A Change of Heart

Still Too Early on Thursday March 4, 1490

I opened my eyes into a snowy landscape. The outlines of the temple remained about us if I squinted hard enough, but wind howled around the ghostly columns and snow pounded against the pedestal. Frozen in their circle, the priests of Athena continued to stare fixedly at the lynx, with blood leaking from their eyes. Trembling, Ynez fought to counter the Ars Mentis Effect on them.

Overhead, an owl burst into existence and began flapping away frantically, but since Athena was Ghallim's avatar, she couldn't fly any significant distance from him. The lynx's eyes lit up and it coiled its muscles, preparing to spring after its prey.

"Stop draining your life force!" I screamed again, and sprinted forward to fling my arms around the lynx's neck. Ynez gasped but couldn't risk interrupting her ritual to stop me. Tel took a single step towards me, gave a delicate shudder, and transformed into a beautiful white fawn that formed the perfect counterpoint to the lynx. (A tiny corner of my mind thought that Cly would love the symbolism.) Shaking his head a few times, he backed away warily from the predator.

Burning yellow eyes glared at me but fortunately, Ashton didn't rip my face off. Instead, the lynx lifted its head and commanded Ghallim to join the hunt. "I look forward to teaching you, little one," it growled.

Ghallim nodded shortly and began to reel in Athena like a kite. Up in the sky, the owl screeched and beat its wings frantically, straining against his pull.

I could feel power building up all around and within Ashton, energy that I knew he didn't have. "Release me," he ordered, shaking his head and shoulders like an avalanche.

Stubbornly, I clung to his fur and held fast. "Only if you will survive this hunt. Tell me you'll survive, and I'll let you go!"

"No hunt is ever certain," he boomed, his voice echoing off the rocks. "But as long as I have one true believer, I will not die." Under my Ars Fati Effect, the inverse of his words at least rang true: If he did not have at least one true believer, he would certainly die.

"But you only have Ghallim right now. What if something happens to him? What is a true believer?" I persisted. "I believe in your existence. Does that count?"

"It is not enough merely to believe in my existence, little one. But I shall teach you too, in time. Now you must let me go!" At last I unwrapped my arms from his neck, and he sailed off the pedestal with one great leap.

Everything happened in a blur then. Ghallim had manifested the firmament and was shrinking it implacably to trap the owl; Ynez was frantically trying to burn a hole in the sky for Athena to escape through; the owl was flapping forward desperately, heedless of its collision course with the collapsing sky. Then, free from my embrace, the lynx's long, sinewy form flew through the air in one graceful arc, snatched the owl in his jaws, and bore her down to the snowy rocks. I hid my face and plugged my ears, but I could still hear the bird's shrieks and the cat's growls.

Finally the owl fell silent. I peeked through my fingers to see the lynx lift its head from the rocks, muzzle streaming with ethereal blood. It had obviously been rejuvenated by Athena's essence. My stomach lurched. Saving Ashton's life had been our goal all along, hadn't it? And we had sort of succeeded? But I still couldn't decide how I felt about the means, so I gave up.

"Is she — dead?" I asked in a small voice that the snow and wind almost carried away.

"Oh yes," Ynez said emphatically. (A little too emphatically? I was too rattled to read her tone.) "Very much so. She's dead. The deadest. She couldn't be deader."

The white fawn legged it over to me and shoved its head under my hand — for my comfort or Tel's, I couldn't tell. Maybe both. I scratched his ears as I would Timo's and felt a surge of longing for the orphanage and my old life. So much had changed in just a day. Neither Tel nor I was fully human, both of us had joined with a god in a ritual we chose to forget, Tel must be trying to process my revelation that his parents had always been alive (I did feel a little remorse for breaking the news that way), and I was trying to accept that Ynez was permanently my superior. I tried to picture obeying her orders the way I did Astera's, and balked at the image.