“There’s one more this time,” Nentai called out as Venna stared blankly at the ring in her hand. “We had planned on bringing you two at a time, but there’s been a… complication.”
I was a little surprised at Nentai’s confession of some difficulty, but I returned to the chest beside her once again. The container had changed shape while I hadn’t been looking, and was now a long, shallow rectangle. Nentai had stared at me with a mischievous look in her eyes as I walked back towards her and closed the lid before I could peek inside again.
“I just want you to be surprised,” she explained when I looked at her in confusion.
She pulled her hand away from the lid, and I hesitantly pried it open again. Despite her otherwise pleasant demeanor, Nentai’s sly grin gave me pause, and I peered inside cautiously.
What the open chest revealed was the most exquisitely crafted bow I had ever seen. It’s powerful, recurved upper and lower limbs were adorned with delicate carvings and a deep green emerald was mounted within its grip. I thought it had been sculpted from some rare, black wood, but when I lifted it out of the chest, I learned differently.
Retribution – God-Forged Artifact – This finely made bow was crafted for Dreya Sintári by Raithe, Goddess of War. Forged from Dark Khelduin, Retribution increases both accuracy and damage inflicted by the Sintári. This Artifact is self-repairing and has no effect on Encumbrance. The Bow is irrevocably bound to Dreya Sintári and cannot be wielded by another.
If my count was right, and in the state I was in, it could have been very wrong, I had just been gifted with my fourth God-forged Artifact. I was somewhat dumbstruck with the sudden realization, and Nentai seemed only too delighted to add to my consternation.
“Raithe and Melía worked fairly closely together on your gifts, as did I,” she smiled in amusement. “Place the grip against your forearm, and you’ll find a little surprise they cooked up for you.”
I followed her instructions almost absently, as I was still somewhat bewildered, and as the two Artifacts made contact, the limbs of the bow simply vanished, and the grip shrunk down in size and nestled into a groove in the bracer that I had never noticed before. I stared in utter amazement at the miniature grip that was held fast in place against my forearm before I grabbed hold of it again and pulled it away. As soon as it was clear of my arm, Retribution sprung back into existence, in all its original magnificence.
“Very convenient, isn’t it?” Nentai remarked offhandedly.
“It’s incredible,” I muttered as I stared at the bow in fascination.
“I’m glad you like it,” Nentai replied, in an oddly satisfied tone.
I was still perplexed by her attitude towards me, but since she had already made it clear that no explanation for that would be forthcoming, I left the matter alone. Whatever the reason was, I would have to wait to find out until the Goddess was ready to let me in on it.
“There is just one gift left for you to receive, and I shall return tomorrow night to give it to you,” Nentai announced. “I would have preferred to give it to you tonight, but there has been a bit of an issue, and its maker has insisted that she be the one to bestow it upon you.”
“So, Lady Death and I will see you then,” Nentai concluded as the two Goddesses vanished from our sight.
“Oh, fuck,” Khorim swore almost immediately.
“Is that bad?” I asked as I turned to Venna for guidance.
“I don’t know,” she said in a voice that was barely above a whisper. “Ever since they withdrew from the world, the Gods have rarely appeared among us. Although what has happened over the last few weeks has been nothing short of extraordinary, Nentai and Set have seen fit to visit our world from time to time, as have nearly all the other Gods. All of them save Lady Death—she alone has never been among us; even in the scattered records from before the Forgotten Times, we have found no reference to her appearing in the living world.”
“No one knows what she looks like, not even the highest priests of her Order. Even her name is unknown to them, as she only allows herself to be identified by her domain. All the depictions of her are based on guesswork and suppositions, although everyone seems convinced that she is a terror to behold in the flesh. Many believe that is the reason she has never visited us, even going so far as to suggest her mere image is enough to slay any who look upon her. We would do well to prepare for the worst when she comes.”
Oh, fuck indeed.
Despite the excitement over our newest Artifacts, Lady Death’s impending visit cast a pall over the entire evening. Even Bane was unnerved by the prospect of coming face-to-face with the Goddess of Death, and I had to stay with him for over an hour to lull his nervous heart to sleep.
Everyone tried to act normally the next morning, but it was clear that their attempts were merely feigned. Even Broda’s excitement about wearing her new God-forged armor for the first time was tempered by the foreboding of what was to come that evening.
I started out my day with a few quick stops in the valley, checking on some of the projects Ilvain was working on and looking over a few of the farms and ranches before I stopped at Ella’s. It had been two days since I had last seen her, which wasn’t all that unusual, but the last time we had been together was when she had finally dropped her guard and let me inside. The healing I had done that day should last her far longer than just two days, but I’d been unable to seal off her wound completely, and I wanted to finish that task before I would let her go without my attention for any longer than that.
As usual when I visited her, I walked inside without knocking, and when I didn’t find her in the common area, I called out for her. She replied from her room, and bid me to enter, so I followed her voice and found her waiting for me. Stark naked.
Ella pounced on me the second I entered the room and kissed me with a sense of hunger and desperation that I had never felt from her before. Her body pressed against mine as she pinned me against the wall, and despite the protection of my Armor, I could feel every curve of her as if it wasn’t even there.
Her yearning was a powerful thing, and I felt it urging me on in the passion that radiated from her lips into mine. Over the many mornings we had spent together Ella and I shared many intimate moments, but the insatiable craving I felt from her then was far beyond anything I had experienced with her before.
Her kiss was like a force of nature, powerful and almost destructive in its wild desire, and the sheer passion that I felt from her body as she leaned into me nearly compelled me to give in to whatever raging emotion had come over her that morning. But somewhere within Ella’s thirst, I sensed that something was off, and with a level of willpower that was barely sufficient for the task, I managed to peel her away from me for just a moment.
“Stop, Ella,” I almost begged her as I caught my breath.
“I need you,” she replied in a voice laden with desire. “Now.”
“Something’s not right, Ella,” I said as I stared back at her hungry eyes. “Let me tend to you first, then we’ll see if you still feel the same.”
“No!” she objected as she tried to force her way back to me. “I want you now.”
I was far stronger than her and held her at bay easily. As I did so, I saw the desperation in her eyes, the need that almost bordered on compulsion that pled for me to give in to her desires. It was that look, and her lack of control that accompanied it that made me certain that something had gone very, very wrong.
So, as I held her firmly, I sent tendrils deep inside her and wrapped every fiber of her up in reassuring warmth. The sensations that I flooded into Ella overwhelmed her for a moment, and I quickly laid her down on the bed and delved deep inside her before she could recover. It was a risky move, but whatever was going on inside her gave me no choice other than to act.
Ella’s defenses were completely down, and I reached her core instantly. The sight of it was familiar, the bright shining sphere with the deep fissure running through it, but the angry, red light that
had pulsed from within that chasm before had been replaced by something else. A different presence now occupied that gaping chasm in her core, and the light that shone from within it was tinged not in angry red, but with a deep purple hue instead. I had no idea what the change in color meant, or what the purple tint represented, but I knew that it was the source of Ella’s sudden urges and needed to be dealt with. Immediately.
I cautiously drew myself in closer to the chasm and reached out towards the pulsing light with my senses. As soon as I felt the influence of its glow, a nearly overwhelming urge threatened to come over me, and the nature of its influence became obvious. I pulled back from the purple glow as quickly as I could before it’s power could overtake me, as it clearly had overtaken Ella, and tried to decide what to do next.
My initial attempt to heal her had been successful but had come with an unanticipated side effect. Although I had weakened the hold that the rage and anger had over her, I knew that it was still there, lurking deep inside the fissure in her soul. But in its weakened state something else had overtaken its power, and from deep within her, her passion had come forth and asserted itself over her will. Somehow my effort to heal her had gone wrong, and replaced one powerful emotion with another, leaving her helplessly in the grasp of a desperate sense of desire.
I couldn’t leave her that way. I had to do something about the way I had left her, even though the risk to me was clear. Her rage and anger were powerful things, but they were not directed at me specifically, like her passion was. Any attempt I made to try to assuage her craving would leave me open to the influence of her desire, something I already knew that I was more than vulnerable to. But I had no choice. I had to either confront it here, or deal with it outside, in the real world, where she would tempt me with her soft flesh and heated desire.
So, I descended slowly towards the gaping rift of purple light and put up my best defense. As soon as I felt the influence of the soft purple glow cloyingly beckon to me, I sent out my own thick tendrils of restraint and control to tug at the edges of the deep fissure. Our influences battled for supremacy for a while, but despite the power of Ella’s passion, there was no focus, no discipline behind it, and it slowly but inexorably yielded to my superior control. Eventually, I managed to suppress it completely and return it to its rightful place within her core. Although my efforts did not end up sealing her wound any more than I had the other day, it did return to its former state, and the only light that pulsed from within its depths was the deep crimson of her rage.
I learned a valuable lesson in that moment and realized that any future healings would need to be accompanied by a quick inspection of my work, to ensure that something like this never happened again. I couldn’t expend all my energy on the healing process either, as I had last time. I needed to keep a reserve in case something unanticipated came up, as it obviously had with Ella.
Once I was sure that things inside her were stable, I slowly withdrew and pulled back inside myself again. The ordeal had not been as taxing on Ella this time, and she was looking back at me when I opened my eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” she said as I came back to myself. “I couldn’t control myself at all. Please don’t be angry with me.”
“How do you feel?” I asked her instead of replying. “Are you tired?”
“No,” she replied softly. “I’m fine. I just feel really bad about what happened.”
“Good,” I responded as I commanded the straps of my Armor to loosen up. “Now that you’re under control, we’re going to finish what you started.”
Ella was already lying naked on the bed, and as soon as the buckles came undone, I stripped off my Armor and slid on top of her. I stared down into her deep brown eyes as I kissed her and sent a powerful tendril of desire running through every curve of her body that was pressed against me. She had kindled my own passions with her unrestrained advances and now that I knew she was herself again, I simply had to have her.
Ella responded to my threads of desire with the same eagerness she always had. Her body arched reflexively beneath me, and I felt her hands running along my body as she gripped me tightly. My own hunger was fed by Ella’s passions, and I channeled our emotions back and forth between us along with the delicate sensations of every inch of our skin as we pressed ourselves against each other. I lost all sense of myself in the jumble of sensations, as I nearly always did in the heat of our love, and didn’t know whether the breast I cupped in my hand was hers or my own, or if it was even my hand that was caressing the sensual mound of flesh.
I experienced our passionate intimacy from both our perspectives simultaneously and fed as many of the overwhelming sensations back to Ella as I could manage. The experience was incredibly overwhelming, just as it had been every time I was with Ella, and between the raw sensation of feeling her hands wandering all over me, and the delicious taste of her body, we both rushed headlong into our release in rolling waves of intense passion. When the last shudder finally ran through my body, I rolled off Ella and lay next to her for a while as we both recovered from the powerful experience.
“I guess that means you’re not too mad at me,” Ella teased after a moment.
“No, I suppose not,” I replied with a smile as I toyed with a few loose strands of her long, brown hair.
As we lay together, I explained what I had discovered inside her, how the desire that had taken place of her rage had overwhelmed her, and she nodded her head in understanding as she replied.
“I remember how disappointed I was when you didn’t show up for our sparring session the other day,” Ella responded. “It was probably a good thing that you didn’t. I’m not sure how I would have reacted if you had.”
“What’s important is that we fixed it Ella, not what might have happened.” I assured her. “I’m sure that I’ve repaired what went wrong, and I think I know how to prevent it from happening again. I may have to go a little slower, but I will heal you Ella. I promise you that.”
“Now, I have rounds to finish making, and unless I’m mistaken, you’re on guard duty today,” I said as I slipped back into my Armor. “I won’t protect you from Evans’ wrath if you’re late for your shift.”
The First Marshal was becoming quite notorious for the creative and rather grueling punishments he inflicted for such transgressions, and at my mere mention of it, Ella jumped out of bed as if she’s been scalded and began dressing in her gear as quickly as possible. She was still hopping around on one foot, trying to slip on her second boot when I left through the front door, and I couldn’t hold back a chuckle as the image of her struggling to get the boot on her foot kept playing in my mind.
The rest of the day did not pass as pleasantly and lighthearted as my morning, however. The impending visit from the dreaded Lady Death hung over me and my companions throughout the remainder of the day until, by agreement, we returned home together to face the Goddess of Death.
As we climbed the steps towards our own front door, a sense of dread cast a long shadow over us. I felt Nentai’s presence inside our home, but ever since Venna’s startled response when I had first revealed that I could sense the Goddess, I hadn’t mentioned it again. Something about Venna’s reaction made me hesitant to pursue the matter, though I couldn’t explain precisely what it was. But that night, I felt not only Nentai’s familiar aura, but another strange presence as well, one that I could not gain any perspective of but was definitely waiting for us inside the house. One that could only be the Goddess of Death.
Reluctantly, we ventured inside, and were greeted by Nentai’s familiar face, along with a second figure that was covered in a hooded robe of deepest black. Lady Death had made her appearance, as promised.
My companions fell to their knees, as they always did in the presence of the Deities, while I stood firmly in place as Nentai had told me I should. But my knees were weak, and I felt my anxiety rising as Nentai started to speak.
“My sister,” she said as she motioned towards the hooded figure, “doe
s not often venture to the mortal realm. So, you can imagine my surprise when she told me that she would only bestow her gift to you in person.”
“That is correct, sister,” came the unexpectedly soft voice from within the shadows of the dark hood. “I have imparted a great deal of my own power into this Artifact, and I will not hand it over to anyone but the Sintári.”
Lady Death’s gentle words took me by surprise. We had been expecting some sort of monster, and while the dark folds of cloth that covered her face could have concealed almost anything, her tone did not comport with the beastly images we’d conjured up. Then, as she finished speaking, Lady Death pulled back her hood and revealed herself to me, and I barely managed to keep my mouth from falling wide open.
Before me was the most delicately beautiful woman I had ever seen. The pale skin of her face was framed with soft, black hair that fell loosely around her shoulders. Her bright, blue eyes held my gaze as she stepped forward, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her as she came to stand in front of me.
“Not what you were expecting, I imagine,” the Goddess of Death whispered.
“No,” I managed to reply.
“I have spent too long among my charges,” she explained. “The mortal realm has become somewhat… uncomfortable for me.”
I nodded dumbly as if I understood, and she smiled back at me. Whether her smile was in amusement or something else, I could not say.
“You will undoubtedly gain some idea of the properties of the Artifact I have made for you when you take possession of it, but it is important for your companions to understand its powers, and its limitations as well.”
As she spoke, Lady Death withdrew a small rod from within the folds of her cloak. At first, I mistook it for smooth, polished stone, but a closer look revealed that the Artifact in her hand was carved from a length of bone that had been blackened by the shadow magic she’d used to craft it. Lady Death held the dark rod up to me but did not offer it. Instead, she spoke again and told me about the item she had created.
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