Then she yanked her hands back in desperation and teetered away from the priestess. Tripping on the hem of her skirt, the girl fell back with a shout of fear and landed hard on her rump.
All signs of the Goddess within her disappeared.
“Wh-who are you?” she asked Delyth, her doe eyes wide with terror, and the warrior was left in utter confusion.
Did the vassal fear that Enyo was turning her into a monster? The thought was entirely inimical. Enyo was savage, yes, but also beautiful and powerful. She was the summer storm, the strength of mountains. They had her to thank for the seasons, for the very earth around them.
Beyond that, though, if the vassal and the Goddess lay at cross purposes, who was Delyth to obey? She was a priestess of a temple that solely worshipped Enyo as the greatest of the deities, and yet she had been chosen to serve the vassal, to protect her on the journey she must take.
Delyth knew that the vassal was only vital because of the presence of the Goddess, that her fellow priests would prioritize the Goddess above all else, but she knew too, what it felt like to have others make a monster out of you.
Finally, she slid the sword back into its scabbard and stood, offering a hand to the vassal. “I am Delyth,” she said. “I am a priestess of a temple of Enyo, and I have been chosen to serve her vassal, to serve you.”
The warrior pulled her up easily, and the girl held onto her hand despite regaining her feet.
“You… you are a priestess? But— But you’re so… impressive,” she finished. “Serve me? But I’m no one.”
Delyth certainly wasn’t expecting ‘impressive’ to be the girl’s word of choice, but it was a nice sort of surprise. She let the vassal hold onto her hand, looking down at her. “Enyo is as much a warrior Goddess as she is a nature Goddess. Some of us serve with swords,” she said, her low voice patient.
It was difficult to imagine what it must be like to live with the Goddess, to get glimpses of her wild power and have no explanation for it. Delyth thought that if she had lost part of the control of herself, she’d be angry and terrified.
“The Goddess I serve was freed a short while ago,” she went on, struggling to find a way to explain. “She was locked from this world for a time by people who sought to destroy her, but now… Now she has chosen you as vassal. You are not no one.”
✶
This piece of news completely shocked Etienne. The darkness, the creature, the sickness…
It was a Goddess?
“A Goddess?” Alphonse’s trembling words echoed Etienne’s thoughts, and he understood the shock on her face. “I should sit,” she mumbled weakly, slumping back to the ground in a crumble of brown skirts and dust.
Etienne rushed to crouch down beside her. Her face was forlorn, hopeless, but all he could feel was relief. Somehow, she had managed to deny the shadow, the Goddess that was sharing her body.
The warrior—Delyth—had completely misread Alphonse’s reaction. She was looking down at the two of them with something like sympathy, though for all the wrong reasons.
“Alphonse,” she had started, “it is Alphonse, isn’t it? I know this task must feel impossible, but you were chosen for a reason.”
Yes, chosen because he had made a colossal mistake.
Etienne cut in before Alphonse could respond. She seemed to trust the warrior so easily, and he didn’t want her to give away the true nature of their quest, not to a priestess of the very Goddess they hoped to bind away.
“She’s been talking in her sleep,” he said. “Something about a Thlonandras. Can you take us there?”
The warrior glanced at him as if having forgotten almost that he was there. “What is your name?”
When he gave it, she nodded. “My people speak of Thlonandras, though no one has seen the walls of the great temple in generations.” She turned to Alphonse. “Is that where we must go, vassal? The journey will not be easy.”
❀
Alphonse winced at the term given to her by the winged warrior. Vassal. Something holy and important. Something chosen. She wasn’t chosen. She was some giant cosmic joke. An accident. An experiment gone awry.
And it seemed wrong, so very wrong, to lead the priestess down the path that would inevitably expel her Goddess from Alphonse when surely she was meant to aid ‘Enyo’. But…
Alphonse gulped, looking between Etienne and Delyth. Her friend and a winged symbol of devotion…
Etienne’s gaze was wide and steady on her, his chin dipping almost imperceptibly. Yes. They needed to go to Thlonandras. And that was true…
Even if it wasn’t for the reason Delyth thought.
“Yes. We must go to Thlonandras. Will you help?”
“Of course,” Delyth said. “I am your sword and shield, Alphonse.” Once more, the winged warrior offered the Alphonse her hand. “There is still daylight left. We should keep moving. There is a long road ahead of us.”
With Etienne and Delyth’s help, Alphonse was on her feet once more. She still felt unsteady, her mind churning with the knowledge that the darkness was a Goddess, clawing and biting and fighting to get out. Perhaps it was some relief to know what...Who it was within her.
Readjusting the straps of her pack, Alphonse dropped the warrior’s hand quickly, feeling guilty to lead her astray. Would Enyo punish them for lying to her priestess?
Alphonse knew that answer without having to think. Of course, Enyo would punish them if she could. Enyo had proven already she wasn’t a particularly gentle Goddess. But this was her best hope of being freed. Getting to Thlonandras, to the basin. So Etienne could work his magic and set right the wrongs he had made. They had made.
Don’t give up, Allee. She is a Goddess, but she was locked away once, and it can be done again.
