Goddess by Liv Savell (autobiographies to read txt) 📕

strong-minded and good-natured, but next to Etienne, she felt nearly a dolt. He clearly had a sharp mind and no use at all for his body.

The harsh contrast was new and exciting. All the men she had been around in the clan were much the same as she. Warriors. Brutes.

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