A Game of Malice and Greed
Prologue
TWENTY SIX YEARS AGO
I heaved myself up the sharp rocks lining this side of the mountain, my skin splitting and blood spilling while the dark clouds closed in around me and my grey hair was tossed into my face by a foul-smelling wind.
Even the weather was working against me here, out on the farthest reaches of the Greymorian Pass, the very edge of the world as we knew it, trying to keep me from the lost gods and their hiding places.
But I’d been on this trail for months now, and I was certain I’d tracked one of them down at last.
And not just any god. Herdat, the goddess of death and destruction, of vengeance and bloodshed. The very one I’d been seeking for so, so long.
The cold bit into my old and weathered bones, the gnarled knuckles of my fingers crying out in pain as I continued to grasp the rocks above me and climb ever higher up the sheer rock face in this unholy place at the edge of the world.
Nothing thrived here, not even birds sung in this barren place, and it was certainly no paradise fit for a goddess, more like a graveyard just waiting to claim another corpse.
And perhaps that was what I was. My body was certainly closing in on the end of its days.
But despite my age and ill health, I refused to give in to the call of death because I was still waiting to live. To truly serve in the name of the lost gods I’d spent my life worshipping.
I cursed as the rocks cracked and shattered shards tumbled away beneath my feet, black stone cascading down into the chasm below and promising me a swift and brutal death if I fell. But I wouldn’t fall. I’d come too far to falter now.
Fifty years living within the veil as a Priestess of the Lost. I’d suffered in my dedication to the gods who had long since abandoned us, hoping that they would see my devotion and reward it.
But they hadn’t. And I’d grown tired of waiting for them to come to me and offer me what I desired, so now it was time for me to claim it for myself.
I reached up once more and my fingers grasped smooth stone instead of sharp rock at last, a breath of relief escaping my lips as I heaved myself up before falling to my knees on the stone ledge at the tip of the world.
I lifted my head as I gazed into the mouth of the dark cavern before me, the stench of death and blood within it enough to make me hope that I truly had found her at last.
“Herdat!” I called, my limbs trembling with fatigue as I forced myself to my feet once more.
It had been a week since I’d last eaten and the only water I’d consumed had been supped from mud-stained puddles or licked from the rocks themselves.
If the goddess wasn’t here, then this was it for me.
I wouldn’t survive the journey back to the city of Havian.
But I was certain she was here. Found at last. “I offer you my body in exchange for your power!”
A deep rattling sounded from within the cave like some great beast drawing breath for the first time in a thousand years - and I was hoping that was precisely what it was.
Whispers filled the space surrounding me, causing my skin to prickle and hairs to raise on end across my body, like a warning to turn from this place, to run and never look back.
The hissed words surrounded me, soul deep, and though I couldn’t decipher their words, their intention was clear. She wanted me to come closer.
I raised my chin and discarded my robe, removing my shoes before striding naked into the cavern, standing as tall as my stooped back would allow and feeling sharp edges of roughly hewn rocks cutting into my bare feet with every step.
The air surrounding me hummed with power, the iron tang of blood coating my tongue as I delved deeper into this dark hiding place in the forgotten tundra.
No sane Fae would ever dare venture out into this barren and soulless place.
Even the monsters didn’t linger this far north.
The fire drakes, smaller, stupider cousins of the long dead dragons, preferred the inhabited world where they could hunt their prey with ease, the satyrs hid in plain sight, beguiling foolish Fae into their traps, and the enormous scorpious spiders were another good reason to stay the fuck out of the desert.
There were many more creatures who hunted in the dark places of this world, hiding in caverns such as this or lurking close to civilisation where they could feed their dark desires with ease, but I’d seen none of them nor any sign of their presence for weeks.
There was nothing here for them. Nothing but death and rot. Nothing besides her.
The whispers grew more urgent as I moved further into the dark and though I still couldn’t understand the language, I knew their meaning. She wanted to know what I would offer her in return for this power. She wanted to know how much I would sacrifice to take what I wanted.
“I wish to serve you,” I hissed, the desire for wealth and power burning in my flesh like a seed which had been planted without water or sunlight to grant it life.
I’d spent my years praying to the lost gods and dedicating myself to their will.
I’d taken on all kinds of torturous sacrifices to my body and my soul in offering to them as I studied their ways and the gifts they’d once offered our kind.
It had taken a lifetime of that to realise I would never get what I hungered for unless the missing gods returned, and if they weren’t willing to do so, then I was going to have to find them.
It would have been an easier feat when I was a younger woman, but that didn’t matter.
I’d ignored the protests of my aging body and worked tirelessly to achieve this one goal before death got the chance to claim me and steal my chance at it.
Now here I stood in the chamber of the mighty Herdat herself.
Again, the whispers surrounded me and the depths of their power drove into my soul and threatened to rip it clean from my flesh as agony consumed me.
I screamed, unable to help it as I felt the goddess ripping through my skin, consuming all she could find within me and making me burn throughout the entire process.
She was hungry. So fucking hungry and alone out here with no one to suffer for her in the ways they once had.
“Grant me my desire and I will sacrifice anything you ask for!” I screamed, needing her to hear me before she devoured every piece of me in her starvation. “I will walk this world and serve you faithfully, feeding you as much pain and death as you require.”
The agony in my limbs intensified until I felt like I was being burned alive, consumed by the darkness of this goddess, and brought into her own personal hell to torment for all of time.
A scream tore from my lips and rattled though my body with the intensity of her power as she took hold of me, breaking apart every piece of me and forcing it back together again just so that she could start over and enjoy my agony for a second time.
But just as I felt myself slipping towards oblivion, my plans and desires as unfulfilled as they had been since the day I joined the priesthood, and the weight of that final failure pressing down on me even more heavily than the power she was exerting on my flesh, she spat me out again.
I crashed to the floor of the cavern with a cry of pain, my body weak and bleeding as I shivered there at her mercy.
The whispers were back, surrounding me once more and their demands were clear. She wanted me to prove my devotion to her.
A glow of grey light filtered into the darkness and I panted as I forced myself to my hands and knees, finding an iron dagger laid before me on the black stone and a long, silver mirror standing beyond it, reflecting my weak, old body back to me as if wanting me to see how little my years in this godless world had earned me.
My hand shook as I reached for the blade, already knowing what she wanted from me as I lifted it and pressed the iron to my skin between my sagging breasts.
The iron burned me, the metal painful to touch as it worked to weaken me, but I refused to balk at that ache I felt from wielding the foul metal which was the bane of my kind.
I drew in a deep breath and began to chant the prayers of the lost gods which I’d repeated countless times throughout my service as a Priestess of the Lost, though instead of praising all of the gods, I only praised her. Herdat. Bringer of death and pain.
The blade cut into my flesh and I gritted my teeth against the bite of it as I began to carve the mark of the goddess into my skin while continuing to chant my devotion to her, to the freezing air.
Blood spilled down my pale flesh, dripping to the black stone at my feet and making the power of this place hum with more violence as she drank in every drop.
The words hissed from my cracked lips as I went on, pledging my devotion to her as I cut each and every line of her mark into my skin, covering my entire chest and stomach with it until I was losing so much blood that I was trembling from it, my frail body barely able to remain upright.
As I finally finished, I raised my chin and stopped chanting, the blade falling from my hand and clattering against the black rocks as I stared at the reflection of my old and weathered body now mutilated for her pleasure as I shook before her.
“I offer up my body as sacrifice,” I swore, devotion swirling in my dark eyes as I stared at my own reflection in the silver mirror, seeing the years of sacrifice and service that had gone unheard and wishing I’d begun my hunt for her sooner.
“Take it, use it, guide me. I will bring you all the pain and death you could desire. I only want to serve you.”
The power in the cavern grew so potent that it choked me, and I shivered in my position before her as I felt her waking fully, turning her attention on me and weighing my words with the promise in my soul. I was hers now. And we both knew it.