The Death Goddess’ Favorite Weapon

Hughey Thornheart was eagerly anticipating a sweet pastry left for him by his servant back in his rooms when a pair of claws ripped open a tear in the world and gripped him by his shirt. He had only a moment to yelp “damn it” before he was pulled forcibly into a familiar shadow world. His head hit cold, stone ground and, despite his best efforts to keep air in, oxygen fled his lungs as his back smacked onto the floor and his air escaped with a whoosh.

He was going to die.

The air was so thin in this place it already felt like breathing through a straw, and this asshole knew better than to knock the wind right out of him.

As his lungs worked desperately to inhale and Hughey fought the sensation of drowning, his attacker moved toward him in uneven steps, the blue-grey mist that permeated the death goddess’ world slipping off him, his long claws scraping against the stone. “Looking good, Thane.” Hughey had enough breath for a single laugh. 

In response, his cousin reached with a long limb and gripped him again by the collar, razor claws pressed against Hughey’s cheek. The grotesque face attached to his disfigured body held mismatched eyes, one wider than the other, both coal black, and both unsettling. “Any idea,” the beast whispered through transformed, shredded vocal cords, the large eye pointed to Hughey while the other eye wandered. “Whose soul I just pulled from the death goddess’ river...” 

It was clear that Thane had gone into the water for a soul. Now he was dripping in so much death magic he’d gone distorted and feral. Thane’s right limb, lanky and disjointed and wrong, lifted Hughey as if he were a toy while Hughey frowned, unsure what careful response to say. He could only assume the woman Hughey was supposed to protect had died. “Thought your princess could hold her own.” 

Those were the wrong words. With a roar, Thane slammed Hughey back to the ground and Hughey lost his air once again. As he clawed for breath Hughey wondered if that snapping sound had been his bones breaking. Thane picked him up, this time by his throat.

“This isn’t a fair fight.” He coughed blood, though his spine was still in tact, his legs kicking air. All this was little consolation. He always knew some member of his family would kill him, in the end. And ever since the death goddess summoned a resentful teenage Hughey, who was, at the time, and remained, at this moment, the most unwilling chosen she had ever chosen, Thane, her most loyal soldier, had made it clear they were not friends.

Thane growled through canine teeth. He got canine teeth this time? How come this realm never gave Hughey cool canine teeth? Again, unfair. “I owe the goddess another 100 years thanks to you,” said the monstrosity.

Hughey pieced it together as he hung suspended: Princess had died, again. Thane dove into the water, again, to fish out her soul, again, turning into this… thing. The death goddess must have promised to piece her back together, again, in exchange for yet another century of servitude. When Thane was just tasting freedom from their first deal. 

And Hughey shook his head in disbelief, despite having resigned himself long ago to being surrounded by idiots. “Just leave her dead, you idiot.” He coughed. Talking was hard. Blood dripped from his lips.

There was murder in Thane’s gaze, but Hughey was not about to be blamed for someone else’s poor decision-making. Over a woman who didn’t even remember that Thane ever existed. Because the death goddess didn't piece back memories, too. “You could at least learn to haggle, you know. The goddess adores you.” Hughey croaked, impressed that he could get any air in and any words out while Thane’s claws closed in on his throat. If he was going to die, Hughey could at least do it reminding his cousin he had one lonely brain cell. “Why another 100 years? I bet you could have traded your princess’ life this time for, say, 50.” 

Thane’s one particularly mal-formed eye dilated in rage and, with a bellow, he threw Hughey across the rock slabs of the death goddess’ riverbed, but this time far enough that Hughey had time to react. He rolled to cushion his fall, while ignoring a piercing pain in his ribs, but he also accidentally rolled to the edge of one of the many pools of water. Hughey didn’t know which was more terrifying–falling into one of these bottomless pools, or getting swept away by the river when it came roaring through. He was inching away from the edge when a stray drop rolled to him as if it were seeking him out, and it stuck to his finger. He stilled. It was just a little bit. It was fine. Maybe it would give him cool canine teeth, so he could actually fight back.

The drop of water gave him nothing except an inexplicable desire to touch more, and he scampered further away from the pool. Thane had risked too much to save her. He should have known better than to dive in. There were worse things than death here.

He eyed Thane, who stalked him from yards away, body large and uneven and macabre, the mist shifting around his heavy cloven feet. He looked every bit like the death goddess’ favorite weapon. There was no human hint of him, and Hughey was unsure that he would ever really come back. If his true soul had turned to shreds. If there was only a shard of him inside that thing. There was no escaping this, if he was really gone.

“Look, I can only do so much,” Hughey wheezed from the ground as the beast stalked closer. “Your damsel in distress could have gotten away. If she has no self-preservation bone in her body, that’s on her.” Hughey had been assigned the task of babysitting Thane’s former lover while the lover boy fought the death goddess’ battles, and maybe a less resentful person would have done a better job. As one of the goddess’ “chosen,” albeit a very unenthusiastic one, Hughey had spent his life browbeaten by some of the world’s most unreasonable beings who were locked in an eternal power struggle with even more unreasonable, and arguably much more powerful, beings. 

Hughey had long been flirting with death.

The beast’s uneven footsteps echoed on the dry riverbed as Hughey assured himself that now wasn’t such a bad time to die. The future was already pretty bleak. Though, he thought, with some amusement, that there were some parts of his life that he had enjoyed… It must have hurt like a knife to the gut for Thane to know exactly what Hughey had been up to. For Thane to watch, unable to do anything but stand at the goddess’ side, while the woman who had forgotten all about him learned exactly what Hughey tasted like. The perks of being a bodyguard.

The younger man sneered at what was left of his cousin; the same guy who, about a century ago, had given up everything for what Hughey now only had to reach out and ask for. Because princess had a soft spot for sad boys. If Hughey survived this.

“So what now?” Hughey goaded, sipping in air between words as the scrape of claws against granite grew closer. “You were able to save her. Again. And our family will just kill her. Again.” The scraping stopped, and Hughey quickly rolled away from a clawed attack that would have shredded his abdomen. “How did you not see that coming? Killing her was the natural conclusion when you both tried to escape the family. Whose suicidal idea was it to elope?” The words came out creaky as Hughey used whatever remaining energy to jump onto his feet just in time to dodge another set of claws, and then he nearly stepped into a stray pool of water. Yes, what Hughey was doing was unwise, but it felt good to poke at his perfect, invincible older cousin’s sore spot. Like scratching an itch he could finally reach.

“You know what would have stopped all this? The political wedding dearest grandpapa wanted in the first place.” Hughey jogged to maintain the distance between them, wheezing through the effort. Nothing about his stumbling through the death goddess’ realm was sexy. Thane could chase him down, easily, but Thane was rage blind. Here was yet another unreasonable member of his family. First his bloodthirsty grandfather. Then his equally deranged brother. Now this murderous monster. And all Hughey could do was face him with some modicum of courage. Poking at the beast counted, in his book, as courage.

And then the idea came to him, and by saying it aloud Hughey confirmed he had a death wish. “Maybe it’s time to actually add another gem to that Thornheart crown.” The words burned through Hughey’s throat as he smiled bitterly. So simple. So obvious. A path to becoming significant that he hadn’t even thought to take. A path to keeping her alive when nothing else had worked. After all, how far could one woman run when their family touched every corner of the world? Why run when she could join them, as she was meant to from the beginning?

Hughey laughed before twisting the knife even deeper into the noble Thane’s pathetic, bleeding heart, whatever was left of it. “Congratulate me, cousin. Looks like I’m finally getting married.”

With a guttural roar Thane sprinted the distance between them. Hughey, who was genuinely surprised that Thane was charging at the one person who, they’ve just concluded, might finally make her life a long-lived one–goddess do NOT marry her to his brother–was caught off guard at the beast’s ferocious reaction and managed only a few steps before Thane picked him back up and launched them both toward the closest pool in this goddess-cursed place.

This time, Hughey panicked. “Wait, single brain cell, let me explain—” There were worse things than death. He struggled as he hung from Thane’s claws, the water beneath him still and silent and deep. The water was always deep. Thane contemplated whether or not to do it. There was a mad gleam in his most deformed eye. He wouldn’t. But Thane wasn’t really there, was he. When the eye met his, Hughey’s stomach sank.

Splash.

Hughey’s scream cut off when his body shattered the still pool and water froze the air left in his lungs. His limbs, numbed from countless needles of ice prickling his skin, instinctively reached for the surface while the below pulled him down. Undying voices called to him from the deep. He ignored them as best he could, but each second of slicing pain in his already weary lungs weakened his resolve.

Half rotted hands reached for his legs as his kicks faltered. The voices were no longer in the water. They were in his head reminding him that the death goddess kept him alive to be useful. That Thane was indifferent if he were dead. That his brother already had plans to make that happen. And that the rest of his family would happily bury him in an unmarked grave. The least promising of their sons. The water wrapped around him in a firm, icy grip as his thoughts repeated that there was no point in resisting its plans for him. After a lifetime of rejection, he would be welcomed here.

But something else screamed on repeat that chipped away at the cold. Not hope, not anger, but something like pride. He was better than this fate, of lying broken at the bottom of the world. The thought propelled him as he kicked his legs, freeing himself of grasping fingers, until his hand breached the surface, but just for a moment. His clothes were too heavy, and he couldn’t warm his legs no matter how he struggled, and the weight of the water began pulling him back down. At least he had fought. Touched the surface. She’d be proud, right? He imagined her giving him that discreet little smile when she thought no one else was watching. Even her Thane would have struggled, though Thane would have succeeded, in the end. Hughey was reminded he was pathetic. Cold hands brushed his legs, his kicks slowed, and blackness creeped into his vision.

A grotesquely long limb plunged into the icy pool and grasped Hughey’s outstretched arm before pulling him with unnatural strength onto solid ground. Thane’s disheveled humanoid form stood over the limp body, sucking in thin air through healing vocal cords as Hughey lay unresponsive. Then the brat continued laying unresponsive, and Thane’s increasingly human face crinkled into one of disgust as he pondered reviving the little shit when Hughey finally coughed, rolled onto his side, vomited, sucked in a breath, and then lay sprawled on the floor, wheezing.

Hughey’s limbs burned from their seconds in the water and he awkwardly shook feeling back into them like a mildly electrocuted starfish. After a moment he checked himself with fingernails that had turned to claws. Hughey then eagerly felt his teeth, visibly disappointed that nothing there had changed, before reassessing his priorities and inching further away from the edge of the water. He was drenched in it, and it was calling him back.

Meanwhile, Thane checked his own limbs and shook himself like a wet dog, his mop of black hair landing over metal grey eyes. Hughey studied him. The parts of Thane that hadn’t just touched the water had fully shed the magic. He was human now. And Hughey relaxed. He was no longer going to die.

There was an awkward silence before Thane’s flat baritone pierced it. He didn’t meet Hughey’s stare. “This is the last chance. Protect her.” The voice cracked as if his vocal cords were still mangled, but Hughey knew better. And the last chance for what? The goddess wouldn’t revive her again? Or, if Hughey failed one more time, Thane would kill him? Or both? “Just… don’t leave her side.” Those next words were hollow. Hughey caught a glimpse of Thane’s worn face long enough to see that the fire had fully gone out. The goddess’ favorite had returned to them, but maybe pieces of his soul really had broken away. This was a man who had nothing left of himself to give.

Hughey groaned from the floor, body aching and beaten. He didn’t have any snide remarks or jabs to aim at his cousin. No energy to yell at him for almost dooming Hughey’s soul to an eternity of suffering. Instead, Hughey coughed out a bitter laugh. Hughey was going to get the girl. Probably. And the marriage would keep her alive this time. Probably. And there was absolutely nothing Thane could do about it. No marching into the wedding ceremony objecting with the short length of chain the goddess had around his neck. No facing the woman he once loved and asking her to remember because she didn’t. She wouldn’t.

Still, somehow, it didn’t feel like winning.

Lover boy turned away to roughly wipe at something on his cheek, and Hughey pretended not to see it.

Photo by Syed Ahmad on Unsplash