*

STONE CRUNCHED BENEATH Eris's boots as she walked the path to Akul's temple. There was no sun in the sky, but neither were there clouds. Still it was gray, and chilly. Eris had let her hair down.

The columns that once stood tall at the temple's entrance were little more than waist-high mounds. The gold had been stripped, by scavengers no doubt, but for what reason, she couldn't fathom. Gold had lost its value, in a world that had lost most its life.

There were no acolytes amongst the rubble. Akul must have turned them all away, and they'd obeyed, afraid to bring their god's wrath upon them. She turned to Windwalker, unbridled beside her, gazing at her with dark eyes. Eris bent down, kissed the horse between her eyes. "You have been like a shadow, following me for years. A better companion I could have not wished for." 

Windwalker softly neighed. 

Eris ran her fingers through the horse's mane. "But where I go now, it is not for you." The horse stomped her hoof. "Go back to Amarna, she'll treat you well. A horse will be useful in the Ash lands." 

The horse shook her head.

"You know I'm right." Eris tied her pack to the horse's saddle. "What little I have, give to Amarna. She showed kindness, it ought to be returned." 

Windwalker pressed her nose into Eris's shoulder. 

"Go," Eris commanded, and the horse reluctantly obeyed. 

Eris watched Windwalker gallop, wind catching in her mane and tail, her hooves barely touching the ground. She walked on wind, as the goddess Byru had made it so. "Be well friend."

*

Akul's temple groaned as Eris passed through the entrance, the high-ceiling sagging, its weight splintering the support beams. Braziers and their broken chains littered the ground. In the back, was Akul's altar in ruins, his throne behind it, absent of its king.

He stood beside it, in fine black robes, and draped in shadow. His hair was unbound, and its ends touched the floor.

"Akul."

He glanced up and gave a wane smile. "My heart."

She stepped toward him, skirting around rocks and larger debris. Echoes of her footsteps filled the room.

Akul watched as she moved. Every so often his eyes lingered on her, as if recalling a memory attached to that part of her - her fingers, the curve of her neck, the roundness of her hips, her lips. She could recall them to, the way Akul had sought her out, hot and feverish at night, reverent and adoring during the day. She recalled how his breath felt against her skin, how his mouth tasted, and the anguish that had consumed her that day he rejected her from Greenworld.

Three thousand years of bitterness rose up, and curled her lip. She scowled, hating the god before her.

Akul nodded at her hands, empty though they were but still balled into fists. "You rejected him."

She flexed her hands, blood rushing into her fingers. They tingled. She stopped at the foot of the altar, four paces and an eternity seperating them.

"I thought you'd come to kill me. I had hoped–"

"I thought about taking it," Eris said, the words rushing from her mouth.

Akul winced, as if her revelation pained him. He smoothed the front of his robes. "Then why didn't you?" He glanced up, looking at her through his eyelashes, sheepish and afraid of her answer.

"I have wanted to kill you for a thousand lifetimes," her voice was despondent. Akul made no sign he would interrupt. Finally, he'd listen. "A'Cubei offered me his dagger, and when I held it, I glimpsed a future where your blood was on my hands, and I had exiled you from this world, and I was satisfied. But," she stepped toward him, her boots heavy, "A'Cubei is poison, I know that now."

A flicker of a smile rose upon Akul's lips. "So you will kill me with your own hands."

Eris looked at him sadly, and felt her heart seize. She shook her head. Akul arched his eyebrows. "Here you are, Daya's father, the god that saved me, a man I love." Her voice cracked, her throat thick with a lifetime of sobs she'd held back. "Why did you take her from me?" Her sorrow overflowed.

"I–"

Eris glanced at her hands. "I try to remember her," she closed her palms, recalling the feel of Daya's hair. Sometimes it was rough like hers, other times, it was silken like Akul's. "She's slipping. I reach to grab her hand, and find air." Her eyes fell on Akul's once more. "You saved me from loneliness, only to condemn me to three thousand years of it."

"Eris," he placed a hand atop his heart. "I am sorry."

The words stoked her rage. She sneered. "Can a god be sorry?"

Akul flinched, and then he lunged, fingers digging into Eris's shoulders. He held her gaze, only his eyes glowed. "A god can be sorry. A god can know regret. A god can feel grief and despair, have it puncture his heart until all of himself spills out and he is empty. You have lived alone, I have lived emptied." He pushed her away, breathing hard.

Silence came after. Eris paced the room. Then finally, she asked, "You saved me?"

Akul had sat on the altar steps. Hair fell in front of his eyes. He clasped his hands, and looked thoughtfully at them. "Yes." The one word seemed as though it'd been pried from his depths, him reluctant to spill his secrets.

Eris folded her arms across her chest. "Go on."

He leaned back, sighed, and began his story without looking at her. "I was called to take your life the night you fell stricken with the plague. But I had been watching you," his eyes found hers, "and the care with which you tended to the other villagers. You offered your hand, you fed the ones suffering the most poison, you supplied them with kindness until their last breaths. It is rare when someone understands death so completely, and the more I watched you, the lovelier you became." He smiled quickly. "Soon I was entranced, and then the plague came for you. I refused it. I went against my nature. I forsook my duty. The gods were told, and I felt their wrath."

"A'Cubei said you were punished."

He nodded.

"Five thousand years, tortured in the underworld."

Akul said nothing.

"You searched for me after you were released?"

He stared into her face. "I found you among the trees. And you didn't run though you wanted to. You offered me water. I had been sated in a way I had never known until then."

"That's why you offered to marry me? Because an act of kindness had won your heart?"

"I had already given you my heart. When I asked what you wished for, I sincerely desired to know. And I would have given you whatever it was, regardless. It's just, you asked for family, and I was a god in love."

Eris walked toward him, settling down on the steps next to him. Their shoulders brushed together. He smelled as he always had - of sunlight, and seawater and wildflower sweetness.

He reached up, and cupped her cheek. She leaned into his palm, relishing the feel of his skin against hers. "I never wanted to take Daya from you," he said slowly, breathing out. Eris heard her pulse in her ears. "I never wanted to take your heart and destroy it. I only wanted to cherish you and Daya. When you overtook me that day and held A'Cubei's dagger to my throat, I–whatever parts of me were still intact, broke. I let rage guide me, and what I did to you was unforgivable." He dropped his hand. "It took me far too long to realize my mistakes, and you have suffered the cost. I came here ready to die, if that's what you wish." He reached into the sleeve of his robe and produced a dagger identical to A'Cubei's, except the serpent was black, and its eyes garnets. He placed it between them.

A smile passed over Eris's lips. She studied Akul and saw in his face no shadows masking a deception, no trace of a lie within his wrinkles. 

"You know what I want."

Akul nodded and stood, his robes slapping against the stone. "All those years ago, I saved you because I couldn't bear to see the world without you in it." Eris got to her feet. She stared into his face, and saw tears in his eyes. "I still can't." He gave her a smile before glancing at his hand. "I fear I'll love the world less, without you in it."

She took a step up, cradled his head in her hands. Her fingers became wet with his tears. "You are kind and you are cruel," her voice was soft, no longer raging, "but it is your choice on which to be." With a finger, she tilted his head up, so he looked at her. "Decide."

She stepped away, and for a moment Akul waffled between light and dark. It played across his skin, shimmering gold and forsaken shadow.

But then, he smiled. And the great god of Death, crying in his temple, offered his hand.

A smile and a sob broke free in that festering, rotting place, Eris's happiness and relief echoing off the broken walls.

Thank you, she thought, and she knew, the words, even confined to her mind, he had heard. After all this time, he had heard, and he had answered.

The world shifted, brick by brick, stone by stone, being undone, until she was there. In the thicket of greenery and sunlight. A field of daisies stretching into the horizon. Her hair was coerced by the wind to dance in front of her eyes. But even then, she saw a sky of blue-green, and heard the faint crash of a hungry, healthy sea.

And none of it mattered, because before Eris, asleep beneath a great oak, was a girl with light-brown skin and dark braids that frizzed ever so slightly at the ends. She wore a flower crown, and honeybees flitted above her head.

Eris desperately wanted to call out to her, but the words were too big to squeeze between her teeth. Instead, they languished on her tongue, where she thought they'd wither and die.

But Akul was beside her, the sunlight bowing to him, and bathing her. "Little sun," he called.

Daya opened her eyes, dark like Eris's, rimmed with gold like Akul's, and the world was brighter because of it.

Her gaze found Eris immediately. "Mama?" she asked, voice drowsy.

Eris found herself collapsing, knees and shins slamming into the ground. She wept and held her arms wide, waiting. She had waited for so, so long. Daya came crashing into them, and Eris squeezed, her missing piece slotting itself perfectly. Eris made whole.

"Mama!" Daya buried her head into the crook of Eris's neck. She smelled like citrus, and charcoal, and everything that had been good in Eris's life. "Papa said he'd come get you. You're finally here."

"Yes," she said, pulling away from Daya just enough to plant a kiss on her forehead. "I am."

"Did you have to wait long?"

Eris glanced at Akul, then turned back to Daya. She shook her head. Three thousand years suddenly felt like no time at all. "It doesn't matter. Not when I'm here with you now."

Eris pulled her into a hug again, Daya's hair catching her tears. She had been delivered. She had found her peace. And in the Greenworld, she was home.

*

Somewhere, a witch and her mother were roasting salt slugs, eager to share them with Greenworld's newest arrival.

Author's note: I have no idea how long this novella is yet. My guess? A little over 20,000 words. But I did it! I completed my ONC 2024 story. In a month. :))))