The Goddess of Blood and Bone

by Nattie Kate Mason

  Agnes said nothing, just sat there and took in his words. Likely trying to glean any way to use his ramblings against him. He didn’t care. No one would believe her if she tried to rat him out for keeping his theories to himself.

  ‘Perhaps the endless, monotonous years of isolation and guarding the Gates have turned Lilith’s heart sour,’ Thorn mused. ‘Though, I saw the way she favored her people during the war, especially the former young Queen. Lilith’s heart is virtuous at its core, but perhaps the eternity she was subjected to is not enough for her.

  ‘Nushka had always been the type to crave power. An act of rebellion from her was inevitable. You can only keep an animal trapped for so long before it turns on you. Perhaps ruling over a domain and guarding the Gates to the Afterworld, is no longer enough for Lilith either.’

  “If you knew about Nushka’s gathered forces, why haven’t you reported her to Archè and Aria?” Agnes asked, curiosity likely getting the better of her.

  ‘And that’s the real question, isn’t it…?’

  Thorn whirled around to face the maiden. He could feel the wrath simmering beneath his skin, begging for an outlet. Perhaps he would practice his training upon the handmaiden in punishment for her from aiding in all this mess.

  “Do not push me, soul, I have not yet decided what to do with you. You may have earned my sisters’ trust to some small degree, but you have not earned the right to question us. It would do you well to remember who and what I am. If I were you, I would be begging for mercy,” Thorn warned.

  Nushka’s subject held up her hand defensively to placate him, muttering her insincere apologies as she did so. Thorn ignored her entirely as he took a long swig from the second bottle of aged, honeyed whiskey he had summoned, making his way to the chaise. He felt Agnes’s heavy gaze monitoring his every move.

  “I was sent here by Archè to interrogate you. He’s suspicious of you. He doesn’t care about you personally, he wants to know Nushka’s true intentions and sent me to find out if it’s all a sham,” Thorn disclosed, not bothering to make eye contact with her.

  A gentle breeze made the sheer curtains hanging from the windows flutter. A moment passed and the God turned his head curiously towards the girl who had not responded. He recognized the look painted across her face. It was the same calculating expression that graced his own when he monitored the wars between Kingdoms and weighed his next move. She was a clever fox.

  Thorn rose a brow, daring her to make a smart remark. He could see how she had drawn her sister’s attention. She was pretty enough for a human; he had said as much earlier. But her real appeal was her fiery spirit. He wouldn’t have minded taking her for a ride and seeing what all the fuss was about. It had been a week since he’d had a good fuck.

  Nushka’s minion opened and closed her mouth several times, weighing her words. The God sighed exasperatedly. With his right hand, Thorn withdrew a blade from the sheath at his left hip. Without a second thought, he flung the dagger at her, the blade landing a hairs-breadth from her left leg. It embedded in the mattress with a soft thud. The action had the desired effect.

  “Fucking arsehole! What did you do that for?!” Agnes hissed, withdrawing the blade from the mattress beside her and flinging it towards him.

  Thorn caught the blade in his hand with little difficulty, but a flutter of surprise and delight momentarily warmed his core.

  “You truly have nothing to say about my claims that the Ruler of the Gods has sent me to interrogate you?” Thorn asked.

  “What is it that you want me to say? I’m not surprised in the slightest; I would do the same in his position,” Agnes shrugged her shoulders, a mocking tone creeping into her voice. “The real question is why you haven’t already gone crawling back to Archè to tell him about the potion or the gathered forces. Could it be that perhaps you have had enough of living in the shadows of the mighty Rulers as well?”

  Surprise jostled through the God of War’s veins.

  ‘How is it that she has the gall to question me so brazenly and why is it that I’m mildly impressed by that?’ Thorn mused.

  “My motives are none of your concern, soul,” he replied dryly, leaning back in his seat. “But while we are on the subject, how exactly where you planning to poison us all? I assume it would have been at the ball while we were all gathered. That’s how I would have played it.”

  Agnes leaned forward, mild amusement now lining her features as she appeared convinced he wasn’t in a rush to report back to his Rulers.

  “Why would I tell you?” Agnes raised a brow. “Are you offering to help?” She gently pushed. An innocent enough question to gauge where his loyalties lay.

  Thorn threw his head back and laughed. “Why exactly would I want to help poison myself?”

  “Why would you not?” she winked.

  Thorn’s answering smile reached his dimples. “Okay, now I can see why you must amuse my sister so. You have no fear! Even sitting before a God as old and powerful as the ages, you still act as if your very existence is not under threat, as if I couldn’t smite you where you sit.”

  The weight of the situation lay thickly upon Thorn’s shoulders and he welcomed the banter that gave him a moments reprieve. The choice before him was unnervingly clear if he was truly honest with himself. Subconsciously, he had picked his side long before Agnes had been brought to the Land of the Gods.

  Thorn knew he should have gone to Archè and Aria as soon as he noticed Nushka’s followers beginning their retreat. He should have gathered his own forces to retaliate as was his role amongst the mortals and Gods. But he had done neither. Instead, he had looked the other way.

  The God of War had been biding his time for a while. Lilith’s act of rebellion had been the final nail in the coffin. He had always been closer to Lilith than his other siblings. Chiara, their parents’ favorite, lived the life of contentment ruling over the Afterworld. The remaining three siblings had been banished to different corners of the universe. For a long time now, Thorn had pondered their sentences. It seemed all too convenient that four of the most powerful Gods and siblings would be separated from each other.

  ‘Perhaps we weren’t separated for the mortals’ sakes, but for those of the Rulers. Together, my sisters and I would have been an insuperable team. Any one of us would have posed a threat to our parents’ rule. So rather than see us flourish, they banished us to rule over different realms, never to have contact with each other again. Archè and Aria were so paranoid of any threat to their title, they banished their own children. Though I wasn’t given a realm to rule over, my position keeps me eternally busy. There was always a power-struggle or war to manage.

  ‘Compared to Lilith and Nushka, my immortal life-span would have seemed like a dream, confined as they were to their desolate realms. All the while I stood by idly, never fully considering how badly they suffered, how powerless they had been rendered when, really, their giftings might have outmatched us all.’

  “So why haven’t you gone to Archè, Thorn?” Agnes brazenly pushed.

  This time when he looked at Agnes, he saw a lot of his younger self in her. He recognized the familiar brash, wild disregard for rules. He saw her fighting spirit and the potential she had to be so much more if only she were given the chance.

  He stared into Agnes’s deep brown eyes and when she did not shy from his gaze, he spoke candidly. “I have been alive for a long time... I have witnessed many battles, but none as devastating as the battle that is to come. Archè and Aria’s rule has never been challenged in all my years of existence.”

  He paused for a moment to take another swig of the amber liquid straight out of the bottle.

  “My parents view Nushka as a petulant child deserving of chastising,” Thorn sadly revealed, his shoulders slumped. “Even Archè, despite your part in this, will not see Nushka’s betrayal coming. My father thinks she is trying to deceive him purely so she can return home and live the life of luxury like all the other spoilt Deities here. Archè won’t f
oresee the power play she will make, and he certainly will not believe that Lilith would conspire against him. I will not sit by and allow my sisters to be mistreated any longer. For too long have I justified their banishments as for the greater good. It is time that I stood by them once more.”

  The God of War waved his hand and a table appeared between them. A heartbeat later, decanters of wine began materializing atop the table, each almost full to the brim with rich red wine. The type of wine that made you forget your own name and had you reaching for comfort in the arms of a stranger. The fruity wine was unique to the Gods, so much more potent than anything created by mortals.

  “Do what you came here to do and let us be done with it,” Thorn said sadly, gesturing towards the crystalware atop the table.

  Agnes looked at Thorn as if he had grown four horns and had sprouted warts all over his face. After a few heartbeats, she must have gauged that he wasn’t setting her up to trap her, as she turned to appraise the dozens of wine jugs before her. This particular wine was reserved for occasions such as these. He knew these exact bottles would be served at the banquet that night because he had taken them directly from the kitchen cellar. It was the only option as far as Thorn was concerned for the plan to succeed.

  The handmaiden looked up at the God of War again and raised a brow in question, to which he simply nodded shallowly in acknowledgement. There would be no going back after this. He had made his choice, he had picked his side. Now he could only hope that he had chosen wisely, for if Archè found out about the epic betrayal, his eternal life would be forfeit.

  Agnes rose from the bed on unsteady feet, retrieving the small glass vial from her pocket. The gown he had destroyed earlier remained gaping open, and a flicker of remorse flushed through Thorn at the sight of her. With a quick flick of his magic, the tattered material was replaced with an elegant silk ball gown of the deepest red, adorned with tiny glimmering diamonds. The gown would be revered by any of the Goddesses and would be another weapon in her arsenal. Another thought had her golden blonde hair brushed and life returned to the dull tresses. Even Thorn could admit she looked devastatingly beautiful, like a Princess without a crown. She was a deadly serpent wrapped as a pretty gift. She was ready to strike… and he was willing to help her.

  ‘Goddess help them all,’ he thought, smirking at the irony.

  19

  The Goddess of Blood and Bone

  The summons from the Rulers had come much more promptly than the Goddess of Blood and Bone had anticipated. She would have preferred to have accompanied Agnes to her initial meeting with the Rulers of the Gods. However, once her sister had pointed out that her abrasive side may not have helped the situation, it was decided she would stay behind and leave the smooth talking to Lilith. Nushka could not fault her sister’s logic, though the lack of control over the situation had exasperated her.

  Lilith and Nushka now sat at the formal dining table in the Castle of the Gods; a place where they had endured many arduous court gatherings as younglings under her parents’ rule. This family luncheon promised to be just as arduous as the formal family dinners she had attended as a child.

  Nushka wasn’t sure how her sister envisioned their future other than ruling side-by-side. Growing up, The Goddess of Darkness had always been the one to follow the rules. Lilith’s gift of discernment also meant that she was a walking, talking lie detector as a youngling—a fact that Nushka and Thorn, the mischievous siblings, had found particularly maddening. The idea of her joining the cause was still quite unexpected.

  The décor and lighting in the room stung Nushka’s eyes. All the bright white furniture, the flooding natural light and clean air was strange to the Goddess of Blood and Bone’s senses. After eons spent in darkness, the bright and airy room was repulsive to her.

  ‘This is yet another one of the many reasons they must pay,’ Nushka promised herself. ‘While I have been living amongst the rabble in the darkness and Lilith has been isolated from the realms, they have been living the life of luxury. For most of the Deities, their biggest concern is what to have for dinner or tracking their power levels. Utter nonsense, all of it. But that will all change when I am in charge. We will make them pay for all we have endured.’

  Beside Nushka at the table, Lilith was engaged in bland conversation with their mother about the rate of soul ascensions into the Land of Milk and Honey. Apparently, genuinely good souls were harder and harder to find these days, and so the number of ascensions to the Afterworld had dropped significantly over the last few centuries. Nushka was not in the least bit surprised given the increased number of souls delivered to her over the years. Souls she had delighted in delivering their eternal punishments to. A task that now brought her less amusement than it once had.

  Nushka had appointed her first handmaiden to distract her from the eternal monotony of her role. From there, her harem had only grown. She would have no need of them once she ruled The Land of the Gods. Here, in this domain, she could have anyone she chose. Deities, male and female alike, would flock to her just to gain an inch of power. Nushka licked her lips at the thought, momentarily lost in the prospect of it all.

  Nushka picked up the glass of wine before her and swirled the deep red liquid, the color reminding her of rich blood. Such reactions had become second nature to her after an eternity ruling over a realm of torture and depravity.

  Neither Lilith nor Nushka planned to consume a single drop of liquid at the ball, lest they fall prey to their own scheme. In the meantime, the Goddesses relished each drop from their glasses, reveling in the potency and aphrodisiac-instilling qualities. As an extra precaution, this bottle and the bottle of wine from which Lilith drank, she had brought with her from The Pitts masked as a gift for the Ruler’s. Perhaps she would find a lesser Deity to warm her bed and shake off some of her unease before the grand ball began and her plan was underway. She mused that it would be harder to find time for such luxuries once all hell had literally broken out.

  “Nushka,” Aria addressed her in that singsong voice her daughter could identify from a room away. “We are so happy to have you and your sister back home with us. I cannot express how proud I am of you both for all that you have achieved over the years. Ruling over The Pitts must have been so tedious for you. Though I am sure you thrived in your role,” the Queen added jarringly.

  Nushka forced a smile to her mouth that did not reach her eyes, her hair swaying back and forth behind her, betraying her attempt to appear composed.

  “It was an honor to perform my duty, My Queen,” Nushka forced herself to reply with saccharine sweetness, though the endearment made her want to vomit up her wine.

  Beneath her feet, Zeri bristled on the floor in chimera form, picking up on Nushka’s tense emotions. The creature had always been so intuitive, their two souls had been eternally bonded since its transformation.

  “I only wish others had a chance to experience the fulfillment that such a role can bring,” Nushka added, her tone sharp as a double-edged sword.

  Aria was wise enough to appear mildly unnerved by her second comment, taking a long sip from her glass.

  “Although…” Nushka continued sweetly, her sharp claws absentmindedly tapping on the goblet of wine in her hand, “I suppose that time has finally come. Do tell, who will my lucky replacement be? I hope they have thick skin and an even stronger stomach. Keeping millions of corrupt souls contained and overseeing their punishment is no easy task,” she smiled, her claws lengthening around the glass she held.

  Beneath the table, Zeri huffed in agreement. Bhoots were such intelligent and intuitive creatures. She tossed it a leg of meat beneath the table as a reward.

  Growing up, Nushka had always preferred her mother over her father. However, she had long ago severed that familiar attachment. Nowadays they were only the King and Queen to her. Their role as Rulers was the only title she would acknowledge… and that was about to change should all go to plan. Nushka took another long drink of her wine.

 
The Goddess understood that Aria was mostly harmless, always choosing to see the good in others. Chiara, her sister, was a mirror image of the Queen in likeness and personality, hence why she was always their favorite and given the Afterworld to rule over. It was Archè that pulled Aria’s marionette strings and, for that fact alone, Nushka thought she might spare her mother in the carnage. Perhaps sentencing her to rule over The Pitts would be a more fitting punishment for agreeing with her husband’s plan to exile their own children. As for the King, he would likely find himself being Xanos’s supper. Perhaps she would gift his heart to Hyacinth first. Nushka would be interested to see what, if any, of his magic then passed on to the magical beings.

  Aria began answering her question, though immersed in her own thoughts, Nushka missed her reply and cursed herself for doing so. Unsure of how to respond, she simply nodded in agreement, hoping the action would suffice. She made a note to later ask Lilith who would take her place in The Pitts, however, it appeared she didn’t need to wait.

  Lilith rose, slamming her hands on the table.

  “You cannot be serious!” she exclaimed, letting her temper slip, the afront startling the Queen and causing the King, who sat protectively by his wife’s side, to narrow his eyes at her.

  “Sit down, Lilith. We will discuss this later,” Archè ordered, slamming his goblet of wine on the table. “We are here to celebrate. Be grateful that you are permitted to join us; there was no deal made with you. You will return and remain duty-bound guarding the Gate after the festivities are over.”

  Lilith’s dark shadows shuddered furiously at the hem of her midnight ball gown, her eyes burning with liquid fury. The King’s promise was exactly the kind of incentive Nushka needed to guarantee Lilith as an ally.

  Thorn waltzed arrogantly into the room, shirtless despite the occasion and seated himself on the other side of Aria. It had been an age since Nushka had laid eyes on him. So carefree. She hoped that an eternity of playing war games, kept under her father’s thumb, had not altered his character.