26
Garren
31st day of the Twelfth Month, 1774
The world around them looked as if it were bathed in blood. A cold wind picked up, rustling through the trees. The final blood moon had finally descended upon them. This was it. They had failed–he had failed. This couldn’t be the end.
Garren could do nothing but watch as the love of his life transformed for the final time into the deformity of her bloodlust. She speared him with her yellow gaze as her features contorted, molding into the creature. She cracked her neck back and forth as the change overtook her, opening her mouth wide with a growl as her teeth lengthened into daggers.
“Oriana, fight it.” Garren didn’t want this to happen, didn’t want her to have to live this way, but the demon roared, fully emerged.
Garren looked out at the sea, at the sandbar she had created. It was all there, her power and enchantments were still there, which meant that she was still there, and how could she not be? A goddess could not be killed; not even a piece of her could be.
Haldis’s words came to the forefront of his mind, ‘Oriana is not truly gone when the monster emerges, she is just lying dormant, ruled by the curse.’
“Don’t you see, Oriana!” Garren yelled at the creature snarling before him. “You are still there! You are not separate! You are both the good and the evil. You can stop it; you can break free!”
“Oriana is gone.” It hissed in response. “She cannot hear your desperate pleading, boy.”
How could this thing be a piece of Oriana? She was so pure of heart, her kindness and loyalty expressed through everything she did, everything she had done to save this world from her bloodlust. Goodness always prevailed over evil. It had to, for that was where hope stemmed from.
The monster lunged for him, but he moved quickly, narrowly missing contact with her talon like claws. His shoulders ached from the remembrance of those nails digging into his shoulders. She stumbled past him, but did not fall, rounding on him once more.
“Oriana, please!” His voice quavered. The curse was not final until the blood moon disappeared, replaced by the morning light of the new day. He had time–they had time–to make things right, to overcome the curse.
Snow began to fall around them, showering them in flecks of shimmering red under the moon’s eerie glow.
“You can still break the curse, Oriana. You must fight, overcome the bloodlust! You are stronger than it is.”
A cackle came from the beast. “She cowers in fear, just as she always has. She will never hear you.”
“Oriana!” Garren yelled again. This time, when the monster dove for him, he let it tackle him to the snow-dusted forest floor. Her nails dug into his forearms as she pressed them above his head against the cold mossy earth of the cliff side. “Oriana,” he whispered, a single tear trailing down one cheek. And then he saw it, just as Haldis had said–a flicker of green against the monstrous yellow, for just a fleeting moment, but it was all he needed to see. She was there. She was still there.
Garren pushed, rolling the two of them until he was looming over top of the deformed creature. Her nails still dug into his forearms, piercing through his tunic and into the flesh below where fresh blood seeped through white linen.
The monster wailed, flailing like a fish out of water beneath him. “Filth!” she screeched.
Why did she hate his blood so much? Each time she had said the same thing, not wishing to be near him when he bled. “Why does my blood repulse you, demon?”
She rolled back on top, forcing him against the soft earth that was slowly turning to a glistening white as the snowfall thickened. Garren brought a leg up between them and kicked her off.
They both rose, squaring off toward one another. “Your blood is tainted by the Gods,” it said, spitting upon the powdery snow in repulsion.
The monster took one quick glance at the forest toward Sardorf. It squirmed where it stood before Garren, practically itching to tear flesh from bone, to drink the blood of its kills.
“I will not allow you to harm those people.”
“Well, come and stop me then,” it said before sprinting into the wood.
Garren barreled after it, feeling a strength and speed, fresh and new course in his veins. It came in a rush, spreading through him like wildfire. He caught up to the creature in ten swift lunges, tackling it to the forest floor. “Oriana!” he roared, desperate to draw her out. “I know you are there! I saw you! Please, fight it! Fight the bloodlust!”
A high-pitched, malicious laugh came forth from the horrendous creature. “She will not come. She knows we must feed on the weakness of these mortals.”
That one sentence, that single phrase took Garren’s breath away. He knew how to break the curse.
Orrick had given it to him in his parting words. Do not allow her to find satiation in the weakness of men. It had been right there the whole time, in the center of Anthes’s curse. The god hated weakness above all else, annihilated civilizations and worlds simply because of their supposed weakness. But Gods were not weak; they were the most powerful beings in the cosmos. And Garren had the blood of the Gods in his veins. It was the reason why the bloodlust hated him. His blood was not weak.
“Oriana! You need to fight! It’s my blood! It’s the key, please! You must drink my blood!” Garren pressed against the beast as it screeched and squirmed relentlessly beneath him. Its features shuttered, revealing Oriana’s silken flesh and bright eyes before the monster returned.
