The Godkeeper

“One does not kill a god,” Mother said as she led me down the steps to the dungeons below the castle. Torches on the wall lit our path, and my nose wrinkled at the scent of mold and excrement.

“Because they cannot be killed?”

Mother didn’t answer. She nodded a greeting to the guard who watched over the official dungeon level. The man bowed, handing her a lantern for our continued descent.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Viana.” Mother laughed at my question, swinging open the heavy steel door and stepping onto another set of stairs. “Everything can be killed if you have the right tools.”

The air thinned as we descended. The standard scent of excrement and terror dissipated the deeper we went and the air carried a lovely fragrance. I stopped at the bottom of the steps and sniffed delicately.

“Stop that,” Mother hissed and spun toward me, her smile gone as quickly as it had appeared. “I told you to breathe through your mouth.” Her eyes narrowed as she watched me change my breathing. “You are a disciplined child. Do not embarrass me with the necessity of plugging your nose.”

“Sorry. It won’t happen again.” I was well taught, to an extent, but I’d only been instructed on this new behavior that very morning. A normal girl of nine years old couldn’t be expected to be perfect. Of course, I wasn’t supposed to be normal.

Mother turned and lifted her lantern. “One does not kill a god. Those who are clever, and you must be clever, imprison the god for his power.”

A wall of glass allowed me to peer into the room at the bottom of the stairs. If the air I breathed was thin, I couldn’t imagine what the air in the cell was like. Not that I was expected to enter. No one entered.

Mother lit a torch on the wall, illuminating more of the cell and the creature within. “Behold our most treasured possession.”

The man inside didn’t lift his head. He leaned against the wall, a pile of dead leaves at his feet. Messy brown hair hung in front of his face, and I would have thought him dead if his shoulders didn’t lift with every breath.

“Come to introduce my new jailer?” The man’s voice rasped from disuse.

“How can we hear him? Is the glass thin?” The man lifted his head at the sound of my voice and a chill passed over my skin. His eyes were black, skin ivory pale from the lack of sun, and his lips turned down at the corners as he considered me.

“You’ve brought a child?” He turned those dark eyes to my mother, who didn’t flinch. “Talia. Why subject a child to this?” He waved a hand toward himself. Besides his black eyes, the man wasn’t terrifying. If anything, he looked pitiful. Not at all like a god.

Mother’s spine stiffened. “She is my daughter and must learn.”

The god’s frown deepened and he stared at her, unblinking.

“I know she is yours. The resemblance is clear.”

Everyone said I looked like a miniaturized version of my mother, with our dark skin, darker curls, and out of place hazel eyes. The god looked from my mother to me and back again. “Even your own mother didn’t bring you here at such a tender age, Talia. Neither did your grandmother. This child is too young.”

“Am not,” I huffed. Mother glared me into silence, her disapproval palpable, but the god laughed.

“You don’t know anything about me, Child. Your mother didn’t even teach you about my lovely cage.” Though he appeared weak, he got to his feet in one fluid motion and approached the glass. Mother stepped closer to me, as if the god could do any harm from his prison.

“I built this cell,” he whispered. “It is as unnatural as I am. I built it to contain a god and here I remain.”

I moved to step closer and Mother grabbed my sleeve. It didn’t prevent me from asking, “If you locked yourself up, why am I here?”

The god met my gaze and smiled. “Nothing is forever, Child. You are here to make sure I never escape.”

*****

A sharp elbow to my ribs forced me to look up from my notes. Thrust back into the current world, I noted that the priest now led the congregation in prayer.

“Viana. Are you incapable of paying attention for more than five seconds?”

I moved my lips silently to give the appearance that I was praying. It seemed foolish to pray to gods when we’d imprisoned one of their own. If I were a god, I’d ignore the pleas of the people who’d stolen my sibling. Or was it a spouse? I was never too clear on the link between the gods.

As soon as we were dismissed, I grabbed my satchel and turned to leave, but Merc caught me by the arm as I left the aisle.

“Where are you going?” Technically, Merc was my lady-in-waiting. Hilarious, since I wasn’t really noble enough to have one. Mercuriel was an actual lady, the daughter of a duke. I was just the Godkeeper.

“Research,” I muttered as I tugged my arm free and continued down the aisle.

“Research in the library? What if the prince asks where you are?”

“Just tell him I’m researching and you don’t know where, which you don’t since I haven’t told you.” I paused as an older couple stepped out before me. They beamed and bowed their heads, as if I was someone to be respected. As soon as they turned away, the smile I’d forced into place fell. It was exhausting to spend time around the people. If I had my way, I wouldn’t attend the services.

“You spend so much time thinking about the god,” Merc whispered as we continued down the aisle at a slower pace. “Is he pleasing to look at?”

I nodded at a portrait on the wall as we reached the church doors. “You know what the prince looked like, Merc.”

Prince Errosion smiled down at us from the portrait. His skin was tan, his blue eyes alight with joy, and his smile infectious. Even with his brown curls short and tamed, he still had a hint of boyishness to him.

As we stepped into the sun, I tilted my face upward, basking for a moment to warm my soul.

“That is from ages ago.” Merc’s sigh pulled me from my peace. “The god may have changed him.”

“Hardly,” I said as I continued down the steps. “If anything, he’s only paler. The prince in the portrait and the god are the same.”

That was a lie, but it wasn’t as if I’d go around telling everyone the god had black eyes and a sickly aura. The joy of the prince was long gone. The god simply wore a faded shell.

“I’m off. If anyone comes looking, you don’t know anything.” I walked away before she could ask for more information. Curiosity was discouraged when it came to the god. Even Mother rarely answered my questions during training. She really should have done more instructing, but she thought there would be time. Death, even when expected, always happened suddenly.

The first level of the dungeons smelled rank, but I still smiled at the guard on duty.

“Down again?” grumbled the man.

I held a finger to my lips and held out a basket of honey-drizzled plums I’d purchased after the services.

“No need to tell anyone, right?”

The guard eyed the basket and sighed before taking it. “Just worried about you, my lady.”

Not worried enough to report me, which was appreciated. I smiled up at the man and patted his arm. “Thank you for your concern. This is my calling though, so it isn’t needed.” I took the lantern off the wall and shoved open the metal door before descending into darkness.

Though ill-advised, I allowed myself thirty seconds to breathe in the fragrant air. Mother insisted the air could be used to play with our minds. Why else would the god let it reach us when the cell should be completely sealed? I didn’t believe it, but I still only enjoyed the scent for a moment before I reached the bottom of the stairs and lit the torch on the wall.

The god lay in the middle of his cell, swirling leaves over his head with the movement of one finger. He let the leaves fall and sat up to examine me.

“Lovely gown.”

I glanced down at the dark green fabric with gold brocade and snorted.

“Church only just let out. I didn’t want to change.” I sat down against the wall and watched him watch me. “Shall we eat?”

The god chuckled and waved a hand over a pile of leaves. They turned into loaves of bread and slices of dried meat. From my basket, I pulled something similar.

No one knew exactly how much magic the god possessed. Leaves were given only because they were harder to turn into weapons or tools. He could make them into food, somehow kept himself clean with them too. But the god had never used them to escape, and the small hole in the stone ceiling wasn’t large enough for him to pass through. All he could do was wait for me to feed leaves through the hole, levels above his head, so he could survive.

We ate in silence for a few minutes as we considered each other. One of the things I enjoyed about visiting the god was the silence. Neither of us felt prompted to speak, but if I felt social, he’d welcome the conversation.

“Are the other gods your siblings?”

He lifted his brows. The surprise was justified. I didn’t normally question him.

“Some. Many of us are related. Why do you ask?”

“The idea of praying to them baffles me,” I admitted as I licked a crumb from my finger. “We hold you captive, yet we ask them to watch over us.”

“Perhaps the prayers are more of a threat,” the god joked as he leaned his back against the wall. “I am a hostage.”

I winced. If that were the case, the gods would have come for him at some point.

“Is the prince still in there?” I asked. “Or is his body only a shell by now?”

Black eyes locked solely on me. When the god chose to expressionless, I had no hope of reading his emotions. Most people could have a blank face but show their true selves in their eyes. The god was not like that. It used to unnerve me. How could I tell if he was angry? After a while, I decided that the god didn’t dislike me. If he was hiding an emotion, it was usually amusement.

“The prince resides within me. We are one and the same. You could say that the prince is the god, with the god’s memories and powers.”

Grunting my acceptance, I ate the rest of my lunch in silence. Then, there wasn’t a prince to be awakened. It was something the women of the kingdom told themselves. Freeing the prince from the god would win them his devotion and his hand in marriage. Ridiculous, love-stricken fools. There was a time when people speculated that the Godkeeper was a woman because only a woman could free the prince. But it was just that the god would not harm a woman. Even all-powerful beings had morals.

“Speaking of princes,” the god said as he finished eating and stood. “Is there a reason you came straight here today and didn’t return to your rooms to change?”

When I wrinkled my nose, he chuckled. The honesty between us sometimes felt unwise. Especially when he used it to tease me.

We weren’t friends, but the god had been there for me in times of need. He comforted me with his own tales while I poured my soul out to him and cried. If the god was supposed to be evil or something to fear, I didn’t believe it. I’d only been twelve when my mother died and I took over the duties of the Godkeeper. He could have easily manipulated me. If he’d wanted to use me, a weak Godkeeper, as a means to escape, he could have. Yet, for the past seven years, he’d been a sort of companion.

“The youngest prince is seeking me out more often,” I admitted as I drew my knees to my chest. “At first, I put up with it because my father showed approval. But…”

Father’s approval was always short-lived. Actively seeking to obtain it was pointless.

The god sighed and sat down on his collection of blankets used for a bed. “Even the idea that his daughter could be a princess doesn’t make him strive to strengthen your relationship?”

My hackles went up automatically. “He has his reasons.”

“Not valid ones. Your birth may have weakened your mother, but she was weak from the start. For him to ignore his daughter because of it is unforgivable.”

It was difficult to swallow the truth, and I closed my eyes to numb my rising despair. I’d never been close to my father. At this point, his indifference shouldn’t hurt me.

“You are alone, Viana.” The god’s whisper carried itself through the glass between us. “So alone that you keep company with me. Your father should be at your side, getting you to socialize with the masses and uphold the family name. Instead, he ignores you and leaves you to sit in a dungeon with an abomination.”

“I’m not alone.” The irritation I felt outweighed my earlier feelings, and I glared at him. “I have Merc. I have you.”

The god frowned and shook his head. “A lady-in-waiting and an abomination. You could have the prince if you so desired. Viana, you must not spend your life in the darkness.”

I lowered my forehead to my knees. “What if I prefer the darkness?”

“You won’t bear a child without meeting people. And if you don’t bear a child, who will be the Godkeeper after you?”

It was something to consider, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. Mother neglected teaching me social graces in favor of instructing me about the god, knowing she wasn’t long for this world. Yet she still hadn’t taught me everything before she passed. The majority of what I knew came from the god himself. The prisoner taught me how to keep him imprisoned.

“Do you not want me here?” I lifted my head and eyed the glass prison. “You’re lonely. I can tell.”

Silence filled the room again as he watched me. Everyone cautioned me away from him, but the god was the prince. Shreds of humanity were still inside him. The god leaned back against the wall and looked more exhausted than I’d ever seen him.

“Of course I’m lonely. But Godkeepers don’t spend time with the god. If people knew, they’d think you’d been corrupted.” I opened my mouth to argue, and he lifted a hand to silence me. “Don’t be cross, Viana. I’m only thinking of your wellbeing.”

Which was something only the god seemed to do. He’d taken me in, to the best of his ability. The god really cared for me. He wasn’t just assigned to be at my side, like Merc. He wasn’t seeking me out because I was a treasure to obtain, like the youngest prince. The god didn’t even look at me with respect that bordered on worship, like the rest of the court did. The god was the closest thing I had to family or a real friend. If my mother knew, she’d be turning in her grave. Perhaps I had been corrupted after all.

“If you were free, would you take revenge on this kingdom? We’ve held you captive for so many years, it would be understandable.”

“No. It was my choice to descend from the heavens. My choice to be imprisoned in the first place. Though I didn’t think I’d be here so long, it’s all due to my own actions.”

In their time of need, the kingdom prayed to the gods for strength. Only one god cared enough to answer their prayers, but his power couldn’t exist in the human world without a price. Prince Errosion gave up his body, and the god gave up his freedom. What had we done in return for his kindness?

“You should return,” the god said, shaking me from my thoughts. He gestured to the stone floor.

Outside the cell, etched into the stone slabs, were characters in a language not of this world. Given to us by the god to keep him contained, should inhabiting a human body lead to a loss of sanity. Given to us to temporarily bind him for our own safety.

I stood and approached the six etched stones. The first Godkeeper used her blood to activate the magic. From then on, the stones only answered to the blood of women from my line. We’d tap the stones in the correct pattern, giving our power to keep the god locked away.

“I can’t undo it. What my people did to you. You don’t hold a grudge?” I asked, meeting his eyes. He offered me a kind smile.

“Of course not. Even if I had, your kindness would have destroyed any trace of it.”

Standing by the etched stones, my eyes watered. The god’s expression fell.

“Viana? Why are you upset? I swear to you, I would never hurt you or those you care about.”

“I know that. You’re my closest friend.” I sniffled and turned my back to him. “Which is why I’ll miss you.”

Though he called after me multiple times, I ignored him. Grabbing my lantern, I ascended the stairs without touching the stones. Kindness should be met with kindness, regardless of the consequences.