Chapter 71 When gods whisper
When gods whisper
The All-Seer
One Hundred Years after the events that saved the world.
I lift my chin and glare at the High Alpha, the High Beta, and the High Omega. They are wearing the white robes of their station and are glaring at me with deep suspicion. I’m one more word from losing my cool completely and setting this hall on fire. How can three people be so obstinately stupid?
“What you are asking for is preposterous,” the omega says with an arrogant flounce of her fluffy brown hair.
“The fact that you are denying it is preposterous!” I snap back, unfazed by their status. “They saved you, brought you all back from the dead. They suffered, bled, and died for you! It’s time you did something back.”
My words ring around the empty hall that they refused to fill, too scared I might start yet another outcry of support for our wayward ex-gods.
The High Alpha leans forward, his eyes narrowing on me. His affinity is earth. The High Omega is of dreams, and the High Beta is of hearth. They are idiots. All three of them. I’ve already had strong words with the panel that voted them in. They have assured me they won’t repeat their mistake.
“I want you to alter their paths and give them lives together to be happy. That is not wrong. It’s not hard; it is an easy fix and something they have more than earned. What gives you the right to deny them?” I shout.
The hall echoes with my fury, the gold in the hall shines, and I see my reflection, but in the images, I see her taking her first step, crawling, learning to talk, her excitement, the blossom from child to young omega. She was perfection, and for a while, she was mine.
I can’t stop loving her anymore than I could stop breathing. I am her mother, and I always will be. She will always be a part of me, and I will always be a part of her.
I won’t give up on her. I will never stop fighting.
They sneer at me, and my temper grows sharper, more furious because they weren’t the only ones who suffered, and I am changed by what happened. By losing her and what I know had to happen to her for this whole thing to unfold.
Do they think it was easy? Could they do the same? Send their children into torture and agony to save the world? I narrow my eyes and force myself to control my breathing.
“We’re not changing anything—”
The doors to the Hall of Petitions slam open, and I turn, watching the small army storm into the space behind me.
They came.
Emotion crashes through me so strong that I have trouble holding it back. I can’t believe they came.
All of them.
Familiar faces, people who know, who lived it beside me.
“How dare you interrupt us?” The High Omega snaps.
Flames lick out into the air, and the Beta Goddess of Fire who stands beside me snarls. “How dare you treat them like that? My brother is down there!”
“They are human!”
“They are gods in human bodies. They saved you!” the redheaded beta roars.
“Those gods, they brought us all back. Gods can’t die, but if we fall the way we did, only gods could bring us back.
My brother’s death brought us back, and the Alpha of the Hunt lifted us and restored us here.
How dare you, how dare you leave them!” she hisses.
“The Earth is improving, their civilizations are working things out. Things are changing for the better. It’s peaceful. They have wolves; they are accepting each other and rebuilding. What need do they have to be there? They are weapons.”
“THEY ARE GODS!” A handful of us roar at the same time.
I clench my hands into fists, my rage cresting like a wave inside me. I fight to swallow it down and try to speak calmly because they are losing patience.
“Give them mercy; give them something to live for. Stop feeding them pain and suffering!” I plead.
A goddess with long, inky black hair, dark skin, and eyes with starlight in them steps past me, the picture of decorum and peace.
“My name is Taryn—well, no, it’s not. It was when I was down there.
Hmm, I think not. Let me tell you about myself; maybe you will understand.
I fell in love with a human, and I gave birth to two children.
To be fair, I didn’t know I was a god at the time; I thought I was just human.
” Her voice catches, but she stands up tall.
“It was another life, so why do I still feel like it’s happening now?
Why is the love still just as strong? We carry through our lives what we experience.
Let them know peace, happiness, and love. They have earned it.”
The beta presses her lips together and shakes her head. My hope crashes. I look down at the shiny marble floor, wondering if anyone has ever had to fight this hard before.
“The Luna Alpha—” the beta begins.
“SAVED US ALL!”
I turn and find Marshall and Kendric standing side by side. Brothers in arms, best friends, lovers, and two alphas who sacrificed so much to give us a chance to win. Kendric spares me a long look.
I wonder, do they hate me for the pain I put them through? For all the deaths they suffered through? Life after life, I led them in finding tasks and dying. I don’t know if I forgive myself.
“Walker saved us. He took that evil into himself, over and over. He did what none of us has the courage to do. Walker is the oldest alpha, and he made sure we survived,” Marshall says.
“The All-Seer came to him and told him what he needed to do, and he did it, dirtying his hands and soul, knowing that to do so were crimes against everything we believed in, but he did it because it was the ONLY way we won.”
I flinch. “It’s true. I did make the Luna Alpha do these things. It is because of his suffering as much as the fight of the others involved that we could win. Only a corrupt body with his strength could house a soul as dark as the Beta Goddess and survive.”
I pause, staring at the mirror in front of us. It is there to remind the petitioners to really look at themselves, what they need, who they are. See all the good and bad about them. I see myself plainly.
“I asked them all, I demanded ruthlessly for them all to sacrifice over and over,” I whisper.
“Taryn had to have a family; she needed to fall in love in order to be able to sacrifice herself to save it. Marshall built the rebellion over seven hundred years of him being reborn; he kept it going. He kept dying over and over. Kendric has to sacrifice himself for the sake of others. Legion…”
I stop because my throat squeezes tight.
“Lucian only spent minutes with Walker. Minutes with his scent match before being torn away again. I was cruel. I was unrepentant, and I drove them all remorselessly, manipulating and shoving them into place like they were pawns in a game. But Keres, Mordecai, and Jarek have suffered for thousands of years now. Finding and losing, dying painfully. In this last cycle, she needed to be broken so completely to make the choice that would save us. I had to take everything from her. Family, love, innocence, her strength, her identity, I needed her to suffer physically, mentally, and have her heart shattered. If even one of those weren’t met, she never would have walked out and taken that arrow and saved us.
Do you know what that does to a person, to a soul? ”
The gods are watching me now, weighing my words.
“I have seen more inner strength than I knew existed. Love is more powerful than I believed. The sacrifices gods and humans were willing to make in order to succeed still humble me. I have lived in awe, reminded daily that these beings stand head and shoulders above me.”
I pause, looking away from the mirror, unable to even like myself.
“Please, help them.”
There is a long, pregnant pause.
“Regardless, the Luna Omega cannot go around changing everything,” the High Alpha snaps. His dominance lashes out, but where once it might have affected me, now it just glances off.
I stand taller. “You sent her down there. With her death, she shall reset the worlds. That was the gift you gave her. With their DEATHS! That was the agreed-upon contract the Petition made. She could only have her power in her dying.”
“We had no idea they would affect the world so drastically,” he spits acidly. “She can’t be allowed to run free.”
“When the Anarchy Wolf fell, he accidentally unleashed the Ravage Virus. They nullified that virus with their deaths,” I snap.
“Jarek’s death, the first one, gave them the wolves.
His second brought you back to life, Mordecai’s sent you back here, Walker’s and Kaida’s reset the alpha, beta, and omega designation balance and cleared the Beta taint from the world, which could only be done with both of them.
Legion’s death broke the tether holding the Ravage Wolf in Walker, and Cadel—”
“Do not talk to us about him!” the Alpha thunders.
“AND CADEL,” I say over the top of him, “gifted each person a wolf, while Kaida’s final gift, because she had not given enough, was to tether that gift to the moon, allowing it to be controlled by the people who carried it.
He gave them wild, and she tamed it and gave it heart. How can you punish them for that?”
“The humans are not shifters!” The omega goddess snaps, slapping her palm on the bench. “That was not our plan.”
“Oh, so you planned to die?” Theo says sarcastically, walking past us all and right up to the bench they sit at.
He stares up at them emotionlessly. “That was your brilliant plan, to let the Beta Goddess destroy us all?” He turns back to me.
“We should go and undo everything we did to save them and trust in their miraculous plan.”
“Watch your mouth, Alpha.”
“Or what?” he snarls, his expression flat. “Do you know how I died? They cut me open. For hours, peeling my skin off, layer by layer. I can still FEEL it!” he roars.
The omega and beta gods look sick. I feel sick; the guilt twisting inside me, writhing like snakes.