Goddess Rising

Night was falling and, in a departure from normal, no attendant had left Garo’s palace. All the gates were shut and there was no movement between the buildings in the palace. Even within the buildings, many attendants remained confined to their rooms with doorways watched by bored but anxious-looking guards.

The lockdown had killed Aria’s second plan. The plan had been simply to convince the guards to let her in - one way or another, but there were no guards at the gate to convince and no way to reach the ones inside.

It was infuriating because she could see every inch of the palace. She could see Garo passed out on his bed with guards standing alert at his door. The treasures he had claimed - or some of them - were in a storeroom being cataloged by his attendants. Among them, brightly shining, were dozens of rings each with as much power as Achi’s, and enough gold that Aria could live the rest of her life as an extremely wealthy and esoteric princess.

In a perfect world, she would have teleported the lot of it to a hiding place and been done with her task - that had been the first plan. But the barrier prevented her. She could not see or sense it. She knew it was there thanks to her study and the fact that all attempts to teleport items out of the palace felt like grasping air. According to Ritu, all the major deities had similar shields. They purchased them from Alogun - a fact that Evera had likely regretted at the end - and they were supposed to be impenetrable to uninvited guests. With the palace so obviously locked down, Aria would not make it through without showing more cunning than she thought she had.

Not one to be deterred, she had tested the shield, dropping objects over it. The larger ones had rolled off an invisible curved surface while some smaller ones had passed through, but she could think of no effective way to leverage pebbles into an effective attack.

That led to the third plan. It was ugly, brutish, inelegant, and wasteful. It was also, to her guess and amusement, easy.

First, she tested it. Mindful that every drop of energy she used could currently not be replenished, she dug into the earth around Garo’s palace, cutting through it as if with a long knife. It felt easy and, thankfully, used less energy than she had expected. Her reserves did not appear to drop even when she had cut a full circle around the palace. She continued digging until she had separated the portion of earth on which the palace was built from the rest of the ground. Then, she took a deep breath and lifted.

As she had guessed, the entire palace lifted with it. Panic ensued inside the palace, but she was gentle with the movement. Some people were harmed by falling objects, but none fatally. Crucially, Garo did not wake.

Next, she slowly turned the entire piece of earth onto its side. This proved significantly more chaotic than the lifting. The attendants inside panicked and more injuries ensued, but she proceeded with painful slowness so that no one did more than gently slide in one direction. She did not mind killing some of Garo’s attendants but, having been one until recently, she preferred not to harm them so soon.

The real test came then. If it failed, she would have no choice but to retreat either to death or hiding.

She turned the palace once more so that its roof was now facing downward. Her effort was rewarded. As she turned the place, the first of the treasures found a window, slipped out of it, and fell. It fell through the air, past the still waiting shield, and into the depressing formed by lifting the temple.

Aria almost whooped. The shield kept objects out of the palace but did not keep the objects inside it. It was a stunning - and possibly deliberate piece of oversight. In fact, as Aria’s assault stalled, the palace’s occupants began rushing toward the exit, ignoring the guards’ directions or attacking them when they proved too intractable.

Aria lowered the palace to the ground and let them rush out of its now upside-down carcass. Their exit would make it easier to shake out what she needed.

The evacuation took too long. Each moment that passed, Aria worried that Garo would wake up and ruin her plan. She cursed herself for caring more about the safety of his servants than her own, but she waited still. Fortunately, the palace was not extremely large. By the time the escaping servants had eased, eager warriors were climbing out of the palace, searching for their attacker. Aria did not know how they intended to identify her, but she had no intention of waiting for them.

Those remaining in the palace had accepted the risk she decided. This time, she was less gentle. It would be difficult and impractical to shake all the treasures out of Garo’s home, but she did not want all of them. She wanted the rings, and she got every single one. She’s also hoped to get Garo’s body out of a widow and bury it in a volcano, but the absence of windows in his quarters and a set of loyal guards made that impossible. She decided to save that dream for a different time.

With her goal complete, she dumped the palace in an out-of-the-way spot, still upside down, and went to inspect her treasure. The rings were easy to find; they shone in her vision. She felt a sense of relief as she grabbed each one, felt stronger, braver, calmer. She slipped on as many as she could, not stopping to find out what they did. What would not fit in her hands went into her pockets, until she had found everyone. By her estimation, each one held power a hundred-fold more than what she already had. She counted eighteen rings in all, good for centuries of life if she could add their strength to hers, and if she was not forced to waste it on a battle.

Relief washed over her. Now was the time to retreat, hide, and prepare. Every moment their duel was delayed gave her a better chance at withstanding Garo, a different situation than before this attack. So, her next task was to hide as long as possible and learn all she could about Garo and Tivelo.

A sight stopped her. Lying on the ground beside her feet, was a wood-bordered painting. It was small, about the size of two faces pressed together, and done in a riot of color. It stopped her at first, because she had seen its kind before: Achi’s murals in his secret shrine. But the longer she gazed at it, the more familiar it appeared. To the casual observer, it seemed to be an odd collection of color, but shape called out from the brushstrokes, invisible, but insistent.

And then, finally, Aria knew what it was. She had seen it only the previous day, a scene of no importance and likely unmemorable had she been in her mortal body.

It was the sky. The pattern of clouds she had seen while lying in the grass after defeating Garo stared at her from the canvas. The colors were erratic, and portions were missing, but what was present in the strokes matched her memory.

Aria felt a sudden, blind terror. She forcefully clamped down on it, eager to brush it off as a coincidence, but her eyes landed on another painting.

This one was even more abstract, but she identified it immediately because it was right in front of her. It was the shape made by all the objects gathered around her, the items she had shaken free of Garo’s palace made a formless figure that was reproduced faithfully in the framed painting right before her.

Lest she explain it away, a signature in one corner of the painting proclaimed the artist’s identity: Achi.