Chapter 16 – The Elder Flame

Aeva stepped into a round, domed chamber just ahead of Linton and Frost.

The walls, which extended almost ten meters up until they met at a rounded point, were completely blackened with soot.

A bulky control panel stood before a row of see-through blast screens, beyond which was a long stretch of empty floor. The air tasted of sulfur. There was a tangible presence, an electric sensation, that made the hair on Aeva’s arms stand up.

Raw power.

At the very center of the room, shackled by massive, black chains, was a woman who would have been at least four meters tall if she were standing at her full height, with a powerful, well-muscled frame. She was on her knees, face downturned, arms stretched uncomfortably wide to accommodate the chains. Her skin was the color of ash, and her hair was liquid flame, spilling onto the floor where it sizzled and smoked.

She was completely naked.

“Who the flying-feathered-fuck is that?” Frost asked. He took a step backward, rubbing his arm.

“It can’t be…” Linton said. His eyes had gone wide. “She’s supposed to be dead…”

“A god,” Aeva said with confidence.

She walked towards the woman, bathed in the splendor she emanated.

“Wait!” Linton shouted.

Aeva kept walking.

It felt right.

The goddess was beckoning her.

She rounded the blast screens and approached the center of the room, stepping over one of the chains that fed into the floor.

Her presence was not the same as Gjurin’s, but there was power here, that much was undeniable.

Aeva reached the goddess and got down on one knee. Gently, she touched the woman’s cheek. Her skin was hot to the touch, but not uncomfortably so.

The woman’s head snapped up. Three molten, red eyes fixed on Aeva.

A giant hand closed around Aeva’s body with a rattle of chains, and she was hoisted easily into the air. The goddess’s grip was iron, unbending, and Aeva’s struggles yielded nothing.

“You dare touch me, worm!” the goddess roared.

Her grip turned fiery hot, and Aeva whimpered as the vice slowly tightened around her arms and torso, making her bones whine.

“Aeva, hold on!” Linton shouted. “Frost is getting you loose!”

The chains around the goddess’s hands went taut as they were pulled into the floor. She was dragged to the ground, her hands were pinned against the stone, and Aeva was released.

She rolled free and patted down her smoking clothes.

“Take a step closer, I dare you! I’ll leave naught but a thimble of ash to mark your pitiful existence!” the goddess cried, straining uselessly against her shackles.

“Yeah, I don’t think so, space lady,” Frost shouted from the back of the room. “We can’t trust you to play nice, so you’re in timeout.”

Aeva stood and brushed herself off. She could feel burns forming along her arms, as well as her chest where the goddess’s hands had burnt through her clothing—but the pain was distant and foggy.

She couldn’t focus on anything but the vision before her.

A god in the flesh. Even chained up like some animal on display she seemed untameable.

The woman struggled against her chains and fire flared up along her skin. It was quickly absorbed into her bonds, and she slumped, head lolling as she let out a rattling sigh that filled the air with smoke.

“Aeva, back away from her!” came Linton’s distant voice. “That’s Gisa, the Goddess of War. It was a mistake to come here. She’s gone feral. We have to beat security and get out while we can.”

“Gisa,” Aeva said. She tasted the name, and it was filled with power.

She approached the goddess once more. Linton and Frost shouted words of warning, but she ignored them.

Iron spikes the width of two fingers had been driven through Gisa’s shackles at her wrists and ankles to keep them firmly in place. The wounds dripped blood that smoldered like lava.

Aeva inched slowly forward, holding her arms up. Three red eyes were fixed on her, wide and accusing.

She touched the spike on Gisa’s right wrist.

The goddess let out an anguished scream that unleashed a wave of fire, moving outward horizontally. Aeva shut her eyes and threw an arm up over her face. Her clothes were set afire, and once the wave had passed she threw away her garments, stripping down to her bare, soot-stained skin.

Gisa stared at Aeva. Measuring. Judging. Finally, she offered up her right hand, open-palmed.

Aeva took a firm hold of the spike and pulled. She put her foot against the goddess’s forearm and strained with all her strength.

It wouldn’t budge.

“Come on!” Aeva shouted in Gjosi. “Give!”

No matter how hard she struggled, it wouldn’t slide even a centimeter. It sat like rock.

“Aeva, it’s time to go!” Linton called. “Get away from her, that’s a fucking order!”

Aeva felt no pain. She was wrapped in a blanket of intense heat that burned away her doubt.

Someone like this cannot languish below ground.

She must be allowed to soar.

“If you swear to free me,” the goddess panted, teeth gritted against the pain, “I will afford you my blessing. Your strength alone is insufficient.”

Aeva let go of the spike. “I will do it.”

“Swear it!”

“I swear upon my honor to save you,” Aeva said. “I swear upon my soul.”

Gisa visibly relaxed, her eyes almost falling shut. She reached up and touched Aeva’s chest with her index finger.

A stream of fire flowed into Aeva and set her blood boiling. She let out a scream, back arching, and a smoky gout of flame escaped the back of her throat.

She fell to her knees as her body became the kindling to a great conflagration, trapped inside, growing hotter and hotter. Her every nerve was seared black, firing uncontrollably, as she was prodded by a thousand long needles. Her lungs filled with smoke, and her vision flowed red.

It was unbearable, unending, each moment stretched out across an eternity of agony.

Then, the pain faded, replaced by comforting heat. The power trapped inside her was no longer her enemy. It was one with her.

When she stood, her legs held the power of a wildfire.

Her arms held the strength of a forge.

Her body held the grace of a dancing flame.

She grabbed one of the spikes and yanked it out. One after another, she repeated the process. Gisa was able to remove her shackles with shaking hands, and the chains fell away.

The goddess rose, unrestrained, and she grew as her skin regained some lost luster. She laughed, a sound of pure, unbridled joy, and her hair blazed with orange flame.

“My thanks, wild one,” she said.

“It’s great we’re all getting along,” Frost said, “but we’ve got incoming. I couldn’t stop the elevator.”

Aeva turned to the two elevators at the end of the room. The numbers displayed above both of them were creeping closer to 38.

Linton kept his pistol trained on the metal doors as he and Frost retreated to the other side of the blast screens. With a word and a wave of his hand, he created illusory copies of himself and Frost which stood in front of the elevators and stared blankly ahead.

Gisa stomped towards the elevators, each step sending a shudder through the floor. She stopped behind the blast screens, resting one hand atop the shielding, which was taller than Linton and Frost.

The two of them shuffled uncomfortably to the side.

The elevator doors opened.

Two groups of five armed guards rushed into the room.

Gisa drew in a deep breath, chest heaving, then blew it back out.

A cloud of smoke and fire engulfed the guards.

Screams followed as they ran around, desperately trying to pat themselves down. Within a minute, they were dead.

Gisa snorted and stepped over the screens.

“Pathetic.”

She ran her hands down her body and a gown of swirling fire materialized to cover up her form. She shrank down to roughly the size of a normal human and entered one of the elevators. She crossed her arms as she regarded them.

“Well?” she said. “I require one of you acolytes to operate this infernal machine for me.”

Everyone hurried into the elevator.

Linton pressed the button for Level 1.

The metal box rattled upwards, and an awkward silence followed that was broken only by the crackling of Gisa’s flames.

Aeva felt suddenly awkward at being naked. She could feel Linton looking at her. Focusing on creating a dress like the goddess’s garment, she ran her hands down herself. A shower of sparks and a few trails of smoke came out of her palms, but nothing else.

She blushed.

Frost coughed and rubbed his dried-out skin, politely diverting his gaze.

Linton cleared his throat. “I thought you were dead,” he said, glancing up at Gisa. “What with the God Hunt and everything.”

“The blasphemers kept me as a toy,” Gisa said, her face twisting into a mask of hot rage. “They performed their little experiments on me. They will sorely regret leaving me alive. My freedom will mark the beginning of a splendid dawn for the people of New Attea.”

The elevator suddenly jolted to a halt on Level 15. The doors were jammed. Gisa broke them down with a single kick.

Guards were thrown into the circular pit on the other side, and more stormed in. They opened fire on the goddess. Bullet holes appeared all over her body, healing almost as quickly as they were created.

Gisa raised her hands, palms down.

“Vanish, worms,” she spoke.

Lava flooded from her palms.

The men were burnt to a crisp in seconds as they were caught in the heavy flow, their screams quickly snuffed out. The bubbling lava poured into the pit, dragging their charred remains with it.

Gisa stepped out onto the catwalk and began to grow, slowly approaching her original size.

“Now, then, my new acolytes,” she said. “Let us—”

A man dove out from behind the door, brandishing a shining sword, and slashed the goddess across the back of her left knee.

She pitched forward with a cry, catching herself on the catwalk’s metal railing.

A woman burst forward from the right, carrying a similar weapon to the first. She wound the sword back in a two-handed grip to perform an overhead swing aimed at Gisa’s neck.

Aeva moved on instinct. She coiled up like a spring and pounced on the woman, got her on the floor. The human was strong, but Aeva was stronger. She grabbed the woman’s right wrist with one hand and her hair with the other. She slammed her head back until the woman was dazed enough to let go of her sword.

Aeva had a fire inside her that needed to be released.

The red took over.

She placed a hand on either side of the woman’s head and let her new power flow freely.

Dazzling flames rushed out of her hands without scorching her skin and engulfed the woman’s head. She screamed as her skin bubbled and blackened and her hair was burnt away to the scalp. Her eyes shriveled beneath burning eyelids, and a stench like burnt pork rose from her.

An anguished scream broke Aeva out of her stupor.

She looked up to see the male fighter drive his blade deep into Gisa’s chest at the left shoulder. He yanked it back out, and a gush of fiery blood came with it. The wound did not close back up.

Aeva stood up to handle the man, but Gisa batted him aside. He fell into the chasm, still clutching his sword, and disappeared from view.

In the calm that followed, Gisa clutched her bleeding chest and slowly stood, bending the railing as she pushed off from it.

“What in all hells was that?” Frost asked.

“Monster hunters,” Linton explained. “The MOA must have had them stationed here in case of a breakout.”

“The ones who slew my brethren,” Gisa said. Her voice brimmed with unchecked hatred. “They failed this time.”

“They haven’t failed until we’re out of this facility,” Linton said. “It seems we’re running out of time on that front.”

Aeva looked up and saw guards lining up on the level above, as well as storming out of a staircase on the level they were on.

“Stand close to me,” Gisa urged. “My freedom is already assured.”

Aeva did as she was commanded, and Frost and Linton scrambled over as the guards opened fire.

Gisa grew to over four meters tall, gritting her teeth as she struggled to stay upright. She spread her arms, and a pair of wide, fiery wings grew out of her back with a span of at least twice her height.

The wings shielded Aeva and the others from the worst of the gunfire as she bent down and scooped them up in her arms. Aeva was tucked into her warm embrace.

“I have longed to do this,” Gisa said.

She coiled up and kicked off.

She rocketed into the air, leaving a trail of fire behind her, and flapped her wings once. She soared up the levels, rapidly approaching the sealed vault doors at the very top of the facility.

Gisa tucked into a ball, shielding Aeva and the others with her body.

There was a massive impact that sent Aeva’s teeth rattling.

They broke out onto ground level in a shower of metal shrapnel, and Gisa unfolded her body once more. She flapped her wings as they flew over the Vault’s above-ground complex. Startled workers looked up at them, hands at their brows to block out the sun.

Gisa teetered. Her wings began to beat out of sync, and she descended towards the ground as she came up on an empty stretch of road.

The landing would not be pretty.

Gisa wrapped her wings around herself. She hit the asphalt with a sharp impact.

After that, everything was dark.

Gisa’s body shrank down until she was no longer large enough to cover the rest of them.

Aeva struggled to stand.

Linton’s landing had been softened by a number of clones hugging him tightly. He struggled free of them, and they vanished as soon as he stood.

Frost remained on the ground, groaning and grumbling to himself.

Gisa was no larger than a normal person at this point. She was completely motionless, lying face-first in the road. Her gown dissipated, and she was left fully naked.

Aeva surveyed the carnage. People were already shouting in the distance at the Vault of Kings, attempting to put out fires that had been caused by Gisa’s wings.

Her landing had created a wide line of ripped-up asphalt that smoldered at the edges.

“Well,” Linton said with a heavy sigh, “that was a colossal failure.”

“We befriended a goddess,” Aeva said. She prodded a new bruise on her arm. “I think that should be considered a victory.”

Linton looked over at the incapacitated Gisa and sighed. “That remains to be seen. I suppose we just have to make the best of this.” He dragged Frost back to his feet. “Alright, enough resting. Frost, find us a getaway ride. We’re going to the Undercity.”

Aeva bent down and lifted Gisa into her arms. Her head lolled against Aeva’s shoulder. The fire streaming from her did not singe Aeva’s skin.

She was so terribly light.

Aeva felt as though she were holding a fragile bird in her arms, not the goddess who had just saved her life.