of her sisters to retire when the evening deepened. Alba had spent the afternoon in their company, not yet old enough to preside over the festivities or observe the events, and not nearly as well protected as she had once been. The king put a cadre on her every time she moved about the grounds, but his guard was spread thin across the hill. Many of them were competing in the events as well, which meant the daughters and the princess stayed behind locked doors when they were not on display.
“I am not tired. I wish we could wander the mount,” Alba mourned. “There is so much to see, and we are stuck inside. If Bayr were here, he could accompany us. No one would dare approach if he were watching.”
“But he is not here . . . and I am weary,” Ghisla said, her tone cross, though her stomach knotted with guilt at her lie. She had no intention of sleeping.
“The queen says I can stay here with all of you tonight,” Alba said, cheering up slightly. She only referred to Queen Esa as Grandmother when she addressed her directly, which was not very often. The woman held herself apart and rarely left her quarters in the king’s castle.
Ghisla almost groaned. Alba’s presence would make it that much harder to slip away.
“You can sleep with me, Princess,” Ghisla offered. “Then Ghost will not feel compelled to let you have her bed.” And when she retired, all the beds would be full, giving Ghisla a little more cover.
“I don’t want to sleep yet,” Alba complained.
“I will sing to you.”
She would sing until they were all drunk with sleep. Her stomach twisted again. She did not like to manipulate her sisters, even with slumber, but she was growing desperate. The rune on her palm pulsed with Hod’s nearness, and she feared he would give up on her and retreat to his tent or whatever lodging Arwin had secured.
“Sing the one about the little bat,” Dalys begged. “That one always makes me smile.”
“I have not heard that one!” Alba squealed, wriggling down beside Ghisla. Elayne, Juliah, and Bashti were slower to convince, but there was nothing else to do and the day had been wearying.
They stretched out over their beds and let Ghisla sing them into dreamland, climbing and soaring above the mount with the little bat whose only mission was to be himself, a bat, free to fly and flit about, without a care in the world.
He cannot see, but he’s not scared.
He swoops and glides up in the air.
The sky is dark but he is light,
And though his eyes aren’t blessed with sight,
His joy is full, his wings are strong.
He dances to a distant song.
He flies, and he is free to play,
And at the end of every day,
He folds his wings and draws in close,
To all the bats who love him most.
Before long, the room was a symphony of deep breaths and soft snores. Her own eyes were heavy, but the rune on her hand was hot, and she knew if she rose from her bed and tiptoed out of the temple to the hillside, she would find Hod, waiting.
She’d been serious when she asked him if he was real. In her four years on the mount, she had almost convinced herself that Hod was like the blind god—like all the gods: invisible and nonexistent but for folklore and legend. Invisible and nonexistent but in her own mind. And it hadn’t mattered at all. Sanity—reality—was too painful not to have someone to talk to, even if that someone was a voice in her head. But he wasn’t an illusion. He was here. She’d seen him. And she was going to find him.
She rose from her bed, splashed her face with water, and traded her nightdress for a frock. With a prick of her finger and a quick tracing of her rune, she glided from the room, down the stairs, and out of the temple through the tunnel in the sanctum, singing his name in her mind, calling him to her.
It didn’t take long. She watched him pick his way across the hill, using his staff to inform his steps, and when he was a mere ten feet away he stopped and cocked his head, reminding her of the boy she’d first met on the beach. He was not a boy anymore. His eyes reflected the moon like water, making them more gold than green, and she rose from her crouch,