Goddess by Liv Savell (books for 6 year olds to read themselves txt) 📗

Goddess

Call of Calamity Book Two

Liv Savell

Sterling D'Este

 

Copyright © 2021 L&S Fables

All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

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Paperback ISBN: 9798706735722

Hardback ISBN: 9798723160446

Cover design by: Sara Oliver Designs

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021904209

Printed in the United States of America

L&S Fables

Austin, Texas

lsfables.com

Books By These Authors

Call of Calamity Series:

Vassal

Goddess

For our beta readers.

Thank you!

Dear Reader,

Within this book, the use of they or them with a singular subject is used for characters that prefer gender-neutral pronouns or when a character's gender is not immediately apparent.

Liv and Sterling

Map of Rhosan and Ingola

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Chapter XVIII

Chapter XIX

Chapter XX

Chapter XXI

Chapter XXII

Chapter XXIII

Chapter XXIV

Chapter XXV

Chapter XXVI

Chapter XVII

Epilogue

A Note to the Reader

Sisters Dawn & Dusk

Silvie, Margot, Ines, Lilou, and Bram

Pronounciation Guide

Acknowledgement

Priestess

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Prologue

Eighth Moon, First Quarter: Western Isle

The second shock wave was impossible to ignore. Not like the last one. He had known when his father came back, but it hadn’t bothered him much. His father was a trickster, The Trickster, and unlikely to interfere with the way of things. He’d not step out of bounds, amass glory, or corrupt the humans. He’d not sniff out this domain and mettle with things long set into place.

But that second ripple in the ethos. That second whiff of the divine and the old. The chaotic nature of the howling winds and the thrashing of the seas around his island home was testament enough to who precisely had reawoken. Who had returned to the land of mortal and beast?

Enyo.

Mother. The First. Goddess of old and conqueror of man. She had ruled Rhosan alongside the other Old Gods for a time forgotten until finally the mages and human armies of Ingola, petty as they were, found a way to contain the divine rulers. Then, Ingola struck Rhosan at its weakest. With their Gods missing, the people—fierce people—crumbled against the Ingolan boot. They fell to infighting and became nothing more than a collection of pathetic little clans and tribes, scattered and broken. No threat there.

And he had stayed on his island, his prison intact despite his Godly parents' demise. He had been glad to see precious Rhosan fall, glad to keep his own company on the spit of land they had cast him to—an island with no name, unplottable. A place where they could contain him.

Three hundred years, he ruled in peace, content to reap and sow, ignoring his half-siblings who had stayed behind in Ingola, little pets to the humans. Not real Gods. Not like him.

But with that second ripple and the coming of his mother, he knew nothing but hunger and lust. Old insults and vendettas rising anew. If Enyo were back, then she would not be happy until she reclaimed what was hers. Her people. Her land. Her rightful place as worshiped and feared Goddess. She’d go back to precisely the life she had lived before, without a thought for her forgotten, banished child.

Lava boiled, and the volcanoes peppered across the island smoked with his ire. That she, who had been tossed aside and locked away by no more than mortal trash, should return to glory while he wasted away on this minuscule fleck of dirt—

That she should have her name whispered ardently, while none but those trapped on the island with him should know his power—

That she should return with his father and go on pretending as if he did not exist—

No.

No.

NO!

He would not allow it. He would make them pay. Make them all pay for what they had done to him.

Mascen, strongest of the Gods, firstborn of the Divine Offspring, and master of disasters would rise, break the chains of enslavement placed upon him and take Rhosan. Perhaps the entire world.

The island quaked as his fury grew. The volcanoes belched lava, and the sea receded from the beaches in the first signs of a tsunami.

His parents and the other Old Gods were weak now. Unworshiped. Forgotten as much as he. Now, he could break the wards they had placed around his prison. Now he could be free at last, to claim what was rightfully his.

Chapter I

1819, Ninth Moon, Waxing Crescent: Lake Penneidr  

Etienne sat at a small campfire and stared out over the lake ahead, shivering in the cold of a northern autumn. The slow-moving water before them fed into the Neidr River just a few miles south, but for the life of him, Etienne couldn’t remember the lake’s name. It had only been a few moons since he had learned these maps, had studied them in Ingola, but still, the name escaped him, lost in whatever recess forgotten things fell into.

So much was lost these days.

Across from him, Delyth stared toward the mountains, the bruises around her neck like writhing fingers in the flickering light. Enyo had left those marks with Alphonse’s hands— hands that would never choose to cause pain, especially not for the people she loved. The bruises were beginning to fade, but still, Delyth’s voice was a faint, broken reminder of what it had been. He wondered if it would ever completely heal, or if it wasn’t her voice that Enyo injured but something deeper.

For a long time, neither spoke. Etienne liked it better that