Capítulo 24: Beloved
It took several minutes for the priest of Brinn to gather a small cohort to surround Cain. In that time, he didn't quite manage to regain enough stamina to flee, but the agony of the thrice-blessed blood seemed to be fading, which was odd and quite antithetical to how any sort of divine intervention usually affected vampires.
But nothing was more unexpected than opening his eyes to the sight of a crowd of priests and priestesses gathered around him, staring at him with awed expressions, and not one of them attempting to purge the undeath from his body one moon-chant at a time.
"What's happening?" Cain finally asked, because no one else was speaking and at this point he was genuinely curious as to why nobody was plunging a wooden stake through his chest. Surely they had those around here somewhere. Or they could have just doused him in holy water. Or cut off his head with a blessed sword. Really, there were any number of ways for them to do him in, and the fact that they'd not tried it yet was extremely confusing. Usually Cain only succeeded in his missions by remaining swift, silent, and secretive. He'd failed on all of those counts this day, as he'd not only been too slow to attempt escape upon realizing that the thrice-blessed blood was not done with him yet, he'd also made a huge mess of tailing the vampire currently being purged inside the goddess' inner temple chambers. He should never have been so cocky. He should have stayed outside, and watched more carefully. He should have let the ritual continue without trying to get in and witness it himself. In truth, he wasn't sure exactly why he watched in the first place - some sort of morbid fascination with the ways that resisting the sire's bond inevitably backfired? Or maybe it was his way of reminding himself why killing Lord Alaric Solveig was his only chance of escape.
In any case, he'd been foolish, and while he should have paid for his hubris with his life - or unlife, however these scholars of divinity might define it - he instead found himself the center of attention, and still very much undead, rather than actually dead.
"It's…alive?" one of the gathered preistesses was addressing the first man, the priest who had dragged Cain out of the temple's inner sanctum, mocked him, and kicked him. "Why is it still alive?"
She wasn't speaking to Cain. Then again, holy folk rarely gave vampires the time of day, so he wasn't exactly surprised or offended by being ignored. It was rude, but not out of the ordinary.
"It's not just alive," the first priest answered, sounding somewhat irked. "See for yourself! It's been restored, somehow. I've never seen the goddess do work of this sort! At least, not for a monster," he spat the word as though it left a foul taste in his mouth, sparing a brief glance at Cain as he said it, making it quite clear what he thought of Cain's kind.
Cain would have taken offense if he didn't mostly agree with the sentiment. He knew he was a monster, there was just nothing he could do about it after being turned. He'd learned to live with it. It was a shame that others had a much more difficult time accepting the situation, particularly since they weren't really the ones who suffered as a result of his condition. So while Cain could have taken offense at the term, it would have felt a bit hypocritical, given his own opinion on the matter. Besides, he had more important issues to attend to than name-calling. For one thing, he still didn't understand what was happening. He wasn't being slain or subjected to a purifying ritual, and more and more priests and priestesses were gathering all the time. The confusion only seemed to be growing, not only in his own mind, but among the devoted worshipers of Brinn. "So… does all this mean that you're not going to put an end to me?" Cain asked, though he had a feeling that asking them about anything at this point was pointless. They were all whispering and jabbering among each other, none of them sparing him more than a moment of attention. He found it quite likely that these priests and priestesses found him more of a fascinating specimen than a person worthy of their care and attention.
Still, he wasn't dead yet, and that had to count for something.
"You feel it, don't you?" the first priest was saying, completely ignoring Cain, even as he reached down and tapped Cain's slowly rising and falling chest. "It has to be a bond, right? But I still don't understand how it's managed such a thing!"
"Who would ever bond themselves to a blood-eater?" one of the other priests asked, sounding horrified. "Not a human, surely!"
Cain frowned. He didn't have any thralls he'd made himself, so he couldn't imagine there would be a bond strong enough to qualify. Unless… could it be Johann? He was a thrall, and therefore he bore a sort of bond between himself and the vampire he was enthralled to. And though Cain had worked very hard to not partake of his blood, not once he learned that it would create that bond of enthrallment, he had continued to pursue Cain relentlessly. Was the dogged pursuit from Johann enough to earn the favor of Brinn, the goddess of bonds?
But that didn't make sense, because if that were the case then surely other vampires who had thralls would be more favored. Perhaps it was because he'd refused the bond? Maybe Brinn was showing gratitude that Cain had no interest in enthralling a human. But that didn't make sense either. After all, there were plenty of vampires who had no thralls of their own, either because they were too weak or lacked the favor of the Sire, and thus were not allowed to feed directly from the veins or meet the eyes of any who were not already enthralled to more powerful vampires.
So what sort of bond could he possibly possess that would move the normally unmovable goddess to show him mercy? He couldn't think of anything that would explain it. He blinked slowly, staring up at the moon, wishing the goddess could just tell him directly.
"Brinn is not only a goddess of humans," came a creaky, quiet voice from some distance away. Despite how loudly the priests had been discussing among themselves, they all immediately quieted upon hearing the voice. The voice sounded as though it belonged to an old woman, and she was clearly an important figure, because the crowd of priests and priestesses immediately parted, allowing a hunched old woman to shuffle over until she stood over Cain, a faintly amused look on her face. She gazed down at Cain with watery, dull eyes, but there was intelligence and iron strength hidden behind the facade of a frail elderly priestess. "You are a very special creature, blood-eater," she told Cain. It was simultaneously refreshing to be addressed directly, and also terrifying, because even in her words Cain could hear the low hum of godly power that ran though her, as though she were a direct conduit to the power of Brinn herself. This old woman must be the head priestess, and as such, her words held incredible strength.
Still, Cain wanted answers more than he wanted to preserve himself, and so he asked, "How so?"
"Because the goddess has entrusted you with a bond to one of her most beloved," the high priestess answered cryptically.
One of the most beloved of a goddess? And Cain was bound to that person? A thought came to him, then. Was it the thrice-blessed blood? Had it somehow formed a bond inside him? Was that why the blood had started to burn again in the temple? Was that searing pain a sort of transformative bonding experience, tying him to the holy person who had blessed the water that the mage had used to treat his blood?
"I don't understand," Cain said. "Who is among the most beloved of Brinn?"
The old woman gazed at him for several long moments. "You don't know?" she asked, sounding genuinely surprised, grunting as she slowly lowered herself to the ground to kneel beside him, her joints creaking as she moved. Several priests and priestesses moved as if to help her, but she waved them off. She reached a bony hand out, laying it on his chest, patting him as if he were a small child, and not a merciless killer. "We humans are not the first children of Brinn," she said slowly, her voice growing soft and strong, like a grandmother telling a bedtime story. "Before men worshipped the moon goddess, she was venerated by her most beloved - the wolf shifters."
Werewolves? But what sort of bond would Cain have with - a flash of memory returned to him. The witch's daughter, smirking at him as she carried his shirts out of the kitchen. A mate-bond. He felt stupid for not realizing it earlier. Some of his realization must have shown on his face, because the old priestess chuckled, patting his chest once more with her frail old hand.
"You see?" she said. "So because you are important to one of Brinn's own, you are important to Brinn. To destroy you would be to destroy that which she herself has ordained."
Cain was fairly certain that gods and goddesses often destroyed their own creations, but he wasn't going to argue the point now, with his undeath on the line. Instead, he blinked up at the moon, which gazed back down at him, and frowned. "Why?" he asked.
"Why?" the old woman echoed, her eyes following his gaze, the two of them staring up at the moon together. "I do not know," she admitted.
Surrounding the two of them, several murmurs and mutters escaped the crowd.
What am I supposed to do? Cain wanted to ask. What does this mean? If something happens to the werewolf brat, will I suffer because of it? But he feared he had no right to demand answers when he had no real knowledge of the gods, or interest in learning about them beyond how their machinations were influencing his life.
As if she could hear his thoughts, the elder priestess patted Cain once more, this time on the shoulder. "The answers will come in time," she assured him. "The moon rarely reveals herself in full, but rather slowly unfolds for those of us who watch her here below. The time will come for all answers to shine brightly upon you, but the full moon is yet distant."
Cain nodded slowly.
With a low groan, the old woman pulled herself up, this time accepting the hands of two priests, who supported her as she managed to get her feet back underneath her and ensure they held her weight. "Let him go," she said. "Brinn is not done with him."
"But," one of the priests started to protest, "he was here for the other vampire."
"If the vampires have a quarrel, they may settle it outside," the old woman said, her tone severe as she eyed Cain.
"Yes, priestess," Cain immediately agreed. He was well aware that one word from her and it was unlikely that even Brinn herself could save him. Not only was she herself full to the brim with holy power, but all the priests and priestesses clearly respected her decisions. If she sentenced him to death by purification, not one of the holy acolytes who served under her would question it.
"Stand up now," she said.
For a minute, Cain thought he would be forced to refuse, but when he tried to move his body, this time he found some of his strength had returned to him. He frowned, and glanced at the old woman. Healing powers from gods did no good for vampires, so he knew it was very unlikely that the elderly priestess had healed him. But perhaps she had … withdrawn some of the holy magic? Maybe she was able to take it into herself, sparing him from the continued weakness and burn of the thrice-blessed blood. Or maybe it was the bond that had suffused his chest, driving away the burn of divinity with a strange sort of warmth. He didn't know why one form of divinity would protect him even while the same god's own purification ritual caused him such pain. Perhaps it had to do with the purpose of the divine magic? Was there something about bonding magic that was not counter to the magic that animated vampires?
He supposed it made a certain amount of sense - after all, it was the bond of Sire and thrall that kept vampires animated. So bond magic probably didn't have the same destructive power as other kinds of divinity would. It bore thinking about…
Later. Right now, Cain needed to leave, and soon.
Hopefully, he'd be in decent enough shape to kill the vampire he'd come for. The poor thing was still screaming in pain from inside the inner chambers of the main worship hall of the temple, so he figured there was a good chance he'd be able to defeat the runaway without much trouble. But he'd do that outside the temple. His invitation had been revoked, and he could already feel the uncomfortable pull at his insides that came before the searing pain of encroaching on territory where he was not welcomed.
"Thank you," Cain said, meeting the eyes of the old priestess.
"No need to thank me," the old woman said. "Go on, now."
Cain went.
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