like a good place to lose myself.”
She grunted softly, acknowledging. “The stories say the gods can only bless you at a Grand Shrine. You’ve actually been to one?”
“Yes,” Theron answered, surprised. “I’ve been to some of them. What do you know of the Grand Shrines?”
Talla pondered for a moment. “There are only six Grand Shrines, one for each god, and each of them supposedly consecrated by one of those gods. Some are in Sylphar lands, and some are on our side of the Temple. Vaelorian is a large continent, and I’ve heard that not all the Shrines have been found. Many years ago, a small caravan came through here, claiming to seek Aldren’s Grand Shrine.”
Theron nodded. “There are many who take a pilgrimage to visit the Grand Shrines hoping to become blessed by the gods. No one knows where Aldren’s Shrine is, though. Not even me.”
Talla’s eyes widened. She snapped her fingers as if remembering something important. “There’s a Grand Shrine at Redan Pass, right? That’s what had you so rattled the other day, isn’t it? Is that where it happened? Where you were blessed? Whose Shrine is it anyway?”
Theron looked out the window, chuckling quietly. “Yes, there’s a Shrine at Redan Pass. Celarion’s Shrine, I believe. But no, that’s not where it happened.”
Theron finished his soup, wiping the bowl clean with his last piece of bread. “You could have let me die,” he said, changing the subject. “It would have been simpler.”
“That’s not who I am,” Talla replied.
He set the bowl down. “Maybe it should’ve been, this once.”
She shook her head. “We don’t get to pick the simple path. Not out here.” She glanced at the small fire, then back at him. “You’ve saved this village more than once, Theron. How many times have you brought food in for the starving over the years? I know you think you’re cursed, but for some of us, you’re the only thing keeping the darkness away.”
He felt the words settle in his chest, heavy but warm. Heavier still because he knew now that he couldn’t stay.
He wanted to tell her she was wrong. That he was no one’s savior. That he’d done terrible things, things that kept him up at night, things he could never admit even to her. But he saw the look on her face, the stubborn hopefulness, and he didn’t have the heart to destroy it.
Instead, he said, “Thank you.”
She got up, gathering the bowls and bread crusts in her hands. “Don’t make me regret it.”
He watched her move about the room, cleaning up, humming to herself as she worked. There was something comforting about it, something that made the cold less biting, the morning less bleak.
The next two days passed with the slow crawl of sunlight across the knotted wood of his window frame, and with the dull throb of his temples as he ruminated on the memories that ached so sharply in his mind. Sleep and awake. Sleep and awake, each time a little less like his current self and a little more like something he used to be.
On the morning of the second day, Theron awoke with more energy than he had the day before, though he was still dizzy with fatigue. He lay for long minutes staring at the ceiling, trying to recall what it was like to breathe without having to think about it. Unbidden tears slid down his cheeks as he fell into old memories. It had been a very difficult couple of days. A powerful tug of obligation was pulling at him now, something he had been neglecting for a long, long time.
He shut his eyes once more and let the dreams wash over him. He saw a hand, slender and pale, reaching out through a drift of dancing light. The fingers were long and elegant, rings on a few of the fingers, and they beckoned to him in a way that was both pleading and commanding. Behind the hand were shapes that moved, the suggestion of a smile, a sense of camaraderie, and even the rustle of voices he had long since forgotten.
He reached out, but the dream faded. When it slipped away, his body jerked awake, nails raking his palm and sweat beading along his brow. Tears had once again found their way down his cheeks.
For a long time, he lay there, counting the knots in the ceiling beams and listening to the hollow call of the wind on the stone walls. After a time, hunger drove him upright. He perched on the edge of the cot and waited for the world to stop tilting, then tested the hard floor gingerly with his feet. It was cold under him, and it felt good. He couldn’t move very far, but he walked around his room once before collapsing back onto his cot, one of Talla’s loaves of bread in hand. As he ate, he allowed himself to think of the strange dreams again, which lingered at the edges of his consciousness as he fell asleep.
Talla arrived later that evening, arms full of more soup, a basket filled with warm loaves of bread, and a ceramic jug of water still shimmering with chill from the well. She set the food on the table and fretted over the fire, poking the embers until they flared to life.
“You’re looking better,” she said.
“I feel like I’ve been chewed up and spit out by a pack of starving wolves.” It wasn’t quite true, however, he was healing fast. He also noted that the telltale rasp of his voice was smoothing to something clearer.
She ladled him a bowl of soup, dropped a crust of bread in after, and pressed it into his hands.
“Eat. I didn’t drag you out of that fever or whatever the Jac’s-hell that was only to see you waste away.”
He ate in silence, grateful for the warmth. When he was done, she set a mug of water on the table in front of him. “You dream much?” she asked.
He met her eyes. “Some. Though I don’t care much for it.”
“Why not?”
He looked at her, then away. “Because they’re mostly memories. And I don’t enjoy most of my memories.”
She watched him for a long moment, as if considering whether to push the matter. Finally, she sighed and turned away, busying herself with tidying the room, folding a spare blanket she had brought earlier, and setting more loaves of bread on his table. After she finished, she stood over him, hands on her hips.
“You’re stubborn,” she said.
“I am, but you know what that’s like.” He offered her a half-smile.
She smirked in return. “I’ll be back tomorrow. Try not to keel over between now and then.”
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak further.
That night, the wind came again. It raked at the windows, clawed at the loose stones in the wall. Theron huddled under his thick blanket, listening to the wildness of it, and thought of the hand from his dream. He tried to think of it more, the voice, the face, the words that had been spoken, but the pain was too great to go any deeper.
He slept little after that.
By the morning of the third day, he could sit upright without the world tilting black at the edges. He forced himself to stand, one slow, deliberate movement at a time, muscles popping and complaining as they flexed. He hobbled to the hearth and stoked the embers, grimacing as the heat chased away the chill in his bones. The simple act of rising, of standing on his own power, felt like a triumph.
He caught sight of himself in the warped tin plate that hung over the water barrel. The eyes that met his own were older than he recalled, but the lines at his mouth were a little smaller. He ran a hand through his hair, scrubbed at the stubble on his chin, and gave a little smile at the sight of himself. He looked alive, despite the redness around his eyes.
He found the medallion where he’d stashed it in his panic the other night. He had barely made it home before the sickness came on in earnest. Losing himself, slipping away, he had shoved the medallion behind the small metal stove in the corner.
It was heavy in his hand, heavier now, as if the weight of all he now knew he must do was pressed into it. He ran the chain through his fingers, over all the tiny imperfections. He looped it around his neck, let it settle over his heart, and stood a little straighter.
Talla arrived at noon. She saw him by the fire and raised her eyebrows in surprise.
“You’re up.”
“For the moment,” he said.
She set a fresh pot of stew on the table and filled two bowls. “I thought you’d need another day at the very least.”
He shook his head. “No time.”
She looked at him and, in her eyes, he saw a question he did not want to answer.
“What now?” she asked.
He stared at the fire, at the little tongues of blue and orange licking the soot-stained stone. He thought of the Endless War, of the dreams that would not let him go, of a promise he’d made to someone, somewhere, long ago.
“Now I do what I was made to do,” he said. “I make things right.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she slowly nodded, accepting the answer even if she did not understand it.
They ate in silence, a bright warmth between them for the first time in days.
Afterward, he stood by the window, looking out at the road that wound out of the village and into the forest beyond. He could see snow beginning to fall, the flakes settling on the trees.
It was beautiful.
He closed his eyes and remembered the hand, the voice, the feeling of being wanted, even if for just a moment. He clung to it as tightly as he could.
When he opened his eyes, the world was waiting for him.
This time, he was ready.