by Terah Edun
The goddess disappeared in a brilliant glow of magic—at once aethereal and beautiful. Her sword dropped to the ground with an unceremonious clang.
Ciardis was so shocked that she fell back into the wall behind her, and was instantly reminded of her broken ribs.
Silence reigned.
“We won,” she said in a shocked voice.
Ciardis looked in astonishment around the room at the only people still alive and screamed, “We won!”
Joy, delirious joy from everyone who was left alive in that moment…which was a surprising amount of people. Ciardis noted that bodies she’d thought had long since fallen rose up out of the massacred remains giving their joyous neighbors a heck of a surprise. But in their delirium no one noted the individuals who’d potentially faked their own deaths. Everyone was just glad they had made it through to tell the tale of the battle against the goddess. The battle they had won.
8
Then a pair of hands began to clap.
But it wasn’t in joy.
It was too forceful, too loud. The mocking clap of derision.
Heart sinking, Ciardis turned and a veil of magic dropped from the middle of the room. Right where the goddess had once stood.
The goddess stood proudly before them all, as whole as before, right in the spot which she had disappeared from. Slowly the shouts of joy around the room died down and palpable fear swept along in the icy wake of lost joy swept as one by one the occupants realized who was once more in their midst. Those left alive realized they’d only had a temporary stay of execution, and this time…they knew with certainty what death would be coming for them. It wouldn’t be merciful. Instead it would be horrific.
“You’re alive,” a woman stammered.
“I never left,” the goddess said as she looked around. “Though I did watch your celebrations with amusement.”
She wasn’t lying. The whole room could see that her face was holding curiosity.
“Why?” asked Sebastian. “Why even bother?” His voice sounded hollow with shock.
But it was more than shock. It was horror. Confusion. All feelings they could align with.
But the goddess’s motivations weren’t a miasma of confusion to Ciardis Weathervane. She could have told Sebastian why the deity had faked her own death, just from the sheen of amusement in the goddess’s eyes. It was because they, humans and kith, were mere animals in a fair of attractions to her. Their joys, their struggles, and their fight for life were nothing but diversions to keep her entertained. But Sebastian, a young man who had seen his own troubles yet still grew up in a wealth of privilege, didn’t understand that. He wasn’t used to being the center of mockery…of scorn. Regardless of his circumstances at court, his rank had shielded him somewhat from tyranny—not assassination plots, but against the cruel mockery of individuals who thought they were better than he was. The deity who stood before them all, however, definitely assumed she was better than they all were.
And what’s more, she was right.
Sebastian expanded on the question he’d asked previously as he said, “Was it just to toy with us?”
To Ciardis, he sounded defensive. Even defeated. Then again, anyone would. But sounding defeated wasn’t the same as being defeated. Ciardis knew that very well from experience. Looking around the room at the deathly pallor on more than one face, however, told her that many others didn’t. She couldn’t really blame them for being afraid. For shrinking in the face of an omnipotent presence. For all they’d been through in the last few minutes, she would never forget how these same conclave members had quivered and cowered in the face of Maradian’s reign of terror. Like cockroaches, they’d scurried away from a surprise. The only reason they’d stood so strong against the goddess was because their very arrogance predisposed them to doom. They couldn’t believe the goddess was who she said she was; that she was more powerful than they were themselves. Now they knew. Now they believed. And so fear overwhelmed them in the face of that power.
Ciardis couldn’t claim to be braver than they, but she had something many others didn’t—the union of the seeleverbindung, and she was grateful for their strength now more than ever. She, Sebastian, and Thanar had faced more than most people would in multiple lifetimes, though. Just like the enemies they’d faced before, they could fight this one too. It didn’t matter to Ciardis Weathervane what they were facing, whether an enraged dragon or a city of the walking dead, as much as how to move beyond the present and escape into the future. She believed it was possible no matter what they faced. They might not escape unscathed, but they would escape alive. At least she believed so.
She could feel the goddess’s presence in the air now, but Ciardis had the feeling that Sebastian Athanos Algardis was searching for more. What made the goddess tick, for instance. What would bring about her downfall. What’s more Ciardis got the feeling he was questioning how the woman who had appeared before them as easily as she’d stepped through the door had lived through their assault…taking every ounce of magic they’d had in the process.
But to the Lady Companion who stood staring back at the deity who looked completely unaffected by what they had done, the answer was simple. She was what she said was. She was a goddess come down to earth to rain death and destruction, and so she had.
“Like I said,” the goddess said in a voice that was almost lyrical with delight. “Your mortal actions amuse me so.”
No one spoke. Even Sebastian realized they had very little left in their arsenal. They had tried every act of defiance and still she stood unhindered. Some people even began to crawl away as slowly as they could, never taking their eyes off the predator in the room and yet knowing they’d never escape before she struck.
These conclave’s occupants finally had come to the realization that they were truly standing before an immortal.
Now like rabbits in the bush, they were defenseless. Cute little creatures whose bite, if you could call it that, would barely disturb the armor-like skin of the snake they faced.
A smile crossed the goddess’s face as she tsked and said with candor, “You all did your very best. Almost tragically so.”
“We’ll never stop fighting,” Ciardis said. If her voice trembled, no one mentioned it.
“Do you really think you have a say in the matter?” the goddess said with a hint of darkness.
The intensity of pain and sheer frustration in her voice was evident in every stressed syllable as Ciardis replied, “Could you have just given in if you were in our place?”
As for the goddess, she just tapped a finger slowly on her lips as if she were thinking carefully. All the while the sword she’d brought with her glimmered not with power this time, but with the blood of the slain. As if their life forces had passed through it and invigorated it upon absorption.
Or made it hungry, Thanar said quietly in her head. A relic like that…needs to be fed.
Fed? Ciardis asked, somewhat horrified.
Fed, confirmed the daemoni prince in a dire tone. And those with power are its main course.
Ciardis shifted uneasily as her gaze flicked from the sword to its wielder.
Her dawning understanding of the awfulness that lay before them all must have clearly shown on her face, because the goddess lowered the finger from her lips and pinned Ciardis with a direct and frank gaze.
For a moment stars swirled in the goddess’s eyes and Ciardis was drawn in. Unable to pull back. Unable to see anyone or anything else.
When she could finally blink and the room was as it was before, strewn with the dead and dying, the goddess had turned away, her soul-hungry sword as ever by her side.
Ciardis didn’t know what exactly had passed between her and the goddess in those last few time-bending seconds, but she knew this now—whether the sword was visible or not, in the goddess’s grasp or not, it was always there. Always waiting like a ravenous dog leashed, just itching for new souls to feed its never-ending hunger.
And above all it wanted
to eat Ciardis Weathervane.
Over my dead body, Thanar whispered to her in a promise.
I’m thinking that it would easily arrange that, Ciardis said with unease in her tone.
She wasn’t mocking him. She just now realized that although the goddess seemed to be tempered by some kind of patience, even if it was maniacal in nature, the weapon she held by her side was not, and as it grew more ravenous, its bearer would grow even more impatient.
They didn’t have long now before it would devour them.
All the while Ciardis wondered what the goddess gained from this manipulation. She was playing with them all, and Ciardis had never liked being someone’s toy.
It’s like we traded one malevolent presence for another, Sebastian said grimly in her head.
And she couldn’t agree more.
Ciardis wouldn’t trade this goddess for Maradian any day of the week—after all, at least one of them was actually forthright for a change. Maradian’s manipulations and lies had meant he was an unseen threat who still owned the allegiance and goodwill of the people. He had been the lesser danger of the two from a long-term perspective and yet still an ever-present thorn in their sides. One which she was glad was gone, but that didn’t mean she was very happy to see one so cruel and powerful step right in to seemingly take his place as their tormenter.
Finally the goddess clucked her tongue and spoke with laughter in her voice. “Well, I like your spirit, but you all are a sad, sad disappointment. To think…you all were supposed to be a challenge. I faced your ancestress on the field of battle. Now there was a challenge.”
Sebastian stepped forward, covered in blood from head to toe. “We’ll defeat you again as we defeated you in the wars before.”
The goddess smiled. “What makes you think you won the last round?”
Sebastian’s eyes flashed in ire. He, too, did not like to be mocked. “We’re still here, aren’t we?”
The goddess purred, “So am I, dear. So am I.”
“Not for long,” Sebastian said gamely. “Like a withered vine, you’ll shrink and you’ll die just like everyone else we’ve faced. You’ll be no more than a memory that your diminished worshippers will whisper about in alleyways.”
The goddess’s head tilted and a harsh tone took over her tongue. “I don’t think I like your manners, Prince Heir. You should know to respect your betters as tradition dictates.”
This time it was Sebastian who smiled. “I’ve never been one to hold to traditions.”
The atmosphere in the room shifted. The temperature dropped precipitously until it was as cold as an ice cave. But it was more than frigid. The chill in the air represented so much more. Like the calm before the storm, they could feel the change in the air preceding death, which almost wiped the heady, acrid scent of fresh blood from Ciardis’s nostrils in the process. Almost. Ciardis couldn’t quite forget that she stood amid the crushed and fallen bodies of what had once been the greatest conclave this empire had seen.
But she wasn’t just going to stand by while the goddess made Sebastian an addition to their numbers.
The goddess didn’t wait for her to reach them. Instead she lifted a commanding hand with fingers outstretched as they beckoned to the prince heir. But instead of calling him forward, they closed into a mighty fist, and Sebastian uttered a sound that could be described as a scream.
He struggled against it. Whatever compulsion the goddess was throwing over him.
He struggled with every fiber of his being. Ciardis could feel it. The physical pain going through his body. The mental anguish that ripped through his mind.
And that was just at the motions of the goddess’s fingers.
When she spoke, it was like being burned alive. Invisible fire ripped over Sebastian’s body, and the flames consumed him in their ferocity.
Ciardis felt the agony as keenly as he did.
So when the goddess uttered her command one more time, Ciardis understood when Sebastian followed through without hesitation.
“Bow down,” commanded the goddess in a voice that held depths of power that they had never witnessed and never wanted to witness.
Ciardis heard his bones scrape against each other as he fell to his knees, and with him, so did she.
Not physically but she couldn’t stop that well of terror that overwhelmed her.
But with fear came resolution.
Ciardis Weathervane charged into battle while her legs and her mind still worked.
She didn’t know who was beside her.
Who was behind her ready to swing their sword in defense of all they stood for.
Who cowered.
Or who pushed forward.
She just knew that she couldn’t stand by and do nothing either.
So they had fought against the goddess before. And they lost.
Well, no one said they couldn’t try again.
And try she would until she fell to the ground covered in her own blood.
She would try until her very last breathe left her body.
Because she had no choice.
She was soul-bound to Sebastian as he was to her, and as Thanar was to them both.
They were one.
9
Protecting Sebastian was the one thing on Ciardis’s mind as she walked toward them quickly. That was the one thing on her mind as she charged across the room, barely noticing that it was strewn with blood and entrails. She’d barely made it five steps before someone’s intestines tripped her up. Her face didn’t hit the floor, but her right hand landed right inside someone’s chest cavity. Scrambling up to her knees, she tried to wipe the blood and bits covering her hand onto her chest, even flicking off bits of flesh with her left. But that didn’t work. Nothing did.
Holding back a horrified scream, Ciardis rocked back on her heels, balled her fists, and stood up—this time with a posture that was ramrod straight.
She had seen death.
She had been the precursor of death.
But seeing it and immersing yourself inside someone else’s splayed-open rib cage was another scenario entirely.
Still, she clamped her mouth closed and tried to breathe through her nose. Anything to prevent herself from hyperventilating. Anything to prevent herself from passing out in a room full of massacred souls and right when Sebastian needed her most.
With her gaze focused firmly on the goddess, she stepped forward.
Careful to weave around the entrails.
Careful to avoid stepping on a severed hand.
Careful not to slip in the pools of blood that were already congealing on the marble floor.
Always careful to keep her focus.
She was steps away from the goddess with no idea what she was going to do. Oh, she had visions of dying in a hail of glory. Using the lightning bunched in her fists to rain destruction on the woman’s head.
But Ciardis had no illusions about her prowess in battle or her ability to defeat a deity.
Not with the Collar of Diamis and its bearer missing.
Not after she had already thrown everything she had against the woman.
But still she would try.
And the goddess patiently waited for the Lady Companion as she walked carefully to her death. The goddess smirked as she watched her, but Ciardis had the feeling she was also wondering with genuine interest, What will this puny human do now?
When Ciardis reached her, she realized she had raised the knife gripped at her waist to shoulder height. Then she noticed that the goddess put up shielding so tight that rain would have bounced off it as it dropped all around the table on which the goddess and Ciardis stood, trapping them in and the others out.
Ciardis’s mind ran wild at the implications, but she didn’t have any illusions about what was going to happen even if someone else had somehow managed to make it past the barrier with her.
There was no other mortal who could help her take a fight to a deity, that was abundantly clear. But she wasn’t going to back d
own either.
As she raised the knife in a swift arc above her head, she called her own powerful gifts to the forefront. Lightning rushed into her palm and out through the blade of the knife. It rose in a glowing point until she no longer held just a simple blade, but instead a melted core of iron and energy formed in her hand.
Ciardis Weathervane now held a proper sword.
One made of magic and legend.
As she shifted her grip and prepared to swing about in a last-ditch effort to bury her blade in the goddess’s chest, Ciardis saw that the interest in the goddess’s eyes had shifted.
She was no longer aloof and composed like a cat watching a mouse charge into its mouth.
Instead, actual excitement sparked into her gaze.
Excitement and wonder.
The goddess held up a halting hand, as if she could stop Ciardis from following through with her intentional blow with just one command.
She probably could.
Ciardis flinched in horrified anticipation as she waited for the bone-cracking pain that had gripped Sebastian with a twitch of the goddess’s palm, to grip her as well.
But nothing of the sort happened. And she took that as a sign that she shouldn’t stop.
Even if Ciardis wanted to, she was too far gone to halt the sword anyway. It was an extension of herself, her magic, her very being.
Apparently Ciardis wasn’t the only one surprised at her continued resistance.
The goddess herself let an expression of…delight…cross her face at that moment. Then she did the only thing an experienced swordswoman could do in such circumstances. She brought up her own sword and parried.
Her first deflection of Ciardis’s blade was soft…hesitant even. As though she was testing the strength of Ciardis’s magic. From the smile that bloomed on the goddess’s face, she didn’t find it wanting.
So they danced the dance of swords. Moving back and forth across the long central table with blow after blow ringing out as magical sword met magical sword. Neither bent. Neither broke.
