Vassal by Sterling D'Este (ebook reader computer TXT) 📕

No.

She could take a knife wound if the Goddess didn’t miss.

What was a little blood for Alphonse? It was certainly nothing she hadn’t given willingly before.

For Alphonse.

And for freedom.

❂

“Ba’oto! Beste fein a krin Enyo!?” The Goddess screamed into the howling winds, her voice worse than the gale.

Without hesitation, Enyo drove the dagger into her own gut. Into the small space at the base of her sternum where there were no bones to protect against the blade. Even as Enyo, she gasped in pain, still managing to glare her defiance up at Delyth, gripping the handle, which was already soaking with her blood and pushing it in further.

Was stopping Enyo worth losing her precious mortal lover?

How foolish the bitch had been. All along, Enyo had known her weakness. Knew the spot to strike to do the most damage.

༄

Delyth pressed onwards, bracing herself for the knife’s inevitable fire, only it was slow to come. Why was Enyo stalling? She knew just who she was choosing to fight.

The priestess glanced downward just in time to see the Goddess lift the knife above her head…

And plunge it into the center of Alphonse’s gentle body.

Delyth screamed, the sound raw and wild. An animal in pain.

Her wings collapsed. She plummeted, hardly bothering to slow before hitting the ground in a spray of dirt. Already blood was welling up beneath Enyo’s hands.

“No!” She screamed again, and her voice was full of stones. “Why— Alphonse!”

Delyth stretched one hand out, gasping, the basin still clutched to her chest.

Her little bird. Bleeding. Dying.

Even without the basin, she would never be safe while Enyo shared her body.

Alphonse had called Delyth protector when she filled her hands with little treasures and her heart with I love you’s.

But Delyth couldn’t protect her now. Couldn’t do anything against Enyo, corruption incarnate, attacking from within.

Delyth dropped to her knees. She was crying.

Stupid. Helpless.

“Stop! Please, Enyo…” Her voice had faded to a whimper. “Heal her.”

Even though Enyo’s stare was cold and imperious, tears leaked out of the corners of those long-lashed eyes. Alphonse’s tears of pain and grief, her suffering so vast that they escaped Enyo’s control.

The hand at the dagger hilt slacked and then tightened as if she were debating yanking the blade free.

A small flash of green light blossomed and dimmed. Alphonse was somewhere in there, frantically trying to stanch the flow of blood, to heal the hole made by cold steel.

Her brave little bird, still trying.

Dying.

Enyo would not allow it. She was unflinching, unrelenting. She was the mountain storm. She was the depthless lake. And just as you could not plead with a forest fire, Enyo would never care for Delyth’s tears.

Enyo smiled cruelly as she slunk to her knees, the body draining of blood, weakening.

“My basin.” She held out her free hand. She would rather kill Alphonse and die herself than let Delyth take away her chance of restoration.

Delyth choked on every breath. Her body trembled. But it didn’t matter. She couldn’t think of anything but Alphonse’s tears leaking past Enyo’s eyes, the light of Alphonse’s magic around the dagger.

Enyo might take the power and flatten the world for all Delyth cared. She would not let Alphonse go, killed by the evil she carried within her gentle soul.

Slowly, Delyth reached out, the basin shaking in her hands, towards Enyo’s waiting palm.

⥣          ⥣           ⥣

Etienne was panting as he rounded the temple, his legs jerking beneath him from the punishment of the last couple days. He had pushed himself farther than he thought he could go, both physically and magically, to close the distance between himself and the others.

The last day had been particularly grueling, but thanks to the first pit of stakes, he had known to be wary of traps, and he was aided somewhat by the passage of Enyo and the others. Every trap they triggered was one he did not have to find himself.

Still, it felt like a lifetime before he saw the temple.

Before he came around it’s battered walls, a scream rent the snow-dampened air. It was unearthly. The sound of a shattered creature, a pain his body seemed to know even though he had never been broken so completely.

Was that Alphonse? Was he too late?

He reached them to find Delyth on her knees before a bleeding Enyo. He had never seen the priestess so defeated. Her shoulders sagged, and her wings trembled. Her breathing was ragged, uneven.

In her outstretched hand was the basin.

And in a moment, Etienne knew what she had done. That she had tried to stop Enyo. That Enyo had placed the blade in Alphonse’s belly to stop Delyth.

And somehow, the priestess, the devoted follower, had been cowed by the thought of losing Alphonse so completely. He took in a sharp breath of air. The warrior had failed.

But this had always been his mess to fix.

Etienne raised his hand, the words of the binding spell on his lips. The rune was drawn, the potion spilled. The door to the realms of magic ought to have opened.

Only, nothing happened.

No coiling serpent of power writhed within him, striking from raised fingers. It was as though he could not touch the magic at all.

He tried again, more frantically this time while the sound of Tristan’s laughter rang all around him.

Again, the world refused to bend around his thoughts.

The words were still trapped on his lips as Enyo’s hand touched the basin.

Silence filled the clearing before the temple, the winds dying down, the birds quieting, and the mountain itself holding its breath as Enyo reached with bloody hands to take her basin.

A soundless explosion rippled out from where she knelt. The trees snapped and broke, the heavy stone of the temple fractured and started to crumble. The very earth at her feet retracted and turned to dust.

As quickly as that concussive force expanded from her body, it reversed and slammed into her. Wind, dirt, flecks of rain from a clear sky. It swirled