Teela could not have explained her motives even to herself. She knew she was in the wrong. She wanted to go home and be forever separated from Mantis’s path. But she could not have stopped herself from seeking answers to her questions like she couldn’t stop breathing air.

  The thought of facing the Goddess in the flesh again was too tempting. The deity who’d looked like a regular woman, whose name was unknown to all in Yriaa and whose power fed Mantis would be there. Teela needed to see her, talk to her, feel and study her magic. She could not shake that deeply-set curiosity despite having decided to abandon her pursuit of information. If only one final time, she wanted to get closer to the truth of all things magical and impossible to humans.

  Just one last attempt to understand, she promised herself with some shame, to carry her through a boring future among the unsworn and free folk of Pirn. One final taste of beautiful, forbidden danger.

  Leroh grudgingly commanded Clover to follow Mantis and the poor horse obeyed with a single shake of his head to show his displeasure. Teela’s heart broke to have to demand more of her loyal friend, but she knew their journey would soon be over. Clover would receive stellar care from her own two hands when they reached Pirn, and he would not be asked to make another long trip again for years to come. Probably for the remainder of his life, Teela realized with some stubborn sadness leftover inside of her.

  Clover would continue to serve Mother with the business as a commodity of various purposes, transporting supplies from the markets, making deliveries or, on the rare occasion, spending an afternoon or a few days away with strangers when he was rented out. He would never again go on a journey like the one they were on, however. He’d live out the rest of his days as a simple, working animal.

  Teela wanted to be happy for her own similar and newly-accepted fate. She wanted to wish for a husband and a child, a home to tend to and an ordinary life of comfortable subsistence. She could wish for those things, she promised herself, if given enough time to adjust. If she could just have this last experience of excitement and risk, she knew she could change. All she needed was a few more answers, a few more memories to bring with her into that unwanted future.

  Mantis led them through a little dense forest of alder trees and dismounted her black stallion at a seemingly-arbitrary spot. Then, she immediately fell to her knees, brought her hands to her neck with the bottoms of her palms resting on her clavicles and started muttering melodically under her breath.

  Leroh dismounted Clover first and reluctantly extended a hand to Teela to help her get down to the grassy ground. She took it and reached down with her free hand to cup Homely’s nest protectively at her waist, as she’d learned to do with any large movements that might disturb him in his near-constant sleeping. When her hand met nothing but air, Teela remembered where his little pink and feathery body had gone, along with his beautiful nest of woven-grass. Her lips tugged downward sharply and a shiver of anguish racked her body.

  As soon as they were finished with Mantis’s Goddess, Teela would personally lead Clover to the inn stables and demand that he be groomed and cared for like a prince. She’d spend all her saved-up tips from the tavern if necessary to ensure that he be treated as well as possible. He was a true friend to her, the only one she had, and he deserved better attention.

  She jumped off Clover’s back and made her way to his large brown head to give him a gentle rub. He snorted and lowered his mouth to the forest floor to graze.

  Mantis’s ongoing musical whispering grew louder and clearer at that moment. It was a cross between the common language and a few interspersed, unrecognizable, archaic-sounding words. But the buzzing energy in the environment was what truly caught Teela’s attention. Magic. A concentrated magical force was swirling around them like a wind, and Teela could smell it in the air. It was wonderful—sweet and piquant, a little tangy, too.

  Like an all-encompassing tingle, she felt it. It was a humming sound, a taste, a physical pressure on her skin. There was a rhythm to the magic, one that Mantis was following with her words like a singer joining a musical instrument’s melody. It flowed much stronger now than it ever had in all of Teela’s life. She was fascinated, intrigued almost to a foolish degree.

  Just then, Teela didn’t care that she’d have to give it all up and return to a suffocating life she despised, she didn’t care about the horrifying things Mantis was capable of and the possibility that it was all the magic’s doing. She only had a mind for the indescribable sensation of wholeness and wonder that stirred in her heart to witness the magic’s beauty.

  Then, the Goddess appeared. She simply materialized behind them and walked decisively to her servant in a few graceful strides.

  Teela followed her with her eyes in a sort of trance. She looked so normal, so unremarkable. Her hair was long and dark, hanging loose over her shoulders and curling softly at the ends. Her skin was pale and smooth, marked only by the current crease in her brow. Her eyes were colored a brown so deep it could pass for black and her lips were thin and shapely, of a pretty mauve color that highlighted them nicely on her mostly ordinary face. She wore only a simple gown of fine burgundy fabric, with long sleeves and a gently rounded neckline.

  If Teela had passed the Goddess on the street, she would not have been able to distinguish her from any other woman—if not for her loud and astounding aura, of course.

  There was a most pleasing and familiar quality to her magic. She felt like a warm homecoming, if home were the place of origin of a most magnificent power. Teela wanted to give herself to her, to merge her spirit with hers and become a part of whatever larger system the being before her represented.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  Mantis got to her feet and lifted her hands to her Goddess, offering her fingertips subserviently. The deity stepped up to meet her with her own extended hands and linked her fingers to her servant’s without saying a word of greeting. They probably understood each other and could communicate wordlessly, Teela deduced, interested and transfixed.

  They lingered in that connection for a time, and then separated their hands with a simultaneous sigh. Mantis looked paler than usual, more feeble. Her shoulders were hunched forward and her face was slack with weariness. She was sad, miserably sad, now that her anger was gone.

  Teela clutched at her own chest with a hand, as if trying to keep her remaining joy from oozing out of her soul, and pressed her trembling lips tightly together. Her eyes wanted to fill with tears but she didn’t let them. The agonizing emotion she felt wasn’t hers. It still had the strength to suffuse her every positive inkling like a ruthless downpour of rain, however.

  The God turned to leave.

  Teela had gotten distracted and forgotten her goal.

  “Wait!”, she said. The mysterious woman, or not woman, spun her head to observe her as if she hadn’t even noticed Leroh’s and Teela’s presence before. “Wait, please. Hello. I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Teela.”

  “Ignore her. Leave now,” Mantis commanded roughly with a murderous sideways look for Teela.

  “I remember you. I touched your soul.” The Goddess stepped forward to study her more closely. Her eyes were greedy and intense. She looked more radiant than she had, and her magic tasted more flavorful on Teela’s tongue. The life she’d received from her servant seemed to have enriched and strengthened her immediately.

  “Yes. I remember you, too. I wanted to ask you some questions, if that’s… If it’s alright.” Teela spoke tentatively, trying to focus her gaze solely on the deity and to ignore Mantis’s livid glowering. “Who are you?”

  “NO!” Mantis bellowed.

  “Ombira,” the Goddess replied with a small grin.

  “No, no, no! Stop! Stop this, now! Leave. Teela, get away from here.” Mantis was raging. Her eyes were wider than ever, showing white all around her reddish pupils. Her complexion was sickly and a sweat had broken through on her upper lip and forehead.

  “Ombira,” Teela repeated, trying the word in her mouth. It felt good—similarly to how wielding a sharp knife feels good, and gives one a sense of fearlessness. Ombira.

  “Yes. You can reach me now, with that name.” The Goddess looked pleased.

  “No! Please! Please, stop! Teela, do not ask another question.”

  “Did you order Mantis to kill that little boy in the Seaside village? Him and his father?”

  Silence reigned. For a few long breaths, they all stood in tense stillness, processing the situation at hand. Mantis had been surprised into muteness. Then her God replied with a tender “Yes.”

  “He did not deserve death.” Teela tried to sound composed, to not let emotion taint her message. “He was a child. I don’t think that was just, to sentence him to die. It isn’t…It’s not right. You must not do that again.”

  “Teela!” her brother rebuked her in a desperate, hoarse whisper. Mantis was still paralyzed, standing with her fists clenched a few paces away from her Goddess.

  “You would not have to kill children, if you were mine.” Ombira spoke kindly. “You could kill only the worst of them. Would you like that?” She blinked slowly and tilted her head sideways like a cat. She’d abruptly stopped looking like an ordinary woman, Teela realized with a chill that spread through her body like lightning. It was glaringly obvious that the being before them was a God, now.

  “What?” Teela was taken aback by her unexpected offer and change of demeanor

  “Ombira, stop this,” Mantis grunted out.

  “Summon me, if you decide to share that blazing soul of yours with one of us. My name is all you need. I can give you freedom and power. I can make you a Mantis.”

  Teela was speechless. She turned to look at Mantis and their gazes linked like two halves of a book closing together. They felt angry, sad, powerless, trapped. They felt—together. Where one person’s emotions began and the other’s started was not entirely clear, then. Mantis shook her head slowly from side to side, pleading.

  “I don’t want to be like her,” Teela said to Ombira without removing her eyes from Mantis’s pained stare.

  “I know that you do. Do not lie to me, or to yourself. You are full of power, Teela.” The Goddess plucked her attention from their wordless conversation like a girl picking a flower from its stem. “You know you waste your potential every day, living the life of a common peasant.”

  “I have potential?” she asked incredulously. “For the magic?”

  “Very much. With your predisposition for it, you could make a remarkable servant. I could give you eternal youth, links, beauty and strength—”

  “She doesn’t need strength! Or any other traits from you. I am the Mantis!” All of a sudden, the woman came out of her stupor to interrupt her Goddess, speaking loudly through her clenched teeth. She marched over to stand in front of the powerful creature with her feet positioned wide and her knees slightly bent, as if preparing for an inconceivable physical confrontation. Her head of dark auburn had to tilt up to look up at Ombira, who stood at least a hand taller in height than her servant. The scene could have been laughable in less ebullient circumstances. “She will never be yours. Do you understand me? I will not see that child enslaved, to you or to any other. You have me, and I will continue to serve you, forever. That should suffice. The girl is not of your concern.”

  “I want another. You have not given me the opportunity to claim more servants. But now here she is. She wants this, and I want her.” Ombira glanced at Teela then with a small, meaningful smile. “It is your own doing, Mantis. You brought her to me yourself.”

  “That was a mistake. We are leaving now.” The woman stepped away from her Goddess and shot Teela a venomous look that sent a jolt of cold up her spine. “Get on your horse.”

  She obeyed. Leroh was right behind her. Alongside a furious Mantis, they hurried to their awaiting mounts and climbed up to their saddles.

  Ombira spoke one final time. “Consider my offer, Teela. Pray to me if you tire of the shackles of your dull life.”

  And that she did.