The Last Goddess

by C.E. Stalbaum

  Chapter Twenty-Five

   

  It was, Tryss told herself, the last time she would ever make this trip across Fandon Park. With luck, it would be the last time she did anything in this Fane-forsaken city. She had shrugged off her tears in favor of blind rage, and right now she was willing to direct it at anyone and anything—even herself. Maybe if she were a stronger person, she could have found a way to live with Aston. Or perhaps if she were smarter, she could have come up with another way out of this disaster. 

  But apparently she wasn’t smart or strong enough, and so instead she was going to do the wrong thing and hope it would give her the right result. 

  Tryss sighed and glanced to the Faceless guardian lumbering along next to her. With Tiber as an escort, everyone would realize she was either a noble or public figure, but this time she wasn’t bothering with much of a disguise. She wore a thick shawl over her robe to mask her face, but that was about it. If someone noticed she was their princess…well, too bad. She was past caring about such things. Wherever she ended up after this, she would be taking Tiber with her anyway. It was a sad testament to her poor choices that the only person she could completely count on was the deathless automaton she abused on a regular basis.

  She eventually reached the Senator’s safe house and knocked at the door. She didn’t even bother to check and see if anyone was watching. It cracked open a few seconds later, and Veltar’s bodyguard again smiled at her.

  “Good day, Your Highness.” Gralis’s eyes flicked briefly to Tiber, then back to her. “Please, come in.”

  She stepped inside, Tiber in tow, and strode into the living room. Veltar was already sitting there reading something, and he smiled as she stepped inside.

  “A pleasure, as always, princess,” the old man said with an entirely inauthentic smile. “I see you felt it necessary to bring your bodyguard today.”

  “I had a feeling you wouldn’t be happy with what I was going to tell you,” she said bluntly. Originally, she’d considered denying that she’d torched his documents, but ultimately she’d decided against it. At this point, she didn’t really care what he thought as long as he helped get her out of here. 

  “I see. May I ask what that is?”

  Tryss took a deep breath. “I destroyed your research. All of it.”

  His eyes narrowed. “May I ask why?”

  “Because I was done with it,” she told him, making her best effort to hold herself upright. She wasn’t going to show any weakness in front of him, despite the fact she was essentially coming here to beg for his help. “And because it is evil.”

  Veltar sat there in silence for a long moment just staring at her. Finally a faint smile pulled at his lips. This one was quite genuine. “And why do you believe that?”

  “Because it’s selfish,” she said softly. “It tears at the Fane instead of working with it. It takes personal sacrifice and diffuses it onto others. If enough people learned about it, they could cause untold suffering. I don’t care what your so-called god says about magic, but a world of power without consequence wouldn’t be much of a world for long.

   “So who, then, gets to determine those consequences?” he asked. “Who gets to set the rules of the game? You? The Empress? A silent goddess?”

  “I don’t know, but you work with ruthless, backstabbing people every day. You’ve seen the worst of what people are capable of, and that’s while they’re begging for scraps at the table. I’m talking about real power here, and I refuse to believe you can’t appreciate how disastrous this weaving technique would be in the wrong hands. I know you want to rule the Republic—surely you don’t want to see it burned to ashes around you.”

  He clasped his hands together. His smile lingered, and she couldn’t figure out why. “If you were so convinced of that, you wouldn’t have bothered to come here. You didn’t need to tell me what you had done—you could have just forgotten that we had ever spoken, and it all would have gone away.” His eyes glimmered. “Yet here you are.”

  Tryss grit her teeth. This was it, then: the moment of truth. Once she crossed this line, there was no going back. She would be sacrificing the future of the Republic—perhaps even all of Esharia—just so she could be free. She had spent most of the last week convincing herself it was the only option, but standing here now in front of this undoubtedly wicked man…

  And then she remembered Aston’s hand touching her body and his liquor-breath burning her nose, and suddenly it was no decision at all.

  “I want out,” she whispered. “I want to be free. You said you wanted me to finish this research, and I’ve done that. I can write it all down again if you want, I don’t care. I just want out of this. Whatever it takes.”

  He nodded. “Fortunately, that won’t be necessary. As you pointed out last time we met, the research I gave you was largely complete. Reproducing it won’t be difficult.”

  “So then why did you give it to me in the first place? What did you want from me?”

  “I needed your help,” he told her, “and I still do. In exchange, I’m more than willing to help you get away.”

  Tryss did her best to ignore the cold tingle racing up and down her spine. “I already told you my limits. I won’t harm someone for you.”

  He waved a dismissive hand and stood. “I don’t need you to do anything like that. What I ask of you is, honestly, quite simple. Allow me to show you.” He tilted his head to the side, and Gralis slid over to the small door on the left side of the room and opened it. “Please, follow me.”

  Veltar walked over and started down the short staircase. Tryss frowned as she moved over to it. “What’s down there?”

  “It’s something you’ll have to see for yourself,” he called back.

  She glanced to Gralis, but his face was unreadable. Biting her lip, she signaled for Tiber to follow her down and began her descent.

  The basement was small, as one would expect for a house this size, and the floor was unfinished, smooth rock. It was a single room with a pair of bright lanterns on each wall and an incredibly out-of-place row of potted plants on the right side. On the left was a long, rectangular slab of wood complete with all the disgusting implements that marked it as a torture rack.

  Tryss froze. “What…?”

  “Don’t worry; it’s not what you think,” Veltar soothed. He idly ran a hand across the wood. “I don’t want to hurt you, princess. You’re no good to me damaged.”

  She leaned back against Tiber. Somehow, the cold metal of his armor was incredibly reassuring right now. “So what do you want?”

  “You asked why I gave you that research in the first place if it was so easily duplicated,” he said. Gralis slid past her and moved to the corner of the room by a shelf. “Well, you were right to be suspicious. I needed to know if you were as sharp as I thought you were—you understood immediately that I was handing you much more than the results from a few aborted experiments.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and a slew of protective spells flashed through her mind. She was ready to defend herself if needed, but he hadn’t actually done anything yet… “So I figured it out. What did that get you?”

  “It was an answer to my first question about your abilities, but by itself it wasn’t enough. I needed to be certain you actually understood what you were reading.”

  Tryss shook her head in confusion, but then belatedly it hit her—and her stomach abruptly sank. “You sent those men after me in the park, didn’t you?”

  Veltar shrugged. “I needed a tangible demonstration. Suffice to say, you provided it.”

  Her hands unconsciously balled into fists. “You made me hurt them…”

  “I didn’t make you do anything, but if you’re worried about their well-being, don’t be. They were dregs who deserved every bit of pain you inflicted upon them, trust me.” He glanced to Gralis, then back to her as he lifted a finger. “So all that remains, princess, is one final test to see if you are truly worthy.”

  “I
don’t—”

  And suddenly a metal hand was clutching around her throat and lifting her from the ground. Tryss instinctively reached up to try and pry herself free, but it was futile and she knew it. Tiber’s grip was as strong and cold as death itself.

  “After all this effort, I would be quite disappointed if you let him kill you,” Veltar said. “By all means, stop him.”

  Tryss’s mind reeled as her vision blurred. What had he done to Tiber? How could he possibly control her guardian? She clawed at the crystal control pendant around her neck, but the automaton didn’t respond. Then her instincts took over, and a spell burned into her thoughts. 

  The air stirred with an all-too-familiar hiss as she sundered the Fane, drawing energy from every living thing around her. The plants in the corner charred and wilted, and magic danced across her skin. Tiber’s grip faltered and he flew back against the wall. White light exploded from the cracks inside his armor, and he released a low, guttural roar as his body burst apart at the seams.

  Tryss collapsed and clutched against the table, gasping for breath. All that remained of her guardian since childhood were bits of metal and a pile of smoldering ash.

  “Marvelous,” Veltar exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “Even better than I’d hoped.”

  Tryss pulled herself to her feet, another spell crackling at her fingertips as she prepared to turn the smug old man into dust—and then, without any warning whatsoever, she was tumbling through the air smashing face first into the floor. She tried to move, but Gralis was already on top of her. His speed seemed superhuman, and before she could even think about recovering, he had her flipped over and slammed onto the rack. Latches clamped around her arms and legs, and she tried to flail herself free…

  “I said I don’t want to hurt you, princess,” Veltar’s voice said through the blurry crimson haze obscuring her vision. “Especially not when you’ve done so well. You are absolutely all I could have hoped for, and believe me when I tell you that you’ll get everything you wanted. After today, you won’t have to worry about your insipid fiancé anymore. You won’t have to worry about your oppressive mother or even dealing with the moral burdens of using this…’evil’ power, as you called it. I am going to give you more freedom than you could have ever hoped for.”

  Something metallic jabbed into her arm—a needle, perhaps—and her already spinning mind lost all focus. She tried to weave another spell, but this time the power just wouldn’t come. She couldn’t concentrate; the spells slurred into an incomprehensible jumble in her mind. She was lost and helpless and alone, and this time, no one in the world was going to be able to help her.

  “You really should thank me, you know,” Veltar said smugly. “I’m going to guarantee you a spot in the revolution that will define the legacy of our people. Even as Empress, you never would have gotten an opportunity like this. I will turn you into something…remarkable, and you will get me everything I need to bring forth the Restoration.”

  Even as her consciousness waned and she lost feeling in her body, she could almost see the old man smiling as he stood over her.

  “Now tell me, princess: what do you know about the legend of the Kirshal?”