“It is better this way,” he said again, almost pleading with her, and she wiped the blood from her hands and face. But it was not better for her.
Later that night, when she was alone and the temple was slumbering, she returned to the sanctum. She had a ceremony of her own to perform and didn’t want to do it huddled in the cellar or creeping through filthy tunnels. She had sharpened her small knife so it would not require too much skill or pressure to break the skin. Carefully, her lip tucked beneath her teeth, she drew the rune Master Ivo just taught her—the rune of the blind god—into her left palm. From left to right and top to bottom, one crescent, and then the other, with the arrow piercing them both through. Blood beaded in the wake of her blade, but she was pleased with the result. Neat, exact, and centered, just like Hod himself.
She set down her blade and with a deep breath, she said his name.
She hadn’t known what to expect or if she should expect anything at all. But if she had to wear the king’s mark on one hand, she would wear Hod’s mark on the other.
The world went black—the darkness sudden and absolute—and she gasped, both elated and afraid.
“Hod?” she whispered. The rune was working.
She waited, sightless, resisting the need to catch herself. But she wasn’t falling. The smell of incense still warmed the air around her, and the stone bench was firm beneath her thighs. She wasn’t falling or flying; she was blind.
She closed her fist around her bleeding left hand and patted the area around her with her right. She was still in the sanctum. She blinked, trying to restore her vision, but the inky darkness was complete. She had given her eyes to the blind god.
“Hody. Hody. Help me,” she moaned. But Hod was far away. Her hand was wet with her blood, and she blotted it frantically, trying to wipe away the effects of the rune, but it wasn’t just a mark made in blood. It was a mark carved into her skin.
She stood and felt her way forward with searching feet and one hand. At the altar, her knuckles grazed the side of the bowl where the Highest Keeper washed his hands. The bowl rocked and water sloshed, splashing her feet and dousing her hands. She steadied it with her right hand and carefully immersed her left, washing the blood from her shallow cuts, but it wasn’t enough.
She stepped back so her movements would not upend the bowl or brush against anything else and awkwardly loosened the sash at her waist. She wrapped the fabric around her hand, making a bandage from the cloth and pulling it tight. She needed the blood to stop.
She waited for an hour, hovering in the sanctum, listening to every groan and creak of the floors, to every whisper of the wind against the colored panes high on the stone walls. If the candles kept vigil beside her, she did not know, though the incense remained.
It was only when her tears came, the darkness and her fear breaking her down, that the idea came too. She unwrapped her hand and held it to her face. The salt of her tears stung her wounded flesh, but she began to sing, holding it there.
Cry, cry, dear one, cry,
Let the pain out through your eyes.
Tears will wash it all away,
Cry until the bruises fade.
Her tears came harder, and the sting intensified briefly, but then, with her song, the rune began to close and the darkness began to lift.
When she crept into bed just before dawn, her eyesight completely restored and her new rune scabbed over, she vowed to never tempt or test the runes again. The blind god had finally answered her.
18
SPELL SONGS
Arwin did not recover quickly. His ribs were broken and his heart was weak, or mayhaps it was his ribs that were weak and his heart that was broken. But he was not himself. He was shaken, scared, and befuddled.
“We will not give up, Hod. We will not give up,” he groaned, and Hod wondered if Ghisla had felt the rage that filled his breast when he’d said the same thing to her.
He nursed Arwin for months, his days and nights running together until he lost all sense of both. Arwin was asleep more than he was awake, and he was so weak and unwell that Hod feared