Page 52 of The Isles of the Gods
“It gets easier,” Varon said gently, drawing my attention back to the conversation. “Best thing to do is take your thoughts somewhere else for a little while.” He pointed to a cluster of stars. “Every one of those constellations has a story. Maybe I’ve got one or two you haven’t heard.”
—
By the time the cliffs of the Mellacean coast loom on the horizon, I’ve spent most of the night here with Varon, swapping stories.
We’re not bound for Port Naranda, where a ship like this one would draw attention. Instead, we’ll land about an hour north of the city, at a place called Voster Bay.
It looks the same as much of the coastline—rocky, inhospitable cliffs rising from the sea—but there’s enough of a dent that ships can shelter there. And the church has an outpost here, where apparently nobody is inclined to wonder what a warship is doing casually dropping anchor.
Varon ducks away to his duties, but I’m only left alone for a few minutes before I sense a presence beside me. The ghostly form of Sister Beris lingers near the railing, white face so pale it almost glows in the dark, body hidden by her forest-green robes.
“You didn’t sleep, Jude,” she observes, and hearing my name in her mouth gives me a twitch between my shoulder blades.
“No,” I say, because there’s no point in denying it, but I don’t want to explain myself to this woman either.
“You’re uneasy.” Something in her tone catches my attention. When I glance across, she inclines her head. “So am I.” Then, just as I’m wondering if I’ve misjudged her: “But we must subjugate our own discomfort for the greater good.”
Ah, there it is. The justification.
“Can a war be for the greater good?” I ask despite myself.
She takes her time, giving the question more consideration than I’d expected. “I don’t think an Alinorish boy—even an exile, even one who has lived your life of exclusion—can truly understand the experience of a people who have been cut off from their god,” she says eventually. “For five hundred years we have reached out with our prayers, and they have been met with…nothing. They disappear into the great, muffling silence that is Macean’s slumber.”
She’s right—I can’t imagine that. Growing up, I always saw the flowers bloom in the temple, even through the dead of winter. The flame at the temple never went out and never needed fuel. I alwaysknewBarrica watched over us, even if it was fromafar.
“The green sisters have fought for our faith through those centuries,” she says, in response to my silence. “Sometimes at great cost. Sometimes, we were the only ones. Sometimes—some years, some decades—we would maintain our churches ourselves, scrubbing away the dirt until our hands bled, knowing no faithful would come, knowing we must be the faithful ourselves. It has been a long, long road, Jude. The decisions we have made were not a whim, not made without the deepest understanding of the consequences.”
“And now your people have come back to church,” I observe.
“They have,” she agrees. “We kept the embers alive, sometimes only barely, but when our people were hungry,wewere the ones at their doors with food. When they were in need, it was the green sisters who gave of our own to support them. We kept the embers alive, and now the people of Mellacea return to the church to stoke the flame. Barrica’s hold on Macean loosens. Soon our faith will swell his power enough to shake off his sleep, and he will return to us.”
“And what will happen then?” I whisper.
“He will walk among us,” she says simply, her eyes fixed on the horizon. “And he will lead.”
“What about your government?”
“He is ourgod,Jude.”
I let out a slow breath. There are stories about what it was like when the gods walked among us. Of their miracles, and their destruction.
“Last time they were here, we ended up with the Barren Wastes,” I say softly. “A whole country, a whole people, gone. Destroyed in an instant. We learned about it at school.” It feelsimpossible to believe, but I know it’s not a matter of belief. Really, it’s just impossible tocomprehend.
“Perhaps there will be a war,” she agrees, a touch regretful. “If Barrica returns to meet him once more.”
“And that’s what you want?”
“It is the only choice left to us,” she replies. “We are not the ones who bound our god in sleep.”
I don’t know what to say—how to argue with the centuries of work she and the green sisters have put into this plan of theirs. How to make them see the horror of what they’re doing, if they don’t already.
“Do you pray to Barrica?” she asks after a pause.
I shake my head. “I did, growing up. I don’t now.”
“Do you wish to pray to Macean?”
I shake my head again. “I answer my own prayers, Sister Beris. Nobody else ever has.”
