She saw men castrated and impaled on stakes.
She saw children with looks of terror frozen on their little faces as their bodies lay broken on the ground.
And everywhere she walked, she stepped in ash and blood.
The girl methodically combed through every inch of her village, saw every burned building, every desecrated body.
The more she saw, the more her anger grew, until it felt like the anger wasn’t even hers, but the culmination of an entire people.
And, distinctly, she felt another’s anger, one that was vast and more nuanced than her own human emotions.
Solace.
The girl closed her eyes as she climbed the same hill from this morning, her feet automatically taking her to the spot she first sat in to reach the goddess.
How fitting. That the destruction of my people began and ended at this spot.
The girl took a deep breath before slowly spinning on her mud and blood soaked feet. Below her lay her village in ruins, and the new absence of sound was a heartbeat in the girl’s ears.
There was no wind.
No animal call.
Not even the crackle of fire remained.
Solace. The girl called.
And Solace answered.
Help me, Solace. Help me hunt and kill those who did this, those who violated the sanctity of life, those who would dare oppose a goddess.
The girl felt a warm breeze like a lover’s caress at her prayer, and she knew that Solace would answer.
“My child,”the wind whispered everywhere and nowhere all at once. “We have much to do, you and I.”
The girl was flooded with images, some too fast to fully grasp, but the intention of them made her smile, a feral thing.
Faces flashed through her mind, and she knew them all.
They were Keepers—or theywere—sent to the courts across Elyria as advisors.
And they’d known this would happen, yet none did anything to stop it.
Them first. The girl thought. They could either join her, or be eradicated like the Warlord and his allies.
The girl asked for one more thing from Solace before she turned her back on her people, vowing never to return.
And Solace agreed.
Slowly, as the girl picked her way across stones and through trees, a fog rolled over the sight of her village, and water filled the bowl. There was magic in it, the girl could easily sense it, and she knew that Solace would preserve this place. If anyone tried to disturb the final resting place of her people, they’d simply join them.
The girl smiled again, and she swore she could hear Solace’s laughter bounce through her skull as the girl relayed her detailed plans.
It would take time, but she would see that everyone that had a hand in today would pay.
And Fate wept.
Chapter 8
