Never Enough

by Wendy T Lyoness

  “Faraine, your kind isn’t worth the air you breathe.” Venviel stopped climbing halfway up to the scaffolding to rest for a short while. Faraine didn’t seem to have a bow on her person, so she might be safe.

  “Who do you think will have drawn their last breath when we’re through with each other?” Faraine pointed her mace at her. “Why don’t you come down here and discuss it?”

  “Violence is not a discussion.”

  “Is pointless revenge?”

  Venviel hadn’t thought of her revenge as pointless before Keerla’s death, but it was hard to view it as anything else when her target died, and nothing changed. The temple still stood tall and strong on its hill. Venviel could see it from where she currently hung midair. She could see Lho Allanar’s grandeur from her elevated position too, but the city felt more like a lost cause than a dream worth clinging to.

  “Rabbit?” Faraine began to carefully descend the pillar by hugging it tight and sliding downwards. “If I catch you, I’ll earn a fat reward. So if you surrender yourself into my care, I might feel very inclined to reward you in turn. You get me?”

  “Your kind only lies.” Venviel forced herself up the rope. Exhaustion set in. If Faraine reached the ground before she reached the scaffolding, the chase would soon resume, and she needed a break. She had to hide somewhere the temple wouldn’t find her, and if she couldn’t hide under the palace, maybe she could do it inside.

  For some inane reason, the few hours of shuteye she’d enjoyed over the last week had been offset by dreams of Hope. And they hadn’t been the pleasant kind of dreams either, where she strung the inquisitor up. No, they’d been fretful dreams in which she struggled to protect Hope from darkness and failed. Her mind toyed with her. Faraine, and everyone like her, were proof enough Hope had sold her out. She shouldn’t miss her.

  Venviel pulled herself up onto the flat scaffolding, retrieved the grappling hook, and removed her mask. It didn’t serve a purpose now, Hope had made sure of that, so she tossed it into the wind. Orchid Brave soared across Lho Allanar, as a forsaken ideal, while Venviel went to seek sanctuary in the palace.

  Unreal

  “Come on, girls, don’t let Fate stomp all over you. She doesn’t have your best interests in mind. I, however, have a quota to fill, so I must think of your sad, pathetic hearts.”

  When she heard the voice, Hope opened her eyes to everlasting darkness. The guards hadn’t replaced the lantern in her cell, and Vaeri hadn’t visited again. She’d resorted to counting the days by the number of meals they’d fed her. So far, she’d eaten thrice, so she prayed that was how many days had passed, though she had her doubts. The hunger lasted longer than she felt full.

  “Venviel, Hope isn’t the traitor you like to paint her as. And Hope, Venviel doesn’t tell anyone she likes them unless it’s true.”

  “Furore?” Venviel appeared in the middle of her cell. Or no, Hope wasn’t in the cell anymore unless someone had covered the walls in spider webs. It must be another nightmare.

  “Yes, Venviel?”

  “I can’t think of anyone less suited to be the goddess of love. You should hand over your mantle to the first elf you see next.” Venviel crossed her arms, looked at Hope, and blew her bangs out of her face as she’d so often done when they’d met in Lho Allanar. “She’s not…”

  “What, Venviel?” Furore stepped through the spider webs and threw a glass dagger between her hands. “What isn’t she?”

  Hope recognized her. They’d met once before, five years ago, or however long had passed since then. Venviel had claimed she was the goddess? No, no, that couldn’t be correct. Hope had never met the goddess in the flesh. This was a nightmare. The figments of her imagination were already turning on each other, and next they would turn on her.

  “Trustworthy.” Venviel shrugged. “Hope isn’t someone I can trust. Not after everything she’s caused. If it wasn’t for her, I’d live a normal life. My parents would be alive.”

  “She’s not responsible. Fate is,” Furore said. “And you don’t trust anyone, Venviel. You—“

  “Yeah, well, I wonder why.” Venviel glanced at Hope but refused to look her in the eye. “I’m done with this. Don’t bother me again, Furore, or I’m coming after you. You certainly can be held responsible for everything terrible that’s ever happened to anyone in Lho Allanar.”

  “Careful with whom you threaten, girlie.” Furore revealed her fangs. “I might side with my disobedient temple.”

  Venviel glared at Furore, strode off into the spider webs, and disappeared.

  “I guess it depends on you now, Hope.” Furore turned to her with a sad smile and scratched the dagger against her horn. “I owe you an apology, I suppose, but I was never good at that kind of stuff. I’m the smoking hot succubus everyone lusts after. Not someone apologizing right and left. Don’t do that. But hey, we haven’t even determined what you are yet. Maybe you can teach me.”

  Hope remained slumped where she’d sat for days. The nightmare would come to an end, and Furore would leave. She wasn’t even real. Maybe she’d not been real the first time they’d met either. Maybe Hope had been imprisoned for years and years, but she hadn’t come to terms with it until recently.

  “Hope…” Furore stared off into the distance, past the webs. “I named you that as a joke, but if you pull through this depression, you could become the hope of millions. Their first light.”

  “No one needs me,” she murmured.

  “You don’t fully grasp how wrong you are, but I would like you to live to finish my experiment. Then you’ll see.” Furore chuckled ruefully. “They’ll all see. But I’m afraid Venviel is kind of crucial in this. Sorry for making her so important. She’s a pain in the ass, isn’t she?”

  “She hates me…” Hope choked up and blinked tears away. They came too easily, too quickly, for her. They always had. “I wish this nightmare would end.”

  “It’s a tad more real than a nightmare, my child.” Furore quirked an eyebrow and smacked her tongue in surprise. “Hope, I mean. I don’t know why I said my child. You’re not mine.”

  “Is it true what Venviel said? That you’re the goddess of love?”

  “Indeed.”

  Hope would have liked to ask questions, but the revelation was too surreal. She couldn’t come up with a question which felt worthwhile. She nodded, accepted it in the moment, even if she didn’t believe Furore. Anyone could lie.

  “Are you prepared to give Venviel a second chance?”

  “She can’t love me.”

  “I’ll take that as no, not right now.”

  The spider webs faded along with Furore. Hope opened her eyes to the darkness in her cell, but she may as well have kept them shut. She existed in a void.

  Reach For The Sky

  The forgotten, dusty attic stood out as the sole shelter in the tower, even though its furniture had decayed past the point of recognition. Some of the rubble may have been chairs once, or chests, or tables. It was impossible to discern. How anything had survived the passage of time astounded Venviel.

  If she blockaded the hatch to the attic by sitting on it, her weight might hold the inquisitors at bay at least. It would trap her inside, of course. If anyone had seen her enter the tower, they would capture her easily.

  She might die if she lingered in the attic too long, but in her exhausted state, she found it difficult to worry about that. Either she slept, for a couple of hours, or she fell asleep in front of the next inquisitor that tried to chase her. And then she died anyway. She’d run out of good options.

  She should have stayed on the ground. The palace had not been easy to scale, even with her training. Why had no one repaired the stairs in the towers yet? What good did they do anyone in their broken, disused state? Couldn’t Furore wave her magic wand around and reconstruct the palace in the blink of an eye?

  Venviel undid the rapier from her belt, placed it next to her, and lay down on top of the hatch. A black fuzzy spider stared down at her fro
m the ceiling. She hoped it wasn’t poisonous or hostile. It seemed too small to pose a threat. She’d heard much larger spiders scurry around in the tunnels during the many years she’d slept under the palace, and they’d not bothered her unless she’d gotten too close to their webs.

  She yawned, and tried to sleep, yet sat up with a start when the tower wailed in the wind like it was about to topple. For a second or two, she swore she could feel the entire structure sway from side to side. She wouldn’t put it past Furore to push it over, just because she’d decided to rest in it.

  The tower settled down long enough for Venviel to calm herself. She lay on top of the hatch, once more. The wind whistled outside. If she hadn’t exhausted herself already, she would have left the palace and tried to find an unguarded entrance to the tunnels.

  But she didn’t have a drop of energy left. Her well had run dry. She’d fight the temple all the way to her grave, but understood that it wasn’t far away now. Hopefully her mother and father would wait for her on the other side.

  She slept in brief periods, tossed and turned, and glimpsed dreams through the veil of reality. Hope was there. The inquisitor seemed thinner than she remembered, desolate, despondent, but the wind tore her out of the dream before she could get a closer look. The tower wailed until she became used to its rhythm, then it lulled her into another fitful nap.

  “You’re stupid,” someone whispered.

  “Get lost.” Venviel yawned, curled up into a ball. The hatch hadn’t budged. Faraine hadn’t found her and entered the tower. It must have been the wind.

  “Hope would have sided with you.”

  Venviel checked if Furore had materialized to mock her again, but she couldn’t see anyone in the attic. Except for the spider in the ceiling which hadn’t moved.

  “Furore?” She asked the empty space.

  “Fate,” she said without revealing herself. “I upset Furore, took it too far.”

  “Took what too far?” Venviel grabbed her rapier, even though she couldn’t put up a fight against this invisible foe, this other goddess.

  “Your fate. Hope would have sided with you.”

  “My fate? I don’t get it?” Venviel waited for an explanation that didn’t come. “Hope didn’t pick my side. She betrayed me the moment someone killed her precious leader.”

  She still didn’t receive an explanation. Not that she needed one, she already knew the truth. Besides, if Hope would sooner have sided with her than the temple, it wouldn’t have been difficult for the inquisitor. She could have sought her out, made the offer, and…

  Venviel remembered how Hope had done exactly that. And she’d brushed her off, given her no clear answer, and told her to meet her at the docks later. Venviel hadn’t had a chance to wait for Hope that day. The inquisitors had come for her. She’d assumed the worst, filled in the blanks with her own logic, but what if Hope had never betrayed her? What if the temple had used her again?

  Hope hadn’t truly betrayed her family the first time around. A part of her realized that, even if she didn’t view the former maid as blameless. Hope could have done something. She could have warned her. Venviel would have forgiven her, quicker, if she’d just acted against the temple. The downtrodden needed to rise up, not side with their tormentors.

  Venviel had never trusted Hope, not even when they’d first met years ago, but she’d wanted to get to know her. Numerous were the times when she’d spied on the cute maid in their library. Hope had done more reading by the window, in their old armchair, than she’d ever cleaned, yet Thalia or Corym had only played coy when Venviel had complained and pointed it out.

  How early had her parents planned to push them together? She knew they’d meant for them to become friends, since Hope had told her so, but how would they have reacted if they’d fallen in love under their noses? Would they have arranged a marriage? They’d accepted Hope long before her.

  What if Venviel had made an effort to get to know Hope from the start? Could she have convinced her to trust her? To talk with her about the temple and the high priestess? Would her parents still be alive and well?

  She fought off drowsiness a little longer, dried her eyes, and wished she’d acted herself. If she’d been less suspicious, more welcoming, maybe she wouldn’t have spent five years underground. Maybe she wouldn’t have needed to reunite with Hope, because they wouldn’t have split up.

  Venviel couldn’t deny that the five years had been worth it though. She’d done a lot of good. If she hadn’t lost her parents, would she have done anything for others? Or would she have thought of the poor as unworthy? She couldn’t recall that Thalia or Corym had helped anyone except themselves. But maybe they had without telling her. They’d helped Hope. And few were as lost, in a city full of elves, in a world without equals.

  Venviel yawned until her jaw cricked, fell asleep, and awakened. All in the span of minutes. She thought she wouldn’t mind dying, right then and there, because at least then she would get to sleep.

  In short-lived dreams, she imagined Hope as more lonely than ever before because she’d abandoned her. Venviel may think of herself as the victim of their love, but unless she learnt what had happened to Hope, it would not be true. She may be the perpetrator. She may have condemned Hope to suffer in her place.

  If someone tortured Hope, the only woman who’d confessed such a peculiar thing as true love to her, she’d not forgive them. Thank the goddess they would be an elf, so she could subject them to pain for centuries to come. She may have missed out on ending Keerla’s life, but she wasn’t finished until the temple stopped. Everyone had to stop.

  She groaned. Sadly, that included her. She wouldn’t stop fighting the temple, or its corrupt servants, but she could forgive them for one sin now that Keerla had paid with her life. If her mother and father would have wanted her to become friends with Hope, she should attempt to do at least that much. Count it as their final wish. Either Hope was the true love the goddess had promised, or she was evil incarnate.

  Venviel chuckled, half-awake. The idea that Hope had a sliver of evil in her soul sounded ludicrous. Not once had she seen Hope do anything out of malice. She’d teased her, but Venviel had liked it.

  No, Hope wouldn’t have sold her out. Not on purpose. The temple had used the pure-hearted woman from the beginning. They hadn’t given her a choice. Hope had been forced to choose between servitude or death. Most elves despised her for what she represented to them, but that only helped the temple keep Hope enslaved.

  Venviel didn’t have a choice either, not anymore, not after she’d been left to dwell on her potential mistakes. She had to find Hope and clear everything up.

  “Furore?” She asked and prayed the goddess would answer, but found herself left to her own devices. “Fate?”

  She couldn’t tell how much time had passed since she’d entered the attic. She doubted she’d had a night’s sleep, but she may have wasted an hour or two, if she was lucky.

  If the goddess refused to show when she required her assistance the most, Venviel may have to give herself up to Faraine. The inquisitor had mentioned a reward. Could she convince Faraine to bring her to Hope? Should she trust someone as crazy as the redhead? Probably not.

  Venviel had to come up with a plan to find Hope. She could try to go on without her, but why bother? She yearned to sleep next to her again, kiss her until her lips bruised, and feel the twin tails where they shouldn’t be. Hope was a fitting name for someone who made her think there could be a bright future, beyond the never-ending clouds. It seemed a shame to throw that away to doubt and uncertainty.

  Chained To Defeat

  “Hope?” Furore asked. “Hope, are you listening?”

  “Go away, leave me to…” She grunted. The false goddess was the only one who deigned to visit her. She’d had another meal since they last met, but it hadn’t left her feeling anything but hungry.

  “Die?” Furore smirked and grabbed Hope by her neck. “Enough of this bullshit. At least when you walk
ed free, I could tell myself that you lived your best life. Even if you didn’t stick to my plan. This, however, is beneath us.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Stop it!” Furore shouted and alerted the guards outside. The false goddess glanced at the door, lifted Hope to her feet by her arm, and shrugged. “Hold on to me, or we might get separated. And you wouldn’t want that.”

  Hope sighed, gripped Furore’s dress, and almost hurled as they flew through realities. They emerged on top of a craggy cliff overlooking a sea of boiling lava. Hope had visited this place before, when she’d dreamt, but now it inspired a real sense of dread. She might really fall and die if she stepped over the cliff. Heat wafted up from below, into her face, and scalded her skin.

  “Welcome home, Hope.” Furore patted her so hard on the back that she recoiled from the cliff edge, lest she tumble and fall. “This is the Scarlet Kingdom, where I found you.”

  “It is?”

  Hope took in her surroundings, befuddled. She could detect no sign of life in the burning landscape. Only cliffs atop cliffs, endless lava, and a dark ruby sky far, far above. Although, what lay above them may not be the sky at all. They may be deep underground, deeper than any elf had ever delved. She couldn’t determine the nature or location of the Scarlet Kingdom.

  “How do you like it? Doesn’t beat Lho Allanar, does it?” Furore grinned, poked the tip of her jagged dagger into her own chin, and waited for a compliment of some sort.

  “It’s very…” Hope didn’t want to offend the false goddess, who clearly possessed powers beyond her scope. “Unique.”

  “What?” Furore scoffed. “No. No, it’s not. It’s cliché beyond belief. Itrix doesn’t understand the awesomeness inherit in elven architecture. He, wrongfully, thinks demons does it better.”

  “Demons?”

  “Yes…” Furore waved her hand, made a bench rise out of the cliff, sat, and gestured for Hope to follow suit. “I had no intention of telling you this, because I thought you might screw up my plans for expansion, but you can’t. It’s too late. The other gods have accepted me as the goddess of love by now, or they’re too preoccupied with their own scheming. Fate may be my only ally, but… Never mind.” Furore took a deep breath, gazed out across the sea of lava. “Hope, you were a demon once. We were created in the same chamber.”