Rodrigo continued sleeping peacefully when he felt someone shaking him by the hand. The boy opened his eyes and saw Bellona sitting beside him. The goddess looked exactly as she had when she was holding him captive.
“Bellona?! You’re alive?!” Rodrigo asked in shock, sitting up abruptly.
“Don’t make any noise,” the Roman goddess said, raising her index finger to signal for silence.
Rodrigo turned and saw Anpiel still sleeping, then looked back at the goddess.
“How did you survive? I was so worried that you had died,” he said, his voice caught somewhere between concern and emotion.
“Hey, I’m stronger than you think, little boy,” the Roman goddess said, giving him a thumbs-up.
“Wait... you didn’t come here to attack us, did you?” the young tannin asked uneasily as he slipped out of bed as quietly as he could so as not to wake his companion.
“No. I only came to show you something,” the goddess said with a smile that made Rodrigo feel somewhat relieved.
The Roman goddess rose from the bed and began walking toward the bedroom door. For some reason, Rodrigo did not see where Epona or Ana were, though they had been sleeping in the other bed.
The two of them went down the stairs and saw light coming from the kitchen.
“Come, let us go to the kitchen,” the Roman goddess said.
A nauseating smell was beginning to spread through Rodrigo’s nose, and he could not help making a face of disgust.
“Wait a moment, I know this smell,” the boy said, sickened. “It smells like when... I lost control after seeing my mother die in Coimbra.”
The Roman goddess gave no answer and did not even turn to look at him. She simply kept going down the stairs until she reached the door.
“I’ve brought Rodrigo,” Bellona said as she opened it. Rodrigo stepped down and looked inside, but what he saw left him horrified.
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There they were—Tania and Ana, devouring blood-soaked naked corpses as though they were food. But what horrified him most was seeing Almanzor among them, eating as well. When the boy looked more closely at the corpse, he realized it was a woman over forty years old.
The woman had his mother’s face.
Ana’s kitchen was smeared with blood, entrails, and excrement. Flies buzzed all around the place. Cockroaches and worms are scattered throughout the room. It was the most terrifying sight the young tannin had ever seen.
Rodrigo vomited.
“Oh, Rodrigo. We never told you, but we feed on the blood of the wars in Spain,” Ana said, eating hungrily as she tore flesh from the arms of his dead mother.
“Yes, as you know, we still receive energy from human sacrifices, and wars are especially useful for that,” Tania said. “That’s why I stopped you in your crusade to kill my friend,” she added, gesturing toward Almanzor with her eyes.
“Forgive me, boy, but it was nothing personal,” Almanzor said. “This beautiful goddess allowed me to massacre as many as I pleased in Spain, and when you might have stopped me, she prevented it.”
“No, this... this has to be an illusion,” Rodrigo said as he turned to look at Bellona, and to his horror, her face had become distorted, looking like that of a rotting corpse, with one eye hanging loose.
Rodrigo recoiled at the sight just as Bellona threw herself at him. The goddess, now in a state of decomposition, held him with Herculean strength and would not let the boy free himself from her grip.
“You left me like this, just as Almanzor left your mother, and you still dare speak to me of morality, little boy,” the Roman goddess said, while rotten droplets fell onto Rodrigo’s face.
“I didn’t want them to kill you,” Rodrigo said, frightened and almost in tears.
“But you didn’t stop Menrva from driving a spear through my heart, fucking bastard!” the Roman goddess said, just as Rodrigo felt someone’s hand touching his face.
It was Almanzor’s hand.
“You are a murderer just like me,” said the Muslim warlord. “And your friends are no different. Accept what you truly are, boy.”
At that moment, the Moorish conqueror bit into Rodrigo’s cheek and tore a piece away.
Rodrigo moaned in pain, and then he saw Ana and Tania approaching him and beginning to tear pieces of flesh from his body with their bare hands, devouring them like animals.
“Rodrigo, you are a murderer just like us,” the goddesses said, laughing. But their faces were distorted, like those of spirits filled with sadism.
At that moment, Epona appeared in the doorway.
“Rodrigo, I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” the goddess said as she slowly walked toward the boy, who was being torn apart more and more by Almanzor and the goddesses.
Then Epona ripped off Rodrigo’s right leg.
“I am a goddess too, and just like your friends, I accepted human sacrifices,” she said, and began eating his foot while Rodrigo felt himself losing consciousness from the pain.
Then Bellona brought her face close to Rodrigo’s dying one.
“Life for life, Rodrigo,” she said, and sank her teeth into his face in one enormous bite.
At that moment, the world went dark for him.