Chapter 75 The Goddess and the Girl
Chapter seventy-five
The Goddess and the Girl
-Maris-
The world behind her was chaos.
Blood and fire. Lightning and screams. A battlefield carved from prophecy and pain.
But Maris walked away from it.
She left Alarik where he knelt beside Elenwe’s corpse, his sword bloody, his shoulders shaking, but still alive.
She did not look back.
Because ahead of her stood the thing that had haunted every step of her path.
Eiren.
The damned goddess stood atop stone at the heart of the ruined field, framed by a sky torn open by divine war. The clouds boiled behind her, and fire writhed at her feet like a living thing. Her armor was soaked in blood. Her smile was still sharp.
But her eyes were no longer sure.
Maris climbed the hill slow, steady. Each step cracked the earth. The gods had peeled off, deflecting terrors for all edges of the field. Letting her move alone now.
This was not their war anymore.
This was hers.
Eiren tilted her head as Maris approached, dragging the tip of her sword through the dirt.
“Look at you,” the goddess purred. “So brave. So broken. Did the little boys finally earn your confession of choice? Or are you still playing queen between the shadows of two kings?”
Maris didn’t answer.
She reached the top.
And stopped.
Only ten paces stood between them now.
Eiren’s smile twitched. “Still silent? Come now, girl. Surely you have some clever line, something about justice, or destiny, or—”
“You should run.”
The words came quiet. Calm.
Maris lifted her gaze. The power glowing behind her eyes made even the goddess still.
Eiren blinked. “What?”
Maris stepped forward, her sword raised. “Run. Because I’m not just here to fight you.”
Her voice dropped.
“I’m here to end you.”
Eiren’s lips curled. “Oh, darling. You think you’re the first little fire to threaten me? I’ve been worshipped for ten thousand years. Burned cities. Broke kings. Bled continents dry. What are you?”
Maris’s crown flared behind her like a halo of bone and starlight.
“I’m the reckoning built from their collapse.”
Eiren snarled and lunged.
Their blades met in an explosion of power. The impact cracked the hilltop beneath them, sent shockwaves through the air. Stone shattered. Wind howled. Sparks flew as steel clashed again and again.
Eiren fought mercilessly — swift, beautiful.
But Maris fought like a girl who had been denied everything and chosen to rise anyway.
Their magic collided in bursts of light and shadow. Eiren summoned visions to shake her: Kael on his knees, bleeding. Alarik dead in the dirt. Calyrix in flames.
But Maris didn’t break.
Because she knew better.
Because she knew herself.
Eiren lunged again, fury cracking across her face. “You think this is yours to win?”
Maris parried, twisted, and slammed the goddess back with a blast of white fire.
Eiren staggered.
For the first time.
Eyes wide.
Breathing hard.
She looked up at Maris, a line of blood trailing down her chin.
And smiled.
“Interesting,” Eiren whispered. “I thought you’d be easy to break.”
Maris pivoted sharply on her back foot, shifting her weight with a duelist's precision.
Eiren caught off guard tried to deflect.
But in one fluid motion, she brought her blade into an arc.
The edge bit deep beneath Eiren's ribs, slicing deep through leathers and skin.
The wound was not fatal, but it didn't need to be.
She now returned the smile.
“You don’t know me at all.”
Eiren stumbled.
Her magic, once wild and infinite, now flickered across her fingertips in dying pulses. Like the tide pulling away from a shore it would never kiss again.
Maris moved closer now.
The goddess reached for one final spell, her lips whispering a language older than the stars, but nothing happened.
No lightning.
No veilfire.
Just a dull shimmer that sparked… and sputtered out.
She looked up, eyes wide with something dangerously close to fear.
“You,” she gasped.
But Maris was already there.
Sword raised.
Crown burning.
Power still humming behind her like a song of war and mercy alike.
And Eiren, trembling now, gave a soft laugh, quiet, bitter.
“Poetic, isn’t it?” she whispered. “A promise made… and finally answered.”
Maris didn’t hesitate.
She drove the blade forward.
But just as steel pierced flesh. Pain echoed in her mind.
Searing. Violent. Wrong.
Came from behind, her body arched.
A cry tore from her throat.
She twisted, just enough to see him.
Alarik.
His hand on the hilt of a blade buried between her ribs. Faelight gleaming cruel along the edge. His face slack, caught in some trance of divine control. His eyes, not his own.
Eiren’s.
A thread of her magic glimmered faintly around his temple.
And Maris, blinking through pain, breath staggering, understood.
She was not the only one the gods had touched.
She had given her power in love.
Eiren had claimed hers in control.
A puppet. One last blade.
The one person she’d never guard herself against.
“Alarik,” she breathed, her voice breaking.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t move.
The grip on his sword didn’t tremble.
But Eiren…
Eiren was faltering. The blade Maris had driven into her chest now glowed bright white, searing holy light through the goddess’s body.
And Maris, vision swimming, lungs failing, tightened her grip.
One final push.
Steel met bone.
The goddess screamed.
And Maris, voice trembling, blood on her lips leaned in and whispered:
“You wanted ruin. Let me give it to you.”
Eiren’s body arched, light blazing from her mouth, her eyes, her hands. The Veil behind her ripped, a shriek echoing into the heavens.
Then silence.
The blade fell from Maris’s hand.
Her knees buckled.
Her vision went soft at the edges.
But she smiled faint and tragic.
Because Eiren was gone.
Because the gods had been answered.
Because she had chosen to end it.
Then she collapsed, goddess and girl, side by side in death.