She was sleeping on a cloud; the softest, best-smelling cloud in the universe. Someone was playing a lullaby and begging her to eat a giant cake shaped like Garo’s head, but she refused. Cannibalism would offend Evera.
“Open your eyes.”
The voice dispersed her dream with the violence of an arrow through a crowd. She sat up, pulled the covers over her chest - and her frilly nightdress - and stared in terror at the speaker.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” He stood at the foot of the bed, framed by the bedposts and parted curtains. His tone was flat, disapproving, and yet brimming with anger. “Well, are you?”
“Uh, no.”
“Oh?” He faked disappointment. “Well, you should be. Evera just informed my father of a new goddess. He was surprised because he hadn’t sensed any. I was surprised because he was surprised.” He added a fake chuckle. “Do you know who this new goddess is? Her name is Arruwa, and she is supposedly somewhere in this palace.”
“I - “
“I know, Arruwa sounds suspiciously like Aria, but they can’t be the same person because only a fool would make such a mistake, and only a fool would walk into the very place I warned her away from five minutes after I warned her about it!”
“She brought me here!” Silence followed the outburst. Aria worried that she had been heard. When no footsteps intruded, she lowered her voice and continued. “This stupid coat you gave me makes everyone think I’m a goddess. Evera found me and kidnapped me. She plans to teach me what rules to follow so that your insane father does not torture me forever.”
“Watch yourself. He’s upstairs.”
Aria nearly soiled herself. Sleep was departing and Evera’s lecture was returning to her brain. She was not supposed to be screaming at the price; certainly not with his father in the same building.
“There’s nothing wrong with the coat. And you don’t look like a goddess to me.”
“People were bowing to me. A man gave me his bed. And do you think Evera is mistaken?”
He looked her up and down. Somehow, he seemed to be pulling her apart with his eyes, measuring every part of the jacket.
“I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with it. And you seem normal. Maybe you have become a goddess.” A thought occurred to him. “Did you check the pockets?”
Aria had never noticed any pockets.
“They’re on the inside.”
She began to undo the buttons, then stopped. “Turn around.”
He rolled his eyes but obeyed. “You realize that most gods can see behind them, yes?”
“Then get out!”
“If you don’t check those pockets in two seconds, I will do it myself. Idiot. Do you even know what a god is? I’ve seen straight through into your bones.”
Her brain threatened to explore that thought, but she stopped it in time. Five buttons came undone before she found the pockets. The first one was empty. The second, on the other side, produced a green stone with a ring attached to it. A second later, the prince was pulling it out of her fingers and muttering a modified curse word. His attempt at propriety would have been amusing in another place and time.
“What is that?”
He cursed again. “I owe you an apology.”
“What is it?”
“It’s mine.” He turned the ring over in his fingers. “I’d forgotten I even owned it. I never imagined that it would even do anything to a mortal.” He looked up at her. “Didn’t you sense it? The power should have been overwhelming.”
Aria remembered the feeling of calm and confidence that was now gone. “I thought it was the coat.”
He scratched his head and swore for the third time.
“My father wants you upstairs to greet him. We’ll have to sneak you out. Hopefully, he doesn’t come down to find out why he can’t sense you. We’ll use this window - “
“Wait. Evera did not recognize me. Would your father?”
“Evera is human-blind; most gods are. You all look the same to her. Normally, she would have recognized your soul, but the ring was overshadowing it. My father is not so easily fooled. You need to leave. Now”
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“Wait.” She rushed out the words hoping that they sounded wiser in reality than in her mind. “Shouldn’t I keep the ring? Perhaps it can help me find the person who poisoned you.”
“You’re insane, and this conversation is over.” He pulled her off the mattress. She struggled, but his grip was like a tiger’s bite.
“Think about it.” She said “If I just disappear now, your father and Evera would be confused. They might try to find me. And Evera’s eyesight might be bad, but everyone else saw me.” He was trying to force her onto the window now, but she gripped a bedpost and refused to let go. “If your father thinks a god is hiding, he’ll try to find her. I won’t be safe.”
He released her and glared. “And how would going to him now solve the problem?”
She had thought about that. “You could disguise me.”
“How? A hat? A beard? Maybe remove one of your eyes? Gods see souls.”
“Isn’t there some way you can change that?”
“No! I mean, maybe if I kill and resurrect you.”
“Do it.”
He looked incredulous “If you die, your soul will go to Garo’s after-life. My father will claim you before I can re-awaken you - if I can reawaken you.”
“There’s another way. If you send me out there, I will die, and you know it. He will hunt me. If he doesn’t Evera will, and she will find me. I don’t think she’ll just shrug and say, ‘a goddess ran away from me. There’s nothing I can do about it.’ I think you want it to work, but it won’t. My life is at risk here. Don’t play with it.”
“Girl, you just want to keep playing goddess.”
“Yes. Yes, I do. But look me in the eye and say Evera won’t find me and ask why I tricked her. Promise she won’t turn me over to your father for his favor. Look at me. Say it, honestly, and I’ll climb out that window.”
He looked conflicted. She seized the chance. “Your father is the king of all the gods. I’m sure he has something capable of modifying a soul. I don’t care how painful it is. I’ll do it.”
“You’re risking your life.”
“My life is already gone. It’s gone unless I can prove my innocence, and I can’t do that as a nameless girl in some crowded city in the lower realm.”
“Oh, would you stop that?! You are guilty!”
“I am not. And if you don’t help me, I will scream. I will scream, your father will find me and torture me, and it will be your fault.”
An intense look appeared on his face, followed by silence. A full minute later, he had still not spoken and she was getting anxious.
“Well?” She finally asked. “Will you do it?”
He remained distracted. “I wonder why he has not come down here. He knows that I did. And he should be able to hear us if he wishes to.”
Aria remembered the Black God taking slow, leisurely steps out of Garo’s palace after sentencing him with barely a word.
“He won’t come down to hunt us,” she said. “If he cared he would just -”
“- pull us up there. Time to leave.”
Aria had released the bedpost while he waited, so he was able to force her to the window. There was nothing to grab onto, so she lowered her voice and infused it with every ounce of seriousness she could muster.
“I will scream. I swear it.” She took a deep breath, drew air into her lungs, and then opened her mouth. He clamped a hand over it.
“Fine, you lunatic. I’ll disguise you. Then you can come back here, parade yourself in front of my father, and pretend that the suddenly arriving goddess who disappeared when he first tried to meet her, does not present any cause for suspicion. Then, when he is not fooled and kills you just out of caution, I won’t feel a bit of guilt.”
His concern was reasonable, but her options were few. “I’m sure something will work well enough,” she said. “You’re powerful gods.”
Her words seemed to make him even less certain. “But how do we even begin? I have to go back home and search for something we can use but you’ll be found before I return.”
“I could hide. This coat hides me, right?”
He scoffed. “Do you know how strongly you smell? Did you bathe in perfume? When they tire of waiting for you, the hundreds of servants in this place will come after you.”
“Then you can use your powers.”
Silence met her suggestion. She waited for a moment, but all he did was spin around, searching the room for help.
“You can use your powers right?” She walked around him so that he was facing her again. “Can’t you hide me or just magically move me from this place?”
He pushed her out of his way. “I have no powers. This will work.” In four steps, he was at the only wardrobe in the room. It was a small one, clearly intended to be decorative, but it was large enough to hide several people.
“Why don’t you have powers?”
He ignored her and instead dumped out the few items that occupied the wardrobe.
“Get in,” he said
“What?”
“It’s past time for arguing. I headed off the servant sent to wake you, but if she is found or he decides to fetch you himself, your life will really be over. Into the wardrobe.”
She approached it slowly, still parsing her confusion. “How will this work? This is giant. Everyone will see it.”
He pushed her in and shut the doors. “The servants will assume that I am stealing Evera’s wardrobe.” The wardrobe rose off the floor and tilted back so that she slid to its back. “They will doubt their eyesight and say nothing because my father is the Black God, and if I decide to steal a wardrobe, I have every right to do so. The end.”
Despite all the terror in her veins, she laughed until her ribs ached. “You have the worst plans of anyone I have ever met.”
“It will work. And shut your mouth. A laughing wardrobe will be more difficult to explain.”
Despite his words, she could hear the amusement in his voice.
When her laughter finally died, she had one more question. “This won’t fool them, will it? If I disappear at the same time that you steal a wardrobe, even the most foolish man in existence could connect the dots.”
Despite his lack of abilities, he was strong. There was no huffing and his hands were steady.
“This is your foolish idea. We’re betting its effectiveness on my father’s indulgence. He won’t pull you out and scream at me in the middle of Evera’s home. Probably. The rest of this foolishness will be your problem.”