Chapter 32 #2
Without saying so explicitly, Kai was being asked to keep this forthcoming knowledge from her wife. She didn’t know how to feel about that.
The Eternal One must have sensed her hesitation. “Not my rule, exactly. This was the decision of your ancestors, and has been the way of things for five centuries.”
“My mother has kept this secret?”
“She holds tight to Yirian tradition.”
Kai sighed. “My hold has proved loose. Are you certain you wish to tell me?”
“I would prefer to wait, I think, but unfortunately, time no longer waits for us.” She rose from her stone bench and crossed over to one of the many cracks growing in the mountain walls.
Hints of gold, like the veins throughout the floor, shone through.
With the lightest of touches, she traced a crack, and black dust fell to the floor. “We may already be too late.”
Kai’s blood froze, and she looked deeper at her surroundings. The cracks…they were everywhere. “What has happened here? Was this a result of the attack on our mines?”
She’d been assured that all structures were sound.
“No. This is something else. Something worse.” The Eternal One turned to face her. “My name is Drakaa. I am the first of my kind.”
“Your…kind?”
“Five centuries ago, I entered this mountain with my people to guard this stone.” She turned her gaze toward the monolith of gold-veined marble. “My people called me Mother then, and when your ancestors learned the truth of my people, my new title was born. It amused me, so I let them keep it.”
Kai hissed out a frustrated breath. “Do you expect me to believe you’ve been alive for five centuries?”
The Eternal One wasn’t a day over forty.
“Some days, I wish it were something I dreamed up. But, alas, I did not. Shall I continue?”
Shadi believed all of this? Had kept it secret all this time?
Kai’s mother let this woman, Drakaa, decide their clan’s unions year after year. She was thought to be a wise woman, and her word was trusted as though she were an embodiment of the gods themselves.
There must be a reason. Shadi was too…careful. Astute. Too rational to go with something this outlandish without the rationale to support it.
For that reason alone, Kai nodded for Drakaa to continue. Once she had the full story, she would decide how to proceed then.
“As a young woman, a god gave me a gift,” Drakaa began, her gaze turning distant. “I didn’t question it then. Out of selfishness? Maybe. Or was it selfish on his part? Or…maybe love isn’t reserved for only humans.”
“What did he gift you?”
“Reincarnation. Rebirth. I was the first—the gods made sure I wasn’t the last. You would know us by our strange eyes.”
Eyes of blue and brown.
“Our younglings who are born with these eye colors…,” Kai began, her mind spinning. All her life, she’d watched these babies stripped from their mothers’ arms.
Drakaa nodded. “They are my people reborn. In the beginning, I suggested we integrate with your clans, but your ways have always been sacred, and your ancestors wouldn’t hear of it.”
“What kind of god would curse you with such an existence?”
Kai couldn’t imagine it. She’d always assumed the Unseen were secluded by their choice, not the other way around. Did they have the freedom to leave, or were they bound to this stone somehow?
“The gods are not so different from us,” Drakaa said. “They were inherently dreamers. They never ceased wanting more, whether that was more color in a flower or more death in the sea or more love from a mortal woman...”
Drakaa’s gaze drifted again, then fell with the dip of her mouth.
“And as is the way of all things in balance, things change. They morph into something else and change the rules based on different needs.” The woman straightened and released a long breath.
“Not only do the gods love, but they hate. They can be jealous and cruel. They can be kind and forgiving. And they can do desperate things for desperate reasons.”
Drakaa returned her attention to Kai. “Gods are not immune to greed, either. Long before I became this, they warred against each other for the right to rule them all. It nearly destroyed everyone.”
“Are the gods not equal in power?”
Drakaa seemed to consider the question for a moment. “To us, it would appear so, but we are but mortals. Their ways are foreign to us.”
“But not foreign to you.”
“Foreign to even me.” Drakaa returned to one of the cracks in the wall. “Mostly.”
Kai strode to her side for a closer look at the gold veins. “What are those? Are they important?”
“Think of them as a conduit,” she said. “A direct connection to the gods. And these stones”—she looked back to the Llinunae Stone—“are their source. This one here is only one of three.” Drakaa returned her attention to the veins.
“This is an infestation that gives me cause to worry about the stability of a prison that was meant to stand for eternity.”
“Prison?”
“Stones strategically placed to create a magical barrier—think of it as a triangle. If one were to shift out of alignment, the walls would fracture. That doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t continue to hold, but if it’s this bad here, I worry—”
Drakaa turned from the wall and strode back into the room, where she stopped and turned her face toward the high ceiling.
“This is the battle you warned me about,” Kai said. Her muscles prepared to draw weapons, and her heart raced with adrenaline. She would fight whatever battle was required if it meant saving her people. Gods or no gods.
“A battle can be prevented,” Drakaa said, facing Kai. “The walls can hold.”
“What must I do?”
Drakaa took Kai’s hands. “Listen first. You will understand by the end.”
Kai nodded.
“A human king made a sacrifice to help end the gods’ war and save our lands—he took the power of a god into himself, into his very blood, and weakened our foe just enough to make this prison hold. Without him, Xavlin would still walk free.”
Kai stepped away, her head empty of all thoughts but one. She knew this name. She was raised to fear it. They all were. “The god-eater.”
Drakaa nodded. “He devoured those gods we considered our enemy. What no one realized was that he was systematically imbuing himself with all their power. And those gods, being immortal, are still within him. Xavlin ceased being one god in his goal to be all at once. And he nearly succeeded.
“He cannot escape as long as he remains weakened,” she continued. “But nothing will stop him if he were to regain access to the blood that holds his excess power.”
“What blood? Who’s blood?” Kai asked.
“Iraklis Vidalatos was the first. The power has traveled through the males in his line ever since. Some of it leaked into the women, of course. Those female descendants have moved through many family names since, spreading through the world, but are distinguishable in one way—you’ve seen it for yourself. ”
Kai shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Soyala is one—her hair and eyes are no accident. There have been others like her, always known by the same mark. Direct links to the god-eater himself.”
Kai drew the sword from her back. “Soyala cannot be allowed to live. Not among my people.”
Drakaa held up her hands, stepping directly into Kai’s path. “Remember what I said about the gods he took into himself, Kai. They are still there. They still speak. They are still fighting…for us. Sometimes, their warnings are contradictory and messy, but they are rarely wrong.”
“How can you be sure those warnings don’t come from Xavlin himself?”
“Some have—I won’t deny that. He’s fooled many seers into helping him. It’s how Dimitrios Vidalatos, who was hidden from existence for thirty-eight years, is suddenly standing back on Perean soil. Right where Xavlin can reach him.”
“Then you also agree that keeping his mouthpiece in my mountain is too big a risk.”
“I will agree that we have reached a point where more direct action is required.” Drakaa took the sword from Kai’s hand. “But the answer isn’t in slaying the one advantage I have. Without Soyala, we would be blind.”
Kai took back her weapon and returned it to its sheath. “Then what would you suggest?”
“In a sense, Dimitrios’s blood is another prison that must hold.” Her gaze drifted back to the gold veins. “But, if even one drop were to reach Xavlin through this conduit…”
“They’re spreading,” Kai realized. “These veins.”
The Eternal One nodded grimly. “I believe so, yes. These are but a mirror to the other two stones. I don’t know how or when the fracture occurred, but it has happened. Xavlin’s reaching out however he can, seeking that one source of blood. His one means of escape.”
Kai sank onto the stone bench, abruptly tired. “You asked me to prepare for a battle. You did not tell me it would be against the gods.”
Drakaa sat and angled to face her. “Here’s what I know: the lines of destiny are converging. The prison has been fractured. And you are but one essential piece to the puzzle.
“Here’s what I can’t tell you: only time will reveal your path.
You could be called to fix the prison. You could be the warrior who stands between a god and his human counterpart.
There are a number of events that can and will take place, and you are a vital component to the survival of humanity itself. ”
Kai stood and paced several steps away. “I have to protect my people. They must come first. The gods can give my destiny to someone else.”
Drakaa folded her hands in her lap. “Perean came to our doorstep, Kai Silver Wolf. Your destiny is already here.”