Chapter Forty-Three #2
Dahlia and I set off as summer turns to fall.
It’s a much easier journey than when we contended with ice and snow.
My memory serves me once again, and I have no trouble finding the battlefield where Titus first rescued me.
It’s far enough from the road that it’s been spared the ravages of humans, but nature has not been kind.
I expect sun-bleached bones to litter the meadow, but almost everything is buried in fallen leaves.
The wood of the cage carts has collapsed, and it appears as though iron grows out of the grass itself.
Animals have dragged most of the bones from the carts.
I find nothing of Jaco’s son. And all I find of my sister is one small, fleshless hand, still in its manacle, and a shredded piece of her skirt.
I gently gather them up and place them in a leather satchel, and I take them home.
We return just in time to begin winter preparations: salting fish, preserving leftovers from the garden, drying herbs for
winter tea, creating stall space in the common room for our smaller livestock, covering the second-floor windows, chopping
and stacking as much firewood as we can. The work is easy and light with so many hands contributing now, so many conversations
to be had. I told Ma I would be fine, and I am. I’m looking forward to a cozy winter at home, surrounded by new friends. In
fact, I might be a little bit happy.
One cool morning in late autumn, as the squirrels are fattening and leaves are fluttering down from the trees, a tall, bearded
man trudges up the road. I’m sweeping the stoop when I spot his form, backlit by the rising sun. He’s hunched with the weight
of a pack slung over his left shoulder, his bootsteps heavy, his pants travel stained.
He looks like Titus—of course he does; I’ve been seeing him everywhere—but this man has a wild beard, and he wears peasant clothes thinned at the knees and elbows, patched and mended so often it’s a wonder they’re holding together.
Something about the way he moves, though. The set of his chin, the ruddy curls of his hair . . . I pause my sweeping to stare.
He sees me. Smiles.
I drop the broom and my legs are running toward him even though my mind is advising caution, because hope makes us see the
strangest things.
And then I’m in his arms and he’s whispering, “Bria, Bria,” against my hair.
It feels like him. It smells like him—leather and wood oil. He said my name.
Still, I push him back to get a better look. To be sure. Because hope also makes us dread the strangest things.
Those amber eyes are unmistakable, and his grin—so dear and sweet—is as familiar as home, even muddled as it is by a morass
of unkempt beard hair.
I say, “Are you a god now?”
He snort-laughs. “No.”
I’m so confused. “I thought you would win the godsmoot. I was certain of it.”
“Oh, I won.”
“But—”
“I turned them down. I refused.”
It takes my breath away.
His world-weary sigh is that of a man three times his age. “I realized that men should not be gods.”
“Not even you?”
“Especially not me. I’m barely nineteen years old. I hardly know how to be a man, much less a god.”
He would have been perfect, but I understand his point.
“We all refused. Every single one of us. Now only four gods remain.”
The implications of that are too much for me to ponder right now. “Does this mean you’ll claim a throne now? We heard there’s
a new queen in Corth. But you could . . .”
“Men should not be kings either.”
His gaze has drifted down to my mangled hand.
Shyly I ask, “What should men be?”
He lifts my hand, brings my stubbed fingers to his lips, and kisses them. My heart is flipping like a brook trout when he
says, “Innkeepers.”
Tears prick at my eyes.
“And good neighbors,” he continues. “Blacksmiths, ferrymen, bakers, tailors. Healers, of course. Even . . .” His pause is
long, his eyes intense. “Husbands.”
I can’t make my mouth make sounds, so caught up am I in his gaze, in the sight of him, in his words.
“Those are the people who saved the world last time,” he adds. “Titus the Great’s web contained a thousand strands of magic,
volunteered from all around the world. When the time comes, we humans will save ourselves again. Not the gods.”
I find my voice. “I think the potentat would agree with that.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” he says. “I wanted to see Syla safely home to her, then I went to visit my mothers.”
I know exactly how happy they must have been to see him. “That was the right thing to do.”
“Now I’m looking for a job. If you’ll have me. I’m good at chopping firewood. I have some small healing skills too.”
Of course I’ll have him. To the Edge of the World and back.
Still, I have trouble accepting it all. I’m overjoyed to see him; of course I am. It’s just that . . . “You gave up everything.
Deity. Royalty. Why would anyone—”
He moves closer, cups my face with his hands. “Don’t you see, Bria? Cerastes was wrong. You aren’t a complication in my story.
You are my story.”
I kiss him; I can’t help myself. And then my arms are wrapped around him and he’s kissing me back like he’s starving for me,
but I hear the door fly open and someone’s footsteps on the stoop. We break away, faces flushed, both giggling like children.
It’s Salina. “Auntie Gislava said to call you for breakfast,” the girl says, giving Titus a long, suspicious look. She doesn’t
recognize him.
“Tell her we’ll be right in,” I say, and she hurries back inside.
“They stayed!” Titus says. “I thought they might.”
I can’t stop staring at him. It’s really him. He’s really here.
“Tell me all about the godsmoot,” I insist. My fountain of happiness bubbles over into a basin of whirling words. “What was
the contest like? What did they make you do? What did they say when you told them you didn’t want to be a god? Which god were
you going to replace? Did you fly back on the dragon? How many—”
He holds up a hand. “I’m not supposed to talk about it. It was a condition of my release.”
But he says it with a coy smile.
I grab his hand and pull him toward the door. “Let’s not-talk about it over breakfast.”
“I’m starving.”
Titus will tell me eventually. Every detail. We have all the time in the world.
Besides, I’m an innkeeper’s daughter. I can get anyone to talk.