Arjasoot refused to believe that Varayana had gone over to the enemy.

To be sure, she liked to put on a cold persona at times. At times, she spoke harsh words and rejected the warmth of others, all so that the people around her would not fall victim to her Curse of Love…

...but no. Her deeds were too brave and generous, and her enmity with the Deiuos too deep. Varayana was not the kind of person to gain power by cruel means, and she most certainly wasn’t the kind of person to throw their lot in with a tyrannical God...not even a Sunken One.

And there was one detail more, one clue that caught Arjasoot’s eyes as Varayana reached out to grasp the hand of Kanwah, the Strangling Root.

The many gold rings on her right hand were gone, leaving only bare, smooth skin.

“You’ve made a wise choice this day, Priestess daughter,” Kanwah said, trees roots slithering from the hole in his shattered side, digging their way into the walls and growing across the temple floor to surround Varayana. “Together, I will accomplish great things…”

They reached out to clasp each other’s hands –– one hand the bright brown of sapling bark, the other pale as a corpse moon. A red spark formed at the tip of of Varayana’s tail, leaping through the slim gap of car to shock the Strangling Root’s marble digits.

“Aieee!” Kanwah recoiled, clutching his hand to his chest, staring wide-eyed at the blackened char on his digits. “What is this? What Is This?” His eyes went wide with anger: “Cursed flesh?”

Varayana’s cruel, wicked smile slipped away, dissolving like a mask of salt...revealing the naked desperation and worry of her heart.

So that was her plan, Arjasoot realized, everything becoming clear for them. Lure the Strangling Root in close, burn him with the curse of her embrace, and deliver her family from captivity…

...but if nothing was done, her wish would turn to dust.

Arjasoot shifted shapes again, turning their legs into swollen, tight-packed bands of sinew, threads of cinder crackling around their feet.

They made a great monkey leap and sprang off their branch, a vortex of fire trailing in their wake of their body as they soared.

They’d lost their sword, but that did not matter: a moment’s thought conjured a burning blade to their hands, a curved sickle conjured from their own flesh. A Four-Part Halo shone from the back of their head, cartwheel-large, as a keening cry burst from their lips:

“Victory To Varayana!”

Their blade swung and struck true, severing a tide of roots, cleaving through furrows of divine flesh –– !

–– Argus, Vasura, Ramides and Zol fell from the ceiling, freed from their rotten prison of wood. Vasura, his ribs cracked, hit the ground roughly and groaned in agony. Lady Varavel was at his side in an instant, helping the foolishly wise scholar to his feet.

Arjasoot kept moving, darting through the air like a dragonfly, their flame-flesh blade cutting and cleaving through rotten tree roots. The wood was sodden and bitter to the taste, drenched with the stolen moisture of healing springs...but the Smoke Spirit continued to cut and consume, spreading their heart-flame everywhere they good, setting tree roots on fire and squashing termites beneath their feet.

“Interloper!” Kanwah snarled, weaving their hands together in arcane patterns, like a weave assembling a bolt of cloth. A cage of thorny roots sprouted from the temple floor and moved to surround Arjasoot. “What are you? Another tool of the betrayers?” Anger warred with a strange grief on the Strangling Root’s perfect, broken face: “Still, they refuse to leave me be...!"

Arjasoot took a deep breath and summoning for the last embers of their Heart-Flame. Their Four-Part Halo swelled, becoming a Five-Part Halo.

“I am Arjasoot of the Hearth-Vale!” They declared. “Scion of the Tribe of Glass! Archivist and Cleaver! Brave and generous with gifts!”

“A strong breath, a strong Heenh, shall fill your sword with life. Inhale and the fangs stretch wide. Exhale and the mouth snaps shut.” –– The Sword Fern Codex, Passage 8, Verse 3.

Arjasoot twirled like a whirlwind, sparks and trails of smoke swirling around them like the silks of dancer. Two roots, three roots, eight roots, sixteen roots… the growths of a corrupted god burned away like paper, weaves of blue flame creeping up their lengths as the Smoke Spirit cut and cut.

But for every sodden root they severed, another grasping coil reached out to seize and strangling their smoke flesh.

“I am…!” Arjasoot could barely speak between the dryness of their lips and the cold, gnawing hunger in their heart.

And then, suddenly, they spoke anyway, the Halo over their head growing to Six Parts:

“...I am the Spirit who grants the Wishes of the Righteous!”

The flames scattered by Arjasoot’s passing turned from gentle blue to blinding red. They raced across the divine tree roots in a wave, incinerating the evil within. Termites screamed in pain as they fled the grasping tongues of heat, scattering to shadowed corners of the ruined temple.

“No!” Kanwah shrieked, reaching out towards his vanishing legion of insects. “Traitors! Returns this instant!” A quaver in his melodious voice: “Your king commands it…!”

In that moment of distraction, his attention divided between too many sudden events, Varayana slipped beneath the Sunken God’s guard. She seized his cracked waist with her left arm and clutched his beautiful marble throat with her right hand.

"Faced with such a generous offer, how could I say no?" Varayana hissed, repeating her words from before. "An easily answered question: I just part my lips and say no."

She tightened her grip.

“Urgh!” Kanwah’s beatific face twisted in agony. “Release me!” He croaked, as red sparks spilled from the gap between Varayana’s tight-clenched fingers. “Release me!” Cracks spread across his pale, unblemished skin. “Release me!” He reached out with his swollen right hand to grasp Varayana’s head and rip it off her shoulders…

In was in that moment that Ina of the Axe, Priestess of Eleutha, leapt from the shadows, her namesake weapon held high above her head.

A swing, and the swollen arm fell severed from the Strangling Root’s shoulders, shattering on the ground, fluids of purple and green leaking from the cracks like tree sap.

“No!” Kanwah wheezed. He reached out to kill Varayana with his other arm…

...and at that moment, Arjasoot cleaved through the last coil of wood standing between them and the Strangling Root’s main body. With their flesh-formed blade, they cleaved through the Sunken One’s normally proportioned limb.

“No!” Kanwah said with greater passion. He writhed and thrashed, desperately striving to shake Varayana free from his throat…

...but the roots from his flesh, embedded in the earth, held him back.

“I will…” The Strangling Root fixed his fierce, red-rimmed eyes on Varayana. “I will...curse you…” He spat.

“I’ve been cursed five times already,” Varayana said. “What’s one more?” She wrapped her other hand around the Sunken God’s throat and squeezed him even tighter.

The stone tiles of the temple cracked as rotten, fuzzy tree roots squirmed their way upon between them. They slithered toward Varayana like a nest of serpents.

Arjasoot and Ina placed themselves on each side of Varayana and went to work, blades flashing as they carved and burned the writhing growths that threatened the Curse-Branded One.

“I…” The Strangling’s Root’s pale cheeks flushed red and purple. Their golden eyes flickered back and forth. The cracks along his shoulders and collarbone multiplied. “I am...sorry!” they wheezed as their throat crumbled beneath Varayana’s fingertips. “Forgive me!”

Varayana tilted their head to the side. “Forgiveness?” She echoed. “You’ve done nothing to me. I’m not the one you hurt.”

With a twist of their waist and a wrenching motion, Varayana the Swordmaiden, Cursed-Branded, tore the Sunken One’s head from their body and shattered his waist with her embrace. Ichor sprayed everywhere. Kanwah’s mouth stretched wide in a silent scream as Varayana hurled him towards the nearest wall.

Upon hitting the wall, he shattered into less than dust.

The rotten tree roots ceased to writhe and twist. The Strangling Root’s headless body collapsed. The flames cast by Arjasoot swept across the buried temple, burning away the unholy roots and thorns, creating sweet-smelling Smoke that Arjasoot drank in with gratitude.

“Mother,” Varayana said, brushing the dust from her hands and turning to face Lady Varavel. “Fathers,” she said, inclining her head towards Vasura, Argus, Ramides and Zol.

“Varayana,” Lady Varavel replied, releasing her husband and Vargus and stepping forward. “So you’ve finally gotten to kill a God, just as you always wanted.”

“I wanted to know if gods could be killed…” Varayana replied, lips pressing into a thin line. She gestured towards the shattered carcass at her feet. “I never wanted this to happen.”

“Our choices shape the fate laid out for us,” Lady Varavel said sharply, adopting the tone of a prophet lecturing their followers. “Your beliefs and passions led you to this very moment…”

Varayana’s face flushed red. “So that’s how it is,” she spat out. “Even now you can’t stop trying to correct me. Even now, you won’t forgive me for questioning…”

Arjasoot laid a hand on Varayana’s shoulder. “Don’t, Varayana,” they told their traveling companion. “Listen to your mother.”

“But…” Varayana said.

“Listen to your mother,” Arjasoot said with greater, yet ever-gentle emphasis. “She’s not saying what you think she’s saying.”

“The Kindly Spirit speaks true,” Vargus wheezed, forcing each of his words past his fractured ribs. “Also...hello,” they said to Arjasoot. “I don’t believe we’ve met….”

Lady Varavel spoke up again.

“If you hadn’t questioned the Gods at that Symposium..." they said softly, wringing their slender hands together. "If you hadn’t been stricken with Divine Curses...if you hadn’t been banished from Wedwel Dom…”

Varavel shook her head. “Then none of this could have happened. We would have all died down here in this lightless pit, and that horrible god would have ruled over the temple of my Goddess forever.” Her lower lip quivered ever so slightly. “And you might have died as well.”

Varayana went very still. "Oh," she said softly.

Lady Varavel took a step towards her daughter, raising her trembling hand, her composure crumbling into the saddest possible joy. “Oh, how I have missed you, my sweet…”

A crunching noise from overhead. A section of the roof overhead, a temple dome shot through with grasping roots, broke off and plummeted towards Varavel.

Arjasoot blurred into motion, racing towards Lady Varavel with the speed of wind. Even as they dashed and flew with all their smoke-given strength, they knew, deep in their heart-flame, that they wouldn’t reach her in time. That Fate itself wouldn’t allow it ––

A scowl split Priestess Ina’s stern countenance. Grasping her double-headed axe with both hands, she swung and struck the empty space of air between Varavel and her daughter.

...and suddenly, Arjasoot did make it in time. Grasping lady Varavel’s shoulders, they pulled her out of the way as the stone rubble and dessicated roots hit the ground and shattered.

“This pit is collapsing!” Ina shouted. “We need to leave NOW!”

Varayana’s eyes widened with horror: “It took us minutes to get down here!” She said. “We’ll never…!”

“I can lift you!’ Arjasoot said, raising both their arms out to the side.

On any other day, their words would have been a lie. But now, in this burning temple, with thousands of little fires burning away the countless roots, streams of smoke swirled in to empower their flesh.

Arjasoot start to grow, torso, head and limbs swelling larger and larger, until their arms grew large enough to wrap themselves around four humans each.

“Quickly!” Arjasoot shouted. “Gather round!”

“Do what they say!” Lady Varavel shouted, rushing towards Arjasoot.

Vasura, Ramides and Zol rushed after their wife. Argus hung back for a moment, bending over to retrieve Arjasoot’s sword from the ground.

“Good bronze!” They said, sprinting back over to Arjasoot’s side. "Be damned if I’ll see it buried!"

Arjasoot tucked Varavel and Zol under their left arm, and beckoned Argus and Ramides into the grasp of their right. “Quick!” They called to Ina and Varayana. “Climb onto my shoulders!”

Varayana hesitated, glancing down at her cursed hands.

“Come on, Vara!” Ina shouted, brandishing her double-bladed battleaxe. “I’ll cut the threads of fate away for as long as I can!”

Whatever Ina meant by ‘threads of fate’, it seemed to give Varayana some comfort. Hesitance gone, she ran with Ina, both of them leaping onto Arjasoot’s swollen shoulders.

Arjasoot changed their form once more, straining and grunting until two new pairs of arms sprouted from their shoulders for climbing.

And climb they did, leaping and soaring their way back up the deep, dark chasm with a speed they’d never managed before. Arjasoot and their passengers left the crumbling ruins of the Temple behind, ascending their way back up the tangled maze of tree roots they’d descended minutes ago.

The path was treacherous, and death dogged every step they took. The maze of tree-roots, nourished by the murdered god, now withered and dried beneath their feet. More than once, the Smoke Spirit had to stretch their smoke-formed arms out like rubber, seizing a new set of hand-holds as once-solid root splintered and gave way under them.

All the while, Ina swung her double-bladed axe with one arm, cutting away threads of fate only she could see, keeping Varayana’s Curse of Love from killing them all.

With one last leap, Arjasoot sprang away from the last tree root as it crumbled into ash-white dust. They clung to the wall of the chasm, sinking their fingers and toes into the layers of jagged dark rock and grey, compacted clay. Spider-like, they ascended the cliff, pulling themselves higher and higher, straining their way towards the mouth of the chasm, towards the light of the sun and the emptied city of Wedwel Dom…

“...!” Zol shouted, wiggling frantically in the grasp of Arjasoot’s smaller pair of arms.

Arjasoot slowed their pace and turned their head down. “What is it?” They asked the beautiful dancer.

Zol pulled one of his arms free from Arjasoot’s grasp and pointed behind them. “The lake!” He shouted. “The lake is returning!”

Arjasoot twisted their head and saw.

The maze of rotten tree roots, they realized, had grown and spread throughout the city of Wedwel Dom, drinking humans and guzzling water from its many healing springs. Now the network of tree roots had crumbled to dust...and water from the waterfall’s basin was seeping through the holes and gaps left behind.

First a trickle, then a stream, then a flood. Water poured over the chasm edge with a roar, foamy liquid streaming into the hole beneath them, filling it up like a drinking vessel.

There’s no way, Arjasoot thought, starring dumb-struck as the waters rose towards them. How can water rise that fast?

“CLIMB!” Varayana screamed, hollering right into Arjasoot’s ears.

Shocked back to themselves, Arjasoot climbed, forcing themselves higher and higher, scrambling for holds in the cliff face as the howl of death echoed under their feet.

“You’re almost there!” Varayana shouted.

Mist and droplets licked at Arjasoot’s heels. With a desperate heave, Arjasoot threw themselves upward, vaulting dozens of feet in a single bound. The cliff face was right there, they realized, their heart-flame warming with relief. Vara wasn’t blowing cold air after all...!

A loud crack as an old building crumbled. Fresh basin water rushed into the city, filling up the chasm to its brim.

Cold, churning liquid swelled passed Arjasoot’s knees, then up past their waist.

They felt no fear in that moment. They didn’t even feel surprise...which in its own way, was a little surprising.

They knew what they needed to do. They even knew what they wanted to do.

Arjasoot gave forth one final burst of strength, kicking with their legs against the chasm water, hurling themselves upwards like a fish cresting the waves. With their four arms, they hurled Argus and Ramides, Vasura and Zol, Ina and Varavel away from themselves, up and over the edge of the Chasm to safety.

They grasped and hurled Varayana last of all.

“No!” Varayana shrieked in despair, thrashing in Arjasoot’s grip, her curly locks of hair askew, her dress of copper links tangled, her beautiful eyes red-rimmed with sorrow.

“I trust their fate to you,” Arjasoot told Varayana with a smile, casting her away to safety.

And then the wicked water took them, dragging them down into crushing darkness, wearing away their smoke-formed flesh, snuffing their Heart-Flame out with a gush of steam.

So wet, Arjasoot thought. Through hazy vision, they saw the sun shine bright and gold overhead, a shimmering disk distorted by the rippling current. They reached one of their worn-away hands up, grasping towards the faintest light.

Will Varayana understand what I meant, they wondered as they sank? Will she understand that I’ve left the fate of my people –– of the Hearth Vale –– in her hands? Will she inherit my will and slay the monsters that threaten all I treasure? In her hands lie the curses of the Deiuos and anger of righteous mortals...the very essence of the Godcarver that can vanquish wicked Gods...

As their thoughts grew tangled and dim, Arjasoot fancied they could see a dark shape, the outline of a person, making their way through the water towards them.

My parent, they wondered? Has my parent come to call me a fool one last time?

Next Chapter: Chapter Fifteen