Goddess by Liv Savell (autobiographies to read txt) 📕

in the bars of a prison, they were now portals of light. Behind them, Caerthleon’s people toasted each other’s tales with wine and laughter or danced in rooms where the furniture had been pushed aside. Delyth had a hard time comparing this to the warren she had wound through during the battle.

Delyth yelped when Aryus popped into existence directly before her, scattering the dirty street below them in a shower of petals. “Warrior’s just reward!” they crowed, tumbling in midair, “but Death gives better presents still.”

“Go away, Aryus.” The warrior started to push past them, but her hands only met air.

“Way go away ho, near or far today, ho!” The tune was grating against Delyth’s ears, but her grimaces only made the God sing louder. “If Death goes away, will life come out to play?”

“I don’t want any of your riddles!” The sting of Delyth’s remarks was lost in her having to whisper them, her throat aching from so much use. Aryus just laughed and disappeared, only to reappear above her head, showering her with pink petals that clung to her hair. An image of Alphonse, bedecked in flowers while they joked over dinner sprang unbidden to her mind, and she closed her eyes tight against it.

“Daughter of Maoz, sworn to Enyo, follower ofDeath,” Aryus chanted, their tone suddenly much more serious. “What costs nothing but is worth everything, weighs nothing but lasts a lifetime, that one person can't own, but two can share?”

“I don’t know,” Delyth whispered, her shoulders sagging. “I don’t know, Aryus. Just leave me be.”

“Followers of Death know the answer. So do lost daughters. So do servants and kings and creatures and Gods and mages and little birds.” Aryus’s voice bounced around, pummelling Delyth from different sides until she put her hands over her ears to stop them. She would find the answer, if only so that she could then go somewhere quiet to sleep.

What could weigh nothing but have value? Gold and weapons and jewels were all heavy. A kingship, perhaps? It might last a lifetime, but could not be shared between two…

No, but a life itself could.

Once, Delyth had hoped to share hers with Alphonse. Protector and healer.

“It's a life,” she croaked, and out of the air behind them, Aryus opened a door. It was blinding, spilling into the streets and Delyth’s dark-thick pupils until her eyes watered and blinked. The moon was full overhead, and still, the contrast of the shadowed streets and the too-bright doorway made it so that she could see nothing inside. Delyth shut her eyes and then peered through squinting lashes, but to no avail.

“Aryus, what is this?” she demanded, but the words were hardly audible in her own ears.

“Very few Followers of Death find so easy a path home. Fewer still would be brought back to Thloegr. Shall we see what you might find in an hour?” They were gone, but their voice bounced around her still, as if pinging off the stone walls of Caerthleon.

Followers of Death… A path home…

Delyth felt as though the herbs and tinctures she had swallowed over the last several days still swirled about her mind, dulling her thoughts and senses. A home for Death’s Followers would be… Death? Was Aryus offering her the release that she had sought in the battle, then?

Etienne had worked so hard to stop her. He nearly killed himself to keep her from dying. A week ago, she would have jumped through the door, but now— Now she wasn’t so sure.

“Remember, you have only an hour.”

A short trip into Death, then. To see what she might find.

Aryus did give better presents. She straightened up and stepped into the light.

And Caerthleon dissolved.

The warrior stood in a forest of gold, warm honey tree trunks leaking amber crystals beneath a canopy of new green and yellow. Vines dripped from the branches, heavy as grapes with little pink flowers that turned white as they fell among the grass below, shin-high and pathless. It seemed to go on forever in all directions, broken only by the occasional berry shrub or sapling. Everywhere, there was late-afternoon light that appeared to have no particular origin, but to simply glow, so that everything was a little gilded.

Delyth walked through this, searching, her eyes giving no time to the gentle mother bear chiding her cubs or the elk sunning himself in a meadow. She kept one arm wound about her ribs and took shallow breaths to keep pressure from the aching breaks. This place was warm, soft, and lovely, but it would not end. She had already walked so far, and she had but an hour to find one woman in all this space. Was she even going in the right direction?

Still, Delyth pressed on, allowing her longing to pull her ever forwards. Surely, this was some test. If she went far enough, quickly enough, she would find the healer.

Gradually, the warrior became aware of a change. The ground around her was sloping upward, the trees spaced farther and farther apart. Sweat was beading on her brow and below her clothes, damp in the gentle warmth of Death. She kept going, her calves beginning to heat from the incline, and then, as suddenly as she had come into this world, she stepped from the forest and onto the slope of a grassy hill. At the top, she could see more meadow-like hills stretching before her, dusted liberally with clumps of pink wildflowers. Behind her stood the quaking green-gold of the forest, ruffled by a breeze. There were no buildings in sight in any direction, no columns of smoke or roads—nothing to tell Delyth where she ought to search for her lover.

“Hello,” a small voice chirped behind her. There should have been a rustling of grass or the whisper of cloth to warn Delyth of the little girl’s approach, but as neither happened, perhaps she simply appeared. As Aryus would do, though no pink flower petals floating about as there would have been with the Death God. Instead,