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Sooner or later, our journey would come to an end. And with it, our years of companionship. We all knew this fact, which is why we tried to avoid it as long as we could.
What none of us knew, however, was that the end of my journey would entail my accepting death—giving in to it. And now that I have this knowledge, I’m not certain I want to share it with the others. It’s bad enough saying goodbye, but saying goodbye in such a manner? I don’t think I could bear it.
And more to the point, I don’t want to.
Despite everything I know, I don’t want to surrender my life. I don’t want to leave my friends, my chosen family, behind. I don’t want to be alone for an eternity.
The Gilded Ones and the Idugu, at least, had each other when they arrived on this plane. When I ascend, I’ll have no one. I’ll be alone, a singular god surrounded by the ashes of the pantheon she decimated.
Keita glances back at me, his eyes worried. “Deka?” he prompts.
He’s clearly waiting for me to explain my pronouncement. But I’m not ready to just yet.
I try to buy time by glancing at the table, which is overflowing with all sorts of food—the choicest of grains, the best cuts of meat and fish. “After I eat,” I insist. “I’ll tell you after I eat. For now, I’m starving.”
“Of course.” I can see in his eyes Keita knows I’m stalling, but he doesn’t push. Instead, he just places his hand on my cheek and strokes the skin there. “At your own pace, Deka,” he says quietly. “I’ll be here when you’re ready.”
Then he leads me to the table, where the vine chairs curl back of their own accord to accommodate us, only to curl forward again, holding us securely in place.
The meal the godsworn have prepared this evening is much more opulent than the one we received when we first arrived. Where yesterday we satiated our hunger with hearty grains and simmering stews, whole roasted fish and meats now lay in front of us, artistically arranged on gigantic leaves sprinkled with bright, crystal-dusted flowers. Little sweet cakes shaped like animals line a tower of desserts, which include rice pastries, banana puffs, and other such delicacies. To top it all off, glittering streams of fruit juices flow like little waterfalls from both sides of the tree trunk surrounding us.
If I wasn’t hungry before, I certainly am now, so I hurriedly gulp down the food the leafy, plant-covered attendants offer me, barely even noticing the elegant little gold-tipped fern plates they’re using to serve us.
It takes at least half a plate of food before I’m ready to talk, and by that time, my friends are all tapping their feet with impatience. That includes Lamin, who, to my surprise, is now sitting quietly next to Britta, his eerily pale skin shimmering in the moonlight. After my pronouncement to him earlier this evening, he must have determined to make what amends he could, which is the only explanation I can think of for why the pair is sitting cheek by jowl, as if they weren’t just at loggerheads earlier this evening.
When he sees me looking, he inclines his head but doesn’t say anything—not that I expected him to. One thing that remains constant about Lamin, godsworn or not, is his dedication to stoic silence.
“Well?” Britta urges when I still don’t speak. “Wha happened? Details, Deka, details!”
“You can’t just say things are devastating and then leave us in suspense,” Li agrees.
I sigh, then glance at the attendants serving us. Their leader, a tall, willowy green woman that very much resembles a newly sprouted sapling, nods to her companions the moment she notices my gaze. They all swiftly fade back into the tree like shadows, the leaves rustling to herald their departure.
Once I’m certain they’re gone, I begin. “What happened is that I saw Mother and she was a wraith.”
“Ye mean like the ones in the vale?” Britta seems confused, as do the rest of my friends.
“No, I mean like a spirit—one bound to the temple of the gods.”
Britta takes a moment to absorb this information. “So she’s…”
“Dead. All this time.”
“Oh, Deka.” Britta rushes to enfold me in her arms.
As I sit there, allowing myself to be comforted, a hesitant cough draws my attention. Li’s. “So…not to be insensitive…,” he begins, a statement that all but ensures he’s about to be precisely that, “but how does that relate to your kelai? Was it there? Do you have it?”
I shake my head as I quickly tell them the story Mother told me, including about tracking down her body. “The priests, apparently, cloak my kelai with all sorts of arcane objects, but they don’t do the same for Mother’s body.”
“But how do we find it?” Keita rubs his forehead wearily. “It’s not like any of us can sniff out her scent on the wind.”
“We can if we have her things.” When everyone turns to me, I shrug. “All we have to do is get a sample of her clothing, and then Ixa will—”
“Wha? Sniff out your mother’s scent across Otera? Now how does that make sense, Deka?” Britta seems outraged by the suggestion.
I deflate. “It was an idea. I got so overwhelmed after everything the gods told me, I never thought to ask exactly how I—”
“You’ll use your combat state,” says Lamin. I turn to him, startled. “Your combat state is more enhanced than any other person’s as a result of your true nature as a divine being. It not only helps you see the truth of things; it also allows you to sense all sorts of things we can’t even imagine. And that should include other people’s purest essences, their primordial selves.”
