Chapter 59
Chapter Fifty-Nine
YEAR ???, THE NEW WORLD
D ear Kairoth,
It’s been a long, long time, my old friend. Truth be told, I’d forgotten about you completely. Left you behind, buried you for someone else to find. I’ve spent the last thousand years trying to find a way to get rid of my immortality, moving from place to place so no one would grow suspicious about me, my magic. I’ve had some of the best experiences of my life and some of the worst. But finally, finally, I realized it was time to come home.
I wouldn’t come alone, though. I was going to bring mortals with me. I was going to repopulate the continent and bring magic back. It turned out the magic was waiting. It was hungry to be used again, to find conduits. I brought mortals, and their powers began manifesting.
I brought humans who I believed would make good rulers. Would be kind, fair, not greedy. I helped them find journals, books, records of the past so they may avoid the mistakes made in the Era of the Gods.
I spent many years nurturing these elementals, helping them learn their powers, helping them create courts, laws, treaties with the human lands. I moved around, disappeared, reappeared. Another thousand years went by, and Arathia was thriving.
But I was tired. And lonely.
I was living in Shiraeth, the star court. It was my favorite court, so beautiful with its twilight sky and ribbons of green that threaded through it. Over the years, I’d begun to appreciate beauty and nature much more than I had before. And there was something so particularly beautiful about the swans that lived in the star court. I could spend all day watching them, sketching them. I began to breed them, somehow became known for my beautiful swans that people would travel to come see, to buy when I bred hatchlings.
I got the attention of the king of the star court, who demanded I give him my swans. I couldn’t say no, but I did insist that I come with them to his castle, be their caretaker. He agreed.
That’s where I met her and everything changed.
Thousands of years on this earth, and I’d never seen someone so beautiful with her luminous blonde hair, her zest for life. She came to a ball the king threw, but I met her outside in the gardens as she admired my swans. We sat there by that pond and talked all night. I knew everything would be different moving forward.
We fell in love, got married, had children. But a darkness loomed over us. My secrets. She felt it, I think, but she never asked about my past. Almost like she didn’t want to know, didn’t want to wreck what we had.
I was more determined than ever to find a way to shed my immortality all the while hiding my true identity from the people I loved most.
Then the impossible happened. Someone found a way to free you and Khalasa. I found out at the same time as everyone when the both of you tore through Shiraeth. You destroyed everything. I was able to protect my family because of my net. I threw it over us and we were spared. A few others were able to save themselves as well by hiding. But I knew you’d never do us harm intentionally. That your magic was out of control after being trapped for so long. You weren’t the threat. The real threat was Khalasa.
I dug up her scythe that I’d hidden and used it against her while she was weak and her mind was addled. I imprisoned her underneath the castle where we lived. I used a combination of the stone and the scythe to control her, to enter her dreams and confuse her.
And I kept it all from my wife and sons.
But as I visited Khalasa daily to keep her under my control, I noticed something strange.
Her swollen belly.
One day, I heard her screams. I ran down to the prison cell and realized the horrible truth: Khalasa was giving birth.
After she’d delivered a healthy baby, she admitted the truth: it was mine.
I didn’t understand how any of this could happen until I remembered a conversation Khalasa and I had had thousands of years earlier. Gods and goddesses could have babies, but because of their immortality, the enormous power they were passing to their children, the babies took much, much longer to grow. Khalasa had gotten pregnant and never told me, growing the baby for three years before I trapped her.
When I trapped her, I also trapped that baby in her belly. Now she was free and giving birth to my child. I knew I should kill this child. But I couldn’t.
Meanwhile, our entire court was suffering more than ever. Someone had cast a curse over the star court, turning it into the Wilds, turning everyone into monstrous creatures. My children and I were spared because I could once again use the net to protect us, but my wife wasn’t at the castle when the curse spread. I couldn’t save her.
I did something I’m not proud of, Kairoth.
I used the scythe to infiltrate my wife’s mind, my sons’ minds, to convince them that my wife had the baby, that it belonged to us.
My wife was too far gone, though, already in a fragile state after being turned into a cat-like creature. I could convince our children, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t warp her mind enough to convince her that this little baby came from her.
She left us, and it broke my heart.
Despite it all, we’ve lived six happy years. The eight of us. Together.
But that happiness couldn’t last forever. Khalasa escaped, and she’s started infiltrating my dreams. She’s infiltrated my family’s minds. Convinced them she’s my new wife, my children’s stepmother.
I want to stop her, to tell them the truth, but I can’t. She has some hold over my mind. I’m scared. I’m scared for my family. I’m scared for my life.
She’s angry and wants revenge. Death isn’t a harsh enough punishment. She wants to destroy me completely. She’s planning something. Of that I know. I just don’t know what, and I’m powerless to stop it. So I’m sending this to you, Kairoth. I should have reached out far sooner, and for that, I’m sorry.
You must’ve been so confused about what happened to the world you knew. But you need to come and take Khalasa before she does something I can’t stop. Before she destroys my family.
Please, Kairoth. I’m counting on you. I fear Khalasa will destroy my mind soon with these nightmares. I’m sending you my journal along with this letter. All my journal entries from the last thousand years. Find Khalasa. Stop whatever she’s planning.
You’re our last hope.
Your friend,
Bathalous