by Liv Savell
Hearing the others coming up behind her, Meirin straightened up and leveled Delyth with a bold stare. Meirin held out her hand in a sign for peace and apology. There was no need to talk about their argument, surely? It could be in the past, and they could move forward.
Delyth didn’t move at first. She just stood there, meeting Meirin’s gaze, her face bland. Was she going to reject the offer? The warrior turned to look at Etienne, her face only visible in profile. He stood with his shoulders up about his ears, mouth pulled tight in disquiet. Meirin wondered if Delyth was looking to him for approval or a vote, but the warrior finally nodded and took Meirin’s grasp.
When they let go of each other, Etienne let out a breathy sigh. “We best be off if we’re going to get to that temple before Enyo.”
Chapter XVI
Tenth Moon, Third Quarter: Lake Gastyr
A torrent of molten-lava pain streaked up Enyo’s arm, melting away what little vestiges of sleep left within her. She clung to the darkness, hiding from the agony like some worm struggling to get further into the dirt, away from a drying sun. It chased after her, burning and consuming until the Goddess shot up out of the pallet of blankets she was wrapped in.
She snarled, but the sound contorted in her throat until it reminded her more of a whimper. Yanking off the blankets over her arms, Enyo stared in horror down at her ruined hand. Where her son had grabbed her wrist, there was a black handprint. It was stone—igneous rock overlapping boiled skin. Formed from magma. From it, black lines of poison traced in both directions, stopping only at her elbow. Already they were changing, becoming ashy and dull. Mascen’s power would slowly turn her into nothing more than a statue.
Where the grey was taking root, her pain was gone, but it was replaced with nothing. Hollow. Empty.
Dead.
Her arm was dying. Would it crawl through this pathetic body and kill the rest of it as well?
Panting, Enyo raised the injured limb for inspection and found it to be heavy and useless. How would she fight with one arm? How would she wield Calamity?
Letting the dead weight fall back to the stone floor, she looked around. Instantly she realized where she was. It was decaying, and plants had crept in where before none had lived, but there was no mistaking the twisted walls and sloping roof. Va'al’s temple, set in the middle of a saltwater lake in the middle of nowhere. But how had she gotten here?
How long had she been asleep?
“Va'al?” she called, finding her voice croaky and frail. Very unlike herself. Enyo swallowed, her mouth dry. When was the last time she ate? Drank?
⚀
Va'al stood in the central room of his once beautiful temple, his face turned up to inspect a crumbling hole where a thick-armed oak had rudely thrust its branch inside.
Of course, Enyo would be pleased with the sight. She’d so often been after him to encourage more trees on his island in the old days. Back before the world had gone mad.
At Enyo’s call, Va'al turned and went to her as he always had, though the weakness of her voice made him shudder. How had they come to this? Skulking in a ruin while their son made a game of taking their lands.
“Enyo.” Va'al stepped into the smaller room where he had lain the Goddess, coming to crouch at her side. The pitiful creature whose body she inhabited looked even smaller in the center of the bare room, her arm so gruesome that he felt his eyes repulsed and drawn to it in equal amounts. He fixed his gaze on her eyes instead, familiar despite her human form. “You’re awake.”
The Goddess winced as she adjusted herself in the blankets, her gaze accusatory.“How?” She, of course, meant the obvious. How did their son, locked away and bound by all the Old Gods, get free of his restraints and find them? Harm them?
Va'al looked away. He didn’t know how, curse it all! He was just as in the dark as she was. Mascen should have been safely locked away on his island as the Sky Keepers were still bound to each other and the great Sea Dragon to her sandy bed. How Mascen alone of the Gods’ offspring could spurn their magic, he did not know, so he answered a different question instead. “You were incoherent after Mascen left, and we needed someplace to recover. I carried you here. Don’t you remember this place? You spent enough time here before…”
She snarled soundlessly. “My arm is injured, not my mind. It looks dreadful. Thlonandras was in better shape.” Pride seeped through the pain coating her voice and contorting her face.
Va'al snorted and shook his head. Not even an injury could do anything to temper her razor tongue. “Was in better shape,” he pointed out. Her temple stood no longer, and all thanks to a fit of anger on her part.
“Yes. Was. Thanks to my power, it fell, not the mere creeping of little vines,” she replied tensely, her pugnacious tone bordering on hostile. Likely not because of her precious temple but the state of her human body.
Enyo wasn’t used to being so vulnerable. None of them were.
Lifting the hand again, she glared at the bubbled flesh. “If the healer were here, she’d be able to fix this. At least some of it.” Enyo nearly sounded longing. As if she missed the little girl child. “You’ve been in a human body for a time now. Can you fix this, Va'al? What do you do when the skin is so raw and open?”
The moment Va'al had entered this body had been one of pain. Tristan was huddled in some snowy mountain pass, half-delirious with fever and sweating despite the cold, his back all oozing and cooked from dragonfire when he whispered the name inscribed on the dice he had found in the cave. The Misfit God had been reborn in agony—days of hazy pain while he waited out the fever and dragged his pitiful human body into the clan below to be healed. The healer of the Aur’draig Cwm had not been as skilled as Alphonse, but with her help, he had recovered.
The experience had not imparted Va'al with any great knowledge of dealing with wounds, but the memory of pain stayed with him. “It takes time, ordinarily,” he said. But this was no simple wound. It was possible it would never heal. “But you can be rid of it if we get our new bodies.”
Swallowing, Enyo looked away from her hand and into Va'al’s face again. “I cannot wield Calamity this way. I cannot use the appendage at all.”
“Cut it off then.” The voice was that of Moaz, who slunk in from the shadows. How long had he been lurking there? Watching?
“Oh yes. Just cut off my arm. Humans survive that all the time.” Enyo growled, whipping her head to watch Maoz approach. He shrugged, his curls flattened and slicked back away from his face, highlighting the angular lines of his jaw. He looked more like himself. His old self, at least. He must have been swimming in the lake, heedless of the creatures there if they even still lived.
“When an animal is caught in a trap, they will chew off a limb to escape. You know your son. Do you truly believe the burn is all he gave you?”As if to prove Maoz’s point, a stripe of black turned grey and hardened.
“It’s a clever trick,” she muttered, giving Va'al a pointed look.
Va'al shrugged again. She wasn’t wrong. Weakening Enyo had been a smart move, for all the inconvenience it was going to cost them. “I don’t know enough about mortal bodies to say for sure that cutting off the arm would be a good idea.” Va'al reached out and stroked Enyo’s cheek with the pad of one weathered thumb, thinking. They could find a healer. Perhaps in Gwynhafan, there would be one who could tell them what to do to fix or slow this injury…
But the best, quickest means of fixing it was still obvious to his mind.
“Let us just continue to Gwynhafan. With Esha’s artifact, we will be one away from being able to re-summon our old forms, and then no injury will trouble us. We would be able to face Mascen, to send him back to the island he ought never to have left. If your arm gets worse, there will be healers there.”
❂
Maoz only nodded in agreement, but Enyo frowned. She hated it when Va'al was right. And, of course, it had to be Esha. But he was right. Her old body would indeed withstand the onslaught of her child’s wrath. Bette
r. She would be able to put him firmly in his place. That he thought to rise up against her and Va'al while they were locked in these inferior forms…
With a groan, Enyo let Va'al help her to her feet, the weight at her side a reminder of her useless hand.
“You always spoiled him,” she pointed out, unable to conceal the smallest piece of pride. Her son. Their son. The First Born. The strongest God-offspring. Also, the most dangerous and ambitious.
“I did?” Va'al raised an eyebrow. In truth, they had both fawned over Mascen in the beginning. He was the smartest, fastest, strongest of the God-offspring. Striking and nearly as powerful as Enyo. What wasn’t to love and moon over? Until he decided to take most of the continent for himself. “I seem to remember you doing much of the coddling. Come on. The sooner we get there, the sooner you cease to hurt.” Va'al steadied Enyo and went to gather his things.
⥣ ⥣ ⥣
* * *
The journey to Gwynhafan should have been swift and boring. Had Enyo been in her original form, it would have taken a matter of a few days to arrive. Had she been in full health within Alphonse’s body, less than a week.
With her arm weighing her down and bolts of pain wracking her physical form, Enyo was less than slow. The jogging pace Va'al set was barely tolerable, and she hated to know the breaks he often suggested were for her. He could see her waning strength, her lagging steps. Sweat beaded on her brow despite the cool autumn day and Enyo gulped greedily at the water canteen when Maoz offered it.
What was worse, even the beast seemed to sense her frailty and was catering to her needs.
All this set Enyo’s temper on edge, and her nerves jumping. When a shadow, huge and looming, painted the path before them in greys and blacks, her hackles up. Enyo spun to face the oncoming threat, expecting Mascen.
Instead, she straightened up from her crouch with a startled gasp.
Bledig, her and Maoz’s son, was being laid on the earth. The man at his side, easing him down, was Eifion. His wings were a facsimile of Bledig’s, his face contorted with anguish and pain—a reflection of his half-brother’s.
And there, sprouting out of Bledig’s back, was one massive wing and one stump, bleeding sluggishly. It looked as if his wing had been ripped right out of his body. She didn’t have to ask what had happened to understand. Mascen was their half-brother, and in some strange series of events, had decided to maim Bledig.
But Bledig was a God in his own right. Even with an appendage yanked from his body, he was starting to heal. Of course, he wouldn’t regrow an entire wing right away, but the stump was clotting and smooth new skin peeking through. In a matter of hours, he would be out of danger. Enyo had hardly started towards her child when Maoz bowled past her. Bledig and Eifion were both his children.
“Father!” Eifion settled Bledig onto the ground and straightened, his shifting, mirror-countenance taking on the plainer shape of Gethin’s broad face as Maoz neared them in his human form. “You will never imagine how glad I was to feel all of you here together.”
From his place on the ground, Bledig raised a hand towards his father. The stoic God’s face was a mask of pain, his swarthy skin pale and grey. Maoz gripped his arm but did not move to lift him.
Enyo approached with Va'al and bent to inspect Bledig’s wound. It was brutal but appeared to have none of the burning, deteriorating effects her own had.
“Mascen?” she asked pointlessly. Who else could have done this? Bledig was just as much a wild creature as Maoz and just as much a warrior as she. It wasn’t as if he could have been taken unaware by a human or one of his other, lesser siblings.
Eifion nodded, and Enyo brushed the fingertips of her good hand over Bledig’s greying skin. Grey with blood loss, not some curse that would turn him to stone. Not like her. His eyes fluttered and opened again, peering at her.
“He’s mad.” Bledig’s voice was weaker than her own. “He destroyed Caerthleon. He’s cutting through Rhosan.”
Enyo winced, knowing the earth’s pain. “We’re going to stop him.”
“How?”
Va'al stepped forward and gripped Eifion’s shoulder, even as his and Maoz’s son took on some of Tristan’s lighter coloration. “We are going to get our old forms back,” he said, “so that his power will be nothing to ours. Will you help?”
Bledig gritted his teeth, his face wild with fury below curling horns. “Let us destroy him this time. No more simple banishments.” Maoz seemed ready to march towards Caerthleon at once to do just that.
At this, the Changeling God hesitated. “He did slip his bonds…”
Something old and nearly forgotten within Enyo stirred.
Destroy?
Mascen was a monster, she agreed. But he was her child—her firstborn, and her only one with Va'al. He was the cataclysm they made him to be. Should he be destroyed for that? Etienne and Alphonse had wanted to destroy her.
The humans of three hundred years ago had wanted the Gods dead and gone but lacked the power to completely obliterate them and so locked them in a noiseless, sightless tomb.
When humans died, they went to Death’s Realm. There Aryus would oversee the mortal souls and ensure they remained peacefully for eternity. Where would Mascen’s essence go should he be slain? Would he return to the Source? The Cursed Realms?
She looked at her withering hand, at the stump of gore protruding from Bledig’s back.
She had done worse in her day…
Ember eyes flickered to Va'al, lips compressed tightly, holding back the words she was actually afraid to say. She did love her son—as much as someone like her could. She didn’t want him to die.
Va'al met Enyo’s gaze for a long moment before turning back to the others. “The first step is stopping him,” he said. “We can decide what to do with him afterward.”
Eifion’s gaze was already on him when Va'al turned to face his son more directly. “Will you watch Mascen from a distance and let us know if his attention turns towards us again? I’d rather not face him before we’re ready.”
Again, the Changeling God hesitated, looking towards Bledig. His brother was in no condition to accompany him or their parents.
“Take him to my temple in Glynfford. They have healers and they know enough about Maoz that Bledig shouldn’t frighten them entirely. Tell them their Goddess has sent them a precious gift, and they must care for it.” Enyo straightened from beside Bledig. Those priests ought to be good for something.
Finally, Eifion nodded, bending to lift his half brother once more. “I’ll see it done. Goodbye, fathers.” And with that, he was away, beating into the air on strange, misshapen wings.
Va'al turned his eyes towards the others, finding Maoz pacing like some wild, caged animal. If he still had wings, they would be mantling; as it was, the God’s shoulders tensed around his neck.
“I will carry you,” Maoz told Enyo, “if it means that we will reach Gwynhafan sooner. It is past time for your son to pay for his crimes.”
⥣ ⥣ ⥣
* * *
Where Enyo stood within her meadow, she could see Mascen at the stream. He was collecting up rocks to throw, something she had seen human children do countless times over. How beguiling to think her own son, the only child made between two Gods, was much the same as any child. He hefted one far too large for his little arm and grunted with effort as he heaved the stone into the water. It made an impressive splash, and Mascen cackled with delight. His offering-red hair was short, sticking up at odd angles atop his head, and the marks he had been born with, humans would consider them tattoos, growing and changing as he aged.
Now at thirty years, he looked and behaved much like a human child of six or seven. His little legs sturdy, his belly pooching out, overly full with the treats her people spoiled him with.
Perhaps sensing her thoughts or feelings, as his father did, Mascen turned to look at Enyo. His black eyes unblinking as he waited for her to approach. Enyo sighed and came to stand beside the bank of the
stream. Deep enough for swimming, but no raging mountain river. Safe for her child.
It chuckled in welcome, glad to see her. Absentmindedly, Enyo knelt to tickle her fingers through the clear waters, and the stream laughed. Then she flicked the droplets of water from her fingertips at Mascen, who frowned like a stormcloud. The sky overhead darkened as well.
Enyo demanded the skies clear, but they hesitated, torn between her and her son.
“Rain will only make you wetter, my son,” she commented, biting back the irritation that sprung up at the element’s wavering loyalty. Mascen, realizing that his mother was indeed right, sighed, and the sun reemerged.
Enyo traced the tips of her nails over Mascen’s sharp-featured face affectionately. Even with fat cheeks and a pouty mouth, she could see where his bones would elongate and tighten. He would be acutely handsome, her son.
The only child.
“Where is Father?” he asked, wrapping his tiny arms about her neck and nuzzling close. It made her heart glow. Even as her thoughts drifted to Va'al. Annoyed or bored, he had flitted off again. He wouldn’t, couldn’t stay gone for long—Mascen needed too much supervision.
“Off,” she replied blandly, scooping Mascen up in her arms and hauling him to sit on her hip. Likely with Esha. Fertility had been most impressed with Enyo and Va'al’s child, more so than the others. Since then, she had tried and tried to create her own.
Pride flickered through Enyo as she carried Mascen back towards the stone temple nestled between two mountain valleys that was their home. No one else had been able to replicate what she and Va'al had achieved in Mascen. Not even the Goddess who gave all mortals and the land rejuvenation and birth.
“When will he return?” Mascen wanted to know, his voice ponderous. He knew, even as such a small child, that it was not good to pester Enyo about Va'al’s movements for too long. She’d grow irritated quickly.