Vassal

by Sterling D'Este

  “If they do, then they must think me big and ungainly,” she said, chuckling. “They scatter when I am near. Even hawks and mountain eagles, though I think they are less frightened than just adverse to company. They are fierce, lonely birds.” She smiled at Alphonse and affectionately brushed a strand of tawny hair away from her face. “Do you think you would like to fly sometime?”

  The healer shivered at that soft touch and closed her eyes. There was a crinkle in her lips that surely was a private smile. Laying so close, Delyth could hardly miss the gentle expression, and she felt her own cheeks warm, though she didn’t move to touch Alphonse again. It was too new, too fragile a thing.

  “Is it very frightening? Being so high up?” the healer asked quietly, the soft darkness filling the tent heavy as a warm blanket.

  “I don’t think so,” Delyth said honestly. “I think it feels like freedom. Maybe that's silly, but I just don’t know of any other way to describe it. It feels powerful and limitless—like you could go anywhere.”

  “Maybe when… when this is all over.” The quiet between them was comfortable. Natural. “Your pretty hair is tickling my nose. Would it be rude if I laid on my other side?”

  Delyth bit her bottom lip. She wasn’t used to anyone calling her pretty.

  Especially not beautiful, kind women like Alphonse.

  “Yes— I mean no, it's not rude,” she said, her voice a little hoarse. “That’s fine.” As the other girl rolled over, Delyth tentatively curled up around her. “Is this alright?” She hardly breathed the whisper. “For warmth.”

  ❀

  “Yes.” Alphonse murmured, eyes already growing heavy. How could she be tired!? She had barely been awake an hour…

  Whatever Enyo had been up to that day must have been exhausting.

  Briefly, she wondered if her hair was now tickling Delyth’s nose, but couldn’t be bothered to move. The back of her skull rested against Delyth’s shoulder, and the taller woman’s body shielded her perfectly from the plummeting temperatures.

  “I do miss your wings, though,” she mumbled into the darkness. Wrapped up in those gigantic membranes, Alphonse had always felt as if she were cocooned in some safe shelter, far away from the terrible reality of her life.

  “They’ll be back by morning,” Delyth replied. “And I won’t hide them again anytime soon.”

  “Good, I like you the way you are.” And Alphonse thought Delyth liked her the way she was too. Even with Enyo. It was a relief to have a female friend who accepted her as she came. In Moxous, many girls seemed to be close friends. Holding hands in the hallways, sitting next to each other in the libraries, giggling and whispering. But Alphonse had never experienced such companionship with other females.

  She had always thought her friendship with Etienne was special and would go unsurpassed. After all, most of the girls at Moxous had at best thought her boring, and more often than not openly dismissed her. They never truly accepted her nor embraced her.

  But now, with Delyth as her friend, Alphonse was starting to understand how much she had missed at school. How lucky she was now to experience this kind of kinship.

  “Goodnight, Delyth,” she murmured faintly, already feeling the tendrils of sleep wrapping about her mind.

  Delyth hummed into the crown of Alphonse’s head. “Good night, Alphonse.”

  ⥣ ⥣ ⥣

  * * *

  Alphonse hadn’t felt much like writing in her journal the first few weeks of their journey. It had seemed pointless to a degree, as her musings were often dark and self-loathing and had nothing to do with the art of healing. Students at Moxous were encouraged to keep daily journals of what they learned, their own personal thoughts of the subjects, and a log of activities in order to keep their minds well organized.

  A habit instilled in them since the young age of eleven or twelve, Alphonse had been meticulously journaling all those years. Yet when Enyo had taken hold of her body, hold of her life… Alphonse had been lost. She struggled to find the way back to herself and so had dropped the habits that had kept her company for many years.

  But with the addition of Tristan to their group, and with Enyo’s clear fondness for the man, Alphonse suddenly felt the urge to resume that which had been such an intricate part of her. Of Alphonse.

  She had packed the journal, at the bottom of her sack, and there it had lain, undisturbed, for weeks.

  But the morning after meeting Tristan, Alphonse found herself hauling the journal out, along with a charcoal pencil, and determinedly started to write down every fact and detail of her experience.

  A student’s journal had started this entire mess.

  She wanted to make sure her own journal might save someone else from suffering her fate: twenty, thirty, a hundred years from now.

  So, she explained what had happened, how it happened, why it had happened. She tried her best to describe what it was to share a body with Enyo, what it was like to wake up somewhere new, with no idea how she had gotten there. How it felt to know you were harming your friends and strangers alike without any say on if or why it happened.

  Alphonse had filled page after page with the details before she felt some modicum of peace.

  It had been cathartic to get it out. To get her story onto paper, even if her lettering was a mess from trying to walk and write simultaneously.

  Sighing in relief, she handed the journal over to Etienne, with a briefly explaining what it was. She didn’t trust Enyo not to destroy it whenever she came back, and so thought to have Etienne hide it with his own journal.

  When he got back to Moxous, whether she made it or not, Etienne could store the proof of this journey alongside all the other student journals in the School of Magics’ massive library.

  Perhaps to never be touched again.

  But perhaps, to save someone from making the same mistakes they had made.

  ⥣ ⥣ ⥣

  * * *

  The next evening, Etienne sat next to the fire, picking thorns out of his clothing. Alphonse had healed the cuts and scratches left behind by Enyo’s pranks but had done little to repair his attitude.

  Lately, it seemed as though every time Enyo appeared, he was sent flying or thrown into angry shrubs. The Goddess derived a particular sort of pleasure from harming him that even Delyth, who had stood and told Enyo no to her face, did not warrant.

  He suspected this treatment was due to his trapping spell days before. He had proven himself an adversary—a true threat to her power.

  But it didn’t make it any easier to bear.

  She had just flung him off the path, headfirst into brambles, laughing as the plants wound around his limbs, digging long thorns into sensitive skin. As though his pain was her favorite sort of entertainment.

  Etienne was so angry that when Enyo demanded they watch the moonrise with her, he stayed firmly seated. It didn’t seem to matter. She didn’t protest. In fact, when he looked up at them again, it was just Alphonse standing there, her shoulders held in the small, timid way he was more familiar with. Delyth stood beside her, and while he watched, his long-time friend placed her hand in the warrior’s.

  Delyth missed the moonrise over the mountains, but her face was illuminated by it; half surprise, half tenderness.

  Etienne’s stomach clenched.

  He had noticed the two women getting closer over the weeks since Delyth had joined them, but he didn’t understand it. Couldn’t Alphonse see that she was just making things harder for herself? They would have to betray Delyth and her cause in the end.

  He turned away angrily only to find Tristan still seated on the other side of the fire. The man didn’t bother pretending that he had not been watching Etienne. Instead, he smiled slowly, the curve never reaching his eyes.

  Chapter XIII

  Spring, 100 years after Va'al’s arrival: Rhosan

  The roof of Enyo’s temple was finally complete. It had taken her followers three generations to bring the massive slabs of stone up the treacherous tr
ails and then cut away smaller slices to become the roof’s pitch. But it was done now, and her temple was complete. Even the roughly hewn altar was in place. The space was perfect. Open, simple, the crisp air of the highest mountain top making her breath billow out in whisps. Even she felt the need for a shawl about her shoulders, and her priests and priestesses wore heavy woolen cloaks despite it being spring.

  Just as it was meant to be.

  The isolation and solitude was like no other place in all of Rhosan. A space where she could truly be. A space where her people could understand what it meant to be one with nature. To respect the lands that nourished and housed them. A space to forget.

  “Goddess.” Though he whispered in deference, the older priest's voice echoed, and Enyo turned to cast an ember eye over him. He stooped with a bow, but his body was lean and fit, unlike Esha’s soft handed priests or Tha’et’s fat sky worshipers. She approved.

  “Yes?”

  “Va'al has come to see you. He wishes us to grant him entrance.” The question was unspoken, but she understood it. Should Va'al be allowed in? Of course, Va'al could appear within the shadows if he pleased, that particular gift all his own. By coming to her door and asking permission, he was being respectful.

  He had been after her for many seasons now. Irksome and tireless. He had traveled about Rhosan and Illygad far longer than the others had when they first arrived, and Enyo hadn’t thought much of it. Who wouldn’t adore freedom after a lifetime of servitude and broken backs? She had spent her first seventy-five years merely bathing in every stream, river, and brook she had found and refusing to speak to a single person.

  But then he had started sniffing around her and her people. At first, she had thought him merely curious, and then perhaps even stealing a few tactics on how she had gained her loyal worshipers, but week after week, he would reappear. Never content to go off and start his own following, though he had attempted it. A small, dismal thing. Never interested in rituals or festivals. Only her.

  It had annoyed Enyo.

  As a slave, she hadn’t been granted free choice in a single aspect of her life in the Cursed Realms. When she slept, when she fought, when she fucked. And so she had no interest whatsoever in such things. Not for many many years. Va'al was only a century free. How could he choose to pursue her?

  It was some trick. He was prone to them.

  Trick or not, it was nothing Enyo was interested in herself, and so she had ignored him or openly scoffed. It was difficult to measure age in the Cursed Realms, as no one died unless they were Unmade, and even then, their spirits lasted forever. Despite this longevity, many were born. It was one of the reasons there were so many wars and so many slaves.

  Enyo was certain Va'al was generations, perhaps even centuries, younger than she. He was mischievous and silly.

  What would she do with someone such as that?

  “Goddess?” the Priest asked again.

  “Send him in, Ba’oto,” she murmured, turning back to her altar. Va'al had come respectfully; she would at least grant him an audience.

  ⚀

  “Hello, Enyo,” Va'al said with a courteous nod of his head. He would, of course, bow to no one, no matter how he might enjoy their company. Not anymore. “Spring suits you.”

  For all that it did not feel like spring in Enyo’s mountaintop temple, the season did show in her bearing, all newness and bounty. As though spring was as much in her as the world around her. Va'al felt his pulse quicken, but he did not reach for the gift hidden within his bag. He meant to make a gamble, but such things shouldn’t be rushed.

  Enyo kept her back to Va'al, hands repeatedly running over the rough edges of her altar. Perhaps she was being coy. Or perhaps she was truly more interested in the stone than him.

  “Spring suits us all. It’s the start of new life across all of Illygad. My first season here, I nearly wept when I saw it. I think the Cursed Realms had forgotten what spring was. What any change in season was. Only burnt ashes and screaming voices.” Her hands stilled over the altar finally.

  “I hated that place.”

  Va'al clenched his teeth. Why must she bring up the Cursed Realms every time he saw her? Could she not tell that he was bent on forgetting his past, on starting fresh?

  He took a calming breath and focused again on his purpose in coming here, words coiling from his tongue like snakes. “In honor of spring, we ought to put the Cursed Realm behind us. Let that name no longer fall from our lips so that we may forget and start anew.”

  She finally turned to face him, her expression controlled, eyes roaming over his frame as they always did. It was clear she found him attractive, though she never acted on it. Infuriatingly.

  “I can’t argue with that line of thought. Spring is spring after all.” She swept her gaze towards the newly erected roof of her temple and then shrugged. “Very well. Anew. What is it that you want then?”

  “I’m sure you noticed, as did I, that last time we were together, Tha’et was boasting of a pearl. The most perfect pearl ever made by the sea. A miniature of the moon and as large as a hen’s egg. I don’t know if I believe that the moon herself gave it to him, as he claims, but it does make an excellent gift.”

  Carefully, Va'al pulled the wooden box from his shadow and blew from its delicate engravings the lingering tendrils of darkness. He could not help, for a moment, admiring the scene there portrayed. Deer bounded from a glen, a brook in relief before the trees. Just as he remembered them from his first moments in this world.

  “For you,” he said, stepping closer to hand Enyo the box. “For showing me spring.”

  Enyo’s fingers closed around the box, and she lifted it up, inspecting the carvings. For a long time, she was silent, and then she smiled. “I nearly caught those deer before you showed up. It was a good hunt.” She flipped the lid open, and her smile turned savage.

  Sitting as pretty as a sunrise in the center of the box was a massive pearl. It was a perfect sphere, incandescent and glossy as if just brought out of the sea. Her image, distorted and pale, reflected on the surface of the prize.

  “You stole Tha’et’s little trinket?” she asked, tone delighted. She plucked the pearl up in her fist, letting it balance on her palm.

  With Enyo smiling down at the pretty thing, Va'al leaned back and grinned. It had been excellently clever. “With Tha’et’s little sky priests darting through his temple to simper and run errands, it was easy to get in. I threw on one of those ridiculous blue robes, convinced a few minds that I had every right to be there, then slipped it into my pocket and disappeared into the dark.”

  Laughably easy. And Tha’et thought himself so high above the rest of them. He needed to be taken a step down.

  “And you brought it to me?” Enyo’s voice had taken on a nearly deep, purring quality. She looked pleased.

  “Of course,” Va'al drawled, sensing her change in mood. He took a step closer, pressing his opening. “There is no one who more deserves the moon’s treasures.”

  He felt the same wild thrill at being this close to her that he had upon first stepping into the world of Illygad. A rush of freedom. She brought the massive pearl to her lips, rubbing the smooth surface over them and then over her chin and throat—like a wild cat, butting her jaw against tree trunks and bushes. Claiming ownership.

  Enyo’s gaze flickered over Va'al’s face, and she, for once, stepped closer too. Closing the distance between them. “It smells like summer rain.” She eased closer again, a hair's breadth between them now. Slowly, Enyo turned her face up towards Va'al, her throat and neck exposed. She was stronger and more dangerous, but smaller in stature. She practically looked as a fawn might, large eyes, sweet words. Nearly docile.

  Was it a trick?

  Even if it were, Va'al was going to take the gamble. He always took the gamble.

  “You are more beautiful than summer rain. Wilder than a mountain blizzard.” He bent down so that their faces were nearly touching, leaning into the charged feeling
between them. Va'al knew Enyo wanted him too, knew that she must feel some of this tension.

  He wanted to bathe in it, but Enyo proved too eager. She rubbed her cheek against his, the smooth skin like satin on sandpaper. Her lips found his throat. Her teeth.

  And then the sky went dark above them.

  Va'al looked up at the eclipse overhead and smiled. “Tha’et must have finally noticed his prize was missing.”

  ❂

  Enyo growled slightly, annoyed that when she had finally decided she would take Va'al up on his offers, there was a distraction. Her irritation faded as she watched the light of the sky turn a strange greyish yellow. Immediately, Enyo felt laughter rippling through herself, and she crowed.

  Tha’et was an ever-preaching manchild who seemed to believe that since his natural abilities aligned with the solar system, he was by far the most important, most powerful of the Gods. He was self-righteous and rigid. He didn't know how to laugh. Most of the time, he was boring, and the rest, he was downright infuriating.

  And now Va'al had pissed him off, brought Enyo Tha’et’s precious pearl, and disturbed these too-settled lands.

  She loved it.

  How long had it been since she had fun? How long had she lived without laughter?

  Rhosan gave her freedom and the peace of nature and mountains. And she had been happy. Truly content, or as content as a being such as she could ever be. But now? Now she was smiling, caressing the pearl possessively. And it was all because of Va'al.

  “Let him sulk,” Enyo decreed, slipping her hand up Va'al’s torso to grip the back of his skull. Just as the pearl was now hers, he too would be.

  Chapter XIV

  Sixth Moon, Waning Crescent: Thloegr

  Time began to behave very strangely, the further the party trudged into the mountains of Rhosan. One minute it was spring. Bright and fresh and full of promise, the next it was the start of summer. An entire moon cycle had passed within the blink of an eye.