Chapter 32
Chapter
Thirty-Two
-LIL-
“Where are you taking me?” The landscape remained unchanging; however, the stars overhead never ceased moving. A constant flux, an ever-changing set of stories.
“The sky can tell us much. Stories about worlds, which gods live in their skies, what spirits haunt their dreams. Who brings their light. This is the vantage point, well, it is my vantage point. My way to keep track of everything.” She smiled faintly before pushing her hair effortlessly behind her rounded ear while a galaxy whirled out of view.
“Your ear isn’t pointed,” I said, hearing the shock in my voice as my hand flew to my own slightly sculpted ear.
“Of course it isn’t.” Her face contorted into confusion, “Why would it be?”
“Are you not the ancestors of the Fae?” I stammered, trying to make sense of it all. “We were told the Fae were the descendants of the Primals.”
The Fae’s signature trait was the point of their ears. The more distinguishable a point, the more noble their blood. The rest of us were considered lowly in comparison. A half-breed in my case. Even worse than a full-blooded Nymph.
“What a ludicrous notion. I hope they aren’t teaching that in Azmeer, was this something you learned during that ridiculous Courting?”
“Ridiculous Courting?” I found myself repeating her. My shock at her candor and the blatant disregard for something she had helped build.
“Of course the Courting is ridiculous. Who is to say who should be able to wield magic, it’s an idea that they put into their heads. They’re conniving in that way.”
“Who is this they you keep referring to?”
“Chaos.”
“Would you please,” I stopped in the sand, arms falling towards my sides, “please just explain this to me as someone who doesn’t know who you are.
Who has never met you, has no idea why they were pushed down a fucking well by some madman wearing the most heinous robes in existence, and is being marched likely to her death.
You say I’m here for a reason. What reason could possibly mean having to endure this? ”
Her expression was muted, and I internally chastised myself for my brazen speech. “I’m sorry.” I rubbed my hand over my face. “I have never been able to control my temper.”
Hild, to my surprise, laughed. A deep, rich, full-bodied laugh. One that I couldn’t help but emulate in return. To an outsider, we looked crazed. Two women, one a god, standing on a beach in a realm that made little sense, laughing to themselves about nothing.
“Ah, there it is,” Hild said as she wiped away the tears that had rolled down her cheeks.
“There what is?” I asked, mimicking the motion.
“Your signature trait. You’ve never been able to hold your tongue. I swear, the first time I met you, I thought Dusk would have killed you for it, but really, it’s what you’ve held on to most of all.”
Held onto? She really does believe she knows me…
“I do know you.” She gestured me forward, “We Celestials, the Primals to you and to everyone currently living on Eldara, were created in Dawn’s image.
She had round ears. However, when the world settled, she found herself growing restless.
Dawn decided that a few more children would do little to disrupt the balance.
” She picked up a starfish that had washed up on the beach and tossed it back into the water.
“She started with the Fae, the Nymphs came next, and the humans last. As much as she tried to emulate her first children, each creation was different. To everything there must be balance. So while Dawn gave the Fae long lives, Dusk ensured they could easily be killed. Nymphs, a longer life than some, but harder to kill. But the humans, the humans compared to the others, were frail, their lifespans short. It did not take much to kill them. When Dawn eventually questioned Dusk on this very aspect he said it was the nature of things. That the world itself required balance. But even within their shorter lives, humans lived, they loved, they cherished the world in a way that many did not.”
“But if the Fae and the Nymphs were more of a balance to each other, who did the humans balance?” I found myself asking.
“Us,” Hild said as she smiled, lost in yet another memory.
“Seems unfair.” Shells lined the beach, some empty while others with legs crawled back toward the water.
“You’re right, of course,” she said.
“How did Chaos factor into all of this?” I questioned. Perhaps my reason was to learn to be more patient, more attentive, more studious, more… Brida.
“Chaos refused to leave Eldara, desperate to reclaim what had been theirs. All the while watching the creations of Dawn and Dusk. While the two were cordial, they had remained unconnected. Similar in origin, opposites in their nature.”
Above us a glowing ball of white twirled, stars orbiting around it. It glistened and shone like the thousands of diamonds that shimmer in the light upon snow. It danced through the sky, streaks of light chasing it before it too disappeared into the night.
“Chaos used magic to bind Dusk and Dawn together. They believed it would be a punishment for life and death to be bound to one another. Their souls linked—ensuring they would not be at their full strength without the other.”
“How?”
“Chaos gave part of its soul to the Pool of Vitality to ensure it. It was the first of many such deals, giving more and more of themselves each time. Eventually, their magic became so weak that Chaos could not contain themselves to a singular form. Constantly changing, one moment a child, the next appearing older than time itself. In their youth, Chaos had changed their appearance at will, and it was a trick that fooled many of us—never knowing what to expect. But, when they could no longer contain it, no longer control it, that was when the problems started.”
The waves of the sea grew louder, like drums beating in the distance. Their echoes called to my heart, guiding me in an inexplicable way. We were getting close. To what, I remained unsure.
Be patient.
We stood in front of a hill. The first we’d encountered in this realm.
Hild smiled. “These are the Sands of Dusk. Only a few may walk here.” She said before taking her first step. With that first step, the earth trembled. From the ground to the sky, reality wavered, deciding if she would be granted access.
“You’re next.” She offered me her hand. “I promise, it will be fine.”
Pausing, I turned to look behind me. I could run.
Search for any exit, any, to free me from this place, to pull me back to what was familiar.
But is that what I want? Thalius and Rai.
They were both waiting for me. And I had no further means of defending myself.
My magic had yet to assert itself. “A late bloomer,” my mother would have said, or “a guppy fish, never a shark.” My father would have remarked.
Keep going. My reason is within reach. Answers await me.
Mimicking her step, I waited. For a moment, nothing happened, but then the ground shook. Sand popped into the air with each tremble of the earth. Shifting like snakes in the grass, the sand slithered until a pathway revealed itself.
“See,” she said. “All will be well.” Before placing a hand on my shoulder, guiding me once more.
“So, what happened?” I inhaled deeply. The air had changed here, stilled. No longer was it filled with the salt of the sea but something different, something I couldn’t place.
“Chaos became so feeble and weak that they were unable to leave their fortress, a place so hideous by rumor alone that the majority of us did not seek its whereabouts. I never even knew where to look, how they hid it from the rest of us remains something I still do not know.”
“If they were so weak, why didn’t Dawn and Dusk contain them? Whatever issues there were, would have been over, would they not?”
She mused. “Chaos’s inability to create their own children was something that nearly drove them to madness.
They were supposed to be equal to Dawn, and yet in this one thing, she had them beat.
They therefore went after the thing she loved most.” She turned to face me, offering the faintest of smiles, “Her children.”
Tilting my head backward, shooting stars traversed across the skies, dancing with themselves as if old friends reuniting on a celestial dance floor. I longed to be with them, to know the steps of this new song. To understand my place in it all.
“How did Chaos go after her children?” I forced myself to return to the conversation, paying attention to each step that I took.
“Chaos saw that the union between Dawn and Dusk was a happy pairing, something they did not expect, and played off of the envy it created in others.”
“The envy?” Acid churned in my gut. Jealousy, envy, it brought out the worst in people.
“You are mine,” Rai had said the first time he’d taken me.
His words burned into my skin—an invisible brand.
“No one will look at you or touch you when I am through with you. Do you understand? You belong to me.” His hand tightened, possessive.
“Perfect,” he murmured. “Now be a good girl… and don’t fight me. ”
“Dawn and Dusk had a beautiful relationship, one we all knew to be everlasting. Eternal, as they were. As they are. The only way to hurt them was through what they had built. While Chaos reviled them both, their true rival was Dawn.”
My breath grew ragged as the incline grew steeper, my steps more labored, each requiring more attention and effort.
“Chaos promised those who came to their side a mate. And it would be whatever mate they wished. You see, Celestials who matured enough knew that their mate, should they have one, would be the child of the parent from which they did not yield. If you were born of Dawn, your mate would be of Dusk. It had been a byproduct of Chaos’s magic.
Mates not only for Dusk and Dawn, but their children. ”
“Balance,” I said while trying to move my legs, each arduous to lift, weighed down by an invisible force.