The Spice King’s spiritual minister put out the dozens of tallow towers one by one, his calloused fingers rubbing out the flames with practiced ease. When only one candle remained, he bowed before the altar, touching the elk skin with his bare brow before rising.
He whispered in the dark, “To me, Ouroboros. What mysteries can I glean from our Master, reborn? Will He speak as He did before my day? Has He been given the power He needs to destroy her enemies? Ouroboros… I call on you. To me, Great Beast.”
The flame of the candle licked higher into the air as he stared into its shapeless brightness, his pupils barely pinheads in the golden seas of his irises. Then, for the first time in eighteen cycles, the flame darkened into sunset hues, then into the dull blue of clouds, then into sunless night.
The black flame flickered low, but content. A breath passed from the altar to the shaman and he stiffened with elation and surprise. The man without his mantle whispered into the flame, “Tamlyn?”
“Wolf,” a tired voice whispered from the other side.
“Did you hear me?”
“I heard you,” the Great Beast breathed. “I have my own questions.”
He suppressed his immediate frustration. Patience, Wolf, he insisted within. Patience. He whispered aloud, “If nothing else, Lost and Suffering One, reveal to me if--Is she well?”
The candle flickered in curiosity, but the Great Beast only hissed, “Yesss,” and the flame guttered out, leaving Wolf blind in the sudden loneliness.
The shaman braced his hands on his thighs and, as his shoulders shook in the dark, he let himself have one private moment to mourn what was denied him at birth, and to joyously celebrate this new Divinity, born of denying his own fate. Rowena. He mouthed her name. He didn’t trust his voice wouldn’t devolve into hopeful whimpers. My rose-red Rowena.
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