Sun Mote Copse God Gave Heed to Her and Opened Her Womb

eshamun found herself strangely comforted by the nakedness of asherah's soul, or perhaps it was not so strange for them to take solace in one another. as the girl's gentle voice continued, asherah shaped the reality that eshamun lived over and over again in her dreams: the illidu-dam. often she was driven from her den with tortured wakefulness replacing sleep. the canaanite knew that all she did was for the glory of molech, but her jaws felt the delicate bones of her babes between them, and she saw their sleeping faces beneath the waters.

they had not suffered, but this was of no comfort to a bereft mother, and eshamun knew she could not ask this thing of asherah. "no, dear one," the ekar-aji whispered, the dew of tears flecking her cheeks. "i will take the babe from you and return him or her unto molech. i cannot order that you do the thing that broke my soul." 

"all we do is for molech, and we must do these things, but the eight-armed one knows our sacrifice, and i have come to believe that molech will not begrudge me my grief, and that the god will do the same for you."