Page 53 of Goddess of Light

But it’s Rasmus who surprises me, darting forward and hooking the tick-thing with his pole. The Magician sends a mirage of fire dancing along its flank, making it think it’s aflame. Distracted, the horror flails at empty air, giving me time to drivemy blade into a gap in its chitin, foul blood spilling out. The monster collapses under our combined assault, twitching until another shaft of sunlight from above reduces it to char.

Despite these victories, the battle rages on. The enemy is legion, and not all can be felled by a single beam of light. Some Old Gods burrow beneath the rubble, emerging behind our lines. One enormous, centipede-like horror clambers onto a rooftop and vomits a torrent of maggots that strip flesh from a soldier’s arm before rifles drive it back. I grimace at the brutality of it all. Even with Hanna’s help, this is no effortless bout. Every inch is paid for in blood and sweat.

The courtyard turns into a swirling chaos of shrieks, roars, and clangs. Skeleton warriors fight with unnatural tenacity, their shattered limbs still crawling after us. I watch in horror as a headless torso drags itself toward a wounded guard until Lovia crushes it beneath her boot. Thick smoke from burning monsters clouds the air, stinging my eyes. Still, Hanna floats far above, raining down shafts of solar fury whenever an Old God gathers enough strength to threaten us anew.

I just don’t understand why she doesn’t come closer. I long to see her face clearly, to hear her voice, to feel her presence beside me as we once fought side by side, like we were fated to. I mean, it is her, isn’t it? Or has the Sun changed her? Is she preserving her strength by staying aloft? My questions find no answers in this frenzy.

A roar shakes the battlements. One of the mightiest Old Gods—a towering behemoth of bone, antlers, and horns—lumbers toward the main gate. Its hollow eyes glow green, and it raises massive claws to tear down what remains of our defenses. Soldiers cry out in dismay. If that horror breaches the gate fully, we’re done for.

“Focus on that one!” I bellow.

Hanna responds with a column of light so bright, I must shield my eyes. The beam hisses as it strikes the behemoth’s crown of skulls, cracking them open. The creature howls, staggering, and I race forward, sword raised high. Lovia joins me, blade gleaming. We attack its flank, carving into a joint.

With one final heave, I drive my sword deep into the creature’s chest cavity. The smell of rot and old bones engulfs me. Lovia slashes its tendon, causing it to collapse in a heap of debris and dust. Before it can recover, Hanna’s light intensifies, reducing the behemoth to a pile of ash drifting on the breeze.

A ragged cheer goes up. Is this it? Are we winning?

Have we won?

The undead army, leaderless and battered, begins to falter. Without the Old Gods to push them forward, skeletons mill in confusion. Some attempt to retreat, clattering away towards the south, while others simply collapse into inert heaps. Flying horrors, once so bold, spiral away, wings tattered by sunbeams.

I peer over the broken wall. The enemy is in disarray.

But we have survived.

The courtyard, once hellish, now lies strewn with broken bones and steaming ichor. Soldiers stumble and cough, some crying tears of relief. Tapio and Tellervo sink to their knees, exhausted. Vellamo presses a hand to her chest, breathing hard. Ilmarinen wipes sweat and soot from his brow while Torben slumps against a parapet, staff rattling on the stones. The Magician folds his arms, galaxies swirling faintly, as if pondering the odds of what just transpired. Rasmus, chest heaving, looks at me in stunned disbelief.

I turn my gaze upward, heart pounding. Hanna still floats there, lined by fading brilliance. The fierce glow begins to dim slightly, letting me see more of her form. She descends, not swiftly like a joyous return, but slowly, deliberately, as thoughconsidering whether to grace us with her presence. I wait, hands trembling, longing to touch her.

Lovia and I move closer together, father and daughter standing atop a shattered tower. The light that guided our salvation now seems distant and uncertain. Hanna’s feet touch down on a high parapet bathed in half-light, and the sunbeams retract, leaving faint halos around her shoulders. Her hair, once dark, now shifts with hues of gold and red, like embers at dawn. Her eyes—oh Gods, her eyes—are not the warm brown I recall, but pale, molten copper.

I swallow, stepping forward. “Hanna,” I say quietly, voice breaking. “You came for us.”

She tilts her head, studying me with an odd detachment, as if I am something curious rather than familiar. Lovia’s breath catches. Even the cries of the wounded and the grieving seem to fade, as if waiting for her response.

Hanna’s gaze sweeps over the courtyard, taking in the wounded, the dead, the lingering beams of sunlight. Her expression is blank, eyes distant. She offers no smile, no word of comfort.

Nothing.

I force a step forward, pain in my muscles a reminder of all we’ve done to reach this moment. “Hanna,” I repeat, softer this time. “Please. Join me.”

For a long moment, she does not respond. Then, her lips part, and I expect a flood of relief or apology, an explanation for her strange magic and long absence. Instead, she speaks a single word in a language I do not recognize—harsh and clipped, like sparks struck from flint. The sound scrapes over my heart like a blade.

My chest tightens with dread.

“Hanna?” Lovia says. “Are you alright? It’s us.”

Hanna regards us both as though we’re strangers and she’s where she doesn’t belong. Her posture is regal, spine straight, but there’s no sign of love in her face, no flicker of recognition. The final rays of her conjured sunlight fade from the stones, leaving only the dim, natural twilight and distant fires burning in heaps of slain horrors.

A chill runs through me. Could the sun’s power have changed her beyond recognition? Did her trials in the celestial realms strip her memory?

Her compassion?

But no, that can’t be. She saved us. That’s compassion.

She knows we’re worth saving.

Doesn’t she?

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