My lesser progeny has been fouling up your head, little one.

  Don’t worry. I will fix you.

  Scypha sat up, hot all over, feeling like she’d fed a fire with her skin. She saw red, muddled light, hot as boiling water—

  A cold, wet hand pushed against her chest, gently pushing her down. She found that she was too weak to fight it. It firmly guided her back onto something soft. A bedroll.

  Her vision slowly cleared up, and she saw Pyren looming over her, his sleeves rolled up and his eyes slightly red, the scent of alcohol on his breath.

  “Be still, Scypha,” he said. His voice was deeper than usual. “Don’t try to move. I’m almost done.”

  Candlelight flickered behind him as a thin braid of smoke ascended toward the ceiling. She smelled something sickly sweet. Above her, Pyren turned away, breathed deeply, and cut something. A moment later, she felt a freezing cold on her stomach. She raised her head to look, but it was difficult.

  He’s helping me, she told herself, hoping it was true.

  She heard Pyren pick up a bottle from the wooden floor, shake it a few times before unstopping it, then spill its contents onto her stomach. It was cold, but it burned when it touched her. She gritted her teeth, trying to withstand the pain and stay still, and she balled her hands into fists.

  A presence began to untangle in her head. “He’s looking too close. He’ll see you, and he’ll hunt you down like the beast you are.”

  Scypha shivered, feeling goosebumps cover her arms.

  Pyren put his bottle away and inspected her stomach closely. His thick, long beard brushed against her, tickling her a little.

  “Strange,” he said. He raised his head again, then leaned over her face and looked her in the eyes. “You must be blessed by the gods, Scypha. You heal very quickly.”

  “What’s … wrong?” she asked, trying to sit up again. Her voice was raspy, and it hurt her throat to use it. “What happened?”

  Pyren gently grasped her shoulder and once again stopped her from getting up. “You got smashed up a little when the lightning struck. The table split apart, and half of it fell on you. And worse, a bunch of splinters … but you’re going to be okay. Your injuries look worse than they are. I promise—tomorrow, this will all just seem like a bad dream.”

  “The others…? The goblins?” she asked. “Tren, and Blan, and…”

  “They’re not having a great night either, but they’ll live. I heard what they were doing. I never would have thought … but I suppose they’ll be making proper shrines from now on. Gromph must be an angrier god than I realized. I’ve never seen a god smite someone before.”

  Scypha slowly shook her head, trying to ignore the pain brought on by doing so. “It wasn’t Gromph,” she rasped. “Gromph doesn’t control lightning, he can’t do that.”

  “Oh?” Pyren asked. “Well, I’m sure you know better than I. Would you like me to bring you a little idol to Vifafey?”

  “To who?” Scypha asked, frowning.

  “To Vifafey.”

  Scypha’s mind blanked. What had he said...? Then, a moment later, she remembered, and she took control of her facial muscles before Pyren could notice her confusion.

  “You’ll want to stay in bed,” he said, “but um … you seem restless. Perhaps you could pray until you get tired. I promise this idol won’t explode.”

  “I’d like to,” Scypha said. “Please bring it to me?”

  Pyren nodded slowly and disappeared from view. Scypha heard the floorboards creak under his weight and his footsteps moving away. The candlelight flickered again. After a little while, Pyren returned, holding a little metal idol in one hand and a worn-out chair in the other.

  The idol looked eerie and unnatural. Scypha stared at it, studied it while Pyren brought it closer, trying her best to recognize the shapes and figures made in the twisted iron … yet for some reason, she just couldn’t grasp them.

  Scypha looked towards the cobwebbed wooden ceiling above her.

  Deep down, she knew—her rational mind understood—that she had been looking at those shapes on the idol all her life. In her mother’s temple, at crossroads, and on hilltops, she had even been marking them on her forehead since childhood. Everyone did so. They were Vifafey’s. But now… she couldn’t see them anymore. She couldn’t make sense of it.

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  With his leg, Pyren moved a small table in front of her bedroll and carefully set the weird idol on top of it.

  “Pyren,” she asked, suppressing a cough. “Am I acting strange?”

  The wooden leg of a chair scraped against the floor, screeching slightly until a moment later when Pyren sat down on it beside the idol.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  Scypha stopped staring at the ceiling and turned to look at him. “Am I weird? Unusual?”

  “No more than the next person. I’m quite strange myself.”

  Oh, Scypha thought, frowning. She smiled awkwardly. “Funny … You know, I’ve been hearing that my whole life. But everyone else gets a different answer.”

  Pyren shook his head. He seemed to smile at her maliciously, holding back laughter. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “You’re a nice girl, and everyone is a little eccentric in their own way. You’re certainly agreeable enough for me, so you’ll get by. Just focus on recovering.”

  Scypha winced in pain. “Please, don’t.”

  “Don’t what?” Pyren asked. His wicked smile widened.

  “It sounds like you’re taunting me,” Scypha said.

  “Why would you say that?”

  “I don’t know. It just … does. I’m sorry, I know you’re not like that. But … the way you’re looking at me right now...”

  Pyren looked her over, then extended a hand and placed it on her forehead, apparently checking her temperature. “I don’t know what you mean,” he murmured. “But you’re okay, Scypha. Just relax.”

  She tried to. For a time. But she kept hearing the way Pyren was holding back laughter.

  “How am I weird?” she asked. “The goblins said I was acting strange before. What were they talking about? What did they see?”

  Pyren shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Please. What did I do? All I remember from tonight is … I spilled some ale. I, um … I cleaned the tables, and I brought people food and drinks. Did I do anything else?”

  “You really don’t remember?” Pyren asked.

  Scypha slowly, painfully shook her head. “No. What did I do? Was it something bad?”

  “No, no. Nothing bad. You just … froze … for a little while. It looked strange and out of place, and people started gawking … but that’s all. You fell asleep on your feet, mumbling about something. I really must have overworked you. I’m sorry about that—if you ever decide to help me again, I’ll insist on you taking those breaks.”

  Scypha glanced over at Pyren and saw him staring at her with another knowing smile. Her vision flickered, and she looked up at the ceiling again.

  She didn’t feel insane, but how could she know? She did feel a little dizzy.

  Where are you, my knight? she thought. I thought you’d be back by now. Where did you go? You never tell me. I need you now. I really need you.

  She got no response.

  “Do you feel any ringing in your ears?” Pyren asked her. “Are you seeing things, anything like that?”

  Scypha shook her head. “Not right now.”

  Her vision flickered and grew foggy.

  “I didn’t see any head injuries. I could check again, but … I wouldn’t know what to do about them if there were any. Try not to move around too much.”

  “Okay. Hey, um … if I really am just seeing things … thanks, Pyren.”

  “Hm? Oh, you’re welcome, I guess.”

  “Just … thanks. Really … If you start running now, you might survive.”

  “What—”

  Scypha jolted awake, stumbling backward, and she was not in her room.

  She felt a cold wind blowing on her back. She stood upright, her eyes wide, and she was staring at the red morning sun, watching it rise over a thicket of bushes a few feet in front of her.

  The wind tousled her hair, wrapping itself around the small of her neck and making her shiver. The damp and soft ground under her bare feet smelled of wet grass, mud, and something else. Leaves rustled overhead, obscuring the rising sun. She heard the distant, cute chirping of a couple of songbirds.

  “Where am I…?” she asked, slowly turning around. Wet soil squished between her toes.

  She looked around in every direction, trying to gather her bearings. She didn’t know where she was, but she saw a large wooden building behind her, past a copse of trees.

  The barn. She recognized that. A trail of dark red stains and puddles led in that direction, starting exactly where she stood.

  The image of a small bird flickered into view for a moment, but as soon as she saw it, it was gone. Shaking her head, she turned around again. Looking down for a moment, she immediately stumbled to the ground.

  Just in front of her, sprawled across the mud, lay a large, mutilated corpse, gored into a state nearly beyond recognition. Its flesh was twisted and torn apart, covered with jagged cuts and stab wounds. Its entrails spilled out of its belly, glistening with a grotesque, crimson sheen, oozing a dark, viscous liquid that pooled into an expanding puddle around the body.

  Suddenly, the air around Scypha felt thick with an overpowering, putrid stench that clung to her nostrils and twisted her stomach. The scent of bile was unmistakable, acrid, and sour, cutting through the heavier notes of the spilled blood. Every breath she took brought with it a sickly sweetness, stuffing itself in the back of her throat, threatening to choke her.

  She felt like a cloud had settled into her head. After a moment, she found herself on her hands and knees, shaking uncontrollably. Swallowing hard, she crawled away from the body.

  It was Pyren.

  Nausea started to rise in her throat, and she lifted her hands to cover her mouth so she could stop it. Her stomach churned even further as she saw her sticky, red palms. Blood soaked them, warm like oil, and it dripped from her fingers in beautiful rivulets. Just behind her ears, she heard the ghostly chirp of a bird, then … silence.

  And then, in an instant, all the unpleasant feelings disappeared. She was completely fine.

  She stopped shaking.

  The stench disappeared.

  Her stomach settled, and her breathing calmed.

  She saw things clearly for the first time, and it was … amazing. She could hardly believe what she was seeing … it was such beauty.

  A voice screamed at her in the back of her mind, but it was distant and muffled. She crouched down over Pyren’s savaged corpse, her fingers curling around the tangled intestines. Their oozy warmth pressed against her palms, pleasant to the touch.

  And then, for the first time in her life, she really felt it. Acceptance. Approval … The warm, comforting caress of her father’s love.