“My humble self would make it for you,” she said. “If it pleases you, I would prepare as much as you require.”
Erevos should have started with it. He could have had the salve and the knowledge.
“Teach me,” he said at last.
Her breath hitched.
Slowly, cautiously, she nodded against the floorboards, her entire body still trembling as she whispered, “Yes, Greatest god.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The Guide With Two Tails
Lyssena
“What a cute cat!” Lyssena exclaimed with so much joy that she immediately forgot she was meant to be quiet, her voice carrying farther into The Void than she would have preferred.
She froze for a heartbeat after the words left her mouth, suddenly aware of how alone she was.
Being alone in The Void was a danger in itself, even if nothing had yet happened from the shifting horizon to threaten her, even if she had walked for quite some time without encountering a single other being. The landscape had remained vast and strangely still, shadows drifting lazily along the ground as though indifferent to her presence.
Until this cat.
Well . . . it was not exactly the sort of cat she had known in her village, not the small barn creatures that hunted mice and tolerated affection on their own temperamental terms, but it looked close enough that her heart had reacted before her mind could intervene.
It had the shape of a cat, with a lithe body and those fuzzy little toe beans she adored so much. It was just . . . slightly unusual.
This cat had the same eyes as Erevos—deep, endless, and purple—and far too many sharp teeth visible even when its mouth was closed. It also had two tails.
And two sets of eyes.
And, upon closer inspection, it seemed to possess two of everything, layered over itself as though one creature had been folded imperfectly atop another.
“You . . . look very . . . interesting,” Lyssena murmured as she lowered herself to sit, leaning back on her heels, her masked gaze studying the creature with fascination rather than fear.
Up until she had met this peculiar feline, she had been feeling the weight of her journey settle into her limbs, her calves, and her shoulders, burned from walking so long through terrain that never seemed to change. Her fingers, too, ached from cradling the tear bubbles she had so cleverly created, the small spheres of shadow sealed around her sorrow.
Holding them constantly was becoming inconvenient. Resourceful as ever, Lyssena had asked the suit for pockets.
The suit, at first, had not responded. That silence had made Lyssena a little nervous, a brief tightening in her chest as she wondered whether she had overestimated her authority over the living fabric wrapped around her body. However, after a few moments of thoughtful explanation—after describing in great detail what pockets were, how they functioned, and why they were useful—she felt the material shift against her hips.
Seams formed and openings appeared. Pockets.
Lyssena had been delighted beyond measure.
Carefully, she had tucked the tear bubbles away, relieved not only by the freedom of her hands but also by the discretion it offered. She had no intention of arriving at the market displaying all the currency she possessed, not when she did not yet understand the rules of this place. What if someone attempted to steal from her? What if some creature sensed the grief sealed within those spheres and decided it wanted it for itself?
What if this, and what if that? No.
That simply would not happen when Lyssena was managing everything so remarkably well on her own.
Now, sitting before the strange two-tailed creature, she tilted her head and decided to speak.
“Are you hungry?” she asked, genuinely curious, and silently hoping that Void cats did not, in fact, consume wandering women.
The cat tilted its head to the side in a mirrored motion, its multiple eyes blinking slowly, and Lyssena chose to interpret that as a no.
At that, she tilted her head further. “Can you understand me?”
