Goddess by Liv Savell (autobiographies to read txt) 📕

will be a priest much longer.” The admission startled Meirin. It must have shown on her face because he went on to explain. “To share my body with a Goddess, my Goddess. I don’t know if I can go back to a humble priest. Even high priest.” His voice held a note of rapture.

Meirin looked to Enyo, where she coaxed blooms onto a tree despite the approaching winter.She seemed more stable now, no longer trapped in a mortal body ill-suited to her powers and needs, but the relative calm did not fool Meirin. She had seen the Goddess fling clan warriors like dolls. Etienne still bore the print of her hand burned into his chest.

They all were that dangerous. She could see it in the way Va’al bent shadows to his will, in the way Arawn’s gaze followed Esha like someone dying of thirst.

“Yes,” she said. “The reality is very different than the fables we were told.”

“Indeed.” Arawn agreed. “I overheard you saying you will be taking your clansmen back home. Gwynhafan is not far from here. The temple would be happy to house you both while you recover.”

Meirin thought of the tavern she had danced in and the stalls with food vendors in the square.

“That would be very kind of you.” Truthfully it would be a relief as well. Traveling with Gethin still so weak would be dangerous, even without vengeful Gods on the loose. And if Mascen won, being in a city was surely better than some small village. She had seen what he did to settlements that didn’t impress him…

“It’s the least I can do. Because of your sacrifice, we were saved.”

Meirin’s dark eyes drifted to Alphonse and Tristan’s graves. There had been many sacrifices to stop Mascen. Hers felt the least important.

Shadows overhead caught her eye, and Meirin looked up to see Etienne held tight to Delyth soaring overhead. Aryus appeared from the clouds, and petals fluttered in their wake. Enyo looked up as well, and in a flash, she was gone, running. So much for goodbyes. Esha and Maoz followed suit.

Within a matter of seconds, they were all gone from sight, and just like that, Meirin was no longer part of the fight.

⥣          ⥣           ⥣

In the end, Aryus did carry Etienne for much of the flight. They made a strange pair, both long and pale and slender. Perhaps Aryus’s face was softer, not quite feminine or masculine, but it seemed to Delyth that they shared at least as much in common as she and Maoz. Maybe more. And yet, none of the Gods seemed to consider Etienne kin to Aryus. No one else seemed as interested or apt at guessing the Death God’s riddles, and it saved Delyth the annoyance of flying in company with them. Alone, she was able to keep a comfortable distance from Aryus and his ceaseless giggling.

Unfortunately, the warrior did not much prefer her own company. There was too much time to think during the long days of travel. Incessantly, her thoughts replayed the pallor of Alphonse’s face as they laid her in the dirt, the coolness of her temples as Delyth braided her hair. In her dreams, she killed the child again and again. Only more often than not, it now wore Alphonse’s face.

She could not even cry. Not anymore. Not since they had filled in those graves with deep-smelling earth and hidden Alphonse’s tiny form forever. It was like the warrior had been hollowed out, emptied of all but regret.

Regret and anger.

She had been made a weapon by those who taught her to serve Enyo, so she would be a weapon in Enyo’s service one last time. Delyth was going to find Mascen and bury her restless, beating heart in fury. She could not best him but she would delay him, and aid the land that had raised her.

But she did not hope to survive the confrontation.

To go on a slave to the whims of the Goddess who had destroyed her faith, stolen her chance at a simple life of duty, and torn away her lover was unimaginable.

No. At least this way, she would be free.

And in her resolve, there was some measure of comfort, though, below it, the ache still raged.

⥣          ⥣           ⥣

“Maoz's daughter, raised for Enyo, wants to follow me,” Aryus told Etienne, their voice lowered confidentially, and the mage’s thoughts were jerked away from the riddle he’d been trying to solve.

Maoz’s daughter? Who—

Etienne followed Aryus’s gaze, locked on the small, dark figure above them. She was flying remarkably fast, outstripping their more comfortable pace with desperate beats of her wings.

“Delyth doesn’t consider herself a priestess any longer. She’s not following any of you,” he said, but doubtfully and Aryus gave him a sharp look.

“I'm rarely touched but often held. If you have wit, you'll use me well.”

“A tongue.” Etienne waved a hand. “Are you saying I need to hold mine? Or that I’m speaking without any wit?” He was silent for a moment, and, oddly enough, Aryus was too. “She just lost her lover. And she made an oath to Enyo to serve the rest of her life. All so that you and the others could come back.”

“All follow Aryus in the end.”

Etienne shifted in the Death God’s arms. It had taken a while to get over the humiliation of being carried this way: one of Aryus’s arms beneath his knees, the other behind his back, and pink petals bursting into existence every few wing beats. At least the conversation had been interesting. “I met one of your priests. In the tower. He helped us find the horn, though I’m afraid he took it poorly when we left with it.”

“The sheep are missing the crook,” Aryus hummed in a thoughtful sort of way. “Are you not a shepherd?”

“Wouldn’t you be the shepherd in that metaphor if the ghost of the old priest is one