A Pirate for the Dead Goddess (Legends of Rahasia Book 2)

Chapter Twenty-Six

            "Where are you going?" Sol asks, the Godkiller cleaning her axe again and again in the sand, trying to get the memory of severed limbs from her head.

The Matriarch of Truth just snickers. "Oh, my iron daughter. You thought I'd want to stay to see the battle progress? What queen would die with her peasants?"

"An honorable one?"

Soleil regrets the retort as soon as she says it. The Matriarch already has Sol crippled from pain with her sandaled foot pressing down on the fleshy parts of the Godkiller's neck.

Still worth saying it though.

That bitch.

"I see the Lune Alchemist made a mistake with you. Too much humanity left. I should've built a woman made entirely of metal instead. Then they wouldn't talk back." She claps her hands, and a Lune scholar limps forwards. An older man. Gray-black curls and sun-browned skin. Rope chafes into his hobbled ankles and hands. Lune soldiers press an electric prod into the small of his back. The Alchemist falls forwards, shaking from the horrible pain. "That's why we'll be leaving you. Go be that queen that dies with the peasants she loves so much."

Sol, crawling until the air returns to her body, veins sticking out from half her skin, her iron burning into her flesh. "You're leaving us to slaughter."

The Matriarch looks out to the horizon, sees the Rahasian horses, stolen, running towards them. Behind them, illuminated by the rising sun, there's the shambling army. An army, from the looks of it, consisting of the undead.

Seems the goddess of death is breaking all the rules.

Some family squabble, resulting in whole armies obliterated.

"Come, Alchemist. We'll go back to Lune. What a truthful city. All the houses made of glass. You can see right through to the heart of things."

"The witch coven and their queen, Malika. They worship you. You'd leave them dead too?" Sol spits, looking at the witch coven, staring steadfastly at the enemy on their horses. The horses running from the undead and the rising sun behind them.

"Religion's just a series of bets as to which truth is right. They made a bad one." The Matriarch laughs, a squadron consisting of high-ranking Lune officials and the Alchemist who built Soleil, all on the fastest horses, pointed away from the soon-to-be-war-torn city. "Besides, they don't like witches much on Lune. And who am I to offend their delicate, logical sensibilities?"

And with that, the Matriarch of Truth sets out. Not even casting a glance at the army behind her, the thousand-thousands, all set to die.

The Witch Queen Malika places a hand on Sol's iron shoulder. "She will be back."

"Your faith blinds you. She has abandoned you. You're all going to die here." Soleil looks at the Witch Queen in disgust. "Your veils become your death shroud."

Queen Malika's lips tilt upwards into a smile. She lifts the veils back, and Sol balks. The Witch Queen is young, only fifteen. Her head is shaved entirely, not even eyebrows. And her skin is spotted with sun-marks, her smile revealing a pretty dimple in her left cheek. Old scars on her neck, the marks of a noose.

The Witch Queen's faced her death before.

"Everyone in this coven is a woman who was betrayed by her people, by those who believe in the old ways. That women should not wield magic." The Witch Queen runs her hand absentmindedly along the scars on her neck, her other hand pointing to the melded metal knobs in Sol's flesh. "You have scars too. We all do, Godkiller. Maybe it is not so important what happens to the Matriarch of Truth. Maybe we only need the belief in the strength of women to overcome all obstacles. When even our beliefs our challenged, we stay strong. Because we are used to betrayal, we know how to overcome it."

Sol scoffs. "Your goddess left us behind to fight other gods. Even weak and incapacitated, they are still Divine. And they will kill us."

Malika shrugs. "I never heard of the Godkiller being afraid."

Sol's about to reply when she pauses, understanding.

"Come," the fifteen-year-old Witch Queen raises Sol's axe arm, referring to the strength in it. A fifteen-year-old supporting a young woman of her twenties, an iron will even stronger than that of the metal woman's. How strange. "We believe. We fight."

Sol smiles at the little one, a girl. Younger even than her. Suffered just as much. Kura would've liked to meet her. "And we're born again."

***

Hey Pirates,

Have to confess, I'm starting to love Malika now.

-Sophia