She carried a blade in each hand and moved them with blurring speed. She approached steadily, relentlessly—a tiger walking, slow and sure, toward a prey too wounded to escape. And though she never ran, she closed on me in an instant, arriving in eye blinks without ever seeming to rush or hurry.

“Please! Stop!” I shouted as I tried to dodge away. I felt the blow as her sword connected with my shield, vibrating up the metal. “I’m not your enemy!”

My arm felt numb from the strike.

“No?” Thaena stepped toward me. “Then why did Xaltorath spare you? Why did she choose you to survive the Lonezh Canton’s Hellmarch? What reason other than you have pledged yourself to her?”

My protest froze in my throat. Tears sprang to my eyes. “I don’t know why she spared me.”

“Yes, you do.”

She kept swinging.

I saw her son scramble away, and I ducked under her swings. Then she opened a thin, shallow gash along my thigh, cutting straight through the armor.

My strength did me no favors here. My ability to strike an enemy’s weapon away, or even break it, meant nothing against a god. The utter futility manifested in every swing, every dodge, every near miss or not-so-near miss. Cuts crisscrossed my armor, razor marks made by an enemy with no need to hurry an inevitable outcome.

I never landed a single blow on her.

I never came close.

I tossed my sword and shield aside and went back down to my knees.

I felt cold metal across my neck as the two blades came to a stop against my skin.

“I don’t know why,” I repeated. “She asked me if I wanted her protection. She didn’t look like a demon. She looked like a beautiful woman. So I said yes. But I never submitted to her. She once—” I didn’t quite dare swallow, aware of Thaena’s stare the whole time, a single motion capable of ending my existence. “She once claimed my mother—my real mother—made a deal with her to protect me. I didn’t believe her then, and I don’t believe her now; Xaltorath loves to lie.”

“Yes. Yes, she does. Look at me.” The blades nudged my chin upward.

I felt her voice in my bones as much as heard it. I dared not deny the order.

I looked up. Our eyes met.

Looking into Thaena’s eyes meant staring into the mirror of every past sin I’d ever committed, every wrong, every hurt. Those eyes saw all. Every shameful deed or deed of which I should have been ashamed. Those eyes said, I have seen all you’ve done. You can hide your sins from all others, even from yourself, but not from me. Never from me.

I found a kind of comfort to it.