Tension clogged the air like smoke from a willow branch fire. It hung thick, singeing the tender bark around the corners of Brittle’s hollow eyes and nose. Across from him, Edvin’s towering shape loomed near the edge of the living room, his shaved head nearly scraping the top of the domed ceiling arched above. Mara stood facing the rear wall, arms crossed and shoulders trembling. Phantom heat waves rippled from the goddess’s hunched body.
Brittle slipped from Sir Thomassin’s grip, his tentative steps carrying him across the room. The knight hissed at Brittle to turn back around, but the orders fell upon deaf ears.
Edvin saw Brittle coming and squatted lower. He extended one burly arm, blocking Brittle’s path. “Thom’s right, Lil Loggo. Stay back. This isn’t on you.”
“And what? Just stand back and watch as nobody does anything to fix it?”
“It melts my black heart that you wanna help, but this isn’t your job to fix.” Edvin’s blazing blue eyes darted over Brittle’s shoulder to the open doorway. Sir Thomassin and Gilly took up most of the entryway, silently pleading with Brittle to listen. “Go home, boyo.”
It was awful tiring getting told what to do all the time. Brittle may not have been full grown, but he’d lasted this long on his own. He didn’t see why he needed to start obeying his elders now, especially when they acted like children more often than he did. Brittle puffed his trunk and stood on his tiptoes, meeting Edvin’s stubborn expression with one of his own. “Mara’s not just my goddess, she’s my friend too. What kind of friend would I be if I just up and left? Abandoned her in her time of need, huh? Is that what a good friend does?”
“That’s noble of you but–”
“No, it’s not.” He couldn’t believe he was having to explain this to an adult. Nay, worse than that. Not an adult, a god. A god who, by all accounts, shouldn’t have needed someone younger than him to point out the painfully obvious. “Wanting to help isn’t noble, it’s basic kindness.”
Edvin forced a weak smile. “Sorry. I can’t let you get any closer.”
“Why not?”
“It’s just…it’s part of her powers, mate. It has unintended consequences, even to those that mean well. No one’s saying you have to stay away. Just come back when she’s had a chance to simmer down.”
“Leave her to suffer alone, you mean?” A memory flashed before his eyes. Brittle remembered the night he returned home to an empty hovel. That was the first time he’d ever truly felt alone. It was like drowning from the inside out – a pain he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy.
Brittle was done listening to people who thought they knew better. He pushed Edvin’s outstretched arm aside and tottered on his way. “You’re not a very good friend, Edvin.”
The Goddess of Ill Fortune stood facing the back of the dome-shaped chamber, arms crossed with her head down. The stale air grew hotter as Brittle neared. “Great Maker?” he said. Mere steps separated them now and, still, the goddess appeared to have not heard. He tried again. “Mara?”
Mara broke from her trance with a snap of her head. The sweltering heat dissipated as she spun around. Her startled gaze swept the room, as if taking it all in for the first time, before settling on Brittle. Mara’s eyes, red-rimmed and filled with tears, went wide. Her tightly folded arms fell uselessly to her sides.
The goddess’s hoarse voice sounded as if it’d caught in her throat. “Brittle?”
“Mama always said it was okay to be sad. But that doesn’t mean you have to do it alone.” Mara didn’t strike Brittle as the hugging type. He reached for her hand instead. Slowly, like one would when trying to coax a butterfly onto their finger.
Mara’s slippered feet instinctively edged further away. “Oh sweetheart, no. You can’t–”
Her warning fell too late. Brittle’s spindly fingers touched her own and a lance of heat surged up his arm and shot straight to his head. Pain swelled within his wooden skull so tight, Brittle feared it was going to burst. The room started to spin. His vision faded in and out, plagued by starbursts of red and orange light. The sparking flashes of color pulsed in time to waves of agony pouring through his brittle bones.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Every hollow within his body felt as if it’d been filled with wet clay. His knees buckled beneath the inexplicable weight. Darkness crept along the edges of his flashing vision as the room spun faster and faster. Brittle could hear muffled voices calling out to him, but they too were lost in the swirl of confusion. The invisible weight pulled him down, down, down, until the floor gave way.
Darkness swallowed him. Brittle fell, hands grasping for something, anything, to slow his descent. There was nothing. Only him and the abyss. He fell, and fell, and fell, dropping for what felt like ages. Just as Brittle feared he would spend the rest of his life in freefall, his plummet slowed to a stop. Tentatively, he searched the space around him until the tips of his toes scraped against something solid. He stepped down onto bumpy, uneven ground, releasing the breath that had caught in his throat.
Brittle twisted his head from side to side, eyes straining against the gloom to make heads or tails of his surroundings. Clouds of darkness, as cold and bitter as winter frost, swept over him. Every now and then the clouds would part, allowing a glimpse of strange, red and orange lights flickering in the distance. Just as Brittle could start to make out where the light was coming from, the darkness would move in again, swallowing it back into the void.
Thick, acrid smoke wafted on the breeze. Brittle choked on it, feeling as if the inside of his throat had been scraped with sandpaper. Strange crackles and pops filled his ears as the air rose in temperature.
Finally, the darkness dissipated and Brittle found himself in a place he’d never been before. A curved iron gate loomed before him, obstructing his path. The ground was even stranger, comprised of worn stones fitted tightly together to form a winding river of rock. The stone pathway stretched beyond the locked gate, snaking up along a hill to the biggest house he’d even seen. Its red clay rooftop extended into to the sky, disappearing beyond the clouds. Red and orange flames danced along the base of the house. Tongues of hungry flames licked upwards, spreading tendrils of fire all the way to the roof. Brittle watched helpless as the fire consumed the rest of the house, burning like a beacon against the dark night sky.
Every instinct screamed at him to run, but his rickety legs refused to obey. Brittle's stomach dropped the moment he looked down. In place of his cork bark feet he saw dirty, threadbare shoes with tiny, round toes poking out along the frayed edges. Terror seized him. Brittle lifted his hands, gobsmacked to find his wooden fingers were covered in soft, fleshy skin.
“Great Maker, what did you do? Where is my bark and my antlers and…” To his horror, Brittle realized even his voice was different.
“A girl?” he squeaked. It was one thing to turn an unsuspecting bog log beast into a human, but to slap him in a ratty dress in the same move was a step too far. “Mara, where are you? What did you do? Turn me back!”
Brittle searched for her amongst the gloom to no avail. The fire atop the hill bathed the winding stone pathway in dancing shades of red and orange. A sea of inky black rippled beyond the road. His current body was not his own and yet Brittle felt every shake and quiver. Fear swelled inside of his rapidly beating chest until it hurt to breathe.
Alone, he realized. He was all alone once again, just like before.
“Mara?” Each word scraped his throat raw. “Mara, what did you do? I want to go back! Turn me back!”
A wall of darkness rose up from beyond the road and crested over the top of him, extinguishing all evidence of smoke and flames. The fall was shorter this time. When Brittle’s feet touched ground again, he found himself in a familiar body, in a familiar room, with a familiar goddess knelt beside him, calling out to him.
“There you are.” Relief washed over Mara’s face when her worried eyes met his. The creases softened around her downturned mouth. “Are you alright?”
“What did you do?”
“I’m sorry, Brittle. You got too close and–”
Brittle scuttled backwards, fear still swelling within his hollow chest. The floor felt solid, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that any second it was going to open back up and swallow him again. “It was you.” Caught in the moment, he hadn’t grasped what it was he’d seen. But now, out of it, he understood what the vision had shown him. “You set fire to that poor girl’s home.”
Mara’s eyebrows lifted in confusion. “What?”
His limbs trembled against his will. “I felt it. I felt everything that poor little girl did, standing there, watching her home burn. Her fear. Her rage.” Tears welled within Brittle’s eyes unsummoned. “You did that.”
Mara sank lower. While her tongue may have failed her, her expression revealed everything. Guilt settled in her sad eyes.
“It’s true then, isn’t it? That’s why Gabor wants you on his side. You act like it's all an accident, but it's not. You knowingly inflict hurt on people.”
The mounting fear and rage proved too much. This time, when every instinct screamed at him to run, Brittle listened. Gilly tried to intercept him at the door but he sprang high over her scaled body and landed hard on the other side, still on his rickety feet somehow. His legs moved the fastest they’d ever run, carrying him down the stone steps and into the dark passage beyond.