“Don’t you grow tired of walking?” she asked idly, ember eyes flickering down to his booted feet. Before all of this—their banishment, their reinstallment in new bodies, the basin— he could appear wherever he pleased, whenever. A thought, and he’d be there. He’d just step through the shadows, cocky and a mischievous glint to his eyes. Before all this, Enyo could sprint faster than the wind, and her form would never tire. She could run for days and get wherever she needed to go without having to stop to drink water or rest.
Now.
Her feet ached, and her legs were heavy and weak.
Va'al snorted, leaning in to nip at Enyo’s neck. “I was tired of walking fifty years ago. I’m tired of aching. I’m tired of shitting.” He turned away and spat in the mud. “That’s what I’ve been working on. Now, aren’t you going to ask me where I’ve been?” He leaned back, straightening his vest. Not unlike a peacock, spreading a wide swath of feathers.
Her eyes squinted with mirth, and Enyo jerked her chin at Va'al in demand. “Well?”
He sighed and flung his hands up like a stage performer on a carnival night. “Seven years ago, I helped a clan chief with a rebellious daughter play a trick. And you’ll never believe what I found in his eating hall… Maoz’s artifact.”
“And I care because?”
“We can bring him back with his artifact and a Vassal. Think about it. So what, you and I can’t restore ourselves alone? We’ll just get some of the others together and with all that extra power we can get our old bodies back.”
Enyo stared at Va'al for a long moment before she straightened up, hardly taking in his ridiculous little bow. She scoffed. “You think we can get our old forms back? Don’t you remember what the banishment was like?” She and Va'al had been together at the time, ready to fight the humans, only to find out too late they were attacking the wrong group of mages. Their bodies had been frozen in place, then a burning heat hotter than any fire, any volcano had wracked through their bodies, ash and vapors coming off in noxious plumes.
Slowly, painfully, they had crumbled away into nothing more than piles of dust. And then the darkness. The all-consuming darkness had no end and no beginning, though their consciousness went on. Aware of every empty, silent minute in that void of a place. No light, no sound, no sensation.
“Our bodies were destroyed beyond repair. How would we get them back?” She was angry and excited all at once, eyes wide and pupils dilating rapidly. What he was suggesting was impossible. It would be foolish to hope for it, and yet her heart fluttered.
⚀
“Do you think I just wasted all that time while you slept nice and cozy in the void? I searched for any possible way out of this fucking confinement, and what I found was simpler than you might think. The mages that banished us bound our magic, our true nature. If we just reverse the spell, if we just get enough power… We could weave new bodies. What better source of power is there but the other artifacts and the souls bound to them?”
Va’al scowled. He was starting to sound like one of the bloody mages himself; still, he had to give it to them. They pulled off an extraordinary trick all because they had understood the Gods better than they understood themselves. Well, no matter. They were all dead, and if both he and Enyo could be freed, then the others could as well.
“So what do you say? Maoz is closest. Then Tha’et, I suppose, but who wants him around? Always was so full of himself…”
“Wait. If you knew this before, why didn’t you collect up some of the others years ago?” Enyo’s eyes slitted in suspicion. He could see her mind working, see her put together the lengths he would have had to go through to obtain this information: How he’d first have needed to get to Ingola, find their records, and find the answers to precisely how they had been unmade. It wasn’t as if he could just step through the shadows and appear in those libraries or vaults where such precious information would have been stored. So he would have needed to gain access… Smile and sneak and bribe his way in.
Did she understand how much time those things took when you were confined to a human body?
“You think me a fool? As easily tricked as a human?” She stepped closer, snarling, the forest around them growing quiet. “You think I believe it took you eighty years to find this information? You think me simple-minded?!”
Va’al was stunned. Did she really think he was making this up? After the years of work he’d put into struggling out of this form? “What are you even talking about, you ridiculous creature?” He reached down and gripped her by the chin. “I was looking for you.”
Of course, out of all the temples erected in her honor, Enyo had chosen the most remote to hide her artifact. He had all but given up, all but decided to go after Maoz’s spear, which he knew the location of, when he felt her stir. Reborn without his aid. There had been plenty of time lost in the interim, in the petty distractions of mortal pleasures, but he’d always returned to his quest. To find Enyo, then some of the others. To free himself of the bonds of flesh.
Suddenly feral, Va'al kissed Enyo until he thought his lips might bruise. “Don’t you want to be free again?”
She was snarling and twisting out of his grip, clearly ready to rip his throat out with her elongated teeth when his
