"I love you."
The words echoed in her mind, unending--a torturous song meant only for her ears and her mind. It was perhaps the last thing that her mother would ever be able to say to her before she left, because there would be nothing but a corpse to come home to her when her time was up. There was nothing stopping her mother from making her love known, but her father--her father's silence was enough to sting. She had expected it, though, waited for it, as soon as her mother finished sobbing into her shoulder. It still wasn't enough to lessen the blow.
And now, she was going to meet up with the other godlings. It was the only instruction that the Outsider God had left her before vanishing into thin air, and she had no clue what to do without his guidance but to find the others. It made sense that they were all meeting at a central point in front of the church--something that filled her with anger, resentment, now that the ceremony was over--to journey to the Fael's Cathedral just miles north, where they would receive their titles, weapons, and personalized uniforms, and eventually, training. She had managed to weasel that out of the eunuch who had delivered her clothing (which no longer seemed to fit, as the blood made changes to her body) before she left.
They'd given her a simple pair of leather pants, and a starched white shirt that seemed to be the most favored over female godlings. None of it was effective in warding off sharp claws or teeth, but the eunuch had stuttered that they wouldn't expect to be ambushed on the way to the cathedral, so wasting money on things they couldn't afford wasn't beneficial to them.
The changes that the godsblood had already made were staggering--and fast. In just half an hour, she had grown taller, jumping from her five foot five human height to an unsettling six foot, and she was still going. It had slowed significantly, all the major changes complete or nearing completion, and was possibly working on her blood itself and internal organs, if the shooting pain in her stomach and chest were anything to go by. It felt like worms were sliding down through her gut, cold, nasty, eldritch worms that were slowly turning her into something else.
Her footsteps were lighter, swifter, as she took a detour into an alleyway, having caught a glimpse of a throng of leftover church members chatting jovially beside one of the lesser known taverns. Though they seemed happy, something told her that they were anything but, after what they had witnessed. The ceremony was awful, nothing like they had thought--what she had thought. She could still smell the rot in her nose, as if she was still in the presence of one of the gods sheathed in a corpse. That was the only thing she could say was a good thing about the Outsider God--he didn't use human bodies to communicate. For now.
Eisa and Lian were already there. They were taller as well, but hadn't seemed to have gone through such a drastic change like she had. Kale, Patricia, and Roryn were suspiciously absent, probably held back saying their farewells. By the look on the twins' faces, theirs hadn't gone very well; their eyes were puffy, mouths drawn into dark frowns. But she could be reading them wrong, and they were just showing their sadness differently than she expected.
The closer she got, the more she noticed that they hadn't changed much in the way of physical features. Perhaps a bit more muscle here, or another extra vein poking out there, but nothing was different--neither had the concentrated yellow eyes or white hair that came with concentrated blood intake. Should that be considered lucky?
"Lidya," Eisa saw her first, greeted her with a tired smile. It wasn't even a half smile. "You look different."
Because she was now eye-level with him? Or was it the eyes and hair that gave it away? Her sarcastic remarks had no place in such a sad situation, though, so she bit her tongue and gave him a tight smile as awful as the one he had attempted. "Unfortunately. How are you both holding up?"
"As well as you can, being... chosen." Lian rubbed his eyes, ridding them of the tears that had welled up. Somehow, she had caught them before they vanished, and frowned. "Mom and Pop aren't happy. Think it's our fault."
"Oh." Lidya glanced down at her feet, then the bags beside their boots. She only brought the pocket watch and a few spare dresses to use--she still couldn't find the journal, wherever it had wandered off to. She could only hope that it was in good hands. "I'm sorry." Sorry wasn't even beginning to cover what she felt.
"It's fine," they said in sync, Lian adding,"I was expecting it to happen the moment we got off the stage. Still, if it wasn't being chosen, it would have been Eisa eloping and me looking for work."
Eisa... eloping? She glanced at his face, watched draw down into something cold, and looked away. Something that was impossible for him now. Lidya noticed the ring on his finger, but didn't comment, instead whispering,"I'm sorry," because it meant something.
He didn't reply.
"Sorry, guys!" Patricia ran up, breaking the prelude into an awkward silence, somehow out of breath despite the godsblood in her veins, and leaned down to rest her hands on her knees. Her hair--brown, Lidya frowned again--flopped out from her ponytail and covered her eyes--brown, again. She looked at Lidya, sweeping the hair from her face, and grinned at her. "Nice hat, girly. Hey, whoa, are you taller now?"
Lidya reached up and touched the brim of the hat. It had been Fenharrow's--she found it laying on her bed, suspiciously enough--with the added addition of a jet black feather tucked into a ribbon that had also been added. There was no note, nothing to suggest where it had come from, but she suspected it had gotten there in the same way that the journal had disappeared.
"Yes. Somehow."
"That just leaves Kale and Roryn, then," Lian sighed. In unison, he and Eisa glanced up at the sun, which was slowly starting to become hindered by the Vile Mother's giant wing. "We won't make it by nightfall as it is. Midnight, maybe."
"At the best?" Patricia squinted, rubbing her nose. "That's going to be a pain. Maybe we can sleep in the trees?"
All three of them--Eisa, Lian, and Lidya--gave her a hard look that said everything about their opinions on that. None of them were sleeping in a tree. It was too risky, for one, and the beasts could climb as easily as they could--maybe even easier, with the claws and teeth. If not that, they could ram it down, or pull them down.
"None of us have weapons," Lidya pointed out. "It would be easier to get there as quickly as we can, and dodge the beasts that come out of the portals that open up, wherever they may be."
She shoved aside the panic and fear she felt about that particular situation. Any emotions that would get in her way would only cause problems, and she knew how to ignore them--it was just like ignoring her cramps, which were starting to turn into sledgehammers against her stomach.
"Ah... Right." Patricia frowned. "Then, we leave when Roryn and Kale get here? Just like that?"
"What else would we do?" Eisa snapped. Lidya raised an eyebrow at the sudden one-eighty, but didn't say what she thought, instead taking to fiddling with the watch in her pocket. "Fael's cathedral is over six miles on any path we take. We would be better off getting there as quickly as we can."
Lidya thought back to the boghog meat, then at the Vile Church, where it was near--the intersections of the forest path they had to take--and shuddered. Taking on one of those wouldn't mean anything good.
"I didn't... I just thought we would stay here for a bit longer. That's all." Patricia shuffled her feet, adjusting the grip she had on her bag. "Um... Yeah."
The silence that Lidya was dreading came full force, but it wasn't nearly as bad as what she was expecting. It wasn't awkward, or tense, it was just... uneasy, and nothing she wouldn't forget by tomorrow. If she survived that long, that is.
Kale and Roryn arrived together, quiet, and by their unwillingness to speak, they had nothing to say to any of them. Their eyes were also puffy, breaths short, but their hands were clasped, and Lidya couldn't help but catch Kale's eyes, raising a curious eyebrow. He just glared at her, pulling Roryn--obedient and sullen--towards the dirt path they would be taking.
That was rude.
Eisa and Lian followed after, Patricia toeing their shadows. Lidya stayed further back, more out of necessity than desire to be away from them--they needed someone to guard their backs if Kale and Roryn were taking the lead. Neither the twins or Patricia seemed keen on taking up that particularly ill-fated torch. Everyone knew that the back of the pack was the first to be hit, but someone had to do it. They were lucky she felt obligated to do it without argument, willing to let them sort out their emotions. She didn't get that luxury, unfortunately, and whatever abilities the godsblood was giving her, it was nullifying her emotions. Putting a cap on it.
It was awful.
She could feel the need to cry, the desire to sleep until the world was gone, but the cap was keeping it from spilling over. It was allowing it to leak out in small amounts, enough that there was a knot in her throat and a tiredness she hadn't had a few minutes ago, but kept the majority back like a dam, keeping it from overwhelming her... or becoming a problem. A fatal problem that could get them killed.
To distract herself, she eyed the people in front of her. None of them had gotten extreme changes like she had--Patricia seemed a little taller, maybe an inch, and had bulked out beyond belief; enough that she looked more like a broad and less like a woman. Kale and Roryn seemed to have shot past puberty entirely, and stepped right into manhood, sporting beards that weren't there an hour ago, and muscle that had developed--was still developing--in seconds. All of them had different gaits, different ways of carrying themselves, as well; Patricia favored her right leg, shifting her weight to it when they stopped to check the area; Kale balanced all of his weight into the balls of his feet; Roryn and Lian appeared to do the same thing with their spines, keeping them rigid and tense; Eisa was the most peculiar, slouching forward without a care in the world.
Her theory was that the godsblood gave them different abilities or gifts. It was the only thing that made sense. Hers gave her the emotion nullification--it would only be right that everyone else had their own version, too. But before she could ask them, the Outsider's whispered words echoed in her ears like sirens: "They're your enemies." Fear slid up her spine like an icy serpent.
He was in her head.
"Of course I am, toy. I'm your god. Where else would I be?"
"Lidya?"
Ignoring the voice for a brief moment, hearing the concern in Patricia's voice, she glanced around at her surroundings. She had stopped walking and had been left behind a few feet by the group, but Patricia had caught on to the lack of footsteps behind her, and looked to see what was going on.
"Sorry." Lidya frowned, pressing a hand to her stomach, and made to catch up. "Cramps. Sorry."
"Oh." Patricia nodded, but everyone else began moving again, so she started walking. "I can understand that, but you have the... women's disease, don't you?" At Lidya's sharp glare, she amended,"Mom told me. Doctor, remember?"
Oh. Right. She'd forgotten that Patricia's mother was a doctor, but not an official one. It was the only reason she had gotten the medicine in the first place.
... Medicine that she didn't have, now.
Damn. The curse word came unexpectedly, and she almost thought it was the god in her head, before realizing it was her own thought, not his. This was going to get worse before it ever got any better...
"I would be flattered that you assumed it was me, if not for the foul nature of it. Tsk, tsk. And here I thought I had chosen a prime candidate. Seems not."
Lidya gritted her teeth. Oh, she had an idea of where this conversation was about to go.
"You do, do you? Since you already know, I'll keep quiet, then. Your own thoughts can do more damage than I ever could."
With that unsettling sentence, he left. It was like an oppressive cloud had left her mind, a weight taken off of her shoulders; but with that came the cap on her emotions. It overflowed, spilling over the metaphorical bottle she had imagined it in. Not a godsblood gift, then. It was the god doing that to her.
Maybe she could keep it at bay. Not for six miles, but halfway--she could switch with Patricia or Roryn--anyone but Kale. Yes, she could do that.
"Heads up!" Lian shouted, suddenly, and all of them looked up at the noise. "Beast, straight ahead!"
"Oh, hell no," Patricia sputtered. She took two quick steps back, almost falling into Lidya. She righted her quickly, taking her by the shoulders and hoisting her up. "What is that?"
"It looks like the thing that's been stealing our cattle," Roryn said in a quick rush of breath. "Big, nasty, and enough power to snap us like twigs."
"Not a godling, though?" Kale edged sideways, into the treeline. "Our skeletons are stronger than normal, right?"
"Ugh. By the mother, no. None of you have even had time to mutate yet. You'll be snapped easier than twigs, toy. Watch it. I'd hate to see you broken."
Which wasn't reassuring in the least, but neither was the beast in front of them. It stood off over twenty yards away, snuffling at a pile of corpses that were reduced to a pile of mush. It had a bulbous head, not unlike that of a zinni, but that was where the similairities ended. Strong jaws protruded from the top of the bulb, filled with sharp teeth--six rows, all of them longer than Lidya's middle finger. There was fur, there was scales, and there were barbs lining its body, an unnatural mixture of three animals never meant to be combined. It had a short, stubby body, four legs, and a tail like a doe's, with a white underside.
It walked like a crab, from side to side, and seemed to skitter around the pile in confusion, unsure of what to do. Long arms, gangly and tipped with ragged claws, jerked up and down in contrast to its side to side movement, and Lidya felt sick just looking at it. Bile rushed up her throat, but she choked it down.
"It's distracted." Eisa noted. "We can probably circle behind it, reach the fork, and make our way from there."
It was a good plan. A safe plan. Lidya held her hand to her chest, the other clutched to her bag of clothes. It would be fine. As long as they were careful, quiet...
And then Roryn tripped.
Grace wasn't a skill given to him from the godsblood. His ankle made a sickening crack, the bone touching the ground as his foot rolled under, and he fell with enough noise that the beast's confused snuffling was deafened.
It was done before any of them had the chance to catch him. He was frozen in the underbrush, eyes pinned to the beast. One by one, all of them looked from him to the beast. The sniffing sounds were gone. Its head was turned towards them, two giant eyes jerking wildly, but still unable to see them. Lidya was about to swallow the war cry in her throat, one she was going to use to scream and run, but then it started sniffing.
Sniffing. Salivating. Panting.
"We need to go," Lidya choked. "Run, something..."
"Uh-huh." Patricia agreed, but none of them moved.
"I thought you were running?"
The god's voice snapped her out of whatever trance she had been in, staring at the beast. It wasn't sniffing at them anymore, but scuttling towards them at a rapid pace, arms flailing and teeth snapping. It was an unnerving sight, and it ran at them with the speed of a horse, which shouldn't have been possible given its size. Teeth snapped just inches of Eisa's face before they all decided to move, taking off in their own directions.
Lidya was the first to go, dashing into the treeline before she could see Eisa's face get gored off. It was highly unlikely that it would follow her, being the first to leave; it would follow one of the others, probably. She understood now how the godlings had such short lifespans. Situations like this were what got them killed. Hell, she didn't even know what tier the beast was on, and she was scared to death of it. Others could be the same.
She was an awful, horrible excuse for a godling.
She decided on a zigzagging path through the forest, keeping the path in sight but staying far enough away that she couldn't see any of the others while she was escaping. If they died, she wouldn't be sad, but she would mourn their losses because they had saved her life, in a roundabout way. It was the only thing she could do.
Bile at the back of her throat and her heart racing, she set an even faster pace, pushing the limits of her body, even though she couldn't hear anything but leaves crunching beneath her feet and her own breathing. The forest was quiet, otherwise, but she could hear screaming. Eisa's screaming.
Lidya rubbed the tears from her eyes. She couldn't turn back for him, as much as she wanted to. She wouldn't risk her own life for that. It was cowardly, and her heart told her to go back, but as much as she tried, she couldn't. Her fight or flight instincts were in overdrive, forcing her to run--she felt like prey, and that meant she had to escape.
No matter the cost.
No matter what was happening to Eisa.
"So cruel. Why the change of heart?"
"Shut up," Lidya hissed. "I'm sick of you. You ruined my life!"
"So I did. That's no excuse to ignore me, though."
"Just shut up."
She skidded past a fallen tree, vaulting over it. The path was in sight, and it should have been safe now that the beast was occupied with... other things. She hoped that the others had made it out okay. They had to. Eisa's unwilling sacrifice couldn't have been for nothing, or the guilt that was eating at her heart was going to consume her.
"I was hoping you would be more amiable to my presence. I suppose not. Then, I won't regret what I'm about to do to you."
"What--?"
And then everything went black.
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When she woke up, almost three hours later, she was in front of a fire, surrounded by the other godlings, covered in blood, and holding a beating heart in her fist.
ns 15.158.61.20da2
