Demon Daughter by Lois McMaster Bujold

of holy meditation Pen had yet encountered. Contrasting the words of the truest mystic he’d ever met with the ponderous, prolix descriptions in Temple theology tomes made him want to snicker. “So does the god have to come from very far away?” Rina continued to probe. Imagining it as some sort of holy coach trip, was she? “Nope. He’s always waiting just outside my door. Yours too, ’truth. Today was a little party”—he nodded to Otta—“but sometimes we just sit and visit.” “You really do talk to the god?” said Nikys, sounding awed. “Didn’t say talk .” “If Nikys was right about Otta’s fear blocking her control of her Sight,” said Pen, “I suppose anyone who’s had the experience Otta and Atto just did would never again find anything else as, as…” Not frightening, exactly. Overwhelming? Numinous? “Tryin’ to think of a big enough word, Pen?” said Iroki, amused. Ruefully, he nodded. “As much,” supplied Iroki. Perfectly. And grinned at his discomfiture. Otta grinned in echo and endorsement. “Pile of fish,” she added, and laughed at her own inexplicable hilarity. “Can we both go play in the river now, Mama?” asked Rina, leaning toward it as if to communicate her longing with her whole body. “For a little while,” Nikys allowed, maternal restraint visibly melting. “We can’t stay late.” Suddenly children again and not little theologians, the pair looked at each other, giggled, and dashed off, racing to the bank. Iroki’s place was not set up for company—deliberately, Pen guessed—but he did m