Mara - The Lady Grief (Completed)

61 War Gods

Time Immortal, Palace of Irkalla, City of Ersetu, The Underworld

Mara

"Inanji wields the same power and with worse results," I defend myself. My mind tumbles, how to convince the other gods that I am no threat unless they force my hand?

"Does she?" Enlal speaks up. "Tell us, Mara, you claim that you can see a bond between those shifters," she indicates the West Antechamber door. "Yet, there is no bond of Love. What is it, then?"

"A bond of Fate," I say, frustrated.

"Is it? Or is it a bond of a different sort of love? A deeper connection that Inanji can't even see?" Enlal questions.

"She is lying. There are no such bonds," Inanji spits out.

"It is true!" I snap back. I turn to look at my father. "How can I show them?"

He looks a bit lost and very angry. "If this becomes an argument of Inanji and my daughter with no proof, I will always believe Mara."

I smile at my father.

Pir speaks up, his vision, as always, fixed on something in the distance. "I think we've established that Inanji is willing to lie and bring terrible things into the above, but that doesn't mean that I believe your daughter, Nateos, without proof of her claims."

"I released that," Inanji points at the Forgotten grandmother, sealed into the hole with metal bars, "to show the world that the Murderess is nothing but a foul creature. How could I have known that it would create an army?"

"The Forgotten are my creation, Inanji," my father spits. "To punish souls who have forgotten our ways. And you did know what releasing that creature meant. Mara is the only one of us who didn't know!" he roars in Inanji's face.

She immediately bursts into tears.

I hear a derisive snort before my vision is filled with a broad, muscled chest. "I think the question remains, who is telling the truth about the bonds?" Urto growls. He takes a step closer, crowding me backwards. I try to hold my ground, but he pushes me back until I am pressed against the wall.

"Tell me that our bond is still there," he says softly.

I glance down automatically, Inanji's bond is dull. I gave Thane and Thelios Urto's blood and now it looks like the black, sick bond between us is swallowing her weak, silver bond whole.

"What do you see?" Urto asks hoarsely.

I look at him with tears in my eyes. I hurt for him, but I know what I see. "It's dark. Black, like a bond of pure hurt."

His eyes are wide and green, as deep as he claims his forest goes, no hint of red showing anywhere. "All I am is pain," he murmurs to me.

I take a breath to speak, to offer some meaningless comfort, inhaling the scent of fire and woodsmoke, but Urto pushes himself away from me. He walks over to the throne altar and sits down without looking at any of the other gods. Taking out a blade that glistens pure red as if on fire, he begins to twist and turn it in his hands.

"This is ridiculous," Inanji speaks up. Apparently, her fake tears are over, for now. "There is no proof!"

"Why must we decide this now?" Enlal says smoothly. "After all, time will tell."

"So, we allow Love and Grief to war over bonds?" Pir says with a wicked grin. He's an odd one, this god.

"You said that Urto would decide who is telling the truth about bonds!" Inanji inserts a little desperately.