Chapter Text
Martin isn’t really sure how he finds the temple. It’s a small thing, made of dark stone that glitters when the sun hits it at the right angle and inset with cat’s eye gems around its entrance, and it’s nestled in the side of a mountain, near enough to the base that Martin’s able to climb to it on foot but high enough up that when he finally reaches its entrance, winded and with legs aching and sore, he can see the forest spread out before him, faint tendrils of smoke from his village visible in the near distance. Curiously, he places his hand on one of the gems. It’s smooth beneath his palm and cool to the touch, and he shivers, letting his hand drop back to his side.
He’d gone out for herbs. Valerian, mese grass, comfrey. Blue clove if he could find it, though given the early frost, he hadn’t been very optimistic. He still has the small wicker basket strapped to his side, green leaves and lovely white flowers poking out of the top of it. None of them grow on the mountain. He’d had no reason to come here, and yet here he is, stepping carefully inside and letting the sunlight spilling in through the entrance guide him deeper into the mountain—further, he thinks, than the sunlight should be able to stretch.
It’s only when he notes a subtle change in color—a transition from pale yellow to a rich and glittering gold—that he realizes the sunlight has faded entirely and his way is lit instead by the soft glow of the gems set into the walls, forming delicately spiraling patterns and abstract images that he can’t help but trace with his fingers as he walks, the gems beneath his skin now warm and comforting. Enraptured as he is with the gems, he almost doesn’t notice when the tunnel blossoms into a larger space, round and high-ceilinged with square pillars set at regular intervals, cat’s eye gems arcing up to the ceiling and illuminating the space beneath.
“Oh,” Martin says quietly.
Along the walls and on small, squat shelves between the pillars are books.
Martin approaches one of the shelves, running his hands along the spines of the books and feeling embossed leather beneath his fingertips, smooth and soft. Perfectly bound, he thinks. He should know; he’s been binding books since he was seventeen.
He doesn’t mean to pull one of the volumes from the shelf and open it. But he finds himself, hours later, studying images of trees he’s never heard the names of and discovering their growing habits, preferred climates, and uses.
The cimmarlic tree can treat insomnia, but in the wrong doses it can cause hallucinations and nightmares. Tagrucress leaves accelerate healing and prevent infection, but its berries can stop a heart in minutes. And the bark of a milk willow, when made into a tea, can soothe a cough and eliminate fever, but only when prepared with the correct temperature of water.
There’s nothing that can reverse the disintegration of the mind, though. Which Martin should have expected. He’s disappointed all the same.
When Martin leaves the temple, it’s grown dark. His heart climbs into his throat as he carefully but swiftly makes his way down the mountain and back along the worn dirt path. Eventually, the forest thins and small, squat buildings emerge from amongst the trees, windows lit with the warm glow of lanterns.
The windows of his cottage are dark when he opens the door, wincing at the creak, and shuts it carefully behind him. He sets the wicker basket on the table by the hearth, its contents distinctly lacking comfrey and blue clove. On his way to his bedroom, he hesitates by his mother’s room, glancing inside through the crack in the door.
His mother is asleep. He steadfastly ignores the relief the sight gives him and makes his way to his own bedroom, preparing for bed as quickly and quietly as he can. He settles beneath the covers and thinks of the herbs, sitting beside the doorway, woefully lacking and not enough, not nearly enough.
They’re not going to help anyway, a voice in the back of his mind—the one he knows, deep down, is right—says. He kindly tells it to fuck off, closes his eyes, and falls quickly into sleep.
. . .
“What’s that?”
Martin startles, the tip of his quill scraping across the page in front of him and marring the image he’d been sketching beyond recognition. “Gods, Sasha, don’t do that!”
“Sorry,” Sasha says absently, leaning over Martin’s shoulder and running a finger down the page he’d been working on. He bats her hand away and sighs, beginning to carefully tear out the page with the now-ruined image on it. “But you didn’t answer my question. I don’t recognize that kind of tree.”
Martin hesitates just a moment before he continues tearing. “It’s … from a book.” The page comes free, and he slips it underneath the book and out of sight.
He doesn’t have to see Sasha’s face to know that she’s frowning. “What book? I didn’t think we were getting any new ones in until next week.”
“Just a book.” Martin looks down at the page, at the words printed there in his short, blocky handwriting. “I found it in my house, with … with my father’s things.”
When he looks up at Sasha, her forehead is creased and her mouth is pinched. Martin has become, both out of necessity and out of habit, a rather convincing liar (or so he likes to think). Still, he worries briefly that she’ll demand to know where he’d really found the book.
She doesn’t. Instead, she shrugs and says, “All right. So, then. What kind of tree is it?”
“Mm, a kewojora tree. They don’t grow around here apparently—we’re too far north, not enough heat or humidity—but their leaves can reduce swelling and eliminate rashes when ground into a paste.”
“Oh, fascinating,” Sasha says, eyes lighting up. After a moment, though, her mouth turns down at the corners in a sympathetic expression, and she says softly, “Anything for your mother?”
Mutely, Martin shakes his head.
“Ah,” Sasha says, giving Martin a small smile. “Sorry.”
Martin shrugs, closing the book in front of him with a quiet thud. “It’s fine. I … I didn’t expect much, really.”
“Right.” Sasha reaches out and squeezes Martin’s shoulder, ruffles his hair despite his protests, and grins cheekily. “Well, I’m going to go bind those manuscripts that we’ll be sending out with Tim when he arrives. Call if you need me?”
Martin hums his assent. As soon as the door swings shut behind her, he opens the book again, making quick lines with his quill until the tree sits on the center of the page, the closest approximation to what he’d seen in the book from the temple as he can get from memory.
The book from the temple. Martin taps the quill against the page a few times and makes a discontented noise, low in his throat. Logically, it doesn’t matter if he tells Sasha about the temple or not. They’re just books, and he and Sasha are librarians and bookbinders. It would be perfectly natural—smart, even—to bring her to the temple and collect the books and bring them back to the village to copy and preserve and disseminate. But somehow, it doesn’t feel … right. He’s always thought that knowledge should be freely given and accessible to everyone, but when he imagines removing the books from the temple, his stomach twists and he drops the thought immediately like it’s burned him.
The word hidden comes to mind, but that’s not quite it. Protected feels much more accurate.
With a sigh, Martin shuts the book and slips it onto the shelf next to a few other half-finished manuscripts. His fingers ghost across several of the spines before he selects one near the bottom, bound in berry-stained red leather. He’s fairly certain that this one was meant to be finished last week, and he winces as he opens it to find it still half-blank. He’s … fallen a bit behind on work, as of late. He knows that Sasha won’t blame him for it—she knows his mother is sick, that Martin’s been searching for a cure for nearly a month—but he feels guilty all the same.
Martin locates the proper original manuscript, puts quill to paper, and begins to write. It’s repetitive, mindless work, so he lets his mind wander to the temple, to the gemstones lining the walls and the smell of parchment mingling with something older and slightly metallic. He flips the page of the book he’s inscribing and wonders, absently, if the temple has a god.
It doesn’t feel like a place of religion—not like the church he’d been forced to frequent as a child, with its blue-glass windows that fogged up in the rain and priests who spoke in quiet voices of the divinity of isolation and the trust one must place in themself and themself alone. It doesn’t feel … demanding, like it expects something from him in return. It just is.
It’s not a very holy place at all, Martin thinks as he dips his quill in the bottle of ink before setting it to paper once again. Whether or not the temple once had a god, he doesn’t believe it does anymore.
That’s for the best, really. Martin’s never been particularly fond of worship.
. . .
Martin is halfway through preparing dinner when his mother says flatly, “There’s no blue clove.”
Martin winces, gripping the wooden spoon tightly for a moment before saying, “I … couldn’t find any. You know how hard it is to tell things apart out there. It’s a lot of, uh. Green. Besides, we … we had an early frost, and blue clove is susceptible to the cold, so…”
His mother makes a disapproving noise. “The reason why it’s called blue clove,” she says slowly, as if speaking to a child, “is because it is blue. I’m certain I taught you the difference between blues and greens, though I could go over it again if you’ve forgotten.”
Martin clenches his jaw hard enough that his teeth ache and stirs the contents of the pot a few times. “Nope, I—I think I’m good!” he says with forced levity. “First thing tomorrow, I’ll find some.”
His mother is quiet for a long moment. Then, she sighs—a wet, rattling sound—and says, “I suppose that’s the best I can expect.”
That’s the extent of their conversation for the remainder of the night, for which Martin is immensely thankful. He finishes preparing dinner in silence and they eat in silence and she retires to her room in silence after taking the medicine Martin offers her without so much as a thank you. Martin thinks, at one point, that might have bothered him. Now, he hardly notices.
He sits on the back step of their cottage to wash the dishes, scrubbing a coarse cloth across the surface of the plates and tilting his head up to watch the stars dance across the sky. They form constellations that he doesn’t know the names of, flickering almost imperceptibly as he watches them. Sasha told him once that the stars twinkle because the light coming from them isn’t constant, but he’s not sure he believes that. Tim had countered soon after that he thinks the stars twinkle because the gods are winking at them, which Martin believes even less.
He wishes he knew for sure. He traces the lines between the stars with his eyes, creating nameless images in his mind as he pulls a cotton cloth from his pocket to dry the dishes, and imagines for a moment that Tim is right and the gods really are looking down on him, watching him wipe the last bits of water off the hammered metal pot.
Martin can’t imagine it would be a very exciting view.
He sighs, tucks the pot underneath his arm, and goes back inside, letting the door shut softly behind him. He tidies the kitchen quickly before retiring to his room, lighting the lantern at his bedside and retrieving the small notebook and charcoal pencil he keeps hidden in the bottom of one of his clothing drawers, beneath his trousers. He opens it to a blank page, worrying the end of the pencil between his teeth in a habitual motion.
He hasn’t managed a complete poem in months. Each page is filled with scattered lines and bits of fragmented imagery, words he found pleasing and concepts he thought might be fruitful. He skims through those pages briefly before returning to the blank one with a small frown. He rubs his thumb over the edge of the notebook page, feeling the pull of the paper against his skin. The page glows yellow in the light of the lantern, and for a moment, Martin is reminded of the glow of the gems as they led him further into the temple, refracting off the glassy black walls and illuminating the space with warm golden light.
He marks down a few words before he really thinks about it, golden glow and cat’s eye and obsidian black. They stare back at him, and after a moment, Martin adds paper and ink and leather worn smooth and a place without time. The rest of the words come easily after that, and soon Martin is left with a collection of lines that both feel too small to fully capture the essence of the temple and too lofty for what lies within it. He skims them once more before slipping the book and pencil back into the drawer and extinguishing the lantern.
He lies in bed and stares up at the darkened ceiling, one that he’s been familiar with for nearly thirty years, imagining for a moment that he can smell the pressed leather books and waxy candles he’d written about. Then, he sighs and shuts his eyes, rolling onto his side and curling up with his hands fisted in the sheets.
God or not, there’s something special about the little temple set into the side of the mountain. And for reasons Martin can’t yet put into words, it feels like it’s calling to him—a moth to a flame.
. . .
In the weeks that follow, Martin finds himself spending more and more time at the temple. He packs his work in a small satchel and brings it with him, and then once inside, he sits at a delicately carved wooden table near the center of the room and lets the scratch of quill on paper fill the space, gently cutting through the quiet. If Sasha minds, she doesn’t mention it. She only asks him once where he’s off too, and he surprises himself by saying, rather truthfully, that he’s needed a change of scenery lately.
“Looking for more strange trees?” she says with a smile, her chin resting atop a tottering stack of books held in her arms.
Martin smiles back, only a bit sheepishly. “Something like that.”
It’s midway through the second week that Martin finishes his backlog of work and begins copying the books from the temple, pulling them carefully from their shelves and inking what he can down onto blank sheets of parchment. It’s midway through the fourth that Martin gives up the pretense of doing any work at all and instead sits at the table or on the floor leaning against the wall or in a small circular divot in the center of the room, reading about … everything. Medicine and science and history and places Martin’s never seen (and some that he’s never even heard of), mythology and divinity and spirituality—it’s all here, and Martin finds himself staying later and later each day until he’s certain he may as well just sleep here to save himself a trip.
(There’s still nothing that can help his mother, though. Martin looks at the thousands of books spread out before him and tells himself that maybe, somewhere here, there will be.)
It’s only a few days after he finds the temple, though, that he thinks to give it something in return.
He doesn’t consider it until he brings his mother to their village’s church for the biweekly worship service. It’s a fragile-looking thing, built from slate stone and tempered glass, but it has weathered the harsh winters that they can get and has been there longer than Martin or any of the other villagers can remember. He used to attend services as a child, sat between his mother and his father yet feeling, as the priest spoke, so very alone all the same. Each family would bring an offering to drop in the small silver pool nestled in the center of the church. It never seemed to reflect his face as he stared into it curiously before dropping whatever item they’d brought into it and disturbing the still, glass-like surface.
Once, his mother had given him a small scroll wrapped in a thin white ribbon. He’d taken it eagerly and had made to unravel it when she’d stopped him with a hand on his and a chastising word.
“What is it?” he’d asked, turning the parchment over in his hands curiously and noting the lightness of it, unlike the heavy metal things they usually brought.
“A story,” his mother had said, short and clipped but, back then, still kind. “From your grandfather.”
Martin had frowned. “I thought grandfather was gone?”
He’d died shortly after Martin was born. Martin doesn’t have the faintest idea what he’d looked like.
“He is.” His mother ran a hand through his curls and offered him as warm a smile as she ever could muster. “An offering is a sacrifice, Martin. Sometimes, small sacrifices will suffice. Other times, we need to give more in order to show proper thanks.” She pointed to one of the murals on the walls of the church—a swirling ocean, inked in grays and blues, with a small ship thrown around atop the white-crested waves. “Our god is of the Forsaken, and they keep us isolated and safe in the forest. They allow in traders who will do us no harm and require nothing more from us than a few occasional memories.” She taps a single finger on the scroll. “This one is small and won’t be missed. But it will serve its purpose.”
Martin hadn’t really understood then. But now, accompanying his mother to the church with one hand slightly outstretched in case she stumbles (but not daring to actually touch her), he’s familiar with what, exactly, his village has chosen to call its god. And with what’s expected from those who worship them.
At the doors of the church, Martin’s mother turns to him with an expression of barely stifled disdain on her face. “You won’t be joining me, I suppose,” she says flatly.
Like you actually want me there, Martin thinks sullenly. “I was going to try to find those herbs,” he says instead with a smile that he hopes doesn’t seem too forced. “I thought I might have better luck today since it’s … sunnier.”
His mother is silent for a moment. Then she makes a noise of quiet irritation. “Your father never respected the Forsaken either,” she says bitterly before turning and stepping into the church and out of sight.
Martin stares after her, something tight and frustrated curling in his chest before he willfully suffocates it and makes his way back to their cottage. It’s once he arrives and sits at the kitchen table, sorting through the medicines he already has prepared and trying to determine what’s lacking, that he wonders whether he’s meant to be bringing offerings to the mountain temple with him as well.
He wonders what he’s meant to sacrifice.
The next day, he sits in the small circular divot in the center of the temple and opens the thin book he’d brought with him, resting it atop his knees. He taps his fingers on the page a few times before saying awkwardly, “Um. Hello! I, er. I’m not sure if I’m meant to say anything in particular before I do this, or—or if it’s even really what you want at all, but I suppose there’s no harm in trying, right? You’ll, er. You’ll let me know if I get it wrong?”
No answer. Nothing but his own voice, echoing once softly before fading into silence.
“Well, then.” He clears his throat lightly and looks down at the page in front of him. It’s just the village census from the previous year—really quite boring and mundane, but he’s not entirely sure what knowledge already exists in this place, and he’s somehow wary of attempting to offer it something it already knows. “Here I go, I guess!”
If there’s anybody listening at all.
Martin reads through a few pages, the words running together into a pleasing rhythm after a few minutes, and he feels … no different. No sudden clarity, no divine knowledge bestowed upon him like the priests always claimed to feel when the last offering was placed in the small silver pool. Just him, sitting in a library, reading a boring book to an empty room.
He’s not really sure what he expected.
Still, he brings the book with him again the next day and reads a few more pages, sitting in the center of the room with his legs folded and his elbows resting on his knees. He does the same for the next few days until the book is complete, then moves on to a larger tome of familial histories that sits in their library in the village gathering dust.
It becomes a familiar ritual. He leaves his cottage with his wicker basket in hand and his satchel on his shoulder, the former meant for herbs and the latter filled with books of various types and purposes, quills and glass bottles of ink, and a few apples or dried meats to hold him over until dinner. On his way to the temple, he picks what herbs he can and makes notes of which he’ll need to search for on the way home, different species and quantities each time based on the varying needs of his mother. He pauses just before the entrance to the temple and rests his hand on the gems near the entrance, feeling a bit of the tension drain from him as he does so, before following the warm golden glow in. He sits in the circular divot and prepares his offering, unsure what is too much or not enough but feeling more and more each day like it doesn’t particularly matter. Then, he draws a new book from the shelves, settles down at the wooden table, and loses himself in words about things and places and people he’s never seen or met and likely never will except through the pages in front of him.
It’s fine. He’s fine. He was born in this village and he grew up in this village and he will likely die in this village without ever having seen what lies outside it. It’s fine.
It’s as Martin’s sitting in the temple, five and a half weeks after having stumbled upon it, that it occurs to him that even though he’s been spending most of his days alone, save for the time he spends with Sasha in the mornings at the library, he hasn’t felt lonely. It’s a welcome change from the cloying sense of isolation he gets when he’s in the cottage with his mother—that unique type of loneliness that comes from spending time with somebody who desperately wishes you weren’t there.
He shouldn’t think such things about his mother, though. It doesn’t matter what she thinks of him, because it’s his job to take care of her. He’s her son, and he’s a good son. Which is why he’s going to cook for her and get herbs for her medicine and, eventually, find a way to stop the shakes and coughs and memory lapses that will eventually wear her down to nothing. Incurable, the town physician had said with a sympathetic frown. Not uncommon. Nothing I can do to help.
He’d given his mother the medicine that night, and she’d snapped at him that if he really cared about her, he’d give her something that actually worked. That he wouldn’t stand there in front of her, useless and pathetic and stammering, being such a pitiful disgrace of a son, someone she could barely stand to look at. “Get out of my sight,” she’d snapped, waving a hand at him and clutching the other to her chest as she coughed.
He’s just thankful he’d been able to hold himself together until the door was firmly shut behind him.
He’d sat in his room that night and cried and decided, right then, that he would find something to help, really help, because she was wrong about him. He wasn’t useless or pathetic; he was a good son—he wanted to be a good son—and he was going to prove it.
It doesn’t matter that he hasn’t found what he needs yet. Or that his mother’s condition worsens every day.
Martin snaps shut the book he’s reading on various types of minerals, slips it back onto the shelf, and stands, his mood thoroughly soured. Just before he leaves the room, a shiver runs down his spine. He glances back over his shoulder, suddenly certain that he’s being watched.
There’s nothing. Just like always.
Adjusting the strap of the bag on his shoulder, Martin turns and leaves, the prickle on the back of his neck following him all the way out into the cool mountain air before dissipating entirely.
. . .
It’s on the fifth day of the seventh week after Martin finds the temple that he steps out of the tunnel and into the round room and finds somebody else stood before one of the shelves.
His breath catches in his throat, and he startles so badly that he drops the book he’d been holding. It hits the floor with a dull thud, and in the moment before the person turns to face him, Martin swears he feels the weight of a thousand eyes on him, sudden and terrifying and oppressive.
Then, the stranger’s eyes find his—or, at least, some of their eyes—and Martin takes a small, staggering step backward. It’s only after the initial shock has passed that Martin realizes that he’s not … afraid. He thinks he ought to be—the figure before him clearly isn’t human, and the place where Martin has always felt safe and welcome and wanted has been intruded upon—but he isn’t. So, after a long moment—during which the stranger doesn’t move, simply watches him—Martin takes a tentative step toward them and says hesitantly, “Hello. I’m, er. I’m Martin. I … didn’t think that anybody else knew about this place?”
The stranger is studying him with curious eyes now, and Martin thinks he sees their mouth curl into a small smile. He continues quickly, “You’re welcome, of course, it’s—it’s not like I own the place. There’s loads of stuff in these books, things about medicine and science and history.” Martin flushes slightly and says, “But I suppose if you’re here, you—you probably already know about all of that.”
A few of the stranger’s eyes wink shut and blend back into the sepia brown of their skin, and they make a sound that Martin identifies, after a moment, as a chuckle. “I do,” they say. Their words echo throughout the room, doubling back onto one another until it sounds like dozens of voices speaking at once, a choir of sounds and syllables. “You come here often.”
It’s not a question. The remaining eyes study him, their gaze a familiar sensation against Martin’s skin, but he squirms under it just the same. “Yeah, well…” Martin trails off, glancing about the room—at the intricate cat’s eye designs on the walls that he knows by heart, at the spines of the books that he’s run his fingers along countless times, at the small collection of items he’s amassed on the wooden table near the center. Finally, he says, “I like it here. And I … I feel like it likes me too.”
The stranger hums; it’s a lovely sound, like the clanging of morning bells. “It does,” they say, confidently and lightly, like there’s no room for argument in the matter. After a moment, they continue, more hesitantly, “I … I do.”
Martin feels a bit lost. “I … don’t understand. I—I don’t think we’ve met?” He lets out a small, nervous laugh. “I think I’d remember someone with—with more than the standard number of eyes.”
The stranger’s mouth curls into a wider smile, like they’re amused. “I suppose so.” They pause, as if considering something, before taking a step toward Martin and letting the rest of their eyes wink shut save for the two on their face, where eyes should be. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, Martin. I just … I wanted to meet you. It’s been a long time since someone’s visited my temple. It’s been … rather nice to have some company.”
Now Martin is thoroughly lost. He’s always come alone—though of course, when he’s here he doesn’t feel lonely at all, not like he does in his village. Then, his mind catches on the words my temple, and before he can think to stop himself, he says, “Your temple?”
It sounds petulant even to Martin’s ears, more than a bit annoyed. Yeah, it’s not like he owns the place, but neither should anybody. This isn’t a place that should be owned at all—nor does Martin think it could be even if someone wanted to.
The stranger must pick up on it, because their forehead dips into a frown as they say, “I think you’re misunderstanding me.” They pause, their eyes finding Martin’s, and Martin feels so seen in that moment, in a way he never has before, not even in this place. It should probably be frightening, but Martin just feels … safe. Then, like a flash of lightning, every one of their eyes opens wide, irises glowing a brilliant gold that shimmers upon the walls, reflecting and refracting over and over until the entire place is alight with a radiant aura that should probably hurt to look at. But Martin looks. He looks, and he feels that same heavy press of dozens and hundreds and thousands of eyes against his skin, knowing every single part of who he is and who he was and who he desperately wishes to be.
Martin had never really believed that this place has a god. It doesn’t feel like a place of religion, not really, and it’s never expected things from him in the form of prayer or devotion or self-sacrifice. Only what he can give it. What he’s willing to give it.
Now, though, enveloped in iridescence and glittering gold, Martin knows that he was wrong. That this place is a place, but this place is also a temple, and this temple has a god, and that god is stood before him, looking into his soul with such a gentle, sincere curiosity and reverence that Martin thinks he might cry beneath their gaze. As the light fades and the eyes wink closed, Martin returns to himself. And as the feeling of being truly, utterly known dissipates, Martin also knows that, in a way, he was right. This place is nothing like the church in his village, nothing like the Lonely god he’d grown up being expected to worship. And this god, standing before Martin with a brown cloak wrapped around their shoulders and eyes that now reflect nothing but cat’s eye gold, is so tangible and real that Martin could touch them.
“Oh,” Martin says quietly, and he only realizes then that he’d been holding his breath. He inhales shakily, his heartbeat loud in his ears, and says, “You … you really did mean your temple.”
It’s probably a stupid thing to say. But before Martin can chastise himself or take the words back, the stranger—the god—lets out another amused noise and says, “I did. Though I do think it’s belonged to you more and more lately, in a way.”
“Right,” Martin says, the word small and hollow in his throat. He’s not quite sure what to say—what do you say to a god? Eventually, he settles on, “So, uh. What can … what can I call you? Honestly, it—it feels a bit weird to just call you my god or whatever.”
Their face twists into something uncomfortable, almost repulsed. “Yes, I would rather you didn’t.” They hesitate a moment before continuing, “I am … technically a god of knowledge, of seeing and observing and perceiving. I’ve been called Beholder by humans in the past, or Watcher, and on occasion, the Archivist.”
Softly, Martin says, “But what would you like me to call you?”
They look a bit startled, and Martin thinks with an ache in his chest that they’ve probably never been asked for their opinion on the matter before. After a moment’s consideration, they say, like revealing a long-kept secret, “Jon. You can call me Jon.”
It’s a deeply human name. When Martin meets Jon’s eyes again, he sees within them vulnerability and certainty in equal measure, and Martin thinks that the name rather suits them.
Jon.
“Would you like to, er. Would you like to read something together?” Martin says, feeling a bit nervous asking even with the words rather nice to have some company lingering in his mind. “I usually read alone, but I … I wouldn’t mind company.” He lets out a small laugh. “Unless you have, er. Godly things to attend to.”
“Honestly,” Jon says with a wry smile, “it gets rather boring doing godly things.” Their smile turns warm, and they say, “I’d much rather be here with you.”
Martin’s stomach does something a little funny at that that he resolutely decides not to think about. “Right. Well, er. I was planning on finishing up a book about the stars and the cosmos if you’d like to … discuss it together?”
“That sounds lovely,” Jon says. The word lovely nestles within Martin’s chest, thrumming in time with his heartbeat.
“Right. Um. Okay.” Martin bends down to pick up the dropped book and then steps cautiously further into the room, settling his bag down on the floor by the wooden table. Jon regards him curiously as he takes a single, aborted step toward the divot in the center of the room habitually before shuffling hastily back, a flush of awkward embarrassment running through him. Is it weird to give offerings to a god who’s already standing in the same room as you?
Yes, weird. It’s weird, he decides and carefully sets the book—filled with local recipes—onto the table. Then, struck with the sudden fear that not providing an offering will seem rude, he spins on his heel until he’s facing Jon and says quickly, “You, er. Do you want me to … read you some of this first?”
Jon tilts their head to the side, a small furrow appearing in their brow. “You’re worried it will be rude if you don’t provide an offering. They’ve been … nice, but not necessary. Your, er. Your presence here, reading the books in the library, is enough.”
“Oh,” Martin says quietly. “I … I guess I’ll just … yeah.” He pinches his lips shut and turns to the shelves, walking along the wall until he finds the area on astronomy and cosmology. He pulls a small green volume from the shelf, running a thumb along its spine for a moment before turning back toward Jon. He half-expects to see the room empty once again—that maybe there is not, in fact, an actual god standing less than twenty paces from him—but there Jon is, still standing in the same spot. A few of their eyes blink open and regard Martin inquisitively before blinking shut again.
Right, okay. This is fine. It’s fine!
“You’re nervous,” Jon says, and then their hand is on Martin’s arm and they’re looking at him kindly, their eyes a brilliant, glittering gold that feels like it’ll swallow Martin whole. “You don’t have to be, Martin. You’re not going to do anything wrong, I promise. I don’t…” They pause, looking toward the center of the room before looking back at Martin. “I don’t have anything that I require from you. In truth, I-I’ve never been very fond of being worshipped.” Their nose wrinkles slightly. “It leaves a rather bad taste in my mouth.”
Martin can’t help it; he giggles. When Jon looks at him in surprise, he covers his mouth with the hand on the arm Jon isn’t holding and says, between the gaps in his fingers, “Sorry, sorry. I just … a god who doesn’t like being worshipped?”
Jon sighs heavily, looking mildly annoyed. “I am a god of knowledge, Martin, a—a god of unkept secrets and told stories and answered questions. Requiring offerings and prayer for people to have access to that knowledge, it … it never sat quite right with me.” Their look of annoyance turns into a scowl, but Martin gets the feeling it’s not directed toward him. “Unlike some, who revel in extorting humans for their own selfish gains.”
Despite Jon’s reassurances, Martin feels distinctly like he has, in fact, done something wrong. The humor fading from him entirely, he says, “I’m sorry. I … I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“No, it’s…” Jon sighs, then moves their hand down to Martin’s and takes it in theirs, squeezing gently. Martin’s heart stops for a moment before skipping a few beats as it restarts. “You’re meant to ask questions, Martin. I’m quite fond of questions.” They smile then, soft and warm, and Martin thinks absently that it’s one of the most beautiful things he’s ever seen.
There’s only one chair at the table—which Jon seems displeased about, muttering something about care and keeping of a holy place—so, feeling only a little ridiculous, Martin sits on the floor of the temple and leans his back against one of the stone pillars, the cat’s eye gems smooth against the knobs of his spine. Jon settles on the floor next to him, their cloak billowing over their knees as they cross their legs like the children in Martin’s village do when they sit outside to listen to Sasha read them stories. It nearly startles another giggle out of Martin; he stifles it with effort, cracks the book open over his knees, and hesitates. “Should … should I just read aloud, or…?”
“If you’d like. Though I’ll be able to follow along just as well if you read to yourself.”
“… Right,” Martin says quietly. He hesitates a moment before flipping to a new page, placing his finger on the text until he finds a sufficient place to begin, and begins reading aloud.
Jon makes a small sound, like they’re surprised to hear Martin’s voice, but they don’t interrupt as Martin reads about the origins of the constellations and their use in navigation, carefully describing shapes in the stars that he’s familiar with and some that he’s never before seen. He trips a bit over the connection of constellation mythology and symbolism to the gods, hesitating just long enough to glance up at Jon. Jon looks back placidly and says nothing—just gives Martin a small smile—so Martin looks back down at the book, his stomach fluttering gently before settling once again.
It’s when Martin reaches a section on the constellation Keay that Jon says softly, “I named that one, you know.”
Martin stumbles over his words, looking up at Jon with wide eyes. “Sorry, what?”
Jon moves closer, pressing a thin finger to the picture of the constellation on the page. “Despite my aversion to it, I … have been worshipped in the past. I have several temples—most in disrepair now—and this constellation shone above one of them constantly. The people who lived in the village there sought to name it, a-and they asked me.” They laugh softly. “Well, as much as you can equate prayer to asking. So, I named it.”
“Oh.” Martin stares down at the page, at the stark contrast of Jon’s finger against the pale yellow. “Does … does it mean anything?”
“It’s … a name,” Jon says carefully, like they’re walking on eggshells. “One I took from a friend. He … he didn’t want it anymore, so I gifted it to the stars.”
Martin looks at Jon—at the gold shine to their eyes, the extra few that are open on the insides of their wrists, the way their gray-streaked hair coils into loose ringlets and spills across their shoulders—and realizes, maybe even more so than when they had lit up the temple with holy golden light, that Jon is a god. A god who is worshipped—whether they want to be or not—and who names constellations and who is sitting on a stone floor with Martin, hand inches away from his and treating him like he’s someone worth spending time with. Like he’s someone an actual god—immortal and timeless and powerful—would want to spend time with.
Martin wonders, with equal parts curiosity and despondent bitterness, whether someday Jon will take his name too and gift it to the stars.
It’s not long after that that Martin has to leave. He’s been gone longer than usual already, and if he waits any longer, he won’t be home in time to prepare dinner before his mother goes to bed. Reluctantly, Martin closes the book and gives Jon a small, sheepish smile. “I, er. I have to go. Earthly needs and all that.” He stands and places the book carefully back on the shelf before retrieving his satchel and slipping the book he’d brought as an offering inside it. Then, he looks at Jon, still standing near the center of the room and watching Martin with hands gripping the opposite elbows and their lips pressed into a thin, fragile line.
It’s a quietly dejected expression. It makes Martin’s heart ache.
“I’ll come back,” Martin says, hesitating a moment before stepping closer and placing a tentative hand on top of one of Jon’s. It feels infinitely too bold a move, but Jon seems to relax under the touch, a few eyes flickering closed on the side of their neck. “I promise.” He worries his bottom lip between his teeth and looks down at the ground. “This place, it … it makes me feel safe,” he says, the vulnerability making his throat tight and his mouth dry. He swallows, and his next words come out barely audible. “It makes me feel wanted.”
He squeezes his eyes closed, suddenly terrified that the admission will be too much and he’ll be punished for it somehow. Instead, he feels a gentle touch against his cheek, and he tentatively opens his eyes again to see Jon’s hand outstretched toward his face, knuckles brushing lightly against Martin’s skin. Jon is looking at him with a quiet reverence, like he’s something to be worshipped. And isn’t that a funny thing indeed, when Jon’s the one glittering gold?
“You are,” Jon says, their voice sweet like honey and leaving no room for question. Quieter: “You will always be wanted here, Martin Blackwood.”
There’s a lump in Martin’s throat so thick he thinks he might choke on it. He swallows it down with great effort and, finding himself lacking words, simply nods.
Jon nods in return, a slight thing. They drop their hand and step back, offering Martin a shy smile. It’s such a human expression, Martin thinks. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” they say.
Martin opens his mouth, closes it, and nods again. He takes a few steps back and turns toward the mouth of the tunnel. Just before he enters it, he glances over his shoulder and sees an empty room, filled only with rows and rows of shelves and the wooden table with enough space for one.
“Tomorrow,” Martin whispers, a small, giddy smile overtaking his face. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”