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“Bingo.”
Molly didn’t have time to figure out the whys and hows. Instead, she just let go, relinquishing every cursed cry from her body into a beam of celestial fire straight into the witch. Ragana roared at the impact. The green velvet of her gown ripped away, leaving her skin exposed to the flames of the cursed magic Molly hurled at her. Pearlescent skin flayed into ribbons of torn flesh and blood under the onslaught of Molly’s siphoned emotions.
“No! NO!” The witch’s screams were swallowed up as more of her body was incinerated by the force of her own warped curse and Molly’s soul-bound power. Blood gave way to bleached bone. Charcoal eyes exploded under the pressure of the onslaught. With one final flare, Ragana’s remains were reduced to ashes upon the earth.
The din soon settled and quickly gave way to an assortment of grunts and groans croaking from various battered angels.
Bronze was the lightest on his feet, by far. Made sense, as most of his injuries seemed to stem from the gaping shoulder and the neck wound he sported. “Molly! Are you hurt?” He helped her to her feet with his one good arm.
“How the hell can you ask me that when you look like you just got into it with a vampire and forgot to use your safe word? And why the hell are you running? I can literally see blood pumping out of holes in you.”
He waved her concerns away as if she’d just made him aware of a marinara sauce stain on his favorite graphic tee. “A night or two underground and I’ll be good,” he said with a carefree smile, though she did not miss how labored his breathing was. “You scared the shit out of us, though. What happened to you? One minute, you were in front of us walking to your car after the festival. The next, you were swallowed up by some soupy mist.”
“Ragana,” Molly confirmed, while she took off her mittens and held them to his neck. “Some sort of magic.”
After she skewered him with a don’t be a bro, take the damn mittens look, he wisely pressed them to his wound. “Took us a minute to find you guys. Brass was much easier to track.”
The mention of his name caused her heart to tighten, and she forced herself to look out onto the field. At the far end from where she stood, between the away team’s goalposts, Brass was being helped to his feet by Iron and Titan. The causes of their injuries seemed much less magical and elemental in nature and far more blunt force trauma related. Brass’s right shoulder hung lower than his left. The clavicle supporting it had been broken and flattened, while his gait was slowed significantly by a knee that wouldn’t bend correctly.
“Molly,” he cried and leaned on his brothers for support as the three of them hurried closer to her.
For the first time, though, Molly didn’t move. She was beyond happy to see him alive and breathing, but her heart . . .
The three of them had just passed the thirty-yard line when a flare of white light at Molly’s back blanketed the field, halting everyone in their tracks. Once Molly was able to blink away the floaters obstructing her vision, her consciousness settled on yet another beautifully regal woman towering over her.
Bolts of golden shimmering fabric draped like honey over the woman’s shapely curves. Her brown shoulders were bare, save for the woven silver shawl wrapped around them in a comforting embrace. Curls of spun straw were piled high on top of her head and were anointed with the most opulent crown of glittering golden tassels Molly had ever seen, not that she’d seen many. Perhaps one or two in those Baltic mythology texts she studied as a teenager when she wanted to learn more about her birth heritage.
As the shock of seeing the woman began to bake off, Molly finally analyzed some of the pieces that shone before her. The gold, the crown, the solar imagery woven into the woman’s shawl . . .
And then, with a smile of knowing encouragement, the woman leveled her sunburst eyes directly at Molly.
Holy. Shit. She can’t be . . .
“I am Saulé, goddess of the sun, protector of the earth’s fertility and its orphans and shepherds, and guardian of the unlucky and unloved.”
Of all the possible things to do in such a scenario, Molly executed the first one that came to mind. Her knees hit the grass before her body could protest.
“None of that, young one. I don’t require such servitude. It is I who exists to serve my people.”
Molly yanked Bronze down next to her and spoke in frightened tones to the goddess’s gold shoes. “I’m happy to stay down here, just in case you change your mind.”
“Rise,” Saulé stated in a commanding voice. “Rise and hear me, for I have much to say.”
One by one, every broken and battered person hobbled to their feet, some with the help of others. In her case, it was with the help of her disbelief.
When she was fully ambulatory, the stunning smile that radiated from the goddess, along with the noticeable lack of weapons being drawn around Molly, was enough to calm her nerves long enough to at least convince herself she wasn’t about to die within the next five minutes.
“You were the voice in my head,” Molly confirmed.
“That I was. I have been your guardian for some time. The moment your parents perished and you were left alone in this world, I have kept my eye on you.”
Molly swallowed back a cold, distant worry. “How did you know that my?—”
The goddess’s hand floated up to play with the gold pendant at her neck. “You are descended from ancient Baltic tribal elders, ones who, two thousand years ago, refused to make further sacrifices to the goddess Ragana and instead brought those sacrifices to a cliffside altar in the north, where they gifted me the best of their livestock, food, and vegetation.”
Understanding bloomed in Molly’s mind. “The tribes Ragana mentioned, the ones she said abandoned her and took for granted the abundance she offered, they gave their wares to you instead.”
Saulé nodded, the tassels dancing about her temples. “Yes, except Ragana’s reasoning, like so much of her ideology, was flawed. There had been a blight plaguing neighboring lands and villages to the east. People were disappearing, and entire tribes were being whittled down to unsustainable numbers. Your ancestors, concerned as they were about it reaching their own tribe, prayed to Ragana for aid, as they always did in times of strife, but that time, nothing changed. So, they then turned to another deity and offered me their sacrifices in exchange for my help.”
