Reborn As A Slave: The Fallen God's Revenge

Chapter 12

That morning, for the first time since he had woken in this room, God Mervous tried to sit up.

Not because he felt sufficiently recovered. Far from it. This body still felt like ruins that had not yet finished collapsing, every small movement reminding him of wounds that had not closed, every deep breath feeling as though something was gripping from inside his ribs and refusing to let go. But lying still without doing anything was beginning to feel more torturous than the pain itself. He had spent too long on his back staring at the ceiling, letting his thoughts circle the same place without going anywhere.

*Enough.* He pushed his body slowly upward, bracing on his right elbow. The muscles along his back protested immediately, a sharp pulse radiating from his left shoulder down beneath his shoulder blade, making him stop for several seconds, waiting for the sensation to ease slightly before continuing.

Finally he managed to sit upright, his back resting against the cold wall behind the cot. His breathing was slightly more uneven than usual from that small effort, something he would never admit, not even to himself. He simply waited until his breath evened out again, his eyes sweeping across the room, which he could now see more of from this position.

The room was not large, but not cramped either. There was a wooden table in the corner with a crowded surface, clay jars lined up along one side, cloths he recognized as wound-care supplies folded neatly along the other, with a few that appeared recently used and not yet put away.

The bookshelf on the left wall looked genuinely used, not merely decorative, several books lying face-down with their spines slightly creased from habit, others tucked haphazardly among those shelved properly, as though read in haste and returned without much care for order.

The tall window before him let the morning light in through long strips that cut across the air, making the fine dust floating within it visible, like particles of light that did not know where to settle.

This was not a room meant to be displayed. This was a room someone truly lived inside, who slept here, thought here, passed long nights here with things that were not always in order.

"You shouldn't be sitting up yet."

Teresa's voice came from the direction of the door. The woman entered with unhurried steps, carrying a small tray, a bowl of porridge still steaming and a cup of something whose scent was herbal and faintly bitter.

Her steps paused briefly when she saw God Mervous was no longer lying down, but her face showed no surprise, more like someone who had anticipated this possibility and had just been proven right.

"The wound on your shoulder hasn't fully closed."

"I know."

Teresa let out a short breath, set the tray on the small table beside the cot, then sat down in her chair with a movement that had begun to feel familiar, right hand on her knee, back not resting against anything, the posture of someone accustomed to sitting in a state of readiness.

"Eat first."

God Mervous glanced at the bowl. Then glanced at Teresa. "I don't need someone telling me what to do."

"And I don't need someone passing out again because of stubbornness." Her gaze did not shift. "Eat."

God Mervous did not move for several seconds, not because he was considering refusing, but because there was something irritating about the fact that this woman spoke to him that way, in a tone that was neither pleading nor forcibly commanding, simply wanting something and saying it directly without any layering at all.

Finally, with a movement that resembled surrender more than compliance, he picked up the bowl.

They sat in silence for a while. God Mervous ate slowly, not because the taste of the porridge made him want to slow down, but because moving his jaw too quickly still reminded him of several bruises that had not fully healed.

Teresa opened a book that had been resting in her lap, but her eyes moved too slowly across the page to be truly absorbing it. She turned one page after an interval that was far too long.

"You didn't sleep last night."

Teresa looked up from her book. "What?"

"There are shadows under your eyes." God Mervous did not shift his gaze from the nearly empty bowl. "You didn't sleep enough."

A brief silence. Not an uncomfortable silence, more like someone deciding whether to answer honestly or not.

"That's none of your concern." Teresa's voice returned to its usual flat tone, but there was something slightly different beneath it, a little too quick, a little too tidy.

"You don't have to watch over me through the night." God Mervous set the empty bowl back on the tray. "I won't die in my sleep."

"You nearly died two days ago."

"Nearly is not the same as did."

Teresa closed her book, with a sound loud enough to indicate she was mildly annoyed, but not loud enough to appear as though she had truly lost her composure. "Reasonable people usually say thank you when they're cared for. Not argue about whether they need caring for."

"I didn't ask you to care for me."

"No." Teresa looked at him directly, without turning away. "But I did it. And you accepted it. So hold your objections until you can actually stand without leaning against a wall."

God Mervous finally turned away from the window and looked at the woman fully, for the first time that morning, without redirecting his gaze elsewhere after a few seconds.

There was something compelling about the way Teresa spoke. No pleasantries used to fill the space between them, no layer of courtesy worn out of habit. Every sentence she spoke went straight to where it meant to go, sharp but not harsh, direct but not cold. Speaking like someone who had long since stopped feeling the need to waste time on things that served no purpose.

The Young Goddess had spoken differently. Softer, more layered, her words always carrying a depth that was only felt some moments after the conversation had ended, like a stone dropped into water, and the gentle ripples that only appeared after the stone had already sunk. But there was a quality that the two shared. The quality of someone who was not easily fooled, who would not pretend not to see something simply because it was more comfortable not to see it.

"Why?" asked God Mervous.

Teresa furrowed her brow slightly. "I've already answered that,"

"Not that." He cut in, quietly but clearly. "Why did you ask for me back from Libradon. You were the one who returned me to him. You could have let everything end there and no one would have blamed you for anything." He did not release his gaze. "Why didn't you?"

A different kind of silence fell over the room this time, heavier than the previous one, fuller with something that had not yet been given a name.

Teresa did not answer immediately. She looked at the man before her for quite a long time, then turned her face toward the window. The morning light caught the profile of her face from the side, the firm line of her jaw, her long lashes, an expression struggling within itself between honesty and silence, between giving something and holding it back.

"I've said it before. My servant saw someone who resembled me," she said finally. Her voice was quieter than usual, like something drawn from a slightly deeper place. "And you had said the same thing from the very first time we met." She paused briefly, and in that pause came the small tapping of a tree branch outside, moved by the wind. "I want to know the truth. And you can't give me that answer if you're already dead."

God Mervous said nothing for several moments.

The answer was honest. More honest than he had expected, not wrapped in a more palatable reason, not coated with something that sounded nobler or simpler than it actually was.

"So this is about your curiosity," he said finally.

"Partly." Teresa turned back toward him, her eyes not avoiding his. "And partly because..." She paused briefly, like someone weighing whether the next words needed to be said, needed to be given to this person, right now. "The way you received that punishment. Without a single word. That is not something easy to watch and then simply forget."

The room seemed to hold its breath for a moment.

God Mervous observed the woman's face in a way that was different from before. Somewhere else, in a previous life, he would not have given more than a single glance to an admission like that. He had grown too accustomed to fear and awe, both feeling equally tedious after thousands of years, both always speaking about his power, about what he was capable of, about things outside himself.

This was different.

This was someone who saw something inside him that he himself was no longer certain still existed, a steadiness that remained even after everything else had been stripped away, even after he no longer had the power of a god, no longer had a name that made people step back, no longer had anything at all except a body that was not his and wounds that had not yet dried.

"The Young Goddess is dead," said God Mervous at last. Quietly. Not for anyone in particular to hear.

Teresa went completely still.

"I witnessed it." His voice did not waver, but there was something beneath its surface, something not heard unless a person was truly still and truly listening. Like a small crack in the foundation of a building that from the outside still appeared solid.

"I started a war because of it. I destroyed a kingdom because of it. I gave up everything because of it." His eyes dropped to his own hands, Kayrus's thin, scar-covered hands, hands he did not recognize as his own every time he forgot not to look at them. "And now I am trapped here, in a body that is not mine, and your servant saw someone who should no longer exist in any world."

Teresa looked at him for a long time, not moving, not filling the silence with anything uninvited. Truthfully, Teresa did not fully understand what the man before her was saying. She simply chose to keep the conversation moving in a careful direction.

"Do you believe she is still alive?" Her voice was careful, like someone who knew this question had a sharp edge.

"No." The answer came out too quickly. God Mervous could hear it himself, how quickly, how defensively. He corrected himself, more slowly. "I don't know. I don't know what I am supposed to believe anymore."

That admission sat heavy in his mouth in a way he had not anticipated. He had always been accustomed to certainty, vengeance required certainty, fury required a foundation that was not permitted to shift, war required a conviction that did not question itself midway through. And he had held onto it all this time, that certainty, like someone gripping something so tightly they had forgotten what it felt like not to grip it.

Teresa did not comment. Did not try to comfort, did not offer a perspective, did not fill the newly opened space with words that came from the right place but had not been asked for. She simply sat there, in the morning light that shifted slowly, and let what God Mervous had just said remain in the room undisturbed.

Wind came in through the half-open window. The scent of wet earth and leaves newly touched by the morning sun came with it, something alive, something indifferent to questions too large for one small room.

God Mervous looked at that window for quite a long time, until the voices inside his head were somewhat quieter than before.

"Thank you," he said finally, almost inaudibly, in the tone of someone setting something very heavy down onto the floor with great care.

Teresa did not respond immediately. She looked at the man before her for a moment, a man who had spoken those two words as though doing so required more effort than he wished to show.

The corner of her lips moved. Almost imperceptibly, not a full smile, only a small movement that came before she could stop it.

"Don't make a habit of it," she said quietly.

God Mervous did not answer. But this time, he did not turn his face away to somewhere else right away.