Goddess by Liv Savell (autobiographies to read txt) 📕

with all the speed of an ailing elder. Her shoulders were laden with the thick trunks of river-side trees, and their bark scratched at her wings when she was not careful to hold them apart. The air smelled of roasted meat from the Gods’ dinner, but it served only to turn the warrior’s stomach. Let them gorge themselves on Maoz’s kills. She had no desire to eat. Besides, with all their fuel damp from Mascen’s storm, creating a hot enough fire would be difficult. The Gods insisted it must be a massive blaze for the ritual to work.

“Will you miss anything about your human form?” Enyo’s voice became audible as Delyth neared the growing bonfire at the center of their camp.

Va'al snorted. “No. I could play at being human whenever I wanted back in the old days without ever having to shit. I don’t think I’ll even be doing that for a good long while.”

Delyth turned to look at him, catching both Enyo’s gaze on her and Va'al rolling his eyes at the Goddess. Enyo never should have ‘been human’ to begin with; she had no right to miss anything about the time she had stolen.

The warrior dropped her load of wood and turned away, walking stiff-backed from the site of the bonfire. She ached, her belly so full of fear that she could not swallow.

Alphonse might die today.

Delyth trembled, her gut a den of snakes. She was going to be ill. Perhaps she shouldn’t let this go through. Perhaps there were other ways to free Alphonse, ways safer for her paramour…

Etienne’s long-fingered hand fell on Delyth’s shoulder, squeezing hard. She turned to look at him, taking in his pale, sharp-boned face. She did not remember his fight with Mascen herself, but she had heard the others talking about it. Somehow, the boy had overcome his fear enough to pin a fully formed God so that Meirin might summon Death. Delyth took a shaky breath and reached out to place a hand on his shoulder as well. Or reached up, rather. He had a few inches of height on her.

“We—she could—” She couldn’t form the words. It was too much. As though voicing them might make the worst even more likely to happen. Etienne seemed to understand. He couldn’t look her in the eyes any longer but stared over the top of her head and gave a quick, short nod.

The warrior woman pulled him roughly into a hug, crushing his thin body against hers. He flinched at first, then relaxed, wrapping his long arms around her shoulders. When he spoke again, his voice was thick with tears. “We’re doing the right thing. She— She’d never forgive us if we put her above the fate of Thloegr.”

Delyth nodded, so afraid that her fingers were numb, and pulled away. Her cheeks were wet again, for all that it had stopped raining, and angrily, she rubbed her face against her sleeve. “She’s not dead yet, Etienne. We don’t know that we’ll lose her.”

“But—the injury—”

“She’s a healer, Etienne. She’ll recover.”

Something in his face softened, a relaxing of the brow and lip. Etienne nodded and let his gaze move back to the fire and its ring of Gods. “We have evidence proving that the Vassals still reside within their bodies, and they can resume control when the God inhabiting them is indisposed. Logically, it stands to reason that the Vassals will resume control when the God leaves.”

✶

Delyth nodded and left, shoulders bent as though fighting a gale, and Etienne turned away. The warriorseemed to need space now more than anything else, and he was all too happy to give it to her. He had his own thoughts to work through as well.

The land along this portion of the Afonneidr sloped upwards from the river’s banks to become the flat plains and gently rolling hills of Thloegr’s heartland. There were trees here—freshwater willows and delicate, curling-bark birches. Mostly, the banks were reed-furred and cloaked in the nighttime song of owls. They were well into autumn now; too cold for frogs. Etienne picked his way past these, down to the mud at the river’s edge. The camp was well behind him, though he could hear, even now, the rumble of voices and the occasional crash of wood being dropped on the fire. Meirin would be sitting there, or Aryus rather. With the other Gods.

He took a deep breath and watched the play of moonlight-fingers along the rippling surface of the water, then began to sculpt a channel into the soft earth so that he might divert a few lazy tendrils of river water into a shallow pool. It was so cold that his fingers went numb and then began to ache. It was a little pain, all things considered. Not like the heavy-bladed guillotine hanging over his head, the possible loss of his oldest, closest friend.

Etienne took his knife and pricked his finger, relishing the sudden flow of magic despite himself. It was a heady feeling, to break open the barriers between worlds enough to suck power into his veins. The sort of thing that one could get addicted to if it didn’t kill you. He spoke the scrying charm taught to most students at Moxous, and the magic left him, sluicing out and into the pool he had made.

The murky, dirt-thickened liquid went glass-flat and inky, columns forming themselves out of light and will. The shelves followed. Then the books and tables, until the Moxous library was reflected in miniature before Etienne’s eyes. At so late an hour, few people were studying, but the image of the place alone was enough to fill the mage with longing.

He had not seen the last of Moxous. He would walk there again with Alphonse. They would study together or sit beneath oak trees to enjoy the gentle warmth of an Ingolan spring. She would become a healer and he a sorcerer. He would feel Meirin nudge him over a joke and watch Delyth tease Allee into fits of blushing