Chapter 28
The plan to forget
Cadel
The Alpha God of Winter
Days After the Night of Falling Stars
The chains are heavy. They weigh me down, crushing me so my forehead is pressed to the stone. When I shift to my wolf form, it’s a little easier, but not by much. I barely notice.
As the minutes creep by, the bodies of the gods I can see turn grey and then harden into stone.
It’s the silence that bothers me the most. Where there was chatter, the sound of them in the world, in everything, disappears.
Now there is emptiness, the murmurs of the gods' will and words are silenced.
A wrongness that scratches at my mind ceaselessly.
The Beta Goddess doesn’t return, but something is happening. Dark grey clouds line the sky. The moon and her stars are hidden, like the whole world is veiled.
The first time I see a human is several cycles of night and day later. The man is crying, carrying a small child in his arms. He stumbles near my prison and drops to his knees.
“Why did you leave us?” he screams.
The child’s head lolls, lifeless.
He leaves the body of his child pressed up against my rock and, after dropping a lingering kiss on his deceased son; he runs. Several more humans run past, covered in streaks of red.
“Hey!” I shout. “Hey! Stop! Leave him alone!”
No one hears me speak, no one acknowledges me in any way; they chase him down. I hear his screams. I watch them rip him apart with their teeth. I can’t look away as they stand up, drawn away by some other noise, leaving the bloody corpse behind. I can still hear his screams.
The chains hold me in place. I couldn’t save him, even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t.
Time blurs, changes, morphing and merging. Day and night, dark and grey.
More and more people come past, gravitating to my rock, building houses around it. It takes a while before I notice they are all betas.
I hate them. I know I shouldn’t, and it’s not their fault, but I hate them.
And then, twenty long years later, a woman walks into the small garden that has become my prison. She climbs the rock and sits down in front of me, crossing her legs.
She’s human and not.
There’s a grace that no human has, a glow to her skin that comes from within. Her eyes are ancient, and her smile is far too satisfied.
“Possession?” I snap at her. “You’re possessing them now?”
“You have a complaint?”
I glare at her. “That’s wrong. It goes against all of our rules.”
“Yes, but as we have already discovered, I don’t like rules.” She smiles widely. “I’m feeling indulgent, so I thought I would come and rid you of your boredom. Listen to your complaints.”
“As if you care.”
“Oh, I don’t, but it will amuse me no end. You wanted so badly to come here. Is it everything you ever dreamed?”
Her delicate fingers move crudely over the body she’s stolen. Pinching, pulling, gripping her bare breasts. She throws her head back and laughs.
“You really don’t like seeing them in pain, do you, High Alpha?”
I struggle, heaving my body up, but I can barely move an inch when the chains tighten, and I’m left helpless again.
“The world is changing for the better now. Everything is going the way I want it to. Truly, they didn’t need much convincing. Getting them to kill their alphas and omegas was easier than taking a stroll.”
“What?” My whispered word doesn’t go unnoticed.
“The Ravage Virus was truly a thing of beauty. It struck down the alphas, turning them into mindless beasts thanks to you, of course. Who would have known that the greatest evil that could have befallen them would have come from the god who wanted to save them so badly? It is, as they say, ironic.”
I didn’t want to save them. Only her. She is why I fought so hard to stay alive.
She runs her tongue over her teeth in an obscene display and leans forward.
“You fell, and you disrupted the world because you never lost your powers, so they have been leaching out of you, infecting everyone. A virus that drove alphas bestial and killed indiscriminately. Of course, I sent a cure around and saved my betas; you almost ruined my plan. But I am nothing if not flexible.” She winks at me.
I heave, but there’s nothing to throw up.
“She was here, you know, the omega goddess, the one we sent to die? She caught your virus and died in the streets like the nothing trash that she is.”
My ears fill with the sound of a roaring wind. It’s ice and cold and howls in agony.
The beta goddess stands up, laughing, and throws herself off the rock. The body hits the ground and dies, but it doesn’t matter; she’s no longer in it.
I killed her? I killed her.
No.
The howling gets louder and louder, wilder. The ground around me freezes, and the ice spreads.
“Please, Alpha, help us.”
“Where are you?”
“Don’t let my children die!”
“Save me.”
“Save my family.”
“Spare me.”
“Help me.”
“I don’t want to die!”
“I hate you!”
“What happened to the gods?”
All I can do is listen to their cries, their pleas. Watch the blood run down the walls, the bodies rot. There’s nothing I can do.
I close my eyes, willing myself not to see.
I killed her.
I’ve searched the worlds to find her, and it was my fault she’s gone.
I descend into madness willingly.
Four Hundred Years after the Night of Falling Stars
“It’s been four hundred years; are you really not going to talk?”
The Beta Goddess is wearing a woman in her early twenties with dark hair and hazel eyes.
I lift my lips and snarl, and despite her ironclad control, she can’t mitigate human instincts, and the body jumps back, almost falling from the rock.
“Fine,” she snaps, stamping a tiny foot. “I brought you a present.”
A line of people are brought in. I can sense their designations right away. The strength of alpha is in the two men and the boy who is on the cusp of turning. The young woman clinging to the older woman are both omegas, one’s scent is strong and tart, while the other’s is a fading wisp.
“Start,” the goddess says with a flippant smile.
A black-robed beta pulls a gold knife out and slides it across the throat of the oldest man.
He gurgles as a spray of red blood mists the air. I clamp my teeth together to silence the growls, but I can’t hide the way my body is shaking.
He drops to his knees, dead.
The second is quicker. The third is the young man, and he lifts his chin, and even though it trembles, he’s braver by far than anyone I’ve ever seen.
The old woman is ripped from her granddaughter. They are cruel, sawing into her throat, the cuts shallow and needing to be done multiple times.
Her granddaughter screams, but the Beta Goddess just stands on the rock, watching and laughing.
“They’ll come back,” the omega hisses.
The Goddess stops laughing. “What?” She leans over the rock, staring with fascination at the rebellious omega.
“They’ll be back. One day, when you think you’ve won, when I’m just dust, they’ll come back and beat you.”
I focus on the young omega, seeing a shine in her eyes, something that I’d missed.
“Renounce yourself. Let these people go. The gods will have mercy on you.”
“The gods are dead,” the Beta Goddess says and puts a hand on her hips. “I made sure of that.”
“They live still, waiting for the right moment.”
“It will never come. When I’m done with this world, there will be no such thing as an omega or alpha.” The Goddess is irritated, her lips twitching as she glares.
The omega tosses her hair back, and I see a lock of silver hair. She looks up at me, her eyes holding mine.
“Hold on. Help is coming.”
She turns and grabs the knife off the beta behind her and slices her own throat, collapsing on the ground as the Beta Goddess howls her fury.
I think about that moment for a long time, and then I do what she suggests. I hold on, and I watch, and I learn.
Six hundred years after the Night of Falling Stars
I think the omega was wrong. No one is coming. What am I holding on for? All I can do is think.
Sometimes, I sink into a dark part of my mind, and I drown there, thinking about all the lives that were lost because of me.
I think of all the things I should have done better, how I should have been smarter.
But mostly, I watch the plants grow; I listen to the pleas of the humans around us. Alphas and omegas are almost gone. There are small pockets left, but they seldom pray.
Why would they?
A furtive movement catches my eye, and the person drops from the roof above and lands on the stone. He looks around, frowning, but he can’t see me.
Only the Goddess can see me now, and it’s been a long time since she came to torment me.
“I don’t know if you’re here, but I was told to come and offer you this hope.”
He turns and faces me, but he still can’t see me. His hair is long, and he’s young, but when he smiles, I want to smile back.
He puts a plant on the ground and slides it towards me.
“Right, I hope that’s close enough. She couldn’t tell me much more than this.”
I look at the plant under my nose.
“Alpha, she’s coming. We all are. One chance. One attempt to save us all.”
He sits cross-legged in front of me and bows his head.
“My name is Marshall Kilmoire, and I’ve been sent to give you your part in this mission. I was told to tell you everything and give you this plant. It’s a choice.”
I watch him closely.
“I am the Spring Alpha.”
I jolt, staring at him with wide eyes. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
“We’re coming. The timeline she manipulated will only come up once. In a hundred years. Everyone is getting ready to be born. But we’ve been putting things in place for hundreds of years.”
He smiles.
“The time for the Luna Omega and her escorts to return to us is almost here, and when they come, we will undo all the wrongs.”
As soon as he mentions her, I struggle against the chains, trying to get free, trying to find the voice that I’ve lost.
“But here’s where you come in. The Prophet has told me to tell you that she will set you free. But you cannot remember, or you will die, and so will she.”
I stare at him, trying to comprehend what he’s saying to me.
“We all have a job, specific things we have to do in each lifetime. This time, I’m here to give you this herb that will erase your memory temporarily.”
I look down at the plant. Forget everything? Forget her? Forget who and what I am?
“She said it all rests on you. You will be the only one who can save her at the end. It will be your love and your choices that shape the final day. How strong is that devotion? How sure are you that she’s yours?”
She’s mine! I roar at him, but he hears nothing.
He pauses.
“She also said something else.”
I wait, but he struggles, taking a while before he stutters it out.
“She said you will never be together. You need to know that when you die…you will return to where you came from, this is your chance to be with her.”
I stiffen, trying to imagine that. Go back?
I’m the only one who can save her. It’s not even a question.
I eat the plant.
When he looks down and sees the plant gone, he jumps a little, then smiles.
“Thank you, Brother.”
Then, the Alpha God of Spring pulls out a knife and cuts his wrists, letting his body tumble to the garden below.
I close my eyes.
A few more years.
Just to see her once. Just to hold her. It will be enough. It would be enough for me. I can tell her…
What do I have to tell her?
Her?
A few more years…
A few more…
There’s an image of a woman twirling in the snow. She laughs, and then she disappears like she was just a dancing snow flurry. I think I hear laughter, but that fades and disappears, too.
I fight the chains madly and sink into that dark, wild part of myself.
And all that’s left is the howling cry of the Anarchy Wolf as he brings winter down on the world that is holding him captive.