“The Kelda wants to see you,” Guy said.
I raised my head from buttoning my shirt and stared at him. “What?” I asked.
“Tonight. After dark.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. That’s all my father told me.”
I faltered in my attempts to continue buttoning my shirt and eventually decided to just leave it halfway undone. Seating myself on the bed, I started to reach for my shoes, but remembered I’d developed the habit of taking them off by the door and shook my head, dreading the fact that my nerves were getting the best of me.
“It’ll be okay,” Guy said, settling down beside me.
“Where?”
“Below the house. There’s a hidden entrance into what my father calls the ‘Security Compound’ directly beneath the rug in the front living room, though if you ask me I call it the ice box.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s where she lives. Underground.”
I sighed and bowed my head.
“You won’t be going alone,” Guy continued. “I specifically told my father that I refused to let you see her without another Kaldr present.”
“Do people normally attend her summons alone?”
“She is our goddess. Normally, it would be improper and completely disrespectful to bring another person with us, yet she understands that you are a human and might suffer the shock of seeing her.”
“She’s not—”
“Human? No. She isn’t.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat but kept my thoughts to myself, though physically it was hard to maintain any diplomacy. Thoughts flashed through my head—fire, lightning, ice raining down the sky. They said she was one of the first. Was she a god? If not human, what?
The skittering sensation of chills crossing up and down my spine weren’t the result of Guy pressing his hand against my back. I imagined it could have been her, all the way down there—watching, waiting for me to arrive. I instinctually shied toward Guy’s body and was thankful for the arm he set around me.
“She isn’t a judging god, Jason. Her benevolence is what sustains us.”
“What does she want with me? What reason does she have to talk to me?”
“I don’t know, Jason. I wish I could tell you more.”
Had there been a rift—a shift, disturbance, the complete upheaval of what it was to be ‘normal’ due to my presence? Would I be cast to the sea, forced to swim without the help of a lifeboat, devoid of a companion, unfortunate in the fact that he could not argue my case? If I was being kicked out of here—if I couldn’t stay on the ranch—then what would I—
Guy’s hand, flat along my ribcage, flexed, then settled back against my chest.
“It’ll be okay,” he said, his lips against my ear. “It’ll just be a visit. That’s all.”
That’s all?
Could such an important summons be just a visit?
I wouldn’t know until later.
Tonight.
Tonight.
It couldn’t come soon enough.