Sun, Moon, and Mountain
KATIA WOKE IN a strange bed.
Beside it stood a man, composed entirely of brilliant yellow flame.
She closed her eyes quickly.
You’re dreaming. Another effect of the poison, that’s all.
But the brightness of him—it?—burned through her eyelids and the heat radiating from him warmed the length of her right side.
“I know you’re awake, Katia.”
She understood the words, though they had sounded like the hiss and spit of fire. Katia cracked her eyes open and peeped through her lashes.
“No, I’m not,” she whispered to the sun god.
He stretched out a hand with flickering flames for fingers and gripped her shoulder.
Liquid fire ran through Katia’s body. She cried out with the pain of it. It was a hundred—thousand—times worse than being stabbed.
“Stop! Please, stop,” she sobbed, writhing under the sun god’s hand.
“Bear it a little longer, my child. He needs to burn the poison out.”
Katia turned her head towards this new voice, a voice like the trickle of water over stones. Through her tears she saw a second entity, a white and silver woman glowing from within with a softer light, standing on the other side of the bed. The woman smiled and laid a hand on Katia’s brow, momentarily cooling the inferno that was consuming her from the inside out.
“We are working for good. Be patient,” the moon god said.
“No! Can’t bear it,” Katia gasped, trying to rise.
“You must,” rumbled a third voice, like the growl of an earthquake. “We need you, Katia.” A giant of a man, with craggy features and well-defined muscles, stepped into view and pressed a huge hand on Katia’s chest, pinning her to the mattress.
“No!” Katia gritted her teeth against the heat in her veins and shook her head from side to side as though she could deny the presence of the triple gods. “Let me die, please. I can’t bear this any more. I did what I needed to, let me die.”
“You are stronger than you think, Katia.” The sun god’s voice was the roar and crackle of flame and Katia felt a fresh wave of heat run through her as his fingers tightened on her flesh. “You have borne so much already . . . just a little longer now.”
“Let us give you back your life,” the moon god murmured.
“So that you may continue to serve us,” the mountain god finished.
All three smiled. “We need you, Katia Nasalter,” they said.
And then there was nothing else in Katia’s world but the heat of the sun, the coolness of the moon, and the weight of the mountain, until everything went black.