Rosa was not watching. Her eyes were closed as she recited a spell, a long and complicated one she had never used before. Just as it was about to be completed, she heard a voice.
“Deni gave you something, didn’t he?”
Startled, she lost the spell. She turned at once, but no one was there. A voice came to mind, whispering in her ear before slipping away among the lecture rooms on the library’s first floor. Rosa shouted angrily.
“Snowden!”
There was no answer. She lowered her voice. This was no time to grow angry. If Snowden was here, then perhaps…
“Snowden, help me. Please.”
Still there was no answer. Desperate, Rosa clasped her hands.
“There’s no time! Gene is…”
The whisper came again. It sounded as though someone spoke right into her ear, but she could see no one.
“You do cry easily whenever you think about that. Cold as ice, you were. Hurry and remember what Deni gave you.”
Deni had taught Rosa magic when she lived at Fir Castle back home. And he had been Randri’s friend. On returning home, Randri had brought Deni with him, calling him a friend he had met in Delphinad. Randri died two years later, and Deni remained to teach Rosa. It was Deni too who had sent her to Delphinad when she longed to go there.
Having thought that far, Rosa suddenly reached to her waist. Her hand closed around a wooden rod. Straight and smooth as a ruler, yet strangely unworn, it had the power to numb a person briefly. She had no idea what else it could do, but Deni had given it to her…
Could this be it?
Rosa jumped down without another thought. But for someone who was no warrior, it was too high a drop, and she sprained her ankle. She should have cast a spell to slow her fall, but had no time. As she limped toward the altar, countless corpses caught at her feet. Had she not been accustomed to battlefields, she might never have made it through.
Gene was still enduring. Enduring was exactly the word. As in the duel at the Grand Theater, even a mortal wound was useless. No, it was worse than before. He had the sense that his opponent grew stronger every time he regenerated. His fight was like a play whose ending had already been written. Whatever he did, when the time came, he would fall.
For now, Nikephoros was merely entertaining himself. Gene fought with all his strength to keep him entertained for even a little while. He hoped that, in the meantime, at least one of his friends would escape. And for himself, he wondered: if he died fighting a god, would that be a decent way to die?
Heroes in myths often challenged the gods, only to be crushed miserably. Only those who obeyed the gods received blessings and glory. But Gene had never so much as thought of challenging a god. The god had challenged him. No myth explained what one should do then. A thoroughly useless bundle of paper.
Another thought came to him. Was this all it meant for a human to become a god? A being who used newly acquired power to satisfy petty grudges? Why bother to call such a thing a god?
Strangely, his opponent’s swordsmanship itself had not improved. That was why Gene was still alive. But perhaps that was the limit of a god confined within flesh. He suddenly wondered whether this god could exist only through a human body, unable to separate from it. Was that true of this god alone? Or had all gods first been human, then become immortal beings at some point? If so, was this very moment, while the god remained trapped in flesh, the moment when he still had a weakness?
As his thoughts reached that point, he saw Rosa limping behind Nikephoros. Gene frowned in dismay. He had told her to run, and she had not listened at all. That too was like Rosa, but he had an even stranger presentiment.
The altar where Nikephoros had lain stood in the direction she was going. The place where a god had just been born. If the umbilical cord had not yet been cut…
Rosa finally reached the altar.
She could see the slender branches that had wrapped around Nikephoros, but they had already withered, their work complete. The living, pulsing branches were high above. With a sprained leg, she did not know how to reach them. But there was no other way. No time either. Glancing toward Gene, she made up her mind and pressed herself against the wall.
She had often climbed trees at home, but this one was far more slippery. It had no knots or hollows to grip, only places where the wood bent in different directions. Climbing with her teeth clenched, she slipped twice, and when she struck her sprained ankle against the ground again, it broke. Terrible pain swept through her, but Rosa endured without screaming.
She began climbing again. With the broken ankle, she could get no higher. Then someone pushed her up from below. She looked down. It was Luke.
“I can climb trees too. My posture’s not very good, but given the situation, bear with it. I don’t know what you’re trying to do up there, but you should do everything you want before you die. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Even for Luke, however, climbing a tree while pushing up Rosa, who could no longer put any weight on one foot, was no simple task. Suddenly she realized something and spoke.
“I think you could just go up in my place.”
“Oh. Is that all it was?”
Rosa took the wooden rod from her belt and handed it to him.
“Strike the living wood up there with this.”
“With this? It’s just a stick! Is it an axe? An axe handle? Where’s the blade?”
Taking a breath, Rosa spoke.
“Be quiet. Just do it.”
Luke hunched his shoulders, then climbed up in moments. He stopped and muttered,
“Will somewhere around here do?”
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