Lifelight: Calypso Returns

23.

The bandages came off after days of looking like a mummy. The scars were permanent, even the nymphs could not do anything about it. Hera was thinking about a full body tattoo. The separation had left its own scars but instead of dealing with those she directed that fear and anger another way.

"I want to speak to the Thairn." Hera said.

Thur was in the middle of an enormous lunch and paused only to say no. He looked exhausted. Every member of the guard looked exhausted.

"I know he will not tell you anything. And I just want to ask him a single question. That is it." Hera said.

"No."Thur said.

"Fine. Any luck catching Ardan?" Hera said.

"Yuli caught up with him. But there were problems." Thur said.

"The nobles protect him and you can't admit you nearly lost the goddess?"

"Yes."

"Let me talk to the Thairn. Please."

"One question, and I will be there."

Thur took her to cells miles underneath Sol Saira. They were sterile and cold. The Thairn stood in a corner of his room away from the bed. He did not acknowledge Thur but kept eye contact with Hera.

He committed sacrilege. You should not give his actions justice.

"What do I call you?" Hera said.

"Nilit, your holiness." Thur said.

"You no longer serve Calypso. But you do not work for the nobles either.It was you that found the hunter and the engineer. Who do you serve Nilit?"

"I serve the Pantheon your holiness."

Hera left the capital in a hurry. Her heart was racing and Calypso was running wild inside her. Thur drove as she tried to make sense of it all.

"I wondered about the war. None of it made sense." She said.

"What about the war?" He said.

"How it ended. Why would the hoard care about a treaty with a bunch of nobles. Why not overrun Saira anyway. They had the power. The nymphs were dead or in exile." She said.

"Calypso sealed the planes. It cost too much power to cross. And then she disappeared."

"Exactly, the deal was to kill the goddess. Only the demons could do it. Break the laws without consequence."

"That's why the nobles allied with them."

"Not the nobles. They would not know what to do with that kind of power."

"Take over Saira, that seems like something to do with it."

"I read this... The pantheon is permanent and irreplaceable. The death of a god, the destruction of the life light, leaves a vacuum. Whoever fills that vacuum absorbs the power of the dead god."

"I don't see..."

"Only a god can fill the vacuum."

"You can't mean."

"I can and I do. I am not the one making Azmythica rise."

"Who is?"

"I don't know, but they've waited six hundred years and they are done waiting."

Hawa was sleeping coffin-style in the middle of her room when Hera barged in. Of everyone in the cottage, Hawa looked the most like Hera. She had dark chocolate skin and black eyes, she spoke with Hera's accent even though Hera did not know how that was possible. There were still many things hidden from her.