“Thank you, but I’ll have to decline.” Delyth’s face had gone bone-pale. Her hands were shaking where they hung at her sides. “I’ll not set foot in the home of a coward.”
“Delyth!” Etienne hissed. She knew why he was worried, how much of their supplies they had lost on that mountain top, but she just couldn’t do it. This bitch had no idea what Alphonse had gone through. No right to insult her. And to call this a personal vendetta? It was like she didn’t even care what happened to her clansman, so long as she got to stay safe inside with the rest of her warriors.
“Come on, Etienne, let’s go. The Mynydd Gwyllt care nothing for the man Enyo took, and we’ve got what we came for. We know why she was here.”
Etienne didn’t move, even as Delyth turned her back on Tanwen and started to walk away. “Stop!” he said, his voice strained. “She doesn’t know Alphonse. Her words don’t matter. And we need supplies. Pretending that we don’t is just going to endanger Allee even more.”
Delyth stopped. He’d said the magic words.
For a long moment, she didn’t move, struggling to keep tears from coursing down her cheeks. She wouldn’t cry here. Not in front of Tanwen. Not just because she was angry.
Finally, she turned back around.
Tanwen had turned back to Delyth, her face contorted with anger. Only Niclas’s hand on her shoulder seemed to have stayed her retort. Instead, she exchanged a look with the spiritual leader and her bonded partner before rolling her eyes and stalking off.
Niclas watched Tanwen’s retreating form for a moment longer and then smiled sedately to Delyth and Etienne.
“Pride can be a wonderful thing, but also a crippling vice. I see both you, Priestess Delyth, and War Chief Tanwen have that in common today. Please—” He stepped aside, making the path up into the settlement available to them. “Come. I am certain when tempers and fears alike have cooled, we will find a way to address this calamity.”
✶
As Etienne approached, Niclas nodded. “I am Niclas,” he murmured to the mage, needing no introduction with Delyth. “How is it that you came to be hunting down Priestess Delyth’s Goddess?”
Etienne glanced back at Delyth warily as he walked with Niclas into the settlement. He didn’t think he would call Enyo Delyth’s Goddess. Not after all that had happened. He wondered if the warrior even still considered herself a priestess.
He couldn’t imagine so. She had chosen Allee’s side. It wasn’t his job to say so, though. Delyth would decide what she wanted to be called.
As for how he ended up here…
“I’m Etienne.” The mage met Niclas’s eyes. He seemed like an understanding man. Warm and empathetic. But how much of this tale could he stomach? “It’s a long story…” Etienne said blandly. He couldn’t remember ever understating something so dramatically.
Niclas nodded in some expression of understanding. “I find most stories are. So, Enyo took your friend’s body? As she took Gethin? And what will she do with him?”
“Sort of…”
Enyo had taken over Alphonse’s body as a result of the summoning ritual Etienne had performed in Moxous all those moons ago. It was his fault, her being here now—a result of hubris and boyish impatience.
He would never forgive himself for it. Never atone.
Not if he lived three hundred years.
“With Maoz’s artifact, Enyo and Tristan will be able to summon Maoz from banishment to live within a human Vassal. What Delyth said about it destroying your clansmen is true, but it’ll happen slowly. We hope to stop them before—before they die. Until then, it’ll be like two minds in a single body. Sometimes the God is in control. Sometimes the human.”
“I see. And your friend…” Niclas glanced back at Delyth and lowered his voice. “She was Delyth’s lover? Did she live in the temple as well then? Was she a worshipper of Enyo and offered to be bound together, as Gethin did?”
“No.” Etienne’s voice was dark. “Alphonse didn’t have a choice. Neither she nor I had ever heard of Enyo before…”
Before they had summoned her. For his pride.
But he didn’t want to speak of that, didn’t want to admit it.
This man seemed to know a great deal about Delyth’s past. How had a simple temple priestess become so close with a clan chief? There was much Etienne didn’t understand about Delyth. Perhaps sensing Etienne’s distress, Niclas was quiet for the rest of the walk up to the great hall. Men and women were coming down from the burial grounds, shovels in hand.
“If you’ll excuse me, Priestess Delyth and Etienne, I must oversee the last of the burials. Maoz—” he smiled ruefully, likely recognizing the irony in inciting the teachings of a returning God, “said to mourn the dead and then live your life. Please help yourself to the food in the great hall. I doubt Tanwen is there.”
Etienne glanced back at Delyth. Food sounded good. And they both needed it. Even if Delyth was too angry to admit it. “That sounds good, Niclas. Thank you for your generosity.”
He and Delyth turned in the direction the man had indicated. Towards warmth and rest for the first time in weeks.
Chapter VI
Ninth Moon, Full Moon: Mynydd Gwyllt Clan
Delyth woke slowly, pulling apart lashes glued by salt. She was too warm, the blankets and pillows from the too-lavish bed shoved onto the floor. One arm cradled Alphonse’s journal. The other was flaked with dried blood in the shape of what had been a complicated rune.
She didn’t remember falling asleep, though she must have at some point well into the morning. A good thing too. She was more herself for the few hours rest.
Though she took her time dressing and stowing her things, it was still early when Delyth stepped from the room,
