I heard the twang of the bows before the pain registered. I didn’t even have time to understand what the voice meant but apparently the King’s guards did. I looked at the three arrows in my chest in bafflement before I felt my legs wobble a bit. I cast. I had to. Their aim was too good and I needed to repair my heart before I bled out. Funny thing was it didn’t hurt all that much. I just had to yank out the arrows, heal and not get shot again. Easy or so I told myself.

I heard Amy’s cry of alarm. I wanted to tell her to stay back but was having trouble breathing. She got to me as my knees gave out. I had pulled the first arrow out. It was the easiest but I found as time progressed I felt my strength waning and my hands became harder to control. Amy had to help me pull out the last one. I didn’t have the energy and as it came out, I saw her body stiffen. She smiled at me and fell into my arms. I didn’t have the strength to stop her fall or mine and so I used my body to cushion us.

***

I saw Alice get shot. Who did these dead things think they were, to shoot a friend of mine?! The only light in this dead world and they wish to take it from me! At least that one, Alice called Amy, intercepted the other arrows for her. I suppose I will let her rotting corpse walk around a bit longer. I watched them vanish into the portal I placed before I turned to those that dared to defile my light. My new Hand Maiden could use the practice anyway.

***

Old Ralph here. I took on a mission to find some missing girls with another school guard. He had been talking about needing extra money for his family so I was surprised when he ran off with a girl. All that talk about his family apparently wasn’t all that important. I’ll never understand these city folk. He had all the information so, while I poked around the marketplace where the girls were last seen, I couldn’t find anything. I was heading back, using the back alleys just in case I got lucky, when I stumbled across two girls. The one in the school’s uniform still had arrows in her. The other one was Alice. Both seemed to be alive. What was this city coming to?

Well, Old Ralph would never leave girls in need of help. I did my best to patch them up. I was pouring the only healing potion I had down the throat of the one I removed arrows from, when I heard the criers. They were walking the main street proclaiming the Alice was wanted for attacking the castle, killing the king’s guards and summoning monsters within the city. I knew there would be people walking with them, hanging pictures of her. Their cries of the thousand gold coin reward would surely make it hard for her and anybody with her to get out of the city. I looked at the little girls. 

Whelp Old Ralph wasn’t too happy with the city anyway and I knew a guy that owed me a favor. I suppose it was time to go looking for a wife in one of the remote towns. A nice humble girl for old Ralph would be best. I gently picked up the girls and walked through the city as the fog began to thicken once again.

***

“Why didn’t you help her?!” The lady in white watched the angry teen God shouting at her.

“She didn’t need my help, Mort. Some pain will help her to grow. Mictlan has over estimated himself. His over confidence was his downfall before and now, a thousand years later it’ll probably be again.”

“Probably? Brigit, you are the Goddess of Prophesy and Divinations. What do you mean probably?”

"Just that, Alice still has choices to make. In the end, it will be her decisions that will either solve the problem or fall before it. After all, like you she is a God. She still needs to figure out what kind of God she will be. Her decisions will anger the others. You know they do not share their power.” 

“Let them try anything and I swear…” With that last shout he vanished into his portals. Brigit just shook her head, he is still too young.

****

This well end the first book. I will publish it in Amazon Kindle and their hard copy service if you want it. I am pricing it so i make 35 cents per copy ie the minimum they'll allow me to. I just want this to be popular enough that one day it'll be an anime. 

To be continued in book 2