Lina startled, air rushing into her lungs.She blinked the stars from her eyes, counted everything that was real: she was in the small corner room she shared with Ione, sparsely-furnished, wallpaper already peeling.Ione sat beside her at the rough-hewn table, a guardian, an anchor tethering Lina securely in place.On her other side, Cynthia, her teacup poised midway to her mouth like she wasn’t sure if it was polite to drink during a potential god-related meltdown.
Finally, Ami, standing and leaning on her hands over the table.“Is it Sowelan?”she demanded, eyes sparkling.
“It was,” Lina said, setting her teacup down before she dropped it.Again.“But He’s gone now.”
Ami slumped back into her seat.Lina wished she found her divine parasite half as exciting as Ami did.
Although stilted at first, conversation picked up again, the mutedmyah-myah-myahof talking making her blood simmer.Cynthia talked about her grandfather, a gardener, about following him around Saros’s lunarium as a child and playing with frogs in the fountain.Ami rejoined with tales about her own childhood down south, catching frogs with her sisters to fry up and eat.
“It’s a delicacy!”Ami cried when Cynthia pressed a hand over her heart in horror.“Don’t look like that!”
“I’m more surprised you took my lovely story and followed it with, ‘Oh, we ate the little bastards,’” Cynthia retorted, biting back a grudging smile.
“Theyarelittle bastards, and theyaredelicious,” Ami said loftily.“And forgive me for wanting to discuss food.Breakfast this morning wasoneegg.”
Ione watched them chatter, although she kept her hand over Lina’s, her pulse against Lina’s skin a steady tap-tap-tap.Lina focused on it, on her, the brightness of a shooting star.Her heliade, her friend, her lover.
Something shifted in the air, a crackle of energy no one else seemed to notice.Lina squeezed her eyes shut at the rumbling in her bones.Breathed.
Down, Sowelan, she willed.She imagined Sowelan to be a cobra rising, spreading its hood; perhaps a spider, creeping out from a dark corner.This is my body, Sowelan.Mine.
This is my body, her own words echoed back at her.A voice similar to hers, but different.Other.Ancient and cunning and ruthless.
Mine.
Lightning skittered down her spine.“Ione,” Lina whispered, eyes still shut, her limbs tensing.“You said… you saw Kai this morning?”
The others quieted.Ione shifted in her seat, facing her fully; the heavy comfort of her hand on Lina’s shoulder made her shiver.“What’s wrong?”
“Was he…” She didn’t even know what she was asking.“Howwas he?”
Bound by iron rain.
Stop, Sowelan.
My light, my light, my light –
Fingers touched her forehead, and then something else, cold and slick.A bubble of ice.Ione knelt in her chair over her, the ice poised in one hand against Lina’s forehead.
“You’re very hot,” Ione murmured as Cynthia filled a cup with water and slid it towards Lina.
“I think Mikau has yarrow,” Ami said, standing.“That should bring a fever down.”
Weakly Lina waved them all back, feeling her head tip.“Will it get rid of a god?”
“Maybe if we double the dose,” Ami returned, and Lina managed a dim smile.
She felt better.Shewasbetter.
Ione sat back and let the ice evaporate, although her gaze was intense, monitoring.“Kai was well enough,” she said, moving on for Lina’s sake.“Angry at Saros, but… well.Happy for us.Proud.”
See?,Lina thought – at who, she didn’t know.At herself, perhaps.Kai was fine.Probably, like her, suffering another migraine, a divine tantrum.
She was safe.They all were.Lina dug her nails into her palms beneath the table, mentally repeating it until it felt true.She was having tea with her loved ones, spending an autumn afternoon together.She was not a pathetic shell housing a god.She was Lina, she was safe, she was alive.
You are a fool.
“Shh.”Lina swayed in her seat, rocking a baby.
