THE BURIED GOD
Chapter 3: The Healer
Lyssa’s home was small.
A single room with a bed, a table, a hearth. The walls were lined with shelves cluttered with jars and bottles and bundles of dried herbs. The air smelled of lavender and old smoke and something else. Something like grief.
“Sit,” Lyssa said, gesturing to the chairs by the hearth.
Damon sat.
Vespera sat.
Lyssa studied them both, her green eyes moving from Damon’s dirt-caked boots to Vespera’s silver eyes.
“You’re the one from the stories,” Lyssa said. “The priestess who buried the god.”
“I was,” Vespera said.
“You were dead.”
“I was.”
“And now you’re not.”
Vespera was silent for a long moment.
“The god is waking. His power is seeping through the mountain. The dead are rising.”
“And he brought you back?”
“He pulled me. Through the earth. Through the stone. Through the darkness.”
“Why?”
Vespera’s silver eyes dimmed.
“Because he needs me. To wake fully. To rise. To consume.”
Lyssa turned to Damon.
“And you? How did you get involved?”
“I was digging graves. She was in one of them. She wasn’t dead.”
“You pulled her out?”
“She pulled me. The dead were rising. We ran.”
Lyssa nodded.
She walked to the hearth.
She added wood to the fire.
The flames leaped.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” she said. “The Hollow King does not like to lose his sacrifices.”
“His sacrifices?”
“The bodies you buried. The ones that came to the God’s Grave. They were not ordinary dead. They were offerings. Fed to the mountain. Fed to the god. Fed to the hunger.”
Damon’s blood went cold.
“I didn’t know.”
“No one knows. The priests keep it secret. The villagers suspect, but they do not ask. The gravediggers bury, but they do not see.”
“What about Corvin?”
Lyssa shook her head.
“Corvin is dead. The mules are dead. The cart is at the bottom of a ravine. The priests do not leave witnesses.”
“How do you know?”
Lyssa looked at him.
Her green eyes were hard.
“Because I was a priestess. Before I became a healer. Before I saw what they were doing. Before I ran.”
The room was silent.
The fire crackled.
The shadows danced.
“You know the way to the mountain,” Vespera said. “The way to the heart. The way to the god.”
Lyssa nodded.
“I know.”
“Will you take us?”
Lyssa was silent for a long moment.
“If I take you, I will die. The priests will hunt me. The god will consume me. The mountain will bury me.”
“Not if we stop him first.”
Lyssa looked at Damon.
“You believe you can stop him? A gravedigger, a dead priestess, and a runaway healer?”
Damon looked at his hands.
They were still dirty.
His shovel was gone.
His home was gone.
His life was gone.
“I have to try.”