The Gift of Battle

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Volusia stood before her many advisors in the streets of the Empire capital, staring at the looking glass in her hand with shock. She examined her new face from every angle—half of it still beautiful, and the other half disfigured, melted away—and she felt a wave of disgust. The fact that half of her beauty still remained somehow made it all worse. It would have been easier, she realized, if her entire face had been disfigured—then she could remember nothing of her former looks.

Volusia recalled her stunning good looks, the root of her power, which had carried her through every event in life, which had allowed her to manipulate men and women alike, to bring men to their knees with a single glance. Now, all that was gone. Now, she was just another seventeen-year-old girl—and worse, half-monster. She could not stand the sight of her own face.

In a burst of rage and desperation, Volusia flung the looking glass down and watched as it smashed to pieces on the pristine streets of the capital. All of her advisors stood there, silent, looking away, all knowing better than to talk to her at this moment. It was also clear to her, as she surveyed their faces, that none of them wanted to look at her, to see the horror that was now her face.

Volusia looked around for the Volks, eager to tear them apart—but they were already gone, having disappeared as soon as they had cast that awful spell on her. She’d been warned not to join forces with them, and now she realized all the warnings had been right. She had paid the price dearly for it. A price that could never be turned back.

Volusia wanted to let her rage out on someone, and her eyes fell on Brin, her new commander, a statuesque warrior just a few years older than her, who had been courting her for moons. Young, tall, muscular, he had stunning good looks and had lusted after her the entire time she had known him. Yet now, to her fury, he would not even meet her gaze.

“You,” Volusia hissed at him, barely able to contain herself. “Will you now not even look at me?”

Volusia flushed as he looked up but would not meet her eyes. This was her destiny now, for the rest of her life, she knew, to be viewed as a freak.

“Am I disgusting to you now?” she asked, her voice breaking in desperation.

He hung his head low, but did not respond.

“Very well,” she said finally, after a long silence, determined to exact vengeance on someone, “then I command you: you will gaze at the face which you hate the most. You will prove to me that I am beautiful. You will sleep with me.”

The commander looked up and met her eyes for the first time, fear and horror in his expression.

“Goddess?” he asked, his voice cracking, terrified, knowing he would face death if he defied her command.

Volusia smiled wide, happy for the first time, realizing that would be the perfect revenge: to sleep with the man who found her most loathsome.

“After you,” she said, stepping aside and gesturing toward her chamber.

Volusia stood before the tall arched, open-air window on the top floor of the palace of the Empire capital, and as the early morning suns rose, the drapes billowing in her face, she cried quietly. She could feel her teardrops trickling down the good side of her face but not the other, the side melted away. It was numb.

A light snoring punctuated the air, and Volusia glanced over her shoulder to see Brin lying there, still asleep, his face bunched up in an expression of disgust, even in sleep. He had hated every moment he had lain with her, she knew, and that had brought her some small revenge. Yet still she did not feel satisfied. She could not let it out on the Volks, and she still felt a need for vengeance.

It was a weak bit of vengeance, hardly the one she craved. The Volks, after all, had disappeared, while here she was, the next morning, still alive, still stuck with herself, as she would have to be for the rest of her life. Stuck with these looks, this disfigured face, which even she could not bear.

Volusia wiped back the tears and looked out, beyond the city line, beyond the capital walls, deep on the horizon. As the suns rose, she began to see the faintest trace of the armies of the Knights of the Seven, their black banners lining the horizon. They were camped out there, and their armies were mounting. They were encircling her slowly, gathering millions from all corners of the Empire, all preparing to invade. To crush her.

She welcomed the confrontation. She did not need the Volks, she knew. She did not need any of her men. She could kill them on her own. She was, after all, a goddess. She had left the realm of mortals long ago, and now she was a legend, a legend that no one, and no army, in the world could stop. She would greet them on her own, and she would kill them all, for all time.

Then, finally, there would be no one left to confront her. Then, her powers would be supreme.

Volusia heard a rustling behind her and out of the corner of her eye, she detected motion. She saw Brin rise from bed, casting off his sheets and beginning to dress. She saw him slinking around, careful to be quiet, and she realized he meant to slip out from the room before she saw him—so that he would never have to look upon her face again. It added insult to injury.

“Oh, Commander,” she called out casually.

She saw him freeze in his tracks in fear; he turned and looked over at her reluctantly, and as he did, she smiled back, torturing him with the grotesqueness of her melted lips.

“Come here, Commander,” she said. “Before you leave, there is something I want to show you.”

He slowly turned and walked, crossing the room until he reached her side, and he stood there, looking out, looking anywhere but at her face.

“Have you not one sweet parting kiss for your Goddess?” she asked.

She could see him flinch ever so slightly, and she felt fresh anger burning within her.

“Never mind,” she added, her expression darkening. “But there is, at least, something I want to show you. Have a look. Do you see out there, on the horizon? Look closely. Tell me what you see down there.”

He stepped forward and she laid a hand on his shoulder. He leaned forward and examined the skyline, and as he did, she watched his brow furrow in confusion.

“I see nothing, Goddess. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Volusia smiled wide, feeling the old sense of vindictiveness rise up within her, feeling the old need for violence, for cruelty.

“Look more closely, Commander,” she said.

He leaned forward, just a bit more, and in one quick motion, Volusia grabbed his shirt from behind, and with all her might, threw him face first out the window.

Brin shrieked as he flailed and flew through the air, dropping down all the way, a hundred feet, until finally he landed face first, instantly dead, on the streets below. The thud reverberated in the otherwise quiet streets.

Volusia smiled wide, examining his body, finally feeling a sense of vengeance.

“It is yourself you see,” she replied. “Who is the less grotesque of us now?”