Tarous, стр. 58

“‘Love’s True Arrow’?”

“Yes, it’s an arrow that never misses,” said Cronus before disappearing.

I felt rather guilty about all the work these two gods were putting in to keep me safe.

I turned to Cupid. “Why do the two of you work so hard to keep me safe?”

“We are part of a faction of gods. Time, space, death, love, and a few other gods. We are one faction of the gods. We protect each other to keep any other factions from killing our group to promote themselves to God Kings or Elder Gods. Basically all factions do the same thing. We agree not to hunt each other and we agree to protect each other if any rival factions try to hunt us.”

“Why didn’t you stop Chaz when he killed the previous God of Death?”

Cupid was quiet for a moment. “The previous reaper wanted to die and he wanted you to become the new death. He only allowed Chaz’s spell to work because the rules require it. A god can’t kill themselves. They must allow someone else to kill them if they want to die. If a god dies without being killed, no one can ever become the god of that aspect again.”

“Has something like that ever happened before?”

“Of course. How do you think we learned it? Ironically, the God of Life committed suicide. Since he wasn’t killed by anyone, no one became the new God of Life ever again. Life still continues in the universe since gods are merely the representatives of each aspect, but no other gods can obtain the powers of the God of Life or use those powers to promote themselves to a God King or Elder God.”

An entire god that would never exist again. I contemplated that for a few seconds.

“I shudder to think what would happen if the God of Death killed himself and we were unable to usher the souls of the living straight to the other side. People would still die, but countless souls that didn’t pass to the other side on their own would be stuck on this side. They would be devoured by predators, forever ceasing to exist.”

I now realized why so much attention was shown to me by Cronus and Cupid. It was more than being in the same faction. People would truly suffer if the powers of the God of Death were ever lost or fell into the hands of someone evil, or someone who just didn’t care.

“Now, the ‘Love’s True Arrow’ technique. It is an arrow that never misses. A technique that I, as the God of Love, created to help me with my duties. I often shoot people with my love arrows, but after a few unfortunate misses I began working on this technique.”

A bow and a quiver of arrows appeared at my feet. I reached down and picked them up. Two clouds detached themselves and created two round targets that hovered in the air.

Cupid materialized a bow that made me think of white marble in a pliable form. It was large, but shared similar features of a compound bow. It was inlaid with little pink hearts and gave off a golden glow. It looked like a divine weapon of a god, which is exactly what it was.

A beautiful quiver that appeared to be made of a white leather material appeared on Cupid’s back. Most impressive of all were his arrows. The arrow head was a deep red heart made of some kind of shiny red metal. The shaft was a thick golden metal and the feathers at the end of the arrow were golden as well.

“This technique never misses. With it you will always be able to deeply penetrate the target.”

He was being serious for once but I snickered at his description of the technique. He looked over at me trying to stifle my laughter and gave me a wide grin. Then Cupid pulled back his bow, which glowed a deep red around the arrow head, and let his arrow fly straight to the target’s heart shaped center. It did penetrate deep. Over half the arrow was imbedded in the target.

“Impressive.”

“The trick is simple. You must fill your arrow with your love. Focus on how beautiful the target is, how wonderful the target is. You must make the arrow love the target. There is nothing in this world that can make the arrow as happy as penetrating the target.  Then no matter what stands in the arrow’s way, no matter the distance, the arrow will always find its way to the target.”

His arrow sounded more like an arrow of lust than love, but I decided to try it his way. I drew back my bow and I filled my arrow with all the thoughts of love that I could towards the target. It was awkward, but it worked. My arrow wobbled a little and it barely went deeper than the tip, but still it penetrated the target.

“Not bad for your first time.” He winked at me, causing my face to turn red. I glared at him and notched another arrow.

We practiced for hours. I thought about the technique as I shot. Love for everyone is unique and no two loves are the same. I had to fill the arrow with my own love. I thought of Nyxra. She became the target in my mind and I was the arrow. I yearned to be with her, to spend all my time with her. I was incomplete without her.

I filled my arrow with that yearning and then released it. It flew straight and true. We continued to practice until my love arrow was almost as good as Cupids.

“How about we go into the human world and let you practice using the love arrow?”

“Despite being the God of Death, I don’t feel comfortable with killing random humans.”

“Your arrows will become true God of Love arrows if I gift you some of my power, like Cronus did. When you call upon my power your arrows