Merit continued his inexplicable slumber through day and night, and Shiva was nowhere to be found. Ra looked in on him, sitting for hours at his feet, wondering what could be happening inside his head. Why would Shiva send him under? The blood, still, was a mystery that worried Ra. She began to think Shiva might have wrung it from him, perhaps from his eyes as it appeared, but for what? She’d slept once at Shiva’s doing, and woken also drenched in blood, but hers had been the blood of menstruation. She could think of no equivalent for Merit that could explain this. If Merit needed this submersion, it could only be the death of Ahr that had so drained him. Perhaps Shiva had tried to swallow his grief and it had gone wrong, manifested in this blood stigmata. And Shiva, perhaps, had attempted this too soon after the burden that had come before—the burden of healing Ra. She wandered the halls in search of distraction. The temple was empty except for Jak.
