Twelve Realms

Chapter 19

Lucia

"What?" I ask Aerid.

"Nothing," he says quickly, turning away.

Yeah right. This is the fifth time I've caught him staring at me over the course of an hour. Something's up.

"Spit it out, Aerid," I tell him, not willing to go through this whole charade again. 

He sets down the knife I lent him, which he had been sharpening against a stone. 

"Alright, fine. Are we seriously not going to talk about what happened?"

I know exactly what he's talking about, but I don't exactly feel like explaining what happened, especially not with him, since he has such a tendency to be blasphemous. Besides, I've never gotten that close to Dea before, ever, and it feels like something I want to keep a secret.

"What do you mean?"

He gives me a look. "You know, you walking directly through fire, unscathed, with glowing eyes? Does that ring any bells?"

But I guess it's too late for me to keep it as a secret. I wish he hadn't seen. 

"Fine," I say, sitting down on a rock. "What do you want to know?"

He gives me another look, more incredulous this time. "I want to know, you know, how you managed to do that?"

I sigh. I guess I have to tell him everything, then. 

"You already know I have a special connection with Dea," I say. He nods. 

I pull up my right sleeve, although it's significantly shorter since some of it was burned away, and show him my mark of Dea.

"You have a tattoo?" he asks.

"Not just any tattoo," I say. "This is the mark of Dea."

He tilts his head to the side. "I don't understand."

I stretch my wrist out, showing him more closely. 

"The Twelve Realms," I say, outlining the diamond shape of the border. 

"The divide of the borders." I point out the line down the middle.

"The four elements," I say, pointing out the four lines emerging from the center.

"Air." The squiggly line extending upwards to the left.

"Water." The curved line pointing downwards left.

"Fire." The jagged, lightning bolt shape stretching upwards and to the right.

"And earth." The solid line tilting down right.

"Dea is the great goddess, so she has dominion over the Twelve Realms and all their elements." 

"So... you got the tattoo to honor her or something?" Aerid still doesn't get it.

"No," I tell him. "Dea gave me this mark to solidify me as her priestess of choice. It's not inked into my skin, it is my skin." 

"It's... wait what?"

"It's a part of me, both symbolically as my connection to Dea is a part of me, and literally, as that is just how my skin is there. Dea gave it to me and I bear it as a sign of loyalty."

Aerid still seems a little confused, but he doesn't ask me to explain again. "So... what does it do? Is that what let you walk through fire last night?"

"Yes," I say. "I'm not sure exactly what else it does, nothing like that has ever happened before. What I'm assuming happened is that Dea allowed me to use a small portion of her power in order to keep my segment. That's why my eyes were glowing, it was a side effect of having that power in me." 

"So... Dea can just give people her power randomly?"

"She didn't give me her power, she just let me use some of it temporarily. I don't think I would physically be able to permanently contain any amount of her power, humans aren't built for that. And I'm not sure but I don't think it's just anyone she can give it to, or at least not that easily. The mark connects us, so it makes it a lot easier for her to contact me and help me." 

"Huh." 

Aerid picks up the knife again, keeps sharpening it. He looks conflicted, like he's buried deep in thought. 

Assuming he's done with the questions, I go back to what I was working on, which is organizing what's left after the fire. Unfortunately, there's not much.

I was wearing my coat during the fire, and while it was undoubtedly damaged by the flames, pretty much everything that was in my pockets is relatively unharmed. That being said, everything that was in my rucksack, including the rucksack itself, was destroyed. That includes the remainder of the food that Vara packed for me, the plant manual, my spare clothes, and my journal, which is a pretty hard loss. The flask I was using for water survived, but is now significantly warped and holds less water. Still, I can't afford to throw it away.

The worst loss, though, is the eternia pin that officially marks me as part of the Temple of the Winter River. It was pinned to my jacket and must've burned up as I walked through the fire. It was made of thin cloth and probably was one of the first things to go. Regardless of how it was lost, it means that I no longer have one of my best resources. The only thing I can do now is tell people I work for the Temple and hope they take my word for it. Which, considering how the people in this Realm reacted to me even when I did have the pin, is probably so unrealistic that I can't assume it will come even remotely close to working.

So what now? I'm not quite sure where to go while I wait for Dea's message. The map burned up in the fire, but I've stared at it so many times that I have a rough recollection of what the Realm looks like. I sketch it in the dirt with a twig. 

We've combed all of the abandoned belt, I've visited the Cursed Village and the nobleman's village, as well as a few others, but there are still some I've yet to pay a visit to.

"Hey, what do you say we try the northeastern villages?" I call to Aerid.

"No," he replies immediately.

"No?" I repeat, a little surprised. "Why not?"

"Because you won't find anything there," he says, not looking up. 

"Why do you say that?" 

"What makes you think they'll treat you any differently than any of the other villages? Trust me Lucia, these people don't know anything, and if they did, they wouldn't tell you."

"Oh," I say, a little hurt. It's not my fault their king isn't doing his job correctly. I'm just trying to help.

I turn back to my makeshift map. Should I just wait here for Dea's message, then? It seems a little wrong to just sit here, but there aren't many more places I can look, and I need to try and replace what I can of what I've lost. 

I turn to Aerid to ask his opinion and find him still sharpening the same knife with that conflicted look on his face.

"Are you... okay?" I ask him.

"What?" he says, turning to look at me, as if snapping out of a trance.

"Are you okay?" I ask again.

He doesn't answer, just sighs and looks away.

"What is it?" I ask him. 

"The gods have never really helped me in any way, so I just always assumed that they don't do hands-on types of help. But after seeing last night, I can't tell myself that the gods don't get involved, can't tell myself that there's a reason why the gods never helped me. They were capable of helping this whole time, and yet they never did. The gods abandoned me, Lucia, they abandoned my people when we needed them the most. Which either means the gods are simply cruel, or that no one in my village was ever worth saving." 

He looks me in the eye. "Now tell me how I'm supposed to deal with that."