(no subject)
Okay so, feeling depressed and miserable, I spent the whole day pretty much reading. And then I felt like writing and when I sat down, I thought about Aldric and the Goddess in my last snippet and I thought, how is it that a Goddess actually owes Aldric a favor? I mean, as far as characters go in my little imaginary vampire world, Aldric isn't exactly the most powerful. He doesn't even want power.
So I wrote this. It takes place roughly about twenty or so years after he's turned into a Daywalker. Tenebrae means Darkness and Lux Pedes means Day Walker. Nightstalker just didn't work in Latin and at that time, they weren't vampires, they were just demons who hunted in the night. Besides that, after this little episode, Aldric doesn't find Tenebrae very fitting, because the he comes to associate the darkness with good things, rather than evil. I think after this, too, he starts to see Nightstalkers differently. I tried really hard to portray him differently than I think of him usually; he's young and foolish and does what he's told by the Daywalkers.
There's pretty much a whole untold story in this. I mean, who is the Goddess really? And who is her brother that, at the time, controlled the Daywalkers? And to what ends did he control them? And also, did the Goddess maybe have a thing for Aldric? I'm actually having a lot of fun, thinking up silly things for Aldric's non-existant backstory, but I think there's probably a lot of holes in this because at first it was the Goddess who created all vampires, and then I decided she just created the one type and her brother created the other and... some things might've got mixed up. So, anyway, here it is!
He stood silent, watching as she writhed under his gaze, pulling at the chains that held her hands tight across her chest in a twisted ‘x’. She wore nothing, but did not seem to care, her skin pale as ivory and glistening with cold sweat. Her sharp teeth gnashed together, vivid unseeing eyes narrowed as she struggled against her bonds. Black hair fell in tendrils around her face, framing it in darkness that seemed to seep from every crack and space around her. She muttered words under her breath, an incantation in an ancient language that no one would ever understand but her. The words were hisses and seemed born of a different way of speaking altogether. There were no letters recognizable, only sounds and grunts and whispers that floated in the air around her, electricity crackling at her edges with every press of her ruby lips.
She fell silent suddenly, sagging against her chains, resigning herself to her prison. Tired and furious, her gaze drifted upward. Though he knew with those eyes she should not be able to see, he felt as though she were staring through his skin and into his mind, looking at his soul. She was looking directly into his eyes, her intense gaze making him unable to look away.
“You are so young,” she hissed in a language he could understand, though the words seemed foreign in her mouth. Her voice bit at his ears, turned his thoughts on each other, but he gripped his sword firmly in his hands and gritted his teeth against her powers. He was no mere mortal. He would withstand her temptations, her alluring charms. She was the first, the one who had made the darkness in the world, and in the creation she had foolishly put a bit of herself within every dark creature and that darkness lingered in him. It made him stronger than a mortal human and able to withstand her. “Why do you restrain me, keep me from myself? Why would my own beloved creations turn on me? Me, who gave the darkness power?”
Aldric’s hands tightened around the leather grip of his sword, holding it boldly in front of him, as though the gleaming steel would protect him from her icy gaze that wormed its way into his very being. She smiled at him, tenderly for a moment, revealing two rows of perfectly white teeth, each one tapered into sharp, gleaming points. He shut his eyes and looked away, breathing deeply.
“They have lied to you,” she whispered into the dark, her voice tempting him to look again. He didn’t. He stared firmly at the torch that flickered at the edge of the stone chamber. Every inch of stone was carved deeply with runes and symbols, some filigreed with sheets of silver, making them shine and sparkle in the dancing light. Coloured crystals sat on the floor along the walls, creating a circle around the two of them. He shifted, his heavy armour scraping against the chainmail beneath that scratched his bare skin and pulled at his tunic. “I am not to be feared!”
She shouted at him, her voice echoing in the chamber. The sharp anger in her voice pulled at his attention and he found himself, despite his inward struggle, gazing into her eyes once more. Her chest was heaving against her chains, breasts stained with the dried blood of Aldric’s fellow men. Sparks flew from her fingers tips, racing along any place they touched.
“I created you,” she snapped, eyes blazing. “I took a sacred human and made him a monster, gave him the power he craved. I blackened your souls so that you may live eternal. I gave you what you wanted, and you turn on me, as though I have condemned you to damnation when it was your own choices, your own greed and desire that made you what you are!”
“No!” Aldric yelled, unable to withstand the power in her voice that made his skin crawl and his mind ache. “You did not create us! You created them, the Tenebrae. They are nothing but your minions to feed on the Sacred Ones and destroy them!”
She laughed, dark and cold and sharp, like steel scraping across stone.
“We protect them,” Aldric said, his voice quavering. Her words were seeds of doubt and they were sprouting in his mind, making him question. He had always followed orders, never doubted the words of his Makers. He was a soldier; as he had been in life, he was in death. But what if he was wrong? He was young and never questioned what he was; he never thought of how he had come into existence. He only knew it was not by her hand. She created the Tenebrae - The Dark Ones, those that could not step into the light of God. “We protect the humans from the creatures you created.”
She laughed again and for a moment he twisted away from her, as though that would save him from the horrible sound.
“Oh, child, you know nothing of this world,” she whispered, her words light and soothing, but the underlying darkness was impossible to mask. “True, I did not directly create your kind. That was my brother; he has turned you against me. Do you know that it is he who controls the Lux Pedes? Your Elders are nothing more than pawns doing a conceited God’s bidding.”
“That’s a lie,” Aldric spat at her, moving forward. How dare she suggest something as ridiculous as that? The Elders were more powerful than he could ever dream to be; if he could resist her than surely the Elders would be able to resist the words of the one she called her brother. He swung his sword down, pressing the tip into the hollow of her neck. He was forbidden to kill her unless she dared escape. A brief thought of lying wound through his mind, but he recoiled at the thought. The sword was an empty threat, one that he hoped she could not see in him.
“I cannot control you because you are not of my making,” she said, her voice sickly sweet. Her hand twisted against her shackles, as though she were trying to reach out to him. She pushed forward and the edge of Aldric’s blade sunk into the pale flesh at her throat. Black blood seeped from the wound and he immediately withdrew his sword. It pooled in the hollow before spilling between her body and her crossed arms. “And I see in your black soul that you are good. There is a brightness that I have never seen in your kind. But he can control your thoughts with a mere touch, a whisper, a look. He took my dark creation and twisted it to make you. He controls your Elders and he can control you. If you unleash me, I will bring him down and you will be free. All of you. Would I offer that to you if I was as black and evil as you make me seem?”
Aldric’s stomach curled into knots and his knuckles whitened against the hilt of his sword. She was a dark temptress and all that came from her was lies. That was what he had been told. That was what he knew. But as she stared at him, scorching blue eyes staring deep within him, he felt as though he were horribly wrong. Her exterior was sharp and cold, her eyes hollow and depthless. Everything she seemed was based on that. But if one were to look at Aldric, really see him as he truly was, would they not see the same thing? The same sharp teeth, the same horrible gaze, the same pale skin?
“You created the Tenebrae. Why would create something like them if you were so good?” Aldric meant it to come out harsh and threatening, but the words lost momentum on his tongue and came out soft and questioning; a child asking its mother a question. “They feed on the sacred and they threaten our rules that protect civilization from your darkness. They are nothing but a blight in this world.”
She rolled her head from side to side, as though considering the question. Her movements were fluid and like that of a snake. “Why did I make them?” she whispered, as though asking herself the question. She closed her luminescent eyes, heavy eyelashes feathered against pale skin. “I gave him what he wanted. I gave him eternity with me.”
Her voice was suddenly soft, wistful and sad; a heartbreaking sound that made Aldric’s hands. His brows furrowed in confusion. She was dark and angry and everything that was wrong in this world. How could she possibly feel sadness? But then, he thought, sadness was part of the dark. He couldn’t help the question that came to his lips. “Who?”
Her eyes opened and she stared into him again, but this time he did not resist her. Perhaps it was foolish, but there was a gnawing question at the edge of his mind. She had sparked curiosity in him. He wanted to know where the Tenebrae and the Lux Pedes came from. She was, perhaps, the only one who knew. Her eyes were dimmed, sparkling as tears brimmed the edges. But as quickly as the emotion had come, it was swiftly tucked away and out of sight. She blinked, the tears vanishing and the brightness returning.
“I fell in love with a human,” she said, breathing deeply and speaking slowly as though the story was a distant memory. “He was Sacred and I was forbidden to touch him. My brother -” she gritted her teeth, and anger swelled her chest and made her words sharp. “My brother was not. He had many lovers. He was the sun and I was the moon. The sun was welcomed. I was not. Darkness was not allowed to touch upon the Sacred. But he... He was beautiful. He loved the night when I could see him most clearly. He spoke to me, to the moon and whispered of his dreams and secrets. I thought I saw everything of him. I broke the decree that kept me from him. I gave him eternal life as best I could.
“He had to feed to remain part of the Sacred, to keep from becoming the shadows. He was stronger and more resilient and that made him more suitable, able to withstand my touch without fear. But with the touch of my darkness, he could not face my brother. The Sun would eternally be our enemy together,” she stared at Aldric as though he weren’t there, as though she were speaking to someone else. It occurred to him that there was an unbidden love in her eyes that he had seen in so many before. For a moment, she seemed mortal. She wasn’t a Goddess any longer, but a woman heartbroken and chained. “But I thought - we were together and every night was ours. Sunlight didn’t matter; our love was enough. I was deceived. He took the power I gave him and created others like him. He blackened the Sacred and betrayed my trust and my love. He forsook me after all I had given him; all I had done for him.”
Aldric cleared his throat. He reached out with his hand in effort to comfort her, but when he touched her shoulder, the electricity beneath her skin shocked and burned him. He pulled his hand sharply back and she glared at him.
“That was how they came to be. It was my love that created the blight,” she hissed, her eyes darkening as she stared at him. She seemed to be sucking the darkness from the room, pulling it from the shadows the torches created so that she seemed suspended in nothingness. Where her feet touched the ground, blackness spread. Sparks drew paths of light through the obscurity before vanishing. The shadows along the floor seemed to be reaching out to him and Aldric felt as though he were standing on the edge of a dark abyss.
For a moment the room was silent; even the torches seemed not to make a sound. There was nothing but the sharp edge of her breathing and his own slow but faltering breaths. Then the chains rattled as she moved her hands, pressing her fingertips to the side of her face and wiping away a wet path that ran along the edge of her cheek. Aldric couldn’t tell if it was from tears or sweat. She drew in a breath that hissed.
“Then my brother created your kind. He said that he would fix the mistake I had made, but he saw it as nothing more than an opportunity to control without breaking the laws,” she sighed, tilting her head to the side. “With both parts of us, you are stronger than the Dark Ones, and yet you succumb so easily to his words and whims. Free me and I will allow you one wish, one thing that I can grant you. Free me and then you will never hear from either of us again. I wish to be of this world no longer.”
There was the pain in her voice, the heartbreak and the anger, but there was truth. Somehow Aldric knew that. She had told him something painful, something she likely had told no one else. He should have felt privileged and overwhelmed. He’d been granted the knowledge of his creation, but he only felt sad and used and, perhaps, a bit angry. Finally he sighed and he smiled at her. Perhaps he was being a fool. Perhaps he was falling for the Goddess’ cunning plan. But something in the way she looked at him, the way her eyes pleaded with him and touched at his soul, made him believe her.
She was Darkness, but she was not evil.
He was surprised when she smiled back.
“Maybe,” she whispered, tilting her head. “Maybe what my brother has given you is not such a bad thing. But it is no one’s right to control you. We are forbidden from manipulating the Sacred. I made a mistake when I did. I see now that perhaps it should be forbidden to manipulate anything of this world, including the Lux Pedes.”
Aldric lifted his sword and for a moment she shrunk away from him. He was shocked and a bit appalled at himself when he saw fear in her face. Sadness, love, fear - the Goddess could feel it all, even if she did not wish to show it. But he gave her a nod, the warmest smile he could, and swung the sword down as hard as he could. Sparks rained from the chains as the steel broke apart the silver, freeing her from her binds.
“Thank you,” she said, stepping from her pool of darkness toward him. She reached out and this time, when she touched his cheek and the sparks raced along his skin, they were warm and gentle. “When you need me, call on my darkness and I will be of aid to you. Make your wish count.”
She touched her red lips to his for a moment, lingering before pulling away.
“Blow out the torches and lay me a path out of this place,” she said, and Aldric did as she instructed. Even when the torches became nothing but glowing embers, Aldric could still see clearly. It was her gift that made it possible to see into the darkness, to create light where there was none. He sliced the palm of his hand open, blood pouring from the wound. He let the drops hit the stone floor, and wherever a drop of his blood fell, she walked until she was free from the chamber. Red stained the soles of her feet.
She turned to face him, and as she did, the shadows swelled around her, creating black material out of nothing and swathing her in thick fabrics. The cut on his palm vanished as a black tendril crept along his arm. She smiled at him and then the shadows swallowed her before retreating back to their places along the edges of the corridor. The torches flared to life as her presence disappeared. Aldric breathed deeply, wondering vaguely if he had done the right thing. He would no doubt be punished for it by the Elders, but he felt no fear of it.
There was a blackness in his soul that was created by the Goddess. But he knew without it, he would not feel whole.
So I wrote this. It takes place roughly about twenty or so years after he's turned into a Daywalker. Tenebrae means Darkness and Lux Pedes means Day Walker. Nightstalker just didn't work in Latin and at that time, they weren't vampires, they were just demons who hunted in the night. Besides that, after this little episode, Aldric doesn't find Tenebrae very fitting, because the he comes to associate the darkness with good things, rather than evil. I think after this, too, he starts to see Nightstalkers differently. I tried really hard to portray him differently than I think of him usually; he's young and foolish and does what he's told by the Daywalkers.
There's pretty much a whole untold story in this. I mean, who is the Goddess really? And who is her brother that, at the time, controlled the Daywalkers? And to what ends did he control them? And also, did the Goddess maybe have a thing for Aldric? I'm actually having a lot of fun, thinking up silly things for Aldric's non-existant backstory, but I think there's probably a lot of holes in this because at first it was the Goddess who created all vampires, and then I decided she just created the one type and her brother created the other and... some things might've got mixed up. So, anyway, here it is!
He stood silent, watching as she writhed under his gaze, pulling at the chains that held her hands tight across her chest in a twisted ‘x’. She wore nothing, but did not seem to care, her skin pale as ivory and glistening with cold sweat. Her sharp teeth gnashed together, vivid unseeing eyes narrowed as she struggled against her bonds. Black hair fell in tendrils around her face, framing it in darkness that seemed to seep from every crack and space around her. She muttered words under her breath, an incantation in an ancient language that no one would ever understand but her. The words were hisses and seemed born of a different way of speaking altogether. There were no letters recognizable, only sounds and grunts and whispers that floated in the air around her, electricity crackling at her edges with every press of her ruby lips.
She fell silent suddenly, sagging against her chains, resigning herself to her prison. Tired and furious, her gaze drifted upward. Though he knew with those eyes she should not be able to see, he felt as though she were staring through his skin and into his mind, looking at his soul. She was looking directly into his eyes, her intense gaze making him unable to look away.
“You are so young,” she hissed in a language he could understand, though the words seemed foreign in her mouth. Her voice bit at his ears, turned his thoughts on each other, but he gripped his sword firmly in his hands and gritted his teeth against her powers. He was no mere mortal. He would withstand her temptations, her alluring charms. She was the first, the one who had made the darkness in the world, and in the creation she had foolishly put a bit of herself within every dark creature and that darkness lingered in him. It made him stronger than a mortal human and able to withstand her. “Why do you restrain me, keep me from myself? Why would my own beloved creations turn on me? Me, who gave the darkness power?”
Aldric’s hands tightened around the leather grip of his sword, holding it boldly in front of him, as though the gleaming steel would protect him from her icy gaze that wormed its way into his very being. She smiled at him, tenderly for a moment, revealing two rows of perfectly white teeth, each one tapered into sharp, gleaming points. He shut his eyes and looked away, breathing deeply.
“They have lied to you,” she whispered into the dark, her voice tempting him to look again. He didn’t. He stared firmly at the torch that flickered at the edge of the stone chamber. Every inch of stone was carved deeply with runes and symbols, some filigreed with sheets of silver, making them shine and sparkle in the dancing light. Coloured crystals sat on the floor along the walls, creating a circle around the two of them. He shifted, his heavy armour scraping against the chainmail beneath that scratched his bare skin and pulled at his tunic. “I am not to be feared!”
She shouted at him, her voice echoing in the chamber. The sharp anger in her voice pulled at his attention and he found himself, despite his inward struggle, gazing into her eyes once more. Her chest was heaving against her chains, breasts stained with the dried blood of Aldric’s fellow men. Sparks flew from her fingers tips, racing along any place they touched.
“I created you,” she snapped, eyes blazing. “I took a sacred human and made him a monster, gave him the power he craved. I blackened your souls so that you may live eternal. I gave you what you wanted, and you turn on me, as though I have condemned you to damnation when it was your own choices, your own greed and desire that made you what you are!”
“No!” Aldric yelled, unable to withstand the power in her voice that made his skin crawl and his mind ache. “You did not create us! You created them, the Tenebrae. They are nothing but your minions to feed on the Sacred Ones and destroy them!”
She laughed, dark and cold and sharp, like steel scraping across stone.
“We protect them,” Aldric said, his voice quavering. Her words were seeds of doubt and they were sprouting in his mind, making him question. He had always followed orders, never doubted the words of his Makers. He was a soldier; as he had been in life, he was in death. But what if he was wrong? He was young and never questioned what he was; he never thought of how he had come into existence. He only knew it was not by her hand. She created the Tenebrae - The Dark Ones, those that could not step into the light of God. “We protect the humans from the creatures you created.”
She laughed again and for a moment he twisted away from her, as though that would save him from the horrible sound.
“Oh, child, you know nothing of this world,” she whispered, her words light and soothing, but the underlying darkness was impossible to mask. “True, I did not directly create your kind. That was my brother; he has turned you against me. Do you know that it is he who controls the Lux Pedes? Your Elders are nothing more than pawns doing a conceited God’s bidding.”
“That’s a lie,” Aldric spat at her, moving forward. How dare she suggest something as ridiculous as that? The Elders were more powerful than he could ever dream to be; if he could resist her than surely the Elders would be able to resist the words of the one she called her brother. He swung his sword down, pressing the tip into the hollow of her neck. He was forbidden to kill her unless she dared escape. A brief thought of lying wound through his mind, but he recoiled at the thought. The sword was an empty threat, one that he hoped she could not see in him.
“I cannot control you because you are not of my making,” she said, her voice sickly sweet. Her hand twisted against her shackles, as though she were trying to reach out to him. She pushed forward and the edge of Aldric’s blade sunk into the pale flesh at her throat. Black blood seeped from the wound and he immediately withdrew his sword. It pooled in the hollow before spilling between her body and her crossed arms. “And I see in your black soul that you are good. There is a brightness that I have never seen in your kind. But he can control your thoughts with a mere touch, a whisper, a look. He took my dark creation and twisted it to make you. He controls your Elders and he can control you. If you unleash me, I will bring him down and you will be free. All of you. Would I offer that to you if I was as black and evil as you make me seem?”
Aldric’s stomach curled into knots and his knuckles whitened against the hilt of his sword. She was a dark temptress and all that came from her was lies. That was what he had been told. That was what he knew. But as she stared at him, scorching blue eyes staring deep within him, he felt as though he were horribly wrong. Her exterior was sharp and cold, her eyes hollow and depthless. Everything she seemed was based on that. But if one were to look at Aldric, really see him as he truly was, would they not see the same thing? The same sharp teeth, the same horrible gaze, the same pale skin?
“You created the Tenebrae. Why would create something like them if you were so good?” Aldric meant it to come out harsh and threatening, but the words lost momentum on his tongue and came out soft and questioning; a child asking its mother a question. “They feed on the sacred and they threaten our rules that protect civilization from your darkness. They are nothing but a blight in this world.”
She rolled her head from side to side, as though considering the question. Her movements were fluid and like that of a snake. “Why did I make them?” she whispered, as though asking herself the question. She closed her luminescent eyes, heavy eyelashes feathered against pale skin. “I gave him what he wanted. I gave him eternity with me.”
Her voice was suddenly soft, wistful and sad; a heartbreaking sound that made Aldric’s hands. His brows furrowed in confusion. She was dark and angry and everything that was wrong in this world. How could she possibly feel sadness? But then, he thought, sadness was part of the dark. He couldn’t help the question that came to his lips. “Who?”
Her eyes opened and she stared into him again, but this time he did not resist her. Perhaps it was foolish, but there was a gnawing question at the edge of his mind. She had sparked curiosity in him. He wanted to know where the Tenebrae and the Lux Pedes came from. She was, perhaps, the only one who knew. Her eyes were dimmed, sparkling as tears brimmed the edges. But as quickly as the emotion had come, it was swiftly tucked away and out of sight. She blinked, the tears vanishing and the brightness returning.
“I fell in love with a human,” she said, breathing deeply and speaking slowly as though the story was a distant memory. “He was Sacred and I was forbidden to touch him. My brother -” she gritted her teeth, and anger swelled her chest and made her words sharp. “My brother was not. He had many lovers. He was the sun and I was the moon. The sun was welcomed. I was not. Darkness was not allowed to touch upon the Sacred. But he... He was beautiful. He loved the night when I could see him most clearly. He spoke to me, to the moon and whispered of his dreams and secrets. I thought I saw everything of him. I broke the decree that kept me from him. I gave him eternal life as best I could.
“He had to feed to remain part of the Sacred, to keep from becoming the shadows. He was stronger and more resilient and that made him more suitable, able to withstand my touch without fear. But with the touch of my darkness, he could not face my brother. The Sun would eternally be our enemy together,” she stared at Aldric as though he weren’t there, as though she were speaking to someone else. It occurred to him that there was an unbidden love in her eyes that he had seen in so many before. For a moment, she seemed mortal. She wasn’t a Goddess any longer, but a woman heartbroken and chained. “But I thought - we were together and every night was ours. Sunlight didn’t matter; our love was enough. I was deceived. He took the power I gave him and created others like him. He blackened the Sacred and betrayed my trust and my love. He forsook me after all I had given him; all I had done for him.”
Aldric cleared his throat. He reached out with his hand in effort to comfort her, but when he touched her shoulder, the electricity beneath her skin shocked and burned him. He pulled his hand sharply back and she glared at him.
“That was how they came to be. It was my love that created the blight,” she hissed, her eyes darkening as she stared at him. She seemed to be sucking the darkness from the room, pulling it from the shadows the torches created so that she seemed suspended in nothingness. Where her feet touched the ground, blackness spread. Sparks drew paths of light through the obscurity before vanishing. The shadows along the floor seemed to be reaching out to him and Aldric felt as though he were standing on the edge of a dark abyss.
For a moment the room was silent; even the torches seemed not to make a sound. There was nothing but the sharp edge of her breathing and his own slow but faltering breaths. Then the chains rattled as she moved her hands, pressing her fingertips to the side of her face and wiping away a wet path that ran along the edge of her cheek. Aldric couldn’t tell if it was from tears or sweat. She drew in a breath that hissed.
“Then my brother created your kind. He said that he would fix the mistake I had made, but he saw it as nothing more than an opportunity to control without breaking the laws,” she sighed, tilting her head to the side. “With both parts of us, you are stronger than the Dark Ones, and yet you succumb so easily to his words and whims. Free me and I will allow you one wish, one thing that I can grant you. Free me and then you will never hear from either of us again. I wish to be of this world no longer.”
There was the pain in her voice, the heartbreak and the anger, but there was truth. Somehow Aldric knew that. She had told him something painful, something she likely had told no one else. He should have felt privileged and overwhelmed. He’d been granted the knowledge of his creation, but he only felt sad and used and, perhaps, a bit angry. Finally he sighed and he smiled at her. Perhaps he was being a fool. Perhaps he was falling for the Goddess’ cunning plan. But something in the way she looked at him, the way her eyes pleaded with him and touched at his soul, made him believe her.
She was Darkness, but she was not evil.
He was surprised when she smiled back.
“Maybe,” she whispered, tilting her head. “Maybe what my brother has given you is not such a bad thing. But it is no one’s right to control you. We are forbidden from manipulating the Sacred. I made a mistake when I did. I see now that perhaps it should be forbidden to manipulate anything of this world, including the Lux Pedes.”
Aldric lifted his sword and for a moment she shrunk away from him. He was shocked and a bit appalled at himself when he saw fear in her face. Sadness, love, fear - the Goddess could feel it all, even if she did not wish to show it. But he gave her a nod, the warmest smile he could, and swung the sword down as hard as he could. Sparks rained from the chains as the steel broke apart the silver, freeing her from her binds.
“Thank you,” she said, stepping from her pool of darkness toward him. She reached out and this time, when she touched his cheek and the sparks raced along his skin, they were warm and gentle. “When you need me, call on my darkness and I will be of aid to you. Make your wish count.”
She touched her red lips to his for a moment, lingering before pulling away.
“Blow out the torches and lay me a path out of this place,” she said, and Aldric did as she instructed. Even when the torches became nothing but glowing embers, Aldric could still see clearly. It was her gift that made it possible to see into the darkness, to create light where there was none. He sliced the palm of his hand open, blood pouring from the wound. He let the drops hit the stone floor, and wherever a drop of his blood fell, she walked until she was free from the chamber. Red stained the soles of her feet.
She turned to face him, and as she did, the shadows swelled around her, creating black material out of nothing and swathing her in thick fabrics. The cut on his palm vanished as a black tendril crept along his arm. She smiled at him and then the shadows swallowed her before retreating back to their places along the edges of the corridor. The torches flared to life as her presence disappeared. Aldric breathed deeply, wondering vaguely if he had done the right thing. He would no doubt be punished for it by the Elders, but he felt no fear of it.
There was a blackness in his soul that was created by the Goddess. But he knew without it, he would not feel whole.