She fought the urge to clutch her aching skull and instead tried a smile for him. “That’s… incredible news, Etienne,” Alphonse murmured, knowing her tone was pained. Contrary to her wishes, Etienne’s smile dimmed.
Delyth’s brow creased, her eyes on the healer’s dark-rimmed eyes and sallow skin. “Alphonse, are you suffering?”
“Just a bit of a headache,” Alphonse replied hastily, looking away from both Delyth and Etienne. “I’m certain it will go away. Enyo is just… um… a little upset.”
“Oh…” Etienne breathed, deflating, and Alphonse’s heart lurched. “We can save it. Only lock her away for the really bad stuff.”
Relief colored the healer’s voice as she replied. “That’s a good idea, Etienne. Only for very bad things and the rest— You and Delyth can just give her what she wants to keep the peace. I understand. I won’t be disappointed or upset.”
“That is the simplest choice, aderyn bak,” Delyth said, making a tent for Alphonse out of one wing. “Doing what Enyo likes often allows us to continue moving forward. And ultimately, that is our most important goal right now— getting you to the temple. However, the easiest choice is not always the best one.”
She sighed again, looking to Etienne. “I will do everything in my power to see us to the temple, but I will fight to keep my… my humanity along the way. Enyo is only the latest in a long line of those who would take it away.”
For a long moment, all Alphonse could do was curl into the curve of Delyth’s wing and think. A difficult task with her head splitting and her stomach clenching and that heaviness. That weight. That pressure against her heart.
The sickness wanted out.
Finally, Alphonse only nodded in understanding. She fought Enyo every day and lost. And each time Enyo took over, Alphonse’s friends paid the price.
But still, she fought.
And they would as well but…
“But when we get to the Temple— Enyo…” she swallowed, not daring to look at Etienne, else she reveal their secret plan to remove Enyo from her body. “Enyo wants to go there. She— You— The plan is for her to go there to become more. Isn’t it? To become more like what she was before?” That had been her understanding, the way Enyo obsessed over the temple, the way she insisted they go.
It wasn’t so she’d be cast back into the dungeons of nowhere, that in-between place she had occupied for three hundred-odd years.
༄
Delyth sighed deeply for a third time. “The Enyo we have seen is little like the Enyo I grew up worshipping. I think perhaps she was not meant to live in a human body, or else her time bound away has affected her…”
The warrior looked down at Alphonse, where she was nestled close and curled her wing closer around the smaller woman’s frame. “Perhaps there is something at the temple that will make her better. Perhaps she will be able to exist without a human body.”
Across the fire, Etienne looked more exhausted than thoughtful. He gave no indication as to what he thought of Delyth’s musings. “We should sleep,” he said simply and abruptly.
Alphonse barely covered a yawn before she held out a hand to Delyth to be helped up. The warrior pulled her easily to her feet.
“Goodnight, Etienne,” Alphonse said, and they turned towards their tent, Alphonse resting her head against Delyth’s shoulder, their hands not quite touching.
Delyth held her breath, walking smoothly as possible so as not to disturb Alphonse’s gentle veil-draped head on her shoulder, and when they reached the tent, she held the flap for Alphonse to slide in and change.
She made quick work of the ward, allowing herself, for just those few moments, to dwell on the easy, comfortable way Alphonse had curled up against her at the fire. Then, when the sounds of rustling had ceased to come from within, Delyth followed Alphonse inside and curled up on her side of the tent so that one wing draped over the other girl’s pallet.
“Goodnight, Alphonse.”
❀
“Goodnight,” she agreed, yet didn’t close her eyes. In the near darkness of the privacy of Delyth’s wing, Alphonse gazed instead across the pallet to Delyth. Priestess, Warrior, Friend. Several minutes passed, but Alphonse didn’t close her eyes, didn’t drift off into that heavy sleep usually brought on by a long day's travel.
Instead, she shifted to cup her hand under her head. She could feel the shield of Delyth’s wing just within reach of her fingertips.
Slowly, Alphonse reached out to those velvety expanses of skin. She had learned in the weeks of sharing a tent, that the underside of Delyth’s wings were particularly soft to the touch. Strange, since they were so powerful.
She let her fore finger and middle finger trace the veins of one spine. Then another. A soothing touch, as much for herself and her aching mind as for Delyth.
“I don’t have very many friends. Most at Moxous thought me… boring.” She hesitated on the word. They had thought her a prude and a blind Mother Agathi follower and many other unflattering things. “Etienne doesn’t care if I am drab to look at. He only cares about my mind. About magic.” He had never made fun of her veil or her plain colored dresses or her modest style. He had never made her feel self-conscious for being soft-spoken.
༄
Delyth held absolutely, perfectly still from the moment Alphonse’s gentle fingers began to stroke her wings. She hardly breathed. The touch was soothing, unassuming even, but beneath the forgiving darkness of the tent, her cheeks burned.
“I’ve never had many friends either,” she admitted quietly. “People don’t tend to like the way I look.”
It felt a little silly to say it so blandly, but neither was Delyth particularly interested in dredging up past hurts just then.
“Even if I had, I wouldn’t care what others thought of you. I don’t think you’re boring.” Slowly, Delyth reached out across the tent to brush her fingers against Alphonse’s upper arm. She swallowed hard.
“Do you think that we could be friends too?” The healer’s eyes to Delyth’s face, her lower lip caught between her teeth.
“Of course, we can be friends. I think we already are, aderyn bak.”
Alphonse shivered at the touch and let out a small breath that nearly was a laugh. “What a relief,” she murmured into the sacred darkness. “I thought I was the only one who wanted to be friends, that I was making it up in my mind. I didn’t know if perhaps you were only nice to me because you are priestess, and I am the vassal…”
Slowly Alphonse held out her hand, palm up, and laid it flat on the earthen floor between them. A gesture of friendship.
Delyth took in a deep, shaky breath and let her fingers slowly trace down the length of Alphonse’s arm.
“No, Alphonse. You are much more than the vassal to me.”
Delyth closed her eyes and placed her calloused palm atop the girl’s waiting hand so that their fingers loosely laced together, and quickly, Alphonse tightened her grip as if this were some binding ritual and now they would be friends till the end of time. Her sweet, hopeful smile was obvious even in the dim light of the tent.
It had almost seemed that Alphonse had fallen asleep when she whispered into the darkness. “I like how you look.” And with that final compliment, Alphonse did finally drift off to sleep.
Holding Delyth’s hand.
Chapter X
Fifth Moon, Waning Crescent: Thloegr
Delyth woke slowly. The patter of gentle rain on the roof was a lullaby, the warmth of the tent lulling and peaceful. A pleasant dream lay just on the edges of her memory. The tasks of the day were calling, but still, she yawned and blinked awake languidly.
Only to find, instead of the soft smile and bleary eyes of a well-rested Alphonse to greet her, Enyo’s predatory gaze. Her expression was decidedly unimpressed.
“Did you know this body is pure? Untouched? Unsullied? I doubt it’s ever had the hands of another on it. It shivers at the least seductive of touches. She doesn’t even know what pleasure is.” Enyo, sitti
ng cross-legged in Alphonse’s sensible nightgown, leaned forward, glaring at Delyth as if this were her fault.
The halfbreed threw an arm over her face and sighed. “Thanks, Enyo,” she muttered sarcastically into the bare skin of her arm. “I wanted to know that.”
It was the personal sort of insight that two close friends might share, but it felt wrong in the extreme for Enyo to blurt out such intimate knowledge of Alphonse without her consent. Likely, the healer didn’t even know that Enyo was sharing her secrets, though somehow Delyth felt that even if Alphonse were aware of it, she would pretend not to be.
And so Delyth would pretend as well. Later, when Alphonse came back.
Until then, she had to endure the idea that someone’s touches made Alphonse shiver.
❂
“I was locked away in darkness and silence for three hundred years, and now I am stuck in this inferior, prude body?!” Enyo slammed her balled fists into her knees, making Alphonse jerk in pain.
Still, she held the leash tight. Alphonse would not intercede. Not this time. Not this time.
Snarling, she darted to her feet. They were bare as she dashed to Etienne’s tent.
There the idiot mage lay, snoring and drooling. It was inconceivable that he had locked her away with his pathetic Ingolan magic, and yet he had—for the last time. Enyo bent and grabbed the boy by the front of his shirt, hauling him to his feet and then tossing him bodily from his tent. He landed with a satisfying slap in the mud.
Prowling closer, she watched as Etienne reached for his pendant, a little trinket to keep him safe. His hoard of magic locked away like some pet. Some slave. Waiting for his bidding.
“No,” she growled, snatching the leather cord about his neck and ripping it. With a grunt of effort, Enyo threw the Ingolan charm into the woods. He’d never find it again. Not without the help of his herbs and chalk and smoke. Ember eyes darted back to his tent, and Enyo ducked inside. In his pack, where all the ridiculous ingredients the mage needed to produce magic. To contain her.
Yanking them out Enyo, hurried out of the tent and to the slumbering coals of the fire. The warrior and the mage boy were still reeling in confusion and dismay. Humans. With one final look at the boy who had stepped out of bounds, Enyo viciously tore open his packets of herbs and dumped them onto the sizzling coals. With a thought, she coaxed them back into life. Smoke rose up, and she added his chalk and feathers and anything else those superstitious Ingolans thought necessary to conduct magic. Wet and smoldering, Enyo smiled victoriously. Etienne would not get in her way again.
Turning back to the pair, Enyo planted her fists on her hips.
“Worship me,” she commanded, unaware and uncaring of the frigid rain drenching her tawny unbound locks and face. She turned to Delyth as well. “Sacrifice something in my name. Now.”
✶
Etienne was sitting in the mud, his boots and belt off, his shirt untucked and half unbuttoned. One hand was pressed to his chest, palm flat against the mark there, just visible between his fingers. Enyo stood in between him and a newly-woken Delyth, who, he remarked, had at least managed to leave her tent standing up.
And there, in the fire, smoking and damp with rain, were his supplies. Everything he needed to cast magic. Even his amulet, with its store of power, was gone.
All because he had tested the Goddess once.
He wasn’t sure if he was angrier with her outburst or at himself for giving away the ability to contain her so easily. He could have used it to keep Allee safe. Or to do what needed to be done at the temple.
He’d just have to acquire more supplies… discreetly. If it was even possible in this wilderness.
“All we have are travel rations,” Etienne growled. “Go break some small creature’s neck, why don’t you?”
“Why don’t we start with yours?” Enyo’s grin was skull-wide, but Etienne couldn’t bring himself to rise from the mud. He was useless. All his teeth pulled in one easy swoop.
༄
Delyth had once seen a mountain lion stalking prey. She’d been in the air, far enough away so that she had not disturbed either cat or goat, but close enough to watch as the lithe creature stepped forwards in silent, coiled power.
Enyo held herself the same way now, all tense, dangerous focus and bared teeth. It was clear what sacrifice she had in mind.
Delyth flung herself across the clearing and wrapped her arms around Alphonse’s small frame bodily. Enyo might be stronger, but she’d at least be able to slow her down.
“Here’s a thought, Taouk,” the halfbreed growled. “Why don’t we avoid attacking traveling companions. You do want to get to the damned temple, don’t you?”
Enyo thrashed wildly, head thumping against Deltyh’s chest, limbs flailing. In this moment, she wasn’t a honed warrior but a wild creature, captured and enraged.
“I will not go! I will not take a single step further. I will never let this body go! I will make her die here. Unless I get proper tribute. Now!” She finally twisted out of Delyth’s encircling arms and spun, facing the warrior. Wrath had contorted her into something… Vile.
And as if to prove her point, she brought her hand, Alphonse’s beautiful, delicate, healing hand, up to her throat. Squeezing it. Squeezing and squeezing until her face started to turn red, and Alphonse’s body jerked in desperation for air. Even as this happened, Enyo’s grip never faltered, her wide, furious eyes never leaving Delyth and Etienne.
Delyth scrambled to grab Enyo’s wrist to stop her from choking Alphonse, but she could do nothing. All of her strength was helpless in this case. She would only hurt Alphonse more.
“Fine!” she shouted into Enyo’s face, her own expression red and desperate as Alphonse’s skin changed hue. “Fine! We will get you a sacrifice.”
She couldn’t see anything but Alphonse fading in the Goddess’s harsh grip, her body failing. Delyth would never— could never forgive herself.
Legends had said when Enyo decided something, it was so.
“There’s a clan,” she gasped. “Aur’draig. It should be near here, on the way to Thlonandras. We can go, get you something worthy.”
Enyo’s grip tightened threateningly but then released.
Alphonse coughed and gasped, while Enyo still stared from her eyes. Unnerving to see the two, so linked. So bonded. One and the same.
“Take me. Now. No more delays. No more denying me. I am Taouk. You are?”
Delyth ignored the Goddess’s question. She was mortal, but she was also keeping them all alive. And she could do without Enyo reminding them all that she was the Goddess.
She looked over Enyo’s head to Etienne and nodded towards the tents. He seemed to get the idea, at least, turning to pack.
“Alright, we’ll go now, but you should know that the townspeople probably won’t worship you in a nightgown. They aren’t used to Goddesses picking up and trying on the bodies of mortals. They’ll likely just think you mad.”
She turned to fling her and Alphonse’s tent into a pack.
Chapter XI
Fifth Moon, Waning Crescent: Thloegr
It had taken the better half of the morning, and Alphonse’s body shivering with cold before Enyo deigned to dress, but they had finally arrived at the Aur’draig settlement. Enyo paced along the southern road, waiting as Etienne and Delyth debated how best to go in.
Just Etienne and Enyo?
Just Delyth?
Just Enyo?
The only thing that kept Enyo waiting was the knowledge that she needed coin to buy the wine she wanted, but Delyth doubted the argument would hold her long. It was not as though Enyo would have any moral qualms about stealing.
“You cannot go into town alone with Enyo,” Delyth told Etienne for the tenth time. “If anything happens, what will you do?”
The scholar was red in the face from arguing. “Well we certainly can’t let Enyo go by herself! We may never see her again! And you— Well, look at you! Is this normal in the Wildlands?”
“Don’t mortal men buy prospective bedmates drinks?” Enyo demanded, the implication clear. She did not need their money. She could go in on her own and get what she wanted.
The suggestion just made Delyth angrier. All she fucking needed was Enyo in a room of men that wouldn’t know or give a damn that the body she resided in could have no say.
“All I need is a disguise!” she barked, her usual stoic demeanor lost to frustration. “Aren’t you supposed to be a sorcerer?”
Etienne blinked. “Oh. Yes. But, there’s not much I can do without the supplies that Enyo burned.”
Delyth growled in exasperation. “Then what can you do?”
“Well… illusion magic requires much less. It only has to work on minds, not the world itself.”
“Then, by the Cursed Realms, would you do something before she goes into town alone?”
Etienne murmured to himself for a moment, eyeing Delyth, almost accusatory. “At least these woods are teaming with datura leaves. I’ll use them to fuel the spell, and their mild hallucinogenic effects will be amplified by the magic.”
He gathered the supplies, crushing the spiky seeds of a plant Delyth dimly recalled as being useful to seers. He painted the resulting paste onto her wings, chanting beneath his breath in nonsensical phrases. It was cold and smelled faintly herbal. When he was finally finished, she snapped at him again. “Well?”
“It's done,” he said. “And we should go now.”
In front of them, Enyo was already several yards down the road.
⥣ ⥣ ⥣
* * *
Delyth fought the urge to glance over her shoulders as they walked through the settlement, only half paying attention to where Enyo was leading her. At most, the townspeople gave them curious looks. No one scowled or flinched away.
Vassal Page 14