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When he advances to me, every boot step like an ominous drumbeat, I understand he is no mere shade here. All the lower gods bow their heads before this High God. All except for Morrygna who stands proud and tall behind them.
Too slowly, as if he is turning time itself to lull, his being appears before me.
On my knees, I slowly lift my eyes. First, it’s his black robe as long as a bridal train falling like deep dusk upon the ground. Next, it’s his armor of infinity iron to mark him as the final authority none may war. Then, it’s his skin, so dark and lustrous?a midwinter twilight sky bereft of stars. His eyes hold the stars, white as the dreams of the first stars upon the earth, the first spirits ever reaped.
“Ary...” I whisper. A great infarction when the lower gods sink into crouches, fuming and growling.
Kryach’s eyes narrow upon mine for a fraction of a second before they turn to the Goddess of Doom. “Your signature in all this, Morrygna?” he challenges.
She smiles, her features far more macabre from the twisted leer. “It appears all our signatures are writ upon her, Aryahn. Except for yours.”
He curls his upper lip, baring a sharpened canine in a menacing glower, but Death does not growl. He maintains a cool head and faces all the lower gods. As he does, the shades from his hand bind me closer, acting as a sheath for which I’m grateful.
“She has conquered the Gates of Eyleanyn,” he dictates, voice of deep, authoritarian shadows. “Isla Bandye Morganyach has earned the right to arequest. So...” he turns to me, stretches his arms to the sides, exaggerative and mocking, and inquires, “...what is your request?”
Gulping the knots in my throat, I dare to survey the gods, to look Aryahn Kryach in the eye, and respond, “I want my freedom and all these marksgone.”
Aryahn Kryach sweeps back his cape. Shades curl against my body as he pronounces, “Morrygna?”
Stardust shimmering on her dark robe, the Goddess of Doom strides through the divided sea of lower gods, inclining the marred side of her face to me and her blind spirit eye. She raises one blotted hand from beneath her robe and proclaims, “The Trial.”
Morrygna clothesme in a raiment of doom. Out of eyesight of the other gods, she’d guided me to a house nearest to the Gates reserved for god servants. Only her presence was necessary for the servants to flee. Isle magic shimmers at the edges of the lowly estate, but the shimmers bow to Morrygna’s shadows. In a limbo-like waiting room, Morrygna helps me dress.
Despite how light the dark material is, it is heavier than ashes and mourning. Still, it’s far better than my gown strips and mere rib cage bone bodice. Nor could I resist the offer from the Goddess of Doom. Her hands, though tender, feel like despair as they tie the gown strings at my back. The dress itself seems like strings as if she wove it from the strands of her very hair. Her breath drifts across my neck—deep and dark and cold as a winter storm.
“Thank you...” I say once she’s finished.
Morrrygna’s fingers pause, lighting on my hair. My breath hitches as they linger to stray into the strands. “I hadn’t expected gratitude so soon.”
I lift a brow and curve my neck to bend my eyes to hers, studying her phantom one. “But you expected it regardless?”
“After the Trial,” the Goddess replies with another tangled smirk and trails a solitary finger across my cheek.
I shiver, pinching my eyes, scrutinizing Morrygna. Knowing better than to ask questions, I phrase them as statements, “You have seen my path.”
“Mmm.” the Goddess does not relinquish her finger as if memorizing my soft, whole skin and flesh as if she will trade places with me when the trial is over.
“You set it in motion...”
Morrygna curls her palm around my throat and grins: a malevolent labyrinth in a single gesture. “With a little help,” she hints.
I bite down on my lower lip, discerning where the help came from, hoping I will get the opportunity to confirm should I pass this Trial. But for now, Morrygna has finished. Her last act is feathering her lips across mine. Nothing like the catacombs whatsoever. This kiss is a promise from the dark side of the moon as if she is gifting me with a silver tear for hope. As if the one who understands all fates and all demises may grant me such a thing ashope.
“Come, little bride. You have performed to the last pulchritudinous detail. And I am quite eager to watch you continue.”
As Morrygna leads me out of the servant dwelling and to the location of this trial with Aryahn Kryach as the forerunner before all the gods, I can’t help but wonder if the Goddess of Doom has acted as my true champion in all of this.
* * *
“It is called an oubliette,” Aryahn Kryach explains the vast, fathomless, and hollow chasm before my eyes. “A place of forgetting.”
The God of Death’s indomitable force and shades are an eternal comfort compared to the monstrous cavity awaiting me. Ten thousand chills skitter up my spine. It seems as if ice needles probe the runes. A deep gray fog sheathes the ground, so I cannot even perceive its bottom. From the fog echo the screams and wails of hopeless lament. Of souls with no passion, no purpose, no...identity. I slam my eyes shut, wishing I could prevent my tears, but they tremble across my cheeks all the same. How can such a place exist in the realm of the gods?
“Yes, Isla...” Kryach whispers in my ear from behind. “The place of forgetting. While all lost souls may still have hope to find their way, the forgotten ones end up here.”
Stomach so heavy, I imagine it must sink six feet into the ground, I turn my eyes to the moonlit snowdrifts of Kryach’s eyes and plead, “And my trial?”
All the lower gods hiss and puff behind me. I wince from their damp salivating, of those poisonous fumes singing my back while the God of Death explains, “You must make it to the other side. To the domain of the Aether: the essence and birthplace of all the gods where only the Highest God and Goddess can tread. You must collect a spirit rose no god may pluck and return with it as proof of your presence where no mortal has ever nor can ever tread.”
