Gabor stumbled backwards, wrestling the flailing swamp monitor that clawed and slashed at his chest. Gilly’s mighty tail whipped back and forth as she threw her cavernous maw wide open and sank her needled teeth into the god’s shoulder. The crumbling walls trembled beneath Gabor’s scream as the sound bounced along the inside of the burning wood mill. He backed out of the open doorway and fell against a wooden pillar, snapping it from its base. The roof creaked overhead as the ceiling sagged closer.
“Away with you, foul beast!” Gabor ripped Gilly from his shoulder and threw her to the floor.
Gilly jumped back onto all fours and lunged, teeth bared as her dewlap rattled a warning. She mistimed her jump and her mighty jaws snapped together, missing Gabor’s leg by a hair's breadth. The god brought his foot down on her with a stomach-churning crunch.
“Gilly!” Brittle screamed over the lizard’s howl of pain. He darted forward without thinking, intent on saving her, when a hand reached out and caught his leg.
“Don’t,” Sir Thomassin rasped. The knight looked like a limp ragdoll strewn haphazardly across the floor. His words may have been directed at Brittle, but his bloodshot eyes never left Gabor.
Assured Gilly would not be making a third attack, the God of Champions stood back to catch his breath, broad chest heaving with exertion. His tunic was ripped along the right shoulder, exposing the flesh underneath. Long, raised pink and red scratches marred his skin. Gilly’s teeth had left a deep semi-circle wound where her conical teeth pierced his flesh. Dark blood spilled freely from the grisly puncture holes.
Confused, Gabor pressed a hand to his shoulder and then held it to his face. A flicker of shock chased some of the fury from his curled expression. He stared at his blood painted fingertips in utter disbelief. Finally, broken from the spell, the god’s golden eyes swept from his hand to Gilly and narrowed in suspicion. “Impossible.”
Gilly’s pebbled, pink and orange sides heaved in and out as she struggled to her feet. She backed away with a limp, keeping her angular head pointed in Gabor’s direction as she placed herself between Gabor and the others.
“You.” Gabor’s heated stare darted past Gilly and settled on Brittle. His venomous words escaped between tightly clenched teeth. “I see what you are now. Not just an abomination to the natural order, but to the gods themselves. No wonder she fought so hard to protect you.”
Gabor raised his hands, summoning the flames higher as his powers built for the final blow, when the sagging ceiling above him gave way. It buried Gabor under a pile of wood and rubble, kicking up another thick cloud of ash and dust.
Amidst the sweltering heat, Brittle felt a cool, icy mist stir around his ankles. The frost picked up on a wind that had been there before. The moisture soaked deep into his brittle bark, extinguishing the burn. Brittle lifted his head and watched in awe as great waves of crystallized air spiraled upwards, extinguishing the fires that gnawed at the black-stained walls. A robed figure emerged from the back of the mill, partially obscured by the caustic swirl of smoke and frost.
“Where have you been?” Sir Thomassin demanded, his expression a mix of terror and relief.
From the tight look on her face, Mara was resisting the sudden urge to roll her eyes. “My portal dropped me outside and the door was locked, okay? Now hush, you’re spoiling my dramatic entry.”
Sir Thomassin gazed up at what remained of the ceiling, as if pleading with it to fall on top of him.
The Goddess of Ill Fortune strode barefoot across the upturned floorboards, her singed yellow robe billowing majestically in her wake. Each footstep burned an icy imprint in the thick layer of ash and debris that littered the floor. “My only regret,” Mara said, dark irises blazing as she focused her heated stare on the shifting pile of rubble across from them, “is that I couldn’t come up with anything witty to say on the way over.”
Brittle’s hand shot into the air. “This ends now?”
Mara’s mouth pulled to the side at the suggestion. “A little banal, don’t you think?”
“I’d like for this to end now,” Sir Thomassin said through the gaps in the fingers currently slamming against his face.
“Fine.” Mara stopped alongside them and angled her hands at the smoldering mound of fallen ceiling. “This ends now.”
Gabor’s hearty laughter filled the room as he stood. Bits of wood and rubble cascaded from his broad shoulders like water spilling from a cliffside. The rickety walls trembled in protest as the god stepped free of the debris, still laughing. “Ends now?” he repeated, wiping a finger under his eye as if to clear away an invisible tear. “Be realistic, Mara. This will never end. Not until you stop denying what I made you to be.”
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Mara’s foot slammed against the floor, causing another portion of ceiling to collapse in on itself further down. She likely didn’t notice. “I’m not a weapon!”
“Not yet you’re not,” Gabor agreed calmly.
“Stay close,” Mara whispered to the trio huddled at her feet. She formed her fingers in the command for a portal and wriggled them. A circle expanded around them, its edges flickering like burnt paper. The ring held solid for only a moment before sputtering out. “No!” Mara cursed, reforming the shape with her fingers again and again to no avail. Her voice strained with desperation. “No, no, no.”
“A shame,” Gabor crooned as he stepped closer. “Or shall I say, how unfortunate?”
Mara gave up trying to form the portal. She threw her hands out from her sides instead. “Why are you doing this?”
“Don’t make me repeat myself, my dear. I already told you what I want. This whole charade can be over the moment you give it to me.”
“Never,” Mara hissed. “I will never bend to your will ever again. You tricked me as a child. But a child I am no more.”
“Unbelievable.” Gabor rolled his head back with a groan. “You have so much potential and you squander it! Do you realize how infuriating that is to watch? Why can’t the things I create simply do as I tell them to?”
Head still rolled back, Gabor made a flippant twist of his fingers. A miniature portal opened beneath Brittle’s feet and swallowed him. Brittle fell with a scream only to slam onto the ground a split second later. Black and white flashes of light dotted his dazed vision as he tried to get a better grasp of his surroundings. Brittle’s heart dropped when he realized Mara, Gilly, and Sir Thomassin stood across from him, their expressions twisted in terror.
A heavy hand seized his shoulder, sending sparks of pain down Brittle’s right arm. He tried to twist out of Gabor’s grip. “Let go!”
“Brittle!” Mara lurched forward, power swelling behind her in a wave of ice
“Pity.” Gabor’s voice was eerily calm in comparison. Power flooded down the god’s hand, stilling futile Brittle’s struggling. “I really do hate having to take everything from you again. But it’s the only way you humans ever learn.”
Searing pain erupted beneath Brittle’s bark. Crackling fire surged through every hollow bone, igniting him from the inside. A scream caught in his throat. He looked down, watching in horror as hairline cracks splintered across his trunk. Shafts of pale, emerald light poured forth from his body as the fissures split further apart.
A wave of frost bowled into them, blustering Gabor several steps backwards. Brittle remained rooted to the spot, unable to move. The bitter cold stung his face. It froze the tears that slipped from his hollow eyes as the scorching flames within turned his heartwood to ash. His wee legs gave out and, slowly, he sank to the floor. Brittle’s vision clouded, growing fainter along the edges. A single focus of light glowed against the growing shadows.
Mara, his fading mind realized, looking more frightening than he’d ever seen her before. Tendrils of gold and yellow lifted from the goddess’s body as she moved over him. Black tears streamed from her dark eyes, interweaving amongst the tangle of raw gold and yellow power coiling in the air around her.
The words flowed like silk from Mara’s tongue. “Mind, memory, and scroll, from all mortals I hereby erase any trace of Gabor. From this moment forward, the God of Champions exists no more.”
The room went dark. Brittle screamed as pinpoints of light flashed within his head, burning his memories to ash. When the dust settled and the stabbing pain behind his eyes had eased to a dull throb, he awoke cradled within his goddess’s arms. “Hold on for me, little bog log beast,” she wept as her tears fell from her face and struck his charred bark. Each teardrop felt like a hot cinder against his tortured hide. “You can’t go yet. I won’t let you.”
“Mara?” The name rasped against Brittle’s throat.
“I’m here,” she whispered, voice shuddering.
He wanted to tell her he was sorry. That this was one time he wouldn’t be able to make her proud, but the hurt was too much. Brittle’s tongue failed him, unable to form the words fading from his darkening mind. Little by little, he felt the warmth fade from his brittle bones.
Mara hugged him tighter. “I’ll make it all better, I promise. Just stay with me.”
The edges of his vision blurred as the darkness enveloped him. Desperate, Brittle searched for the others, but the shadows were already too thick to see anything beyond Mara’s fading face.
The goddess’s voice sounded distant. “No, no, no, don’t go. You can fight it. I know you can.”
Brittle startled to tremble. The agony coursing through his hollow bones faded as Mara’s tear-stricken face was replaced by shadow. He slipped deeper into the dark, senses seeping from the cracks within his broken body. He whimpered in fright as the dimming green glow within his warped heartwood flickered out. Brittle felt like an empty husk, adrift on the midnight tide.
It was for real this time, he realized. Having braved unimaginable perils through and through, his wandering had come to an end at last. But he didn’t want it. And he didn’t feel proud. Death was worse than growing up and getting a job to pay for the home he couldn’t afford. It was worse than feeling the weight of the world steal his innocence. Because now, for the first and last time, there was nothing left to steal.
As Brittle took his last shaky breath, drifting deeper into the inky black, his final memory was of Mara. And how the goddess had told him she’d never met anyone as good as him before. Brittle only hoped that when she realized he wasn’t coming back, she wouldn’t let her own good die with him too.