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

at Enyo, flames leaching the blue from her eyes so that they appeared storm-grey beneath black brows. “Tell us how to hurt him.”

“You don’t order me around, priestess.”

Delyth snarled, and suddenly, her resemblance to Maoz was uncanny. She was the bear, the wolf—the dragon. “I am not your priestess, Enyo, because you are not a God. You’re all just powerful thieves. Lecherous intruders.”

Maoz’s spear landed point-down in the earth before Delyth’s crossed legs, and Etienne flinched away even as Delyth turned in preparation to attack. The other Gods did not react, and the winged warrior returned to her seated position when she saw that it was Maoz standing behind her.

“You injure Gods with Companion Weapons.” As if to prove his point, he ripped his spear from the ground, spraying his kin with dirt. For all that his actions carried the weight of real threat, Etienne did not think it was anger behind Maoz’s shifting-canopy gaze. If he had to name it, he would call the look ‘respect.’

Delyth just shook herself off. “What exactly is that?”

“Something made with old knowledge and extreme power.” Enyo stood, her face painted with shadows. “Something beyond your kin, Priestess.” With her last insult thrown, the Goddess turned away, marching into the darkness, but not before Etienne saw Enyo’s hand’s tremble.

“Calamity,” Maoz said as if in explanation. He lifted his spear again, holding it out for inspection. “Talon.”

Etienne pulled out his notebook and began to scribble once more.

Chapter XXIV

Eleventh Moon, First Quarter: Perimeter of Caerthleon

The wind sang her name, toyed with her hair, tickled her flesh. It rejoiced at their reunion and whispered secrets into her ear. Why was she trapped in a body made for the land? Why did she run when she could dance and fly? The Goddess smiled as she pressed her legs faster, faster down the road, back to Caerthleon. She could fly in this body. Fly on swift feet and across the rivers and lakes. Limitless. Whole.

Where had she been, the wind wanted to know. Where had she gone?

Away. But never again would they be parted, Enyo promised. The last obstacle to her permanence lay beyond the stone walls rising before her, and once she trapped Mascen, Enyo would be free.

With slowing steps, the Goddess waited for Aryus to appear with the mage in tow, Va’al coming to stand at her side. They followed the priestess, landing one after each other like dancers in a two-step fete. Before them, Mascen’s barriers loomed like cuts and bruises.

“Are you ready?” It was the boy, dim as ever. She turned to him to find that he hadn’t been speaking to her at all. He stood at Delyth’s shoulder, blood-tipped fingers tracing a complex rune into the skin below her ear. Esha was next. Then Va’al and Maoz. AndEnyo. She would need to be marked as well.

As he approached, finger bloodied, Enyo smiled. “Not so afraid of blood now, are you mage?” Moons ago, he had often disputed the use of blood, disgusted and fearful of something he didn’t understand. Now, he wielded it as well as any priest might.

“This journey has changed me, Enyo. I wonder how it’s changed you?”

As his pale gaze met hers, the Goddess realized with a ripple of shock that he wasn’t afraid of her. Not anymore. Wary and careful, certainly, but he didn’t shrink back in fear. “Goddesses do not change,” she murmured, turning away from the mage as soon as he painted the rune beneath her ear, ready to start the attack on Caerthleon and Mascen.

“Shall we begin? Or are we going to stand around waiting all morning?” Va’al’s impatience hadn’t changed no matter what body he was housed in.

She grinned, her teeth sharper than they had ever been when trapped within Alphonse. Bright eyes scanned the expansive wall of rock before them and then down.

“I suppose I am the only one useful enough to do anything about this mess,” she crooned, preening as she readied to make a path for them to enter Caerthleon. Enyo stepped forward as the lava river started to bubble and pop, tossing globs of the dangerous magma into the air and ground around the river pit. Certain death for any mortal flesh that might befall the viscous liquids. But not for her.

The jagged rocks erupting from the earth beyond the river were an impossible climb for any foe who attempted to scale them. An impressive blockade indeed. Her son had done well in constructing his stronghold within Caerthleon, but he couldn't keep her out. Not for long.

Toxic vapors spewed from the lava river, and Enyo inhaled them as if they were a beautiful perfume. She walked to the edge of the river, peering down with a smirk before stepping out onto the roiling surface as if it were a sturdy bridge.

For a moment, the lava writhed and bucked beneath her, but then it settled and darkened in color. White-hot orange faded to red and brown and, finally, dark basalt gray. The cooling lava spread out in ripples at each footfall until Enyo had walked across the entire moatand made the magma sleep.

Steam vents let more of those noxious gasses escape, but the river was now a scabbed wound across the land. Safe. Or rather, it would be in a few weeks when the entire thing had wholly settled and cooled.

For now, it was enough that their party could cross it.

That only left the wall of rocks jutting into the sky.

This would be trickier. How to return them back to their beds without ripping open the earth?

Enyo strode alongside the line, head tilted as she listened to the opinions of the stones. Looked for a weakness.Of course, she could just force them, but then Caerthleon would collapse from the seismic activity, and Illygad had suffered enough already. There had to be a gentler way.

A mile down, she found the place—a collection of monolithic granite spires that had fought against the change more adamantly than the rest. Mascen