Chapter 1 #2
My head could have hit the pillows of my palace chambers hours ago. My realm had dukes and counts and marquises and generals of war and torture and violence. They wouldn’t have flinched at this display, but perhaps that’s why I was called, and not them. Why should I?
A thrum of my fingers. A twist of my lips. A squint as I peered between the baking sun and the mangled evidence of mortals and their ruthlessness at my feet.
It was cruel to leave something for dead without finishing the job. I did not delight in suffering. Even a dog would have been offered a kinder death.
Another tap of my fingers as I lingered by the woman.
After all, I was not born to need humans, nor they to need me.
Vultures began to circle, and I made a decision.
Unlike Gula, or Heaven’s King, humans didn’t source my power.
The battered woman gave me no offerings or temples or books written in my name.
But as I looked into her badly swollen face, I was compelled to offer this innocent mortal who refused to denounce her faith, even when her god did not arrive, the gift of death.
It was merciful. Perhaps mercy wasn’t my first nature, but these impulses were intriguing, at the very least. Between Gula, Aea, myself, and the bloodied husk on the shore, no one would get what they wanted today.
In a step, I moved from my place on the cliff to the space above the human’s mangled remains.
To my horror, I saw that not only was she alive, but she’d remained conscious.
Her cheek was swollen and split. Her jaw was broken.
Buzzards descended, lower and lower with each pass, as they grew closer to the promised meal of twisted, raw meat.
“It’ll be over soon,” I murmured. I extended a hand toward her bruised, swollen face, kneeling to take her pain away.
Her eyes fixed on mine.
My hand froze an inch from her face as she looked not just at me, but into me.
She was so close to death that I could practically see the soul crackling beneath her skin, ready to escape. Its pretty, pearly quality would wink out shortly. Then, she’d be just another dead body without a grave.
Her lips moved silently at first, then with a crimson gurgle, as a small stream ran from her mouth down her throat. I remained immobilized in shock that the human had perceived me as she managed three slow, clear words.
“Don’t leave me.”
A black vignette swirled at the edges of my vision.
It was like I’d been punched with the fist that had forged time itself.
My lungs, my stomach, my heart dropped and twisted.
Fragile, broken, innocent, tragic, pathetic—the words assaulted me as another drop of blood escaped the corner of her lips.
This was unacceptable. What I felt was beyond pity. The words on my tongue were furious, hateful, downright demonic, but this human was not the target of the fury burbling within me.
She hadn’t cried for me to take the pain away.
She hadn’t begged for help. She’d asked only that I stay with her.
My hand remained frozen an inch from her face, as pale as the salt that crusted the water’s edge against the sandy brown of her skin, the purples and reds of her wounds, the black of the hair plastered to her face.
It was all I could do to keep a tremble from my fingertips.
“Don’t leave me.”
No. No, no, no.
For the first time since I’d been breathed into existence, I was at a loss.
It’s not your business, gnawed the voice in the back of my head.
If I was mortal, I might have called the voice a conscience.
Duty was an irritating beast, and I didn’t care for its intervention.
I was a god in my own right, by mortal standards, and as such, duty could take a back seat as I did whatever I wanted.
Was this what Gula wanted? Could this be her doing?
No, I would not use this woman—scarcely more than a child—as a tool in the war. This pitiful human would not be a martyr for my cause. Gula be damned, I would not let her bones turn to dust as her shattered faith became the poster for Hell’s cause.
What are you doing?
I didn’t even know how to categorize these thoughts. Did these musings, these prodding questions, belong to me?
I may not know humans, but I knew anger. A new, potent wrath perched within me.
Rage alone told me that I would do more than stay with her. I couldn’t make this right, but…I wasn’t without ability. Surely, I could do more than feel. I could do more than stay, even if I’d never found a need to rise to such an occasion.
A small eternity passed between her simple request and the time it took for my world to shatter. It couldn’t have been more than a second before I cupped her cheek with my hand. Her swollen eyelids fluttered shut as I urged a deep and healing sleep to course through her veins.
I took away the desert, the sea, the sand. I erased the hate, the zealots, the stones.
Dreams of flowers, of first kisses, of smiles and sunrises, and the taste of warm bread flowed from my fingertips into her being as I leached away the pain.
I didn’t stop there.
One arm beneath her back, one under her knees, and within an instant I’d scooped her into my arms. The cloudless sky faded from blue to shades of orange as the sun dipped behind the rocky crags.
Dead to the world of madness and men, her head lolled, settling against my chest as I carried her to the caves on the northern shore and set her down far from the cruelties of the humans who’d wronged her.
What are you doing? Why are you here? What is your plan?
I didn’t know.
I could have departed when Gula left.
I could have abandoned the girl on the shore.
I could have returned to my realm now that she was mended and safely hidden in a pocket of shadow and sandstone. With the flick of a wrist, a blue fire set the cave alight. It hovered a few inches above the crumbling sediment, casting silhouettes on the young woman’s face as the flames danced.
Don’t leave me.
The words played on repeat despite the unfamiliar voice that attempted to shout within me. I’d made no agreements. There was no contract between us. I had no obligation to this human. Yet there I sat, unable to move as I watched her eyes move beneath her lids as she dreamed.
The moonless night was black, save for the silver stars burning through the cave’s mouth.
I stared at her over the blue flame, hoping the girl would be glad for its warmth when she awoke.
When she stirred, I realized there would already be enough to startle her and didn’t want to add to the panic.
I waved a hand and the flame disappeared.
Her eyes opened and I watched her from the far side of the cave, hyperaware of how small she looked. Her clothes were simple rags, and after the day’s events, they were little more than tatters. A scrap of cloth slipped from her shoulder as she struggled to sit up.
I held my breath, mind racing as I waited to see if she’d see me as she had before.
The mortal mind did curious things in the moment between life and death, after all, much like the vibrant hue of her soul peeking through the veil.
Perhaps I’d be invisible, as I should be to human eyes, and I could leave her knowing I’d done her a kindness.
She pulled her knees to her chest, hugging herself tightly as she examined me.
I swallowed. “Don’t be scared.”
The air in the cave evaporated as we remained caught in uncertainty before she spoke.
Her voice was quiet, but strong as she asked, “Are you an angel?”
With the question came the return of pity.
Her god. Her faith. His servants.
Heaviness filled me as I looked at the hope in her eyes, gazing at a human who’d been punished and left for dead and who still thought that her deity cared for her, even now.
My heart cracked knowing that, of all the things that had accosted her today, my answer might be the thing that shattered her.
“No.”
She shook her head as she tried to make sense of me. I saw each memory flash through her eyes, wincing as if each recovered thought was a slap across her face. To herself, she said, “I didn’t denounce him. No matter what they said. I was faithful. I was good, and—”
“I know,” I said. I wanted to touch her, to comfort her, but stopped myself. I withdrew slowly. I pulled in a measured breath of air, tasting the sharp scent of something like the essence just between cloud and sky.
The opalescent soul I’d noticed in her moment before death flared, and I saw it shimmer beneath her skin once more. There was an ozone quality to her pearl aura, something so pure, so beautiful, that I couldn’t quite name. It made my words all the more painful.
“He didn’t deserve your loyalty. Your refusal to turn your back on that which ignored you…it broke something in me.”
I wasn’t sure why I’d said it. She deserved more. Maybe my feelings toward the enemy kept my wrath smoldering at a low simmer. She represented so many facets of the war, without having any idea as to the role she played.
Her face scrunched against the pain, not of physical wounds but the memories of stones, of tears, of shattering bones and unanswered cries. “But I waited for him, and—”
And because I didn’t know what to say, I told her the truth.
“The gods you call aren’t always the ones who answer.”
That was it, an answer stolen on the wind that whistled beyond the cave, over desert and sea.
I waited for her to scream, to cry, to run.
She should have been terrified. Humans feared the unknown.
They villainized anything beyond their understanding.
And she’d lived such a faithful life of servitude, that meeting an immortal being who wasn’t her god had to be horrifying.
I braced myself for the onslaught, but she said simply, “I’m Shala. ”
My lips parted at the gift. Her name. Such an innocent, powerful offering.
“What shall I call you?” she asked.
I hadn’t been ready for this question. No version of my name had ever crossed a human’s lips. “Whatever name brings you pleasure,” I said.
I counted the space between her heartbeats as she looked up at the sky through the mouth of the cave, then back at me.
“Then, I’ll call you Star,” she said, “not only because you were chipped from the heavens, or because you were the guide that led me from the darkness, but because you burn as bright as the first star in the morning. And like the heavenly bodies, you are too wonderful for any word that belongs on earthly tongues.”
Yet another new emotion in a day of firsts.
There was a tightness in my face, a warmth behind my nose, a sting on the inner corner of my eyes. I’d never felt it before, but I’d seen the faces of men and gods who walked topside as saltwater appeared.
Was I capable of tears?
Today, I would not cry.
I would feel. I would experience. And I would dabble in the risk of a promise.
I made a quiet oath to be worthy of the name she’d given me.