The Last Goddess

by C.E. Stalbaum

  ***

   

  It was an hour past dinnertime when Rook peered into the sparring chamber and caught a glimpse of Selaste in the corner. She was hanging upside down, arms crossed and eyes closed, her knees bent around a metal bar. Rook made it halfway across the room before he realized the bar wasn’t actually connected to anything—it was simply floating in mid-air, somehow supporting her weight.

  “It’s a focusing exercise,” Selaste said. Her eyes remained closed. “I don’t know where I learned it.”

  “I’ve…never seen anything quite like it. How does it even work?”

  “The trick is to alter gravity around the bar and keep it aloft. The better you get, the more downward force you can apply to yourself to test your own muscles.”

  He nodded.” And how good are you?”

  “Not as good as before,” she lamented. “This Flensing, as they call it, is really annoying.”

  Rook smiled. “So you remember how to weave normally, then?”

  “It didn’t take long. I’m surprised whoever did this to me left that knowledge in the first place. Maybe they couldn’t take one without the other.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. You missed dinner, by the way.”

  She opened her eyes and extended her hands to the ground. A thick sheen of sweat glistened off her bare arms, and her veins had become more pronounced. She fully extended her legs, leaving her in a handstand as the bar gently floated to the ground next to her. She held the pose long enough for her arms to start quivering before flipping deftly to her feet.

  “I wasn’t hungry,” she said, breathing deeply and stretching.

  “Well, I saved you some stew anyway. I put it in your quarters. If you hurry, it might still be warm.”

  She smiled tiredly and ran a towel across her face. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  “I mean for everything, not just the stew.”

  Rook studied her as she dried off. Other than the muscle fatigue, she looked relaxed and almost pensive, which was a pleasant change from the persistent scowl she’d been wearing since Bale delivered the bad news two days ago. Rook just wasn’t sure what had brought it about; she had barely spoken at all since then.

  “Are you doing all right?” he asked.

  She turned to face him, her turquoise eyes glittering in the dim light. “Yes. I’ve made a decision. Two, in fact.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “About what?”

  “I don’t want my memories back, even if it is possible to restore them somehow,” she told him. “I know you said you were willing to keep looking, but it’s not necessary.”

  “I see,” he replied coolly. “May I ask why?”

  “Because I like who I am now. The more I think about what Bale said, about how I could very well be an accomplice in all of this…” She shook her head adamantly. “I don’t want to know that person. And I definitely don’t want to be her.”

  “Even if you were willingly involved in this somehow, maybe the memories you’ve made since then would change your mind.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t want to find out. And I don’t want to waste your time.”

  “It’s my time to waste,” he reminded her. “But I’ll respect your wishes, of course, and I can certainly understand your hesitation.”

  “Thank you,” she replied softly. Her eyes seemed to lose their focus for a moment before she tossed the towel into a wicker basket. “If you had to guess, who do you think I was before?”

  “I’m not much of a guesser. I try to teach my people to avoid it whenever possible.”

  Selaste snorted. “I’ve seen you do it about a hundred times in the past week alone. All of you.”

  “That’s educated speculation,” he said. “There’s a difference.”

  “Gods,” she scoffed. “You’re usually a lot more subtle at deflecting questions.”

  He smiled despite himself. “That obvious, eh? Fine.” He sighed and turned to face her. “You can handle a sword, but I don’t think you were a soldier. Even healing magic leaves scars most of the time, and I haven’t seen any.”

  “Reasonable. What else?”

  “I don’t think you underwent standard mage training, either. I think you were taught how to Defile later, and you just happened to pick it up quickly.”

  Selaste nodded. “All right. So what does that leave?”

  He knew he flinched faintly even though he tried to hide it, but she had asked for his opinion and he was going to give it to her. “I don’t know if you were a volunteer, exactly, but I’m going to guess you were a sympathizer. Possibly a monk, maybe even a priestess.”

  “Ah,” she murmured. Her face showed clearly what she thought of that answer. “So you’re saying I’m making the right decision, then? Letting it go, I mean.”

  “I don’t know, but remember that worshipping Abalor doesn’t make someone evil. In the modern era they’re a political faction more than a strict religious sect, and they’re as diverse as any other large group of people. The extremists just tend to scream loudly enough to drown out the rest of them, unfortunately.”

  She mulled it over for a few seconds. “So you’re implying I could have volunteered for something and not even known what it was.”

  “It’s possible. I just don’t think you should rule out the fact you were probably as good of a person then as you are now.” He scratched idly at his beard. “I’d like to think at the end of the day that we’re more than just a collection of memories.”

  Her eyebrows raised. “That almost sounds spiritual. I didn’t think Ebarans were the religious type.”

  “It’s possible to have a spiritual side without worshipping a god,” he pointed out. “But you’re right, it’s not something I can prove. I just think there are some parts about a person you can’t change, not even with a spell.”

  She turned away and swallowed heavily. “I’d like to believe that too.”

   “Well, there’s plenty of time to change your mind. You don’t need to feel pressured about that.”

  Selaste didn’t reply, and he stood there with her in silence. He knew it wouldn’t be an easy decision, and as much as he liked to think he would never run from the truth, he had to admit that he’d been guilty of it on occasion. After Lurien died, he’d done his best to ignore and forget what had happened. It had been the only way he could deal with it at the time—and present circumstances showed he probably still wasn’t ready to deal with it now, either. He could hardly fault her for doing the same.

  “You mentioned that you made two decisions,” Rook prompted after a moment. “What was the second one?”

  She tensed just slightly. “I want to work for you. Once we leave this place, I mean. Assuming the offer is still open.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Good,” she murmured. “It’s nice to have something to look forward to.”

  “You might be disappointed when things return to normal and we aren’t being chased across the country. Business is actually rather dull most of the time.”

  “Somehow I doubt that,” she said. “I’m not promising I’ll stick around long, but if I can help out for a while…I figure I’ll know the three of you, at least, and that’s better than nothing.”

  “I’m not promising to keep you around long, either,” he said, a wry grin tugging at his lips. “You might surprise me and be a terrible employee.”

  Selaste glared at him for a long moment before finally smiling. “Good. I’m glad that’s settled, then.”

  He smiled back at her. Her eyes really were quite striking in this lighting, and he realized belatedly he was probably staring and abruptly turned away. “Like I was saying before, your dinner is getting cold.”

  “I can heat it myself,” she reminded him. Her voice was a bit odd, and he could tell from the corner of his eye that she was still looking at him. “But I am a little hungry. Do you…want to keep me company?”

  “Sure,” he said, finding his own voice a little
hoarse for some reason. “I doubt Bale will need me for a while. It’s quite like being a specimen in a particularly large jar.”

  She chuckled and started off towards her quarters. When they arrived, the others were nowhere to be found. Rynne was probably poking around the library and must have convinced Van to follow her around.

  “Smells good,” Selaste commented as she stepped into her room and glanced down to the bowl. She placed her hand above it, and the air rippled as she directed a wave of heat down into the stew.

  “You know, it’s kind of silly given what else I’ve seen you do,” he said, leaning against the wall, “but sometimes the mundane stuff is the most impressive.”

  She smiled again. “I don’t think that’s silly at all. The ability to destroy is a poor measure of power in the end.”

  “Fair enough,” he replied, turning towards the only dresser in the room. It was empty aside from the crystalline navel ring they had found her with.

  “It was uncomfortable to sleep with,” she replied to his unspoken question. “Today I finally decided to take it out.”

  “Well, I doubt you have to worry about one of the monks stealing it. Rynne, on the other hand…”

  Selaste laughed. “It’s not mine, anyway. Not really. It’s just part of a costume someone decided to put on me.” She reached down and slid up her shirt. “Just like these…”

  He glanced down to the intricate designs across her flat stomach. “You might have a harder time getting those off. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if you had a spell for that up your sleeve.”

  She looked at him, her eyes glittering almost dangerously. “If I did, would you want me to?”

  “That’s…your choice, not mine,” he stuttered. It suddenly felt a lot warmer in here, and he knew it wasn’t just her spell.

  “I know, but I was asking you.”

  He swallowed and cleared his throat. “I think they look…” He smiled, thinking back to their conversation in the library. “Great.”

  “Much better for a first try,” she told him, stepping in close to him.

  “Your stew is going to get cold again.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  Selaste leaned in and kissed him. It had been so long he had nearly forgotten what it was like; the heat of another’s body against his, the taste of her breath in his mouth. She locked her arms around his neck and he slipped his hand beneath her shirt. Her skin flared at his touch, and he brought a hand to her back and pulled her more tightly against him.

  Then he belatedly remembered that the door was open and pushed away. He started to turn towards it, but she quickly grabbed his arm and put it back on her waist. 

  “We should—”

  She brought a hand to his lips and glanced to the door. The air rumbled and it flew shut.

  “Right,” he whispered through the finger pressing against his mouth.

  She smiled, grabbing onto him and dragging him down with her onto the bed.

  For the last five years, Rook hadn’t bothered with romance. The few times it had come up, he’d easily been able to push away with thoughts of Lurien and the sacrifice she’d made for him. He knew that many widows found it difficult to be with someone else for years after their loss, but for him, it had always felt like a special betrayal. She hadn’t just died, after all—she had died so that he could live. He couldn’t imagine she would want him to spend his borrowed time in the arms of another woman.

  But in the here and now, as Selaste arched her back and gasped when he ran his lips across her stomach, it all felt different. He would have been lying if he denied that a part of him had been imagining this moment since he first saw her inside that coffin. He was still a man, after all, and he had never seen anything like her. Now that he knew her…well, he didn’t really care who she was before. More than anything, he wanted to be with who she was now.

  He kissed his way from her belly all the way back to her lips, and her legs squeezed so tightly around him he almost found it hard to breathe. She worked at the buttons on his shirt, and her nails dragged across his chest—

  And then the entire monastery rumbled as if it had been kicked by an angry god. Rook leapt backwards off the bed and grabbed the doorknob as the building shook again. He braced himself against the adjacent desk to stay upright, and an explosion thundered further down the corridor, followed shortly by the startled shrieks of wounded monks.

  The Darenthi had found them.

  He glanced back to Selaste, but she’d already bounced to her feet and slid up behind him. Their eyes met, and just as he’d seen many times before already, she was focused and hardened on the task at hand. She might not have been a soldier in a past life, but she certainly had the poise of one.

  “Get your weapons,” she told him.

  “Right.”

  Rook pushed the door open and leapt toward his quarters across the hall. He made it all of three steps before the building rocked for a third time. He lost his footing and slipped to the ground, and he barely had time to turn his head as a section of the wall sixty feet to their right exploded. Chunks of flaming plaster sprayed across the empty chamber, and through the smoke and fire Rook made out the glowing visor of a Faceless striding through the hole.

  He started to hop up and dive into his quarters again when a barrage of crossbow bolts streamed forth from the opening and buried themselves into the corridor wall. He stayed low and tried to crawl forward, arm raised protectively in front of him—

  And then Selaste was standing over him, and the air was crackling with Fane energy. The debris in the hallway abruptly tumbled back towards the hole as if the world had been turned on its side. The marksmen cried out in panic as they were unexpectedly bombarded by giant chunks of rock.

  Except for the lone Faceless. It continued forward unfettered, the stones bouncing off its armor but barely slowing its approach.

  “You’d think they would learn,” Selaste muttered, and a ball of energy darted from her fingertips into the armored abomination. A rippling blue latticework traced across its armor as the globe shattered, and the Faceless lifted from the ground, its hollow voice echoing in protest. A second later it exploded, and pieces of armor scattered across the debris-lined corridor.

  Selaste glanced down to Rook. “Get in there!”

  He didn’t need to be told twice. He threw himself into his room and grabbed his weapons—the single shot pistol he wore under his jacket, his repeating crossbow, and his sword. He gathered them up at a record pace and dashed back to the doorway just in time for his jaw to drop open.

  Selaste was still in the hallway. She floated a foot off the ground, her entire body sheathed inside a translucent bubble of scintillating white-blue energy. Three figures emerged from the smoking hole, cloaked in their own shimmering armor of magic. The hall flashed with lightning and roared with flame as they unleashed a torrent of spells upon her, and Rook had to shield his eyes against the blinding display.

  As a soldier in the last war, he’d seen many battles. Most were conventional, fought with sharpened steel and hardened muscle. But he’d also witnessed the horror of modern warfare—the flame, the death, the majesty and terror that was the power of the Fane. He’d watched a woman who couldn’t remember her name obliterate a Darenthi mage with his own spell, and he’d then witnessed her destroy the very creatures built to counter enemy magi. After all of that, he assumed he’d seen just about everything.

  He was wrong.

  The exchange of power was both breath-taking and horrific. Bursts of energy crashed off her protective bubble, and she retaliated in kind. Eventually one of the men screamed as his barrier buckled and a sizzling stroke of violet energy disintegrated his torso. Selaste then directed her assault on the other two, and Rook shook himself out of his bewildered stupor and leaned around the corner, crossbow in hand.

  He fired. His first shot pelted the slab of charred rock one of the magi was using as cover, but his second caught the startled man in
the shoulder. His kinetic barrier absorbed most of the impact, but he still lurched backwards in surprise—and Selaste made him pay. A mere instant later, a bolt of lightning flashed from her hand and reduced him to a smoldering lump of ash.

  The last remaining mage yelled something and dove back through the smoke-filled opening. A second later, several dozen lightly armored figures lunged forward, and another barrage of crossbow bolts pelted the corridor.

   Selaste quickly threw herself into the room with Rook and took cover around the corner. The bubble surrounding her dissipated, and she pressed a hand against him to hold him back as he frantically tried to slide a fresh cartridge into his weapon.

  “We need to get out of here,” he told her. “Not even you can hold off that many.”

  She slowly shook her head as she struggled to catch her breath. A thick sheen of sweat beaded across her brow, but otherwise she seemed fine. He had expected much worse—he’d seen first-hand what the Flensing did to magi, and usually for far less impressive displays of power than what he’d just witnessed. Did that mean she was Defiling again? Could a torbo like him even appreciate the difference?

  “I’m tired of running,” she breathed, then spun around the corner again.

  Her hand immolated in flame, and a moment later the entire hallway started to glow. Flames roared across the corridor, followed shortly by a chorus of horrified screams.

  Rook grabbed onto her arm. “We have to get to the others. They’ll need our help to escape.”

  The rage in her glare dulled slightly as she locked eyes with him, and finally she nodded. “Follow me, and don’t let go.”

  She drew in a deep breath, and a curious tingle crawled up and down his skin. He couldn’t actually see the effects of the spell, but he knew what it was: a kinetic barrier stretched over both of them. It was the only chance they had against so many shooters.

  He bit down on his lip as she dragged them forward. Bolts whistled past him as they ran, and he caught a glimpse of even more soldiers—this batch brandishing swords and shields—storming in over the charred bodies of their comrades. He managed to squeeze off two more shots as they dashed for the edge of the corridor, though he couldn’t tell if either hit anything.

  Just before they spun around the far corner, their enemies finally connected. Rook winced as a trio of bolts smacked into his arms and legs, but they didn’t taste flesh—they bounced off the invisible barrier more-or-less harmlessly, leaving bruises rather than crippling wounds in their wake.

  Selaste yanked him out of line-of-sight and flattened them both against the wall. “There’s still one mage. Hold on.”

  Her hands surged with magic as she leaned around the corner, and yet again Rook had to turn away against the blinding flash. Heat warmed his cheeks, and he thought for a moment it was the end—that he would soon be waking up in the Fane or maybe just greeting eternal darkness. But eventually the heat passed and he managed to blink the afterimage from his eyes.

  “How long can you keep this up?” he asked as she pressed herself back against the wall and gasped for breath.

  “Long enough,” she told him through clenched teeth. “Cover me—I just need a moment.”

  Her body went rigid as she wove another spell. Rook grimaced and leaned around the corner to fire the last three shots in his cartridge. Only one hit, and he counted at least another ten soldiers leaping in through the hole with weapons drawn. How in Edeh’s name were they going to hold off against so many…

  Selaste twisted around behind him and unleashed her spell. Again the monastery rumbled as she shifted the pull of gravity down the length of the corridor. In unison the soldiers flipped off their feet and started falling away—and then abruptly stopped. From through the smoke-filled gap in the wall, Rook saw the last mage step forward to join in the attack, and a shimmering ball of energy darted across the room towards them.

  Rook started to flinch away just as Selaste stepped in front of him—

  The explosion was deafening, and the resulting wave of force hurled him back around the corner. He clutched at his ringing ears and tried to pull himself up, but then he spotted Selaste lying flat on her back right out in the open. He dove forward and grabbed onto her, dragging her back into cover even as bolts whizzed past his head.

  “We need to make a break for it. If we head to—”

  Rook cut himself off when he realized she wasn’t moving. He froze and reached down to touch her face. Her eyes were closed, but he didn’t see a visible wound. He frantically tried to shake her into consciousness…and then he felt the warmth of blood matting down the hair on the back of her skull. She must have hit the ground harder than he thought.

  He clenched his jaw and hoisted her up into his arms. Without even looking down the hall, he took off in a cold sprint.

  He had no idea how a force this size had managed to creep up on them without anyone noticing, but even if the Kirshane had been prepared they wouldn’t have been able to stop this assault. As his breath burned in his lungs and his heart pounded in his chest, it struck him that he had lived through this moment before. He was intimately familiar with Darenthi surprise attacks—just as he was with losing people he cared about during them.

  But not this time. No matter what else happened, he was not going to lose her. Even if he had to claw his way through their front lines by himself, he was going to get her out of here.

  He had to.