Fie of Gar

The warmth of the blood was gentle against her skin, the only caress worth a damn.

Fie arched her back and raised her arms toward the sky—not toward the stars, but toward that filthy black smoke that smelled of burning fat and rotten flowers. In her right hand, the knife still dripped stolen life. On her tongue, the taste of sweat, salt, and iron; and beneath it, the sweet, dizzying rush of power that was hers alone now.

She wasn't praying. She was choking on the space between ecstasy and lack of air. Her throat burned from screaming with voices that weren't her own. Each charred hand rising from the earth was a silent applause; every spark that bit her skin, a little kiss of approval. At her feet, something still twitched: a mess of nerves and scorched flesh, groping for a god who wasn't coming. Only she was here.

The little fortress on the hill burned like a matchstick, and in her guts burned an even fiercer truth: faith wasn't in books, or in the stars.

It was right here.