83. Thalia

I decided my only recourse was to ask another question.

“What happened to him?”

“Gareth Pope,”

she said on an exhale and lifted her hands from her lap to draw the collar of her robe around her closer.

“It be cold today.

Thank the goddess her winter tides are shorter than her summer waves.”

I waited her out.

“How do you come to know that name, Edie of Eccleston?”

“I found his journal.”

“His journal? He left a journal?”

She sat forward in her high-backed chair that was upholstered with sealskin dyed a teal blue.

“Where is it? I want to see it.”

“Happy to part with it, archpriestess.

But I would like to know what you know first.”

She sat back, dropping her arms and hands along the polished armrests carved with a fish-scale pattern.

“A barterer.

I knew you were smart.

I watched you stand up to Hinnom and his histrionics.

You refused to admit which one of you was the Tigon girl.

And you either fooled or bewitched your now husband.

I knew you were clever, madam.

And now you barter with me.”

I nodded.

“The journal ends abruptly.

I need to know what happened to him.”

Hedging her response, she again opened her mouth and closed it, then said, “Tell me the overall story it contains and I will tell you all that I know of Gareth Pope.”

Briefly, I explained his inward struggle with whether to be a priest or a soldier.

She tutted.

“Come now, Edie.

Tell it all.

You leave out how he and Hinnom carried on quite the love affair.

I doubt that journal excludes it.

It is likely the whole of it.”

And then I relayed the entirety, him running to and pulling away from his earth magic, his fascination with the drake rocks and his final cryptic entry about his summoning the stone drakes’ power and commanding it, that this magic would somehow make Hinnom commit to their love.

Who could reject the master of the stone drakes?

“I do not wish to read it now,”

she said, her usually lackadaisical but formidable voice now sad.

“I do not wish to read of his pain.

I wish— I wish I could have helped him.”

She stared at her clutter, white brows drawn, mouth in a frown.

“So you knew him?”

“Only a little.

We were of a similar age when we came to the keep, I, the younger.

He was a brilliant earth Tintarian and apparently, a decent soldier.

But Hinnom ruined him.”

She looked up at me, squinting, a near meanness in her eyes.

“I assume you are not the kind of vile person to look down on people like Gareth.

As you seem friendly with Quinn and River.”

“I am not.

Far from it, archpriestess.”

“Good.”

She closed her eyes and leaned far back into her chair, head lifted slightly.

I inspected the lines criss crossing her face and her gnarled hands on the armrests.

“I have,”

she began, but paused, opening her eyes.

“I have tried to make Sister Sea a refuge for …us.

I believe none of the Farthest Four care about these trifles.

And I know both goddesses take joy in protecting us.

Especially the Sister.

And Keturah, the then earth archpriestess, could have and would have shielded Gareth had he joined the temple.

I wished he had met any other man and fallen in love with them.

But Hinnom— Hinnom was, and is, a force of nature.

You cannot just fall in love with a storm.

You are asking for the storm, people like that, for them to break you.”

“The journal has a passage about him wrestling a shark and suffocating it.”

“I have never understood the Sister’s forgiveness of that.

We fish to eat, not to have trophies.

But I trust my goddess and I do not question her ways.

I try to trust her.

Sometimes, she tests me.”

The last sentence she said with tenderness.

“Is Gareth… is he no longer alive?”

She shook her head.

“He was put to rest in Nyossa, close to thirty-five or forty winters past if I am correct.

Likely after that last entry.”

I was trying to stay polite, but I needed to know.

“What happened to him?”

Leaning forward, she rested her chin on the back of her right hand, fingers splayed out beneath her, each ring of a different design and metal.

“There was an earthquake.

We have not had one since the days of ancient Tintarians, those blessed with earth magic able to move mountains and manipulate boulders to erect buildings.

He was on the bluff when it happened.

Back then the top of the bluffs were rougher and there were some rock formations that broke up the paths between the watchtowers and turrets.

They have since crumbled.

Due to that quake.”

“Was he crushed? Under the rocks.”

“It was a mystery, Edie.

No one knows why he was up there or what possibly could have ever caused that quake.

And his poor body was mangled beneath the rocks, most of them must have been jagged.

One of his hands was completely severed from the rest of his body.”

“Did the entire keep shake?”

“The keep, the sea, the town.

A few houses collapsed.

They were rebuilt and no lives were lost, but it was memorable, I can tell you.

The bluffs are solid and weathered the quaking, but it was more so the terror.

None of us alive had ever felt it and have not since.”

She wiggled her fingers under her chin, her manner wistful.

“I have always thought of Gareth Pope with remorse.

I should have approached him as we …were a little similar in our secrets.

I should have befriended him.

But I was a girl of nineteen and full of pride at my magic.

I was just happy to have escaped my origins.

But he deserved better.

And I should have done better by him, for I knew what he was like.

I could tell he was plagued by love and indecision.”

“Similar in your secrets?”

I asked before realizing how intrusive a question that was.

Her eyes focused on me.

“I was born with the name Henry.

It did not suit.”

“I see,”

I said, my heart warming towards her unapologetic candor.

“My parents did not understand and neither did any of the people in our settlement,”

she said.

“But I had Sister Sea.

I had her magic.

And the priest at our shabby little sea temple gave me enough coin to get to Pikestully.

Bless the man.

I say his name when I pray still.

Even after all this time.

His bones rest in the depths of the goddess, I hope.”

I waited her out, holding back the words I did not know how to say.

I wanted to say I was sorry for her and for Gareth, but it felt such an empty response to her story.

“Have I answered your question, madam?”

I nodded.

“Forgive me if I have recalled past pains to your present.”

“You can atone for it in one way.”

“Tell me and I will do it.”

She sat up straight, crossing her arms.

“If you meet anyone, like me or Gareth or Quinn or River and they be lost in this world, treated unfairly, alone, without friends, I beseech you to send them to me.

Send them to us.

They will find what they seek in Sister Sea.

And we will find a place for them.”

“I will.”

“And you yourself, lady,”

Thalia said, her tone thoughtful, eyes on my hagstone again.“I see loss in you.

Mother Earth is not the only one of the Farthest Four to offer comfort.

Come pray in the temple with us.

Your goddess is not a jealous one.

Yours and mine often act together.”