Velvet didn’t waste any time admiring Cardomos’ comeback. It was a temporary solution, nothing more than him using his own corpse as a wall to buy some time.
The same time that she so badly needed.
“Grudge of the fallen.” Cardomos activated his Embodiment one last time, targeting Andras’ avatar.
Just that, this time, the Deriliam cut him in half before the spell went through.
A clean cut, too fast for Velvet to even discern what happened. Maybe if she had paid more attention, but doing so would be wasting Cardomos’ short revival.
Just two more. She continued shaping the formation, trying to go as far as possible.
A flashing light crossed through the corner of her eyes, first behind Andras, and then right in front of her, traversing the space between her and Andras before Cardomos’ hit the ground a second time.
Lothrigern. His presence a threat too close to her for comfort, her own flesh threatening to twist under His presence. In His hands, remnant energy from a spell condensed, dissolving into the air.
Then, the two bloodied pieces of Cardomos’ broken corpse reacted, merging back, roots growing from the wounds, tangling between each other as if sewing a broken dress.
“Ephalses.” Cardomos opened his eyes back again, fulfilling his Embodiment.
For a second time, the colossal sets of wings extended, making a wall between her and Andras Apolyon. And, between the winged summon and her, Lothrigern stood.
She soon understood the reason why, as the skin in her face began to sizzle, starting to burn, yet nos as brutally as it would were not the Deriliam in the middle.
He wasn’t nearly as affected, and she supposed that, if it weren’t for the damage done by Andras, the effect would be zero.
But, that bought her enough time. The formation was complete, and, after activating it, the flesh disappeared from her hands in a red mist, something to which she was about to follow soon, not forgetting to drag Frenese’s chain back with her.
It wouldn’t do to abandon him here and trigger the Deal, after all.
The instant before waking up, she looked up at Lothrigern.
Purple blood ran through His body, the fresh wounds made by Andras’ attack ignored, with burning feathers growing inside, spouting from them together with the smell of burning flesh. He wouldn’t die, with Deriliams being immortal.
Her eyes hurted slightly simply from taking a glimpse, and yet…
“You really are beautiful.” Velvet said, before activating the waking up charm she made with her own skin and blood, her surroundings going completely black.
…
When she opened her eyes, she was back at Cardomos’ temple, all her physical wounds gone, and yet, the mental exhaustion was real, same as the accumulated miasma, making her unable to lift a single finger.
Dianthus surely could wait one or two hours while she napped, right? She would go for him first thing after getting back up, just, not now.
Velvet closed her eyes once again, before snapping them open seconds later.
The flesh! The Chained man’s flesh!
Propping herself up with her elbows, she looked around, towards the place where she knew the formation was supposed to teleport the flesh.
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It was there, a small ball of minced meat, bloody, squirming and very much alive.
A wave of nausea hit her upon looking at it, not as strong as the Deriliam’s presence, and certainly not deadly or heavily corrupting, just sickening.
The space around it twisted, sigils, spells and symbols appearing in the air, changing and transforming simply by being close to the flesh.
That was bad. Not now, since Cardomos’ pocket dimension was big enough to take a little damage to the formation holding it together without coming apart, but if she wanted to transport the flesh, well… Any container would break down were she to put it inside, and she very much didn't want to carry the flesh in her person.
A soft laugh startled her, and she turned to look at the place where the Chained man’s sculpture and altar were previously. Just that now, that statue was gone, having been pushed to the ground, crashing into smithereens.
In its place, claiming the temple as her own, sitting on the altar with her legs crossed, was the Goddess of Death, looking down at her behind her veil.
And then she clapped. Two times, two silent claps, due to her fleshless fingers and the more demure than energetic way in which she did so. “You made it.”
Breathless and exhausted, Velvet met her compliment with a smile. “It was a team effort, mostly.”
And yet her words were true. She had won.
“It wouldn’t have been any other way. No sane living, or dying, being would believe themselves able to confront a Deriliam.”
“Which only leaves the crazy ones like Cardomos to go and pull it off?” Even at the cost of his life, and his death, and even what remained after that.
“Exactly. So, answer me this…” The Goddess of Death descended from the altar, walking towards the squirming ball of flesh, the bones of her toes rattling softly against the ground. “Who allows the crazy to lead them? Who follows a dying man down to his last breath? What do we call those people?”
Velvet fell silent, thinking about a satisfactory comeback, even when she would be content with any non stupid answer. After all, she was too damn tired to bicker with a Goddess, her mind trying to shut itself down constantly.
The Goddess of Death waited for her to respond patiently, not making any more advances towards the flesh.
“Then, I guess they would be the ones trusting that he can pull it off. The believers.”
“Did you trust in him?”
“Not completely. I always had the chance to run away.” A chance she would have taken if being needed, no doubts about it. That’s why she didn’t fully trust Cardomos right until the end.
“Smart, and yet,” The Goddess of Death bent her knee, lowering herself to reach the ball of flesh. “If you had trusted him, this amount of accumulated flesh would’ve been bigger.”
“I know.”
“Then I will take my share.” She grabbed the ball in one hand and got up, with her free hand pinching a small piece of squirming flesh, taking it behind the veil and… if Velvet was right, proceeding to eat it.
After that, she let out a sweet, soft laugh, teasing her reaction. “Don’t let any peckish curiosity get the better of you.”
“Wasn’t going to!” Not that she planned to eat it herself. In fact, the Goddess of Death was right, she didn’t even get enough to experiment with.
This time, the Goddess walked towards her, moving with elegance, her barefootedness and fleshlessness doing little to dampen her dainty steps.
No wonder one of the titles of her trinity is the Mother Goddesses of Horror. They really do act and look like evil deities…From the eyes growing from Cardomos’ flesh under the influence of the Mother of Witches, the bleeding moon from the time when she asked the Goddess of Darkness for her blessings and the rotting form of the Goddess of Death… they really lived up to their names.
And yet all three of them had helped her in some way.
When she reached Velvet, she extended one arm forward, the rotting, tattered skin on her forearm dangling. Then, she ripped it off slowly, as if she was removing a glove.
Once the skin was separated, she wrapped it around the ball of flesh, lifting the skin’s edges upwards before pressing them together, making a small pouch. Then, she leaned over, putting the skin pouch on top of Velvet’s chest, right above her heart.
The bag was warm, beating against the beats of her own heart, the faint sensation of the flesh squirming inside. She wanted to reach for it and put it in her pocket, where she wouldn’t be feeling it that much, yet her eyelids felt heavy, extremely heavy, and she vaguely suspected the Goddess of Death interference over it.
But she didn’t fight the sleep this time, a part of her confident that her spell, like Lothrigern’s, could give her a normal dream. A dream that could be called rest.
“Rest well Velvet, you did good.”
That was the last thing she heard, before everything went dark once again.