Vivian wanted to repeatanything, but she recognized a ritual question when she heard one. “Yes,” she said.
It will suffice. Lift his head.
She did it gently, fingers light under Olvir’s chin. There was almost no resistance anyhow, and her heart broke a little more to feel how easily she could move him.
And now,the goddess said,a kiss.
* * *
He was broken. Scattered. Lost, and becoming more so by the minute. His mind was many minds, many pieces streaming off in different directions, following voices that shrieked and babbled. Olvir could almost understand the words. He had almost forgotten his name.
Each fragment of him tried to resist, tried to reunite with the others, but to no use. There was no center to which they could strive to return. Without it, their struggles remained directionless, chaotic, and the voices led them ever onward to dissolution.
Once, he had been different. That knowledge remained, but little more. His name was Olvir. He’d freed somebody. He could remember the mind that had flowered out when all the pieces had broken, the sense of release and reunion he’d gotten. He, Olvir, had done that.
Before, he’d done other things.
He believed he had fought. He was sure he had served.
He knew he had loved.
Suddenly, there was another with him, a sound that was not the screaming voices. At first, that presence was only there, new but familiar. Then it began to call to him.
The voices kept going, shrieking outward to gods knew what destinations, but the scattered pieces of Olvir had another goal. The new arrival had become steady, powerful: a soaring melody laid over a regular drumbeat, calling to mind the best marching songs he’d once learned.
He remembered marches. Training. Singing.
A cave.
Vivian.
The newcomer was her but not only her. A vast power anchored her call, amplifying it and keeping her from losing herself.
If Olvir had possessed a body, he would have been kneeling. He remembered that he was, somewhere.
He gladly turned to answer Vivian’s summons, each piece of him retreating from the voices that had been leading it outward. Those voices didn’t try to reclaim him; they didn’t seem to notice but simply passed further out, heading toward the boundaries of his perception and reason, then beyond.
Free of their grip, with the strong, unwavering rhythm of Vivian and her divine patron to focus him, Olvir began to put himself together.
Vivian was the core: she was there to guide him, reminding him of their moments in the cave, of jokes shared on the trail, of slaying the geisbar and sitting by campfires, of taverns and villages and dark manors. Going beyond themselves, she gave Olvir the memory of the army camp, of long watches staring out over snow. That led to Nahon, to the men Olvir had commanded, and then his own consciousness found a bridge to Tinival’s service and Edda, who had prepared him for it.
Bit by bit, he filled in the gaps. The Sundered Soul went in there, too, part of Olvir even if he’d exhausted its power—his power—for the time being. So did Darya, Emeth, a thousand faces met in the course of duty or pleasure. Songs and sunsets filled him, blood and bread, all the horror and beauty of the mortal world.
He was a mortal man, Edda’s fosterling.
He was the lost child of Verengir, the incarnation of what Gizath had left behind.
He was Olvir Yoralth, servant of Tinival.
Fingers gently tilted his chin up, and a pair of lips pressed against his: warm, soft, yet urgent in, for once, a manner that had nothing to do with physical desire. Olvir recognized the touch and took the only sensible action. He wrapped his arms around Vivian and pulled her close.
He hadn’t thought about his position or hers, and they toppled backward almost immediately. Olvir was briefly surprised that he hadn’t hit his head on the mirrors—the surface beneath him was barely solid enough to hold him up—but Vivian was lying on his chest, kissing him, laughing and crying at once.
Nothing else was important.
Chapter 42
Before Olvir had sufficient presence of mind to try figuring out where he was, he wasn’t there any longer. The yielding surface under his spine solidified at some point while he embraced Vivian, but Olvir didn’t notice the difference until a rock jabbed him just above his right kidney.
