A Priestess for the Blind God (Legends of Rahasia Book 1)

BONUS A Child from the Gods

                   

"Fox pup?"

         Ryu rubs his eyes a couple times in disbelief as he stares at the shorter, muscular young woman standing before him. She wears a dark red dress embroidered with golden zardozi. Her feet are bare, but she has her legs again, at least.

Her legs. That face that's finally free of the pain and sorrow that haunted Ode's every waking moment when she was off her medicines. That's how Ryu knows this is a dream.

That, and one more thing. Two, actually.

         "Your eyes," he puts his hands out onto the apparition's face, "they've changed."

She blinks her deep black eyes at him, ringed in lashes made of starlight.

"Yes," her voice sounds richer now, echoing from whatever dream state she hails from. "Many things change when you join the gods."

"What a strange dream." Ryu chuckles at that. "When Ratu told us that you'd vanished in the gardens, we assumed you'd taken your scimitar and gone on the road seeking some new thrill. Wanting to save some other kingdom because you'd tired of our peaceful ways."

Ode presses her lips together. "A dream for you, reality for me." She sighs, ruffling Ryu's hair. "How are you and Prince Charming?"

Ryu resents the good-natured hair-ruffling. He'd just had it trimmed to look a little shaggier, just to differentiate from Elio's more formal, authoritative shorn-warrior look. And the glass beads had taken forever to weave into it. A dancer's fashion could never be let go.

"Elio misses you." Ryu stares down at his slippered feet. "He thinks that he drove you away, or at least Cato's version of him did." Ryu takes Ode's scarred palms in his, tracing the warrior girl's hands as he bites his lip nervously. "He thinks you'll never forgive him for losing your legs, or for throwing you into the Pit. He spends all his waking hours passing laws to get aid for all the boys' families who died in the Divine War."

"Peace is a hard nostrum to swallow for a man born of bloodshed." Ode frowns again.

"Did anybody tell you that you have a habit of speaking in riddles?"

Ode flicks Ryu's forehead, but the dancer twirls away easily, laughing. Ode attempts to twirl too, but she looks more military when she tries. Like a soldier following orders instead of a dancer following the music. "If only we could all be as beautiful as you, Ryu."

Ryu takes in those dark eyes of hers, the way her skin seems to glow with some power from within. "I wouldn't say that. You look powerful, Ode. Like the stars trapped into a body." He rubs the back of his neck, looking curiously about them.

It takes a while to realize that they're staring down at the slumbering forms of Ryu and Elio on their bed in the palace. Ryu waves his softly glowing hands through his own forehead, sees them pass through like those of a ghost.

"This isn't a dream, is it?"

"No," Ode smiles at him, that same all-knowing smile that Ryu missed so much from his friend. No, not friend. His خواهر âbjé, his sister. "It's something in-between. I exist now in the Before, Ryu, the place where the Divine reign, where heaven meets sky and spirals to eternity. Existing in a place Before time ever existed, outside of reality yet still a part of it."

Ryu tries and takes this in. He finds it is easier to feel the truth in her words than attempt to rationalize it. "Are you happy there?" He asks after a brief, existential pause.