2. Phaeron
The goddess Myuna the White did not chew her food. It’d always unsettled me deep down that she didn’t have teeth. But once, I’d been na?ve enough to think that, as a higher being, she had no need to eat.
She slurped down all that was placed before her in offering now, her face a thin veneer over a bottomless hole. Her mouth stretched grotesquely around the whole bodies of human beings, and she uttered the occasional rumble of dissatisfaction.
I was forced to watch. While she was aware I was tethered to her, all she wanted to do was eat and eat. Endaeron fed her, dragging over the soulless corpses left behind in the Crown Coven’s audience chamber. The metallic smell of blood was heavy in the still air, and the silence between Myuna’s gulps and quaffs was broken only by the grunting and cursing of Endaeron’s newest vessel, a vampire named Garroway.
When I refused to help bring her the bodies littered around the chamber, she’d pointed a clawed finger, and I stood where she indicated, waiting with dread in my heart for her feasting to cease. My body was turned toward hers, standing with rigid obedience to await her next order. Purple-tinged blood still dripped down my leather armor, courtesy of the burning wounds left behind in my fight with Endaeron in his last vessel, the boy Lucas. I let the pain ground me, its sting reminding me of who I was.
There was a small hole in my soul and a pinprick of corruption left behind within it. It formed the strand of control by which she could command me. My logical mind was shut under a layer of her magical influence, and even now, I pushed and probed at the barrier between Myuna’s control and my free will.
Once she realized there were no souls left here for her to eat except for mine and the tainted one Garroway carried, my life was forfeit, or worse. I had to find a way to defy the control her mere presence gave her.
“Useless fuck,” muttered Garroway as he dragged another corpse past me. Though most of my body was locked in place, I could still move my head to see that he struggled with the bulk of a fallen Crystal fae, whose body was encased in a suit of armor like solid stone. Myuna would still consume it in one giant swallow.
I knew he was trying to insult me, but I ignored him. There was little intensity left in Garroway’s voice, and I had to preserve what fight I could muster for Myuna. He carried what was left of my brother, the Hungering Darkness, within him and thus was more hopelessly enslaved to her will than I was.
Myuna sat upon the lip of the raised dais where the Crown Coven once reigned, their throne-like seats pushed around haphazardly to make way for her bulk. She was over twice my height, with bone-white skin that glowed dimly even now. Her visage still appeared to be that of one of my people, with forward-facing horns, leathery wings, slitted eyes, and a tapered tail that swung midair like a pendulum. We had once revered her as a goddess of light, not realizing the dark hunger lingering inside her until it was too late.
She’d appeared on my home planet of Soiluire within an egg-like comet, emerging a savior and a beacon for my people, who at that time lived in near-complete darkness. For centuries, she built her base of worshippers, biding her time until the moment was right, or her cravings for souls grew too great.
Our society had collapsed within a day of her turning on us. Those that’d served her most faithfully as her torchbearers were killed and enslaved first, forced to bring her millions to consume. Her glutting was the beginning of our Age of Decay and eventual exodus from Soiluire.
I’d slain her monsters and endured a trip through the Void to lead the dregs of my people here, to Earth. We’d tolerated the prejudices of humans, who’d thought our features resembled the hellish demons of their worst imaginings, all to get away from Myuna. My people became known as dimensional travelers by escaping to a new world. We’d sealed the way behind us, intending to close the door back to Soiluire permanently.
I simmered with a low boil of fury. There was no end to my rage with Endaeron for undoing all of our work and leading her here, but I kept my emotions contained and my breathing slow and deep. I knew I could not act in anger if I wanted to escape this room and return to Cress.I also knew I could not kill Myuna alone.
“That is everything, my lady,” Garroway said in the two-toned voice that meant the Hungering Darkness was currently in control of their shared body. White shadow flickered around the vampire’s form like flames, slowly enveloping his body and hiding his human features.
Myuna worked the stretched-out material that should have been her jaw. It’d come unhinged and spread wide enough to allow her to feast unimpeded. What should’ve been flesh and bone quickly flowed back into place. Then she…melted. I watched in horror as her entire body ran like candle wax, puddling down the carved stones of the dais.
The mass of white substance quivered before drawing into a ball. It was like witnessing a master sculptor manipulate Myuna’s body as it formed four tubes and an oval for a head before etching in details. Wrists, knees, fingers, and nails formed, and the oval sprouted a nose, hair, and two almond-shaped eyes that glowed a little brighter than the rest of her.
Myuna had transformed into a human. Worse, I recognized her new face. She had assumed an all-white visage of the fallen leader of the Crown Coven, Tempest Wildsong. Instead of having flowing raven-dark locks and a dress of soft green, though, Myuna was a pale imitation in pure white, save for the toothless black hole behind her lips as she spoke.
“Is this what mortal females look like on this world?”
Her voice held power; it shook me to my very center. She spoke every possible language layered on top of one another. For her to utter anything wrapped her first exhalation and last in a blanket of incomprehensible nonsense. To listen too closely would inspire madness in most.
“Yes, my lady,” Garroway responded with Endaeron’s breathless awe of her.
She dipped her chin. The dots of her pupils pointed my way, even under a filmy sheen of white magic. “What small, soft people. I yet hunger for more of them. But first there’s you, Phaeron et Sudair. We have unfinished business.”
The language I heard my name in was my native tongue, separating my title rather than treating it like a surname, as humans did. “Because of you…” she began before trailing off. Her attention snagged on a book that flew above her head.
A whole flock of books flapped above us. The audience chamber had representations of magic from all seven affinities available to witches, and these books of law were enchanted to fly with librarian witch magic and a tiny creature from Soiluire called a wispfly. For a moment, Myuna was like a fascinated cat, watching them circle the room unaware of the fight and subsequent summoning of an otherworldly goddess.
She snatched one out of the air when it flew too close. It was not malfunctioning, like Cress’s handbook, so it settled and reported its title with one last flick of its front and back cover. It was The Rule of Supernatural Law and was halfway through listing its copyright information before she sucked it into her mouth and swallowed.
“Hmm, dry,” she commented. A glowing tongue emerged from her mouth to lick a slimy trail over her lips. “But that wispfly…I need more like it.”
“The books will come to you if you state their title, my lady,” simpered Garroway. The lack of the two-toned quality to his voice and his brief smirk told me the suggestion was all the vampire.
Myuna was tall enough to glimpse a few titles. Those books came to her hand and quickly disappeared into her maw. As she did this, I noticed a metal device mounted out of reach that seemed to be pointing our way. A red light flashed beside a dome of black glass. I gazed at the unfamiliar technology with hope for a moment. Was it a weapon? Perhaps something that nullified magic?
The sounds of rattling paper ceased, and Myuna cleared her throat. I turned away from that blinking light with a sigh. If it were something useful, then it would’ve been utilized in the fight that’d killed most of the Crown Coven and their protectors earlier.
“As I was saying.” The goddess wove light into threads between her fingers. Watching her brought back hazy memories of seeing her do the same thing when she was bored at functions or needed to keep her hands busy in dozens of other circumstances. “I spent too much time sitting in place on Soiluire, feeling the advancements and indulgences of the mortals on planets innumerable. Their peoples growing plump for harvesting…but I could not reach them.”
Her fingers fisted on the dais, cracking the stone underneath. “Because of you, Phaeron. You and the other souls that fled from the death you were due.”
I drew breath to reply and felt the force of her will. She didn’t want to hear my voice.
“You meddled in forces outside your control. I am entropy, the death of civilizations, the reaper of worlds.” She leaned forward, her finger pointed accusingly. The hairs on the back of my neck lifted from a shift in air pressure. Here it was…the moment she consumed me for saving what I could of my people.
“I came short on power when you disappeared alongside thousands of souls. I have been stranded, sitting alone on a rotting world. I ate my half-formed interstellar vessel waiting…I endured the pain of eating my own power, pleading with my fellow gods to take me away in my darkest season. Their silence was damning. And yet, I am saved.”
She turned her head toward Garroway and whispered, “You shall be rewarded beyond measure.”
I slanted a glare his way, my lip curling in disgust. He would enjoy that reward for half a second before I made his death as painful as possible.
Myuna made a come-hither gesture, and my legs jerked forward at her unspoken command. Light sputtered against her palms before she managed to make them both glow. She had an old trick that she used on me, where she lifted and suspended me in a bubble of light she formed between her hands, making it seem like I floated before her looming, all-powerful presence. Pain twinged in my chest as the muscles shifted from the lack of gravity.
My forehead was level with her mouth, which leaked the carrion smell of her last meal. “Any last words, Phaeron?” Her words boomed, her presence all-consuming.
She returned my voice to me and I wasted little of my limited time left. “You are a foul, narcissistic shade. To tell me of your suffering, as if you have no concept of the damage you have wrought. I wish you had agonized further, for you deserve so much worse. You would be doing innumerable worlds a favor by feasting upon the last of yourself and leaving the rest of us in peace—”
Myuna made a pinching noise, suffocating the last of my words before I could utter them. She seemed to roll her eyes while I coughed off the choking sensation. “I should have known better,” she remarked.
She unsheathed one of my swords between three of her fingers, drawing it out to inspect it. They’d been sheathed in a hurry, so the weapon was dirty. Of course, she had to lick her way up the side, cleaning off the dimensional language etched into it. I began to sweat as the moments passed. If she was going to consume me, she would’ve gone ahead and done it. Her intentions had to be far more sinister.
“Hmm, half of Soiluire, half of this planet. You must value this weapon very much,” she stated. “It is fortunate you have two. One for each of my most loyal servants.”
She slid my weapon out of sight, toward Garroway. I stared at her in defiance, unable to do more when caught in the trap of her light and will. So it would be death by a thousand cuts, with the first bleeding wound from one of my last physical links to my home planet.
Myuna wove magic between her fingers just like she’d made threads formed of light. She wrapped me in a potent spell that sank into my mind. This, I could still fight with a jerk of my head. I closed my eyes tight against her intrusion until she was skimming only the surface of my thoughts and memories.
“So bitter,” she whispered, no more than another voice in my head. I saw what she did, as it played over the back of my eyelids in vivid detail.
She watched me wake in Moongrove Library, disoriented and slow.
I pushed her away with effort, but her will returned. She combed through the faces of the humans I’d grown fond of and the knowledge of who they were. We pushed and pulled our way closer to my memories of Cress, and I heard her utter an “ahh” when she finally won this contest of wills and beheld my bright soul in all her glory.
Cress was unique amongst librarian witches, with a soul that haloed her in a glow. She dazzled me constantly with the power of her presence. I fought and twisted to jerk the memories of her out of Myuna’s sight, but she quickly learned she was looking at my True Light, that it was my duty to protect and cherish Cress, to make her my mate.
The goddess viewed her from all the angles she could wring from me. She saw the surprised and uncertain Cress who first freed me from Moongrove Library. The heartbroken Cress who’d caught me standing over her friend’s body. Tired Cress, angry Cress, silly Cress…coy Cress, her lips around my cock as I rode the feverish lust induced by a manipulative cupid.
I shoved Myuna back again, feeling further violated by the way she lingered on that memory. She obliged by switching to rest on a moment before a mirror, my fangs pressed to Cress’s neck. So close to claiming her as my mate…yet the awful hunger born of the goddess had been there, urging me to consume some of her radiant soul instead and taste its sweetness.
Myuna laughed, releasing her hold on my memories. “You have grown weak, Phaeron. Leaving your mate without your protection or even your mark.”
My eyes opened. Little had changed around us, except that I was drenched in sweat under my armor. My chest heaved for air and leaked dribbles of blood.
Myuna set me down from the bubble of light. The only reason I didn’t collapse was her control, which steered me to stand back in my original spot.
“Endaeron,” she breathed, a toothless grin spanning the empty void of her mouth. “Go forth from this place and bring me a purple-haired human named Cressida Rollins Darkmore. Her life and soul are mine to take.”
Garroway bowed, but under his breath, he muttered, “Her again?”