“Of course, my lord!”

I fought to steady my voice, to regain some composure.

“Thank you again, Aiko. I will be in my room. When the human is finished eating, I expect her to be brought to me.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Good. Go.”

I opened the door to my chamber, stepping through. Clearly, there had been some confusion, though, because the human followed me in.

“No, Sionnach preserve us, not that way!” Aiko bleated nervously. I spun on my heel, catching the human’s narrow shoulders in my hands. Her eyes opened wide. In the warmly lit chamber, her gaze had regained its golden hue.

Better.

“Go with Aiko,” I said gruffly, spinning her in my hands until she faced the Sionnachan Mistress of Affairs. I let her go, and she stumbled forward.

She turned back to look at me, her brow wrinkled with a lack of understanding, or maybe with suspicion, as if she didn’t believe I was going to let her out of my sight.

“You.” I pointed a clawed finger at her. “Aiko.” My finger swung to the Sionnachan. “Go.” Now I pointed back out towards the landing at the stairs.

Something came over her face, then. A slackening. Relief.

“Don’t get too excited,” I muttered darkly. “You’ll be back here before you know it.”

But my words had no effect. Something did excite her – fear, or maybe pure, vicious hatred for me. Whatever it was, it quickened her movements more than I would have thought possible.

She ran from my room like it would kill her if she stayed.

I remained there, looking out the doorway into the shadows of the landing, until I heard the door above mine open, then shut.

I dragged my fingers through my hair and sighed.

Finally alone.

“My Lord? I have the bandages.”

... Never mind.

I smoothed my face into something I hoped did not convey my annoyance before I turned around. My parents, my mother in particular, had always impressed upon me how much I was to care for and respect the castle’s staff.

“Thank you, Shoshen.”

Shoshen, it turned out, was not alone. A much older Sionnachan man, leaning on a silver tree crystal cane, was with him. They both flattened their ears.

“My Lord, this is our father, Ashken. He was the previous Master of the Grounds who trained me,” Shoshen said. “I hope you do not mind that I woke him to greet you.”

“Not at all,” I replied, crossing the room to them. “I am happy to meet you, Ashken, just as I will be to meet the others.”

“Others?” Shoshen asked, turning to glance at his father.

“Lord Wylfrael,” Ashken said, his voice deeper and stronger than his use of the cane would have led me to expect, “there are no others. It is only me, and my two children, who serve the castle now.”

My tone turned caustic.

“Was it the invaders? Were the other Sionnachans here harmed?”

If the humans killed them...

I stormed to the door, ready to tear the human out of her room and demand answers from her, even if she could not understand my questions. But Ashken’s words stopped me in my tracks.

“No, my lord. That old Riverdark spell has served the castle well. Those invaders did not come here or harm any Sionnachan that I know of.”

Well, that was something at least. I turned back and rejoined them. Shoshen seemed to remember himself, jumping and making a little “ah!” sound. He brandished a bandage at me, soaked in healing Sionnachan herbs, stepping closer to clean my wounds. I waved him off with a grunt, taking it and doing it myself. I wiped the soaked bandage across my chest, cleaning away the blood and disinfecting the wounds.

“So, where’s the rest of the staff, then?” I asked, switching out my now-bloodied bandage for a fresh one Shoshen handed me reverently. When I’d left, there had been a dozen servants in the castle’s employ.

“Well, my lord,” Ashken began slowly. “To put it plainly, people lost hope you’d ever return. The coffers kept them paid in your absence, but generation after generation, belief that you were dead grew stronger. People began to leave their posts here, returning to be with their families in villages far beyond the mountains. Or they died, and no one was willing to cross the mountains to replace them.” The old man paused, as if unsure whether to say the next part. “Forgive me my boldness, Lord Wylfrael, but few Sionnachans wanted to serve in the abandoned house of a dead god.”

My eyebrows lifted in surprise at old Ashken’s bluntness. I decided I appreciated his honesty.

“I can understand that,” I muttered, passing Shoshen yet another ruined bandage. My front was mostly cleaned up now, and I began packing the wounds with dry bandages.

“We, of course, never felt that way,” Ashken added. “Our family has always held strong in the faith that you would return. Someday.”

“Well, here I am.” I tried to ignore the knife of shame in my guts that twisted at the thought of generation after generation of Sionnachans waiting here for me. Waiting for a god who did not come.

Curse you, Skalla...

“Thank you for remaining,” I said, meaning it. I didn’t particularly care one way or the other about having servants around to tend to my needs, but their loyalty touched me. And with the human prisoner here now, I’d be able to offload tasks like feeding her and fetching clothes for her to the others. Plus, I’d be able to get information about what went on in my absence without having to trek to one the of villages so far from here they likely wouldn’t have any information about the humans’ activities, anyway.

Although...

“Have you been in contact with anyone beyond the mountains?” I asked sharply. I hadn’t yet considered the idea that there could be more human settlements on my world.

“Yes, my lord,” Ashken replied. “After the invaders arrived in their sled from the sky, I sent letters, carried by burrowbirds, to other villages. The replies we received seemed to indicate the flying sled with its foreigners in the valley was the only one, and they did not travel far from here. Though, they had only been here thirty-one days before you arrived today, so there is no way to know what their future plans may have been.”

“As long as their future plans do not include returning,” I mused darkly. I doubted they’d even attempt such a thing, considering how fast they’d fled. If they did try to return in the future, I’d be even stronger, and I’d crush their machine, the sled, as Ashken called it, with my bare fists...

But for now, I was satisfied that they were gone.

Except for the one currently in the chamber directly above my head.

“You may leave me now. You are dismissed for the night,” I told the father and son. They closed and opened their fists (Ashken doing the gesture with only one hand, his other fist clutching his cane) before quietly leaving the room. As they padded down the stairs together, Ashken’s laugh, choked with emotion, echoed.

“It is just as I always told you and your sister it would be, my boy! Lord Wylfrael has returned! Snows of Sionnach, am I ever glad I lived to see this day...”

I didn’t share Ashken’s joy over this day. In fact, it had been a singularly trying one among all the uncounted days of my immortal existence. First, the fight with Skalla that had left me so weakened. Then, coming home to find the humans here. Surrounding all of that, there was the swirling dread of this new star-darkness spreading and the strange, unyielding silence from the Council of the Gods.

Remembering Maerwynne’s disturbingly starless fist, I checked over my own body once more for signs of the same. But all I found were stars just where they should be and wounds to be cleaned and bandaged.

I’d just bandaged them all – all the ones deep enough that required it, anyway – when a soft call from beyond the doorway caught my ears.