Kat tried to take advantage of her rage and reckless movements, going for a swift stab. Jane let it go straight through her abdomen, uncaring of the wound and pain as she cast. She yanked Kat closer so that when the burst of force erupted from her wand, it hit Kat full force in the chest with the strength of a dragon. Syline’s untouchable older sister flew across the room like a ragdoll to slam bonelessly into the far wall.
‘I’ll not have all he gave me, all the power I’ve shed blood sweat and tears for, all my plans, all the good I could do for this city taken away and ruined by some stupid little girl! None of you understand. Not you! Not my idiot sisters, or their stupid, worthless daughters! You’ll all see, when I’m done, this city, no, this nation will be perfect, and mine.’
It was at that terrible moment Syline realised, until now, Jane had been playing with them. Until now, she’d not taken them seriously nor cared about what they did to her forces. It was only the death of the dragon that truly angered her and only now was the vampire showing her true strength. She realised this as Jane ran at her. She would have reached her, killed her in an instant, if it hadn’t been for Ioann. It must’ve been so much of his magic, likely all he had left, that sent the sorcerer flying at her. He and the vampire went down in a heap and Jane’s wand skittered across the floor in their wake, broken in two. For all her strength, she was light, and momentum did a lot when your foe didn’t see you coming. Syline began to have hope, however slim. She retrieved her staff, ready to join the fight when Ioann screamed. It was a terrible scream of agony with no compare. Ioann went tumbling across the ground, leaving blood in his wake.
Jane stood and threw Ioann’s severed arm away.
‘I will not be stopped.’
She charged yet again, eyes black, face contorted with veins of the same. Her dress was in flames from the last of Ioann’s blade. It blazed around her, but she seemed so unbothered by it all as she charged for Syline once again. This time, Amberly stopped her, desperately stepping in her path and trying to slow her as all their efforts proved for naught.
Jane slammed her hand into Amberly’s stomach nails-first. Amberly collapsed to her knees and Jane tore her hand free, fingers bloodied to the knuckle. ‘Not’ – she licked her fingers clean – ‘by some stupid, meddling, idiot child.’
The woman in the dress of fire had caught up to her. Syline knew then that ruin had surely come.
Chapter 19
All she could do was run, and even that wasn’t enough to keep the vampire back. Jane was too fast, too strong. Stone and tile cracked under her footfalls as she raced after Syline, cursing her out and calling her a child, a fool, a weakling, a dead girl. Syline had no hope of fighting back. Watching her throw away even Ioann and Kat like so much driftwood, left her certain of that. They’d lost. Jane was beyond anything she had ever faced in the past. Why did they even think they had any chance of defeating a vampire who feasted on the blood of gods?
The only advantages were that Ioann had broken Jane’s focus and the two spells that kept her alive. Jane was the person that she’d stolen the spell-book from, and she was famous as an incredibly skilled mage. If Jane was able to bring her magical skills to bear, she’d die in an instant. Syline’s own magical skills had been reduced to a pair of spells, uttered over and over and over, going into the next the moment the first ran out: the spell of vanishing and her lightning teleportation spell. The sight of the lightning seemed to enrage Jane all the more: that spell caused her pain, and the jolts and shocks she was receiving, again and again, every time she got close to the evasive Syline left the vampire screeching in frustration.
‘Just die, you little worm!’
Syline wished she could just escape all this and run away forever. But she couldn’t abandon her friends, even if all she could do for them was keep Jane busy. She couldn’t leave them to die, and she had to believe they still lived. If they were all dead… No, she couldn’t think about that. She teleported again. Each casting hurt more and made the nausea worse. She couldn’t keep this up much longer. She was fairly certain she’d already run out of magic a few castings ago. Each spell made her chest ache all the more. At this point, she was sure that any other time, she would have passed out by now – she would have already given into fatigue. Now, she wasn’t draining her magic. She’d pushed past that. Now, she was doing something Anatoly had warned her of, something she’d been told to never, ever do. She was pulling on her life itself, each casting putting her a little closer to death as she drained her very soul to keep fighting.
But what else she could do? All she could do was keep running, keep casting, because the moment she stopped, she died. More importantly than that, the moment she died, Jane would turn her attention on all her friends. The only way she could protect them was to keep Jane busy and pray for a miracle. Pray for something to change. Pray for something to give her some kind of hope.
Amberly opened her eyes. The world around her was grey, little but curling fog. If she focused, she could catch vague details: walls, a huge silhouette of something that looked like a dragon dead on the floor. A body at her feet. She focused on it, leaning down.
It was her own.
‘I’m… dead?’ she whispered, her voice catching in her throat. Was this place what awaited her for spurning both Soel and Laes?
‘Near to it, but no, you aren’t dead,’ cooed a woman’s voice. Just the sound of it sent tingles down Amberly’s spine. Sultry and soft, with just the slightest raspiness to it. Her eyes flicked up. The fog ahead of her was turning red, seemingly catching alight and clearing away, leaving a clear space, in which she could see her.
Naked and glorious, the woman stood before her, smiling. Her skin was a soft, copper hue, her hair and the huge, angelic wings at her back, the colour of freshly spilled blood, and her eyes, molten gold. Her hair hung long down her back and covered her breasts with a fringe parted on her brow by small horns that rose from her forehead. Her form, her figure, her face, she was the most beautiful creature Amberly had ever seen.
‘Wh-who are you?’ she managed, stepping into the cleared mists towards the woman.
The woman smiled and held a hand out to her.
‘I’m the princess in the castle you’ve come to save, my beautiful knight in shining armour.’
‘You’re my princess? I’m what? Wait.’ Amberly stumbled over herself, trying her best to decipher the woman’s words as she stepped closer to her. The warmth of the woman alone was enough to beat back the cold. She took the bronzed woman’s hand as it was offered to her and found herself pulled in close.
‘You’re the songbird? You’re the caged goddess who kept calling to me?’ she asked. It was all sinking in now; she was the only one who heard the birdsong because she was the only one this goddess wished to hear it.
‘Yours was the only heart I could reach, and you were the perfect heart for me. We both long for something. I long for a worshipper to give my all to, to protect and to care for, and you long for a god to devote yourself to. Even as weak as I am, your heart drew mine to you.’
‘So… you want me to worship you? Why? What makes me worth it?’ Amberly asked. This situation already felt so far beyond her. She was just trying to catch up and make sense of it all. For all her years praying to Soel, he’d never spoken back, and now she was in the arms of a demigod who could only be described as divine. This woman was what every painter and sculptor strived to emulate when painting images of heavenly beauty.
‘You gave everything to pursue your passion for hunting demons and saving the innocent. You were willing to go against everything you knew to do what you thought was right. That is exactly what I long for in a worshipper, in a saviour, in a lover.’
That last note confused Amberly. She cocked her head at the goddess’ words, wondering just what she could mean by that.
‘You’re a goddess of demon hunting?’ she asked, looking at the horns. Maybe a god of hellblooded? Then why didn’t she go for Thelonious, instead? With the feathered wings and the horns, the demigod looked like something in between angel and devil.
The goddess giggled – a beautiful, melodic sound that set butterflies fluttering through Amberly’s stomach – and shook her head.
‘No.’ She leaned in and kissed Amberly, holding her tight as Amberly felt life burning back into her breast and the wonderful warmth of the goddess spreading through her form. With it came knowledge. Knowledge of who she was.
‘You’re…’ Amberly pulled back, staring into the goddess’ eyes, breathless. ‘You’re the demigod of passion.’
The goddess grinned and closed her wings around them both.
‘I am. I devote myself fully to whoever I care for, whatever I do. I will not care for you as my worshipper, Amberly. I will love you with all my heart, and all I ask from you is your own love and affection in return, and that you never deny yourself your passions. Now… say my name, Amberly, my knight, my love. Give yourself to me, and together, we’ll save the day.’
She felt the goddess softly stroking down her cheek and holding her around her waist. The goddess’ eyes were hopeful, nervous: very rarely did a goddess need to ask someone to worship them, and – if the notes were true – this was a demigod, who thought far more like a normal mortal than a god’s distant view.
That was the last wall of her resistance down. She wanted a goddess, wanted the light and safety of worship again, wanted to not feel so empty without a god at her back. She’d seen now that Soel did not care for the individual; he cared far more that his laws were followed, not that right was done. A more personal, a more… human goddess like this sounded perfect for her, and she had to admit, there was something exciting about the idea of being a god’s only worshipper. It sounded much more like a relationship between people than that of some uncaring being and a mere mortal.
She leaned in and whispered, ‘I give myself to you, my goddess, my princess… Rion.’
Rion leaned in and kissed her on the forehead.
‘Then I will give you all that I have left, I cannot promise much, but I will give you your chance at victory.’ Her arms unwound from her new worshipper as she stepped back and Amberly felt herself pulled back to reality.
