Page 70 of Scorching the Alien Empire
“Yes, my Goddess.” The words leave me with unshakable certainty in her plan, in her divinity.
“You make me proud, daughter,” Aenarael murmurs, stepping toward me, each graceful movement sending tiny ripples across the mercury ocean. “You, who are strong. You, who are proud. You, who give me a taste of mortality.”
She halts, tilting her head in contemplation. “Although... we must do something about Machsin,” she muses, tapping her chin with a frown. Then, her lips curl into a slow, wicked grin. “Oh, how delightful it will be to strip that sanctimonious certainty from her face.”
She turns her smoldering silver gaze upon me, scrutinizing from head to toe as if fitting me for a new dress.
“Perhaps another marking...” She trails off, then shakes her head. “No, I would be remiss to mar your ample beauty further.”
“Ample, really?” I snap, shooting her a glare.
“Yes, dear. You should really work on that.” She chuckles, her laughter echoing in a hundred layered voices. “We have a reputation to maintain, after all.”
“Rude bitch,” I grumble in false annoyance. “They’ll just have to get creative when carving my statues.”
“Mind your temper,” Aenarael warns, her tone dipping into something sharper. “It has a habit of getting us into trouble. The child of Machsin will use that against you.”
Rocks? Does she mean Rocks?
“Ah! Your little pet cyloillar.” Aenarael’s face lights with sudden realization. “He will serve. Keep him close.”
“As if I could stop the chug bug.” I grimace, rolling my shoulder, still tight from Todd’s plumpy naps.
“My gift to you, daughter.” She leans in, pressing a motherly kiss to my forehead. Warmth blossoms through me, my cheeks burning, my throat tightening against an unexpected wave of emotion.
Then, as abruptly as she came, she turns, striding toward the flaring white sun. “Now, leave me. I have foundation to apply,” she chuckles, casting me a sidelong smirk.
“Farewell,Mother,” I whisper, biting back tears.
And then, as I blink back the moisture, the vision shatters like an emotional, vivid dream dissolving into wakefulness.
The familiar hum of the ship’s engines and the moldy scent of swirling green bloodroot drag me back to reality. A pang of loss claws at my chest. Was it real? Or nothing more than psychotic, murder-drug-induced delusions?
Then something stirs in my hands—a chunky, wriggling bundle of warmth.
Too-cute Todd.
He clacks his mandibles happily, his single gleaming eye blinking lazily in the dim purple light.
“Wakey, wakey, sleepyhead,” I coo, stroking his rubbery, segmented body, frowning as my fingers halt over something new—something firm.
“What’s this?” I ask, curious, shifting Todd forward.
On his back is a silver marking—no... a rune. It pulses faintly with an ethereal glow. A spiral, framed by a sharp, angular spoked circle.
“Mirror?” I mutter, struggling to recall the rune.
And then it hits me.
I gasp, elation erupting inside me like a volcano. Todd clacks in protest as I squeeze him tight, spinning him around.
It was real.
Aenarael is my Goddess.
And together, we will save Arawnoth.
Chapter 15
