LIROIDS

The Dark Forest & The Goddess Ciria

Eyela’s POV

The Dark Forest swallowed me whole. The trees were older than time, their twisted roots rising like serpents from the earth, their branches clawing the sky. Every step I took was stolen from fear, yet driven by grief. Seyal’s blood still stained my hands, sticky and dark. His last breath clung to me, a phantom kiss I could not wash away.

The forest was silent at first, no birds, no rustling leaves, no sound but the pounding of my own heart. But then the whispers began. Low, indistinct, rising and falling like the tide. I froze, my body trembling. The whispers weren’t human.

“Eyela…”

My name, drawn out like a sigh, carried through the trees. I stumbled backward, searching the shadows, my pulse thundering. “Who’s there?”

The air thickened, sweet with a scent I could not place: flowers, honey, blood. My legs weakened. I sank to my knees, clutching the dirt. I wanted to run, but my body betrayed me.

The darkness shifted, and from it, light bloomed. A woman stepped forth, her skin glowing faintly, her hair flowing like molten silver. Her eyes were galaxies, endless and cruel. She was beautiful in the way a storm is beautiful yet terrifying, inevitable.

“Ciria,” I whispered. Somehow, I knew her name before she spoke it. The goddess. The one my parents bowed to, the one who took our offerings of grain and wine. And now she stood before me.

“You call upon me with your grief,” she said, her voice soft as silk and sharp as glass. “You have been wronged, child of Cellon. Betrayed by blood, abandoned by love, cursed by fate. Tell me, Eyela…what do you desire?”

Her words slid into my heart like knives. What did I desire? My lips trembled. “I want Seyal back.”

The goddess tilted her head, and for a moment, her eyes flickered with something almost like pity. “The dead cannot be returned. Not even I can weave breath into one who has given it willingly. Seyal’s soul belongs to the veil now.”

The Veil is a place for the innocent and heroic dead, like my beloved. The truth gutted me. I fell forward, sobs wracking my body. “Then I want justice! I want Lord Glen to suffer for what he’s done. I want my parents to feel the pain they gave me. I want this curse…this life the gods have mocked to mean something!”

Ciria crouched beside me, her hand grazing my cheek. It was cold, colder than stone, and yet it sent fire through my veins. “Justice is never free. It requires a price. You are young, Eyela, but your grief makes you strong. If you take my gift, you will never again be who you were. Do you understand?”

I raised my head, staring into her endless eyes. “I don’t care. The girl I was is already dead.”

She smiled then, slow and terrible, like the curl of smoke. “So be it.”

Her hand pressed against my chest. My body arched, a scream ripping from my throat as searing light tore through me. My heart felt as if it were being wrenched from my ribs and remade into something monstrous. The whispers of the forest rose, louder and louder, until they became a roar inside my skull.

Visions flooded me: rivers of blood, cities burning, faces twisted in fear. And at the center of it all stood me, not Eyela, but something else, cloaked in shadows and crowned with lilies that bled purple light.

When the pain subsided, I collapsed to the ground, gasping. My skin glowed faintly, my veins dark against the light. The earth beneath me shuddered, and flowers I had never seen before burst from the soil, deep purple lilies, their petals edged with darkness. They reeked of sweetness and decay.

“What have you done to me?” I whispered, clutching my trembling hands.

Ciria stood tall, her form blazing with cruel radiance. “I have given you my power. You will be my hand, my shadow in this world. Lord Glen will fall, your family will rue their choices, and Cellon will tremble at the name you will bear. But beware, Eyela…for love cannot live in the heart of one who carries such gifts.”

She looked troubled as she spoke those words.

Nevertheless, her words were as much a sentence as a blessing. My heart clenched, Seyal’s face flashing in my mind. His love, his promise. Gone. All gone.

“What name?” I asked, though my voice was hollow.

Her lips curved into a smile. "Deep down, you know of the name you will bear."

I looked at her then with a wicked grin on my face and spoke the words.

“From this night forward, I am no longer Eyela. I am Evilside, mother of lilies, curse of Cellon.”

The forest erupted around me, alive with a thousand unseen voices chanting that name. Evilside. Evilside. Evilside.

I screamed, not from fear this time, but from rage. The sound split the night, and the lilies trembled as though bowing to me. The goddess’s form began to fade, her glow retreating into the shadows.

Just then, it dawned on me that she had slain herself. There was a sad smile on her face as tears fell down her cold face before her form was completely gone. I wondered what could make a god weep such drops of pearl-like grief, but the wind carried her broken words.

“Remember, child,” her voice echoed. “You chose this. Every gift bears a burden. Every curse carries fruit.”

And then she was gone.

The silence that followed was worse than the whispers. I stared at the lilies sprouting from the soil around me. They pulsed faintly, as though alive, as though their roots had burrowed into my very soul.

I reached for one, plucked it, and the stem bled purple ichor into my hand. My tears fell onto the petals, and where they landed, the flower burned with light.

I was no longer Eyela.

I was Evilside.

And the world would pay.