The Aftermath of Gods #2
“I tried to spare her. But she would not listen when she found your father.”
“Mah…”
“Shh, child. It will be over soon.”
He turns back to his work.
I force the word through numb lips and attempt to make it coherent. “O...rán.”
He pauses for only a moment. “He lives.” The answer is immediate. But the truth lingers in his eyes, for now. Guilt rests there—but so does resolve.
“I hope… he…” My breath stutters. “Kills you.”
It is the last thing I give voice to, and most likely, he heard none of it.
The blade resumes its path through flesh, deepening the symbols. My cries have grown hoarse, my sight swallowed by the weight of the pain, until my head lolls and darkness begins to creep in at the edges of my vision.
Following me into the dark is hope that Orán will see through this deception and somehow end my uncle’s life.
Sleep takes me then.
True sleep.
A persistent nudge presses into my side, dragging me toward consciousness. I rouse just enough to peel my arm off the ground and swat it away, the motion sluggish and poorly aimed.
The reprieve is brief. The contact returns in the form of a wet nose pressing insistently into my cheek, a hot huff of breath fanning across my face. My lashes part to a blur of white looming above me, haloed in a dark red haze.
Disoriented, I decide it’s another figment—a remnant of the visions—but when I reach up to shove it away, my fingers tangle in thick, coarse fur.
Real.
A low groan drags from my throat as I shove its face aside. My hand slips halfway through the motion, strength bleeding out too fast to follow through.
“S-shew—go,” I manage, the words fraying as they leave me.
A moment's peace is granted.
Or it is until teeth clamp onto my pant leg, followed by a sharp tug that drags me across the rough ground. I try to wrench free, delivering a weak kick that barely connects.
The effort drains what little strength I have left, and my head lolls to the side, my vision dimming as sleep comes to claim me once again.
When I surface, it’s to the wrong sky. The full moon hangs low, already descending, and no light breaks the horizon. No sun. And the stars… There are gaps where balls of light should be, but they’re missing from the night’s sky.
Memory fractures through the fog in my mind—the Starfall, the heat, Kahill.
Conflicting emotions wage war in my chest. Lazreth’s actions at the last second saved me, but neither of us would have been there had he not broken through Kahill’s hold. And there’s no telling what Lazreth would have done to me had the star not chosen that exact place to fall.
Is it possible they survived?
My heart says yes. Reason tells me no, considering I barely did.
The thought fractures as my stomach turns, a sharp heave catching in my throat.
“Good God… what is that bloody smell?”
The scent of apples overwhelms my senses. When I force my eyes open and take in my surroundings, I realize I’m being dragged beneath dead trees through an orchard. Most of the fruit I pass is shriveled and rotting.
Leaning up as much as possible, I study the creature latched onto my leg.
“So not a ghost.” I tilt my head as I take his markings and size. He’s large and broad through the shoulders with shorter, dense fur. Imposing, with a stout frame and wider head and muzzle. A wolf, but not one who should still exist on this plane, seeing as the species went extinct ages ago.
“I’m awake. You can stop.”
He slows, then stills. His jaws release my leg, and he takes a few measured steps back. We lock eyes and hold. An intelligence shines out of his ice-blue irises, suggesting he may be much more than he might seem.
“You can understand me?”
He scrapes a paw through the dirt and lowers his head. My gaze leaves his face to take in the impression crisscrossing randomly along his fur. Lines as if he’d previously been bound.
After a beat, he turns his head, staring off in the direction he’d been dragging me.
A moan spills past my lips as I push myself upright. Every part of my body rebels against any type of movement. I ache in places I shouldn’t, but also, there are no visible wounds or evidence of what I suffered earlier.
It’s as if the star stripped something from me while it burned.
The wolf circles me, wary, but not nearly enough for my liking. I track him as he moves, each step measured, testing. He licks his nose, edges closer, then nudges my shoulder.
“You want me to get up?”
He chuffs.
I appraise him more carefully now. Divine spirit or messenger—those are the only explanations that fit, unless he’s something else entirely. For a moment, I consider a shapeshifter, but if that were the case, why not change? Speak? Carry me properly instead of dragging me like carrion?
Turning, I plant my hands in the soil and push up onto my knees. Fatigue sweeps over me, and I pause halfway to my feet as I fight a wave of dizziness. Something isn’t right. My head feels as if it were battered and split apart, and thoughts are slow to form.
I draw in a steady breath and hold it until the spinning eases, then exhale slowly. When I force myself to stand, I sway on my feet and struggle to stay upright.
“Fuck, I feel like a colt learning the use of its legs.”
The wolf watches silently, then turns toward the west and takes a few steps, stops once again, and looks back at me.
“That way, I’m guessing.”
I don’t expect an answer, and I don’t get one. He simply walks forward, and the follow is implied.
So I do as much as I am able. Each step drags, heavier than the last. The endless reserve that once drove me forward is gone, replaced by extreme exhaustion. The urge to stop—to find shade, to drop and let the world go quiet—is almost too great for me to contest with.
But every time I fall too far behind, the wolf stops and waits.
So I keep moving. Push through onward. Force myself to take one step, then another. When my eyes drift shut, a low growl cuts through the haze—sharp enough to pull me back from slumber.
It feels like we’ve covered dozens of miles before my body gives out. My knees hit first. Then everything else follows as I pitch forward into the dirt and stay there, breath shallow, limbs refusing to answer my call.
This happens twice more.
Each time, I wake to an unbroken night and force myself to get up and continue for as long as my body will allow.
On the third rise of the moon, its color shifts—bleeding into a dull orange.
I make it far longer this time before weariness crawls over me and claims me.
The next time I wake, it isn’t due to the wolf’s insistence. It’s to Cali’s.
Her large nose brushes along my shoulder before her lips peel back, teeth nipping just enough to sting.
Relief hits fast and sharp at the sight of her.
My hand lifts, slower than I’d like, and settles against her nose, fingers pressing into familiar warmth, familiar fur, as she impatiently scrapes a hoof against the dirt.
With effort, I reach higher and catch hold of her bridle and reins.
She steps back as I pull, giving me just enough leverage to haul myself upright.
It’s work—far more than it should be—but I manage to drag myself into the saddle.
I hunch forward, gripping tight as she moves, falling in behind the wolf, and our pace picks up.
We cross miles of scorched earth, the land torn open where stars have fallen and now lie dormant, embedded like massive meteors.
We enter a shaded valley between mountains that didn’t escape a falling star's trajectory.
The wolf leads and navigates us through the rubble and around boulders in our path.
Wind tunnels through the canyon, carrying a bitter chill.
The cold cuts through me in a way it never has before, deeper than it should, settling into bone.
I wrap my cloak around me as best I can, and rub my hands together to create friction, and stave off the numbness that tries to set in.
Each night, the moon rises again—darker, heavier, its color deepening into something unnatural.
The Blood Moon finally appears, and it’s just as I feared. The third sign has come much too soon, telling me that Judgment has begun without me.
Anger and frustration mount as we press on.
This is bloody well not how it was meant to unfold. Hell's gates and demons were never part of the equation.
I am in no condition to serve as I was meant to. But can not the same also be said for the others? Kahill is gone. Orán… unaccounted for. Tíarnach…who knows.
How are we to—
Wait…
My thoughts stall, then shift. I reach inward, searching past the exhaustion, past the haze—and there it is…a faint, distant-but-there tether.
The pull aligns with the path we’re already taking. Whether by God’s design or blind coincidence, I don’t know—but it…
Does this mean I’m not alone?
It’s Orán. It has to be.
The name douses some of the dread, and with it, something in my chest loosens.
I close my eyes briefly and focus, drawing that thread closer in my mind, tightening my hold on it as if it might slip away if I don’t. It steadies me. When my eyes open again, I lift my head and press my heels lightly into Cali’s sides.
“Velir.”
Faster.
Cali’s pace picks up, her stride lengthening as the wolf breaks into a run alongside us. I lean forward, tightening my grip on the reins, and draw a breath before giving her another command.
“Faelis nael.”
Find him.