However, when she left and came back some time later, leaving plates of food and pitchers of drink with me, there were sheets of paper tucked underneath one of the plates; I found a few sticks of graphite wrapped in one of the cloth napkins as well.
Rieta left again with only a few more words, including a blunt warning to eat slowly and drink even slower to give my mortal body a better chance at properly acclimating.
It had been an act to call for it, but I trulywashungry now that the possibility of food had presented itself.
Of course, I was also suspicious.
I picked at some sort of flaky pastry, breathing in the tart and fruity scent wafting from it, wondering if eating it would actually help me acclimate…and at what cost? I didn’t want to admit I was exhausted, but the odd heaviness in the air persisted even here. I was more aware of it now that I was standing still—though it wasn’t quite as crushing as it had been back in the garden of the gods.
Frowning, I reached for the paper and pencil, ready to recreate the lines and diagrams in my mind—as I so often did—to make me forget about the uncomfortable pit growing in my stomach.
I knew I couldn’t go forever without eating the food of this realm.
But I was going to put it off for as long as I could.
Chapter14
Days went by,I think; I was finding it difficult to mark the passing of time because my sun never moved.
There were certain hours when it seemed to grow dimmer, but nothing that I would call ‘night.’ These brighter and dimmer periods didn’t appear to follow any set pattern, either, which was one of the worst kinds of torture I could personally imagine.
Before long I began to wonder if this was another test. If the God of Fire was trying to see if I could stay sane despite having no structure to ground myself within—something I’d never been good at.
I didn’t like it; if I was going to be faced with trials, I at least wanted to know I was facing them.
There were worse explanations for what was happening, though. Maybe they’d already figured me out, for example, and I was being punished? Maybe I was dead, and the hell I’d been assigned to was personalized, reflecting the fears of my individual damned soul…
No.
That couldn’t be it. I chose to believe I was being tested, and I tried to fight my way through it by staying busy.
There was no kitchen in the house, but I was still determined to cook, to find out how the different ingredients I gathered from the yard worked in different recipes, to take notes like I had back home.
Shortly after arriving, I constructed a primitive oven with rocks and slabs of stone I dug up from the yard, and I managed to set fire to it after a bit of experimenting with leaves and twigs and friction.
Rieta was unimpressed by my invention.
When I told her Ilikedto cook, that I actually preferred it to having all my food brought to me on a silver platter, she informed me I was being ungrateful and difficult, and the God of Fire would hear about it.
At which point I informedherthat I would love the opportunity to tell him about it myself, if his godly ass could be bothered to come pay me a visit.
She’d glared in response to this—though her lips had twitched a bit, as if she’d wanted to say more on the subject—and she hadn’t returned for what must have been several days afterward.
Frustration festered in her absence; I felt like I was breaking the rules of a game, only I had never been told the rules. Or even the actual name of the game.
Yet I persisted, still determined to win.
I went for long strolls around the inner perimeter of the golden fence, paper in hand, taking notes and making sketches. Soon I had created a small book full of diagrams and charts. The house and its yard and everything in it were all accounted for with utmost precision, so I could determine if anything changed or otherwise seemed amiss or worth the risk of exploring.
Once I ran out of immediate surroundings to diagram, I went back to the beginning of my time in this realm, trying to picture the things I’d seen when I first arrived. The view from the hilltop, the garden and the gods within it, the path I’d walked to get to my boring little house…
I usually kept all these notes tucked away in a drawer, but one night—or was it day?—I fell asleep at the table with my latest sketch underneath me, and I woke to the sound of the paper rustling in Rieta’s hands as she looked it over.
“This is the Garden of Elestra,” she said, eyes wide with intrigue.
“Yes.” I did my best to feign casualness. “I passed through there when I first arrived.”
“So detailed,” she murmured.
