by Liv Savell
She wanted to bathe in the warmth of Alphonses’s body, to savor a few moments of closeness. She would polish the memory of it in her mind, like a token, until it became as hard and clear as glass—a gem of comfort to carry into the cold and fear of morning.
The two settled onto the bed, fitting together as they had all those moons ago in their shared tent. Alphonse’s cheek nestled against Delyth’s shoulder, the healer’s arm draped across Delyth’s chest so that her fingers could trace the lines of one wing. It was familiar and easy. Their breaths synced into one rhythm, and Alphonse sighed. Content.
The sun didn’t move in the sky outside their window. No animals lowed. No breeze stirred the trees into shushing whispers. All around them, time seemed frozen, immaterial. They might have lain there for a thousand years or a heartbeat when an invisible hand shook Delyth’s shoulder. The warrior squeezed her eyes shut, and a few desperate tears wetted her lashes. Not yet. This couldn’t end yet.
She took Alphonse’s jaw in the curve of one hand, tilting her face up for a kiss. She needed to memorize the feel of the healer’s lips, the fullness of them, their dips and curves. Later, she would have to remember their taste.
The shake came again, more urgently this time. Delyth could feel the press of thin fingers through her jerkin, half in that world, half in the world of dreams. Somewhere far off, a cock crowed.
“Alphonse, I love you.” She breathed the words into the other woman’s cheek.
“I love you too, Del—”
Etienne’s face was a moon against the darkness of her tent, his pale skin catching threads of light from the night outside. It was cold, but the memory of warmth still lingered in Delyth’s body where Alphonse had lain. “Damn you,” she croaked, and her voice was made of nails. She shoved him away. “I was with her. Couldn’t you have given me another breath? Another heartbeat?”
Etienne sprawled backward, but the only expression on his face was one of fear. “Delyth, we’ve got to run! She’s here.”
⥣ ⥣ ⥣
* * *
Sniffing the air again, Enyo frowned. It was difficult to make out the scent of her blood amidst the mixture of smoke, burnt flesh, and raw land. Mascen’s work lay all around them. Cuts of land were utterly barren of life, burnt and torn apart. Settlements had been erased from being. Lava spewed from the earth where it had no right to be.
The scars on the land reminded her of a time forgotten. A place without color, where the air always smelled of sulfur and blood. Where she had no voice and no strength. Mascen, without ever knowing of the Cursed Realms, had recreated its destruction perfectly. Old fears surged with new fury, turning her stomach to maggots and her blood to steam. Mascen had done this to Rhosan. To the plants and the animals and, yes, even the humans.
How could her own child have been so reckless with nature? How could he care more for spite than the plains and valleys? Was there nothing decent within him? Did he not hear the screams of pain and despair from the trees? Did he not feel the sky shudder? She could find no reasonable answer. Mascen had always been ambitious, bold, cunning… He had been willing to stand up to the Gods when he was only a young one himself, and now that he had sat and stewed on his unnamed island, he seemed unhinged—more like an Overseer than one of the escaped.
Had she created this? Had her bloodline remembered the ways of the Cursed Realms when she fought so hard to forget? Ought she have tried harder before he was banished to somehow teach him right and wrong? Should she have argued against his banishment?
It was pointless to think this way. Mascen had been banished so long ago; she could not change that now. He was here, ruining everything he touched. Everything she loved. He would ruin her too if he got the chance. Then, would she be flung back into banishment, or would she return to the Cursed Realms? Slip back in the way she had gotten out? Enyo didn’t know, but she would not risk finding out.
They needed one more artifact. It would be easier to take back the one Delyth had stolen than go hunting for Ruyaa’s, which likely dwelled in the dream world. Kirit and Tha’et’s artifacts lay even farther away, hidden at the edges of Rhosan.
They didn’t have time like that.
They needed their bodies now.
“Left,” she murmured, sniffing again and finding the trail. She had stopped looking at Va'al some hours ago. There was nothing to be said about their son, and Enyo couldn’t decide if she wanted to know whether or not he was as ashamed, horrified, and proud of Mascen as she was.
⚀
Va'al turned left, too irritated to make Enyo any real answer. Her fits since leaving Gwynhafan had alternated between spitting anger and a stubborn determination to stop and heal the land, as though she would have been able to do much in her useless, human form, weakened further by her worsening injuries. The Goddess’s earlier haste to be off had not lasted nearly long enough for his taste.
Esha’s presence, of course, had not made being around Enyo any easier even though she was trapped in the fairly unappealing body of the priest. He could not even sit next to the Fertility Goddess at meals without setting Enyo off. Had she been so jealous before their banishment? His memories were distorted with age, but he thought not. He missed their easy camaraderie.
Truthfully, many of these complaints masked Va'al’s deeper discomfort. He did not wish to think of Mascen, of the horrors his son had committed. Instead, he sulked or thought of the future, eager for the day when they had their bodies back and could put the upstartGod-offspring back into his place.
First, they had only to catch Delyth and the boy.
“How much longer until we reach them?” Va'al asked, ignoring Maoz and Esha behind him.
“Do I look like a bloodhound to you?” Enyo retorted, though her voice lacked its typical sharpness. She sniffed again and then shrugged. “They can’t be too far off; it’s getting stronger. The boy has started to work around my binding, so he could be a problem. But since we’re taking them by surprise, he won’t have had time to set a trap. Va'al, you take him, and I’ll get my priestess in line. With her dead and out of—” Enyo grimaced and touched her chest, “—of the way, we can get the artifact and leave… Or use that girl they have to bring back the fifth God.”
“How can you be so sure we’re taking them by surprise?” Va'al demanded. “That priestess of yours has never had a hard time finding us before.”
In fact, she’d proven herself damnably good at it from the very start. Even on the way to Thlonandras, she had always shown up just when he was about to have a good time with the Goddess, and Enyo’s ascension had hardly seemed to hamper that ability. He glanced back in time to catch Esha’s thoughtful expression. Maoz seemed just as restless as always.
“What makes you think we’re not taking them by surprise?” Enyo shot back, a senseless rejoinder. Va’al knew her well enough to understand that she couldn’t think of a better argument. She was fiddling her fingers above her heart again when Esha cut in.
“You could simply ask for the artifact.”
“Ask? Why would we ask? We’re Gods, and they stole it. Something that belongs to us!”
“Are we Gods? I seem to recall having more power than this…” Esha murmured, her gaze level as Enyo spun, growling.
“Yes we are Gods. We’re simply … We’re just—hampered by these bodies, which is the precise reason why we need that artifact back!”
“I understand. But the humans are suffering under Mascen’s experiments too. Instead of fighting them, perhaps if we simply explained, they’d give us the artifact, and we’d not waste time battling?”
“Explaining would be a waste of time!” Enyo spat. Va’al couldn’t imagine how the two Goddesses had ever had a daughter. They were polar opposites: reason versus wrath. “Why? Why should we bother? It’ll be simple to kill them.”
“Your form is failing you, your arm is almost entirely rock now, and your heart is softening. You let Delyth go rather than kill her or take the artifact for yourself. I know you�
��re unfamiliar with the sensation Enyo, but you are fond of the priestess. You don’t want to kill her.” Esha’s watery human eyes were unblinking.
Enyo rounded on Va'al. “Do you agree?!”
“If it means we’ll get our bodies back sooner, I don’t give a flying fuck,” Va'al grumbled, much to Maoz’s subdued amusement. “If asking the winged mutt and the others is what it takes, then so be it.”
As if to prove his point, Va'al took the lead, pressing on down the road with greater haste. He had been trying to get Enyo and Maoz to hurry from the beginning, hadn’t he? In a way, all this mess was their fault. If they’d already had their bodies back, Mascen would have never been able to wreak so much havoc.
“Listen to yourself!” Enyo exclaimed. “You’re Va'al! You don’t ask! Who asks? That is ridiculous! Besides, she lied, stole, her hair is too shiny, and we can’t trust her! For all we know, she’ll give us another fake artifact, and we’ll be in the same damnable place as we started. Va'al!” She reached for his wrist with her only good hand and yanked him back. “I can do it. I’m not some weak-hearted mortal. I can still kill her. I can do it.”
“Look at yourself!” Va'al was yelling now, his face pale with anger. Enyo was pleading, damn her. Crying like Alphonse would. “You’re proving Esha right even now, and you know what? I don’t care! I’ve been in this pathetic body for eighty years! Eighty years that you don’t even remember. And ever since Thlonandras, you have been dragging your heels, too busy cavorting with wildflowers to focus on getting our bodies back. Do you even want your body back, Enyo? Or do you like being the simpering mortal?” This speech finished, Va'al fell silent, his chest heaving. No one spoke.“Well?!”
❂
Enyo’s face colored, red and purple spreading over her throat and chest. One hand hung uselessly at her side, stone, flesh no longer. The other bunched into a fist, and her breathing was ragged. Clouds gathered overhead, and a fierce wind bit at their clothes. Perhaps it would fuel the fires into new life, but the thunderheads promised rain. Electricity crackled, and the wind picked up bits of debris and dust, a small whirlwind. A cyclone was forming.
“Enyo,” Esha warned, but the Goddess flung her good hand out, commanding Esha to stop. No fool, the Fertility Goddess stood rooted to her spot, watching as little sticks and dirt whipped against Enyo’s face.
Va'al crossed his arms and sneered at her. “Oh look, another delay. Enyo’s putting off leaving the human body again. I can’t really say I’m surprised. It’s like you don’t even want to stop Mascen. Are you so proud of the destruction our son has caused that you will stand here and throw a tantrum rather than getting the artifact from your precious priestess?”
The Goddess screamed her fury, and a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky. Calamity came quickly into her hand, and she threw herself at Va'al. He dodged her attacks, forcing her to keep up or lose sight of her query.
Enyo tired so quickly, her body aching, her arm dead weight. At a bend in the road, she forced wind directly into Va'al’s face, blinding him long enough for her to cut him off. With a triumphant yell, she launched herself into him, slamming them both into the ground. Calamity’s hilt was in her hand, the blade too long, too sharp to be any use to her here. She raised it up, brought down the pommel into Va’al’s chest so that the blood-stone formed of her own flesh crashed into him. When he grunted for pain or air, she did it again. And again, leaving dozens of Enyo-shaped bruises drilled into his skin.
Their son was a monster; she the victim of his ire. Helpless against his power, helpless again. She had vowed to never return to what she once was, what she had been in the Cursed Realms. And now, Mascen was forcing her into the subservient role. Forcing her to relive the past. He was remaking the Cursed Realms without even knowing it, turning Rhosan into the same place that had bred her and the other Gods.
Calamity, feeling her terror, leaked down into Va’al, pressing its influence onto her foe. Her lover.
“I am not proud!” she shouted into Va’al’s face as she struck him again, limbs already trembling with fatigue. With a deafening crack of thunder, the rain fell in a torrent, drenching the land. And Enyo. The raindrops raced her tears down the contours of her face.
Was this her fault? Her father—No. No.
“This is your fault! You taught him to plot and conspire! You made him want more!” Enyo struggled to her feet, watching with some satisfaction as a trickle of Va’al’s blood leaked from his mouth. He wiped it with the back of his hand, smearing blood in a crooked half-smile up his cheek.
“I didn’t make him anything!” His voice was hoarse, loud even over the scream of the wind. “This is just what he is, what he’s always been! Don’t you get it? You and me— Together, we make a monster.”
She didn’t want it to be true. She didn’t want Va’al to be right. There had to be someone to blame. Someone to take the faults that Mascen showed. If Mascen simply was a monster, what did that make her? The fire in her veins smoldered. “Do you love him all the same?”
“Yes.” Va’al pushed himself up, slicking rain-soaked hair back away from his face. He caught her wrist, forcing her to drop the sword, and pulled her bodily against him. “That doesn’t change what we have to do, though.”
Despite all that she was, Enyo shivered. Cold or afraid, she didn’t know. The fires were dying inside her. The storm around them lessened, fading into a gentle drizzle. “I didn’t mean to.” It was a painful admission, and she whispered it so that only Va’al could hear her. Could know the truth.
“I know.” Va’al tightened his grip around her waist and brought one hand up to tangle in her locks. He pressed his forehead to hers, and rain dripped from his hair onto her collarbone. “We can still make this right. We can still fix this. Like last time.”
Enyo nodded, allowing herself one weak moment where she leaned against Va’al, soaking up his strength and acceptance. She nuzzled his throat and breathed in his scent.
And straightened up. “Let’s go.”
It was time to take back Rhosan.
⥣ ⥣ ⥣
* * *
The darkness was so complete that when Meirin yanked her eyes open, she could not tell the difference from when they had been shut. Blinking did little to clear her vision, but Etienne’s sharp words urged Meirin to focus. “The wards snapped. They’re coming!” Sleep made her mind befuddled, but years of training forced the warrior to her feet, preparing to fight or flee.
Wards. Runes. Magic. Gods.
She smacked her cheeks, trying to wake. “Get Delyth.” Maybe if they gave her the horn, she could fly off, and the Gods would chase. Or with Delyth at her side and Etienne’s magic, they’d stand a full minute of battle before falling.
The mage didn’t bother to acknowledge her words before dashing off, the flaps of her tent rustling in his wake. Meirin stuffed her feet into her boots, felt the dagger at her belt, and rushed from the tent. Etienne laid his runes ten minutes walk from their campsite. If the Gods were running, they likely had no more than a minute to flee.
Coals from their fire glimmered—fallen stars. How long had she slept? What time was it? An eerie wind whipped through the clearing, and Meirin smelled something sharp. It reminded her of lightning. They didn’t have much time; where were Etienne and Delyth?
She heard his voice then, rising with desperation, trying to stir Delyth.
“Etienne?” Meirin ducked her head, peering through the tent flap, to see Delyth lying in her bedroll, limp as the mage shook her. What was wrong with her? She could see the whites of Etienne’s eyes as he glanced her way. “What’s wrong?”
He shook his head, and the tension in his neck and shoulders gave away his panic. “I can’t get her to— she won’t—” He shook Delyth again, harder this time, and her eyes rolled behind closed lids. Her lips moved, but Meirin couldn’t make out the words. “Wake up!” Etienne’s fingers were ghost white on Delyth’s shoulder. He must have been gripping hard enough to leave bruises.
Overhead, lightning cracked open the sky. A twig snapped. Footsteps?
“Damn you.” Delyth jolted awake with a cry of pain and shoved Etienne bodily away from her. Meirin just managed to jump back, to avoid getting tripped up by his falling form. She lost her view of Delyth, but she could still hear the warrior’s words. “I was with her. Couldn’t you have given me another breath? Another heartbeat?”
Another Alphonse dream, then? Of all the cursed timing…
“Delyth, we’ve got to run! She’s here.” Etienne scrambled to his feet, glanced behind his shoulder. “Leave the tents. We’ve got to move.”
Too late. They were too late. Meirin heard the crunch of booted feet behind her, and she spun to face the creature looming from the darkness. Gethin. Maoz. It was only the dim curve of his jaw that told Meirin who it was. Gethin’s thick build, familiar but moving with more grace than ever before.
“Brig’ian Teeth.” The oath was a reflex, slipping from her lips as a whimper. They were worn down, weaponless, and facing the Gods. With numb hands, she grabbed Etienne by the shoulders, propelling him ahead of her. “Run!” she hissed. Flee. The only thing they could do was flee—rabbits hoping to outrun the fox.
The mage took a few rushed, stumbling steps and then skidded to a halt. Behind them, there came the sound of someone struggling to stop without losing their balance, and a hand fell on Meirin’s shoulder. Delyth. The warrior had gotten to her feet and followed them. But ahead, the sharp planes of Va’al’s face were just visible, winking in and out of existence in the paltry light of their dying campfire. Etienne wheeled away, but Enyo had appeared to his right, hemming them in between the tents. Delyth stepped forward, shoving both Meirin and the mage behind her, shielding them from Enyo and Va’al with a flair of dark wings. A moment passed, and the loudest sounds were of Etienne’s frightened breathing.