Three #2
Making love to Kani was wonderful, as always, and I was reminded once again of just how much she needed me. I really did need to be here more often.
"I missed you, Will," she told me much later, when she was feeling less frantic.
"I missed you, too, Kani. Eventually, I should be able to gate here, once the temple's finished."
"So you'll be here more often?"
"Yes."
She snuggled into me. "I can wait."
"Good, now I think we have a dinner to attend?"
"How long will you be here?"
"Three or four days, I guess? Then you'll join Rachel and me on our way to Suffolk. We'll be there a month or two; it'll depend on how things are going."
"When do you think you'll put Estelya on the throne?"
"I'm not sure. If she was feline, orc, or human, probably somewhere between eighteen and twenty. But I know elves mature slower, so I'm hesitant to put her up that soon. I guess we'll just have to see."
Getting out of bed, I helped Kani up, then we went and took a quick shower. I was reminded then of Suzona. At some point, I'd need to visit her, too, but right now, I had a lot of things I needed to do.
Dinner was nice. It was positively domestic.
The only one there who wasn't 'family' was Makill's girlfriend, Revi, one of Fel's priestesses I'd brought here, and who now worked at the church for my daughter Tiru.
From the way they were behaving, however, I had a suspicion they'd be getting married soon.
"So how goes the temple?" I asked my daughter after dinner, while we were all relaxing and chatting.
"It'll definitely be done within the year. Right now, the schedule is looking like seven to nine months."
"That's not bad. I'm hoping to get some sort of church set up by where we're building the new castle in Suffolk this trip," I told her.
"Are you still planning on upgrading Dani's church to a temple?"
I nodded. "The building is about there by now, I'm sure. It'll just be a matter of time to get everything sorted out, and the priests and priestesses settled in."
"What about the temple on Juntura?"
"That's got a few more years to go. It's going to be large, very large. Larger than the one back home."
"Why so big?"
I shrugged. "You'd have to ask Carol or Feliogustus. I'm not in management," I said with a smile.
"Well, tomorrow, I'll give you a tour. The one here is going to be about two-thirds the size of the one back home in Hiland, about twice the size of the church we have now."
"What're you going to do with the church once the temple opens?"
"There's still some debate over that. We've got a number of options, one of which is maybe doing a land swap for a new site a bit outside of town."
"I think that's between you, Feliogustus, and Carol. That's not something I want to get involved in."
"How many churches have you started now, Dad?" Tiru asked, giving me a sidelong look.
"Technically, only two."
"More like seven from what I've heard."
"There were priests or priestesses there who did the real setting up; I just might have taken a bit of a more active hand in one or two of them."
"Un-huh. Sure!" she said, grinning at me.
"It's not easy for me to bless and consecrate stuff. What you can do in a couple of hours takes me a couple of days. Also, I don't really live here, so I don't know what the people are like or what you're facing."
"True. Well, stop by tomorrow sometime, and like I said, I'll give you the tour. I saw you brought a few more people from home along?"
"I want to be sure we have a couple of people there to run that new church once it's built."
"Only smart."
The rest of the conversation was more about local events and rumors circulating along the shipping routes. Piracy was still a thing; I doubted it would ever go away with the vast distances involved, but there was a lot less of it now than back when the Two Rivers group was backing a fair bit of it.
#
Two months later, I was back in Mangan with Kani and Daniel.
I'd opened a portal back to Fel's temple to send Rachel home when we'd left Suffolk.
I wondered briefly if I'd be able to do the same with Fel's other temples once they were completed?
I'd been thinking about what he'd told me, and the restrictions on going through gateways seemed only to apply to portals into other gods' temples.
But Fel had added that one caveat—unless it was a part of my myth. That had been giving me ideas.
"So how long are you staying this time?" Tiru asked me that night over dinner at her and Bazz's apartment.
"I need to get the Kashmir earning again, so as soon as it's loaded, I'll be leaving with the ship."
"You're going to do the circle?"
"Only as far as Rossiya; I need to visit with a few people and check on our two churches there."
"Oh, right. I recall you mentioning them before."
"You have enough issues with what you've got here. It's more my and Carol's job."
"How are things going back home? I haven't gotten to talk to Mom since Bazz and I made Kaishi."
"Well, things are going amazingly well for her and our religion. Fel's entered into something of an agreement with the other gods who helped us win against that Kaiju. It's wonderful."
"Really?" Tiru asked, looking surprised.
"Yes, really. I'm sure there'll be hard times, and maybe even dark times ahead—life is always like that—but I think that'll be more about the people and our kingdom than Feliogustus and our religion."
"Wow, Mom must be really happy."
I laughed. "You know? I never thought to ask her."
"Why not?"
"Because we both know when Fel's happy, and when he's happy, we're happy."
"There are times I miss hearing his voice and seeing his visage," Tiru said with a sigh. "Part of why I've been working so hard to get this temple done. That's the only way I get to see him or talk to him—other than my dreams, that is."
My daughter Tirumalamman had grown up in the main temple, and her mother had been grooming her for a senior position in the church her entire life. She had grown up with Feliogustus as a regular presence in her life.
"You know, there are times I've been jealous of you, Dad."