Embrace of the Goddess

Fella was watching Rella walk away when Iriel joined their side. Mola made a sign to Prim, and the younger paladin left Iriel's shadow, going back to her post. "Great company," said Fella sarcastically.

Iriel smirked. "All are beautiful under the goddess' light."

"Some are just squeakier," added Mola. All three smiled and turned to face the latest class about to graduate. Mola and Fella taught one of the final classes: Self-Defense and Salvation. At this point, all the girls have learned about theology and the theoretical practice of magic. Fella taught the healing arts while Mola taught self-defense magic such as banishing and binding. After a year under their tutelage, the acolytes would graduate and become full-fledged sisters of the order. Most would then be assigned posts or become missionaries. A few would continue working directly under Iriel's guidance here in the Abbey.

"I just came from yelling at Kasha," said Iriel. "We expelled another girl this morning."

"Another?" said Fella.

"Quana," said Mola at the same time.

Fella looked at her in shock. "How did you know?"

"People talk," said Mola with a shrug.

"Well, they ought not to," said Iriel. "Too many whispers and this thing spreads."

"You think people will hear about what Quana did and want to do ... that ... to um ... to other people?" asked Mola.

"I think it puts an idea in their mind, and ideas -- "

"But Quana practically ... I spoke to the girl afterwards, her roommate. She was shaking. This is more than debauchery. The goddess wants nothing to do with these, even between the mundane, between man and wife."

"I know," sighed Iriel. "That's why it can't spread. I don't think anyone would do what Quana did, but they could fantasize. They could wonder what drove her to do it. They could become curious. How would we stop them then? Should we abolish a roommate system entirely? Lock the doors at night? Keep guards outside each door? Orilana and Kasha are already posting guards throughout the dormitories at night. When do we become a prison?"

Mola looked shocked. She turned to Fella, but her big brown eyes were already watering. "Oh goddess," she whispered and shook her head.

"Exactly," said Iriel. "That's why the best option we have is to make sure no one hears about it for now. We have to lock it down and locate the source of the corruption."

"What if there is no source?" asked Mola.

"What do you mean?"

"What if these girls are just giving into their lusts? What if -- "

"They have laid their hearts bare to the goddess. Each of them has spent an evening in the chapel for their annual vigil and ..."

That was it. Goddess, that was it. The one thing they all had in common. Iriel's heart rate picked up and her eyes widened with awareness. "Fella," she said. "Who has done their annual vigil in the past month?"

"What?"

"The annual vigil. Who has spent the night in the chapel with the goddess in the past month?"

"Um, Quana was one. You're right about that."

"Who else?"

"Um, Voge, and I think ... uh ... Katalina, and Kasha? Yes, I think Kasha was the most recent."

"Oh no," whispered Iriel. She turned and ran off in the direction of the chapel. If this was it, if it all started at the chapel, and Kasha was tainted like the other girls ... then ... then ...

Oh goddess.

The chapel was the lowest part of the Abbey. It was where the goddess herself was buried after slaying Maloth. It was their most sacred space. It was impossible to get any closer to the physical goddess. But it was also the closest anyone could get to Maloth's prison. It had long been thought that the prison was unbreakable, that the spells and runes there would hold, keeping back Maloth and leaving the chapel as a place set apart, a place hallowed amongst the ruins of evil.

But if Maloth was there, if she was corrupting the space, then perhaps the girls hadn't spent their time with Azora at all. Perhaps they had spent the evening with Maloth, with darkness herself. Perhaps their prayers had turned to moans of ecstasy as their bodies awoke to perverse pleasures, causing them to abandon their vows, their oaths, and became instruments of lust in the Abbey.

Doesn't it sound delicious?

Iriel turned around, looking for the source of the voice. It wasn't around her; she was sure of it now. It wasn't within her. She wasn't cursed or being followed or going insane. It was from beneath her.

Dear goddess.

Iriel's hands cast back all shadows as she ran down the corridors into the chapel. There should have been two more paladins guarding this way, but no one was guarding the tomb. Something was wrong, terribly wrong.

"Azora grant me a shield that I may know peace even under terrible assault." Glyphs or light like tiny triangles flared up around Iriel as she cast the spell. The goddess was with her. She would be safe.

The order used to hold services in the chapel, millennia ago. The building was shaped like a star, with five sections all converging on the single altar. Each section had two rows of pews facing the altar, but they were empty now. The building had fallen into disrepair except for the altar. Once a month, acolytes and sisters were asked to spend the entire night here reflecting on the goddess, giving her their full attention. The vigil was sacred, but it was the only use for the chapel these days.

Some acolytes thought it blasphemous to keep something so important to their faith in such poor condition. Why not hold more services here? At least feast days. What they didn't know was that the crumbling facade of the chapel was camouflage. If too many people spend too much time here, they would wonder. They would ask questions. They would see the cracks.

Iriel spoke the command word — Quasime — and the altar rumbled and slid away. The acolytes and sisters knew that Azora was buried beneath here, but it was wrapped in metaphors. Goddesses can't die. They don't have bodies. A tomb is just a symbol to her literary death, part of her mythology. But no one thought there was an actual tomb. No one knew something was truly buried down here.

The altar finished grinding stone against stone, revealing the cramped stairways. Iriel let her hands burn brighter and pointed a concentrated beam down the steps. There were no footprints in the dust. No one had found this and gone under. Nothing had escaped and climbed up. Good.

She sighed with relief. That meant there had been no communion with Maloth. She was trapped, even if her magic was seeping out. She wasn't about to battle a dark goddess. She was about to fix some old spells. Tension eased out of her body. It was the difference between fixing a leaky pipe and redirecting a river.

She went down the steps carefully. Her mother brought her down here once, over a decade ago. Before she became High Priestess, the secrets of the Abbey were revealed to her. She spoke oaths that etched themselves into her skin like white scars, like righteous brands, that set her to Azora's way, to the truth and light. Then she was brought up and told never to go down here again unless the world was ending, or she was passing on her mantel of High Priestess.

Was the world ending?

Iriel gasped as she looked over the Tomb of Maloth. She barely remembered what it looked like. The pain of her mother's spell, the shock of the revelation, the weight of her new purpose, all of it had distracted her.

She was in a large cavern, over a hundred meters high. The walls were lined with dark crystals, but as the edge of her light spell touched them, she saw them dazzle a hundred different colors. Some crystals were broken open, and within them was each inch of the spectrum. The dark purple crystals acted like prisms, breaking the light into something more beautiful for the breaking.

She stepped forward, keeping her eyes up, and felt a crunch. She looked around her feet and saw scattered bones. Thousands of bones. Not just the bones of a goddess, like you'd expect in a tomb. There were bones from angels, dragonborn, Aasimar, elves, dwarves, humans, and more. These were the bones of priestesses. Bones of her order. Bones of her sister.

She waded through them, trying not to breathe, to disrupt the air of this place. As she moved, she saw larger bones, larger than anything she'd ever seen. A giant? A titan?

No. Maloth.

These bones had lines of runes etched into them, but these weren't the spells she was looking for. Maloth had done this to herself, burning herself with magic. Legend says that these were the contracts she held with her legion of demons. She had to brand her bones to make the magic hold.

Iriel found the skull of Maloth, but what she saw there took her eyes from the bleached bones lined with demonic tongue. There was a sheet of obsidian, tall and sharp, piercing through the skull of the dead goddess and standing at the center of the cavern. This was the blade Azora has slain her twin sister with. But Maloth had thrashed and tried to break free, summoning her legion to her aid. To hold her down, Azora fell on the blade herself, and both sisters were slain in their final breaths.

Though Azora lived on in the hearts of her followers. It was the power of her magic. It was a paradox Rella had investigated endlessly. The only answer Iriel had was that faith required mystery. Otherwise, they became historians and not believers.

Iriel approached the obsidian spear tip. It was taller than her, but just barely. She knew this was the source of the corruption. The skin on her arm raised. Her heart fluttered in her chest, trying to escape. It knew the presence of Maloth - the presence of all Azora was not - and it wanted to escape.

The light in the room bent towards the obelisk. The surface of it was shiny, reflective. How could she have missed it at first? Even more impressive than the crystals lining the chamber and more intimidating than the bones littering the ground was the change in the light and air that warped around the obelisk. It must be —

Iriel gasped.

There, standing inside of the obelisk, was a woman. Iriel stepped back, and so did the woman. She stepped forward and —

Laughed at herself.

Her reflection laughed back, and all the fear in Iriel's body fled. The light of her spell caught the obelisk's sheer edge and reflected her image back at her. It was nothing. Harmless.

Iriel took a deep breath. There was nothing to fear here. Just a dead goddess and some fading spells. She could relax. She brushed a strand of her long hair behind her ear, and her reflection did the same.

Something was off.

Something caught her eye.

Something about the reflection was not ... exact.

Iriel was always told that she had the radiance of the goddess inside of her. It was part of her ancestry. She was the seventh successive member of her household to be the High Priestess of Azora's Abbey. It was an honor, to be sure, and one she had earned through study and dedication. But people created their own mythologies about their family. Some thought they were angelic, but they were elves, not Aasimar. Iriel ran her finger over her long and pointed ears. They came out to the side a bit more than she'd like. On her best days she looked like a Fey creature, but on her worst, she looked like a goblin. Her skin was bronze and rich. Some called her sun kissed. Some thought it was the light of the goddess in her. It was just her heritage. Her family used to live in the deserts to the west before coming to the Abbey. All the elves from that region had the same complexion. There were similar stories about her hair. It was coppery, almost red, but it faded in color becoming blonde as it went. She was told it looked like a sunset, but the goddess had nothing to do with sunsets. She had bright green eyes, but no one made up any myths about —

Her reflection had light purple eyes. Almost pink.

And her reflection's skin was paler. Not white, but certainly not as deep as Iriel's.

And her hair. Iriel gasped. Her reflection's hair was a deep red. Almost auburn or brown. Almost maroon. Almost ...

Iriel stepped back from the mirror, but her reflection stepped forward. She scrambled back again, but the reflection kept approaching. Her reflection swept her arms to the side, and with a flood of light and smoke curling around the obelisk, stepped out of the mirror. She stood, in the same robes Iriel wore, but with paler skin, darker hair, and new eyes. She raised her arms up, and smoke and dust from the tomb wrapped around her. It coalesced like a helix, crawling over her skin and arms, sucking the air and light itself into her. Her form shimmered for a second, blinking out of existence, and then with a burst of light, she threw her arms back.

Something popped in Iriel's ears as the dust, smoke, air, and light of the chamber flew away from her direction. Her feet slipped backwards in the dirt of the cavern though she kept them planted. She shielded her eyes and leaned into the blast, trying to stay upright.

Then everything went still. Iriel's mind was slow. She should have been casting spells. She should have prepared herself, shielded herself. She should have done something, anything, but she could only look on at the pale reflection of herself. Yes, she looked darker, scarier, but she also looked ... happy. And powerful. Yes, she was undoubtedly strong. Iriel was strong, but she had been trained over decades to be humble. Be meek. Be modest.

Her reflection was anything but that. She lowered her arms and laughed. It was free and clear. Yes, there was something ... off about it. Something that raised the hair on the back of Iriel's neck. Something that made her clench her fists and pray that her spells would hold.

But that something was power.

Her reflection was dangerous. Not dangerous in the way Iriel had been taught. She'd been raised that power corrupts. That was how Azora's twin, Maloth, had fallen away. She found a way to bind demons to herself. She lorded her power over mortals. She punished those who were weak or didn't join her. Cruelly. But she started the same as Azora. They were sisters and best friends. They were equal, cut from the same cloth. It was the power that turned Maloth.

But not Iriel's reflection. This wasn't the power of cruelty. It was the power of confidence. There was no second guessing in her reflection. No doubt about what she was capable of or what she wanted or who she was. She was utterly herself, and what could be more dangerous than that?

What could be more attractive?

Iriel stepped backwards and crunched a bone. Her reflection lifted her eyes and locked them onto the scared priestess. She raised a hand towards her, and Iriel froze.

"Hello lovely," she whispered. Her voice was different, accented. She sounded like someone from the north.

"Hello?"

"Do not fear." Her reflection curled a finger, and Iriel's feet moved towards her without her bidding. "What have you to fear from yourself?"

Iriel tried to answer, but her mind stuttered on the question. One part of her, after a decade of training, knew the answer: everything. Maloth was a lesson that anyone of them could become like her. They were all frail. They needed the goddess to guide them, to keep them on the right path.

And yet, she had never felt like a dark being that needed to be chained up. She never wanted to hurt someone. She never wanted to be worshipped. She was the High Priestess of the Abbey, the highest-ranking woman in the region. Rella practically worshipped her, and it annoyed her. She didn't want to be a goddess. Why should she fear herself?

Trust thyself.

The voice was like grating iron. It rang through the cavern, like the crystals were singing. Iriel looked around, and her reflection mirrored her. Both their hands glowed with a pale light, preparing spells to defend themselves.

Nothing happened.

Her reflection laughed. It was a sweet laugh, thick like honey. Iriel found herself joining in, and both women laughed at their own paranoia.

Iriel walked towards her reflection of her own power. The paler version walked towards her, but both women stopped, only a meter away from each other. Iriel moved a hand, and her reflection copied her. There was no mirror, but both women moved in sync.

"What do you want?" asked Iriel as she continued testing the magic.

"Whatever you want."

"Well then ... that means ..." Iriel furrowed her brows. Her reflection didn't copy her.

"What do you want?" asked her reflection.

"I ... I don't know."

"Are you sure?" The reflection stepped forward. Iriel was frozen. "Or are you afraid of the answer?"

Iriel tried to step back, but she couldn't. She tried to scream, but she couldn't. She tried to feel afraid, but she ... she couldn't.

Her reflection smiled.

Iriel smiled.

The reflection brushed a stray strand of Iriel's copper hair behind her ear.

Iriel brushed a stray strand of her reflection's auburn hair behind her ear.

Her reflection cupped the back of Iriel's head.

Iriel cupped the back of her reflection's head.

Both women stepped forward towards each other. The lips of Iriel's reflection glowed a soft purple. Small puffs of black smoke billowed out. Iriel's lips glowed white, and rays of golden light shimmered from her mouth.

Iriel's reflection pulled Iriel into a kiss.

Iriel pulled her reflection into a kiss.

Their lips met, and the smoke and light wrestled with each other, pouring out the sides of their kiss, trying to escape to the air. Iriel gasped for air but found smoke instead. The smoke of her reflection poured into her mouth. Her light tried to fight, to escape, but finally the smoke of her reflection drowned it out.

Iriel tried to pull away. Not from fear. Not from pain. But to moan in ecstasy. To cry out in pleasure. To finally shout to whomever would hear her that she knew what she wanted.

She knew what she wanted.

Iriel stepped forward, pressing into her reflection. She kissed her back, her lips fading from their white glow to a faint pink light. She kissed her reflection, and smoke poured out from their kiss, wrapping around both of them.

But she wanted more.

She pressed forward and let her tongue slip into her reflection's mouth. She tasted like honey. And she was hungry.

Goddess, she was so hungry.

She licked and tasted. She kissed and panted. She gasped and moaned, drinking in more and more smoke. Consuming her reflection, letting the smoke wrap around them and rise up in a helix. The air and light in the chamber were drawn to them. The dust and the smoke were drawn to them. The power of the bones, the magic of the runes, the remains of the goddesses.

All of it was drawn to them, drawn to their power.

Then Iriel stepped forward again, stepping through her reflection.

There was a cry like a moan, like an orgasm, and then -

Her reflection was gone.

Iriel looked around, confused. It must have been a dream, a fantasy. It must have been ... something. Or nothing. Nothing at all.

Nothing was wrong here. There was nothing to worry about. The spell was fine. The magic would hold.

Iriel laughed at her silliness, at her paranoia, at her bizarre fantasy. But as the laugh escaped her lips, she gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.

It was her reflection's laugh that escaped her lips.