Chapter Thirty-Nine
LUNOS AND I shoot up into the air, bursting out of the water. I kick off her, pushing us apart. The soft sand of the lake shore cushions my landing. I did it! I actually did it!
The deep dream lake Lunos made for me lays out before me, the goddess landing on the far shore.
The olives and pines enclose the lake as always, casting their supernatural silhouette.
I never understand why the mixture, and I may never know.
Lunos is a goddess of unknown depth, but perhaps here I can tap into a greater power.
Even if I can’t, Helia will be safe; they all will be.
“You bring us here?! You truly know nothing, do you?” Lunos’s voice booms across the lake, rippling the water in its wake. The dream twists, and Lunos appears instantly on the sand in front of me. Her eyes stare down at me, a disappointed parent, a judgment passed and waiting to hand down.
“This is a dream of my making, a place of pure power for me. You have no hope of beating me here. Who do you think you are? You are the daughter of nobodies who abandoned you, raised by a man who only saw you for what you could give him. You have the sheer luck of being born my conduit. You could change your worthlessness and join me. Become one, and gain purpose.” She raises a hand, elegantly poised, palm facing the night sky.
The stars, initially frozen in place, begin to twinkle.
Slow at first, before rising to a crescendo of flickering light, spiraling in the sky around a full moon.
With a twist of her wrist, the stars halt their dizzying display of celestial grace.
“Behold my greatness!” Lunos turns and basks in the magical glow of the full moon, her true domain.
In her fixation on grandeur, I unravel the weaving of power Lunos had wrought, releasing the sand back to its original state.
Time is thinner than a blade of grass. This time, instead of reaching inward for power, I reach deep into the fabric of power binding this place together.
If Lunos can do it, and in my blood courses the power she craves, I can do it too.
A web of intricate threads explodes into being in my mind’s eye. It runs across everything here, a silver network of power and existence. It stretches through the impossibly deep lake, the trees and their roots, the sky; stars and all. And, something else.
Off in the distance, at the edge of the abyss, two circles of individual nodes of power; one smaller, one larger.
The number of each match the upper and lower pantheons; are those the rest of the divine pantheons?
Lunos shines like a supernova of light with the amount of threads weaving around her being.
I raise my hands and see the same light pulsing; the same number, the same strength. What am I?
“But I need the power in your blood. Lyras did not give me enough; I need it all.” Lunos’s words echo in my mind, her revelation of need.
My blood. So, she lied; power is not just belief.
You need something more; you need an energy source that not everyone has.
And not just that, she didn’t get enough of what she needed.
Clapping my hands together, I bring forth the all-consuming strength I discovered back in Hecalon, blue light pouring from my eyes.
Drinking fully of the unlimited power in this dream space, I wrap a blanket of darkness around Lunos’s light, slamming it between her and the connecting threads to the world.
Before Lunos can react, I form two threads of power, twin arrows bearing a message of need and fire them toward the circles of light at the edge of the dream.
Lunos finally spins in place, a mask of horror and shock etched into every line of her face.
“What have you done?! H-how? Unless”—still shocked, her eyes widen further—“you have figured it out. What a smart little godling you are.” Venom drips from her final words as I begin to understand.
“You may understand, but you are still young. You do not know how to control it all. You do not know all the rules.” Lunos rages in her bonds, cracking my focus and control.
The flimsy shell around her explodes, throwing me on my back.
Her fingers clasp roughly around my neck, wrapping perfectly around my mark.
“I don’t need to!” My words spit out, biting off each in a struggle to breathe.
Lunos snarls and grips tighter, flooding my neck with power.
My scream doesn’t struggle like my words; it finds air in the pain.
Molten lava courses through me, torching the inside of my body in flames.
I reach for my power to cool the fires, to push her back, my body writhing in agony.
She slams me against the ground, chopping my focus into splinters.
“You do not need to? Gaze upon what you could have been!” Lunos flings me by throat, launching me into the sky.
I slam into some invisible force as she appears in a blink, floating in front of me.
I can’t move, let alone reach for my power; she must be cutting me off like I did to her.
The lake lay far beneath us as the forest of odd trees stretch out for ages until it all falls off into an inky blackness, as though this whole area is merely a floating island in a dark void.
Lunos waves her hands and the stars shift, shifting and twirling until they align in front of us.
“Power simply existed; an infinite pool of possibility and untapped potential. Before everything came to be. Before the First godlings, the First Conduits of that primordial chaos emerged, mewling like babes from the womb. Eventually, the First began to understand they could shape and mold that power like clay at a potter’s wheel.
Whatever they imagined, they made.” The stars dance to the story Lunos weaves.
Gods and goddesses made of light take shape and play with the balls of stardust, creating soaring mountains, surging oceans, and flourishing plant life.
Then, something shifts. Smaller figures of light appear in droves, tiny dots that don’t reach the knees of the gods.
“The First were lonely and created life in their image, only without the depths of power, without the grandeur. But they struggled; oh yes, gods do struggle. They needed to be more than simple constructs; they had to imbue all life with an infinitesimally small mote of the primordial power the gods embodied.” Lunos slashes her hand down with fury, angry at the first gods or humans or perhaps both.
The stars dance as I look off in the distance, hoping my messages were received.
Lunos’s voice brings me back, the theater of light showing some of the tiny dots growing in size, in power.
“Conduits began to emerge from the humans that the First created, each connected more strongly to one of their creators than the others; as you are to me. And so, the Seconds formed and the dual pantheons were born.” A twinkle in the distance catches my eye above Lunos’s head, blooming hope in my heart until she begins to turn her head that direction. I have to distract her, now!
“None of this matters! Just kill me already!” Lunos spins toward me, raging at the interruption.
“You are insufferable! This is the cycle! THIS! It always goes this way. The Seconds crave the power of the Firsts, and they inevitably fight, destroying everything they ever created. A few always survive, but everything else returns to chaos, until the next emergence of the next First. And so it repeats.” Lunos rolls her shoulders back, proud and ancient.
“I was the true First. I have seen every cycle from the dawn of time. I have had enough!” Lunos closes in on me, eyes swirling with emotion.
“To stop the cycle again, I must consume your power. You could have become one with me willingly! But no. Now I must forcibly rip it from you. This all must end!”
The pain is like lightning this time, arcing through my body, leaving no part in peace.
Except this time, between the screams, I feel something else.
Like a wine skin uncorked, spilling precious liquid everywhere, my power pours away.
No, not away; absorbed, taken, stolen. I writhe as Lunos scours my soul, drinking every drop.
“Stop.” Solon’s voice is a deep, rumbling quake.
The god of the sun and flame floats behind Lunos, showering us in glorious radiance.
While Lunos is ethereal and lofty, Solon seems real; a normal human wearing the guise of divinity.
Minus the fact that tiny licks of flame run across his bare arms sticking out from a simple vest. That, and his golden eyes, full of the same power in Lunos’s; the same power in mine.
The draining pain stops as Lunos faces Solon with a mask of serenity, an abrupt change from the rage she showed me.
“Solon. Why do you trespass in my domain? A peace was negotiated once we realized it was Keppilo pitting us against each other. I recall agreeing to stay out of each other’s way.”
Solon nods, face betraying nothing. He goes to speak, when a void coalesces next to him, two pinpricks of light creating the only real form.
A calming, crystalline voice emerges from somewhere in that absence.
“That was before we understood your intentions. Lunos, why are you doing this? Every cycle is a chance to do better. You said those words long ago, and we all trusted you.” The eye-like lights twinkle, perhaps mimicking some long-lost human emotion. “I trusted you.” Nia!
“I have been proven wrong across the eons. Would you join me again, dearest Nia? Partners, as we once were?” Nia shudders, if a void of darkness could shudder, their answer evident. Lunos drops her mask of calm, revealing the tempest underneath. “So be it.”