The War God's Wife

Epilogue

I stared off into the sunrise.  The beautiful dawn glistened gold and crimson across the breaking clouds.  Already I could feel the sun's warmth wash upon my face, chased by the fluttering of cool wind.  I sighed, content to sit in the quiet of now on Lyterias's front porch.  The world seemed brighter today, more vibrant and full of color.  Or perhaps I was just seeing the world as it should be?  Who knew?

Will you always be this sentimental?  the voice inside snickered.

Probably, I retorted, but the banter brought a smile to my face.  It felt good to bicker like this.  Was this what friends felt like?  I didn't know.  If it is, I thought, I am glad to have a friend, whatever you may be.  There was no reply to that, but I got the feeling the voice was touched, if even a little embarrassed.  That would be enough for now.  Some day soon, I would figure out what it was, but, for now at least, I would call it "friend."

"You should be back in bed," a voice chided me.  I turned and smiled.  Calli walked up slowly, still stiff from the bandages that wound tightly around her torso.  I extended an arm towards her and pulled her gently into my lap.  The feel of her body and weight on me felt right, like a piece of a puzzle fitted perfectly into place.  I placed a gentle kiss on her cheek.

"I wanted to watch the sun rise," I said.  She said nothing to that and instead settled against me and started to trace little lines with her nails across my chest.  The touch sent chills down my spine, but I refused to stop her.  For a moment, we sat together in silence, staring at the golden dawn.

"How are you?"  I asked.  She considered it for a moment.

"Everything seems a little different," she said slowly.  "Like time is moving around me but not for me.  I feel so . . . ."

"Alien?"  I suggested.  "Removed?"  She nodded.  "It is why we never really argued that we weren't gods.  Some part of us thought we could be.  We feel 'holy'--set apart from the mortals around us."

"And . . . ."  She hesitated.  "And am I like you?  'Holy?'"

I sat up a little and looked at her squarely.  I took in every little detail, all the things I loved about her:  her mane of wild, dark brown hair, her honey-colored eyes, her pretty smile and plump lips, and the pure love and joy that lit up her face whenever she looked at me.  And then I brushed aside her bangs to softly touch the silvery crest on her forehead.

It was different from the ones that decorated mine or my siblings' foreheads.  It was a crest of her own:  twin hearts mirroring each other vertically, one full, one dark.

The mark of a Tel'mak on a mortal.

"You are," I replied, "and you aren't.  You are what we call a Hatel'mak.  A half Guardian.  In our legends and myths, you would probably call them Champions."

Her eyes widened.  "I am your Champion?"  she said slightly breathlessly.

I laughed.  "No, no," I said.  "But you are like those in our past who were called such.  But you are much more than that."  She frowned, so I continued.  "We never pour our power so directly into a mortal.  Usually this comes as a blessing at birth, or something along those lines.  But, in giving you the power and energy directly, you have inherited something else of the Tel'mak:  our immortality."  It took her a moment to process that.

"So, I'm immortal?"  It sounded like she couldn't even comprehend it.

"Or so I'm theorizing," I said quickly.  "This has never happened in the history of Ultima, so, for all I know, you could just be buzzing with new energy that will fade in a week."  I chuckled weakly, but she shook her head seriously.

"I don't think this feeling will fade," she said.  And I agreed with her, though I said nothing aloud.  I had shared too much raw energy from my Well for there not to be repercussions of this magnitude.  For better or worse, I had changed her from a mortal into something else, and I would bear that responsibility.

"So what happens now?"  she asked quietly.  I sighed.

"I will present you to my siblings," I said.  She gave me a fearful look that told me what she thought about meeting the rest of my pantheon, and I chuckled again.  "Now that you are a Hatel'mak, they will want to know the whole story from beginning to end, minus a few of the . . . gory details."  She blushed at that.  "But this opens a whole new side to our magic that we've never tried or even thought of exploring.  Sister Fourth in particular will want to run tests on the extent of this.  But it will also open the door to more than just that."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that there's now the possibility of partners for us Tel'mak.  Families."  She stared at me for a minute.

"Partners?"  she repeated in a squeaky voice.  "You mean . . . ?"

"Marriage, yes," I finished.  I sighed and looked off into the distance as I continued.

"I cursed you with this fate.  Through my presence, my actions, and even my own bad luck, you were hurt and thrust into this fate of immortality, and I'm afraid there will be no way for me to rescind it if you wanted to.  I have doomed you to every cursed and cruel thing that comes with being an immortal, and so it is my duty to take responsibility for you."

"It sounds like you have bound yourself to an even worse life debt than before," she said teasingly, but the joke fell dryly in the serious air.  I shifted to hold her more comfortably.

"In a way, I have," I said.  "And part of me is sorry that you ever saved me from that field all those days ago."  She flinched, and her eyes smoldered with anger.  Anger at me for wishing such a fate on myself.  So I cupped her cheek and smiled at her to melt the anger away.

"And every other part of me rejoices that I have this once in a millennia chance to do this."

I stood and set her gently in the chair.  Slowly, my body aching as I did, I sank to one knee.  Her eyes widened, and she held her breath.  I drew Thunder from his sheath at my belt and flipped him to grip him by the blade.

"Normally, one would use a ring while doing this, but a dagger is traditional for Almeasuran knights.  So . . . ."  I offered him to her hilt first.  Her breath hitched, and her gaze flitted from me to the dagger and back.  I took a deep, shaky breath, and I felt my symbol and eyes start to glow.

"Calliena, daughter of Lyterias, will you honor me and my name and be my wife?  Will you be the wife of the War God?"

She gave a small gasp, and for the longest minute of my life, there was an aching silence between us.  Then her eyes and symbol shone out with a soft, golden light like the dawn before her.  And she said,

"Yes."