Goddess Liv Savell (best autobiographies to read .TXT) 📖

was powerful, but at times awkward to command; this was a fight she would have won in a matter of seconds before. Now, she was losing.

“Mage!” Enyo spat again, blood and spit oozing down her chin. He had explained that while Etienne could hear and speak to them, they would not hear one another. He was the only one who had the entire picture. “What’s the point of all your schooling if you cannot out think Mascen!? Enough of this chasing, this folly. We are too weak alone. We need each other to face him. Fix this.”

“You aren’t supposed to be facing him on your own, Enyo,” he growled at the Goddess through their connection. “Tell me as soon as you see him, and I’ll give you directions so that you might lead him towards the others.”

Lead Mascen to the others? Laughable, all of their little plans crumbling. Her son wasn’t following them at all. He didn’t care for the bait and instead had the Gods chasing their tails in the maze he made.

When next she heard the mage’s voice, it sounded tight with worry even over the distance. “Go quietly.”

She didn’t need some half-brained human telling her to go quietly! Enyo knew how to hunt. Smothering a growl of frustration, she pressed down the street, cutting through a half-crushed alley and climbing over rubble to arrive on the opposite side of what she thought might be a butchery. The smell of putrified viscera stung her nose and throat.

Good, she thought, the reek will hide my scent. 

Closing her eyes, Enyo let her senses roam. Beneath echoes of the earth, still dizzy with Mascen’s manipulation and the breathy sighs of the wind, she heard the rustle of cloth against stone. No mortal would be foolish enough to explore the streets now. Inhaling sharply, the metallic taste of blood and sulfur coated her tongue. Mascen.

The eastern breeze brought her the scent, so Enyo turned left.

She picked her way through the jungle of broken stone, urging each rock and leaf to be quiet. To dampen the sound of her approach. It worked, the next turn she took bringing Mascen into sight again.

Easing back behind the corner, she brushed a finger against the rune at her ear. “Mage, I have found him.”

✶

Etienne breathed a sigh of relief at Enyo’s whisper. He could just make out the form of Mascen fleeing towards the center of the city, its big central courtyard deserted but for the fountain that gurgled there, silent at this distance. Quickly, he turned the Gods in that direction, all but Va'al, who had disappeared from his sight and hearing both. Probably intothe Shadow Realms if Etienne had to guess.

He ground his teeth in frustration, willing the others to move quickly but silently.

Come on… They were all gaining, Enyo flying on Mascen’s heels and the others eating up ground. Soon it would be three against one, and they might be able to herd Mascen towards the fountain.

And then, with a sound like a rockslide, Mascen brought down an entire building, rubble raining down around Enyo and cutting off Esha and Maoz. Aryus winked into existence behind the nature Goddess, hauling her out of the way before she was crushed, but they might as well be starting over.

“Etienne,” Delyth’s voice startled him in its quiet intensity. “Left towards the sound of the collapse?”

The mage swallowed. Delyth, on the other side, hadn’t been cut off at all. She was perfectly positioned to reach Mascen, either to delay or coax him into following her closer to the fountain.

Perfectly positioned to throw away her life.

“No, to your right. The left path dead-ends in two turns.” He didn’t relax until she turned away, deep into the surrounding buildings.

♨

Mascen yanked up a hunk of the road, stones and dirt scattering. Enyo was gaining on him once more, her cracked-magma face split open by a vicious grin. She could not hurt him, not without Calamity, not in her current state. Still, he could not seem to shake her, and this constant flight was tiresome. He skidded to a stop and turned to face her, lifting his hands, palm-down, to the height of his chest. The city around him answered, rising in a dirt and cobble wave that he sent racing down the street. It picked up momentum as it went, growing with each piece of debris it consumed. In a matter of heartbeats, Mascen could no longer see his mother behind the wave, but oh how he wished he could. He wanted to see her thrown back, crushed by the very land she claimed to have dominion over.

And then, the wave split. Enyo stood framed between the two halves even as they rumbled past her to splash street carnage against buildings or through windows. Her arms were raised, and she panted with effort, but still, she was smiling.

Mascen turned and ran, cursing her, cursing the Vassal that had borne her, and cursing any who aided her. May she find herself back in the Cursed Realms and rot there for the rest of time.

As fixated on the pursuit of Enyo as he was, Mascen realized a moment too late that darkness gathered behind him. He jerked away from the shadows turning towards the next opening, the next street. He would bring half the city down on this sector, let his parents pick through it while he finished the others. He took one step, another, and then a long-fingered hand closed about his shoulder. Mascen spun and lashed out, his hands glowing as they heated to the temperature of a volcano's core. Even that would harm the King of Shadows.

Va'al’s smirk was the only thing left, a glowing white-toothed grimace and quickly fading.  Mascen lunged forward, sinking his pale arms elbow deep into the depths from which Va’al attacked. The shifting mass was cold, powder-fragile, and crumbling. He was not made to touch the unplaces. Still, he thrust himself deeper, feeling for something, anything solid. He grinned when he found it.