Revealing Fate (Curse of Fate #2)

Prologue

“AS YOU HAVE KILLED YOUR love for me.”

Power exploded from the Goddess with the final words of her curse in a blinding burst of light and energy.

Trees bowed their trunks, defying physical law.

Mountains in the distance shrank back, diminishing their stature.

The world on which they stood groaned. The Godking braced himself against the torrent.

It lasted but a moment. Yet it was a moment that would be forever seared into his very spirit.

When the Godking straightened, his Goddess was no longer standing before him in all her glorious rage. She was gone.

Gone.

The Godking scanned the horizon as the world righted itself. Then he turned.

He was the single most fearsome being in all the cosmos, yet what he saw nearly brought him to his knees.

Their home was no more. His sanctuary, the place they had created together, for one another, was replaced with an aching void, the bare earth on the hill now stained with the remnants of the Goddess’s unmaking.

Gone.

He remembered now. What it felt like before her. The nothingness he had been in the midst of being everything. She was the light to his darkness and with mere words had ripped herself away from his existence, leaving a ragged, throbbing abyss within him.

The Godking roared. Spittle flew from his maw along with all of his fury and longing.

He raked deep grooves into the earth with his claws, raging at what she’d done.

What he’d done. That was the issue with loss.

He remembered what it was like before, but he would never be there again.

He had been marked by her presence, irrevocably changed by their connection, and there was no going back.

Only forward.

His cry ended on a battered, fractured note.

The Godking heaved a great breath, the worst of his anger releasing with the air that left his lungs in a whoosh.

He ignored the twist of anguish as he surveyed the absence of the home they had built.

He took a step, flattened blades of grass trembling under the pads of his clawed feet.

The earth still sensed what he did: the mark of her destruction.

It hung in the air like a lingering unease, thick, wrong, and worrisome.

The Godking hesitated, then retreated, but not before sinking a vein of his memory into the earth to honor what had been.

He did not know if he would ever return.

This place now felt too similar to the shame that coated his insides like viscous putrescence.

He did this. And now his Goddess had gone, leaving him no way to make it right.

Leaving him altogether.

He would look for her. For an eternity, if that’s what it took. But not yet.

Something had changed with the words of her curse.

Something profound in the world. As a creator, the Godking was intimately bound to his creation.

He felt the plants as they manipulated sunlight, could sense the worms as they tunneled the earth, knew the pulling of the tides in the sea, heard the beat of life in the other beasts of the land, water, and air.

He was the very lifeblood of the shurii.

And now, he felt a disconnect. It was subtle, deep within the fabric of creation. The Godking could not explain it, but it was there, and he needed to know if the people felt it too.

The Godking left the hill he’d called home and traveled far to a sleepy fishing village perched at what felt like the edge of the world. He had not been here for some time and was relieved to see it still stood, untouched by his love’s retaliation.

He crouched on the bluff, watching the fishers drag in their nets to inspect the day’s catch as the light waned on the horizon. The people would soon be readying for last meal, calling the children to their homes, and finishing the day’s work.

The Godking sat as still as his sculpture in the temple of Pheros, and watched the sun dip its first rays into the distant waves.

He waited until it had fully submerged, twin moons taking its place in the night sky.

He glanced up. The moons glowed as though lit from within, peering down like a celestial gaze.

He’d made them for her when they had first woven this world.

“A gift for you, my love,” he’d said. “To shine on the world each night the way your eyes shine upon me.”

She’d laughed, delighted. “So, you made them for yourself then, my king.” Her hand had reached up to intwine her fingers in his hackled ridge. “So that when the day fades, if you are away, I will still be with you. A light in the dark.”

The Godking looked away. The village was quiet. He had waited long enough.

The front door of the modest sea cottage was unlocked and the Godking entered silent as the final sleep.

He could still smell the faint scent of candle smoke, though the flames had been smothered hours ago.

Even in the total dark, the Godking saw a small stove tucked against the far wall, its single hotstone still cooling.

He inhaled. Sandtrout and seagreens. The dishes sat freshly washed and stacked neatly on the adjacent hutch.

A small yet solidly made table had been pushed against the opposite wall, its chairs unoccupied and tucked under.

He maneuvered his bulk to avoid smashing the dinnerware, tucking his tail and crouching, hackles nearly brushing the rafters.

The Godking padded to the threshold of the only other room and peered inside. The cottage’s single resident slept soundly beneath a thick blanket, the narrow mattress occupying nearly the entire bedroom. The blanket rose and fell in rhythm with the shurii’s soft snoring.

“Alcior.”

The man twitched but continued sleeping.

“Alcior. Wake.”

The shurii turned and slowly opened sleep-heavy eyes. He blinked once lazily, then again. The man yelped and shifted on instinct, ripping his long sleeping shirt at the seams as creamy fur exploded, replacing sun-weathered skin.

“Your second form was given by me, Alcior. It will not save you. Come. We must speak.” The Godking ducked his head beneath the threshold and retreated to the main quarters, leaving Alcior to calm his racing heart and recapture his composure.

When the old man finally emerged from the bedroom, he was wearing proper clothes. He tossed the ruined nightshirt into a trash can by the front door. Alcior faced the Godking and ran a hand through his sleep-tousled, graying hair. “Forgive my unpreparedness, Lord. I was not expecting you.”

The Godking pulled a chair from under the table and gestured for Alcior to sit. He did.

“What did you feel today, Alcior? Was aught amiss?”

The man’s bushy brows knit together in concern.

“It was a strange day, Lord. The sky…rippled. The waters stilled as though they belonged to a placid mountain lake and not the roving sea. I felt…” Alcior closed his eyes, searching his mind for the proper words.

“Unnerved. Rootless.” The shurii’s lids reopened, and he studied his creator. “Something ill has transpired.”

The Godking rested back on his haunches, curling his tail in close, careful to avoid knocking over the sparse furniture.

He told Alcior what had transpired, omitting no truth.

This humble male became the first shurii to learn of the Godking’s betrayal, the Goddess’s curse, and the fate of their people.

When the Godking was finished with his tale, Alcior retrieved a dust-covered bottle and a wooden cup from his meager cupboard. He worked free the cork with some effort and poured a measure of the astringent liquor before returning to his seat. He sipped, processing.

“Is our great mother truly gone, then?” To Alcior’s credit, his tone held no accusation, only sorrow. The Godking would not have faulted him if it had.

“She is.”

“Can you see her, Lord?”

Would that he could. The Goddess did not want to be found. Wherever she’d gone, he was blocked from seeing her. Her own power limited his omniscience. “I cannot.”

Alcior fingered the cup. “What does this mean for the people?”

“It means that change is imminent. I cannot undo what the Goddess has done.”

Alcior looked up. “The Primordial Male will be from your strongest line. That would be…”

The Godking’s tail flicked. “Yes.”

Alcior nodded, as though expecting this response. “A good line. And the Prima?”

Onyx eyes fixed on the smaller man’s azure ones.

The Godking sifted time and space, looking ahead through untold generations, seeking a single precious light.

His ear twitched. Odd. A thing that came as easily to him as his earthly form drawing breath suddenly seemed just beyond his reach.

He looked again. And again. His godly powers probed the future, the past, the present. She was not there.

“How long do we have?” Alcior pressed.

The Godking turned his focus to the Primordial Male. He knew the line. His Goddess had given him that much, at least. And yet…

“Lord?”

The Goddess’s words came back to him. You will suffer as you watch. As you wait for them.

No.

She blocked him. Maimed his discernment.

Her curse had hidden the Prima and Primordial Male from his sight.

This was the change he had felt. The wrongness that lingered after the Goddess left.

His connection to the people, his foresight, was now riddled with uncertainty.

The knowledge, or rather lack thereof, gave him pause.

Finally, the Godking spoke four impossible words. “I do not know.”

Alcior’s lips parted. He hesitated. “But…”

“It is not known to me. They…are not known to me.”

“But Lord,” Alcior insisted. “All creation is known to you. Even before we are born, the spirits of the people are yours. How could—”

A low rumble filled the tiny room. The Godking’s chest reverberated in warning. Alcior dropped out of his chair, bowing his head to the earthen floor.

“Forgive me, Lord. I meant no offense.”

The Godking gazed out the window, his irritation abating as quickly as it came. This development presented a new problem.

“What would you have me do?”

“You are a scribe, Alcior. I would have you create a record of these events. The people deserve to know what transpired this day.”

“As you wish, Lord.”

“Rise, child,” the Godking said, still peering out into the dark. “Speak to your god, not to the dirt.”

The man righted himself. “Would you have me include…everything?”

“Everything, Alcior. I would not hide from my part in this.” The knowledge saddened him, for while there were new holes in his vision of the future, the Godking knew there were people he loved who would read these accounts, these godscripts, and grow to hate him.

A consequence he would willingly bear. One he deserved.

“And once I’ve transcribed these events, Lord? What then?”

The Godking pinned the kneeling man with a penetrating stare. “Then you prepare, Alcior. For the Prima is coming, her mate afore her. When, we do not know, but one thing is paramount. She must not fail.”

The Godking left Alcior’s seaside cottage and the little village as silently as he’d arrived. No others knew of his visit.

The old shurii would ensure news was spread and preparations begun.

The Godking did not know if they had days or millennia until the Prima’s arrival, and while he knew the Primordial Male’s line, the curse prevented him from seeing the timing and location of the male’s birth.

There was no telling when or where this matched pair would arrive.

Months, years, or miles apart? So, he would do as his Goddess had spoken.

He would watch, he would wait, and he would suffer.

But Alcior now ensured that he would not do so alone.

When the godscripts finally reached across the lands, all the people would be waiting with him.

When the pair finally arrived, the Godking would feel it in his blood.

Alcior was instructed to select others to join in his quest, and the Godking gifted the male with unnaturally long life to assuage the old man’s fears that he would die before his mission was completed.

He would leave his little cottage by the sea and travel to every corner of Ilistaar, spreading the Godking’s word, and preparing the way for the coming of the Prima and her mate.

Alcior would collect those who could be trusted to guide her once she arrived: scholars, artisans, and teachers who would pass on their knowledge to each new generation.

The old would die, the young would prepare, and all would wait.

This was the best he could do, for now. Any direct intervention was beyond him.

The Godking wandered away from the village, prowling the sparse grasses of the tidal flats, feeling the sand sift beneath the pads of his hands and feet. A breeze drifted over the landscape, carrying with it the scent of salt and brine. The twin moons overhead lit the marsh in a silver glow.

The Godking glanced up once again. The moons looked down on him like his lost lover, their gaze no longer warm but cold and distant.

He blinked, black eyes shuttering for the briefest moment, and one of the moons vanished from the sky. Its lonely twin remained, hung in solidarity, dimmed by the absence of its counterpart.

Gone.

The Godking lowered his head and continued prowling into the night until he disappeared from view and the wind shifted the sand to cover his tracks.

He did not look up again.