All Delnia had to do was lead out the goat, and try not to think of black wings.
It should have been easy. On a day like this, perhaps it would be. Scents of wildflowers and cooking venison in the air, sunlight trickling down through the boughs of the holy pine to warm the summer morning. Song and laughter from the gathered crowd. Delnia couldn’t see them from the side room of the grand temple she waited in, but she knew dozens of people were out there, filling the pews. Today should be- no, it would be a good day. It was a wedding, after all. She’d helped the bride prepare earlier, the woman resplendent in a trailing sapphire dress in thanks to Beiduras, Goddess of Love and Healing.
Exhaling hard, Delnia smoothed out her robes- also blue in Beiduras’s honour. As an acolyte of the Goddess, her small part in the ceremony to come would be no less important. She fidgeted with her necklace, bearing her deity’s interlocking pyramids. Beside her, the goat snuffled at the floor, eating stray petals which had fallen as other acolytes brought flowers through earlier.
Delnia moved onto fussing with her hair. She perhaps didn’t look much better than the animal, her dark curls falling unevenly around her thin face, which bore deepening bags beneath her eyes from poor sleep. But she’d only be out there a minute. All she had to do was wait for her cue, and then bring the animal out to give to the bride and groom. A wedding gift from the Goddess’s coven, as was customary.
A weathered but kind voice- the older priestess acting as officiant- rose over the crowd. A pleasant quiet fell. Then, she began to lead them all a song in honour of the newlyweds to be, and in thanks to Beiduras for bringing them together. Delnia settled. A wedding was always a joyous time. Now in particular, people needed a happy day. Delnia needed one. How very lucky then, that today would be-
Something scratched her, down her right shoulder blade.
Hissing in pain, she whipped around, hoping- no, thinking one of the other acolytes was playing an oddly nasty prank. The hallway behind her was empty.
Another scratch, a white hot line of pain vertically overlapping the first.
A meek cry escaped her and she clapped a hand over the spot. The fabric of her robes wasn’t cut or torn. It had started to dampen, however.
Another cut. They opened slowly, a long lick of anguish that burned in the lacerated skin. Delnia felt it open under her fingers, the skin tense and part minutely. As if sliced by a knife’s point.
Whimpering, Delnia grabbed Beiduras’s icon, squeezing it so hard the points bit into her fingers. “Oh, Matron of Mercy and Mending and Love,” she whispered. “My heart is bright with Your flame but cold with fear. I pray to You-”
Another cut, just beside the first set. The acolyte flinched under the fresh pain. Beside her, the goat began to bleat.
“I-I pray to You, O Matron Beiduras,” Delnia babbled, hoping to say the prayer before her voice broke. “Send me a spark of Your flame, so my fire may grow and dispel the cold, and I may find resolve in-”
[You know what to do, little raven.]
That was not Beiduras’s voice.
Delnia threw her free hand over her ear, as if the words hadn’t reverberated up into her head from deep in her chest. “Se-Send me a spark of Y-Your-”
Another cut. She cried aloud.
[As I instructed. Now.]
That was not her Goddess. That voice was a sword drawn smoothly from its scabbard. Beautiful and precise and promising terrible violence.
Delnia did know what to do. She felt the weight of the knife on her belt. Only a small thing, meant for slicing fruit or cutting string, but she kept it sharp. The goat jerked against its leash.
Another cut. The fabric had become wet, sticking to her skin. Heaving for breath, Delnia reached a shaking hand for the knife.
A sudden heat bloomed between her legs. Fire roaring to life in her loins and racing up into her belly. Immediately her cock strained against her undergarments. Delnia gasped and buckled again, this time from the sudden, violent pleasure.
<I’m here, my fledgling. She cannot have you.>
That was Beiduras. The gentle, silken music of the lower notes of a fiddle. The soothing crackle of a fireplace. Mercy and mending and love, easing Delnia’s pains. The acolyte sank to her knees, grateful tears welling in her eyes. She fumbled a hand under her skirts.
Outside, the song finished. The bride and groom emerged and took their vows, and the priestess laid a length of sacred cloth over their joined hands to bind them. But the goat, their wedding gift, was not brought to them. When another acolyte was sent to fetch Delnia, she found her in a twitching, delirious heap, stroking her cock raw as if there weren’t a dark stain growing in the right shoulder of her robes.
***
Once there was a girl who lived in a corpse.
She had no home but the corpse. So long as she stayed inside it, nothing could hurt her. Its pallid flesh dissuaded touch, the stink of it hid her scent from predators, and when she spoke, the sound wheezed out through its strangled throat. It was safe, hidden in that walking tomb. She was sure, given enough time, that she’d even learn to love the cold dampness of its decaying flesh. She’d learn to love its putrid smell and stiff, too-long limbs, the maggots crawling across her skin and the flies swarming around it.
It was safe. She could learn to love safety.
Except she never did.
Not when she could still see through its hollowed eye sockets, and watch the other girls of her village grow into themselves, unbound, not in hiding. Their lives were not easy, for they had nothing to shelter them from the attention of the boys and men, nothing to lift the imposed obligations of a woman’s lot nor dispel the spectres of a woman’s life hanging over their futures. Even still, the hidden girl thought she might prefer to take on those burdens, rather than the ones which loomed in her own future.
The Red Raven most of all.
Far out in the windswept highlands, the village was isolated. Cut off from the rest of the kingdom by miles of craggy hills and plains open to the stormy skies. More often than not, they needed to fend for themselves.
The Red Raven was one way they did this. Night or day, rain or snow, Her wings covered the village, spread as wide and dark as the evening sky. In times of hardship, when the crops failed or when word spread of raiders from the west, the village would throw itself down as one body and bleed for Her. Normally only goats, gutted beneath Her banner. Rarely, if things were especially dire, more than that. All the men wore Her wings, etched by knifepoint into their backs, and all the boys were raised with wooden swords in hand, preparing for the day they would be given those wings themselves.
The hidden girl was no different. The corpse she wore was a boy, after all. Stillborn and stretching over her body as she grew within it.
Her life became measured in splinters, blisters, cuts, bruises. Each day the sword was forced back into her hand and she was pushed back into the sparring ring. She tried. She had to. It was safe inside her corpse. She fought and took the beatings, both in the ring and out. She took the torment and scorn of the boys, for surely they would be even crueler if they knew what she really was. She answered the question of why she was so weak again and again, in every way she could think, and found none of her answers were satisfactory. She tried, and tried, until the beatings made her numb and her eyes ran out of tears to cry.
She could take it. She was safe. So long as she stayed in the corpse.
Until it began to break apart under the onslaught. Flesh weakened by rot, sloughing off under wooden edges and cowhide boots.
And the girl could no longer hide.
***
“Who did this, little sister?”
Delnia blinked up at the older priestess standing over her. Warm air tickled her skin, bare from the waist up for the fresh bandages wrapped over her lacerated shoulder. She’d been hurried to the infirmary, in Beiduras’s wing of the grand temple. Many of the other cots were occupied by wounded soldiers and harried travellers. She’d helped carry some of them here to heal by the warmth of the fireplace, soothing incenses and the sharper smells of antiseptic poultices competing in one’s nose. Her last memory was of her Goddess flooding her mind with blissful relief, and letting herself drown in it.
“Delnia,” repeated the priestess, Sister Superior Vademi. Her dark and wizened face was creased with concern, and her usual smell of chamomile was darkened by a bitter undercurrent of healing tincture. She’d brought Delnia here herself, having been the officiant. “Those cuts on your back, where did they come from?”
Mind clearing, Delnia remembered what happened. What she wasn’t sure of was how to say it. The Gods didn’t fight like that. Did They? Even if They did, could mortals do anything to dissuade Them? At any rate, both of Them were silent now. Delnia needed to say something.
“It must have been someone from another coven,” she lied.
“Well, yes, I’d think so.” Vademi furrowed her brow. “But who, Delnia?”
“I didn’t see,” blurted Delnia, “they came up behind me.”
Vademi planted her hands on her hips, considering. “And what was...” She gestured towards Delnia’s skirts. “What was that about?”
Delnia had no good lie here. The older priestess wore Beiduras’s blue as well, however. Maybe she’d be receptive to the truth. “The pain was so unbearable,” she explained, “that I prayed to our Goddess for relief, and She...” Unbidden, a blush rose in her cheeks.
Vademi stared down at her. The moment dragged enough that Delnia wondered if she should have lied again. Finally the Sister Superior gave a slow nod. “Next time, just... Try to get away and find help, little sister. I was yards away from you.”
After a quick inspection of her bandages, Delnia was given back her robes and allowed to leave. She did hesitate. Perhaps her assailant would respect the sanctity of the place, knowing it to be Beiduras’s, and would therefore allow her peace. Delnia could likely have made a case to stay a bit longer. But she had duties to attend to. More than anything, she didn’t want this to ruin her. She was Beiduras’s. Her Goddess would preserve her. In this, she had faith.
Maybe that was it? This was a test of faith? Well, Delnia had passed those before. Delnia would pass as well, and this would end. She would simply return to her usual duties. Vademi had even given her one as she left the ward: tending to the shrine to Beiduras.
The walk took a few long minutes. The temple was vast, two floors of branching hallways to house a shrine to each deity of the kingdom’s pantheon. Beiduras was only one of many Goddesses revered here. So intent on her task was Delnia that she almost didn’t hear two other acolytes down another hall, chattering to each other as she passed them.
“Bad sign though, isn’t it?”
“Is it? Weren’t she one of Beiduras’s?”
“Aye, but those weren’t the sigils carved in her, so I heard.”
“Can’t be that bad a sign...”
“Can’t it? ‘Cause I heard they were Sehavre’s sigils.”
Delnia quickened her pace.
[Well, little raven?]
Please stop. Delnia didn’t say the words aloud. Thinking them seemed to be enough.
[Your people don’t need songs. They need blood. Come to me.]
Delnia’s throat tightened. She’d been hearing Sehavre’s voice for some time now. Very sporadically at first, and then only in dreams of wings as black and wide as the night sky, spreading to cover the city. Then the news came. A skirmish at the border with one of the western clans. Soon recruiters started coming from the capitol, looking for young men to shore up defences in the border towns. What colours did those recruiters wear but scarlet? What banner did they come under but the red raven? For that was the icon of Sehavre, Goddess of War, Matron of Righteous Battle.
And who should then start to speak to Delnia in waking but Sehavre, bloody sister of her own chosen Goddess, demanding obedience? It wasn’t until today, however, that Sehavre had begun to back these demands with force.
How fortunate for the young priestess then, that she’d already sworn herself to a kinder Goddess.
A scent of pine and chocolate wove through the halls to meet Delnia. The girl breathed deep, took it in until her lungs swelled against her ribs, and they overflowed to swirl within her skull. Her Goddess was in her head then, tending the garden of her mind. Pulling the weeds of Sehavre’s torments from it and leaving only the purest blue flowers of Her own mercy. Delnia’s face softened in a spacey smile. Beiduras had been granting her these periods of soothing oblivion since Her bloody sister first began trying to poach Her acolyte.
The scent thickened as Delnia followed it to its source: Beiduras’s shrine. Pine needles and cocoa beans littered the polished hardwood altar, their dark colours stark in the sunlight entering through the high windows, and banners of the Goddess’s twin pyramids on white covered the wall. A half-spent candle flickered atop the altar, the sapphire wax being allowed to run down the stick and pool on the wood, for love took tolls. Love was an ever-changing song, soft and sweet in places, erratic in others, sometimes even dipping into morose lulls or harsh staccatos. Beiduras wanted Her faithful to understand that love left marks.
That was the purpose of the squat glass vial beside the candle, containing a dark liquid. This close to the altar, one could catch a whiff of its earthy, mildew scent. Nymph’s kiss. Liquid love, concentrated into all its beauty and pain. A thimble full was a potent aphrodisiac. Two thimbles would immerse one in Beiduras’s song for hours. Three, and the Goddess’s passion would take residence in one’s very flesh, hormones surging to drown their mind as they were reduced to a rutting, brainless thing for days. So Delnia had heard.
Nymph’s kiss was only to be consumed at very rare and certain rituals, and even then in small doses. Mostly the vial was set out to mark an occasion like the wedding earlier. A reminder that love could heal and hurt, and that these pains were themselves sacred. A life bereft of love might be more stable, more comfortable. But so too would it be very cold.
A broom and pan awaited Delnia in the corner, beneath sprigs of rosemary lining the ceiling. Beiduras sowed the herb, its scent and image, in Her acolyte’s mind. Delnia got to work. This was a refuge. This work- cleaning up the dirt and detritus tracked in by the wedding procession- became sanctuary. The sweeping a simple rhythm, the bristles rasping a song against the floorboards. This too Delnia let herself sink into. She paced her work to that of her Goddess, tending her mind-garden. Beiduras watched with approval. An idol of Her, carved from pinewood, stood atop a raised pedestal at the back of the altar. Her hair flowed in gentle waves around Her plump body, as if She were twirling in dance, and Her round face was set in a serene smile beneath Her crown of flowers and pine branches.
Delnia inhaled deep, letting the sweet earthen swell of the place ferment within her. A contented, dreamy sigh escaped the acolyte. She could have sworn she heard her Goddess’s voice calling to her through the blissful haze. Well done, My fledgling. My devoted little feather. Under her skirts, Delnia started to harden. She registered it like she registered the soft patter of her shoes across the floorboards. Every part of her was in service now. Her psyche had been picked clean of every doubt and terror and replanted with bliss and duty. Her task could have taken minutes, or hours, or days, the time pulled away in the current of her devotion. Once this chore was done, Delnia set the broom away. Her next task was to...
Delnia’s eyes fluttered.
What is her next task? Vademi had certainly given her more than one.
The priestess stared into the wall and saw only pine needles, gently raining to earth.
Her next task...
Again she felt the knife on her belt, snug against her hip.
Drawing it, she twined her hand around a length of her brown curls and pulled it taut. The plot of her mind became barren, the soft hiss of iron chewing through fibre hanging over the dead fields. She registered her cock start to tent her skirts the same way she registered the sawing motion of her hand.
[There you are, little raven.]
Delnia surfaced with a start. Her own thoughts seeded her mind again. She turned to Beiduras’s shrine- and noticed a handful of loose hair in her fist.
She inhaled deep. Her chosen Goddess was all around her. The scent of Her, the colours and icons of Her. All Delnia had to do was take Her back into herself. Her lungs filled with chocolate and pine forest yet in her mind’s eye, black wings unfurled, a sudden midnight devouring the sky as it swooped down upon her. With a whine Delnia threw herself down before Beiduras’s altar and, as before, babbled the prayer for Her protection beneath her breath.
“Del?”
Trance collapsed under the sudden weight of reality. Delnia sprang up to find another girl in the doorway behind her, clad as well in Beiduras’s sapphire and her face tightened with concern. Hega, another acolyte.
Delnia’s hand trembled around the knife. “Yes?”
Hega hesitated, still taking in what had to be a ragged sight. “The Sister Superior sent me to check on you,” she began. “She’s worried you might still be a little shaken.”
“Oh.” The garden of Delnia’s mind bloomed with praise for Beiduras, for this surely had to be an act of Her mercy. She made a show of looking at the clump of hair in her other hand- but felt a surge of real distress, twisting in her stomach. The rich chocolate colour, the soft curls, now frayed at one end where they’d been so crassly cut. She liked her hair long. Growing it out had been the first thing that made her feel like a girl, before the coven took her in and gave her their Changing concoctions. “I-I...”
“You are, then,” Hega nudged her. “Still shaken.”
Delnia gave a quick nod. “They grabbed me by my hair,” she lied. “Whoever cut me, I mean. They came up behind me and...” Her voice collapsed into a real quaver.
Hega came up and led her back into the hall. “How about a little more time to rest, then,” she said, with a gentleness that felt motherly beyond her years. “I can tend to the shrine.”
Delnia nodded, her throat suddenly too tight to speak. She thought to give thanks to her Goddess, for so many blessings in her life had sprung from Her bosom. But the words wouldn’t take in her mind. Why would Beiduras allow Her sister to torment Her own faithful like this?
Hega filled the quiet with light chatter- about goings on throughout the grand temple, about gossip gathered from around the city. Mercifully, she said nothing of the western border. Delnia had no replies, and Hega didn’t press her for any. The other girl had an astounding sense for how to comfort someone- perhaps her own blessing from their Goddess. Delnia wanted something to keep the silence, and what lurked in it, at bay. Hega happily provided.
They came to the quaint acolyte quarters where Hega coaxed the knife and hair from Delnia’s hands- “it’ll grow back, sister, there’s nothing to mourn...”- and laid her down in the bottom bunk of one of the shared cots. “You just rest. We’ll see how you are come the evening, yeah?”
“Alright.” Delnia’s nerves had settled enough to speak. She didn’t even give into the childish urge to call her sister back as she left, back to her own duties. A lamp flickered beside her coat, hung from a hook set in the framework of the bunk bed. She watched its sunset glow dance across the folds of her blanket. For how long, she couldn’t say. At some point the adrenaline thrumming in her chest crashed, dropping her into sleep.
And what a sleep it was.
***
The girl in the corpse felt wind on her skin for the first time.
It happened the day the Blue Bird visited her village. Priests and priestesses clad in sapphire cloaks, clasped with a pair of interlocking golden pyramids. When they spoke it sounded like fiddles and flutes, and the air they passed through warmed with the smells of cocoa and pine forest. She watched them from the steps of the Red Raven’s temple, nursing a fresh bruise as they flitted through the village on whatever business.
One of them passed by the temple door. A tall woman, strength and grace in her stride and such joyful light in her eyes. Her cloak fluttered half open like wings as she walked.
And the girl felt it. Something cool, but so very warm compared to her prison of icy meat, brushing over her shoulder like the hem of that silky cloak.
For a moment, she was so relieved. As if she were drawing her first breath.
And then she realized what it meant.
She looked to her shoulder. A chunk of fetid flesh had come loose, exposing a smooth stretch of her pale skin.
The girl was sick that night. She packed the tear full of mud and gristle from the latest feast beneath the Red Raven’s wings. She wept for the Raven’s protection, that She wouldn’t let her secret be revealed. “Please, I’ll be stronger. I’ll be braver. I’ll fight as You demand. Just please don’t let them know.” She vomited what little she’d eaten upon the altar, so great was her despair. She cut her hand and bled onto it, for the Raven revelled in such pain. Her song was hammer on anvil and blade in flesh, violence and dominance.
But the Red Raven did not sing to her.
Each day the hidden girl watched the people of the Blue Bird go about their duties, and each day her disguise crumbled more and more. Pallid flesh disintegrating, old viscera peeling away from her skin. Beneath it, she was a narrow canvas of bruises, a rabbit already caught in a trap, waiting to find herself on the butcher’s block. She tried to rebuild her prison but the mud and viscera slipped from her body. She sang and cried and screamed for the Red Raven to help her, for if she was to be sworn to the Goddess, did She not have some responsibility to Her subject?
The Raven, it seemed, did not believe so. She did not sing back.
Instead, the Blue Bird did.
She sang as Her people finally left. She sang just for the hidden girl, who was now barely hidden. “Follow us, little feather. Follow My song.”
And the girl did. What choice did she have? The boys could see her soft flesh, exposed where they once saw only old rot to pummel. Her instructors saw how her attention wavered and discipline failed, even more than usual. The beatings became worse, for now they were realizing that she was an intruder. Before long, their teeth would be in her flesh, and they would tear her apart. Not in the Red Raven’s honour, but simply to be rid of something unwanted.
So, late one night, as the village dozed beneath those uncaring black wings, the girl scraped the last of the rotting flesh from her skin and followed the Blue Bird’s song into the highlands.
***
Delnia dreamt of a field of blue flowers. Forget-me-nots, she thought. The land was illuminated as if by bright sunlight, and the mild warmth fit a summer morning, yet her eyes wouldn’t focus on the sky. There was the land around her, and then a blank space above. In the near distance, she spied dense treeline, like a fence around a pasture. A pine forest.
A whiff of chocolate washed over her, blown in on a soft breeze. Delnia exhaled. Let herself deflate and fall back against the vast, plush body, towering behind her.
<My fledgling, surely you don’t believe I would abandon you so easily.>
Delnia didn’t. Not with these scent filling her nose and soft, strong arms wrapping over her ribs.
<My sister is too eager to fulfill Her dominion. She loves your people so, but She knows only to show it through blood.>
Delnia’s eyes fluttered. She didn’t want to think of Sehavre right now. Nothing in the War Matron’s ministrations felt loving. Sehavre had only ever been a set of wicked talons, pinning Delnia down. Not anymore, though. Not since she found shelter with Beiduras.
Full lips set a gentle kiss atop her head. Delnia sank further into her Goddess’s mountainous body, head cradled between Her breasts. A soft warm pillar the priestess could tie herself to.
<Your faith wavers. I understand. This is difficult for you, little feather. Let us then reaffirm our communion.>
Delnia’s lips moved with words she couldn’t speak, for it was not the place of an acolyte to speak in the presence of divinity. If it were, however, she would be begging. Please, O Matron. Please shelter me.
And Beiduras did. Immense wings of gold and royal blue folded into Delnia’s field of vision, cocooning her against her Goddess’s body. The clearing and the forest beyond disappeared behind their feathers, but the sourceless light remained, setting the gilded pinions to shimmer. And the smells- the smells were sealed in with Delnia, fermenting her ailing mind. Pine and rosemary and chocolate. Nothing could touch her here, in her Goddess’s wings.
Nothing, save for the Goddess Herself.
One of Her hands, soft and delicate despite its size, began to roam. Sliding up Delnia’s ribs to cup the underside of her budding breast- though Delnia was a woman grown, she hadn’t been on the Changing concoction for long. Only two safe, blissful years beneath blue-and-gold wings. Every iota of that joy flooded her anew as a huge, gentle thumb ran up the curve of her breast to circle its sensitive nipple. A needful squeak escaped the acolyte, the pleasure like a pin breaking through silk.
<You must understand, My fledgling, that every divinity beneath and above the temple roof loves Their subjects. This is why Sehavre hounds you. That calling to violence is how She offers Her blessings. But you don’t want them. Do you?>
Delnia shook her head with such force her curls fell into her eyes. The girl would press herself into her Goddess’s body if she could. She didn’t want blood nor hurt nor violence, for she’d seen enough of all of those already. She’d paid that tithe to the War Matron early in her life, and even then against her will. She wanted this now- herself a needful thing, whimpering and sweating with the heat of rising ecstasy. The Goddess she’d chosen, kneading her breast with gentle but persistent fingers, kneading her mind like raw dough with the force of the pleasure. Beiduras’s other hand, meanwhile, trailed downwards- over Delnia’s belly, towards her waist, and to her twitching cock, already drooling precum.
<This is what you want. You sought this out.>
“Ye...” Delnia almost wept the word, before she remembered herself. Yet she could hardly nod, her body so electrified with heady, disorienting bliss, billowing through her from her Goddess’s tender ministrations. One massive hand toying with her breast. A second, teasing the head of her cock- Delnia hadn’t even realized she was nude until she felt it. Or perhaps, lust-drunk and desperate for comfort as she was, she hadn’t even registered her Goddess disrobing her. All she could do was writhe in Her grip and trust that She understood her breathy whines.
Beiduras must have understood. How could She not, when Delnia had thrown herself down at Her altar those years ago? Even a Goddess of Love and Healing must have wanted blood. Love could hurt as well as heal, and wounds still stung as they mended. That must have been why Her hand left Delnia’s breast, feeling its way up her sternum and collarbone to wrap long, graceful fingers around the acolyte’s throat.
<My blessing, for My little feather.>
Delnia, a vessel filled with divine love, managed a choked whimper. Her Goddess’s grip was firm. Possessive. Delnia’s eyes began to blur, both with blissful tears and asphyxiation. For surely all her Goddess meant to do was assert Her ownership over a supplicant, to ward off a rival. Right? Why else, Delnia deigned to wonder, would her Goddess hurt her so?
<How blessed I am in turn. Such a fine little cockerel, offering herself to Me.>
Within the vessel, the slightest twinge of resistance. A moment in which Delnia forgot herself. She began to struggle. Laughter like sweet, thick honey filled her ears. Delnia took no comfort in it, though. It held an animalistic edge. Something hungry beneath the sweetness.
<Oh? Are your doubts not assuaged? Do you forget how eagerly you offer yourself to Me?>
Around Delnia’s throat and cock, the Goddess’s grip tightened.
And then Delnia gasped. Fire filled her lungs and her groin. That was all she could feel at first. Her chest heaving for air and her cock heaving for relief. Sweat pasted the thin sheets to her body, and when she opened her eyes, it was darkness that filled them.
Little by little, she settled back into the cot. Taking a moment to let her breathing steady. Quickly relieving herself- she quickly checked to ensure she was alone. Then, finally calm again, she let herself think about the vision. Pine and chocolate lingered in her nose. The skin of her neck was still raw where Beiduras had gripped it. In a far corner of her mind, a question surfaced.
Why would her Goddess hurt her like that?
No, she shouldn’t doubt. Love could hurt. Any priestess of Beiduras knew that. Besides, an acolyte could not question the divine, least of all the Divinity she chose herself. Least of all the Goddess protecting her from a worse predator. Exhaling, Delnia moulded her tender mind around that. Then, she forced herself out of bed to clean up. Perhaps she was granted rest today, but tomorrow would come.
***
The next day, the Goddesses left Delnia in peace. Then came the news.
Delnia was out on the temple grounds, tending to the section of the gardens dedicated to Beiduras. Pine trees grew in two tidy rows along the dirt path, and forget-me-nots and sprigs of rosemary sprouted from pots as blue as the open sky. Here and there, the thick greenish shoots from which nymph’s kiss was derived stuck up from the dirt, like the fingers of the buried. Delnia was to water her Goddess’s garden. A simple task, made all the easier by the clear summer morning, and the absence of Sehavre trying to claw Her way back into the girl’s head.
Until the chanting reached her ears.
It had to get quite close to do so, as the trees provided some cover. But this part of the garden was near the front entrance of the temple. That’s why, as it approached, she heard the chorus of what had to be dozens of men, intoning a plodding melody that seemed to reverberate through the soil. Not registering its purpose at first, she looked between the trees, and saw the column of figures marching up the temple steps. They were, to a man, clad in robes as red as wine, black cloaks hanging from their shoulders. Men preparing for war. Men of Sehavre.
Delnia heard more over lunch, as she and her sisters huddled in their hall in Beiduras’s wing over bowls of thin soup. The worst had come to pass. One of the western clans had raided a border town within the kingdom. Dozens dead or taken hostage. Sehavre’s banner was now raised all throughout the kingdom, a flock of monstrous ravens taking to the sky. Every word made Delnia’s stomach drop further into her bowels. She could almost hear massive wings beating above her, capricious and hungry.
“All right,” a voice cried, “all right, that’s enough of that.”
Delnia blinked, and realized she’d been staring into her soup. The voice registered as Sister Superior Vademi. As the chatter died to softer murmurs, a hand settled on Delnia’s shoulder. “Del,” asked Hega. “All good?”
Delnia considered telling her. Surely she should have told someone by now anyway. Vademi in particular, but Hega could be trusted with it as well. What stopped her was the quiet. Neither Goddess had spoken to her in a day, since that dream of Beiduras. Perhaps Sehavre had lost interest. Besides, how did one explain that two divines had been fighting over them?
“Just antsy,” Delnia said, with a nervous titter. “The infirmary’s about to get busier, yeah?”
“Maybe not here.” Ever the optimist, Hega. A balm always on the lookout for something to soothe. “We’re a ways away from the border, and they’ll hardly be sending acolytes to the front.”
No, Delnia remembered, only the boys would be snatched up by the kingdom’s recruiters. She shoved the thought down. “Yeah.” She exhaled, easing under the other girl’s touch. Her eyes drifted from her bowl to Hega; to her easy smile and pretty faint freckles, clustered along rounded cheeks. Hega was a font of comfort, and now more than ever, Delnia craved it. “We’ll be safe here, right?”
“Right.” Hega gave her shoulder a light squeeze. “Even if there were a war, it’ll have a long hard trek to us.”
Hega had said it, and she’d said it in her pretty singsong voice with that cheery tone, and so it felt true. So true that Delnia couldn’t bring herself to doubt it. She eased into chattering with the other girls, swapping gossip gathered from the temple halls. She ate, and enjoyed the salted potatoes, carrots, and lentils, even if the broth was a bit thin. It went back to being a good day.
Until late that afternoon, when she had to carry an armful of old tomes back to the temple archives. A path which took her past the shrine to Sehavre.
Going past it the first time wasn’t the issue. As she approached, the voices of men echoed down the hall, bellowing vows of fellowship and valour. Such ruckus would fill this wing of the temple for weeks as soldiers young and old came to affirm their brotherhood before the War Matron, and to seek Her favour in the battles likely to come. Five were in there now, she saw as she passed. Clad in their blacks and reds, held together in one mass by a tangle of arms around shoulders, jostling and shoving each other about. Through it all, they each kept an arm raised, a short sword clenched in each fist, towards the Red Raven- the War Matron’s banner, spread over the clean stone altar of the shrine.
Delnia shuffled past. Sehavre Herself remained silent. There was nothing for the acolyte to fear. The archives were far enough down the hall that the men fell away into silence behind her. By the time she’d returned the tomes and started back, she couldn’t hear them at all. There was only a faint smell of smoke, hanging in the warm air like an old curtain. As Delnia passed the War Matron’s shrine again, she glimpsed the source.
A small tree branch- oak, for that was Sehavre’s tree- laid on the altar. Blunted spears, swords, and poleaxes lined the wall beyond it like a fence, their edges dull but gleaming no less wickedly in the sunlight. A sprig of castor bean plant was tied around each of their heads, scarlet and prickly, like a constellation of wrathful stars. So arresting was the sight that Delnia almost didn’t notice the branch was burning. Little flames dancing along its leaves, weaving fingers of smoke above them. A knife laid on the white stone next to it. Even from the doorway, Delnia could tell it was not blunted.
[Here, little raven.]
So arresting was the wall of blades and stars that Delnia hadn’t realized she’d lingered in the doorway, breathing in the scent of the burning branch. Her innards tightened. How long had she been there?
[As long as I required. Come.]
Delnia stepped into Sehavre’s shrine, watching the firelight flicker along the sharpened edge of the knife. How beautifully it danced, pulsing red and amber. The metal was dark, drinking in the glow. The nearer she got, the more it seemed to darken, as if already bloodstained.
No, it was. Wet red glistened on its tip.
Explanations ran through her head. The branch was an offering from the men. The knife, as well. Perhaps one hadn’t gotten his wings yet, and his fellows had cut them into his back.
[You know that isn’t true.]
Delnia swallowed the cold lump congealing in her throat. She did.
[And you know what to do.]
Delnia did. The fire danced so radiantly upon the blooded tip of the blade. The scent of violence, sharp and coppery, incensed her. She stepped up to the altar, and took up the knife. Grabbing a length of her hair that was still long, she pulled it taut and began to cut. A slow sawing rhythm, to ensure more even edges. She couldn’t watch the work, for lack of a mirror, and so she watched the fire instead. A dozen little flames, eating their way up the leaves until they reached the wood. As they began to devour the fingers of the branch, concentrating into larger flames where they met, Delnia felt her pulse begin to race. A heady surge of adrenaline, coursing from into her veins. A war song, ringing in her blood.
Had it always been there?
[Yes. You were sworn to Me first.]
That’s right. Before Beiduras, Delnia was to be Sehavre’s. No matter the sickness sinking deep into her core, she couldn’t deny reality. Beiduras Herself had gestured to it- cockerel. Groping Delnia with such hunger. The Raven’s talons had always been in her. Thread by thread, the hair in her fist came loose.
[My sister lied to you, boy. I do not love you.]
Delnia’s stomach lurched, as if she didn’t know that already. If Sehavre loved her, She wouldn’t demand her suffering like this. The blade chewed through the last few hairs. Delnia laid the first handful upon the burning branch, where the flames eagerly accepted it. Grabbing the next length of hair, she resumed cutting. All the while that wordless song of violence scorched through her veins, her muscles, it hit her groin and she tented her skirt immediately.
[I cannot factor love into My dominion, else I would love every man who dies with My name in his throat. This is not love. It is necessity.]
Tears stung Delnia’s eyes. She shivered, drenched now in icy sweat, as if the fiery song of death in her arteries were cooking all the moisture out of her. The stink of burning hair filled her nose. She was so hard it hurt, throbbing against her robes.
[It seems harsh, I know. Do not think Me heartless, little raven. I wouldn’t require this of you were it unnecessary.]
Delnia shuddered as her cock throbbed again, heaving with precum. That seemed the cruellest indignity, no matter how eagerly her body complied. A girl could have short hair. But why was she so hard? Tears ran free down her cheeks as she finished cutting the second handful of hair, and added it to the growing, reeking inferno upon the altar. The fire ate greedily, its warmth lapping at her chest. And through it all, the question, surfacing again and again in her mind like a person drowning, as if she didn’t already know the answer.
Why her?
[Because you were born to be Mine.]
Delnia gagged. She was. Her time with Beiduras was a dalliance, tolerated until it came time for the War Matron to collect. War was approaching. Her people needed blood. Life for life. Either a goat slit and flayed upon the altar, or Delnia herself, shaved and burnt. She began to cut the last part of her hair which remained long, running down the back of her neck like a tail. Now in rhythm with the war song pounding against her bones, she finished quickly. With a sob, she deposited the final handful upon the fire.
Then it began. That sharp line of pain running down her shoulder blade as Sehavre’s spectral knife marked her. Hissing, Delnia braced herself against the altar, and waited for Her to finish. Her tears dripped into the fire as its foul smoke clawed at her face. The Goddess did not work quickly. Delnia could almost hear her beautiful cutting voice, explaining the pain too was necessary. After a while, she began to recognize the pattern blooming across her back. Her nerves, tracing the shapes as they opened along her skin. The deeper the anguish sank, the harder she got, until the pain of her unrelieved lust began to rival that of the marking.
[There. You may go.]
With a shaking cry, Delnia came. Pleasure stabbing deeper than even the knife, drowning out the war song playing against her entrails. It soaked the front of her robes as blood soaked the back of them. Then, the wave began to recede. Delnia stood there, wheezing as the smoke cooked her face and shivering in robes dampened with sweat, blood, and cum. She didn’t know how long she lingered. Sehavre said nothing else. All she knew is that once her tears had dried to streaks of salt burning on her skin and she felt the chill of her wet clothes biting to her bones, she dropped the knife, and fled from the War Matron’s shrine. She careened through the temple halls. Back into Beiduras’s wing to the office of Sister Superior Vademi.
***
The once-hidden girl soon found herself lost. Yet neither fear nor despair could hook their claws into her, for at least she was no longer bound.
She wandered the highlands and felt the grass prickle her feet, the wind tug at her hair, the rain tickle her skin and the sun warm her face. It hadn’t occurred to her before, how numb hiding in the corpse had made her. How oblivious she’d become to its weight stuck to her body, to its cold damp flesh gumming to her skin, and to its caustic stench clouding her nose. It was a burden she’d gotten so used to carrying that she could no longer admit it was a burden. Not until she was free of it.
Now she cried out and heard her own voice. Now she danced and felt her own legs tangle beneath her, and felt the scrapes on her own elbows and knees, and laughed aloud to the sky. To dance had been a choice she’d made herself. Not for safety, but for joy. She hadn’t realized how starved she was for joy. A great aching hollow deep in her being, cold and yearning.
Yet soon this euphoria passed. The girl had to admit now: she was lost. The highlands and crags and stark sky rolled out forever around her, grey as the corpse she’d once called home.
So the girl wandered, and listened for the Blue Bird’s song. In time, it brushed past her ears on the wind, faint as a dying candle. She followed it until it grew, became strong and hearty. Yet this too led her to a new anxiety, as she crested a hill and saw the song’s source.
Below laid a city, sprawling and bright with high walls of stone. Even from her faraway perch, the girl could tell that place would have swallowed her village like a stream joining a river. Still, from somewhere beyond those walls, the Blue Bird sang to her. She needed to follow.
Entering was no trouble. The watchmen saw her and cried, “Poor boy, lost and starving! Let him in!” The girl ignored that, for she was so used to pretending to be a boy that she must still look like one. Inside was where her troubles began. People, more than she’d ever seen before, moving in herds and flowing in rivers, voices joining into a single clamour. The Blue Bird’s song became lost in the racket. The girl asked for help but was met with, “Leave us be, beggar boy.”
So she wandered again, ears ringing. Night began to fall. She needed shelter. At last, outside a vast and resplendent temple, she found a sprawling garden. Curling up beneath the boughs of a pine tree, she tried to sleep, the scent of rosemary and forget-me-nots in her nose.
She did not sleep long before a voice above her asked, “Boy, are you lost?”
The girl curled in on herself, as if she were a hedgehog threatening with her quills. She could not bear to be called that again.
“Are you hurt?” A woman, older and with a kind voice. “Are you ill, my boy?”
Finally the girl snapped, “I’m not a boy.”
Then she saw the woman.
Tall and dark-skinned, with a gentle face to match her voice, and clad in sapphire robes. The robes of the Blue Bird’s people.
A moment of confused quiet. Then, something flashed in the woman’s eyes. “You’re not a boy,” she said. A statement, not a question. An acknowledgement of the girl who had been hiding. The first time another had done so.
So, daring to trust, the girl nodded.
When the woman spoke next, the Blue Bird spoke with her. “Come, dear girl. I will help you.”
***
Raven wings.
That’s what the Sister Superior found on Delnia’s back, when she set her own dismay aside to help the girl peel off her robes. A pair of raven wings, like those carved into men sworn to Sehavre.
Here they now were, back in the infirmary, the upper half of Delnia’s torso wrapped in fresh bandages. Vademi was perched on the empty cot beside hers, dark brow creased in a concerned confusion. The air was sharp with soiled wrappings and healing tinctures, and wounded men groaned and wheezed on other cots.
Vademi spoke first- pleaded, really, almost beneath her breath. “Who is it, little sister?”
Delnia swallowed hard. All she’d said is that she’d been lured into Sehavre’s shrine and assaulted. Hair shorn, back cut up again, forced to spill upon the altar. Yet there was no space to lie here. No one else was at the shrine then. Delnia must have seen her attacker, or at least heard a voice, if they led her in there. And besides, this had happened thrice in a week now.
So how did Delnia say that the Goddess Herself was the assailant?
“Is it... One of the boys?” Vademi asked the question like it was an intrusion upon sacred ground. “Acolytes of Sehavre?”
Delnia’s eyes wandered. “Something like that.”
“Delnia.” Vademi inflected it like a whip crack, snapping the girl’s attention back to her. “Please. You need to tell me what’s happening.” The Sister Superior knew of Delnia’s past. She’d always been protective of the girl, had worked quietly and diligently to help her Change and find a place in her sisterhood. Vademi was safe. She was family. That’s why Delnia decided she couldn’t lie to her anymore.
The girl leaned closer, wincing a little as the cuts along her back stung. Then, she whispered the truth. “It’s Sehavre Herself.”
Vademi’s eyes narrowed. “Little sister, you’re in danger. Be serious.”
“It’s true!” Delnia flinched, realizing she’d bleated the words like a frightened lamb. Pulling her fresh robes tighter around herself, as if it might keep the Goddess at bay, she told the Sister Superior everything. No details spared, from when Sehavre first began to speak to her, to when Beiduras began to reassert Her claim over the girl, to now.
A terrible silence followed. Vademi settled back onto the cot, her face slack with a muted horror.
“You’ll help me,” Delnia whispered, feeling the smallest she had since she began her Change. “Right?”
“Delnia...” Vademi trailed off, drawing in a breath she didn’t seem sure how to use. “If the Goddess Herself has staked a claim on you-”
“Two of them have!” Delnia whined it louder than she should have. Somewhere a cot’s wooden frame creaked. She didn’t care. Now that she had shared this, she needed it to lead somewhere. “Beiduras has, too. And I chose Her, She already has me, and I don’t understand wh-why She isn’t...” Her voice broke into a snivel as frustrated tears stung her eyes. “Why She isn’t protecting me. Why She’s hurting me Herself, when She already has me.”
“Yes, of course.” Vademi nodded, softening her voice. “Of course. The Gods can act in strange ways. They can bicker and argue and become jealous, the same as we can.” She paused, awkwardly. Not sure, Delnia knew, of the words to comfort her.
“But I chose Beiduras. Shouldn’t that...?” Delnia’s voice gave out. She didn’t want to cry again. If she spoke anymore, she would break, and she already felt as if she was fracturing. Cracking down the middle as she was pulled apart.
Vademi retreated into thought. Trying to give both of them space, Delnia to be fragile and herself to find some gesture towards a solution. Surely the Sister Superior couldn’t ignore Beiduras’s own abuses. Though as another of Her faithful, Vademi could perhaps excuse them. Delnia had herself, at first. After a moment, the older priestess rose and settled onto the cot with Delnia, and set a wrinkled hand on the girl’s shoulder. “I’ll ask around,” she said. “With the temple elders and the scholars. I’ll look through the archives, as well. Surely something like this has happened before. Someone will have an answer.”
Delnia curled up against her. “Thank you.” She trusted Vademi would do all of those things. Vademi would do everything she could, because that’s what she did when she first found Delnia in the gardens. When all the world was against Delnia, Vademi was at her side. What she didn’t trust was that the older priestess would find a solution. She could hope- she could pray to the same Goddess Who now allowed her pains, or perhaps even added to them.
But for a solution?
She couldn’t be sure.
So she leaned into the Sister Superior’s touch, took in her mortal smell of acrid healing concoctions and chamomile. Vademi took her in her arms, and held her. “Someone will know something,” she whispered into Delnia’s air. “Someone must.”
***
Delnia’s dreams that night were of fire and flowers.
The first thing she noticed were the splinters in her tongue. She held the shaft of a spear, the butt braced between her knees as her cock throbbed against the rough wood. She was nude, yet the air was hot and thick with smoke, billowing from the fires raging around her- houses set aflame, clawing into the night sky as they burned. Above her, the head of the spear flickered amber like a beacon against the moonlight. Pressing herself to the shaft, Delnia ran her tongue up the wood towards the metal, again and again, a terrible hunger writhing in her innards. She tasted only blood as the weapon’s surface left shards of itself in her mouth.
Mirrored in the head, standing amidst the devastation, was Sehavre. A looming blade, tall and severe, silhouetted against the flames with Her own spear propped against Her shoulder. Hair like serpents tumbled from a helmet like a bird of prey’s visage, and wings blacker than the night sky mantled Her shoulders.
[Here is your place, little raven. Here in My dominion.]
Then Delnia was laid in a shaded grove, amidst a bushel of forget-me-nots. She no longer tasted blood nor smelled smoke. Instead her nostrils were filled with the scent of the pine trees towering all around her. Whether it was day or night, she couldn’t tell. Sinuous roots had grown over her eyes, over her body and limbs, around her cock and between her lips like a gag. She could do no more than writhe amidst the flowers, whine and gasp as their soft petals kissed all across her body. Fine thorns covered the vines, too small to draw blood, but enough to stimulate her as she squirmed in their embrace. The roots around her cock tensed and coiled along her erection in response to her.
Immense wings beat above her, showering her with pine needles. A bird of prey descending upon Delnia- not a raven, but an exotic raptor fattened on lost girls fooled into thinking Her wings meant shelter.
<You gave yourself to Me, My fledgling. You changed yourself to fit My appetites. I hunger, little cockerel.>
Delnia awoke plastered to her bed sheets with sweat. At least she hadn’t cum this time. Surrounded by men- even wounded and feverish ones- that would be too great an indignity. She heard no sound through the shuttered windows nor the closed door, and her eyes opened to darkness. Was it even morning?
[Come.]
<Remain. You are Mine, not Hers.>
[You are wasted on Her fancies. I will give you real purpose.]
<She will kill you for nothing. You’ve submitted yourself to My love. Stay and receive it.>
Iron scraping against pine wood. Red and blue behind Delnia’s eyes, twisting together like wrestling serpents. Curling into herself, Delnia buried her head beneath her pillow and waited for silence. It never came. Even once the infirmary door creaked open and the shutters were opened, filling the place with the harsh light of morning, Delnia found no peace.
She hoped she might that afternoon, when Sister Superior Vademi came to check on her. Delnia knew she must have been a sight: huddled with the blankets wrapped as tight as a coffin around herself, eyes no doubt bloodshot for lack of sleep. Even so, the piteous look Vademi gave her stung.
Before the Sister Superior even took her seat, Delnia asked, “Have you found anything?”
Settling onto the next cot, Vademi frowned. “Little sister, it’s only been a day.”
“But you’ve started looking. Right? You’ve been asking?”
“I’ve checked with the archives, yes.” Vademi set a light hand on Delnia’s shoulder. “They didn’t know anything off the tops of their heads, but they’re looking. I’ll ask the elders today, as well.”
The visit was fruitful for neither of them. Vademi had come hoping to find Delnia soothed by a night in the infirmary’s care, and instead found her even more rattled. The next morning was no better. The archives held nothing. If a thing such as this had happened before, even the temple elders didn’t know of it. Vademi could find no answers, and Delnia could find no peace. The Goddesses sparred near constantly now, in her mind and in her dreams. Sometimes she woke from a vision from Beiduras to find her hand around her limp cock. Other times, a vision from Sehavre would end in her waking to find fresh sigils scratched into her arm.
On the third morning, Delnia broke.
Vademi could see it, sat again on the next cot, her face a network of deepening wrinkles. New bandages covered Delnia’s forearms, hiding the marks she’d clawed into them, and while her robes thankfully covered this, her penis had been rubbed red and raw- a blessing from Beiduras. Delnia had started to reconsider that allegiance. She felt a weight in her chest as if the feuding divinities had clawed a burrow into it, and now lived bodily within her.
<You don’t reject Me, little feather. You can’t. I’m all that keeps Her at bay.>
Delnia’s throat shuddered with a strained, unsteady giggle. Only a few days ago, she would have believed that. A week ago she could have fallen to her knees, weeping in elation to hear her Goddess’s voice. Now she knew her Goddess’s love was tainted. Beiduras loved her only as a fetish object- a novelty to be devoured alive.
[You’re right, little raven. She treats this as a game. Why do you think She waited until I began to contest you to act? Come to Me, so we will end this farce together.]
“Delnia?”
The acolyte blinked. “Yes?”
Vademi’s frown deepened. Delnia suddenly found herself unable to meet the Sister Superior’s eyes. Unable to bear the sight of herself crumbling reflected in them.
“No luck yet,” the Sister Superior said quietly. “This is... Very unusual, I’ve gathered. So, I’ve expanded my search to the rest of the city.”
Delnia blinked. “Alright.”
“Hundreds of thousands of people call this place home,” Vademi added, with an air of encouragement. “One of them must know something.”
<[What is there to know?]>
Delnia gave a slow nod. “Yeah,” she mumbled. What was there to know?
Swallowing, Vademi took Delnia’s hand gently in her weathered fingers. “Little sister,” she whispered. “Hold on. There must be an answer.”
<[I have given you the answer.]>
“Yeah,” was all Delnia could say, as if still lost in dreams.
She didn’t break just then. She tried to hold on for her older Sister, who had saved her life once before. It seemed unfair to shatter as she watched- cruel, even. Delnia couldn’t be cruel to the Sister Superior. Vademi left, another healer brought her a thick slice of bread with goat’s cheese and almonds for breakfast, and she ate. Then, she laid down and tried again to sleep.
She could feel them both watching her. Beiduras’s leering gaze like a harsh summer day, Sehavre’s glare like driving rain. She could feel them touch her. Beiduras’s soft fingers traced along her stomach to grab her groin, Her touch like the bite of static. Sehavre’s hands, gloved in rough leather, wove their fingers into her short hair and jerked her head back. She could feel them kiss her. Beiduras’s lips were soft but their touch lingered like fresh bruises on her skin, and Her breath was cloying and bitter. Sehavre’s breath was fire and She bit at the back of Delnia’s neck with teeth like sharp iron.
Then Delnia was between them. Crushed between lean muscle and plush curves. Iron talons scored her chin as soft hands groped her. Black wings beat against azure, each trying to force the other away. She looked up but saw only fire and sunlight, blinding her with Their light.
“Stop,” Delnia whimpered. “Please, both of You, stop.”
<[No. You are Mine.]>
That was it. Delnia woke fractured. Fractured knowing that she wouldn’t be safe even in her dreams; knowing that this would only get worse; and knowing that the more time passed, the more remote the hope that her older Sister would find her salvation became.
[Then accept the role I’ve given you.]
Shivering, like a dam about to burst, Delnia covered her ears.
<You do have a choice, My fledgling.>
No, she didn’t.
Did she?
A scent reached her notice: something earthy and heavy, like damp soil falling into one’s nose.
Oh.
Nymph’s kiss.
[That’s idiocy.]
<You chose Me, yes?>
[There’s a good death beneath My wings, little raven, and then there’s living a life bound in lies. Do not listen to Her.]
<My sister speaks of waste and yet would see you die beneath Her banner. A delicacy such as you must be preserved, my cockerel.>
[Do you really think She sees you as a woman either?]
<I saved you once, fledgling. Let Me do it again.>
Delnia set her hands over her ears, for all the good it did. “Please. This isn’t salvation.” She tried to whisper but could feel her voice trembling out of her control.
[Good boy. Salvation comes through service.]
The acolyte’s stomach heaved and she doubled over. “Leave me alone,” she whined into her robes. “Both of You, please stop.”
<Think, fledgling. She still calls you ‘boy’. She loves only the idea of your death, of hearing Her name on your dying breath.>
[And She only loves your cock. At least I am honest with you.]
Delnia gritted her teeth so hard they could shatter. Her whole body trembled, buckling beneath the weight of Their hands pressing down on her, Their fingers prying into the cracks opening across her being.
<Delnia. My sweet girl. Have I not showered you with blessings? Safety, sisterhood, purpose, your Change…>
[If only you could see Her salivate right now.]
<Have I not been good to you, Delnia? It’s hard now because my brutish sister tries to poach you, but before, was I not always good?>
She had been. Another reality Delnia couldn’t deny. She’d been a girl hiding in a boy’s corpse until Beiduras’s faithful took her in, gave her their Goddess’s Changing potions. Beiduras had been so good to her. Until this.
But would Sehavre be better?
<I will make it good again, Delnia. Just come to Me.>
Delnia’s lips quiver with the threat of a shaky smile. “Do You promise?”
[She promises you a charade, boy.]
<Yes, Delnia. I promise.>
That was it. Her name on her Goddess’s lips was all she needed to hear. The unspoken apology accepted. The outstretched hand taken.
Delnia heaved herself out of her cot, the tray her breakfast had been on clattering to the floor. Some of the men grunted or groaned, but they wouldn’t stop her, and Delnia judged she had a few minutes before one of the healers returned on their rounds. Besides, the infirmary was already in Beiduras’s wing of the temple.
Even so, the walk was long. Delnia staggered through the halls, weary to her bones. Every sound made her flinch and stop- passing footsteps down another corridor, voices chattering in another room. But she could smell pine and rosemary wafting to meet her, textured by the earthy scent of nymph’s kiss. All the while, in a turn she was unsure what to make of, the Goddesses were oddly silent. Perhaps allowing her peace, now that her choice was made? It wouldn’t matter soon. It wouldn’t even matter now, did Delnia not pass another corridor, and hear a sheepish voice call her name.
She froze.
“Del...?” Hega. She lingered as a pale shape at the edge of Delnia’s vision. Approaching in cautious inches, as if Delnia might dart away if she moved too quickly. “The Sister Superior said you’ve been unwell.” Hega even kept her voice flattened, as if she feared her usual warmth would thaw something. “I... Del, you’re supposed to be in the infirmary.”
“Just wanted to go for a walk,” Delnia croaked.
Hega paused. Near enough that Delnia could see her gesture as if to reach towards her. “You look like you need to lay down.”
“Just...” Delnia felt her eyes start to sting. She blinked, harder than her facade could survive. “Just out for a walk. I’m going mad, laying down so much.”
“No, you really don’t look well, sister.” Hega, kind, sweet Hega, couldn’t keep the worry from her voice then. “Want me to walk you back?”
Delnia dryly swallowed. Her mind started to stray. The scent of the nymph’s kiss faded from her nose. She very much wanted that. If she could spend a little time with Hega, maybe she could feel normal again. Maybe the Goddesses would stay quiet a little longer, and she could simply be a girl once more.
[She’s perfect.]
Delnia’s heart fell into her bowels. She fractured anew. All the wounds eased by Hega’s presence, pried open again.
“Del.” Hega took another step closer. Less hesitant now. Unaware of the War Matron’s talons hanging over them both. “Let’s head back, yeah?”
[Sweet and ripe. The kind of fruit a young man needs to sate his hungers and steady his mind.]
Delnia wretched.
Hega- that kind, stupid girl- took her shoulders in her delicate hands. She did smell so very sweet- so very ripe. “Alright,” she cooed, “Alright, then. We need to get you ba-”
Shrugging her off, Delnia barked, “Don’t. Please don’t.” Before Hega could stop her again she staggered down the hall. Just ahead, the doorway to Beiduras’s shrine stood open.
<Bring her. My sister is right on this point. >
Beiduras’s voice dripped over Delnia’s brain, less like honey than old oil, greasy and thick. Where Sehavre’s tone was icy function, cruel and indifferent, Beiduras’s was all hunger. Love boiling over into predatory lust. Visions burned through Delnia’s mind: slipping off Hega’s robes, bending her over their Goddess’s altar-
They became ash and dissipated as Delnia hurtled through the doorway. Beiduras’s shrine gleamed beneath the sunlight, its air warm and swirling with its heady mixture of pine, cocoa, and nymph’s kiss. Her eyes fluttered as she sagged onto the altar, scattering the offerings of cocoa beans and forget-me-nots onto the floor. She exhaled so long and deep her chest seemed to cave in.
<Can your sister not join? She need not take the same dose you will.>
Hega’s voice followed her into the shrine. “Delnia! Delnia, wait!”
“N...” Setting hands upon the shrine, Delnia began to grope around the altar, digging her nails into every crevice she could find. “No. Please.” The nymph’s kiss was here, stowed out of sight. It would allow Beiduras into her flesh- and only hers. An animal of stupid, all-consuming lust, useless to the War Matron. But this nightmare had no reason to claim Hega as well.
[Wait, boy. She’s almost here.]
<Sweet and ripe, indeed.>
[She will make you a man. My man.]
<Let her join us for a little while.>
[Don’t distract him.]
[She is Mine. All of her, Mine.]
Neither voice could be called human. Sehavre was the edge of two blades scraping together. Beiduras was a fire growing out of control, crackling as it ate its way out of its hearth. Delnia whined as panic overtook her. Her vision had started to blur and she could no longer tell if it was from the tears or the pain throbbing deep in her skull.
Then, a miracle, not from either Goddess but from some silent third party. A crack in the wood beneath Delnia’s hand, around the back of the altar. Digging her fingers in, Delnia pulled it open- a hidden compartment- and reached inside.
“Del, what are you doing?” Hega’s voice hit Delnia’s ears, competing with the bickering of the Goddesses.
Delnia, a smile of dumb relief spreading across her face, felt her fingertips graze glass.
“Hey.” Hega’s sweet voice gained a concerned edge. “Del, that’s where the nymph’s kiss is. L-Leave that alone, and we can talk, alright?”
Delnia pulled the vial out and clawed at the cork blocking its mouth. Its smell of earth and petrichor already began to dull her senses. No freedom but submission. No life but that shackled so tightly to the Goddess of her choosing that she could never be torn away from it.
“Delnia!” Hega was upon her, taking her by the shoulder to try and pull her away from the altar. “Sister, you could hurt yourself!”
Something tore open within Delnia, spilling hot coals into her guts. Reaching back, she grabbed a fistful of Hega’s hair. She ignored the other girl’s shocked yelp as she dragged her around to force her down against the altar. Hega fought but Delnia pressed her forearm onto her throat, strangling her voice to a damp gurgling. For a long moment- a terrible moment, pumping Delnia’s cock full of blood- Hega ceased to be her sister. Hega ceased to be another girl. Hega became meat. A spoil of combat.
And then Delnia saw her eyes. Green like fresh grass, normally so vivid and kind, now glazing over with animal terror.
And, worst and best of all- most terrible and miraculous- the vial of nymph’s kiss had come unstuck.
[Now, boy. Take her.]
<Bring her to Me, little feather.>
Hega’s shoes scuffed the floorboards as she struggled, utterly in vain. Sickly as Delnia was, this fervour gave her strength.
[Throw away the vial. Enough dreams.]
<There are no dreams here, My fledgling. Only My passion. Share it with her.>
Hega clawed at her wrists. Her nails were long but her dainty body was losing what little strength it had. Delnia’s head spun, so much of her vigour flowed to her erection.
[Wake up and fuck her.]
<Let her feel this love as well.>
Hega’s gained a purplish tint as her hands pawed at Delnia’s arm.
And Delnia splintered. Her being, from her soul to her mind, cracked in two down the middle and split apart. One half was dragged away by iron claws. The other, by soft and manicured fingers. One would reach its destination before the other, and that Goddess would claim her. She had a moment left- a single heartbeat- in which the choice could still be hers.
She threw back the vial of nymph’s kiss. It tasted of mildew and dirt and lettuce leaves left just a day too long in storage. It groped at the lining of her throat as it went down, before coiling lightly in her belly like a serpent.
[You stupid boy.]
<My good girl.>
A spear piercing her skull. Soft linen wrapping around her neck. These images were the last thoughts to flash through Delnia’s mind, before it was deluged with boiling water. Flooding her skull, flooding her muscles and veins. Tendons and nerves tensing like bowstrings. The Goddesses continued to bicker but Their words became nonsense, garbled by the surge of hormones. Delnia was granted another fleeting moment of lucidity. In it, she staggered back, releasing Hega to raggedly gasp for air.
The world degraded then- melted into blurs and dulled sensation. Delnia felt a light impact on her back. Had she fallen? Perhaps, but all her eyes could register were greens and browns blurring together. Everything bled into incoherence, and she couldn’t be bothered to pursue it. Not when she was so painfully, deliriously hard. All the world shrank to her straining cock, and the need to ease it.
A small voice. A smear of blue and white moving amidst the colors of pine forest.
Delnia couldn’t care now. Her body was ablaze, ravenous flames devouring her from the inside out. Clawing with rictus hands at her skirts, she sought relief.
“Del...?!” Warbling in and out of earshot. Two spots of pale green, swollen amidst the trees. “Oh… Oh no….”
Fabric hissed and tore, and Delnia’s hands found her penis. Faintly she remembered it had shrunk since she’d started her Change, the concoctions steadily adjusting her body to a girl’s. She’d never missed what she’d lost then, until now. Now it seethed and throbbed and drooled and she only had so much of it to hold, so much to bleed this pleasure from. She whined aloud, a hoarse and needful sound.
A soft tapping she faintly recognized as shoes on wood, hurrying past her. Not important now. Perhaps never important again. Three thimbles of nymph’s kiss would enrapture one for days. What would the whole vial do? Delnia squirmed and mewled and stroked and burned, both delighted and horrified by the possibilities. All she knew was that in this state, however long it lasted- if it never ended- she would be of no use to Sehavre.
This did not mean she would be useless, of course.
A form materialized through the oily smears across her vision. Towering, curvaceous, mantled in wings of gold and azure. A soft face framed by waves of gold, plump beauty offset by the naked lecherous hunger blazing in Her sapphire eyes.
<Good girl. Good little cockerel.>
The Goddess Beiduras practically drooled as She spoke. Her voice was not honey but hot dripping grease. For an insane moment, Delnia was afraid. A bone deep terror, born of a terrible realization. She even stopped stroking.
Just for a moment, though.
Delnia’s lips warped into an idiot smile. She resumed pleasuring herself. Who better to relieve this maddening lust than the Goddess of Love Herself?
<Just so. You know your place in the end, don’t you? After you gave yourself to Me- after you spent so long preparing yourself for Me, and Me alone.>
Whimpers became unsteady giggles. Delnia spread herself out against the cool wood. There was safety in this, surely. Beiduras only demanded her body, not her life. Better to be a toy than a corpse. Surely, Delnia told herself, as the Goddess lowered Herself over her, bringing those hungry eyes and that hungry smile closer, and a huge, soft hand wrapped around her throat.
<Mine.>
“Yours,” Delnia gurgled, before her Goddess’s hand tightened. In some corner of her mind that had yet to drown, Sehavre’s muffled protests finally slipped away into the waters, and her head fell blissfully silent. Blissful, even with the leering face of her chosen Goddess descending upon her, hot bittersweet breath cloying in her nose.
<Mine alone.>
