"I tried so hard to be... more," he said. "Bigger. Stronger. A legend."
"You tried to match a myth that wasn’t even honest to begin with," she said. "You turned yourself into a story and then punished yourself for not fitting perfectly into it. Bodies revolt against that kind of cruelty."
His breath hitched.
He swallowed hard.
Lyan watched from the side, hands clenched at his own elbows.
He wanted to step in. To crack a joke. To cut the mont in half so it would hurt less.
He stayed where he was.
Cynthia ached with him.
(He is breaking in the right place,) she said
Griselda was quiet.
(He’s a warrior too. Different battlefield. I recognize the look.)
The saintess reached out and, with two fingers, touched the water still cupped in Erich’s hands.
Light moved through it. Not bright. Just a soft glow, like moonlight slipping under clouds.
The shadow of the word on the surface thinned until it was just water again.
"You are not impotent," she said. "You are ashad. You are afraid that if you are not perfect, you are nothing."
He opened his eyes.
Tears stood there, stubbornly refusing to fall but clearly present.
"You don’t understand," he rasped. "I’m supposed to be... I’m supposed to be a king. If I can’t even—"
"Kings fail in beds and battlefields all the ti," she said, and there was a faint flicker of humor in it. "It is what they do afterward that matters. You had one failed night. You decided it proved everything ugly you already feared about yourself."
He didn’t answer.
His throat worked around words that didn’t know how to co out.
His hands were still cupped, water cooling against his skin.
"Let yourself be a man," she said softly. "Not a mural."
A tear finally broke free and slid down his cheek.
He wiped it away with the back of his wrist, annoyed at himself.
"I don’t cry," he muttered.
"You do now," she said. "Congratulations. Your body is rembering sothing other than performance."
Behind her, the water in the pool went on falling, steady and patient.
The mountain listened, and did not laugh.
Erich stared at the small pool of water in his hands.
For the first ti since that night, when he thought the word weak, it wasn’t a blade. It was more like a bruise that had already started to fade.
"You are not healed yet," the saintess said. "But you are not where you were when you climbed."
He nodded, tiny, like he was afraid to move too much and spill whatever fragile thing they had just made.
"Good," she said. "Now we begin the work."
She laid her hands lightly over his, over the water, and closed her eyes.
A warmth spread from her fingers, not like fire, not like lust. Like a hearth after a long journey. Like soone saying "It’s all right" without words.
Lyan felt it too, even from where he stood.
The panic knotted around that one word loosened, a little.
Not gone. But not in charge.
He let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.
(That’s enough for a first step,) Cynthia whispered.
(He can walk from here.)
The saintess opened her eyes again.
"Now," she said quietly, "tell what happened. All of it. With your own words. And then we will change how you hear them."
"Speak," the saintess said.
Erich swallowed.
For a second he almost asked if they could do this later, sowhere else, anywhere that wasn’t at the top of the world with a stranger looking right through him.
Then he rembered the old woman’s warning by the shrine stone.
Leave your rank down here.
He exhaled, slow.
"I was drunk," he began. "That’s not an excuse, it’s just true."
"Good start," she said.
He huffed a small, broken laugh.
"My friends kept talking about Lyan," he said. "About how he—"
He glanced at Lyan, then away.
"About how he did sothing impossible with ten won," he muttered. "And then fought a battle at dawn. They painted him on a wall. They made him a song. I was stupid enough to think I had to at least try to match him."
"That was stupid," Lyan said mildly.
"Yes, I know," Erich snapped.
The saintess smiled.
"And then?" she prompted.
"I organized it," he said. "Proper. Like a campaign. Timings, order, wine, everything. The first few... it was fine. It was fun. I felt..."
He hesitated.
"Big," he said quietly. "Powerful. Like I had stepped into the story I was supposed to fill."
"And then?"
"By the ti I got to the last one, I was tired," he said. "My body was tired, my head was fuzzy, but I didn’t want to stop. Stopping would an I wasn’t... enough."
His hands tightened again. The water in them quivered.
"So I pushed," he said. "I kept thinking, ’everyone will know if I fail now, everyone will see it, the story will be ruined.’ I tried to force my body to cooperate. But instead of rising, it... left. Just... nothing. Like soone cut the rope."
"And her," the saintess said.
He flinched.
"She looked at ," he said. "Not cruelly. Just... surprised. And then she laughed a little. And said ’Oh. Weak after all.’ Not even loudly. Just like a joke."
He shut his eyes.
"It felt like a verdict," he whispered. "Like soone had opened my chest in front of everyone and written it across the inside of my ribs. After that, every ti I tried again with anyone, I heard it. Even when they were kind. Even when they didn’t know. My body rembered that laugh and that word and decided it was safer to shut down."
The saintess listened without interrupting.
When he was finished, she nodded once.
"Now," she said. "Say it."
"Say what?" he asked.
"The word you are so afraid of," she said. "Say it about yourself. And then argue with it."
Erich grimaced like she’d asked him to swallow gravel.
"I..." he tried.
His throat stuck.
"Look at ," she said.
He did.
"You are not in that room," she said. "You are not drunk. You are not surrounded by friends waiting for a story. You are here. On a mountain. With your sha in your hands. Say it."
He breathed in, out.
"I was weak," he said, almost spitting the word.
"Good," she said. "Now tell why."
"Because I pushed my body," he said. "I didn’t listen to it. I made it into a show."
"And?"
"Because I cared more about the story than the person in front of ," he said, voice rough. "More about being a legend than being... present."
"And?"
"Because I based my worth on a mural about soone else," he said. "Not on... ."
He stared at her.
"I failed," he said. "Once. And I decided that ant I was... broken."
She nodded.
"Now," she said. "Say what is also true."
He frowned.
"What?"
"Say: ’I failed once because I pushed past my limits,’" she said. "Say it out loud."
He hesitated, then obeyed.
"I failed once because I pushed past my limits," he said.
"Again," she said.
He repeated it.
"Now," she said, "say: ’I am not a number in a tavern song.’"
He almost laughed.
"That sounds ridiculous," he said.
"Yes," she said. "Say it."
"I am not a number in a tavern song," he said.
"Again."
"I am not a number in a tavern song."
As he spoke, she laid her hands over his again.
Warmth moved from her palms into his skin, then into the water, then up into his chest. It wasn’t a flood. Just a slow, steady current.
The knot in his stomach, that old panic coil, twitched.
Each ti he repeated the sentences, it loosened a fraction.
Lyan could feel it from where he stood. The air around them shifted, like a rope being untied.
"You have been casting the sa spell on yourself for months," she said softly. "Every ti you hear ’weak,’ you repeat it. We are simply... rewriting the trigger. When you hear it now, it will not open the sa door as quickly."
Erich’s shoulders dropped a little.
He felt... lighter. Not fixed. But like soone had cracked open a window in a room that had been closed too long.
The saintess took her hands away.
The water in his palms had gone lukewarm.
"Throw it back," she said.
He blinked.
"What?"
"The water," she said. "It has done its work. Give it back."
He turned his hands and let the water spill onto the moss.
It sank in quickly, leaving only damp patches.
She stood and went to a small shelf carved into the rock wall, where a few jars and bundles of herbs rested.
She took down a tiny clay bottle stoppered with wax and brought it back.
She put it in his hand.
"This is not a miracle," she said. "It will not make you tireless, or turn you into a statue. It will help your blood flow easier and your nerves calm down when you need them. That is all. You are not a machine. I will not turn you into one."
He held the bottle like it might disappear.
"Thank you," he said, voice low.
"When the mont cos again," she said, "you will still rember fear. But it will no longer slam the door before you even touch it. You must choose differently. If you start performing for an audience in your head again, the wound will reopen. That part is your work, not mine."
He nodded.
"I understand," he said.
She believed him, or at least believed he wanted to.
She turned slightly, looking at Lyan.
"And you," she said. "You did not climb for yourself, but your steps were heavy too."
Lyan shrugged one shoulder.
"I climb for trouble often," he said. "It keeps finding anyway."
She smiled, but there was sothing sad in it.
"You carry more dead than most graveyards," she said quietly. "Do you intend to ever put them down?"
A flicker of Tiamat’s shadow moved in his chest. Faces he’d lost, worlds he’d broken and saved and broken again.
"Later," he said lightly. "Other things are on fire first."
She looked at him for a long mont.
"There will be a day when you cannot walk away," she said. "Forgive yourself before then, or you will make your freedom into a cage."
He didn’t answer.
The spirits rustled uneasily.
Hestia clicked her tongue.
(She sees too much.)
Eira said nothing at all.
The saintess let it go.
She looked back at Erich.
"You owe a price," she said.
He reached instinctively for his coin pouch.
She shook her head.
"No coins," she said. "I have no use for nobles’ tal up here."
He paused.
"What then?"
"First," she said, "when the next man cos to you with this wound—because he will, and probably with more sha and less sense—tell him he is not cursed. Tell him he is ashad. Tell him that sha can be unlearned. You will not make jokes instead. You will not feed the songs."
He swallowed.
"I can do that," he said.
"Second," she said. "When the crown sits heavier, and you feel the urge to be a legend instead of a man, rember this climb. Rember that one word nearly broke you because you gave it too much power. If you try to rule as a legend, you will break. Rule as a man."
He looked down at the little bottle in his hand.
Then up at her.
"I... will try," he said.
"That is all any of you can do," she said.
Relief sat behind his eyes now. Not joy. Not yet. But sothing like the first breath after being underwater for too long.
He slid the bottle carefully into an inner pocket of his cloak, close to his heart.
Lyan watched him, then let his gaze drift to the pool.
The High Spring went on shining quietly, as if nothing important had happened at all.
But sothing had.
The word that had ruled Will’s nights was no longer king.
The mountain, satisfied, went back to listening to water and wind.
And sowhere far below, in a village that had seen many climbers co and go, people went about their day, unaware that one more fool at the top of the world had decided to try being a man instead of a mural.
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