The Lightning God's Wife: a short story by Grace Draven Read Free Book Online Page A

down her back.  “Dangled him off this balcony
by his hair.”
    Gurn’s pate was as smooth and shiny as a polished antylus
ball.  Martise frowned.  “He doesn’t have hair.”
    Silhara cocked an eyebrow, and his lips curved up a little
at the corners.  “Not on his head.”
    She gasped and flinched at the image his words evoked.  Poor
Gurn.  Of course throwing his master down a well probably didn’t elevate him in
Silhara’s affections.
    She’d never understand the relationship between the two. 
They were master and servant yet acted as brothers—arguing, bickering, and
sometimes physically brawling with each other.  Gurn’s respect for Silhara was
obvious, but he was neither intimidated by nor obsequious toward the powerful
mage.  In turn, Silhara treated Gurn as his peer.  It wasn’t so much that one
worked for the other but that they worked together, lived together, and fought
with each other as equals.
    She turned in Silhara’s arms to face the window once more. 
The night sky was a frothing mass of blackness occasionally broken by jagged
strands of bright silver.  The storm blotted out the stars except for the
nacreous one that always hovered above Neith both day and night.  Its dull
light pulsed steadily, like the beat of a heart.
    Martise looked away from the star—Corruption’s blot on the
sky.  Far better that she admire something more natural, even if more violent,
like the storm.  “I’ve always enjoyed the time right before the storm strikes,
when the air is cool and smells of the coming rain.”
    “As long as it rains on the grove, I’ll be content.” 
Silhara’s slender fingers played with the folds of her shift.
    She hoped he would be content.  The last time a storm turned
away from Neith, Silhara had exploded from the fortress in a rage and then
proceeded to scare the life out of her and Gurn by forcing nature’s fury onto
Neith with spellwork.  Controlling weather was lethal sorcery.  He’d been lucky
to walk away from that endeavor alive instead of being reduced to a smoking
husk.
    Martise hugged his arms harder to her waist and was rewarded
by an even more enveloping embrace.  She leaned her head back against Silhara’s
chest.  “The blessing of Revida.  She’s withheld it long enough.”
    “Who’s Revida?”
    Martise smiled.  Silhara was a master spellworker; she was
more widely read.  “A goddess of the Glimmer South.  Once a human who became
the wife of the lightning god Atagartis.”
    A disdainful snort sounded behind her.  “No accounting for
bad judgment there.  She would have been better off marrying a farmer or even a
king with the blood running too thick through the royal staff.”
    His sarcasm made her chuckle.  “You wouldn’t marry a goddess
if she wanted you?”
    Another snort.  “I’ve no interest in any deity—worshipping
them, swiving them, or marrying them.  Useless lot who wouldn’t recognize a
sincere prayer if it ran them over with a dung cart.”
    This time Martise laughed outright and pivoted to face him. 
She looped her arms around his neck.  His was an aesthetic face, harsh and
unforgiving, yet it softened a little as he stared down at her, a glint of
amusement flitting through his gaze.
    “Tell me of this foolish Revida,” he said.
    “Don’t you want to go back to bed?”
    His hands traced the curves of her waist and hips before
sliding up the length of her back.  Unlike her, he was naked, and his arousal
was obvious as he held her close to him.  “Not yet,” he said.  “I want to see
what the storm will do.  In the meantime, tell me your Glimming tale.”
     
    _____________________________________________________________________
     
    Revida’s eyesight wasn’t what it once was, but old age had
suddenly chosen to wreak havoc on her vision by making her hallucinate.  That
or what she stared at now was real.
    Two small children raced toward her across the parched
landscape—a young boy pulling frantically