That's when the dark truth hit me. The banshees had been trying to warn me all along. They weren't the enemy. They were the messenger. The only way to damage his physical body was to damage my physical body. I had to let him kill me. Instantly I felt myself begin to mourn, for the life I should've had, and wouldn't be able to have. This was going to be the end. It was the only choice. My mother had created me to be destroyed. She must have known that it would come to this.
I kept fighting him, trying to maintain the wall, so that he wouldn't understand what I had to do. I lunged at him with the dagger. He pushed me away easily. I let the dagger drop from my hand as he restrained my arm. I let him tie a chain around my hands. It was the worst moment of my life. I hoped this was the answer. I wouldn't know for sure until it was too late to change my mind. I kicked Phosphoros hard with my free leg. I had to maintain the appearance of a fight.
"Is that your best defense," He smirked at me. "What can I expect from a girl like you anyway." He collected the dagger after he had tied me and placed me onto a stone altar in the middle of the floor. He wasted no time. He brought the dagger over to me and said, "Any last words," with a sneer.
"Go to hell," I screamed. And with that, he plunged the dagger into my heart.
19
The Final Harbinger
For a single moment, there was cold and dark. I had been here before. The shrine in Umbrion had introduced me to death. It was not a scary place. It was a place of rest. I wished that I could stay there longer, but the threads of my fate pulled hard and fast.
I saw the thread of light that was woven through my story and my mother's story too. It was too bright, it did not match the beautiful tapestry of our lives. I saw the thread break. With great effort, I pulled it away, and as I began to untangle it from my path, I could see the other colors come alive. There were earthy greens and browns, bright blues and yellows, and even a few strands of the richest red. It was beautiful and it was mine. My fate was woven into the fabric of the liminal world and through the lives of many others. They would not let me fall. I was captured by the fabric of the Liminal World, my home.
It was different this time. I was not trapped here, it was like I had finally come home. Everything that I had experienced before was like a shallow dream compared to now. I could not only feel the fabric of the liminal world. I could feel every single thread. They were all at my disposal. I was at the height of my power somehow. I had died in the physical world, but I had been reborn a goddess.
I opened my eyes and I was in the vale that had once been my mother's creation, but now it was mine. With just the pull of a thread. I opened it up. I could feel the inner workings of every part. I wove a new thread. The castle was once old and decrepit and filled with decay. With the twist of a finger, I wove a new pattern. The castle was sturdy and new, rebuilt in all its glory. Everything would be renewed now.
The keeper was there, watching me with a glint in her eye. She bowed in greeting and I folded my hands and returned the gesture.
"Welcome home," She said.
"Thank you," I smiled.
I glanced all around me. This world was bigger and more full than anything I had ever seen and now it was my home. There was only one thing missing. Kairn. I searched the threads. I could feel everything that was interwoven with my fate and I knew he had to be somewhere. Finally, I plucked one earthy green strand from the tapestry. I followed it. It stopped and I knew that he was in a different world now, but I had something to track him by. I replicated the green thread and pulled it into the world around me. There had to be a way to connect our worlds.
The landscape of the liminal world was dotted with shrines. These shrines were outlets of my power and were what connected me to this world. I would build a new shrine. A shrine to connect our worlds. I wound the thread through the vale, creating something new. I allowed the trees and vines to grow up into a shaded temple. Flowers were blooming over the surface of the new shrine and with a final pluck, I added a large set of antlers to the entrance.
I pulled on the thread at the edges where I lost sight of it. I whispered to it, calling it home. This place that my mother had created, was open to me. I could change it and shift it in whatever ways I desired. Finally, the thread pulled taut and I knew that it had worked. I opened my eyes. From the grand forest shrine I had built, came Kairn. He was no longer human at all. But entirely God.
