What had she expected, challenging Menoux?

  An awakening? A miraculous victory? A secret weapon, kept so hidden even she was unaware of it? Precedent had granted her terrifying gifts, yet those had only ever helped her hang along the edges of survival.

  No. The writing had been on the wall, and she wouldn't feign ignorance. Before she had pushed her body past her cell, barely strong enough to hold herself still while her opponent spread his arms invitingly, as firm and grandiose as a mountain, she knew how things would go.

  "Focus!" His voice exploded on her eardrums, bringing her back to life with a shrill ring. A split moment away from a killing blow, she only had the time to bring her arm in front of her head. Her hardskin shattered, and her bones followed suit soon after.

  She rolled to her back, scrambling out of the way as a stray heel cratered the stone where her head had just laid. In a chamber that could barely accommodate his height, Menoux moved like a frenzied spider, limbs thicker than the trunks of centenary trees bending at impossible angles and pursuing at dizzying speeds, while she could barely walk straight.

  The effort of dodging made her muscles light aflame, and little by little she burned out. She couldn't pounce, had barely the energy to slap, and finally the moment her foot slipped under its own weakness she saw the end. Throwing herself aside was all she could do to avoid the uppercut that would have crushed her against the ceiling.

  Couldn't save her from the follow-up, however. A palm smashed her hard back into the ground, chest compressing painfully against jagged stone fragments. A pool of pitch black liquid streamed from the breach of the Mountain Guts' capillaries, its every touch assaulting her skin with the prickle of a thousand hot needles.

  Menoux clicked his tongue. His weight crushed her until the air was squeezed out of her lungs. "Attitude without backing strength is the barking of a toothless hound. And whose fault is that lack of teeth? I gave you ample opportunities to replenish yourself, and I'm sure the lesser mountain parasites enjoyed them a lot!"

  "Ugh... Aaagh!" As Menoux increased the pressure, she could do nothing but spit blood. As the Mountain's substance reached her face, she tried to raise her head, only to be pushed back down by a second hand.

  "You really, really don't understand what makes you tick, do you?" He sat over her back. "The biggest, most fundamental difference between you and a mortal, and you never managed to figure it out. How am I not supposed to pity you? Your entire world failed you, godling."

  "Uuugh..."

  "Balazia, go to the pens and cut another meal. Let the others have the leftovers if they want, but I want at least all the organs here," he said, and her heart sank. She tried her best to struggle out of his hold, to prevent that at all costs, but she couldn't budge him.

  "As you wish, Greatest," Balazia said from out of sight, his footsteps quick to vanish.

  The weight left her back, giving her just enough space to fill her lungs back with the Guts' warm, stale air. "P-please, don't hurt anyone else, it's just me you-"

  Something clenched around her ankle. The next instant, everything blurred. The air rushed around her head before she crashed against the ground, cracking stone and skidding to a stop. This time, she didn't try to stand again.

  "I must admit, I rather like this arrangement. Much easier to speak with our fists than with our tongues, isn't it?" Menoux voice echoed from outside. "If you disagree, which I imagine you do, feel free to recover your strength and put all those negative feelings to teaching me what for. Sounds nice?"

  Panting, she remained silent.

  "I'm sure you will come around. See you later!" with a cackle, he left.

  She backed away in fear. Her hardskin still bore the cracks from the last fight, weeping freely and far too hurt to protect her. An open hand swooped down, missing her forehead by the berth of a finger, but her legs shook too hard to get her away in time.

  A grab caught her by the stomach, and she was hoisted into the air. A painful impact against the ceiling, and she felt his fingers dig against her flanks.

  "Aa-aah! S-stop! Please!" Her begging only seemed to nag Menoux further. She struck with her nails over and over again, trying to cut her way out, but she was too weak to gouge him deeper than skin level.

  "Not one bite, again," he said. Pain and desperation didn't leave her with the space to examine him too close, but she could feel the intensity of his disapproval eat her from the inside out. "Why did you even propose to take back your existence, if you weren't going to take it seriously at all?"

  "S-so you would shut up!" Digging both thumbs into a cut, she tried to to physically pry it open to no reaction. "So you would leave Agare alone!"

  "My history lesson bothered you that much, did it? My apologies! Of my many skills, schooling tends to be employed the less often." He chuckled, mirthless. "It's the best I could do with the time given, so I hope you can find it in you to cut me some slack."

  "T-this isn't teaching, you-" She broke into a fit of coughs. "You're torturing us!"

  "Hard lessons requires harsh methods. Look on the bright side: if you think this is too much, you would have loathed the way my Mistress acclimatized neophytes to the Mission!"

  He let go. The moment her knees touched the floor, a slap sent her reeling sideways, throwing her mind into disarray. When she heard Menoux speak again, she realized her left ear didn't work too well anymore.

  "Balazia, another. And take the last one to the Gullets before those pests start eating our guests alive, please."

  She saw a fist wind, and tried to evade, only to stumble to the ground.

  Menoux lost no time. From a crouch, his hand lunged down like a falling star, crumbling her femur and bending it in half. Even her screams were no louder than a hoarse whimper.

  "You are turning brittle. That one shouldn't have done half this much." Menoux said, sounding distant and pensive.

  "W-why?" she said.

  "I damaged your lungs and solar plexus quite heavily these last few encounters, and for all your mind lags behind your body adapted quite well. Did you notice you stopped breathing already?"

  Confused, she tried crawl away. She felt like a living bruise. "I-I knew I didn't breath anymore."

  "But so long as you could still breath, you still breathed. Now, your lungs receive air, but can't process it" He giggled. "Wonderful trick, isn't it? Took me a few decades to master."

  "W-what? what did you do to me?" She reached for her chest, but didn't feel any different.

  "Why, what I always do!" His smile shone like the sun. "Teaching you! Taking all those comforts of the physical world that still used as a crutch, so you see yourself better. Now, eat and rest well, alright?"

  "W-wait, I don't-"

  A punch crashed against her face a second later, sending her prone and ending the fight.

  "I know how it feels," he said. "When I first heard the words of Aenexias, I scoffed. When I was first made to confront them, I laughed. When I had them carved into my very being, I doubted."

  A side-step that felt more like a staggered slouch, and the toe tip that would have ravaged her navel merely tore open her flank, sending her spinning out of control. She fell on all fours, and was given no time to recover before Menoux rolled to her side, a gentle knuckle to the back of the head making her see black.

  "Still with me? Good," he said, no more severe than a child playing a prank. "Listen well. Did you know I had another name too, long ago?"

  "I-I don't-"

  Something coiled around her right leg. She slammed against the ceiling, and fell mute to the ground.

  "I was a made man, once! Then I was unmade, shaved down to nothing. It was then that the word reached me, but I didn't reach the word. The animal is the core of everything, and as one of the civilized people, mine was flayed, starved, nearing death. Those who found me were not pleased."

  "You think I am cruel? I told you, the children of Aenexias were worse. The methods through which I bring those from the outer circles of the faith to the inner ones are softer than silk when compared to the things they made me do."

  She stood there and let the chop break her shoulder blade. It was practically a play hit in comparison to the brutality and speed Menoux used to show, but the damage still shocked her to her core.

  "Many others I knew in my previous life were caught too. I saw people I considered friends and neighbors debased into feral beasts, made to mangle themselves and one another, and I hated my captors. We were kind, generous, hospitable, a true community! How dare they treat us like that?!"

  He grabbed her and pressed against the bars of her cell. Childish murmurs made her acutely aware of Hagan's presence right besides them, the weapon having never been moved a pace since its arrival.

  But not as acutely as she felt Agare's cold gaze.

  "But then I saw the animal emerge."

  A punch, and her stomach tried to void itself of nothing.

  "Amidst the jeers and taunts of those loathsome cultists, I saw loved ones bite each other to death! I saw a young man cheer the death of his own best friend. I saw a sister cave her brother's skull and howl. I saw a son be fed his own mother without complain. It made me question everything I knew."

  She didn't even feel pain anymore. She felt like a doll, no more cognizant than the fact she was being played apart.

  "As I wondered if they had been monsters in the hides of Dashi all along, my body reached its physical limits and I started to give in. I thought: if those were their true colors, were they mine as well? Had I just never noticed the abomination I was?"

  "I took me meeting our most gorgeous Mistress to learn the truth."

  She limped forward, eyes fixated on the floor.

  A push, and she was down.

  "Those were pointless questions." His voice was severe. "If you want to distill the animal to its most basic, logical role, it is unsightly survival. It is a perversion that makes a burdensome life bearable, a dishonorable action that makes a hard situation easier, and if needs be, the bloodthirsting fangs that gnash your way out of a gruesome tragedy.

  "It was ugly, yet beautiful! But to the life I once lived, it was anathema. It made me capable of things I believed outright savage. It allowed me to grow and thrive in ways I never thought possible. I pondered for many years, how to reconcile that contradiction in a way that wouldn't destroy me.

  "Again, it was my Mistress who saved me."

  One day, the gates of her cell opened, but she did not cross the threshold.

  She couldn't, even if she wanted to. She found her limits, and crossed far past them. There was no coming back from that. She felt like an observer peering through the windows of her eyes, distant and untouched, senses growing duller by the moment.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Oddly enough, it was very comforting.

  Less comforting was the presence sitting beyond the open gates, legs crossed, smiles long gone for an expression that bordered on melancholic. Any hatred it might have caused before, she could no longer kindle.

  "I ask you: how well is that Holly Seneschal protecting you now?" Menoux broke the silence.

  She reached across the distance with a careful hand. It was surprisingly hard. Droves moved as she dictated, but one rebelled, swayed in whichever direction it wished. When it landed in the chiseled stone of Menoux's Will, she spoke. "Don't take her away from me."

  There was no rejection this time.

  But he didn't answer, neither in voice nor in Will.

  Rather, the one to answer her was herself.

  "What is there to take away?" Disapproval, disappointment, anger, all sieved through a filter of herself. "The thing you keep calling for, did it ever exist in the first place?"

  "Everyone is trying to take Holly from me. Why? What did I ever do to deserve this?!"

  "They all can see through her tattered robes. She keeps trying to hide the ugly thing underneath, but refuses to see what a poor job she is doing."

  Menoux sighed. All that tension, that arrogance, they had fled his frame, leaving nothing but a slumping shadow to watch her. If only she still had the strength, it would have been so fast.

  "I understand the hesitation," he said, and if she didn't know better, she would swear he almost sounded careful. "To let go of what I had been was to let go of everything I thought I had left. But it was inevitable. At some point, friction wore that life into rags, it no longer fit me."

  "Why does everyone care so much about what I am?" Her panting came ragged, gurgling. The smallest expansion of her lungs made her feel like there were knives inside her chest. "What is it to anyone, if I am human or not? If I am Holly Seneschal or not?"

  "Some have expectations for what a goddess is supposed to be," he said. "Others see how mutilated being led by that leash all your life has left you, and oppose the atrocity. Can you guess which I am?"

  "Mutilated? Why can none of you ever speak clearly?"

  "Oh, have mercy!" he chuckled. "Put yourself in my shoes! Can you imagine how absurd it would be to see a woman carrying the still bloodied stump of her arm and have to convince her she's been wounded? Tell me, did you even know you were starved?"

  "Of course I did, you starved me!"

  "That's what I'm talking about! Trying to explain you anything is pure madness!" he said. "Before you ever laid your eyes on me, I had seen it. In how emaciated you look, in how weak you are, in the most obvious ways your lowermost existence crippled itself to sustain you! You met with your own kin, have you never thought why you can't do certain things you should be able to?"

  "How do you even know about that?" she asked, shocked. "Even I didn't know until I saw it!"

  "By sheer self-awareness. Once I know what to look for, it's easy to see." Menoux rubbed at his beard. "Do you wish to know a secret, godling? One that you should have know by now, if your dear comrade cared about you as much as you care about it?

  "There is no such a thing as an Heir of Citrine."

  Perhaps it should have been shocking, from the sheer sobriety of his voice she knew he was expecting some sort of reaction, but she had nothing to give. With a sigh, he continued.

  "I don't have the same formal education it has to the lingoes of the Madhound's pack, but an Heir is a simple concept. They are the direct partakers of a god's blessing, sent out into the world to proliferate the fate and share power," he pointed at his own chest. "I am no such thing. Neither am I one of the so called Missionaires, what they call our neonates and less blessed faithful.

  "What am I, then? Why, I don't have a clue!" he scoffed. "When my Mistress bred my changes into this body, all she told me is she wanted to try 'something.' I will never know what, for while I was not the first, I am the last, and she is gone. All I know is what she called me herself: I am a godling."

  "I am incomplete," she told herself, against her own will.

  "I am a divine eunuch. Once, these halls would be loud with the shouts of warriors to rival my own gifts, all who partook of our masters! But do you see my beautiful Balazia?" he gestured to his own servant, quietly observing from behind. "He is strong. Skilled. A soldier of the Bear could practice the any of the Three Arts for a decade and still be crushed under his might. And he is nothing, weaker than a single stray Madhound by magnitudes, despite hosting the most of the divine spark I ever managed to grant a single person.

  "And there, if you ask me, is where we once were similar. You geld yourself, deny the joy of your own existence, and the result is deformity, abomination!" He loomed forward, eyes ablaze. "Yet, we differ, because where I fought with every fiber of my being to climb out of this abyss, you still eager to make of it your home."

  "And then you went and made yourself a monster," she felt surprisingly calm, facing the mountain head on. "You make your people call you Greatest. You destroy others and eat then like luun! Is that what you wanted me to do, crush the ones I loved under my foot, hurt then and torment then just like God did?

  "Who? Nevermind that. If becoming a tormentor to all those you knew is what it took for you to give up this foolish, suicidal game, then yes, slaughter them!"

  She managed the strength for a brief scoff. "You kill me, and then complain I'm killing myself?"

  "You have been killing yourself for years now." she replied.

  "You are here because you allowed others to stunt your own growth when faced with an uncomfortable future. Because you refused to let go of a shell you could nary recognize anymore. And why? The question still remains."

  "How well has Holly Seneschal been protecting you?"

  She fixed Menoux with what little fight she could find. "You know nothing about me. Don't dare pretend otherwise!"

  "Wrong. I know you better than you know yourself, and I give you two choices: accept it, or follow your pride to your doom."

  Perhaps it was the exhaustion. Perhaps she had grown wary of herself. Her death loomed over her mind, blanketing her with a sense of calm she had never felt before. Menoux relaxed, his posture slacking again, though his gaze remained hopeful, easy to bask under.

  She surrendered, and in the gaping abyss, found her words.

  "She's nowhere." Her will caressed his. She meant to make her movements soft, amenable, but she knew the best she achieved was erratic. "She is never there to protect me when I'm actually hurt. Yet, I need her, because she is the one they expect, the one they want."

  "And for all you resist me, you still give yourself up to them. Who them, want her so much?" he asked.

  "She is all I know," she traced the lines and divots of his being. It was exactly as she had thought: where the Will of other creatures was loose, vague, she could perfectly feel the shape of Menoux body recaptured, from the incredible muscles to the round swell of his belly, all sculpted from the most solid of woods, indestructible. "She is all I was allowed to be. He gave her to me to keep me safe, but I didn't get how. I tried to be make my own way, and I payed the price for it."

  "You were tricked." In the World of Wills, the mass underneath her fingers shifted, a great lake opening its solid surface to engulf her hand by something softer, gentle. "I have seen gods brought low before, and the sight never gets any less painful. The Dashi will not save you, but you can still correct your way."

  "I'm scared," she said. "Gods hurt others. Gods kill to feel strong. They look down on their Herds and break them with fear and love. You can't tell me otherwise! I have seen it with my own two eyes in Lesser Hollow, and in the way my father spoke about me and my friends. I don't want to be like that!"

  "Godhood is a cruel existence, but a necessary one. Without its gods, Ivias would have been devoured to the bones. Of course, to live they must take from others, but who doesn't? All living things kill to survive," he whispered. "Did you think the meat you eat grew on trees? Even if did, do you think a tree doesn't breath, think, feel the absence of its own body parts?"

  She reached deeper, "And with its gods, Ivias nearly burned down to cinders, right? So why do I have to become like that?"

  The moment Menou froze solid, eyes gone wide, she knew she had made a mistake. Why? Wasn't she offering exactly what he wanted? She reached with her Will limb, giving him placating rubs, scratches, anything that might get a reaction.

  He relaxed, but the change was obvious. There was something different underneath his gaze now. As his Will set to caress hers, she nearly flinched, the cold motions hiding none of his intentions.

  "You don't," he said. "That is exactly the problem."

  "What do you mean?" she said.

  "Do you know your biggest problem? There is a myriad paths ahead, but none that will return you to your beloved Dashihood." He straightened his back. She no longer felt like a part of the conversation, so much as its recipient. "Searching for ways back, however, does not mean you aren't taking steps forward."

  "Let me go." She tried to pull herself free, only for the caress to turn into a grip.

  "Godhood makes for a cruel existence, but there are worse things out there. You don't see the way clearly, so of course you miss the toll this life will take, and most loathsome of all, how these precious comrades of yours will see far past your eyes yet never budge a finger to save you from the cliff's edge so long you serve your purpose!"

  "Let me go! They aren't like that! They would never hurt me!"

  "They already did."The slap came as such a surprise she only felt it seconds later. She convulsed with pain, her Will arm feeling as if it had been pulverized to the bone.

  "In the tongue of the Bear, there is a word for the kind of abomination you will turn into the next blind step you take. A broad insult meant to encompass all of us, yet which will fit you like a glove.

  "Demon."

  "Corruptor."

  He reached behind himself, dragging a long, thick object in front of her eyes. It had been wrapped in rolls of furs, tied at four different points by small coils of rope, each bearing a series of small objects: red rock runes wrapped by long strands of human hair, bundles of dried herbs rolled with papirus or even skin, cloth pouches sew shut and still bearing their needles. They reminded her of the small objects Aleh used to carry around, Fetishes.

  "You may have thought leaving all those fine cuts to rot somewhere you can reach were my way of tormenting you, but they carried a valuable lesson I wish you had picked up on your own." His chuckle was so dry it was physically painful to hear. "I know better now. What I'm about to show you is the most fundamental difference between the Dashi and the divine, and I want you to pay attention."

  With dexterity belied by the girth of his fingers, Menoux untied the knot holding the first coil together.

  The moment the rope hit the ground, she surged.

  No. Not her. Her body, a puppet that found its strings and was pulled from a prone form with no regard to its condition. All the resistance she could muster against her seizing muscles accomplished nothing but a slight tremble. Her jaw fell slack, rivulets of saliva splashing freely against her hands.

  "The Magical Revolution meant a new world unveiled to those who studied the biological arts. Thousand year old traditions and beliefs cast away as the lesser folks understood their bodies like never before! Proteins, calories, cells, bacteria, so many impossible horrors and miracles just lying beneath our noses, never to be noticed if not for a judicious application of stolen divinity!"

  He finished unwrapping the object, and the only thing preventing her from throwing herself at him was the white knuckle hold she had on the ground. Glorious meat, its scent so pure it burned, so raw it still bled. Smooth shards like red armor reflected incandescent light from where they still clung to the flayed mass.

  "None of those discoveries changed what we, we, understand about ourselves. There is one thing in this world a god needs to survive, something that exists beyond all those molecules and energies that keep the physical body functional, the most basic force of this universe and the One Body as a whole."

  Under a two finger grip, the piece of meat swayed from side to side, hypnotic motion followed without err by her head.

  "Life," he said, teeth bared, mouth splitting his face to the ears. "This is the part where I should say I hoped I never had to do this. Honestly though? I've been looking forward to it all along."

  He tossed.

  It never reached the ground.

  How could she describe the taste of salvation? Like death. Like agony made flesh. With the first bite, blood flowed in between her teeth and melted her gums to nothing. The slurry poured down her throat unbidden, dissolving every organ in its path. she crumbled inwards, undone innards and desperate muscles craving even a drop of the divine liquid.

  She dropped, barely conscious, but her body never stopped eating. So good, so horrible was the rejuvenation pouring from that meal that her senses began to fade.

  "It was always life. It always comes back to life," a voice said, leagues away. "That is what a god is made for, and what a god is made of. Do you get it now?"

  She didn't answer. As her mind finally shattered, one last idea made itself known.

  This taste was oddly familiar.