Page 28 of Awariye

If I held such a position of power, where anyone could attempt to exploit that position by forming a relationship with me, I’d feel relieved yet insecure at finally finding an honest partner. Awariye had assured me that he and Wren had never been lovers, only ever friends. Wren in fact had shared a bed with his two best friends back at the monastery, and it was during his painful separation from them and the ending of that relationship that Ulbrecht had found Wren and offered love and comfort.

At the entryway to the chapel, all three of us washed our hands and faces in the faucet, cleaning ourselves out of respect for the holy ones within. Then we stepped into the chapel and immediately into the presence of the lanterns, who completely dominated the space. Wren and Awariye both pressed their palms together in greeting, so I did the same. It could be specific to their training, if they worked with energy through their palms, but I too needed a sign of greeting and respect, so I borrowed theirs.

"I know I say this every time," Wren began, "but they feel completely different down here surrounded by stone than compared to up at the shrine. We're not in that dense of a city, but it must be enough to change the texture of their energy, at least in my perception."

I swallowed, concern attempting to curl in my gut. "Do you think that changes what you have to do with them when we fight?"

Both Wren and Awariye whipped around to regard me with wide eyes.

"How do you mean?" Wren asked.

I remembered the old mystic who had brought the lanterns to these lands. Ulbrecht had talked about him a lot and brought him to the castle several times. He'd lived in poverty up at the shrine where Wren was now posted. In the winter he ventured down into the valley and stayed at the lodge to keep warm. Such alpine terrain got far too cold and snowy to weather the winter there, especially under poor provisions.

"The mystic, Cyfrinydd, came here with the lanterns about seven years ago, right around the time Ulbrecht secured the first section along the Danube's banks. The same year that he crushed the mercenary group I'd been sold into and took me as one of his fighters," I explained.

Awariye came over and took my hand, his brows furrowed with concern. I had already explained to him about my past, and the fate of my family. These conversations had happened while Awariye was still recovering, however, so with the heavy sleep and so much medicinal wine I wasn't sure what parts he remembered.

"The old mystic stayed at a lodge in the valley rather than coming to the castle, usually," I continued. "As far as I recall, h never needed to tend to the lanterns during a battle while not up at the mountain shrine."

"So we don’t have his experience of attempting it somewhere else," Wren concurred, the gears clearly turning as he pieced my story together.

Then I voiced something that had been niggling at me. "It has been a mild winter down here on the plains. The most recent battle—your first with the lanterns, Wren—was unexpectedly late in the year, and all kinds of things went wrong. We fought them back, but the entire time it felt like our footing was off. I'm not one to make the kind of oversight I did that led to me getting injured just to cover Ulbrecht's back."

Awariye glanced to his friend. "That sounds like astrological influences; we could check. So both the weather, and possibly other forces, were contributing to something strange."

"And it was a very late autumn, even up in the mountains," added Wren. "The villagers nearby had an early frost and that prompted everyone into a preemptive harvest, but then autumn returned and lingered. I wasn't snowed out of the mountains until that battle right before the winter solstice."

We normally didn't have to worry about border raids in the dark months because the cold contributed to the danger while fighting. Unless starvation was imminent, one might as well wait for spring to try to steal territory. But with temperatures remaining relatively mild, I'd noticed Ulbrecht and Sören discussing it more than once.

"Wren, you should possibly be prepared to handle the lanterns during battle while you're still here," I suggested, “if skirmishes at the border start before the mountain passes clear for you to get up there again."

Awariye stepped into my space and I wrapped him in my arms, comforting him. I was used to life as a warrior, of leaving my fate in the hands of the gods and following my king straight into hell. It was easy to forget how it must look to an outsider like my newfound lover. But just as Awariye spoke of connecting to his higher soul when he sang to the gods, I too felt connected to a higher power when I defended these lands and the precious peace here, as if I were doing exactly what my immortal soul wished for me to do.

Wren crossed his arms, his face pinched in consideration. "Frankly, I wouldn't want to do the channeling of power I did last time down here. These stone walls protect us from the weather and invaders, but they are hardly absorbent material for what came barreling down the planes. The thick forest in the mountains, rushing straight down to the river, all of it helped me get that power flowing through and on to somewhere else. Awariye, that's when the memory of you singing to me all those years ago saved me; when you helped bring me back from the Otherworld. I thought of the poem you sang out of theGolden Book of Vienna; that was my saving grace when I felt like my body would explode."

That didnotsound good. My gut filled with worry, for Wren was not only a beautiful person but my friend. The skinny, quirky mage before me was a desperately important friend to Awariye and was of absolute importance to my king. If we rode to battle and came back to find that something had happened to Wren, Ulbrecht would be utterly shattered. In horror, I tried not to think of what that would do to all of us who loved Ulbrecht and risked our lives for him.

"That might answer an important question," said Awariye, pulling away from my hug enough to regard his friend, thankfully not catching my distress. "Everyone keeps asking who the lanterns gods are and what they want."

That struck me as strange, since as warriors we already knew: they were gods that did not feel the need to tell us their names and merely gave us lanterns—as well as a mystic, and now Wren—to serve as symbolic representations for them. What they wanted was for the warriors to fight as hard as they could while they watched. That is what Ulbrecht told us and what I too could feel during onslaughts. Whether they continued to bless us in the future did not matter. What mattered was that they blessed us now, and so we fought. Evelyn and Sören's kids were proof of our peace. They had been born in the calm created behind our shields.

"What does it answer?" asked Wren, pulling me out of my thoughts. "I went through an entire vision and fainted, just to come out with scrambled letters that don't seem to form any kinds of names for them." But he blinked, something occurring to him. "It was after that, though, that I pieced together who Uli is."

"Maybe the vision was not for the sake of the letters, but for the power coming through," I told him.

"And in your case, Wren, you have trained your mind enough that it also manifested as a change in consciousness and allowed you to make that connection about Ulbrecht," said Awariye, piling onto my reasoning and making me proud.

But Wren was not satisfied with that. "Am I only a spigot? Fifteen years of training, and I'm just a faucet for them?"

Awariye and I moved as one, unwilling to let that kind of thinking take hold. Awariye disentangled from me and pulled Wren into a hug while I patted Wren on the shoulder, unable to give him any more detailed reassurance, because ultimately we did not have a clear account of what these gods were thinking, nor did humans ever seem to when it came to divine powers.

"That's why I think this points to an answer," Awariye continued while hugging his friend. "You said their power is absorbed by the mountainside and the forest, then rushes to the valley into the Danube. Maybe the power you are helping to bring down is meant for Nature, and these gods have supported Ulbrecht because he protects the lanterns and the mystic who channeled the power down."

That seemed to heal Wren. He drew in a shuddering breath and hugged my boyfriend tight. "If it's for Mother Nature, then that's a higher calling I can get excited about. Thank you, Awariye. Let's work on that assumption and see where it takes us."

"Wunderbar," Awariye replied.

CHAPTERSEVENTEEN