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

She turned to point to a tree. Flames blossomed there. To a bush. There too.

She was conducting the symphony of destruction when a massive tree, the trunk burned through at her command, cracked and groaned. It fell with an earth-shaking crash across the road, boxing Enyo in, and keeping Etienne out.

At least he was safe for now.

⥣          ⥣           ⥣

Delyth flew through the night, though the time alone offered her little insight. She still felt just as abandoned, just as betrayed by the loss of her companions. She couldn’t help but think that it was some failing, some lapse in her own judgment or abilities that had driven Alphonse away.

Hells, maybe it had been in allowing herself to get close to Alphonse at all. Maybe the girl had felt uncomfortable or pressured. Maybe it had all been an act. Maybe she hadn’t ever trusted Delyth.

The warrior switched the hand she held Calamity in to rub at her eyes while she flew. Gods, was she crying?

Delyth didn’t cry.

She ground her teeth and spurned herself on to greater speed, wings aching with the effort. Dawn had melted into an uncommonly hot morning and sweat beaded on her skin only to be whipped away by the force of the wind. Ahead, a smoke cloud bloomed like a poisonous flower from the tops of the firs.

Delyth didn’t need Calamity to know that was Enyo.

She sheathed the sword and pulled in her wings, angling down into the flames as she dropped from the sky. All the world was on fire, and at its center stood Enyo, laughing as though nothing could be better.

Grimly, Delyth flung herself at the mad creature and snatched her up from the ground, though she dipped as Enyo turned her senseless rage onto her captor. It was like holding a mountain lion, the vicious creature screaming and clawing and tearing at Delyth with her inhuman strength.

“I command you, Ba’oto! Release me!” she ordered. “Return me to the flames!” And when Delyth refused to listen, her commands devolved into insults, shrieked at so high a pitch they hardly registered as words. “Pestilential priestess! Winged nuisance! Unfaithful harlot!”

Even the seconds between the fire and the open air seemed impossibly long. Every time Delyth looked down to fight off Enyo, they lost height, the flight erratic and frenetic. Until finally, Enyo sunk her teeth into the soft flesh of Delyth’s upper arm hard enough to make the priestessyell. She looked down to find Enyo’s mouth filling with blood, the stuff flecking her face and dripping down Delyth’s wrist. Desperately, she tried to pull Enyo free, but the Goddess only worried at the wound.

The flight grew even more turbulent, but the warrior didn’t look up. She had one hand fisted in Enyo’s hair, trying to pull her off when the center of her left wing collided with a solid pine. Pain immediate, and wrenching. There was a sickening crunch, and then they were falling in a tangle of arms and legs, tumbling through the air over each other.

The impact left Delyth stunned and gasping, but Enyo still beat and tore at her, a dim, distant thing. From miles away, someone tried to haul Enyo away, the Goddess’s voice still shrieking obscenities.

Delyth pushed herself up grimly. She’d fallen on her broken wing, and she bled from cuts of greater or lesser severity from both arms and legs. In front of her, Tristan seemed to be trying to talk to Enyo.

The warrior growled, took two steps forward and punched the slight woman in the jaw with every ounce of her strength. Only, Enyo’s crazed eyes softened and changed from flames to warm honey the second before the priestess’s fist connected with her face. Perhaps Enyo had seen the hit coming and known what it would mean. Wanted Alphonse to pay for her escape attempt as much as Etienne.

Or perhaps it was punishment for Delyth, for disobeying her orders to be returned to the flames. Perhaps it was just a spiteful move, not taking the strike Enyo had rightfully earned, but whatever the reason, it was Alphonse who gasped in pain, and it was Alphonse who crumpled to the forest floor.

The fire raging on behind them slowly sputtered out and died. Without Enyo to fuel it on, the damp mountainside couldn’t sustain such an inferno.

✶

Etienne watched in horror as Alphonse crumpled to the ground, the heaving form of the priestess looking down at her, fists clenched. His old friend looked so small, though her body was untouched by flames. He started forward as the warrior kneeled down to cradle Alphonse in blood-smeared arms.

“Stop!” he shouted, voice cracking. “What are you doing with her?”

Delyth turned towards him with a look like a sword thrust, Alphonse limp in her grasp. “Don’t come near me,” she growled, the sound low and menacing. Even Tristan looked stunned. Etienne supposed that he hadn’t expected the priestess to resort to such a physical method, not when it was Alphonse whose body would bear the brunt of the blow.

The warrior turned away, limping back towards the road, one mangled wing held gingerly away from her body.

Once again, the mage had proven just how terribly weak he was, how worthless. He could not get Alphonse safely to the temple. He could do nothing to stop Enyo. Etienne pulled at fistfuls of his own hair. He didn’t deserve to stop Delyth. He couldn’t let her take Alphonse alone.

In the end, he just followed, feet dragging until they reached a place they could camp.

Chapter XV

Sixth Moon, Waning Crescent: Thloegr

It only took an hour for Alphonse to rouse from her stupor. She came to suddenly and horribly, her mind reeling with the images in her head: Flames licking at Etienne greedily, Delyth’s face as her body slammed into a tree, protecting Alphonse even as the smaller woman tried to attack her…

Tristan calling out and then realizing what