by Terah Edun
Ciardis shook her head. “Even if I believed you, and I’m not saying I do, you just promised to make my kind perish. That doesn’t sound like a way out.”
The goddess blinked. “Well, it wouldn’t be immediate. I’d give you another century or so of fruitful living, then I’d come back to exact my revenge.”
Ciardis looked around the room at all the dead bodies, then looked back at the goddess. At the deity promising an end to their suffering, to their pain. Peace at a price.
They wouldn’t even have to face her. The next generation would be the ones who would take up the banner of the battle against the deity.
That was what decided Ciardis Weathervane’s mind. She couldn’t pass this along like some small insignificant threat. She wouldn’t. It wasn’t right.
“No. Not a chance,” the Lady Companion said in a voice that brooked no argument.
The goddess tsked. “The decision isn’t yours, human.”
Ciardis stiffened, but she turned to Thanar and said in an insistent voice, “Tell her. Tell her that we’ll never accept her deal.”
Thanar waited.
Ciardis waited.
Then his one hale wing slumped to the ground in defeat.
In a voice that sounded as if he were dragging himself through fire to speak, he said, “What would you require, Goddess?”
“No!” shouted Ciardis.
“Silence,” snapped Amani with a wave of her hand.
Ciardis was thrown back, and when she scrambled to her feet again, her voice was gone.
As simple as that.
Amani looked over to Thanar with a smile. “Well, well—a man who knows when to serve. I enjoy that.”
Ciardis started forward but a sharp glance from Amani held her back. The goddess wasn’t threated by her. She wasn’t threatened by anyone.
And as long as Amani held all their lives in her capable hands, Ciardis knew that she had nothing to fear from them.
So she watched as the goddess leaned forward and put her mouth to Thanar’s ear.
The goddess spoke. He listened. For a moment, the goddess looked at Ciardis and said persuasively to Thanar, “Think on it. Your precious human wouldn’t die today. In fact, in a sign of my good will…here’s her voice back.”
Ciardis tested her words automatically and found it true. But she didn’t thank the goddess, there was nothing to be thankful for after all.
Then the goddess leaned back with a smile on her face.
Thanar was stone-still for a moment, then with teeth bared he gave one simple response, “I’ll go with you.”
His expression was brimming with anger, threatening to explode but he didn’t. He had already given in.
Shaking, Ciardis cried out, “No, take me!”
She didn’t know where the goddess wanted to take Thanar, but she wouldn’t lose him too. He was the last tangential tie she had to this earth.
She wanted to think Sebastian wasn’t dead, but she couldn’t imagine anything else that would make him lie so still in that prone position. Ciardis felt empty and she wondered if this was how the soulbond would kill her. Slowly? Inevitably? Now that one of the triumvirate had fallen, it was only a matter of time. So why not take her?
But apparently that wasn’t in the cards, because the goddess said with a perfectly raised eyebrow, “What makes you think I want you?”
Amani turned to look at the daemoni prince. “For that matter, I never said I wanted you to go with me either, young one. I demanded only one thing and it doesn’t require your presence.”
This time Thanar laughed as he said calmly, “That may be so, but I know what you want from all who serve you.”
Coyly Amani said, “Allegiance?”
“Depravation,” the daemoni prince said calmly. “I can give you that and more.”
Bile threatened to erupt from Ciardis’s throat, but she found that the goddess’s temporary reprieve was just that…temporary. She couldn’t speak.
“I think,” Amani said as she tapped Thanar’s bare and ripped chest with her fingertip, “I know just what I want to do with you.” She paused, then said with childish glee, “But I warn you, young prince, you won’t like what I have in store.”
Ciardis was desperate to speak. She had so much she wanted to say. To denounce. But the silliest thought floated through her head. Why does she keep referring to Thanar as “young”?
She wasn’t going to get an answer to that, or any of her other questions for that matter, if Thanar kept up this one-sided negotiation tactic. He was giving the goddess everything she wanted and more.
Thanar looked in Amani’s eyes and said simply, “Do your worst!”
Amani clucked her tongue and gestured around the room. “As you all have so ably shown here…you couldn’t even survive my least.”
11
Ciardis struggled to speak against the goddess’s compulsion, but there was absolutely nothing she could do. Nor was there anything to be done. It was horrifying and so very frustrating.
Thanar and Amani negotiated their plans while she alternated between fury and despair. Wanting to help. Wanting to intervene. Wanting to save the last person who was most important to her. Wanting to save the empire at the same time.
Then the compulsion binding was gone and she could speak again.
But the warning in the goddess’s eyes as angry words brimmed on the edge of Ciardis’s tongue made it very clear that speaking up would get her killed instantly.
So Ciardis turned to Thanar with every emotion, from fear to fury, burning in her eyes.
And he understood completely.
But that was the only thing he did—understand.
Compromise was off the table.
Without regard for whether this would put him in danger, Thanar turned away from the goddess with a wince and firmly gripped Ciardis by both shoulders. She felt him push his pain aside for a moment to focus wholly on her.
Ciardis at the very least could do the same. Assuming Amani wouldn’t just eliminate them while they stood staring at each other—while ignoring everyone else in the room but the person directly in front of them. But perhaps now that she had them exactly where she wanted them, she would give them this one boon. After all, the goddess had at least shown that she could be bargained with and persuaded.
Bargaining will only take us so far, Thanar whispered into her mind with urgency. This is the only way we can get her to leave. We’re already loosing badly. This is your chance to return stronger than ever. To find a surefire way to defeat her. Your only chance at winning.
By sacrificing you? Ciardis snapped. That’s not winning in my book.
Thanar searched her eyes steadily. It is in mine.
Ciardis shrugged off his grip. There has to be another way.
Thanar laughed cruelly. With you there always is. But hear me, Ciardis Weathervane, this is only a temporary reprieve. She will only leave the battlefield for so long, and come hell or high water, we must be ready.
Ciardis’s face twitched as she fought not to let any relief show in her voice. We? So you’re coming back?
Thanar raised a sardonic eyebrow. Could you survive without me if I didn’t?
His mocking tone made Ciardis full-on punch him in the shoulder that had the uninjured wing attached to it, but she didn’t want to strangle him just yet…which was progress. Still, this wasn’t exactly the type of resistance movement she’d had in mind when facing the blutgott. But Maradian had gotten in their way at every turn, and now they were backed into a proverbial corner with few options.
All the while, the goddess watched them with beady eyes as she stood over Sebastian’s prone body. They had no choice, not anymore. So Ciardis swallowed her resentment and just nodded bitterly. That, however, was all the confirmation Thanar needed for confidence to swell back into his eyes.
So, Ciardis said in a small voice, what is she demanding of you?
You know I can’t tell you that, Thanar said gently.
Ciardis fought down her irritation and asked, “What now?”
“Now I do what’s to be done,” Thanar said with a quick squeeze of her arm.
Apparently impatient, the goddess huffed. “I suggest you listen to your pet girl. I am done waiting. You can all die now or Thanar can give me what I desire. His choice, of course.”
Ciardis’s eyes narrowed. “Doesn’t seem like much of a choice to me.”
Amani smiled. “There’s always a choice. It’s written in the rules.”
Before Ciardis could respond, the goddess continued in a decidedly menacing voice, “What’s not written in the rules is you holding me up. I grow tired.”
To emphasize her words, she jumped off the tabletop as sveltely as a lioness on the prowl. When Amani landed with a light kick, she sent a lord slumped over a chair barely breathing flying into the wall. The crunch of his skull and bones a clear sign that if he had been living before, he wasn’t now.
Ciardis looked at him and felt herself turn paler. Amani moved with lightning quickness to crawl over her kill while quivering conclave members scattered as quickly as they could to opposite sides of the room. As if by running they could escape her in this room which had turned into a prison.
A prison where their jailer was a deity and they all were a hair’s breadth away from death.
Rattled herself, Ciardis still took advantage of the distraction to hurry as quickly as possible to Sebastian’s side. Kneeling, she felt for a pulse and found one—a very faint one. If he didn’t receive medical attention, he would very shortly follow that lord to an early grave.
Knowing they had no way to counteract the goddess’s powers—not yet anyway— Ciardis did the only thing she could.
She turned to the daemoni prince and gave him a short, terse nod.
Thanar turned to where the goddess stood by the edge of the table, staring back at them impatiently.
With her mouth dry from the desire to hold back Thanar with one word, Ciardis instead gripped Sebastian’s limp hand desperately and watched.
She waited as the daemoni prince walked forward, knelt down until he put one knee atop the table, and reached out a hand.
The goddess took it with a look of greed and promise.
Ciardis knew that whatever the goddess wanted of Thanar, it wasn’t a simple affair.
It wasn’t a memory or pain or an action. It was and would always be his whole entire being.
To his credit the daemoni prince hesitated but a moment.
Ciardis wasn’t sure if he did so out of fear or self-doubt or some combination of the two, but he overcame it and didn’t shrink from the goddess’s touch. As they made skin-to-skin contact, their pact was sealed. Ciardis knew because she felt the seal lock into place the moment their hands met, electrifying her gifts and energizing their bond. Just for a moment she felt as if she were alive with fire, then the feeling was gone. When Ciardis looked up from her daze, Thanar’s wing was whole, and he nearly bounced around the table as nimbly as a young man who had been resting for weeks, not with the careful dexterity he would have used moments before.
The goddess fairly brimmed with eagerness as she waved her hand toward a shimmering portal of fire she had opened in the middle of the floor. It was a normal hallway with a rounded ceiling and flames that licked along the edges of the opening like dogs eager to escape their leashes. Thanar looked at the new gateway and back at the goddess.
“Walk into the fire,” Amani said with a hint of dark desire.
Thanar raised an eyebrow. “You could just pull me through.”
Amani took a step back, flexing her hands at her sides into fists. “Now, now, Daemoni Prince, don’t be coy. You of all the beings in this room know all too well the restrictions on my…abilities. There are the covenants in place after all. You must willingly walk into perdition.”
Thanar gave her a grim smile as he said smoothly, “Can’t blame me for trying.”
“Oh, but I can,” Amani said coolly.
“Perdition?” Ciardis stammered uncertainly as she stood and walked as far as she could toward Thanar without releasing Sebastian’s limp hand from her fierce grip.
Thanar turned back to Ciardis and took a few steps toward her. When he reached her, he cupped her face in his hands and said, “It’ll be alright.”
Ciardis shook her head. “Perdition?” she repeated in a voice that both demanded and pleaded for an explanation.
Unfortunately she knew that Thanar couldn’t give her one.
“You know he’s not just being stubborn,” said Amani in a not-unsympathetic voice. “He can’t tell you until he’s followed through with his side of the deal.”
Ciardis threw a hateful glare at the goddess who was doing everything in her power to upend their lives.
“And whose fault is that?” she snapped.
The goddess gave her a thin-lipped smile as she responded, “Watch your tongue, girl, or I am just as likely to rip it out of you. To answer your question, it’s yours. Well, yours and your ancestors’, really. Foolish humans and foolish rules.”
Ciardis wrinkled her nose and shifted so she could reach up to Thanar’s chest as she kept hold of the prince heir’s hand.
“What is she talking about?” Ciardis implored. “What does she mean?”
Thanar opened, then closed his mouth in frustration.
Ciardis gave him an equally frustrated look. “Let me guess, you can’t tell me?”
He shrugged helplessly.
“Could you at least tell me when you’ll be back?” she asked desperately, not wanting to let him go forever.
As if reading her mind, Thanar said, “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but I’ll come back. I’ll always come back.”
Ciardis swallowed harshly as she fought back tears of pain and exhaustion.
“Promise?” she asked in a voice so low that she doubted anyone else but him heard it.
“Promise,” he confirmed.
Thanar looked at her, and she looked back at him.
“Like I said,” he said gently with a wink, “we’ll get through this.”
Ciardis broke down. She wanted to save the world, and she wanted to put her empire first. But she couldn’t help feeling that she was breaking in two. That she was forcing him to make a choice, a sacrifice that could never be undone.
“Don’t go,” she whispered. She wondered if he heard.
In answer he folded her into a hug so tight that there was no difference between his flesh and hers. Just a tightness that threatened to envelope them both, feelings that either would deny in their own ways. Hers being love, his being devotion.
When the goddess let out an impatient murmur, Thanar reluctantly took a step back and Ciardis felt him moving away.
“No,” she sobbed. “Don’t leave me!”
“I’m still here,” Thanar said as his body left hers. As he pulled back farther, his hand drifted down her arm, gripping flesh desperately until he had moved so far back that only their fingers touched.
Then his touch faded and she was left grasping empty air.
The last thing he said before he fully turned away and back toward the goddess standing next to her fiery gate of perdition was, “I’ll always be here.”
There were no more words.
No more delays.
The goddess simply snapped impatient fingers and the red-orange flames of the portal changed to a brilliant effervescent blue. It reminded Ciardis of the lantern-like magic she’d seen in the belly of an oceangoing ship not too long before. But she didn’t have time to think on the implications of that. Because Thanar was walking away fast. Fast enough that he would be gone in moments, and Ciardis knew that it was as much for her benefit as his.
If he stopped now, turned back now, he might not keep his word. He might not go through into perdition. And no matter how many people they’d lost to a goddess’s vengeance in this conclave meeting, it would be far worse if her vengeful rage were unleashed onto an unsuspecting city. This
agreement promised them just a bit of time—time they needed and could not overlook.
So Ciardis Weathervane gripped her unconscious fiancé’s hand anxiously as she watched the man she was beginning to admit even to herself that she loved walk through a gate of fire and underhell, never once looking back.
12
As the daemoni prince walked through the portal to the other side, Ciardis waited for the goddess of death and destruction to follow him.
But she didn’t.
Amani stayed.
And Ciardis’s heart dropped.
This after all was not good.
“Why are you still here?” Ciardis demanded.
She was done being polite. Done being scared. She wanted something to hold on to that would hold her back just as fiercely and not walk away. Anger was just that something.
The goddess’s lips twitched but at least she didn’t smile. Although she clearly wanted to.
Instead Amani shrugged and patiently tapped the handle of the sword that had reappeared in her hand like a dog called to its master. The touch of the goddess’s hand was its reward, the dead souls at her feet its entertainment. The living souls still surrounding them its next meal.
Ciardis’s heart skipped frantically in her chest, but she didn’t let her fear show on her face. What had passed between her and the daemoni prince had been for them alone.
Now as she faced the goddess and carefully placed Sebastian’s limp hand onto his chest, Ciardis wondered what could possibly come next…aside from death.
She searched Amani’s eyes and came up wanting.
The goddess was impossible to read, not the least because her irises were filled with a constellation of stars. Looking into them was like staring into the infinity of lights in the night sky. Ciardis couldn’t stare for long before becoming lost in their glow.
So as they stared at each other, Ciardis’s mind searched for something that would keep her focus on the sights and sounds of the room around her. In the eerie silence, she heard the subtle swish of a water clock, then realized it was the gurgling sounds of blood coming from the mouth of an unfortunate individual in their death throes. But when even that had stopped, Ciardis was desperate to redirect her focus onto anything that would keep her from drifting into the quicksand that was the goddess’s gaze.
