“You know I am not a supplicant,” Kate said. Standing at the edge of the clearing was, to the eyes, a woman. A face grown from good soil, turned green with a life spent looking to the sun. Her body was roses, all curves and soft spaces. Each eye sparkled and rippled like the current of a babbling brook, a shining stone for pupils, glittering out from just below the waters.

  In the time Kate had been the maiden, the goddess had shown herself to her only once. Kate was never meant to see her; this was what she gave to those who sought her out. These were the eyes they looked up at as she scoured their soul. Kate had been so young when she’d st seen this face. Time had dulled the memory. She’d painted over the feelings that flooded her when she looked at the goddess— jealousy, trust, gnawing hopelessness— with an adult’s confidence. She’d been a child, and she’d felt some simir emotion whenever she looked at any adult woman. She envied their comfort in themselves. Now that she had that for herself, then the Goddess must, she’d believed, be the same. Pretending that she hadn’t been so affected was easy with distance, but, no. This was just what it was like to look upon her. She was impossible, the kind of beauty that couldn’t ever really exist, the manifestation of decades or even centuries of magic, poured into a thing so beautiful it couldn’t be alive. She was a magical embodiment of purpose. Fate alone had twisted her to these ends, had made her the pure embodiment of femininity, the great and terrible arbiter of womanhood. What made a Goddess, a being of magic so distilled it took on a will of its own, was that single minded focus.

  Of course she was stunning, she was nothing else. To look like that— but no one ever could. This was the visage of someone who had never been a person. This was an illusion.

  Underneath this mirage was a young girl, who looked out at the world from her hiding pce behind the mask of the goddess. There was someone scared, helpless and afraid behind those shimmering eyes. Seeing through magic was never easy. It adored illusions, they were fertile soil, fed by human belief. The Goddess was so solid. A hand raised on slender arms and its long fingers curled themselves over Kate’s cheek. Fingers stroked at a small scar along her jawline. Soothing and mesmerizing. This wasn’t the caress of the child underneath the veil, this was something else. A deeper force that recognized her. The Goddess made flesh.

  She barely tore her eyes away from the goddess’s in time to see the new maiden rush out from within the Goddess’s skirts and hit her with a club.

  Kate doubled over, fell to hands and knees. The little girl hit her again, in the side. She tasted bile. The goddess’s face turned speckled and burst into a swarm of gnats. Breathing hurt. The club went up one more time. Kate rolled away, boxes and bottles in her pack crashing against her back, her ribs.

  The maiden reared up, ready to come down with another heavy blow. Kate twisted her torso, ignored the clicking pain from her shoulder, and grabbed the club. She did it without thinking. Something in her wrist snapped, bright and hot from the impact. It reverberated up her arm and into her skull. Teeth clicked together. The jolt poured energy out of her. There was ambient magic around the grove. It combined with what was now swirling around her from the broken bottles, a dozen potions and tonics that were ruined. Kate’s entire focus was in her hand. It felt limp, but her fingers were clenched tight around the club. The girl was trying to get it out of her grasp. She wanted to hit her again. Piercing fmes shot from her broken hand. It engulfed the club in an instant. The wood turned brittle. Traces of water deep inside fsh boiled. Splintered the club. Exploded outward. Red hot pieces of charcoal.

  The air around them had been sucked into the fire with enough force to bring the girl to her knees, and when it exploded out the air pressure stabilized with a bang. Sound disappeared for a moment. Kate’s ears were ringing. The maiden was on the ground a few feet away, screaming and clutching at her face. The shards had turned to ash as they hit Kate’s skin, but they had stuck and burned the girl.

  Scrambling back and away from her small attacker, Kate watched as her pack's contents spilled themselves onto the grass, fizzing and steaming.

  A woman was sliding down the moss walls of the clearing. She had the dark hair and sharp features of the proliferant priests who came up from the far south, but instead of the red and bck flowing robes of the wandering priests, she wore heavy leather armor pads over men's clothes that were too big for her. A single metal piece shone on her right forearm. She was limping as she ran, shoddy bandages on her leg, which was oozing new blood that she must have reopened during her scramble down into the clearing.

  The little girl tried to charge at Kate again, unarmed, with her hands out like cws. The older woman rushed over to grab her around the waist. She lifted the maiden up with one arm and held her wrists with the other. Kate threw up.

  She wrestled the girl to the ground on the opposite side of the clearing, giving her a small bag of water to pour over the burn lines on her face and arms. When the girl calmed down, the older woman came over to where Kate was lying. She got to one knee, keeping her injured leg straight, and knelt over Kate. She pressed the metal forearm piece against her throat, digging into the skin. Kate cried out and she dug it in harder.

  “Shut up,” said the woman. Her voice was high and soft, but she twisted it deeper and rougher. She tore into Kate’s clothes, searching her pockets and tossing her bags away.

  Her wrist was useless, and her shoulder was hard to move. There was a chance Kate could overpower the woman, there was ample magic at hand, but she had almost a foot of height on Kate, and even though her armor was ill-fitting she was no stranger to a fight.

  “Please, I’m here to speak to the maiden of the mother.” Maybe invoking the title would help. “I’m just here to talk.”

  “You set off a firework on a child,” she growled out. “Those wounds will scar. She’ll carry them for decades.” She leaned on the metal pte against Kate’s throat, making it impossible for her to speak again. “Where is the rest of your powder? Someone sick enough to try and burn a little girl wouldn’t come without more fire.”

  Ravens were gathering overhead. They flew in zy circles above the tableau, while more animals settled on the branches and roots all around them. Kate was slowly losing oxygen. In her dimmed vision, magic stood out sharper. She imagined it as kindling, dry grasses that grew and wrapped themself tight around the animal spectators. The Goddess was still watching. Waiting.

  “Kill her! Kill her!” The maiden was screaming. It was hard to hear over the rushing in her ears. The smell of copper blood was everywhere.

  The woman released her pressure on Kate’s neck. The whole world spun. Blood and air filled her head again. A shrill scream boomed through the forest, a cougar denied a meal. The ravens fled. Wolves that had circled tight around the maiden ran into the forest.

  “I won’t kill someone unarmed and injured. She doesn’t have any more of those fireworks, and she's not going anywhere for a long minute.” The woman rose and stood between Kate and the maiden.

  “She didn’t use a firework, Gamel! It was the club! She exploded it with her mind!”

  “Is that true?” she asked Kate, her face iron.

  Kate took several minutes to respond. She spit up bile, then tried to sit up to minimal results. “She rushed me out of nowhere with a club.” Her voice was just above a whisper. “I know magic. Reacted badly. It was instinct.” That was all she could choke out before more coughing made it too hard to speak. It might not be enough to convince the woman of her innocence. It would depend on how familiar she was with magic.

  The woman took a step back from her. That really wasn't indicative of anything, right? She looked back at the maiden, then at Kate. What she said next was tinted with a frightened bile. The kind of thing you only heard from someone who was all too familiar with Kate’s profession.

  “You’re a witch.”