Chapter 1 one does not say no to a goddess lightly...

“No,”  the words echoed around the hall, bouncing and sounding again and again, but instead of receding they seemed to grow in volume and strength.

No

No

NO

NO!

At the time I didn't know how profoundly those words could change my life.

One does not say no to a god lightly.

I remember watching as her face twisted in anger, the beauty of it falling to reveal a horrible visage of the ancient twisted thing within.  It was this that doomed me, not the refusal, not the fact that I had no wish to do her bidding again, but the fact that I had seen her in her true form, at her most primal, with all the beauty stripped away.

And for it she damned me.

“I think you forget Ahalfar,”  her mask back in place. “We have a deal with one another, you keep being my champion, I keep rewarding you the world...”  thirteen times, I have lived thirteen times, and in it, I have been the hero, the savior, the conqueror, the golden general and countless other titles.  Each higher than the last, all of them the heroes of the time, written in history books as examples of perfect men. The only life that was not this way was my first, a simple monk, surrounded by peace and searching for enlightenment.

I had found it, much to my current disappointment.

She had asked me if I would use my knowledge to help people, had directed me, had blessed me, and in the end, when I was dying of old age she had asked me if I would be her champion.

I had been a fool.

Surely there is no existence more lonesome than one at the peak.

As a monk, I was able to have my colleges, my peers.

As a champion, not even that was allowed or ever granted.

I had been married many times, but never loved.  It was not love I saw in my wife’s eyes as she looked at me, it was worship.  It is lonesome at the top. Each life I simply wanted someone I could talk to, someone who saw me for who I was, not what I did, each incarnation growing more and more resentful.

More and more envious.

Envious of the people I was supposed to serve and protect, to lead and guide, every one of them had the opportunity to find peers, to find love.

To not be alone.

“Find another to do your dirty work,”  I said the words, turning and walking away.  I didn't know where I was walking to, seeing as there was nothing around, only that I was walking away.  The motion was telling in itself…

I breathed in, the foul taste assailing my mouth and lungs as the air rushed in.  Someone was grasping me by the hair, painfully and the water was running down my face, falling into the basin below me.  In the rippling surface, I could make out my own reflection. The violet eyes, smooth dark skin, pointed knife like ears, I was a Dark elf.

A Dökkálfar.

“Still not willing to confess bitch?”  a voice growled deep and low leaning down over me and the basin.  I could see his reflection in the water as well, his face right next to mine, the ugly twisted nose, the curling horns.  A Droji.

Malen, the Duke’s torturer.

The name came to mind as I stared at the man, this body's past life flashing through my mind at an almost painful speed.  It was always like this, I would awaken all my past memories coming to me, the memory of my refusal to the Goddess Altel, and then the memories of the body I had been reincarnated in. perhaps that was the wrong way of looking at it or thinking of it.  Seeing as I had been the owner of this body since it was born.

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Always a woman, always used and abused in the worse most degrading way possible, and always before my death I would remember and know that this was my punishment, this was the fate of a man who had chosen to refuse the Goddess of life.

Ah, the irony.

“What is so funny you whore?”  Malen growled next to my ear, his hands tightening in my hair, pulling it harder I hadn't even noticed I was chuckling.

“I was just remembering the Duke’s death,”  I smile, blood leaking out of the corner of my mouth to fall into the already pink basin.  I watched fascinated as the blood turned into a cloud dispersing slowly like a fog burned off by the sun. “The way he pleaded, the way he screamed as I stabbed him again and again and again.”

This bodies name was Orasi, long ago, many many deaths before I had decided to separate my life from that of the bodies that carried me before my awakening.  This distancing allowed me to put the life in a perspective, made it feel like it was something that had happened to someone else.

I was not sold by my parents at the age of seven, I was not raped repeatedly from my tenth birthday up to now by the Duke.  I had not become pregnant, only to have the Duke beat me within an inch of my life, causing me to lose my child.

That was Orasi’s.

And neither the pain nor the joy she felt when she had killed the man was mine either.  I had not won his graces back, I had not butchered him, stabbing him for hours and hours on end from one evening to the next morning, leaving nothing more than a bloody mess that could barely be recognizable as a man.

And I did not pray to the Goddess.

Never that.

“You fucking bitch!” Malen growled, slamming my head against the metal basin’s side and as my mouth was open to cry out he slipped me back under the water.

I will not beg.

I will not cry.

This is not the worst death I have had.

As he pulled me back up he threw me against the back wall, the hands bound behind me were of no help as I slammed against the cold bricks of the cell, my head bouncing twice as it impacted.  The arms behind my back twisting at a strange angle as I tried in vain to arrest my fall.

“That is enough Malen,”  a voice said, and both Malen and I looked up to see a Droji man standing looking through the cell bars at the both of us.  “I don’t recall giving you permission to interrogate our prisoner,” he was a tall man, clad in black iron armor trimmed in gold, the sigil of the house, a two-headed dragon emblazoned on the front of the chest.  His long black hair hanging loose behind him.

“Jaltan, this bitch-”

“Is not your concern, and should I find you down here again I will personally see to it that you share her fate,”  Jaltan growled the words.

“Fine, but you and I both know you just want to fuck her-”  Malen spat at me, the disgusting glob landing on my face. “Not that I wouldn't mind it myself-”

“OUT.”  Jaltan didn't say the words loudly, but they held a command in his voice, one that Malen followed.  Jaltan looked at me once, and just like that he turned on his heels and left.

Alone in the dark, I cannot help but chuckle to myself.  So many lives, so many deaths, because I had said a single word.

No.

Apparently, one does not refuse a god lightly…

***

It was done, finally done.

My magnum opus.

The spell that would set me free.

Each incarnation I spent all the effort I could between my awakening and my death to carve my soul, each moment of life I pushed myself to carve more and more of the spell into my very soul.  The soul is the only thing I take with me when I die, the only thing that stays with me. And finally I have it, it is done.

This is the only way to free me of the curse she has laid on me.

It will mean losing most of my memories, most of my personality, but I cannot risk losing my hatred, so I carved that into my soul as well, the hate, the reason for it, and the few moments of my lives that are worth keeping.  

I look up at all the people come to see my execution.  I can see the torturer sharpening his blades, the thin knifes coated in salt and inferis venom, designed to burn as they slid into my flesh.  For this, they have decided to shame me as well as hurt me as much as possible. I even heard some of the guards talk about the gambling ring they set up to see how long before I cry out.

Someone even bet that I would never cry out, he would likely make quite a small fortune today.

I choose to not see the guards, the crowds, the duke’s wife.

No, I look at her, it is amusing, her attempt to look sad, clearly, she used drops of water to smear her makeup, the only issue is her eyes are not bloodshot, not puffy.

She didn't cry.

Can't blame her…

After that I let the memories take me as they march me forward, one guard on either side and one behind, as they parade me out naked in front of the entire crowd. I choose to sink into the memory, ignoring the hungry eyes of the men in the crowd as they look over my body.  I remember this old man, long ago locked in a cell for some crime forgotten even to the guard captain, Olan was his name.

The filthy man was wearing rags, long rat nested hair covering most of his face as he sat there unmoving in the cell, beard hanging down to mid sternum.  The guard had thrown me into the cell after having used me, I remember sitting there, curled up in a ball, crying, tears sliding silently down my face, body shaking with each sob.  Covered in dirt, blood, and other fluids I didn't want to think about.

Just wanting to die.

He had reached through the bars, pulled me over and wrapped an arm around my shoulder, rocking me back and forth, a dirty hand caressing my hair, his old threadbare blanket wrapped tight around my body as he spoke of anything and everything.

His family, the sun, the sky, and how the next life would be better.

Olan the saint.

I blinked away the tear that filled my eyes with the memory and realized I was now strapped into the leather harness, limbs splayed with the masked man before me.

This was going to hurt like hell.

The first blade slit in, fire spreading through my thigh as my nerves told my brain something was wrong.  The poison on the blade and the salt making it burn even more, I refused to scream, I will not be defeated so easily.  The second one was in my calf on my left leg, the blade sheathed there in my flesh, the blood running down my leg in thick red fingers, painting rivers on my dark skin. I smile as I feel the third blade sliding into my arm.

Each blade brings me closer.

Each one brings me to my Valediction,  I will say goodbye to this world, to this goddess’s curse. The spell itself was a complex thing, my own version of a soul rend, with the conditions set to be activated on my death.  It will rip my soul apart, shredding it and then piecing it back together, making it so unrecognizable that even the goddess wouldn't know who I am.

It took 27 blades to release me, not once did I utter a sound, not even a moan. I’m absolutely positive that guard is extremely  rich now…