Vantaiga made her way with Zephlyn through a black-columned side corridor of the heavens. Her arm was wrapped around the young god as the two absently played along the passage. The normally defiant clack of her heels was muted by soft leather shoes, and her usual bright, fitted clothes were replaced with a long tunic of dark ivy leaves. She had further covered herself beneath a cloak of forest grasses. The only colour she allowed herself was to dot the cloak with small blue speedwell flowers.
Vantaiga didn’t speak and only half-heartedly jostled with the childlike servant. Her mind was distant and distracted. Her head buzzed with the thoughts and emotions of her forest. Normally, they didn’t much intrude on her. She had trained herself long ago to ignore the constant drone of calls for her attention from her followers. She rarely even responded to the trees themselves. If there were aches and pains from her forest, a visit of Hydar’s rains would usually soothe her.
However, this day, there was something different about the background chaos to her thoughts. There was anger and confusion in her forest as well as pain and fire. It was unlike anything she had felt before, not like the sorrow and pleading she had become used to but something more dire and urgent. It was creating a turmoil in her head that she couldn’t shake.
Syffox was also in her forest. It had been a long time since she last felt him among the trees. The thought of seeing him again added to her anxiousness. It had been so long, she worried what he would have to say to her, even though she missed him deeply.
She came to the Great Hall to see what was happening in her domain. In times long passed, she would have just visited the forest. However, she found the forest contained too many new places and old memories to be comfortable in. Like the rest of the gods, she felt it best to just observe her realm from her seat at the World Table.
Quietly, Vantaiga entered the Chamber unnoticed from behind the black Tapestry of the Night Sky. There was a group of gods clustered at one end of the Table. They appeared to be intently watching as Hydar pushed his finger along the surface. Next to him, Festor peered over the edge, foolishly giggling.
Vantaiga forced a smile as she approached them. It was expected of her to be smiling. She announced her presence in a rehearsed playful voice. “What’s going on here?”
Startled, the gods jolted their heads toward her. Hydar whipped his finger away from the table. An uneasy feeling came over Vantaiga, but she kept her smile. “Am I interrupting something?”
There were uncomfortable glances among the gods before Hydar finally spoke. “There was a fire in your forest. I put it out for you, my dear.”
Vantaiga was sceptical. “Oh? Let me see.” The gods stepped aside as she made her way to the table. Among the golds of the sand and browns of rock, on the table was a wide expanse of green radiating out from her throne. A deep, black scar draped beneath dark smoke was cut into its eastern edge. Vantaiga gasped. Hydar should not have to tear up her forest to put out a fire. She looked more closely and could see injured men crawling and staggering along the ground.
She looked up at Hydar, confused. “What have you done?”
“I put out a fire.”
Fear gripped her chest from the obvious lie. She repeated more harshly, “What have you done?”
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
Insulted at the rebuke, Hydar glared at her in response. She pushed him aside, hopped onto the table, and descended to the earth below.
Vantaiga emerged from a broken tree into a broken range of forest. The air was heavy with the smell of wet earth, holding the cloying tang of smoke and burnt tar. Among the twisted and burning wreckage of her trees, she found wounded and dead men. Those who were still able to walk staggered about confused. A sickening disgust came over her. These men wore armour and carried weapons. They were soldiers. Soldiers had no place in her forest.
With a wave of her arm, she cried, “Out!” and flung the men—living and dead—from the forest.
She looked around to assess the destruction. The fires were subsiding, and the gouge in the ground from Hydar’s finger would eventually grow in, but what struck her was the strange sight of a field of flat stumps and stripped tree trunks strewn by a road. She could not find anything to explain what had befallen here. She did, however, find one soldier who still remained in the forest.
The army’s prefect clung to a tree by an arrow impaled through his arms. Vantaiga stormed over to the tree, snapped the head off the arrow and pulled the shaft out of the man’s arms. The man groaned and collapsed onto the ground, cradling his arms in agony. She commanded him to look at her. The man reluctantly raised his head.
Vantaiga scowled at the soldier. “What are you doing here?”
The prefect’s voice shook as he tried to speak through her radiance. “We were… defending our territory.”
Vantaiga looked around appalled. “From Hydar? This is my forest!”
The soldier winced from her anger. “From a man. He attacked some labourers.”
“Labourers?” She looked over the flat stumps and scattered logs. “Labouring over what?”
He shrunk away from her. “They were cutting down the forest.”
Vantaiga was horror-struck. “Why would someone cut down my forest?” There was no answer from the prefect. “And this man—where is he now?” She didn’t need to ask what lone man would stand against an army for her trees.
“I don’t know where he is. The vortex took him.”
Stunned, Vantaiga stared at him before finally managing to ask, “What… Vortex?”
The prefect sucked in his breath as he struggled to come to his knees. “A tornado came down, ripped him away, then it vanished, and he was gone.”
Still speechless, Vantaiga struggled for her words. “Hydar killed Syffox?”
The officer only looked away from her.
A sickening ball of guilt and fear and rage built inside Vantaiga. He had said he wouldn’t strike down Syffox. She clutched her arms and looked around at the destroyed trees. No, he said he wouldn’t let the other gods strike down Syffox. Tears welled up in her eyes as she screamed out a loud curse that rattled the forest and shook the ground.
She pulled at her hair and banged her forehead in anguish, repeating, “It was for nothing. It was for nothing.” She turned to the prefect and blasted him directly. “IT WAS FOR NOTHING!” The prefect was struck to the ground as a shaking ball. She tried to hold back her sobs. “I can’t keep doing this.”
She wiped away her tears and looked upon the quivering soldier at her feet. It wasn’t his fault he was caught up in this. He was just sent here to do someone else’s bidding—he was just being used, as she was.
She touched his shoulder and healed his wounds. “Get up.”
The man breathed a sigh of relief at the release of his pain. With shaking legs, he rose to his feet but could not bring himself to look at the Goddess. She raised his chin to force him to meet her eyes.
It was painful to look at her. Her teary gaze was as awful as it was beautiful as it was blinding. “To understand what you’ve done, you will know the forest. You will be its champion now.” She pulled his head down to kiss him on the forehead. A warm rush came over the prefect that left his limbs feeling invigorated and buoyant. “I give you the power to heal and inspire your men to follow. Gather and restore them to protect my forest from anyone else who would cut it down.”
Tears streamed down the officer’s cheeks at her gifts and her forgiveness. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were real. Thank you, Goddess from the Taiga.”
Vantaiga was saddened by the strange evolution time had given to her title. Had she been so out of reach the world no longer even knew her name? “Vantaiga will do. And what is your name soldier?”
“Palatine, Goddess.”
Vantaiga dismissed the man with a small nod and smile. She turned back to the wreckage of her forest. Through sniffles, she began restoring the trees, knowing eventually she would find Syffox beneath one.