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

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Farzaneh isn't sure if she very much likes being dead.

She walks towards the silver star, shaped like glass. No, not a star. A mirrored throne, surrounded by stars.

The Before.

The name instantly comes to mind. It all makes sense, but she's not sure she likes that much either. It's not fun, knowing things. The mystery, the mysticism, it all just fades to the background. Now, things simply are.

And she is not.

She goes to the throne and presses her hand to it, knowing it's a portal from the Before to the... to the... well, maybe she doesn't know everything after all.

It's a portal to wherever the dead go after they die. Now, she's in the Before. The place that exists outside time. The place where Kane first fashioned humanity and Ode grew into the death goddess that would usher them out of their lives, to make room for more humans.

A cycle. Broken. Another war being fought over the particulars of it below.

A child representing time. A mother-in-law of absolute truth who wasn't so absolute anymore because she'd absorbed her husband, god of trickery.

A power game, and Farzaneh was tired of it. But she pauses, unsure. Unsure if she truly wants to go beyond. Unsure if she wants any of that at all.

"Fari," Gila's behind her then, wrapping her ethereal arms around her. Gila. Gila, an escaped slave girl from Idriola. Pale skin. Daughter of a sea pirate who'd been captured by the Legionnaires. Freckles. Red hair that coiled and eyes like roses. The Idriolan merchant caravan had thrown her away when she became troublesome, developing her powers as a witch and cursing them with pox and colds. They were too scared to kill her.

Farzaneh finished the job when, in an act of forgetting her immense power, had tried to conjure a light show, to show off for Gila. To pretend she'd captured a falling star.

Instead, she'd set a fire that killed her lover. A fire as red as her hair.

"Fari, don't go yet."

Farzaneh lifts a bronzed hand, curling her fingers in a mess of red hair. She turns around, pressing her forehead to the freckled girl's. "Why not? I died a hero, didn't I?" Farzaneh's voice hushes to a whisper, a soft kiss. "I made up for it, for killing you."

"I haven't crossed over yet, I'll admit, because I'm waiting for you." Gila takes in a deep breath, huffing through her nostrils. Doing the cute thing where her whole face scrunches up. "But I don't want you going, not yet."

"Why?" Farzaneh tries to burrow closer, but Gila pastes a quirky smile on her face, then drifts away.

"Because I'll be crossing over alone... because I'm dead, Fari." She exhales, smile still firmly set in dimples and freckles. "And you're not. And, frankly, there's a boy who loves you very much down there, even if he's too scared and too scary to admit it. He's traveling to Lioness Gate right now, and he's terrified and misses you terribly. And I want you living and happy." She squeezes Farzaneh's hands, fingers feather-light. For just being souls, their presence here feels so real. Realer than real. "My story's over. Yours, it's turning a page."

"Gila..." Farzaneh's eyes well with tears.

"I was free when my owners feared me. I was free when I joined the coven. I was free when I loved you, and I taught you how to love the way you were meant to." Gila leans closer, the Idriolan mixed with an old seafaring accent edging in. "And I am free now, free to give you up, to love again."

Farzaneh screams as she feels herself being ripped from the Before, her soul stuffed back into a heavy mortal body, the weight of it all pulling her down.

Cor meum.

Hjarta...

My heart.

***

Hey Pirates!

Thanks so much for voting and commenting. ;) We hit 1k reads.

Also, meet Gila. She ended up fighting to become more of a fleshed-out character than I thought she'd be. So, I complied, and wrote her like this.

Best and love y'all.

Sophia