A Flower For The Gods

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They say to fear the gods. Hide and stay small. Shine too brightly, and you’ll draw their envy. Show too much confidence, and you’ll summon their cruelty.

I know this lesson well. My sister, beautiful and brilliant, wove tapestries that made even the stars weep. She told the stories words could never hold—

a mother’s fierce love,

friends dancing beneath a summer moon,

a child’s sweet, unguarded embrace.

She shone too brightly—and now she carries your curse—a jealous goddess’s small, pitiful act. From golden tapestries to twisted webs, you clasped my heart and crushed it into a thousand pieces.

They say to fear the gods. Act humble, my father warns. Do not stray from your path, my mother pleads. Our world remains dim, light unable to touch our despair. I cannot stay my course. My heart lies shattered. My spirit, broken beyond mending.

My sister shone as brightly as the first star. Her love fed my soul. Memory alone propels my sore feet. Cuts lace my skin. My body brittle with hope worn thin, still I climb. I journey to a place no mortals dared go, my blood leaving a crimson trail in my wake.

Now, I stagger up your temple’s steps on bleeding legs. My tunic ragged. My hair matted with brambles and dirt. I carry only a single flower. A flower whose poison blackens my veins, whose call drowns out all else. A flower that’s been waiting longer than I have.

I fall against your statue. Ivory and gold. Strength sharpened with cold intelligence.

They say to fear the gods. Immortal. Unbreakable. But everything has a price. As mortals know all too well.

You appear in a gust of feathers and wind—an owl as vast as a warship, glowing from within. You land atop your golden shield, gaze cutting sharper than any sword.

Your radiance scorches my skin. I hear my hair crackle and burn. White lights blind my eyes. I smell myself blistering alive. My heartbeat slows, then staggers.

But I do not need my eyes. I do not need this ruined flesh. I need my sister.

I cannot break your curse—but I can do this.

I thrust the poisoned flower—stem soaked in my blood, petals black with venom—into your ivory foot. Where divine flesh meets mortal despair.

Black vines erupt from its stem, crawling up your stone legs with patient, inexorable purpose. Like a spider spinning her web. They wrap around your arms, your throat, your perfect face—binding you as you bound my sister.

You shriek—an unholy sound that shakes the heavens—and your temple shudders. Your form cracks beneath the weight of that twisted web. Not dead. Gods do not die so easily. But diminished. Scarred. Marked by mortal grief you thought beneath your notice.

I smile as the last of me is torn apart, knowing what I leave behind.

They say to fear the gods.

But the gods learned something that day.

For where the ancient titans died, this flower grew—born of their despair and anguish, crowned in deadly thorns. Dormant for ages. Waiting. Until mortal grief fierce enough to wake it bled into its roots. Until a sister’s love made it a weapon.

A flower no god dares touch.

And in the dark, Arachne weaves—forever.

✦ MYTHIC & VENGEFUL
A dark retelling of Arachne.