Walk to a tree. Normally I wouldn’t think twice about it, but I’m aching and tired and so fucking hungry I could eat a horse. But everyone’s watching me, and if I don’t somehow prove that I’m Lord Kalos’s Anchor, they’ll go in and bother him and I’ll have broken my promise. So I steel myself, nod, and start to walk toward the path.
The first hundred steps or so are fine. The next hundred, I start to feel an uncomfortable twinge. I sneeze again and keep going. By the time I hit three or four hundred steps, I’ve lost count. All I know is that I’m feeling distinctly unwell. My head is throbbing with what feels like a migraine, I keep sneezing, and my muscles hurt.
I’m not even halfway to the tree before I have to stop. I drop to the ground, shuddering, and clutch my head. It feels as if it’s being ripped open.
“Come back,” Kina yells at me. “Come back, Elsie!”
Oh sure. Just come back, as if my head isn’t exploding. I moan and manage to stagger to my feet. I hear her trotting across the cobblestones after me, and I turn in her direction. One step…two…and my head hurts a little less. Strange. I move faster, walking as swiftly as possible to return to her side. When I stagger my way back to the cobblestone edge of the ancient temple grounds, the pain in my head is gone. I rub my brow in wonder. “What…?”
“An Anchor cannot be separated from their Aspect,” Kina says breathlessly. “You have to stay at his side, always. It must be true.”
“What? I didn’t know that!”
“I know. I thought I would test you. Are you hungry?”
I want to be annoyed, but I’m too ravenous. I rub my stomach. “Starving, actually. Must have been all the walking.”
“It’s the bond,” she continues, glancing at the priestess. “The god does not consume food or drink, so you must do so on his behalf.”
“I didn’t know that either,” I say, and sneeze again. I scratch at my arm and glance down. Tiny red bumps are appearing on my skin, centered around my left hand.
The hand he touched.
Did…did that fuckerinfectme?
Chapter
Seven
I’m sick as a dog for at least a week. Fever, rash, vomiting—you name it, I experience it. It’s dreadful. Worse than dreadful. No one else gets sick, at least, but I insist on Kina and the priestess leaving food and drink at the front of my room instead of coming in to take care of me. The last thing I want is to be responsible for more people getting sick because they tended to me.
I should have guessed. God of Disease, right? Maybe touching him at any point gives you plague. Plague-lite. Something. It sucks.
I’m also trapped here in the swamp, because Kalos doesn’t want to go anywhere. He hasn’t emerged from his quarters. He hasn’t contacted the guards, the priestess, or anyone.
He can hide. I’m not in much of a mood to talk to him after being given a dose of plague. In fact, I’m downright salty about that bout of sickness. Did he really have to do that? I know he doesn’t care, but damn. It was an absolutely miserable round of coughing, sneezing, fevers, and I learned the hard way that they don’t have real medicine here. Kina brought a healer over,who’d wanted me to drink tea made from dung (no thank you) and prescribed leeches.
I think I’d rather have the plague.
After a few weeks, though, the sickness clears up. I’m able to walk around the temple complex and… well, that’s about it.
Because I can’t leave. Ever.
I need to refocus, put a positive spin on things. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, calming myself.
Other than the fact that I’m trapped with a disease god in a crumbling temple in a swamp…it’s not that bad? Kina and Priestess Jemet refuse to leave my side, even when I worry I’ll infect them. That’s what the god of disease wants, right? But I’m the only one who gets sick. Jemet tends to me, making sure I have hot tea to drink and good things to eat. As I’m starving all the time, I really appreciate the food. It’s simple fare, but I’m perfectly happy with cheese, fruit, dried meat, some hard bread, and anything else they send my way.
I don’t think of myself as a picky eater, but I’m so ravenous all the time that picky has gone out the window entirely. I eat constantly, shoving food in my face left and right. Ever since I brushed my fingers against Kalos’s, I haven’t been able to eat enough to satisfy myself. Both Kina and Jemet assure me it’s normal for an Anchor. That we must fuel ourselves twice as much as a normal person because our Aspect is using part of our energy, our life force.
He’s like a great big parasite.
I’d be screwed if I had to take care of myself, but it’s not a problem. There are always twenty attendants of various kinds at the temple. There’s a woman who shows up to do the laundry for those of us living here. There’s someone who comes by with food supplies every few days. There are guards who patrol to ensure no one causes problems. Priestess Jemet is here, living in one of the smaller temples in the complex, andKina shows up on a near-daily basis. The doors to the main temple remain closed per my instructions, with a guard out front to ensure that the god’s Aspect is not bothered unless he comes out.
It worries me at first, but Jemet says he has no need for food and drink. “He is not mortal,” she reminds me. “He is divine. He does not exist as we do.”
Fair enough. I’d promised he’d be left alone, and I make sure I’m keeping that promise. No one is to go in. If Lord Kalos wants anything, he simply has to come to the door. I listen there occasionally, trying to hear footsteps. What’s he doing in there? Meditating? Sleeping? Pacing? Plotting to take over the world? I never hear anything, though.
Sometimes I think he’s gone, and I test the boundaries of my bond with him. The subtle tug as I approach the edges of the temple grounds tells me enough—he’s here. I’m still trapped with him. I’m just…doing my own thing, I guess.
