The Last Goddess

by C.E. Stalbaum

  ***

   

  Tryss closed her eyes and did her best to forget a lifetime’s worth of lessons on the nature of the Fane. The priests of any of the Six Gods—save the Balorites—always touted the same gospel, namely that the Fane was the temple of Edeh, the energy of life itself where faithful servants of the gods were rewarded with eternal life when they died. In the time of the Septurian Empire, the Fane was embodied by a great floating city. The most hallowed citizens were destined to end up as immortal servants within its walls, while the faithless were punished by an eternity of non-existence in an endless void. Since the city’s fall, the Fane itself had taken over as the “promised land” of every religion. It was said to hold the dormant spirits of the gods as well as the souls of all the faithful, and they all waited for the return of their Messiah, the Kirshal, to restore them and Septuria to life.

  She’dd started questioning that dogma when she was five years old and had received quite the spanking for it. By ten she was even more convinced that it was utter tripe, and her mother had locked her inside her room for two days and forced her to memorize the first ten pages of the Yasil, the central text of the Edehan faith. Eventually the Empress had given up, and Tryss had found many more like-minded individuals at the university. Few of the magi there believed in the gods at all, and many worshipped the Fane itself.

  They called themselves the Vashir, and for a time she had found their ideas appealing. Unlike the gods, the Fane was a tangible force in all of their lives. It was a gateway that connected them to the primal forces of the world—energy, gravity, and even their own physiology. The Fane was power, and whether or not it held the essences of the dead or the spirits of the Gods themselves didn’t matter. It was real.

  And it still was to this day. She sought solace in its power and comfort in its truth. But now, having read through all of this Balorite research, she wondered how many of her very basic assumptions had been completely wrong.

  “It’s almost unfathomable,” she whispered, glancing up to Tiber on the opposite side of the chamber. “But it makes so much sense. It might help to explain you, for one thing.”

  The Faceless guardian remained silent, and Tryss sighed.

  “I wish they had let you keep some of your personality. A peep now and then would be nice.”

  She shook her head and turned back to the pair of books lying open on the desk next to her. They each posited theories that went well beyond the meager research she had begun a few years ago, and she was trying to sort out how much of it was based on fact rather than religious dogma. As a faction, the Balorites believed the Fane was a gift from Abalor. He wanted its power to be open to all who possessed the knowledge and strength to call upon it. Edeh, by contrast, believed such power should have a high cost, and thus came the Flensing. 

  Tryss had generally seen the dogmatic explanations as parable rather than fact, but the Flensing was quite real and limited her every day. Judging by this research, however, many Balorites over the years had found a way to bypass “Edeh’s Curse,” as they called it. It simply required knowledge of the appropriate techniques and a willingness to tap into the life energy of another creature instead of oneself. And after two days of study, Tryss was willing to attempt it.

  “Don’t move,” she told Tiber. “Not that you would.”

  Tryss took a deep breath and reached out a hand to the potted plant on her desk. It seemed silly to think this could even work—how much energy could a few flowers have, anyway? But the research was sound, and she knew intellectually that it should work. She pushed the doubts from her mind and tried to ignore the power ebbing inside her. Her impulse was to tug upon it, but if she did this properly, she didn’t need to use her own body to open a gateway to the Fane. This was about freedom from the Flensing, and Tryss was going to make it happen.

  She closed her eyes and called a simple spell to mind. It was a technique she had used a thousand times before, stoking the Fane to summon a wisp of flame to her fingertips. She concentrated and stretched out…

  And nothing happened.

  “Okay,” she muttered. “Now what?”

  Tryss turned back to the books and sighed. She felt like a first-year student again, barely able to grasp the basics of magic, let alone control it. She had already lived through that phase once and wasn’t particularly interested in doing so again. But that was just impatience talking, and she knew she would figure it out eventually—assuming any of this was actually possible, of course. It was completely plausible that Veltar was just playing some twisted prank to waste her time, or perhaps he was just trying to get her caught with these forbidden books.

  She was scowling down at a particularly confusing page when she heard the door above unlatch. She turned and frowned. It wasn’t late enough for Lepton to be bothering her with dinner yet…

  “So this is where you hide yourself all day,” Aston commented as he started his way down the stairs.

  “This is a private laboratory,” she said, doing her best to keep her voice calm. “And it can be dangerous—you really shouldn’t come down here without saying something.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t hear any explosions. I figured it was probably safe enough. Anyway, the boys and I were planning a trip to the theater tonight and wanted to see if you would go.”

  She blinked. “I’m kind of busy at the moment.”

  “Doesn’t look like it,” he grunted, glancing about the small chamber as he reached the bottom of the steps. “Come on, there’s supposed to be an acting troupe in from overseas. They’ll only be here a few nights before moving on.”

  “I’m not much of a theater person.”

  His face tightened. “You don’t seem like much of an anything person.”

  Tryss sighed and leaned against the podium. “I’m not…social like you are. I’m sorry, but it’s just not something I’m comfortable with.”

  “You could try it. Who knows, maybe you’ll end up liking it.”

  “I’ve tried it the last few days at all of mother’s parties, and I really just want to be alone tonight. I’m sorry. I hope you have fun with your friends.”

  Aston paced farther into the chamber and stopped a few feet from Tiber. “You know this isn’t easy for me, either.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He grunted. “Father keeps telling me I’m being irresponsible, that I don’t understand how important this treaty is to our people. I keep telling him it isn’t fair, but he just ignores me.”

  Tryss eyed him carefully. He seemed honest enough…was he really as sickened by all of this as she was? “I’ve had similar discussions with my mother.”

  “I keep telling him that I’m trying, but you won’t let me get close.” He turned back to face her. “He doesn’t believe me.”

  “It has nothing to do with you,” she assured him. “I just don’t…”

  “Like men?” Aston grunted. “I asked some people I know at the academy here. Rumor has it you never had a single relationship there, either. It figures that out of all princesses my father could fix me up with, I get the broken one.”

  “How dare you!” she hissed. The rise of anger was so sudden and intense her arms started shaking. “You don’t know anything about me!”

  “Your feelings are obvious enough.” He swept his eyes up and down her body. “You do everything you can to look as dull as possible. You’re almost thirty, and you had to rely on your mother to set you up with a husband before it was too late.”

  “You have no idea,” she seethed between clenched teeth. “I don’t like you because you’re a drunk, simpering kreel!”

  Aston smiled. “There we go—some honesty for once. This isn’t about the marriage or going to parties or any of that—you think I’m beneath you. It’s as simple as that.”

  “You are beneath me,” Tryss snapped. “You’re the idiot son of an Ebaran plutocrat, and you don’t deserve a screlling thing he’s given you. And you certainly don’t deserve me
.”

  He stepped forward closer to her. This time when he moved, she could smell the liquor on his clothing. “Good to know where we stand, isn’t it? I figured even you could get mad. Sometimes that’s what it takes to hear the truth.”

  Tryss clenched and unclenched her fists. The rage was still there, but a glimmer of reason had started peeking through. She couldn’t believe how quickly she had snapped like that—but it was even harder to believe he had the capacity to goad her into it.

  “Well, I’m going to the theater,” he said eventually, smiling again. “Plenty of women there who won’t put themselves on a pedestal above me—some will be more than willing to get beneath me, in fact.”

  “Have fun,” she whispered. “I’m sure you’ll make your father proud.”

  Aston snorted once and then left. Tryss wasn’t sure how long she stared up at the door, but she decided she was definitely going to lock it—along with her den upstairs—from now on.

  She closed her eyes and forced herself to take a deep breath. She really shouldn’t have lost her temper; she could have stayed calm and just let him be the villain. Perhaps then the Empress would have been convinced to just end the arrangement right there.

  No, that wouldn’t happen. Her mother was willing to do anything to get this treaty signed, regardless if it meant sacrificing the health and perhaps even safety of her only daughter. In the end, nothing had really changed. Instead of pretending to tolerate each other, perhaps now she and Aston could just be honest and accept this sham for what it was. Regardless, there was still only one way out of it, and she had a lot of work to do to make it happen.

  Tryss turned back to the plant and grabbed it roughly in her right hand. She extended her left towards Tiber, and abruptly a surge of power coursed through her body. Fane energy erupted from her fingertips like she had opened a spigot, and a shimmering orb of violet light darted across the room. It smashed into Tiber’s chest piece, and the Faceless staggered backwards.

  Tryss held her hand outstretched even as the rush of power passed. He had actually moved. The spell hadn’t hurt him, exactly, but normally her magic just brushed off him like a light breeze. How was this different? What had she—

  Her breath caught in her throat as she glanced down. The plant had completely withered in her grasp. Her hand bled from several thorn gashes, but her veins…she couldn’t see them. She didn’t feel drained in the slightest.

  She stared blankly at the lifeless plant and reeled in horror at what it meant—not just for her, but for every mage in Esharia. She had found the solution to the Flensing; she had found a way to break Edeh’s curse. The answer was as wondrous as it was terrifying.

  Death.