Girl, Goddess, Queen by Bea Fitzgerald EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
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- Author: Bea Fitzgerald
- Language: English
- Genre: Sword & Sorcery Fantasy
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
WHEN THEY ASKED ME WHAT I wanted, I said: ‘The world.’
‘And what would you do with the world?’ my father asked.
His words were lined with sharp edges but I didn’t catch their
threat until Mother squeezed my shoulder. Her fingers were too hard to be a
comfort – a warning, perhaps? Or a threat of her own?
I stared from god to god, no one giving me any indication of what I’d
done wrong. They had asked me a simple question. I had given a simple
response. Now everyone watched me from the shaded porticoes of the
megaron, their faces distorted in the reflections on the bronze pillars that
ringed the throne hall. I had no idea what they wanted, no idea why
everyone suddenly seemed tense. A few people glanced to my father, whose
glower was so fierce he could have passed for one of his own statues.
I considered his question, my mother’s nails digging deeper with every
passing second that I remained wordless.
‘I’d fill it with flowers,’ I decided.
A heartbeat as the words landed.
Then my father laughed. Long. Loud. The kind of noise that had me
shrinking into my chair. The assembled gods joined in a split second too
late.
I wanted to turn to my mother, to see if I’d answered correctly, but her
hands held me in place, though her nails were less piercing.
She hadn’t let me out of her sight all evening.
‘It is good practice to be wary around strangers, my child,’ she had said.
But these people weren’t strangers – at least not to my mother. They were
her sisters and brothers, in arms if not in blood. They were gods she had
known her entire life.
I’d wanted to know more, but ‘Don’t ask questions, my child’ was
Mother’s favourite saying.
Still, at least all this ‘my child’ nonsense would stop soon. I was eight
years old – or thereabouts. It’s hard to keep track when you’re immortal,
and all the other gods had, until that point, been locked in a war against the
lord of time, who shifted it about as he pleased.
But regardless of my age, it was my amphidromia, the day a child
receives their name. And, as I was a goddess, I was also due to receive my
domain – the aspect of the world that I would be responsible for.
‘Very well,’ Father said, rising from his throne. The laughing strangers
fell silent at once. ‘Let it be so.’ He paused, the corners of his lips twitching
as he took in the concerned expressions of the other gods, particularly the
other members of the council who sat either side of him. They were his
advisors, and now they nudged each other and whispered, keen to hear his
judgement.
Then Father smiled, though nothing about it eased the tension. ‘Goddess
of the flowers it is.’
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