“I would thank you for the exercise,” Garo said, “but it was far short of what I needed.”

Aria ignored him. He could tell all the lies he knew, but any god who could be held off by her for five minutes was no god at all.

He stopped before the wall, starting as if he could see through it.

“Be smart enough to redeem yourself,” he said. “Tell me how to kill you, and I’ll let you have a few more years of life. Refuse, and I’ll discover it anyway, but it will be too late for you.”

Aria ignored him. Until he knew how to defeat her, he would not break down the prison. She had some time in which to search for an escape. Casting her senses about the landscape, she ruminated on what she knew. Deities seemed to have related powers and weaknesses. Evera was beautiful, supposedly capable of charming people, possessed teleportation abilities, but had no telekinesis. Her weakness had been blindness. Tivelo had virtually unlimited powers and his weakness was his son. Alogun, judging from his followers’ skills, had the ability to discern falsehoods and create barriers to teleportation.

And then there was Garo. She thought back to all the priests she had interacted with. Garo had superior strength, impenetrable skin, and the ability to create impassable barriers. What would be his weakness? She cursed herself for not learning more from Achi. He had given her a hint about challenging Garo to a duel, but that told her nothing useful.

The realization hit her so hard that her breath caught.

“You won’t speak?” Garo asked. “Do you think silence will save you now? You cannot escape -”

“Recite the alphabet”, Aria said

“What?”

As soon as his mouth was open, Aria reached for her dagger, the ones that had bounced off Garo’s skin. While he was still interpreting her statement, she teleported it into his mouth and forced it backward, toward his throat. She invested every ounce of power she could into it, pushing as if she was trying to cut through stone.

And it went through his neck like an arrow through silk, tearing it and flying out through the hold it had carved.

Garo gasped with surprise, stumbled back, and clutched at his throat. She had a mental image of her own self when he had stabbed her, trying to climb above the pain. The image gave her strength. She teleported the knife into his mouth again and repeated the process, over and over until she lost count of her attacks. Even then, she continued.

Garo was on the ground, writhing and bleeding but clearly still alive. That infuriated her. She switched from cutting his throat - which had little flesh left to shred - and manipulated the knife from his mouth into the rest of him. She could not penetrate his skin, but internal organs had no such protection. It was classic fairytale logic: the monster with the skin of iron and bones of steel but muscles made of wool.

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She stopped after what felt like a million attacks. He did not feel dead - the light in him had not disappeared as it had with Evera - but there was nothing left in him to cut. Her knife could not break bones, so he resembled a pin cushion owned by a sadistic tailor.

With one, well-placed punch, she tore a hole in the wall separating them - weaker now that Garo was no longer sustaining it - and stepped out into freedom.

“I don’t know how you lived so long with such a tiny brain,” she said. “You trapped me in the same way you did Evera. But Evera had only teleportation. I have teleportation and telekinesis.”

Garo opened his eyes, causing her to gasp and step back. His lips did not move, but his words rang directly in her mind.

“And yet you were trapped,” he said. “You learned one of my weaknesses at an opportune moment, but you won’t always be lucky.” Despite that, and to Aria’s consternation, he sounded proud. “I’ll let you go today, little rabbit. Grow bigger. Fight better next time.”

He disappeared. Every stray bit of flesh or blood went with him. The only signs of her rage were the dents in the soil where her knife had struck it.

Aria froze for several moments, eyes peeled and body tensed. Garo did not return after a minute, but she kept watching, waiting for him to appear behind her. Slowly, as the minutes piled on, she relaxed. She had done significant damage to his body. That he could survive it was incredible but it was reasonable to think that he would not be returning for several hours.

She sank to the ground, mentally and physically drained. Even her spiritual energy was almost gone. She had a slim fraction of what she had begun the day with. If Garo had lasted a few more minutes, she would have disintegrated without his aid.

She lay down and stared at the pale sky. Grass tickled her neck and calves, but the discomfort was less than the pleasure of lying down.

She would only have a few minute of it. The minute she rose, she was on her way to Garo’s palace to rob him of all the items he had stolen from Tivelo’s palace.

No fear, she told herself, forcefully infusing bravery into heart.

When you find the path that leads to life, you press on, no matter the cost. She might never again see Garo so weak. If she retreated, hid, waited for a better moment or more information, this opportunity would pass her by.

But Tivelo’s treasures could include more of Achi’s rings and records about other deities’ powers. If she found even one of those things, she would be in a better position to preserve her own life.

She was preparing to rise when a carriage pulled up beside her. She turned onto her side to see the occupant. She could already sense that the deity riding it was not as strong as Garo, so her alertness did not morph into fear.

The carriage deposited its occupants a hundred feet from her: the orange-haired goddess, one of Evera’s attendants, and Ritu, Evera’s lover. They approached her cautiously, as if she was a sleeping bear, and stopped at a respectful distance.

Aria rose to a sitting position. If they were there to attack her, she could teleport away whether she was sitting or standing.

Ritu moved first, giving a small bow, followed by the other two. Aria simply watched them in silence. She did not know what they wanted, so she did not know how to respond.

“Pardon the disturbance,” the goddess said, “but there is an argument ongoing, and we felt that you should settle it. Will you be keeping the palace or allowing one of the others to claim it?”