- Epilogue: Acceptance -

"Abigail, daughter of Irena, do you give your life to Iom?"

The young woman, just barely old enough to undergo the rite, answered, "With all my heart."

Hindel looked her in the eyes and said to her, "Iom thanks you for your sacrifice. He also tells me that in him is a friend who looks forward to being reunited with you."

Her eyes widened hopefully. "Sharon?"

Hindel nodded, and there was a great murmuring in the congregation. He hadn't expected this reaction, but in an instant he realized the reason for it: No priest had ever had the ability to speak with Iom. Hindel had told her what Iom said on instinct, just because it was relevant to her, but on reflection he realized how miraculous it was for those sacrificed to Iom to receive such assurances. The shrine was full of devotees come to witness Hindel perform his first human sacrifice, and he had no doubt that the witness of this wonder would bring still more believers to the shrines.

But such thoughts could not be allowed to interrupt the rite. Hindel raised his hands and intoned, "Levitate."

Abigail ascended a few inches into the air - but that was all. A man darted up to the altar, grabbed her by the arm, crying "Stop!", and pulled her back down.

It was his father.

And his mother was there with him, leaping up onto the altar. Abigail struggled with Deanna, protesting, "Let me go! Didn't you hear me - I want to give my life to Iom!"

"Your life is not yours to just give away!" Natasha reprimanded her. "It is a gift, given to you by your parents and our creator!"

"What are you doing?!" Hindel demanded, horrified. "This is a sacred rite!"

"For an unholy god!" His mother whirled on him, and Hindel didn't think he'd ever seen her so angry. "A rite where you take a girl's life, while telling her things about the afterlife that may not even be true!"

"Iom never lies! Especially not to me. Abigail's death will be painless, and her unification with Iom will be joyous."

"You can't know that!" She looked towards the congregation now. "Not even Iom can know that! Have none of you considered that because Iom is a god - an eternal being - there is no way for him to ever understand what it means to die! He has no way of appreciating what people suffer when they are sacrificed to him, or the suffering of the loved ones they leave behind!"

"Get off of the altar." Hindel willed the transformation up as far as his shoulders. "Don't make me hurt you. Please."

Deanna looked at his mother. "Natasha," he said, but Hindel couldn't say for sure if it was an imperative or a question.

Natasha turned and looked into Deanna's eyes. "We're not leaving here without her."

"Oh yes, you are!" Abigail objected, still struggling to break Deanna's grip.

"Natasha, we can't force her to come with us. Even if we did, someone else in the congregation would volunteer to be his first human sacrifice. We can't do any good here."

She cast one more glance at Abigail, then looked back to Deanna. She wiped the tears from her face and said, "...You're right."

Deanna let Abigail go and took Natasha's arm. Together they walked off the altar. They did it in apparent defeat, but Hindel already read confusion on many faces in the congregation. Everyone knew of his parents' opposition to human sacrifice, of course, but it was still disconcerting to see the nation's heroes violently interrupting a holy ceremony to try to snatch the sacrifice off the altar. Most would simply wonder what was the matter with Deanna and Natasha, and leave it at that. Some, however, would see their words and actions as an inescapable contradiction to their faith, and conclude that Deanna and Natasha were not really the heroes that rumors made them out to be. A select few chose the other way of reconciling that contradiction, and walked out.

The chamber was again occupied only by the faithful, but the awkward silence remained. Hindel considered.

"Would you greatly mind," he asked Abigail, "...if we postponed the sacrifice until tomorrow?"

She shook her head. "Today feels... tainted by what just happened, anyway. I'm sorry that you have to have parents like that."

"Don't be. Without them, I wouldn't exist." He said loudly, for the entire congregation to hear, "The ceremony is postponed until tomorrow. Any of you who are visitors to this city and still wish to attend, guest rooms will be provided for you here in the shrine."

He got off the altar and strode out. It was rather a rushed way of closing the ceremony, even in light of how it had been rudely interrupted, but Hindel needed to speak to his parents and he wasn't betting on them sticking around long.

When he got out into the hall, as he'd feared, his parents were nowhere to be seen. He was still intent on catching up to them, though. It was a safe bet that they were leaving the shrine, so he headed in the direction of the exit.

He turned a corner to find his father walking back towards him. Their eyes met. Understanding, Hindel made a gesture for his father to follow him.

They stepped into Hindel's priestly quarters at the shrine. Hindel shut the door behind them. The room wasn't large - half the floor space was taken up by Hindel's bed, desk, nightstand, and Iom statue - but it would suffice for two people to have a simple conversation.

Hindel looked at his father. "Dad," he said, "...you can't do things like that."

"I know."

"In fact, you don't do things like that. Human sacrifices have been going on in Iom since before I was born, and you and Mom have never interrupted a holy service to stop one before now. The only conclusion I can draw is that that outburst just now had to do with me, and if that's the case then you really do owe those people an apology, not that you wouldn't anyway. Inflicting our family squabbles on other people is wrong."

"It's not quite that simple. You're right; we've never interrupted a human sacrifice before, but only because we knew it wouldn't do any good, and because we realized that far more people are dying from starvation... than from being sacrificed to Iom. And we've always done everything we could to stop human sacrifice, short of actually interrupting the ceremony." He stopped to rub at the back of his head, but Hindel waited, knowing his father was often a slow talker. "Your mother and I came here to talk to you, but when we heard you would be performing your first human sacrifice... your mother said we had to stop it."

Hindel nodded. "Mom never did understand."

"No, I... I'm not laying the responsibility at her feet. It's just... your mother is a very emotional person." He said this with deep fondness. "She has a hard time keeping her feelings inside... and I'm the opposite. I have a hard time showing my feelings. But we both have the same feelings... most of the time. That's why we get all along so well." He shook himself. "But my point is, even though we wouldn't have interrupted the ceremony if it weren't you, it wasn't really about you. It was about a person being killed."

"By her own choice. And much as I appreciate you defending Mom, she really doesn't understand. Otherwise she'd be talking to me right now, with you. She'd have talked to me before the ceremony started instead of defiling this shrine."

"That was just bad timing. We heard about the human sacrifice in just barely enough time to get here. And she did want to talk to you... just as much as I did. I convinced her it would be a bad idea. She's too emotionally worked up right now... I was afraid it would start a fight."

That was a good point. "So you promise that this won't happen again?"

His father nodded. "I promise."

"How did the both of you come here together, anyway? Who's watching the little ones?"

"Believe it or not, Dust agreed to look after them for a few days." His father looked thoughtful. "It was strange. We assumed we'd have to ask a neighbor, but while we were talking about it Dust... just suddenly appeared, the way he does... and volunteered. It was... as if he actually wanted... to be with them for a few days."

"Does Dust even know how to take care of children?" He couldn't keep the worry out of his voice, even as he knew it was ridiculous to think his parents would leave his little siblings in untrustworthy hands.

"He must know how to cook, or he wouldn't have survived this long. At the least, he can keep them safe. Amy's old enough now to handle most of the usual babysitting responsibilities, so that's all he really needs to do."

Dust. Hindel had never found out where he'd gone off to while Josh, Dusty, and Jacinda were pursuing him. It was reassuring to hear that he was still around. He wondered if Dust would be as forgiving of what he had done as his parents were. Probably not, but it wouldn't be enough for Dust to betray his mission to protect all of his old master's nieces and nephews.

"Anyway... We did want to talk to you for a reason..." Though his father fumbled in his wording, his tone was firm with conviction. "We wanted to tell you that what you did was wrong."

"You came all this way to tell me that that's what you think? I knew that's what you'd think. That's why I cast the spell on you in the first place."

Deanna sighed. "Hindel, there are ways we could have beaten Kerinam without turning this country into a war machine in service to Iom."

"Which is one of the reasons why those ways are not as good as the one I chose. Because people all over the continent witnessed Iom's victory, faith in him is greater, more widespread than ever. This was Iom's plan for us." He left a pause. "Also, it's the only way which was more likely to work than not."

"...Iom may be our god, but... this is too much. All he really needs is a few animal sacrifices... the number of people who will be killed because of this..."

"No, father. Iom is our god, so it is our moral duty to serve him. There are no 'but's."

"Isn't it possible that you only think that because Iom spoke it to you? Remember, I've heard his voice, too; I know how persuasive it is."

"What if that is the reason?" Hindel held his hands out to the sides. "Do you think I am a mental cripple because I hear and heed the voice of our god? Let me tell you this: I feel sorry for the people who don't have the relationship with our god that I do. People for whom Iom does not open their ears that they may hear, or worse, who have rebelled and turned back from his word. No matter how difficult things have been for me, I have always had Iom at my side, his sheltering wings over me. Iom doesn't have all of the answers, but just to have his voice always there, answering whenever I call, has been my greatest comfort and reassurance. And the truths I've heard from Iom are more trustworthy than any that I, or any other mere mortal, have come to on our own. So long as I can share even a small part of that with others, I will do everything in my power to accomplish that."

At that, Hindel ended, and let his arms fall to his sides. "I'm sorry if that came out like a sermon. I am a priest."

"It's fine," his father said, a loving smile venturing onto his mouth. "However you phrased it, what you said... is your true feelings. However we may feel about what you've done, we're proud of you for not compromising on those feelings, just as we're proud of you for saving everyone from the Kerinamese."

For a moment, Hindel worked his jaw without anything coming out. "Even after...?"

His father waited for him to finish.

"...the... spell I put on you?"

His father looked surprised. "That's the least of our concerns. Parents get used to their children... causing trouble for them. Though not... on that level, still... we're a lot more upset by what you did... to your brothers and sisters. And to other people."

"I did it," Hindel repeated, "for Iom, and for all the hundreds of people who would have suffered and died, and the countless thousands who would have lived in a desolate world without gods, without religion, without any meaningful morals, if I had done nothing."

"Doing nothing wasn't the only alternative. It never is." He looked down at his hands. "What I'm trying to say is, you did... what you believed was best... and that's why we forgive you. But you have to promise not to do that to your brothers and sisters again."

"I may not have much choice. Dusty told me he intends to keep on fighting me."

"That's not what I meant. We can't ask you not to defend yourself. But you kidnapped your brothers and sisters from their homes, without provocation. Do you understand?"

"They would have fought to stop me." He bit his lip. "But yes, I understand what you mean. I won't do it again."

"Because... Iom may ask you to, you know."

Hindel shook his head. "No. He says there won't be any need for it. If we ever need to unite the nations again, they'll fight alongside us willingly now that they've been shown what Iom can do through his chosen one, so we'll all be on the same side. As for bringing Iom back to this world, that won't even be possible until all of us are old." That was something he dearly hoped to see before he died, but he did not say so. He knew his father feared what Iom would do if revived, and Hindel didn't want to upset him.

His father smiled and laid a hand on his arm. "I love you, son."

Hindel looked down, both ashamed and overjoyed that his parents forgave him. "I love you too, Dad."

Elsewhere in the shrine, Nancie entered one of the guest rooms to find Valeria packing her things.

"So," she said softly. "You are leaving."

"I'm afraid so." Valeria looked over her shoulder. "Hindel told you?"

"Yes." She steeled herself, and said more loudly, "I can't understand how you can turn your back on Iom now - right after you found him."

Valeria paused to brush her light red hair out of her face. "I never found Iom, not in the way you and Hindel have. What I found is that at least one god exists. But though Iom is a god, he is not my god."

"...It's true that we Iomites are Iom's chosen people." She smiled, warm and hopeful. "But our god welcomes all who are willing to serve him."

"But that's exactly my point; I'm not willing to serve him. For a little while, I thought I might be, but the human sacrifice set for today brought it quite home that I am not. Serving Iom means taking people's lives, which is exactly the thing I most rue about my time serving Britta."

"Britta was murdering people," Nancie corrected. "People give their lives to Iom willingly, and become part of him because of that."

"I know that. I'm not saying you and Britta are morally equivalent, or even close to it. But the principle is the same. I thought, subconsciously, that it might be enough that the people here sacrifice themselves willingly, and that I would never have to do the killing myself, but it's not. I can't condemn what your religion is doing, but I can't support it, either. And if the god of your religion is real, it stands to reason that some of the other religions are based on a real god, too. I just have to find one that I'm comfortable with worshiping."

With that, Valeria shouldered her pack. "Thank you," she said. "For everything. Even if I've decided not to be a servant of Iom, for that little time after I found my faith, I needed to be one. Because of what you all have done, Hindel especially, but all of you, I feel... healed."

It was a good enough goodbye, and certainly a firm enough one, but Nancie could not live with herself if she didn't make one last attempt. "What if you're wrong, about there being more than one god?" she said. "What if Iom is all there is?"

"That's a chance I'm willing to take. I don't think any less of you for the fact that you are not."

Valeria bent slightly to kiss her on the brow, and then walked out and was gone.

Nancie just stood there a while, in silence. Valeria seemed firmly resolved, so perhaps there wasn't much she could do... and after all, she is just one of hundreds of people who had been converted to the faith of late. ...No, that's just an excuse. However many people there are in the world, every single one is monumentally important.

She felt Hindel's hand upon her shoulder.

"She may come back," he said. "One day. We can only wait, and hope."

Nancie nodded, glad that he was there.

It was Theo who answered the door, so Taela had to make a strong effort to keep from averting her eyes in disgust. Caleb once told her that his dad's face was not as ugly as it used to be, but she found that hard to imagine.

"Taela! Hi," Theo said. "You're here to see -"

"Caleb, yup," she interrupted, hoping to hurry this along as much as possible. "If he says he's not in, tell him Rimeon's here, too. Speaking of whom," - she grabbed her beastman friend by the arm - "...you can stop lurking, honestly."

While Rimeon made some protest that she didn't bother listening to, Theo went and got Caleb.

Caleb came to the door, but as she'd expected, he didn't look particularly enthusiastic. They stood there in the doorway, in awkward silence, for a few moments while Theo wandered off to give them their privacy. He is a considerate guy, I suppose... but I'm never going to get used to that face of his. Too bad there's nothing either of us can do about it.

Maybe it was because she was distracted by that thought, but Caleb for once managed to get the first word in ahead of her. "Okay, so..." He was shuffling his feet, hands in his pockets. "I know I've been a stubborn jerk for the past few weeks, but I've finally gotten around to looking at what happened from your perspective, and even if I still think I wouldn't have done the same thing in your shoes, I can -"

"Okay," Taela cut in. "Okay! I'm sorry I blabbed about Rimeon and Barro when we got captured. I didn't think it would do them any real harm, especially since Jepper said he knew there were more of us anyway, but I can see how it seemed to you that I was betraying them, and I'm sorry."

"...It's okay."

"There," Rimeon said, clapping a hand on Taela's shoulder, "...that wasn't so hard, was it?"

"Bite me."

"Barro and I told Caleb right from the start that we didn't hold what happened against you. If you'd just apologized then, he would have had to let you off the hook."

"Oh, so the whole point of apologizing was to force him to forgive me?" Taela retorted, putting her hands on her hips. "Sorry, but I happen to feel that a little thing called 'what's right' is important in situations like these."

"There's something you and I agree on," Caleb grinned, putting his hand on her other shoulder.

"I'm starting to forget there was ever anything we disagreed on," she smiled back.

"I remember!" Rimeon put in, as the three of them walked away from Caleb's home together. "This one time, Caleb thought you shouldn't tell dangerous people about your hidden friends, even under extreme duress, and you thought it wasn't that important. I remember it like it was just last month."

"Yes, but we agreed that when we have such a disagreement, you should stubbornly refuse to talk to the other person for weeks afterwards."

"I think you're missing the big picture here, Taela," Caleb said. "Which is: Did Rimeon actually make a joke just now?"

"I must be wearing off on him. Too bad the same thing can't be said about his grooming."

"Let's find Karis," Rimeon suggested. "She has some good qualities she can rub off on us."

"I wouldn't even mind if you rubbed off on her instead," Caleb said, smiling. "'Cause you two are pretty much the best friends I could ever have hoped to bond with."

"Well, yeah," Taela returned, with a mock cockiness.

The two of them rested in each other's arms, their passion satisfied but their tenderness and love still quietly burning as they enjoyed the familiar contact of each other's bare skin, the comfort of their shared warmth.

Natasha broke the silence. "That was a nice surprise," she said, giggling like she did when she was a girl.

She did this giggle fairly often after sex, and Deanna could never tell if it was a good sign or a bad sign. The matter of physical pleasure was never in question; he'd had more than enough time to learn how to please his wife. But emotionally, their lovemaking could leave Natasha feeling either giddy with delight or hopelessly embarrassed, either one of which could manifest itself in the giggle.

So he said with some trepidation, "Was it alright? I mean, we didn't discuss it beforehand..."

"I said it was nice, didn't I?"

"What I was getting at... is the last time we did discuss it... we weren't sure about having more children."

"Oh." She voiced the monosyllable carelessly, as if that past discussion was totally irrelevant to the here and now. Emphasizing the point further, she snuggled her head against his shoulder. "I'm not worried about that anymore. Sometimes I wish we could go on having more and more children, for all of eternity, just one fresh new face after another sprung up from and nurtured by our love. And sometimes I just feel weary of the little scamps, and think it's time to let go of that part of my life and accept that we're old now. I don't know which way is right, and I'm ready to just leave it to fate. If we have another baby, I'll happily raise him. If we don't, I won't wish we had. ...How about you?"

He thought for a moment. "I've always been happy to... take whatever joys life came my way, and never expected them to come. So... we're in the same boat, basically."

"As usual."

"But," he said, hesitating to pick at a wound that might still be sore, "...are you still worried about Hindel?"

"Not anymore. I've known it all along, I think, but now I'm sure: Hindel isn't just Iom's. He's ours, too. If he were just Iom's, he would have had all of us sacrificed. He wouldn't have gone through what he did to save the people of Begof. And he would have conquered the world with his power, like Brehen said he would, not made allies and relinquished his conquered lands when he was done. If it was Iom's plan to make our son into his unquestioning slave, then we beat him again."

"I'm... not so sure that was Iom's plan. Even assuming he did have May infect Hindel the way you talked about, he must have known ahead of time exactly what effect that would and wouldn't have on Hindel."

"I guess that's true. Oh, but I don't care. Hindel is more important than Iom, and Hindel's all right. I'd be lying if I said I liked everything about him - I'd be lying if I said I liked everything about any of our children - but he's all right." She paused, and tilted her head to look into his eyes. "That sounds like such an incredibly callow thing for a mother to say about her son. But you understand what I mean, don't you?"

Deanna nodded. After a moment's thought, he added, "It... hasn't really been fair to you. You've given so much of yourself for others... only to get so much trouble from our son... and from me."

"Don't say that. Life's been hard, maybe harder for me than most people, but it's been fuller too, and maybe life can't be full without being hard. When -"

She was cut off by the sound of a shriek. "Mom-meeeeee! Help!"

It was Jacinda. In a dash, Natasha threw on her nightgown and was running down the dark hall. Deanna put on some pants and went after her.

Natasha flung open the door to Amber and Jacinda's room. Amber was there, staring numbly at the bunk bed. Little Jacinda was sitting in the top bunk, clutching fearfully at the covers. Her frightened eyes were fixed upon the foot of the bed...

...and there, proceeding up from the floor near the bed, was a substantial fire.

Natasha went immediately into action. She thrust her hands at the fire and shouted "Freeze!" As the level 3 spell dampened the flames, Deanna was already scooping their little daughter out of the bed and away from the reach of the flames.

Though Natasha's aim had been just about perfect, it took one more spell to completely stifle the flames. Once that was done, she turned sharply to Amber. "What did I tell you about using Blaze inside?" she demanded.

"I was just showing Jacey..." Amber mumbled, then managed, in a louder tone, "I put the wood on a plate before I set it on fire."

"And you thought that was safe? You didn't think that the flames might wander outside that one little space? More importantly, you didn't think that I told you to never, ever use Blaze inside the house for a good reason?!"

Amber looked down. "I'm sorry."

Natasha paused for a moment to glance back and forth between her and Jacinda, who was still clinging to Deanna, held in his gentle embrace. "What were you two doing still awake, anyway? It's late!"

Amber tweaked one of her index fingers. "You and Dad were making a lot of noise," she answered.

A subtle blush rose to Natasha's cheeks. In a house as crowded as theirs, it had of course been necessary to tell the children not to be worried if they heard her and Deanna making noise in their bedroom, but Amber and Jacinda were not yet old enough to be told why. "Well, you could have burned your little sister alive," she remonstrated. "I thought you were mature enough that I could teach you the first level of that spell, but obviously I was wrong." At her mother's words, Amber's head hung still lower. "So you're grounded until further notice. And I don't want you to use Blaze again, indoors or outdoors, or you'll really be in trouble."

Now Amber raised her head. "But Mooooommmmm... I won't do it inside again!"

"You're darn right you won't, and not outside either, until -"

Deanna stopped listening there, as after putting Jacinda down he was focused on cleaning up the mess of ashes Amber's dangerous display had left. Teaching her Blaze had seemed like a good idea at the time. Most people didn't start learning such powerful magic until they turned 15, but Amber had picked up on the early stuff so quickly, making both him and Natasha so proud, that it seemed a shame to hold her back. Obviously, she wasn't ready. But mistakes could not be undone, only dealt with responsibly.

As father went on sweeping, mother and daughter went on arguing, and, roused by the sound, the other children would soon come investigating.

And eventually, the sun would come up on another day.

END