beautiful the goddess was.
“Here is my hand,” he felt her press her hand upon his chest, directly above his heart, where the crest of Estone was about to be tattooed into his flesh. There was a sudden searing pain that was intense freezing and fire both, and neither, or more, where her palm and fingers spread across his chest. He felt the pain, exquisite and excruciating, penetrate his skin, and sink into his chest. His heart could no longer beat, and then the pain delved further through his flesh and muscle and bone, all the way to his shoulder blade beneath, where it felt like his skin was burning from the divine encounter on his chest. He knew that he was dying; his heart was not beating, his blood was not moving, and unconsciousness was only seconds away. “Done,” she whispered. He felt the pressure of her hand released from his chest, and then the pain was gone, as his heart began to beat again, a wild, fluttering staccato pulse of restored life.
“This is my mark upon you. With this mark you are truly bound to be the champion of the people of Estone. In times of trouble, when only you can save them, you will feel the crest grip your heart to compel you to go forth and do battle for the people of the land,” the goddess spoke words that were burned into his brain.
“You four,” she spoke to the men in the back, “will go forth into the court and the palace and the city and spread the word of what you have seen and heard here. You will tell Estone that Kestrel is the champion of the people. And the Doge will confirm that he has dreamed this.
“Kestrel, you will go on journeys, and travel widely, but when you feel the crest burn you, you will know that you must battle for these people, whether here in this land, or elsewhere, when some distant threat to Estone, or all of humanity, has arisen. Do you accept your responsibility to fulfill this?” she asked.
“I do swear to serve as the champion of the people,” Kestrel solemnly answered, thinking of Merilla, and protecting her from whatever threat might hover over Estone.
“Then our covenant is sealed. I will help you when needed, and you will answer the call when it comes,” the goddess’s voice grew graver. Then it sounded one last phrase inside his head, so that only he heard: “You will be the champion for me and for the old order of gods, standing up for us as well if ever we reach dire need for your help.”
And then there was a clap of thunder within the chapel, and the goddess disappeared in a rising column of sparks that circled about the ceiling and then floated up into and through the rafters.
As the sparks of divinity disappeared, Kestrel’s vision returned. He looked about, and saw the faintly glowing traces of the goddess’s exit floating above, and he saw the still glowing footprints that traveled up the aisle of the chapel. He turned and saw the four witnesses, still stretched out on the floor behind him.
“Get up, all of you. Get up, she’s gone,” Kestrel told them, as he sat up. He tried to look down at his chest to see what she had done. The image was upside down, and seen from a sharp angle, so he could discern no details, but he could tell that the image on his left side was shiny like fish scales, while the image on his right looked dull by comparison. The bright, shiny image had colors that seemed as vivid as a window of stained glass. He looked over at a window and saw that the sun was shining brightly outside, the storm having passed.
There was a banging at the door, and then a small group of palace guards entered the building.
“It looked as though the chapel was on fire!” one of them cried as he stood on the threshold and looked within. “The storm came out of nowhere and formed right here. The lightning struck and the windows glowed from within as though there was a white hot fire!”
“There was,” the tattoo artist spoke, rising and approaching Kestrel. “There was a holy fire in here. We were visited by the goddess Kai herself! See,” he pointed at the floor in front of them. “There are her footsteps!”
He reached Kestrel and examined the mark on his chest. “This is a miracle!” he exclaimed. “She has chosen you! She has marked you as the true champion; it’s not just a title.
“This is extraordinary,” he murmured as he bent and looked at the details of the new crest. “It’s so detailed and lifelike. These colors are exquisite!”
Kestrel sat in a daze, unable to immediately recover from the force of the encounter he had been subjected to. The goddess had done nothing of malevolent intent to him, but the exposure to her unconstrained presence had been more than he could comprehend. He heard the voices around him, but their meaning flew over his head.
“Look at his back!” one of the tattooist’s assistants said, pointing at him.
The artist peered around to his back as the soldiers arrived and circled around. “It’s her handprint!” he exclaimed. He gently prodded the raw, burned flesh with a finger, and the pain of the touch got Kestrel’s attention, snapping him out of his trance at last.
“Ow!” he said as he flinched, while he swatted at the poking hand.
The assistants were talking to the guards, each of them telling the story of what had happened, as Kestrel sat and swung his legs over the side of the cot, then stood up. His legs felt weak, and he felt dizzy, both lingering further side effects of the visitation from the goddess. He looked around and saw his shirt, which he grabbed up, and pulled on. It rubbed and chaffed the handprint on his back before he even had it pulled down over his stomach, and he quickly yanked it back off.
He looked around at the small clusters of guards and tattoo attendees, talking volubly to each other, and he tried to comprehend everything they were saying to each other, but his mind still primarily dwelt on his experience, the voice and the sight and the touch of the goddess who had materialized solely to give him an assignment to protect the humans of Estone. It was incomprehensible, unthinkable.
Without comprehending anything, he walked down the aisle of the chapel and out into the small garden that insulated it from the surrounding palace. He held his shirt in his hand as he looked up at the cloudless sky, the sun beginning to set on the western horizon. He didn’t know what to do, or where to go. He walked away, unnoticed by the others within the chapel as they continued to retell their tales and thoughts.
Many noticed the man without a shirt who walked through the palace, but no one stopped him as he wandered to the gate and left the palace grounds, his mind beginning to churn more and more as he tried to pull himself back into the real world, and to consider the implications of the divine direction he had received.
Did he need to permanently reside in Estone? Should he consider himself only as a human henceforth, and forget the elven heritage that he lived all his life? Was he meant to stay in this city, and should he woo Merilla to be his wife after all (assuming the gods would allow), when her widowhood was over? How could he turn his back on the elves, who needed him to gather information for them, to protect their race? Could he return to the elves who had tricked him and used him? Would he ever experience such a visit with the human goddess again, and did he even want to? It was so vastly different from the visit Kere had made, when she had directed him to the healing spring; that had been a warm and intimate encounter, a friendlier experience altogether.
The sun was set and the sky was dark, he realized. He must have walked about the city for hours in his contemplative daze. He was in front of the inn where he and Merilla and her boys were staying. He no longer held his shirt; he must have dropped it at some point in his existential musings. With a sigh, he opened the door and walked straight across the foyer then up the stairs, unconcerned about his state of partial nakedness.
When he opened the bedroom door the room was dark. Merilla was already in bed, asleep. He sat on the mattress and pulled off his boots, then his trousers, and slumped forward, sleeping on his stomach to protect the painful deep burn on his back.
“Kestrel?” Merilla sleepily called.
“I’m back,” he said comfortingly. “Are the boys asleep?”
“They are,” she assured him. He heard her yawn. “How did the auction go?”
“I’m not sure,” he said recollecting for the first time that the auction of the yeti goods had occurred while he was at the palace.
“That’s good; we’ll talk in the morning,” she murmured as she fell asleep again, and after a long time of lying in the bed and thinking, Kestrel fell asleep as well.
Chapter 22 — The Auction Results
Kestrel awoke with a gasp. He felt something cold being spread across his back. Upon opening his eyes he found that the morning was well underway, the sun had risen far above the horizon, and Merilla sat beside him,
