* * *
We slept separately but near one another. In the early dawn I awakened to find Lorcan’s arm heavy around my waist and his breath ghosting over my neck. I smiled and went back to sleep.
When I awoke again, there was daylight and he had breakfast on the fire. Baked apples with butter on hard bread. It’s the best thing I’ve tasted in a long time.
After we broke camp, we climbed. Up and up and up, scrambling over rocks. The air grew thin and cold. September is late to be doing this. The sun is warm overhead. I peel off layers. Jacket rolled and put into my pack. Wool tunic tied around my waist until we paused for lunch and I started to shiver.
“Promise you won’t go in?” Lorcan asks uneasily when the ice spikes come into view around noon. His words came out in puffs of white.
“I won’t go in. I’m done freezing myself half to death for a deity that doesn’t” —I caught myself in time— “listen.” To Lorcan, she exists, although I think our last visit here tested his belief.
Once again, I went behind a rock to change into a warm white gown, gold jewelry, and sandals. Lorcan started a fire in the same spot as last time. Again, I can’t figure out how he found fuel so quickly. Perhaps he packed it in, knowing our destination. He’s resourceful that way.
I started down the narrow path to the shrine. When he didn’t immediately follow, I looked back at him. “Well? Aren’t you coming?”
“Me?”
Gods, he’s adorable. I couldn’t hide my grin. “Yes, you. Did you think I was the only one who needed to atone?”
“No, of course not... I—” He glanced down at his rough clothing.
“She doesn’t care how you’re dressed. It’s a formality for me. Just come.” I held out my hand. Lorcan took it without hesitation.
Inside the shrine, we stepped out onto the platform with the steps leading down into the freezing pool. Her effigy rose above us, tall and sparkling in the bright light reflected from the pond below.
“What now?” he asked.
“I usually recite the prayers I was taught when I was young.”
Lorcan seemed to be entranced by the statue. “Have you ever tried talking to her?”
I resisted the urge to respond with a snarky,it’s a statue; it can’t hear me. “No.”
“Auralia looks friendly enough. She is, after all, supposed to be your ancestor.”
“I always thought so. Until I had to go into the water.” I’m shivering now, despite the lined woolen gown I chose and the soft linen shift beneath. “Then she seemed more like a frigid bitch, if I may be perfectly honest.”
Laughter crinkled the corners of his eyes. “She’s a statue, Zosia.”
I bit my lower lip to keep from grinning. We are the same in so many ways. His gaze locked on my mouth for a moment, and suddenly, I was no longer cold.
Lorcan’s restless gaze skimmed the horseshoe of the ice-enclosed shrine. “Go on. What would you say to her? If you believed in her?” I rolled my eyes. His mouth quirked up. “Humor me, Princess.”
“Fine.” It is, after all, why we came here. I studied the effigy. Her perfect features are a study in fierce kindness. I see in her my mother. My aunts. My grandmother. This is a woman who is not afraid to love deeply. A warrior who would fight to the death to protect the land that’s borne her name for five millennia.
She is me.
“I’ve been a pretty shitty living vessel for the past eleven years,” I began. Lorcan groaned. I elbowed him in the ribs. “Hey, this was your idea.”
He tried to contain his laughter, with little success. Barely suppressed chuckles keep erupting out of him.
“Anyway, moving on.” I mock-glared at him from the corner of my eye. “It’s not as though you’ve given me a lot to work with. You freeze my ass off every time I come here; you don’t exactly deliver in our time of crisis, so forgive me if I’m a bit of a skeptic where you’re concerned.”
“A bit of a skeptic?”
“Shh. You’ll get your turn.”
“This is probably the worst prayer she’s heard in five thousand years—”
