*

ERIS ENTERED the Crumbling City through a gap in the wall. There were twenty huts built atop the rubble, ten of which were dark. The others had fire flickering away in their windows, and curtains flapping in their doorways. Closest to the mount, one hut was red.

The existence of a witch explained the grove of apple trees growing in what used to be the city square, around the remains of a fountain. The trees were vibrant green, the apples ripe and the size of Eris's palms.

Windwalker trotted eagerly over to them.

"Just one," Eris called out. "Wouldn't want to be executed for theft."

The horse nodded before lifting its head and tearing an apple from the tree. Juice slicked its mouth as the horse ate, eyes closed contentedly.

After picking two apples for herself, and stowing them away in her pack, Eris and Windwalker walked the alleyways of the city, Eris remembering their curves and angles. They had been abuzz with life once, bar patrons ambling home, merchants in a hurry to sell their wares, thieves emptying pockets unawares, families and workers making room for noblemen and their fancy palanquins. She recalled the feeling of smoothed stone beneath her fingers, and the scent of cooking grease, sizzling meat, and sugared fruit.

She remembered tripping once, on the uneven cobblestone, her ill-fitting clothes making it all the harder to maintain her balance. Her father's hand had kept her steady.

The roads caused her no issue now, as she and Windwalker continued to walk. Finally, they came to a hut facing east. From the city, it'd be a half-day's walk to Akul's temple, but before that Eris wanted to rest.

Outside the hut, a firepit had been dug and lined with eroded brick. Eris squatted beside it and undid her pack. Out fell all her usual items - a scrap of petal-pink fabric, a tin of cleaning powder, a clay bowl. Her waterskin. The two apples she'd taken from the trees. Then out tumbled the items Amarna had insisted she take with her - a strip of dried beef, two potatoes spotted with rot, a piece of flint, a bundle of kindling. A satchel of oats for Windwalker.

Eris took the bowl, the oats, and another apple over to Windwalker. She poured what remained from her waterskin into the bowl, then sprinkled the ground with oats. She tossed the apple at the horse's hooves.

Running a hand through Windwalker's mane, she said, "Eat well. Then sleep. Tomorrow we head for the mount." The horse nudged Eris's arm before dunking its head and drinking. Eris returned to the firepit, laid the kindling, and struck the flint.

Without the wind to stymie her attempts, it didn't take long for the fire to light.

Eris relaxed on the ground, arms behind her, palms pressed into the stone and dirt. She glanced up at a sky with no stars. It had been a thousand years since she last saw them and generations had lived and died knowing only the dark.

In the silence, she closed her eyes and breathed deep the sweetness from the apple blossoms. Then, she smelled spice, warm and rich and earthen. Like cracked anise pods and oak smoke.

She opened her eyes.

A basket filled her vision and in it, laid six black and red flowers along its woven, reeded bottom. They shone sickly and beautifully in the fire light.

"Flower?"

Eris froze. The voice had come from above, but she knew it from memory.

She gazed at the woman offering her flowers. A sharp face, pointed chin and severe cheekbones. Dark eyes rimmed with gold. Tiny black braids trailed all the way down to her waist. Their ends frizzed ever so slightly.

No older than twenty. The young woman grinned. She lifted the basket and asked again, "Flower?"

Eris felt the back of her throat squeeze.

Mama! A flower!

She turned away from the woman, staring into the fire, counting the colored tongues of flame as they lapped at the sky. Anything, to calm the rage seething in her chest. Windwalker had stopped feasting, her black eyes staring coldly at the woman.

Eris pressed her palms flat against her thighs and when she was sure her voice would come out steady, she said, "A'Cubei."

The young woman curled her lip, the basket falling to her side. There, tucked into the sash at her waist, was a dagger Eris knew well. One with a golden serpent handle, its blade wrapped in black satin.

"You wear her face," Eris said. "You speak her voice, and you think me foolish enough to fall for such tricks."

The young woman rounded Eris's campsite, her long black gown pooling on the ground, stains of the night sky, ripped and brought down before her very eyes. The woman elegantly strode toward a heap of stone and sat, legs crossed. Her skirts fell away, revealing toned thighs and skin the color of cinnamon.

She changed. Her slim shoulders widened, curves filled in with muscle. The skin paled and glowed, the face grew more rounded, the nose smaller. His robes expanded to fit the broader physique, and his hair uncoiled and fell away until only a dusting of black hair covered his scalp. His eyes were a blue that signaled the death of everything, but they gleamed, as though the very prospect of the end brought only delight. A'Cubei the god sat before her, the moon made flesh and he grinned, as he always had.

"Eris." Her name was laced with poison and sweetness. "And here I thought seeing her face would..." He glanced at his long, black nails. "...consume you." His eyes found hers. "Your grief's always been exceptional."

Eris rubbed her hands over the fire, gaze flicking to A'Cubei's dagger. The serpent blade writhed as though reacting to her gaze, its emerald-studded eyes narrowing. It radiated menace, as only a god's weapon could. "I see you come before me as you always have," A'Cubei's thin, black eyebrows arched, "with a smile and an offering of a dagger."

A'Cubei's smile spread thin and vast. His mouth was black and when he spoke, his words came from the abyss. "My smile's quite charming, dear sister, and my offers, well," his fingers grazed the dagger's curved hilt, and the serpent reacted, its body twisting, its mouth splitting wide, baring fangs that dripped with gold, "there are few who refuse the temptation."

Eris stiffened.

A'Cubei's gaze slid over her, but she did not move. A'Cubei would not be so lucky tonight. She would give him nothing.

"That beast is still alive I see," he said after a few beats of silence. He motioned toward Windwalker, who flicked her ears, snorted, and pounded the ground with her hooves. Her tail swished in agitation. A'Cubei chuckled. "Yes, yes. I know you have a name and I'm purposely not saying it." The horse's eyes narrowed, and she tossed her head up, front hooves rising off the ground.

A'Cubei turned back to face Eris. "Never liked that creature."

"Why are you here?" she asked.

He cocked his head. His burgundy-colored robes trailed over him like a river of blood. "Why? Can I not wish to see my beloved sister-in-law after all this time?" He said so flippantly, his smile ever present, though his eyes were cold and detached and capable of strangling whatever warmth a smile might have been able to impart.

"It's been over three thousand years."

A'Cubei shrugged. "Is that long for you mortals?"

"It's lifetimes."

He smirked. "How pathetic." He twirled one of the flowers from his basket in between his fingers. Eris remembered the spindly red petals, and long, thorned black stems.

Mama! A flower!

"And how is immortality going for you, sister? Do you relish in my brother's gift?" Fire light skimmed his skin then, and in its wake, she glimpsed a nest of black scales peeking out from under A'Cubei's hairline.

Eris took the apple from her pack and sank her teeth into it. Juice erupted over her tongue though it failed quell the scorch she felt in her throat. "A'Cubei-"

The god raised his arm, and with a black-clawed finger, pointed at Eris's pack. "May I?"

Keeping her gaze on him, Eris bent down, picked up the piece of dried beef, and tossed it at A'Cubei's feet. It landed on his robes. He picked it up, and, with the white fangs of a monstrous serpent, tore into it. Black oozed down his chin. "I never understood why my brother chose you." He crossed his empty arm over his chest. "A mortal of no great relevance. A mere stain on this world, easily cleansed from it." He uncrossed his legs, dug his heels into the dirt. "I thought you must be hiding something. Beneath your clothes and skin, there must be something great enough to tempt a god, but," he tossed his hands in the air, "there is nothing to you. You are merely rotting meat, a flimsy heart. You reek of fear and failure. And like your brethren, you're condemned to walk around in filth until you die." He waved his dried beef in the air with a flourish. "And yet, once Akul saw you, he never took his eyes off you."

Eris glanced up.

"Oh?" 

She pursed her lips.

 "Did brother not tell you? Well, sister," he said, leaning in to the fire. The flames recoiled. "Let me reveal one of brother's secrets then. The gods first walked this world, when the Ruin occurred. Some of us chose to take pity on you, dying in droves, and blessed you with fragments of our power. A gift, a promise of salvation. Others," he pointed at himself, "welcomed the Ruin and the destruction it wrought. We luxuriated in the death and misery and the overwhelming sorrow. It was all so intoxicating. Akul was the busiest of us. Going from one village to another, offering his hand to the weak and the whining. He came across your village and watched from a hill your bodies rotting, your meat souring, your flesh melting from your bones. I watched my brother work, and basked in the misery that came after. And then he saw you. A mortal girl amongst the dying, taking their hands in hers, providing them comfort in their darkest moments. You affected him, and then you infected him. A mortal girl holding sway over a god, what a mockery." A forked tongue spilled between his lips. He snarled, and threw his apple in the fire. The flames crackled and shot skyward.

Beads of sweat gathered at the nape of Eris' neck.

"Then you almost died, and I was glad," A'Cubei said, and his voice was so low Eris struggled to hear it, though they were alone and all twenty huts had grown dark.

Eris glanced at her hands, rubbing them together. Her fingers were numb and she shivered despite the fire.

A'Cubei let out an amused chuckle. "He never told you."

Eris flinched.

"You were not spared the plague, a mortal deemed important. You were dying one night, just like the rest of your kin. Akul came down from the hill, and in your moment of death, he forbade it. He saved you."

She clenched her hands, and scoffed. "You expect me to believe your words? You tell lies, brother, whenever it suits you."

"Akul was punished. We gods are bound to celestial laws to carry out our duty. To turn from it, to betray our very purpose..." A'Cubei sneered. "He spent five thousand years imprisoned in the underworld, flayed and torn apart only to be put back together, lesser each time. And do you know what he did when he was freed?" A'Cubei slammed his feet on the ground and lunged forward. His pupils had turned into slits, and his face had flattened. He had shed his godly beauty in favor of the monster roiling beneath. "He returned to you."

"You sound jealous, A'Cubei."

"Me?" He roared, reaching through the fire and snatching Eris by her shirt. "You have no idea."

She slapped his hand away. "I have every idea," she hissed. With her back turned on him, she rounded fire. A'Cubei watched her. "You are a god of misery, bound to death. To live in death's shadow. To diligently follow. Not a god, but a mindless beast skulking at his master's heels." A'Cubei's eyes darkened. "You desire to be Akul. To be death."

"I," he stomped toward her, black scales glistening, "would make a terrifying Death."

Eris shook her head. "Why? Because you know misery? Because you know suffering? Because you are sorrow-incarnate? Brother-in-law, Death is the end of those things. Even I know that. It is not a cruelty nor a punishment, but a mercy. And you could never bestow mercy. Death, Akul, is the end of you. Always."

A'Cubei cackled, and beneath a dark sky, his face regained its shape, his scales giving way to smooth, icy skin. "You," he said, returning to his seat, "never fail to amuse." He reached down and removed the dagger at his waist. "Brother knows you're coming. He anticipates it. Death knows death, after all."

She nodded.

Undoing the fabric, A'Cubei revealed a shining, black blade. He placed it on the ground. "A second chance." He moved toward her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "You cannot kill him without me." His voice was sweet and acidic, corrosive to all reason, if allowed to fester.

With one last smile, he turned and left.

Eris picked up his dagger, the hilt moving beneath her fingers. The serpent coiled around her hand, its body pulsing with the insistence she use it, she plunge it into a god's heart. For a second, she considered, fingers stroking the snake's head. But then she remembered the price of such slaughter, and closed her hand around the serpent's head. She squeezed, pressing her fingers into its eyes, forcing its mouth to close. It reared up, struggling against her, but she tightened her grip each time until a sickening crunch slipped between her fingers. Finally, the serpent stilled.

She fed the weapon to the fire and watched it turn black. The snake's scales melted, one after another, puddles of green streaming from pitted eye sockets. "He has learned nothing."

But I have, she thought. And I will not make such mistakes again.

Author's Note: A'Cubei is an evil bastard and hands down, my favorite character to write. This chapter was fun. Three more chapters to go. Maybe an epilogue and then that's it. :)