He believed it now.
“I’m sorry.”
As am I. We did not mean to cause you pain.
It occurred to Shane, finally, to ask the question that he should have asked first. “Am I dead?”
You are not.
Shane rubbed his face. He was increasingly unsure if this was his real body, but it felt like his hand and his forehead and the gesture made him feel slightly better. “Then what… how… Forgive me, Lord. I did not think that You spoke to mortals.” The Saint had certainly never spoken to him in words, only in fire and glory.
Fire and glory, and, if Shane was being honest, being pointed in the proper direction and shoved.
There were never any explanations afterward, but then, he had never expected them.
It is rare that any of Us can speak to mortals. The channel that lets Us touch a mortal soul is a narrow one. To force it open is no kindness.
The raw wound in Shane’s soul twinged at that, as if someone had breathed across it.
The Saint’s passing scarred that channel closed for you, little brother, or else I would have claimed you then. The demon’s passing has ripped it open again, though those same scars protected you a little.
“A demon could get in, but a god could not?” asked Shane. The bitterness in his voice horrified him, but the Dreaming God did not seem to notice.
Can you set the bones of a chick still in the egg?
“No,” Shane admitted.
Nor can I, no matter how well-inclined I may be toward the chick. There are subtle gods, but I
am not among Them. The flames danced briefly, as if with rueful laughter. I am not used to owing a demon a favor. It is not a comfortable thought.
Shane almost said, “Tell me about it!” but that seemed like an unwise thing to say to a god. The flames began dancing again though, and he had a suspicion that the Dreaming God knew perfectly well what he was thinking.
Very well, said the Dreaming God. Because of what has happened, because of what you have done, it is given to you to choose.
“Choose? Choose what?”
Your soul will heal in time. If you wish, I will withdraw, and it will scar over again, as it was before.
“Or?”
Another breath across the raw places inside his heart. Or I will stay, and you will become one of My paladins, as you once wished to be.
Shane sat down hard, before he remembered that he was already on his knees. It didn’t seem to matter. The flame obligingly rearranged itself so that it felt like he was sitting.
“Your paladin? After what I did?”
Would you cast aside a fine sword merely because it had been used, however briefly, by your enemy?
“I doubt Your priesthood will feel the same.”
My priests are very dear to Me, said the Dreaming God musingly, but they do not dictate My choices. They will recognize Who you serve, even if they wonder at it.
“I didn’t think You explained yourself to Your swords,” Shane said. “They taught us not to expect that.”
Generally I cannot. There is a door in most mortal souls that stands between you and the divine. Some of Us can whisper through the keyhole, but as I said, I have never been a terribly subtle god. I could only blast the door open and cause such pain as would be no kindness. But the door in your soul has been broken already, between the demon and the Saint, and you have already borne the pain.
Though I must warn you, little brother, that I will not continue to speak to you like this. Only saints can bear the voice of a god for long, and I fear that you are not quite a saint.
Shane snorted. “Definitely not.” But if the Dreaming God’s servants were not an issue, what of Shane’s own comrades, of Wren and Istvhan and Stephen and all the rest? Surely it was not right that he accept something that was denied to them?
The flames bent sideways in a divine sigh. Truly, little brother? You would deny yourself healing because someone else may be in pain? Even if your suffering helps them not at all?
“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds stupid,” Shane muttered. “But it’s not…” He stopped himself before he said that it wasn’t fair. He knew that life wasn’t fair, but having a god confirm it
was a blow that he did not think he could survive.
But the Dreaming God, for all that He claimed not to be subtle, had a different strategy. Would your brothers and sisters want you to give this up for them?
A painful laugh tore itself out of Shane’s chest. “They’d kick my ass,” he admitted. He could almost hear Istvhan yelling at him, and Stephen would give him the not-in-anger-but-in-sorrow look and Galen would just punch him in the head a few times and then they’d probably tell the Bishop and the Bishop would drag him back to the Dreaming God’s temple and demand he try again and…well, it would be ugly.
They love you, little brother, said the god. They will not love you less for being whole.
It was Shane’s turn to sigh. It was a hard thing to admit that a noble sacrifice wouldn’t do any good, and that the people you were sacrificing for would think you were an idiot.
The silver flame seemed to retreat a little way, as if the god was stepping back. Shane wondered if the god was giving him time to think.
Did he need time to think?
To be a paladin of the Dreaming God had been his greatest desire for as long as he could remember, and once it seemed impossible, his greatest source of bitterness. Now it seemed, impossibly, that he was being offered that again.
But…
What about Marguerite?
Laying down his life for her had been an easy choice, but somehow it seemed that he was going to survive.
I will serve you however I can, for as long as you’ll have me, he’d told her.
All he had to offer her was his service. If even that was promised to another, what did he have left to offer? My humor, warmth, and charm? He snorted at himself.
Davith had tried to warn him once. All you’ll ever be to her is a weapon. And he’d blithely replied that at least he would be her weapon, not realizing that there would ever be another choice.
He thought about it. He thought about it for what seemed like a very long time, sitting there in a haze of divine light.
And what if she does not want you after all? What if even your service is not enough for her?
How could you ever be enough?
Perhaps he couldn’t be. But he was enough for a god.
Shane laughed softly, painfully to himself, and sank his head in his hands. Gods, it seemed, were easier to serve than mortals.
Either she wants me for what I am, or she does not. And since I have not managed to be other than what I am—despite years of trying!—that is her decision, not mine.
I can only choose for myself.
He got to his feet. “Lord,” he said aloud. “I know what I have to do.”
He did not have to say anything more. The god knew. Perhaps the god had always known what his choice would be.
The silver fire swept in, wrapped him up, and made him whole.
FIFTY-THREE
SHANE WOKE up in a whitewashed room that smelled of lavender. It took a moment for his eyes to focus, and when they finally did, it was on a short, dark-haired woman sitting in a chair, frowning furiously at a stack of papers.
“Marguerite?” he whispered.
She lowered the papers and glared at him. “Do you have any idea,” said Marguerite, in a voice that etched like engraving acid, “how tragically inept the Dreaming God’s people are at intelligence gathering?”