“What do you mean, that is Donum?” the voice questioned.

I had no idea who she was talking to. I could not hear a thing other than her.

“He doesn’t look anything like him!” she shouted, her voice reverberating like a clap of thunder. Abruptly, I felt my stomach being gripped by what felt like the largest pair of rubber pincers known to man which then proceeded to jiggle me. “Look! Look at this! This is not my Donum!”

“Hey, easy now!” I shouted finally as I tried to wrench my gut from her grasp. My voice sounded about like the puniest bottle rocket ever when compared to the nuclear fire that had been sounding around me. “Maybe I am not who you were expecting, but there is no need to be insulting about things!”

Besides, I had lost a lot of weight recently, and maybe I was no runway model, but still! I had my pride!

“Oh~! This one has a bit of spine, anyway,” the voice said, seemingly amused. I sensed her gaze intensifying. I do not know how. There was nothing to see. I had been in caves with more ambient light than this place. More quietly now, perhaps for my benefit, she asked, “Tell me, little mortal. They keep insisting that you are Donum. Is it true? Is that your name?”

“Well, I am certainly a Donum,” I answered. “But I cannot say whether I am the one you were looking for. Maybe ‘they’ made a mistake?”

She did not reply for a moment, as if my answer had flummoxed her in some way. “What a curious thing to say.”

This conversation was beyond disorienting, and the lack of light was not helping things. Her voice just now had sounded as if we were suddenly fields apart, and it kept moving about. Sometimes it would be directly by my face, and then it would just be elsewhere. Leagues away. With no rush of air nor any other sense that she had moved.

Her voice came again, approaching me rapidly, “Are you perhaps trying to lie to me? Is that it? Surely you must know that you will fail?”

“I— What?” I blinked in confusion, unnerved by what had sounded like a freight car headed right for me. “Look, my name is Donum, okay?”

There was another pause. And when she finally spoke again, there was a faint hint of uncertainty in her voice, “But… But that cannot be! You cannot be Donum! I remember every whisker of him! Every line! Every… You… You cannot…”

The voice drifted off for half a breath before I was suddenly grabbed by what felt like King Kong’s mitt and hauled upward. Rapidly, I felt her presence intensifying yet again, this time far greater than it had ever been, and a fantastic wind blasted the side of my face three times in quick succession.

“Ha~!” the voice breathed, moaning in delight. If, that is, you could call whale song being screeched out right next to your ear ‘moaning’. “I would recognize that scent anywhere! It is you. At last, I have you!” She giggled in girlish delight for a moment before prodding at me with her gigantic fingers, “But what has happened to you? Have you been maimed? Transformed in some way?” There was a sound, something like a worried little grunt, except that nothing that this woman did was ‘little’. “Maybe… Maybe she didn’t get my message?”

There was another gust of wind, but less intense this time. As if she were only sniffing at me to comfort herself. “Wait…” She inhaled twice more in quick succession. “You reek of…” And then she growled. It was a low bass rumble, and if she had been anything other than a giant, it would have been simply menacing. As it was, she might as well have been Jörmungandr, the world serpent, about to unleash the Ragnarok.

Abruptly, I was released, and for a moment, I flailed in panic. However, there was no sensation of falling. I just hung there. Wherever I was.

“Who… DAAAAAAARES!?”

The shockwave of her voice slammed against me, and I went tumbling wildly through the nothing. My ears rang from it, and I felt sick. As if from a concussion.

“Who dares!? Who dares take that which I have claimed! What fool has sought the end of their pathetic fucking existence so boldly!? I shall not endure this affront! This stain upon my dignity! It was known!” Reality itself seemed to buckle with her rage. “It was known! I made sure of it! For a thousand thousand years, your suffering will serve as an example! A ballad! A parable on the very nature of agony! Come forward! You will—”

She went silent of a sudden, and then I heard her bellow as if in confusion, “What!?”

I had no idea what she had just reacted to, but I was extremely grateful for it. I was quaking in terror by that point, curled up into a ball and desperately holding my ears closed in a vain attempt at preserving my hearing.

“You cannot be serious,” she said after a moment, her voice much subdued. Out of nowhere, her hand closed around me yet again, and I was pulled close, “Tell me, little mortal, is this true?”

“Is… Is what true?” I stammered, still shaking.

There was a moment of silence as I felt that gaze peering intently at me yet again followed by a short gasp, “Oh, dear… I seem to have done you injury!”

Words came, then. Of the magical kind. I knew their sound well, and while I had never heard most of these, there were a few that seemed familiar. Suddenly, there was something like a pop! And I was whole again. Completely unharmed. My pain gone as if it had never been.

“There. That’s better,” the voice cooed. But this time, it sounded as if from a normal sized person speaking right next to me. “So…” her voice began to circle me, as if pondering something. “You have taken a lilim as your concubine? How very bold. Especially when you have yet to fulfill your offering.”

The words were spoken lightly, baiting me, however I was far too terrified to begin to think rationally about it. So, all I managed to squeak out was, “U-uhm? O-offering?”

She might have been smaller now, but I could still feel her eyes on me. They were locked on me now, and slowly, she approached. “Yes. Your offering. To me. Which I accepted. That offering.”

Desperately, I racked my brains for any hint of what she might be talking about, but I was coming up completely empty. Except… well, there was that incident with the sheep. I seemed to recall it mentioning something about an offering, but I certainly had not promised anything to it. I had not even spoken to it save for screaming my head off. Really, I did not even like thinking about the incident. Especially now.

“Uh… I-I don’t…” I stammered. Swallowing down my fear, I tried again, “Maybe… Uh… Maybe it would help if you told me who you are?”

There was a long beat of silence following my question. And then suddenly, the void rang with the sweet tinkling of her laugher. “By the Words! You don’t know?” She gasped, “Oh, but you never knew! I forgot to tell you in the commotion. You offered yourself to me, and you didn’t even know who I was!” She clapped her hands together excitedly before rushing forward to sweep me into a hug, “Oh, I knew there was something special about you!”

The sudden contact with her body brought to the forefront a few very important details. One, she was every bit as naked as I was. And two, despite having absolutely no clue as to what she looked like, this might have been the single most attractive woman I had ever conceived of. She was so… incredibly soft. And her… and her… My brain seized up in even trying to come to grips with what I was feeling pressed against my chest.

And though I struggled to even breathe, such was my shock, my anatomy knew exactly what it wanted, and it rose, diamond hard, despite my railing against it. Such a thing could not be. She was too attractive. So far out of my league that it was a sick joke to even think of acting on it. Moreover, she might as well have been Cthulhu given feminine form, for all that I could consider her a viable sexual partner.

In an attempt to think of literally anything else, I tried to concentrate on what she had just said, and my face twisted into what I could only imagine was a look of total and utter bewilderment. I had offered myself to her? When? How? Had I been drunk? And what did she mean by that? Some kind of… pledge?

“Oh~! Ready to start already, are we? Well, I don’t see…” she paused. And I felt that gaze again, “You still don’t remember?!”

Suddenly her hands gripped the sides of my face, and she pulled me downward. “How can you not? You laid me down on the sand in the cave by the waterfall? That sweet kiss?” She paused expectantly.

I swallowed. Watcher’s black eyes… Was she being serious right now? How could I not remember this? “Uhm…?”

“Nothing?” she exclaimed. “Not even Carl?! That ridiculous furry man that was chasing us? He spoke in those awful rhymes!”

I was getting more confused by the minute, impossible as that might sound, “Are you sure you’re not confusing me with someone else?” Or were high…

“You must remember!” she said urgently. “I even made you that Gurruff as a present!”

I blinked rapidly. “You made me… a what now?”

She growled in frustration, “Oh, you must have seen it. I made sure that it was placed to guard your exit. Don’t you even remember that?” She pulled me even closer and began to mutter, “Have I damaged you more than I realized? But no… my spell would have…”

“Wait…” I pulled back. Or I tried to. There was no give, whatsoever, to her fingers. “The giraffe, you mean? That thing?”

“Oh, so you do remember!” she sighed in relief and released me. “Did you like it? I have to admit, I thought it sounded ridiculous when you described it to me, what with that neck? But… I thought it came out pretty well, all the same.”

“Well… yeah… apart from the teeth, it was pretty accurate…” I gave my head a quick shake, slapping my palms to the sides of my head. What the fuck was this conversation? “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait… Are you saying that you are the Shepherdess?!”

She clicked her tongue in distaste, “Such a vulgar mortal term. Still, I cannot fault you for your ignorance.” Sucking in a breath, she addressed me in a more formal tone that rang ever so slightly, as if we were in a great hall, “In the future, you shall refer to us as Ahnbe, or if you must, then the Third Child.”

“Okay, but…” I paused and took a hesitant step backward, slightly rattled at having my own voice sound so totally flat in contrast. “You are the person… the goddess… who makes all of the monsters, right?”

“Monsters…” she scoffed. “Yes, I suppose from your perspective, that would be the case. Mortal kind have never fully grasped the Purpose. But never mind! We haven’t the time for your questions. First you will tell me the name of the lilim that has besmirched my honor, and then I will formally accept your offering.”

“U-uhm…” I swallowed. I had been on the back foot of this conversation for some time, but even so, I was more than a little hesitant than to give up Jax or Arx to her… But wait…

The lilim?

“That was not a request,” she spoke into the ensuing silence, her voice hard. “You will tell me her name, or I will force you. And that would annoy me. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

No. No, I very much did not. Still… “You’re not going to hurt… her… right?”

I was not about to volunteer any information that I did not have to. If she did not know about Arx, then I certainly was not going to fill her in. As for Jax… well, I would do what I could, but this was a goddess I was speaking to. At best, all I could do was beg for mercy. Even if this was the wrong deity to ask for that sort of thing.

“Of course, I’m going to hurt her,” she replied, almost off-hand. “I made it very clear that I had claimed you. She could not have acted in ignorance. For that affront, I would smash her into atoms, if I could. Now. What is her name?”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

I licked my lips, my mouth suddenly very dry, “Well… now… hold on.” The thought of her doing that to Jax… my Jax… I took a steadying breath. There was something wrong here. How could Jax have known… whatever it was she was supposed to know? There had to be some misunderstanding, but how was I to convey that without being insulting? Placatingly, I held up my hands, “I think it’s doubtful that—”

Before I could finish my explanation, her focus abruptly intensified beyond anything I had felt before, “Speak!”

The command hit me like a blow, and before I even realized it, the name was already in the air. “Jax! Her name is Jax.” My teeth clicked together as soon as the words had left me, and I stood, trembling at the forced betrayal.

Fuck! No! What have I done?

However, there were no pleased murmurs of her intended revenge, nor self-satisfied gloating, nor anything like that. Instead, there was only a long beat of silence.

“Bullshit!” her voice thundered and echoed weirdly into the non-distance. “There is no such lilim! Do you think that I would not know the names of each and every one of them? That I would not see such an obvious lie for what it is?”

Her anger washed over me like the flames of a raging brushfire, and I curled up, trembling in an instinctual yet vain attempt at protecting myself from it. However, as quickly as it burned, it just as quickly vanished, and I was left gasping in confusion.

“Wait a moment…” she muttered. I heard her stalking toward me again, and I curled up even tighter. “That cannot be. You cannot have lied to me… unless… Have you been ensorcelled somehow?” She growled, “Of course… if she dared cross me, then she would have taken precau—.”

Whatever unseen presence was out there must have interrupted her again, because she suddenly started yelling, “What!? What now? Do you not see that I am busy?”

I blinked rapidly, left in bewilderment at her shift in attention. However, it gave me the time I needed to try to calm myself, and taking a steadying breath, I straightened myself out. Tentatively, I ventured, “Uh… Who are you talking to?”

“My servants, of course!” she barked. “Can you not—?” There was a snapping noise right in front of my face, and I jerked back, “He is blind! Why is he blind?”

The unseen servant must have said something else because she started chuckling, “Oh… right. Good thinking. No, that wouldn’t do at all!” Her hand landed on my chest, “My apologies, Donum. It has been a very long time since I have done this. I seem to have forgotten many things.”

“Don’t mention it,” I murmured faintly, scratching at my head. I had so many questions and fear tumbling through my mind at that point that I could hardly think. It felt as if my brains had been unceremoniously dunked into the toilet for a swirly. Nevertheless, there was one thing that I really needed to get sorted out, “Look, I don’t understand what is going on, but I can assure you that Jax had absolutely no way of knowing—”

“Yes, yes, Gia was just explaining that before I dismissed her,” she cut me off. “You needn’t worry yourself over… whatever this creature you have created is. She wouldn’t have… well, no matter. You wouldn’t know anything about that. Still… this vexes me.”

Slowly, her hand began to trace its way around me as she paced in circles, and very softly, she began muttering to herself. I only caught snippets. Mentions of ‘her’ and ‘games’ and the like. However, after a single circuit, she sighed. “I haven’t the time for this now. You must complete your offering, and then I must send you on your way. The Purpose cannot be delayed for long.”

That was the second time she had mentioned that. “The Purpose? What is that?”

“Never mind!” she rumbled. “It isn’t a thing that mortals need to concern themselves with. Especially ones as weak as you. Now. Kiss me.”

I sucked in a breath, shocked. Apparently, the murky waters of confusion had depths that I had yet to plumb. “Excuse me?”

“You must complete your offering, and I need to get in the mood,” she explained. “So, kiss me.”

“Are you—?” I stopped myself. It would not do to call a goddess insane. Especially this one. Some tact was required here, if that was even possible. “I mean… surely I’m not… worthy. Right? Why would you want someone… weak?” Then I jiggled the little belly fat I had at her. “And I’m… deformed! You said so yourself.”

She sniffed. “I will decide who is worthy of me and who is not. As to your… issues. These things can be fixed. Now. Twice I have said to kiss me. Twice you have delayed. I am becoming annoyed with you, Donum.”

I grimaced. Fuck… Jax is going to freak. “Look, I’m not trying to… offend you or anything. I just don’t want to… disappoint you is all. I mean… you’re the Third Child! And I’m just some mort—”

“I am well aware of this,” she interrupted shortly. “You should know, I would be most insulted were you to ever consider rescinding your offering. I’m sure you would not be so foolish as that?”

I swallowed. I was treading on some very thin ice here. Still, I had to make one last effort. “But why? Why do you want me?”

She growled then. I felt my ribcage vibrate in response to that low menacing sound, and I struggled not to whimper. “You have a great deal of courage, little mortal. I will give you that. It was you who seduced me, lest you forget. You who spoke sonnets to my beauty. You have already taken my lips. And now I mean to take yours!”

Any further thoughts of protest died the moment her lips found mine. I could not think of anything anymore. My universe had shrunk to the sensation of that pillowy softness pressed against me. That slight bit of moistness, hungrily seeking to connect with me. And when her tongue invaded my mouth… And her hands began to rove about me…

I knew only white.

There was the sound of fingers snapping, and I jumped, startled. “What? What happened?”

Ahnbe sighed from somewhere in the darkness, “I fear I must apologize, mortal. I may have been… too hasty in pursuing this. You are not yet ready for such things.”

“But… But I don’t… What happened, though?” I asked, haltingly. Rubbing the heels of my palms into my eyes, I gave my head a rough shake. “I don’t remember anything after you started to kiss me.”

“Yes,” she replied softly. “We had hoped that robbing you of your vision would be enough, but it would seem that even the simple touch of divine flesh is too much. I am afraid that your mind shattered during our coupling, and I had to wipe the memory of it from you.”

My jaw slowly dropped open. My mind had done what now? What did that mean? Had I gone insane? Turned into some gibbering idiot? Just from her…? I shook my head. “Um… I’m sorry? I guess I don’t… Why would that happen?”

I felt her eyes upon me once again. She was studying me. For what, I did not know, however eventually, she murmured, “Though I am not worshiped by the kinds, I am yet a goddess, ancient and powerful. As such, my attributes are far beyond your own. You simply do not have the ability to withstand me. That is all.”

I nodded once, slowly. That had not been much of an explanation, but then, I was pretty sure that she had not meant it to be one. More of a brush-off. “Um… how long, uh… Or rather… Did I…?” I stammered, gesturing vaguely in front of me.

“Considering your mental state? Too long,” she answered, somehow intuiting my question. And then, more quietly, as if to herself, she added, “Yet not nearly long enough.”

I sucked in a breath through my teeth, cringing internally. Shit…

I was… terrified of this woman. And pissed off. And humiliated. And… and a lot of other things. Too many to come to grips with all in a single moment. And yet… yet still. I could hear the sadness in her voice.

For whatever reason, this… being had wanted me. I had seduced her, she had said, though I had no idea when that could have been. And she had acted on it. Fantastically inappropriately, yes. But there had been a certain… innocence to it. A clumsiness. As if the simple act of interacting with a mortal was beyond her. But because of her arrogance—and what else could I expect from a goddess—she had been unwilling to admit to any of it, and just barreled through.

So, now here we were. Sitting, like a couple of awkward teenagers, in her parent’s car after the world’s shortest hand job.

“Out of curiosity,” I began before pausing. What the hell is wrong with me? I should just politely bow out and try to pretend this never happened. Making a face, I shook my head in consternation. “Out of curiosity,” I began again, “What would I need to do in order to… withstand you?”

Her scrutiny intensified at my question. “Out of curiosity?” she repeated, and slowly, her presence intensified. “Nothing more?”

“Well,” I swallowed, studying the floor. Or I tried to. I was still blind, after all. “It’s just… I feel as if I’ve… disappointed you… as I feared I might, and you seemed…” Oh, boy. Don’t say it, Donum. Think of something else… “lonely?”

I winced. That was not any better.

There was a very long stretch of silence following that last hesitant word. I had no idea what she was thinking, but that presence—that gaze—did not leave me for an instant. Finally, she spoke, so quietly that I had to strain to hear her, “You are extraordinarily lucky, mortal, that I had dismissed my servants before you spoke those words. Had they heard, my pride would have demanded your death.” I felt a breeze gently brush against my cheek, and I froze as her voice came as a whispered thing just next to my ear, “Very lucky. Still—and you will never repeat this on your life—you are not wrong. I have not taken a lover in many… many long years. Generations of mortal kind have come and gone since the last. That you would seek my company, for whatever reason, brings some cheer to my heart.”

Almost imperceptibly, I felt her breath touch on my hair, as if she were scenting me again, and when she continued to speak, her voice carried with it a faint tremble, “And that you would seek to make yourself worthy of me… after all this? Hah~ Despite myself, I feel the fire in my loins rekindle at your words.”

I held perfectly still, though it took some effort. I knew on an instinctual level just how beautiful this woman likely was. So beautiful that even her touch had broken me. I could not risk a second brush with that yawning void of madness, but when a woman talks to you like that…?

“So… what do I need to do?” I whispered back, trying very hard not to sound like a gibbering idiot.

“I wonder…” she murmured, her lips so close that I could feel the heat of her breath upon my skin. “The Purpose will not allow me to simply grant you what I desire… However, perhaps… yes, I think that would do.”

After that, her presence receded rapidly, and I again felt what it was like to not have the pressure of her gaze upon me. It was a relief to be sure, yet there was an emptiness that came with it. Like I had been lessened in some way by the absence.

Words came then. A great many of them. Whatever spell she was weaving must have been extremely complex, because I soon lost track of the number of syllables that she had uttered. However, when it came to an end, there was a sudden light, golden in color and brilliant as the sun. Reflexively, I raised my hands to shield my eyes from it. Whatever it was emanating from, it seemed to be oblong. Almost like a finger, though it was so bright that I could not make out any details. Which was probably for the best.

Her voice came again, “Hold still.”

“What?!” I exclaimed, suddenly extremely nervous. However, before I could really consider the implications, that golden finger dipped down, and shot toward me like an arrow. I attempted to catch it, ward it away somehow, but its speed was far too great. Slipping between my fingers, it slammed into my gut just below my sternum, pushing the breath out of me in a weak little puff.

Again, she spoke. Yet this time, her words were accompanied by something else. Something very familiar.

Hear me, mortal, and rejoice!

For I have granted thee mine boon.

Yet for such, there needs come a price.

To Satisfy Me, thine need is Strength.

Yet Strength alone wouldst leave thee vulnerable.

To Withstand Me, thine need is Toughness.

Yet Toughness alone leaves thine mind as a naked thing.

First, set thine errand to Look upon Me.

And for that, thine need is Wisdom.

Gain ye these things ere I set mine eyes upon thee again, and in return,

thine flesh shall be molded, that mine eyes might rejoice in it.

With that, her hand withdrew, and I could breathe again. Frantically, I felt at where she had stabbed me, but I found no sign of injury. There was only the memory of that impalement, fading now as if it had never been.

Taking a few deep breaths, I sought to calm myself by reading the words still emblazoned before me. I had many questions, but first and foremost, I needed to know, “What is this about a price?”

“It is three-fold,” she replied, again right by my ear, and I jerked away before I could stop myself. Chuckling at my discomfiture, she said, “The first you will discover on your own, I have no doubt. As for the second… I am not a patient goddess. I have never had the need for it, so the idea that I may not have what I seek… eats at me. Like a worm. And now that you carry my boon, I will know exactly where to are. No matter where you might go. Or where you might hide. So, it is very likely that I may… stop in to check on your progress. At any time. At my discretion.”

“And the third?” I asked, swallowing nervously.

“For the third, I really must apologize,” she explained in a very faint whisper. For all that we were apparently alone, some things were not to be said so that others might overhear, “But as it happens, I don’t actually know how much of any of those things you will end up needing. So I may end up… experimenting. And accidentally killing you.”

I let out my breath in a wheeze, “Yes, well… let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Indeed,” she replied lightly. “That would be most upsetting. I might become rather cross with you were that to happen. Now. Away with you.”

At those words, a light suddenly began to shine from behind me. It was a brilliant and quite familiar light, and even as I turned to look, it rapidly irised outward, as though approaching on a rail. Or I was falling toward it.

Of course then, it finally occurred to me that I was in the presence of a literal deity. There were only about a million questions I needed to ask, not the least of which was why the fuck I was even here!

However, before I could open my mouth, her voice came again, reverberating through the receding void, “Go now, mortal. The Purpose comes for thee. Speakest thou mine name if thou hast the need, yet do not tempt mine anger. I will be watching.”

As the echos of her voice faded, the blackness fled with it. Then there was only the light.

Then came the Word.

Then I began to scream.