“Be welcome, sister,” murmured the nearer of the two figures, a young, gawkish woman who reminded me of one of the skittish delta birds. Without raising her eyes, she gestured to the sword at her side. “The goddess harries.…”
She paused, obviously waiting for me. It wasn’t hard to figure out what was required, and after a hesitation of my own, I ran my finger along the blade. It was sharp, so sharp I almost didn’t feel my skin part. The blood welled a moment afterward, a neat red line, jewel-bright in the light of the lanterns. The woman stepped forward, took my hand in hers, and wiped the blood away. Then the other acolyte—rounder and sturdier than his companion—approached, dipped his own muslin cloth into a small bowl of ointment, took my hand from the woman, and wiped it clean. The salve’s cold soaked into my skin, erasing the pain.
“The goddess harries,” the man intoned, his head bowed, “and she heals.”
The woman wiped my blood from the gleaming blade, both of them returned to their original posts, and that was that. For the price of a few drops of blood, I had entered the sanctuary of the goddess of love. I glanced over my shoulder, studying the sword. I don’t know what I expected of Eira. Maybe a huge room filled with pillows. Different behavior from the people at the door. Hugging? A chaste kiss? Less blood, probably; fewer swords. Of course, Rassambur’s tidy gardens and whitewashed walls, the espaliered fruit trees and deep wells, the utter absence of bloody corpses or fountains of blood should have taught me long ago the ways in which we misunderstand the faith and devotion of others.
I turned back to the hall, a high, graceful nave supported by carved pillars. The altar at the end stood empty—it was almost midnight, after all. The singing I’d heard came from one of the small chapels flanking the nave. The singer knelt in prayer before a single candle, long black hair flowing water-smooth down her back. I watched her for a moment, then took a seat in one of the pews facing the altar. I tried for a while to imagine the type of service that might be held here during the day, the shape and nature of this worship, then gave up. In a full day of speculation I never would have guessed the sword at the door. Instead, I knelt, closed my eyes, and while the singer traced the lines of her melody across the passing night, one note at a time, I offered up a prayer to Eira.
It began unpromisingly.
Goddess, I said silently, I’ve always thought you were a bitch.
You’re a picker, a chooser, a player of favorites. Ananshael comes for us all, eventually, but you? Some people go their whole lives barely catching sight of you. While you’re busy lavishing love on one woman, surrounding her with family and friends, filling her heart to the brim, you’re neglecting her neighbor. While your chosen ones are falling asleep, safe and warm in the arms of their mothers, fathers, lovers, the rest of us, the ones from whom you’ve turned your face, are left with no more blanket than the night’s dark.
How do you decide? It doesn’t have anything to do with deserving, obviously. It’s not something we earn or fail to earn. Some children have love the moment they slide into the world bloody and bawling, they inherit it as though it were a birthright. Everyone else makes do with the scraps.
Well, I’ll tell you what: I was fine with the scraps. I never wanted to be a fish on your hook anyway. I’ve seen what you do to people, how you make them weak in the knees, the way you turn reasonable women into fools. I’ve always preferred my legs to stay steady under me. The madness you’re selling? I don’t need it.
Um.
I didn’t need it, that is.
Now I do.
I have no idea why my god—an older, stronger, more merciful god than you’ll ever be—insists on muddying his ritual with love, but it’s not my place to question. We’ve been strangers my whole life—you and I—but the song says I need to love, and so I’m here. I left my blood on that sword by the door. I’m praying to you.
Probably I should be more polite, apologize for calling you a bitch, but if you can hear this prayer, you can probably hear the rest of what’s going on in my head, so what’s the point? You know what I think, which means you know I think you’re a bitch, but you also know that I need you now. You know this is a true prayer.
I need you.
I don’t know how you choose which hearts to fill with love and which to leave empty, but please, pick mine.
Pick mine, Eira. Goddess, I beg you.
I shook my head silently.
Fuck you, also, for making me beg.
I opened my eyes. Nothing inside the temple had changed. The lanterns still cast their warm, white light across the wooden floor, the wooden pews. The altar remained empty. Not that I’d expected Eira herself to come down to answer my prayer. A few silent accusations followed by a little begging weren’t likely to change her lifelong absence from my life. I thought of Ruc, imagined his green eyes staring back at me, remembered the kiss we’d shared on the dock, his hand on the back of my neck, pulling me close. My heart beat faster at the memory, but what did that mean?
How fucking long does it take?
That seemed, somehow, like the wrong question.
I rose from the pew, suddenly tired from the long day out in the sun. It was time to quit wandering around, to go back to the inn and get some sleep. Ruc would be up early, and I wanted to be up with him. I wanted another kiss; I wanted more than a kiss. I was failing—that was obvious enough—but I intended to fight the whole way. When Ela came for me with her knives, I intended her to find me naked in Ruc’s arms, in his bed, my legs locked around his hips, his lips at my throat. Sex wasn’t love, obviously, but I didn’t know what else to try.
I glanced over at the singer as I passed. She was still kneeling before that candle, still pouring her song into the warm night. I continued on toward the door, then paused, turned back.
Her hair was silk soft in my hand. It smelled like jasmine when I tipped her head back. She didn’t stop singing, even as she met my eyes. Music can do that to a person—it’s a labyrinth in which you lose yourself. She smiled at me around the note, her dark eyes gazing up as though I were a friend or a long-lost lover—maybe Eira’s devout feel love for everyone all the time. How would I know? As I cut her throat, I tried to imagine what that might be like.
One who sings, lost in the song.
That song faltered as the god took her, but I’d been listening to it since before I stepped into the temple, and I picked it up easily enough, singing as I wiped my knife on her robe, slid it back into the sheath, then made my way toward the door.
I could pray to the goddess all night long, I could beg for her favor, but Ananshael was my one true god, and I had neglected his worship too long.
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