Dead

Arawn’s eyes widened and a smile came to his face. The two bandits that held the old man drew back in shock, but they didn’t escape. She twisted viciously, cutting through one then the other. Blood sprayed over the kneeled town leader and stained her gown before she turned. Her eyes were glowing, but they were filled with darkness.
A chill went through him at the sight twined with desire that made his cock twitch. She’d fallen into another vision or a memory of some type, but this time, it was not a trance that drew on the power he usually felt from her.
This was a trance of those hidden depths he’d barely gotten a glimpse of.
He had never imagined that it would be a pool of destructive darkness beneath the beguiling sweetness of her power and her personality.
Still, who her divine parent could be baffled him.
“She killed him.”
“Kill her!”
The bandits were a tenacious bunch. They abandoned their harassment of the common town people, drew their swords, and rushed towards her in a screaming mass. Arawn grinned, excited at the prospect of watching her in multi-opponent combat.
There were at least thirty of them in the group. It was a good start. He expected that if Anu brought war to Berth, she would be facing much larger groups of people. Perhaps by then, she would be able to level cities with just a wave of her hand.
Sirona said nothing as she turned towards them. She moved like oil through the air, flying towards them and meeting them in the center of the town. The man who was at the front stopped short as she plunged her sword through his chest. The next lost his head as she ripped the blade out of his chest. The next tried to grab her from behind, but she shoved her elbow into his chest and flipped the sword around to shove it into his gut. She spun away from him, tearing a hole in him as she struck one of his comrades.
The splatter of blood on the ground made him smile and reminisce. She was beautiful, cutting through them like a war goddess. Heads flew around her, bouncing and rolling towards the townspeople who simply watched in horror and fear.
Blood soaked the ground as bodies crumpled in her wake, but she didn’t slip or lose her balance.
The bandits drew back in fear as she cut through another man. They seemed to be realizing that they were probably going to end up dead if they charged her, but she didn’t let them escape. Before they could get far, she disappeared and reappeared, blocking their paths and cutting through them.
“I surrender! I—” She severed his head from his shoulders and moved on.
Arawn shivered, licking his lips. This wasn’t better than what he had planned for her in the forest, but it was slowly making up for being interrupted.
As he watched her move through the fleeing bandits, killing them with more ease than he expected, he noticed that she didn’t seem to be burning through much of her energy. Instead, she seemed to be gaining energy with each person she murdered.
The energy of their lives washed over her, and she drew it in before their bodies had hit the ground. It wasn’t the same as drawing power from the surroundings as their bodies didn’t disintegrate, but it was probably related.
It was more like she was taking something else, but Arawn had no idea what it was. Their soul? That didn’t seem right. He didn’t think that humans had any more of a soul than an animal, and animals didn’t have a soul, per se. Deities had eternal souls that were housed in their human vessels. They couldn’t be destroyed, but if their vessels were destroyed it would take a lot of time to find another one without help.
He had never felt any sort of energy that he could take when he killed humans. Perhaps that was something intrinsic to her. Maybe it was something he could learn.
He thought she might be an earth deity, but that didn’t match up with this display. She wasn’t a war deity either. Based on the state of Conna, she could have been a deity of strife if she wasn’t so bent on lessening suffering.
He narrowed his gaze, trying to peer deeper into what she was doing. The power she was using was more aligned with death and destruction. He swallowed nervously as he considered the idea that she was more similar to Anu than he first thought, but he pushed that thought away.
Their compatibility pointed to something else. Anu was controlling and vicious. She destroyed, but she didn’t get power from killing. She got power for subjugation.
Whatever she was, this was the power he needed from her. It seemed connected to her emotional state for now. He would have to work on connecting her to this state without going into trance.
He watched the townspeople stare in gratitude. That gratitude turned to fear faster than Sirona was tearing through the bandits. He snorted and the bitter feeling that he usually had about humanity returned.
What was the point of helping people who would just as soon praise you as fear you for doing what had to be done? They were too weak to fight the bandits that raided their town. They didn’t pray to him for liberation, but now that liberation was here, they were terrified.
Humanity, he almost sneered. In all the years he’d been alive, they hadn’t changed at all.
It was a waste of time.
“Sirona,” they gasped. “Thank you for your help.”
He listened to their voices giving prayers of thanks. Then, like a whisper, someone was praying to be spared from her wrath. Someone else prayed that her anger would stop. Someone else prayed that her bloodlust would end and they would just be saved.
Someone prayed that they live until morning so that they could move as soon as possible.
As the last bandit fell, Sirona’s body froze as if she had been shocked. Had she heard their fearful prayers?

Don’t kill me. Sirona frowned at the soft, pleading voice. She recognized it as the woman who showed her around the town.
Please don’t kill us. That voice was a man she’d helped load a cart of black stone the day before to be taken into the city with the city’s escort.
Please spare us all. She didn’t recognize that voice exactly, but it had the same panicked, hopeful, fear that the others had.
Sirona shuddered as she heard familiar voices cutting through the blood-splattered mess of the king’s throne room. Blodeu and Haron lay on the steps beside the throne. The knights were all dead. The nobles drew back in terror from her, yet her father was dead.
She didn’t want people to fear her. She didn’t plan to kill anyone who didn’t deserve it.
She hadn’t planned to kill anyone.
The sight shoved her out of the vision and she looked up into the night. The air was warm around her as the light of a fire flickered in her gaze. She looked around a bit dazed. What happened? Why was it all so fuzzy?
Mercy we pray.
How many times had she heard that on the steps of the temple of Anu as they prepared for executions?
Anu was a god to be feared. Sirona wasn’t a god, and she didn’t want to be feared. There was no reason for them to fear her.
“What’s… wrong?”
She frowned looking at the shocked faces of the people of the town, looking up at her in fear. She turned and looked at the town leader who was on his knees, looking up at her in awe. There was no fear in his eyes. That was a relief, but the others feared her now.
She looked down around her to the circle of bodies at her feet. Her boots slipped in the blood-soaked earth beneath her feet. Her dress was heavy and stained with blood. The scent of blood, fresh and metallic, clogged her senses. She covered her mouth as she felt the blade in her hand turn to ash and blow away with the wind.
She stumbled as the world began to pin around her. She looked down at her bloody hands and felt her stomach churn.
What had she done?
She closed her eyes, pushing it all away, unable to deal with it and hoping that when she woke up out of this bloody dream, it would be just that.
Arawn darted across the clearing as Sirona’s eyes closed and she began to fall. He caught her gently, lifting her off her feet as her breathing evened out into the slow, even pace of sleep.
If he could get her to be that fierce without going into a trance or a vision, Anu’s death would come faster than he first imagined.