“The explosion,” Delyth rasped finally, her meal half-finished and forgotten in her lap. “What do you think happened?”
“She’s not dead. I’d know it if she was.” Somehow, Etienne never doubted that he would see Alphonse’s spirit if she had died. That she’d come to him like Theo had. He had known her for too long, since they had first joined the Moxous School of Magics back in Ingola, but then, he had abandoned her before the end of their journey to the temple, Tholanadras. Would she be too angry to come to him if Enyo’s occupation of her body killed her?
“Then scry her.” Delyth rounded on him, her usually stoic face tense below wide eyes. “Do something.”
Etienne blanched. He had not attempted any magic since Enyo had bound him. There was every possibility that her spell had been a temporary one, that time and distance would have freed him, and yet… And yet the chance that it had not been, that he was permanently crippled in this way terrified him.
To never cast a spell again… She might as well have taken his hands.
He didn’t want to know, didn’t want to find out. Not if it meant acknowledging that he would be magicless forever. Did Delyth feel this way without a weapon? Enyo’s sword, Calamity, was still on the mountaintop with the Goddess as far as they knew.
Slowly, Etienne looked up, meeting Delyth’s gaze. He had thought her wild before but never had she looked so untamed. So haunted.
The mage swallowed and stood up, carefully laying out the tools he would need: a bowl, clean water, void salts for the unknown, rosemary, and brahmi for clarity. Carefully, he made a paste from river mud, salts, and herbs and used it to trace symbols on the bowl, whispering in a language old before the Gods stepped foot on Illygad.
And yet, the sigils did not stick. They cracked as he worked, crumbled when he turned the bowl. When he filled it with water, it did not go mirror-pane flat, glowing with the light of elsewhere, the places he sought.
It was still mud and herbs. Utterly mundane.
Mundane as Etienne himself was.
He looked up at Delyth to tell her he could not do it, could not show them Alphonse, but he didn’t have to. She read it in his face, in his failure. She didn’t speak, instead standing sharply and walking out of the light of the fire, down towards the lake.
Etienne gasped in a ragged breath and then flung the bowl away from him, shattering it into clay shards against an old oak. The pieces lodged themselves into the cold earth. Jagged as a wound.
It was pointless. He wanted to scream it at Delyth, tear out her accusing gaze. They could not return to the mountaintop. Could not fight Enyo and Tristan.
Now they could not even find them.
But neither could he leave. Leave Alphonse again to whatever fate awaited her. It was his fault twice over, for summoning the Goddess that infected her and for abandoning her to that Goddess at Thlonandras. He was bound in chains of guilt thicker than blood.
⥣ ⥣ ⥣
Etienne’s anger had burnt itself out by the time Delyth returned. Her face had fallen into more familiar lines. Calm, but for the tension in her jaw.
“Been thinking,” she hasped in that new, frugal way of hers. As though words had become expensive since their battle on the mountain. “Blood is power, in Rhosan magic.” She tapped her chest. “My magic.”
The mage watched as she slid out her gilded dagger and pressed the tip to the pad of her forefinger until blood welled beneath it. For a moment, he didn’t think she was going to stop, but she shuddered and set the blade aside.
“Usually, I would need… Alphonse’s blood. To track her.” Delyth spoke as she worked, tracing a complicated rune into the rough, flat stone of a river rock. “But Enyo drank so much… In a way, her blood is my blood. And the other way ‘round.”
If Etienne understood correctly, Delyth meant that because Enyo had drunk her blood while they traveled together, Delyth could now track her without using anything but her own blood as a focus. She was using her blood both as the fuel to unlock the Wellspring and the focus of her spell. It didn’t seem logical, but then the magic of Rhosan rarely did.
For a moment after Delyth finished, nothing seemed to happen. Then, suddenly, she stiffened. Her head shot up, pupils widening, and she turned abruptly to the south. “There,” she whispered, almost too softly for him to hear. “This time, your greed will be your undoing.”
Chapter II
Ninth Moon, First Quarter: Brig’ian Mountains
Despite the return of her glorious powers, Enyo remained dissatisfied. She could run faster, hit harder, climb and punch and slap better than a human, but it was still limiting. This human frame was frail and skinny from fighting her inhabitation. Her wrists were narrow and knobbly, the bones sticking out in unappealing spurs. Her cheeks were hollow, and Enyo knew it wasn’t normal to see so many ribs.
Va'al was thriving in Tristan’s body, but then his host had been willing. Alphonse, the pitiful little healer, had fought Enyo until her demise. Of course, she had failed. She was human. But her dissent had damaged their body. Now, as Enyo washed her hands in a mountain stream and listened to the jokes murmured by the trees, she couldn’t help but miss her old form.
Glorious. Perfect. Strong.
Everything she should be. Not this fragile, pale human.
Sitting back on her haunches, Enyo looked around in mild curiosity for Va'al. He had wandered off to some nefarious deed, and while they had spent days together, mostly rutting like deer in heat, Enyo still didn’t want him out of her sight for long. Three hundred years was enough.
“Va'al,” she
