Book 6, Chapter 1: The First Loss
Author's note:
Hello everyone! Book 6 will release from now, but only twice a week. I'm very sorry, I've traveled to my hometown to take care of my mother, so I can't get chapters out as quickly as usual. Book 6 is on my patreon entirely and the patreon will always be at least 15 chapters ahead (right now, it's 40 or so).
Enjoy!
Drop your thoughts in the comments!
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Princess Cayce, Vol 2, Book 1:
It’s not every day you lose your godhood.
The clouds were fluffy, wispy, up above. Slowly moving across the blue sky. Grass poked into my naked back and buttocks, as my dress had been torn apart. I pulled my shift down to adjust, pushed the tattered dress under me. Didn’t get up. Crows cawed. Foxes yipped. The smell of pine wafted through the air.
Five hundred dead bodies lay in a circle around me. They’d attacked me and suffered for it, though I didn’t directly kill them. They fought a deity. A touch unwise. Though, in all honesty, they’d won.
I lay on the grass not a god, but a girl. Powerless, slightly thirsty, and tired. Annoyed they ruined my dress. I liked this dress.
Closed my eyes for a bit, let the sun soak into me.
But eventually I had to get up. It’d be a creepy, morbid night with all these bodies lying around. Worse if they started the zombie apocalypse on this world. Probably should put some distance between myself and here, in any direction. And I had to find a replacement dress now, check if any of them brought food and water. Gold or coins, too, I suppose. Five hundred, seventy-one corpses.
I wondered if their last thoughts were happy in their success. Fulfilled even.
Standing, stretching out my arms and legs, bending my back, I reached for the heavens and shouted as loud as I could, “Congratulations!” Then, more quietly to the nearest corpses around my person, “You beat me, stole my divinity, and you’re all dead. Congratulations.”
Inky black crows landed on nearby trees. Watching, making sure these humans really were food. When they determined the bodies didn’t move, they’d feast. For now, the hungry birds were wary. One cawed. A bunch joined in. The crows were no longer mine and were no longer speaking to me.
I stared at them, stunned and surprised when I shouldn’t be. Little traitors! You are mine! Talk to me, protect me!
But, no, they couldn’t. They were the first loss. And there were others. I could no longer perceive the extra dimensions, nor draw energy from them. I would age now, too, at a rate not of my choosing. Damn.
Though, a part of me was relieved. The Others were coming. They’d soon breach their prison, I knew, and who would stand against them on this world? I shivered. They terrified me. It was good I was a girl for I didn’t have to stand against them now. I was nothing to them, could offer nothing to them. They wouldn’t even notice my existence. Hopefully.
I could return to that awful place, their prison, face those beings, challenge the trap, maybe regain my divinity. But, no, not this time, not tomorrow, nor ever again. It would win. No longer could I best it, that hell of suffering and misery, for it had tasted my flesh, dined on my being. It would win and losing there would be much, much more final than today.
Now I could, well now I could live, make friends, take a lover, start a family, build my kingdom, introduce weaponry to conquer this continent. I could do all these things, I told myself, I was better off now.
Yet monsters roamed these lands, and little girls were food out here. Bandits who would take from me things best left unsaid. And the enemy armies invading my lands, if they captured me, execution would be a mercy. I shuddered, looking around the tree line. Yesterday, nothing and no one could harm me. Today, I wasn’t safe. What was hunting out there?
I wanted to scream again, swear at the heavens and gods and others, but I kept my mouth shut. Unwise to draw attention to myself here, unwise to name deities and dark beings.
Raised a fist, stomped my feet, shook my head, sighed, started searching the corpses. Nice day out, sunny, cool breeze, good for corpse searching.
It took a long while to find a suitable dress. The wizardesses tended to be older, but that wasn’t the main problem. It was the evacuation of life’s necessities upon death that messed up most of the clothing. I ended up with a pale blue dress and only a touch of a grass stain, so that worked. White frills around the neck and wrists. A little too cute for me, but beggars and all that.
Not a single one of them had brought food. Or water. They must have thought, ‘not a problem! I’ll just go steal the powers of a goddess and be home by dinner!’ No, sir and lady mages, no more dinner for you.
A few of them had thought to bring knives, and that would make my life easier. I took a couple satchels, too. An extra dress, just in case. A bunch of coins between them, so I was good in that department. I couldn’t bring myself to take an extra set of undergarments. The corpses could keep those.
By the time I was ready to leave, the sun lead the direction, low in the sky. West, I had to go one week west. My kingdom lay there, soldiers waiting for me. Though a cavalry unit was heading toward me even now. Given that they had horses, I probably only needed three or so days of walking.
Another sigh. Life was easier as a god. Definitely do not recommend giving up the divinity. Or, in my case, losing it.
***
Night had fallen, I found an open space under some trees and cleared a firepit. Stared at the twigs. Yesterday, this would already be a fire for me, from a mere thought.
I had steel, no flint. Striking knives against each other wasn’t working. Damnit! I should have grabbed one of the dead wizard’s belts or drawstrings. I could have made a bow, wrapped the belt or string around a piece of wood, and created a drill to rub against a block of wood. Without those tools, all I had were sticks to rub together, and that would take forever.
Only if I wanted warmth. And freedom from insects.
It was just three more nights at most before my knights found me. Maybe I could tough it out. I hugged my knees up to my chest. I wanted fire. Alright, that left me two methods. One, I could carve a hole in a piece of wood, then put a branch into it, hold in my hands, rubbing them back and forth as fast as I could. It would take a long, long time, chafe my skin.
Two, dig a trench into the base wood instead, rub a branch like a wedge back and forth until friction got it alight. It’d wear out my muscles faster but save my skin. I decided to try that one.
A long while later, arms tired and complaining, no fire.
Wait. Holding up my wrist, I looked at my gold and charcoal bracelet. Perseidian iron, magic dampening stuff. It didn’t stop my powers before because mine came from the divine. But no human mage touching this iron could use magic. They’d taken my divinity, but I wondered if I could use their magic.
Only one way to find out!
I took off my bracelets, rings, anklets, then earrings and necklace, laying them down on my backpack. The rarest iron in the world, I didn’t want to lose it. Plus, it protected me from direct magical attacks. Anger rose up in me then, thinking of those mages! How they trapped me! Held me down, carved runes into my back to steal the divine.
Shaking, I drew my hand up and released my rage, trying to send out a burst of energy. Nothing. I tried heating up the wood, nothing.
Nothing but a fifteen-year-old girl. Damnit.
I put the jewelry back on because I didn’t want to lose it. And strangely enough I’d come to like the gold and charcoal metal daintily covering my wrists and ankles, guarding my neck, hanging from my ears, and wrapped around my fingers. It was familiar, felt safe, a part of me now.
It wasn’t so bad, I told myself, not having magic. I didn’t have any when I’d come to this world, and I’d survived just fine. But knowing now who I am, its loss hit me hard. Was I really just a person? A young girl?
A branch broke off in the forest. I froze, listening.
“Over here, you think?”
“Not so loud, you idiot!”
Damn. I got up quickly, moving to a large tree, putting it between me and the voices. All the mages were dead. Who were these people?
Heavy footsteps kicking the leaf litter, another branch broken.
Grabbing the satchels, I decided to move in the direction they were coming from. With luck, I’d skirt them and they’d keep going forward. Not sure where that’d leave me, but hopefully far from these guys. I headed away from them for a bit, then back toward the east.
After a while, the forest began getting thicker. I stopped, cupped my ears in the direction I’d come, listening. Wind across the bows of trees, the rustling of leaves, a squirrel suddenly chittering.
That meant something, someone, alarmed it. They were following me.
I ducked under the bow of a nearby large evergreen. It’s lowest branches fanned out, away, leaving a soft depression underneath. It was gentle as I lay down on my stomach, folding my arms under my chin.
I waited, watching.
All too soon for my preference, they came. Footsteps and bushes brushing and scraping against clothing in the direction I’d come. Then I saw them. Two men, each leading a horse. The first looking at the ground, pointing in my direction. The other, glancing side to side.
Maybe I could take them. I’d trained in combat in Valhalla, fought alongside the Vikings, against the titans. Battled the gods even. Yet, I was just a little girl now. With a fifteen-year-old girl’s strength. Goddamn those mages!
I bolted. Away, as fast as I could, into the thicker brush. Maybe their hoses couldn’t follow, maybe grown men would have a harder time than me.
“There she is!”
Crashing behind me, branches being pushed out of the way.
I ducked and wove under low branches, through paths only a small girl could go – wishing I was a squirrel myself now! – but they followed. The smell of burning pine wafted through the bushes, but I pushed on anyways, as the men were catching up. Squeezing past some new aspen and heather, I burst into a wide meadow, filled with horses, men, campfires.
“Whoa! You startled me there!” An older man pissing.
“Holy shit,” I muttered, staring at the encampment. “Whose army are you?”
He pulled up his pants, tied up his drawstring, saying, “That depends, my lady.” Then, peered closer, “Or are you a farm girl in some stolen clothing?”
I folded my arms. “I want to see your commanding officer.”
“Ha! Do you now?”
Crashing through the bushes getting closer behind me.
“Never mind!” I said, deciding perhaps it was better if I were a horse thief. I ran into the camp, to the nearest horse and began undoing its reigns.
He caught up to me, grabbing my arm, “Not so fast, girl.” He pulled on my arm, turning me around, “That’s a hanging offense.”
“I’ll . . . I’ll buy it. I’ve got gold!”
Behind him, the men pushed through the bushes. “Hold her!”
I didn’t disintegrate the man holding me, mainly because I no longer could, and I pulled my arm away. “Who are you guys?”
“We’re the wizards’ steel. The mages’ army.”
“Ah, fudge.”
“Fudge?”
“I’m trying to quit swearing.”
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