"They were called Fallen, for from the abyss beyond the Veil they came," Grim prayed, kneeling beside Hrafn's bed, with his hands clasped and his head bowed. "And their evil spread through the world, and their unclean blood contaminated the water, and their baleful presence sickened the land." His voice came out low and steady, while the wind pressed against the windows of the mansion outside. "In the midst of calamity the Lord was born—"
"Hey, golden curls," Briorn interrupted. "Could you shut up?"
Grim did not raise his eyes, for he did not need to see the young man to understand him, the boy always leaked so much of his spirit into the world that Grim felt him even without being connected to him, pride and arrogance were the norm. But he did not answer back, because beneath everything, there was a stubborn and sincere concern.
"Do not mind him, Grim," Sigrid said with her gentle voice.
She was the opposite, always leaking gentleness and trust, a good will almost painful to feel. Grim at times even came to pity her, this world had not been made for people like that, at least there was comfort in the fact that she seemed destined to become strong, "I should have fought," Sigrid continued.
"It would not have changed a fucking thing," Briorn answered, and that was probably his most sincere way of comforting someone. "The cripple should have surrendered. Arrogant fellow."
The last word made both Grim and Sigrid look at him for an instant.
"What?" Briorn shot back, not understanding why he was being stared at.
"Nothing…" Grim answered, lowering his head again. "And the Lord then fought against the night, and the Lord won almost every battle. But evil was insidious and petty, always finding a way to return, stronger and crueler than it already was."
"Tsk," Briorn sounded, clearly irritated by being forced to hear prayers during the visit.
"Do not be like that," Sigrid complained. "The prayers can help."
"Prayers to a dead Lord?" Briorn shot back.
"The Lord is not dead," Grim put in, choosing to correct rather than point out the glaring heresy in the other's words. "The Lord is above us, for from His skin and spirit the Veil that guards us was created. The Lord protects us, for from His heart and flesh the Star that illuminates the world was forged. The Lord guides us, for His bones were crushed into dust and cast into the sea."
"Yes, yes, of course, golden curls," Briorn said, raising one of his hands beside his head and circling his finger to indicate madness. "You talk about it as if you had seen it."
"You see them every day," Grim answered. "You were graced by them, and even so refuse the divinity and the faith of the Three Miracles."
"I just think things are as they are," Briorn answered, rougher this time, now truly getting irritated. "I will come back tomorrow." he concluded. Rising to leave.
The disgust and dissatisfaction of the boy kept leaking from him as he moved away, and even so Grim could not feel anger. All that remained was to shake his head, there was no convincing a man who did not want to be convinced. Even if the Lord Himself descended from the Veil before Briorn, Grim suspected the little brute would still find a way to call it coincidence.
"Do not mind him," Sigrid said. "He does not do it out of malice." she concluded smiling. With her spirit laden with comfort, and Grim felt a small weight in his chest because of that.
Poor girl.
A strong wind forced the window of the room and flung it open violently, letting in the winter cold. Outside it was snowing a little now, the worst days of the season were approaching, and this winter seemed decided to be much worse than the last. Sigrid rose in haste to close the window, and Grim felt the concern leave her, as if any cold gust capable of touching Hrafn could worsen his state.
There was also something deeper and much more muffled, something she herself seemed to have buried beneath layers of denial. "Do you like him?" Grim asked.
Sigrid stopped in the middle of the movement, and her body froze for an instant like the weather outside, then turned her head slowly and looked at him. "Of course I like him," she said, smiling awkwardly. "He is my childhood friend."
"I understand," Grim answered. Deciding not to dig into the matter, for it was not his place to do so, and perhaps it was better that way. If he had to compare Sigrid's spirit with water, which would be something clean, transparent and fluid, then Hrafn's would be oil, not that this made him evil. There were things in Hrafn that did not want to be seen or named, and even so grew inside his spirit.
"It has already been four days," Grim said, casting thoughts of other people's loves aside. "He should wake soon."
"Should he not already be awake?" Sigrid asked. "I mean, I saw him fight, a voroir like him should not..."
"Yes, he should not," Grim answered. "But I feel that he may be going through something beyond the simple recovery of flesh."
He looked at Hrafn while saying that, the boy slept deeply, and the sleep around him did not have the common appearance of exhaustion. There was something strange there, somewhere Grim could not reach. "Even his bond is at rest," he concluded.
Sigrid turned her gaze back to the little mandrake curled beside Hrafn. Liv too remained still, as if she accompanied his sleep. The movement was so discreet that she almost seemed an ordinary root if someone looked too quickly.
"I understand," Sigrid answered, discouraged.
Grim felt a little pity, but there was not much more he could say to encourage her. It only remained to wait for Hrafn to wake and discover for himself whatever it was that was happening to him.
"I suppose I will see you tomorrow then, brother Grim," she said. Bowing lightly before leaving the room. The silence grew heavier after Sigrid left, Grim continued where he was returning to prayer, hearing the wind strike the badly closed windowpane and the muffled sound of snow touching stone and tile outside.
A few moments later Edvard entered, the butler bowed to Grim and went to the bedside. From inside a small box he took a thin incense stick, lit it and placed it near the headboard, and the aroma spread slowly, as he himself made a few prayers with his hand, before turning to Grim. "I imagine you are hungry, elevated voroir," said Edvard.
"I am satisfied for now," Grim answered politely.
The butler only nodded, as if that answer were enough, and withdrew as silently as he had entered, leaving the healer, the sick man and the little creature in peace. Grim looked at Hrafn for one more moment, then at Liv. "And the Lord awakened early and grew stronger than His peers, for the Lord was loved by the world and by His megin, just as He was loved by all the beings that dwell in it..."
As the words came out, something changed, coming from Hrafn like a distant echo, passing through Grim before it could be named, making the healer go still. Grim then rose slowly and approached the bed, raised his hand and touched two fingers to his forehead. The connection formed and with it came a world of pain and weariness, stitched together with scattered thoughts, but behind that there was more, a perception so vast and indifferent that he thought he was connected to the world itself for an instant. Grim pulled his hand back at once, his heart beating fast and a deep fear in his eyes.
"What is happening to you?" he murmured. And then he knelt again, but now his prayer had more seriousness. The snow kept falling outside, the incense burned slowly and Hrafn remained still. But Grim was already certain that he was not merely sleeping.