of them did. She just dropped a bomb on them, and it was honestly amazing none of them were threatening to lock her up. They also weren’t willing to ask her for more information.
“I’m going for a walk,” she decided, turning away.
“You just got back! You need to rest,” Zayden snapped.
“I’ll rest when I’m dead.”
“Mave, I need my Champion at her full strength,” Alchan said, concern still there.
“I…” She turned back to him, her heart still dust. Her confidence was destroyed. “I can’t be your Champion anymore.”
“Excuse me?” Alchan looked like a wounded animal.
She shook her head. “I need…time. Just give me a little time,” she pleaded, turning her back on them again.
She walked into the woods, heading for the edge of the valley where no one lived. She couldn’t be near any of them.
I should have been enough. He shouldn’t be dead. What’s the fucking point if the people I love are going to die anyway, Kristanya? You stole Kian and Leshaun from us, goddess of Death. Is this why you won’t visit me any longer? Is this why you’ve ignored me for weeks? You, who bothered me even when I didn’t ask for you, suddenly don’t care to speak to me and answer for this?
She found a place to sit as her body threatened to give out, a stump solid enough to sit on.
She needed peace, and she reached for the one way she got it on most days. She needed cold and emotionless. She hated this feeling.
She pulled the flute up to her lips, chasing the peacefulness it always offered her and began to play. Someone walked behind her, and Emerian showed up, standing silently. He kept watch, but she could see his face. It wasn’t as perfectly pretty as it once was. The scar and the missing eye were no longer covered by bandages as he had kept them on the road home.
She tried to ignore him and succeeded, putting him to the back of her mind, not ready to deal with him yet. If he wanted to continue this weird shadowing he was doing, he could. She didn’t have to confront the particular problem he presented yet.
She kept playing until she cracked one last time. The pretty flute didn’t bring her peace. It reminded her of the male and the family who had made it for her. A family she allowed to be broken. As she played, she began to miss notes and finally pressed it to her chest.
She sobbed until she couldn’t breathe. She cried until she was spent, and her face felt raw. She slipped off the stump and curled into a ball, sobbing until her throat felt as if it was on fire.
Her last memory before her body and grief won was Emerian picking her up off the forest floor and walking with her in his arms.
Mave dreamed, but she didn’t start in the silent forest. She stood in the clearing, staring at Kristanya.
“You yelled for me so loudly, I couldn’t ignore it,” the goddess said softly.
“Why?” She needed answers.
“I don’t choose who lives or dies, little girl. You can’t pin the blame of this on me,” Kristanya said, her voice as emotionless as Mave’s own. “I only make sure death is something that exists, and no one tries to cheat it. No one has a ‘right time’ when they are meant to go. I judge souls when it’s over.”
“What was the point of everything if I’m just going to lose?” Mave demanded. “Lose my father, lose my family? Lose the…” Mave gasped.
“Lose the war?” Kristanya inquired. “I am not infallible or all-powerful. I can’t go and kill the Elvasi Empress for you. I was hoping I could train you to be good enough to do it…but that doesn’t stop it, does it? Every time you failed, every time others failed, a path closed. With every casualty, the Andinna drifted further away from those paths that would lead to victory. It’s too late to kill the Empress and end this war without a major conflict.”
“Do you think we’re going to lose?” Mave asked. “Truly?”
Kristanya frowned. “Don’t you? Even if the Andinna win against her army, there won’t be enough of them to sustain the people. It’ll be a slow death, but I can feel it. Death is coming, and there are no paths that I can see.” She turned away from Mave. “I must get back to my duties. My sister tends to the living, and I should have left her to