Ch. 266 The Years Between us

Chapter 255: The Years Between Us

The assembly ended without anyone declaring it finished.

Mary disliked this.

She had prepared closing remarks.

Three gods departed before breakfast.

Two mortal delegations remained to argue over copies of the sanctuary provisions.

Thor and Melody discovered a fifth barrel that nobody remembered bringing.

By noon, the great hall contained fewer chairs, more documents, and a minor dispute concerning who had promised transportation to a goddess whose domain involved fog.

Mary stood in the middle of it.

“The assembly requires a formal conclusion.”

“Everyone appears to be leaving,” I said.

“That is not the same thing.”

“It has many of the same features.”

She looked at me.

I helped gather the chairs.

Edrin remained in the infirmary.

The restored shrines held.

Messages had arrived from four of them.

Travelers were using the shelters again.

Two villages had already chosen caretakers.

One village sent a list of demands before accepting responsibility.

Mary approved of them immediately.

“They want authority to refuse divine visitors.”

“That seems reasonable.”

“They also want the pantheon to pay for lamp oil.”

“That seems less divine.”

“It remains reasonable.”

She placed the request with the city accounts.

I suspected the village would receive its oil.

The gods who wanted to remain in Greykeep began moving into permanent rooms.

This created another problem.

We had rooms.

We did not have enough rooms near the parts of the castle each god preferred.

Nara wanted to remain close to the great hall.

Damar preferred the lower stone passages.

Tovan wanted a room where he could hear the city bells.

A goddess of quiet contemplation requested a chamber far from Thor.

Thor was not offended.

“She understands her domain.”

Eleanor and Perrin began examining an unused residential wing.

Mary began a list.

The Castellan began three.

Evelyn spent the morning in the chapel.

The larger building existed only as marked ground beyond the inner wall, but the old chapel had become crowded since the assembly began.

People came to thank Aurelia.

Others came because they had heard what happened when she forgave Maelin and Thesra.

Some wanted forgiveness for themselves.

Some wanted Aurelia to tell them they had no obligation to forgive anyone else.

She told both groups the truth.

That forgiveness could not be demanded.

That compassion did not require proximity.

That healing sometimes meant restoring a relationship.

Sometimes it meant leaving one.

Evelyn stood beside her through all of it.

I came to find my wife before lunch.

She was speaking with Liora near the chapel door.

A line of people waited beyond them.

“More?” I asked.

Liora nodded.

“Twenty-three since morning.”

“Have either of you eaten?”

Evelyn looked toward the table where someone had left bread and cheese.

“That was not the question,” I said.

“I had tea.”

“Also not an answer.”

Liora accepted a piece of bread.

Evelyn did not.

I handed it to her.

She took one bite while looking directly at me.

Apparently this fulfilled the requirement.

Aurelia emerged from the small prayer room.

She appeared tired.

Not diminished.

Her stronger domain had made the difference between those two things easier to see.

“Enough for now,” Evelyn told her.

“There are still people waiting.”

“They can wait through lunch.”

One of the men in line nodded.

“My wife says the same thing to me.”

Aurelia looked at him.

“About lunch?”

“About everything.”

The people around him laughed.

The tension in the chapel eased.

Evelyn guided Aurelia toward the side door.

“Will you join us?” I asked.

“In a moment,” Evelyn said.

She glanced at Aurelia.

Then toward the rear passage.

Something passed between them.

Not power.

Understanding.

“I need to discuss the infirmary supplies.”

Aurelia did not correct her.

That should have told me something.

It did not.

I was distracted by Carol entering the chapel with a wooden block in each hand.

Garrick followed with four.

Helena followed both children.

“Your son has learned to make things lighter,” she said.

Garrick dropped the blocks.

They struck the floor with their ordinary weight.

“He has not learned to keep them lighter.”

I went to help.

I did not know where Evelyn went after that.

Not then.

She told me much later how the conversation began.

Not because she wanted to preserve a secret forever.

Because fear had been easier to name in a room where I could not hear it.

Aurelia took her to a small chamber behind the chapel.

The room had once stored vestments.

Now it contained three chairs, two shelves of bandages, and a narrow window facing the marked foundations of the new chapel.

Maelin and Thesra were already there.

Evelyn stopped in the doorway.

“You asked them to come?”

“You said you wished to speak about divine bonds and mortal lives,” Aurelia replied. “They know more of the older practices than I do.”

“I asked for this to be confidential.”

“It will be.”

Maelin stood.

“If you would rather we leave, we will.”

Evelyn looked at each of them.

Then closed the door.

“Stay.”

For a while, nobody spoke.

Evelyn walked to the window.

Workers had driven stakes into the ground beyond the wall.

White cord marked the future chapel’s outline.

It would be larger than the current building.

Large enough for healers.

Clergy.

Records.

Rooms where people could receive help without standing before an altar.

The plans had made Evelyn happy.

That morning, they frightened her.

Stone lasted.

Institutions lasted.

Gods lasted.

She looked down at her hands.

“Will Uriah stop aging?”

The question left no room for preparation.

Aurelia answered carefully.

“Not entirely.”

Evelyn turned.

“What does that mean?”

“His appearance may continue changing until his domain settles. After that, time will affect him according to what he becomes rather than as it affects a mortal body.”

“He will remain young.”

“Most likely.”

“How long?”

Aurelia’s face softened.

“Evelyn—”

“How long?”

“I don’t know if his life will possess a natural ending.”

Maelin lowered her gaze.

Thesra remained very still.

Evelyn had expected the answer.

That did not make hearing it easier.

“And mine does.”

“Yes,” Aurelia said.

The word was quiet.

Honest.

Cruel only because truth sometimes arrived that way.

Evelyn sat.

She folded her hands so they would not shake visibly.

They shook anyway.

“I have known that.”

Aurelia took the chair across from her.

“Knowing a thing and becoming ready to feel it are different.”

“I watched him this morning.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

Evelyn laughed once.

It broke in the middle.

“He was standing at the nursery window. The light caught his hair. He looked younger than he did on our wedding day.”

Uriah’s hair had become fully pale.

Blue-white.

Frost without age.

His body had strengthened as his domain settled into it.

Old exhaustion no longer stayed in his face.

Minor injuries disappeared quickly.

Sometimes Evelyn woke in the night and found his skin cool beneath her hand.

Not cold enough to frighten her.

Cold enough to remind her that his body no longer followed the same rules as hers.

“He will watch the children grow,” she said. “Then their children, if they have them.”

Aurelia waited.

“He will watch cities change. Kingdoms end. Everyone around him will become a memory.”

Her voice fell.

“And someday I will be one of them.”

Thesra moved first.

Not toward Evelyn.

Only nearer.

“You are afraid of dying.”

“Yes.”

Evelyn wiped her cheek.

Then shook her head.

“No. That isn’t all of it.”

“What is the rest?”

“I am afraid of growing old beside someone who does not.”

The confession came more quietly than the first.

“I am afraid he will look at me with love and grief at the same time. I am afraid every year will become something he counts because I have fewer of them.”

Aurelia’s eyes filled.

Evelyn continued before she could answer.

“And I am ashamed of being afraid because we have more than many people receive. We have each other. We have the children. I know that should be enough.”

“No,” Maelin said.

Evelyn looked at her.

Maelin’s expression was firm.

“Gratitude does not require you to welcome loss.”

The room became quiet again.

Outside, a hammer struck stone.

Once.

Twice.

Workers preparing foundations for a building that might stand after all of them were gone.

Or most of them.

Evelyn pressed both palms against her skirt.

“I need to know whether there is a way I can remain beside him longer.”

Aurelia did not answer immediately.

That frightened her more than a quick refusal would have.

“Longer than a mortal life?” Maelin asked.

“Yes.”

“How much longer?”

“I don’t know.”

The answer embarrassed her.

“Long enough that we don’t spend the next forty years pretending we cannot see what waits after them.”

Thesra drew the third chair closer.

“There are ways to lengthen a mortal life.”

“Safely?”

“Some.”

“Without making me something I did not choose?”

Thesra’s expression changed.

“That removes many of them.”

“Good.”

For the first time, Evelyn sounded like herself.

“I will not become an extension of Uriah’s domain. I will not be preserved as his wife. I will not bind my life to whether he continues loving me.”

Aurelia nodded.

“You should not.”

“And I will not take power from the children.”

“No,” all three goddesses said.

The agreement came fast enough that Evelyn breathed again.

Maelin began listing what they knew.

Certain divine blessings slowed aging.

Most did not stop it.

Some ancient temples bound their highest clergy to a sanctuary so completely that they lived as long as the temple endured.

Those people could rarely leave.

A few mortals had shared years with a god through marriage rites.

The records did not agree about whether the years had truly been shared or merely taken from someone else.

Evelyn rejected that immediately.

“There are forms of preservation,” Maelin continued. “But preservation is not living. The body remains. The person often becomes less able to change.”

“I don’t want that.”

“I did not think you would.”

“Then what remains?”

Maelin looked at Aurelia.

“Sainthood.”

Evelyn frowned.

She had heard the word before.

Usually from old records.

Sometimes as an honor given to dead healers whose stories had improved through repetition.

“I am not dead.”

“An encouraging beginning,” Thesra said.

Evelyn almost laughed.

Almost.

Aurelia rested her hands in her lap.

“The old meaning of saint was not someone declared perfect after death. A saint was a mortal whose life became deeply aligned with a divine domain while remaining their own.”

“Aligned with a god?”

“With a domain,” Aurelia corrected. “That distinction matters.”

“Would I belong to you?”

“No.”

The answer carried enough force that the bandages on the shelf shifted.

Aurelia steadied herself.

“You would never belong to me.”

“What would happen?”

“I don’t know,” Aurelia admitted. “Not exactly.”

Maelin leaned forward.

“A true saint carries a domain through mortal understanding. The god does not own the saint. The saint does not become divine. They become a living point where mortal choice and divine power meet.”

“Does that extend life?”

“It can,” Maelin said.

“How long?”

“Centuries, in some accounts.”

“And in others?”

“Decades beyond an ordinary lifespan.”

“That is a large difference.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because sainthood is not a procedure. It cannot be applied like a blessing.”

Thesra watched Evelyn.

“It must grow from what you already are.”

Evelyn looked toward Aurelia.

“And what am I?”

The question was not bitter.

Only tired.

Aurelia answered slowly.

“A healer.”

“I knew that.”

“A teacher.”

Evelyn waited.

“A woman who can stand beside gods without mistaking their power for wisdom.”

That drew a faint smile.

“A mother who protects her children without deciding every choice they will ever make.”

The smile faded.

“A person who has helped me understand my own domain.”

Evelyn looked away.

Aurelia continued.

“People already come to the chapel and ask for you when I am standing in the same room.”

“They know me.”

“That is part of it.”

“They trust me because I am mortal.”

“That is also part of it.”