Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
I ended up carrying her a little further into the forest. The water had been cool and refreshing when we first got in, but we’d been in there for a while and whatever help that coolness offered was over now. She and I were both chilled and needed to warm up.
I stood up with Callistina in my arms, my wings heavy with water, and I took her into the forest and laid her down in the center of a clearing covered in soft grass. I found some wood, started a fire, and then I just held her. I stroked her cheek. I whispered things in her ear. “You’re going to be OK. You’re going to pull through this. We’re going to Glory Rome on Ire’s back, and we’re gonna get a room at the inn, and sleep in a bed, and go shopping in the Sphere Market. And you’re gonna love it.”
Things like that.
A storm started rolling in. I could see the clouds above me turning black. If they hadn’t—if there was no threat of rain—I might’ve just stayed there. Holding her in my arms until time stopped altogether.
But it was going to rain and we had no shelter.
I had to make us a shelter.
It was rudimentary at first. Just something quick made from fallen tree trunks propped up at an angle to make a little A-frame. Then I covered the outside with a thick layer of pine-tree branches.
Stacked rocks made a crude fireplace on one open end—a makeshift wood stove that didn’t offer much in the way of heat, but it was better than nothing. Then I went looking for Ire’s tack, for the fur Callistina and I had slept on that first night after walking through the doors. I found supplies in the saddlebags as well. Water bags, and some dried food, and the godsmetal collared dress that Callistina would wear in the future.
None of it was a perfect solution, but it was certainly better than nothing when that rain started.
I settled in with Callistina on my lap and I just held her and told her it was gonna be OK.
I did this for almost two full days before it finally hit me just how far back in time we’d gone. Or, rather, how much time needed to pass before we’d find ourselves on that road to Glory Rome.
The scars on Ire’s body when Callistina and I first found ourselves riding on his back had been old. Months and months, at least. They were completely healed. No signs at all of scabbing.
And Callistina’s antlers were much the same. Just stubs. No signs of trauma.
Neither of them looked like that now. Everything was still raw, and scabbed, and red.
There was a lot of time to fill between now and then.
So I filled it. Callistina woke up that one time, but it would be more than a month of me caring for her before she would finally open her eyes and utter her next word, which was, “Why?”
But that was all she did that day. Eyes open. One word. Then more sleep.
By this time we had a proper little house going. An A-frame shelter was fine for a night or two, but if we were gonna be living in this forest until they were healed, it wasn’t going to be enough.
I spent my days hunting down skinny logs on the forest floor. I hauled them back to our camp and stacked them into walls. Eventually, I’d made us a tiny one-room cabin. Well, cabin is kind of a stretch. It wasn’t that sturdy, and the wind came right through it, but it was a warm wind, so it didn’t really matter.
I hunted too. Food wasn’t a problem. It got us more furs. And by the time Callistina opened her eyes and uttered the word, “Why?” we had a nice comfy bed made from these furs.
She couldn’t eat, not really. But I cooked her bone broth in a turtle shell and dripped it into her mouth by the wooden spoonful three times a day.
It would be months before I went back to the rock where I first found Callistina all covered in blood. And it was by accident. I was tracking a deer.
Most of the blood had been washed away in the rains by this time. But that flat boulder where she was lying face down was still stained scarlet here and there.
That was when I found the first few clues.
The book.
The crucible.
The bottle.
The moldy leather pouch of magiceuticals.
And the bones.
What would I have found in place of these bones if I had looked sooner? A body?
I’m not sure. I’m really not.
Everything was wet because it was raining that day. But it rained every day, so when I picked up the book, it pretty much fell apart in my hands.
Still, I saw the cover. That title will live in my memory forever. How to Kill a God.