Chapter 29
Thessa adjusts the stole on her shoulders, and her eyes glimmer under the light of the crystal chandeliers as she settles herself into an oratorical position and fixes her gaze on me. ‘I will tell you, The Rose, of the history of your people.
‘Once, one Goddess ruled over all. Aitara,’ Thessa begins. ‘She was life and death, creation and extinction, and she was alone. Alone in the great expanse of all. Alone and lonely. Which is why she brought into the world her six children.’ She looks around. ‘You know of the Goddess’s six children?’
‘We do,’ Magnus speaks for us all. ‘But please, tell us in your words.’
‘The mother created three daughter Gods and three son Gods. They were happy for a while, mother and her children. They were a family like others in many ways. They loved one another, but they also bickered, more and more over time. Just as she had grown tired of her own company, they craved more too, arguments turning to rivalries that threatened to tear their relationships apart. Which is why, before that could happen, they agreed to create some company. But while they agreed to man’s creation, each God had a different vision of what humanity should become.
The sister Gods loved one another well, and in deep harmony, they wanted to share and care for one people, a perfect balance of all three.
Niairah and Yordenrin wanted people fierce and true – warriors with powers of air and fire.
To balance that, Etta wanted to gift man the power of growth and healing.
And so the Morathkians were brought forth, and the daughter Goddesses’ powers shared among them.
‘Aitara herself wished for no secrets between men, and so she blessed the Torailians.
‘Then came the brother Gods. They had been in competition since the day of their creation, always battling to prove their greater intellect and understanding.
So similar in that way, yet so very, very different.
Mortidem revelled in creation. He made the v?tte, jotnar, and dire wolves.
He cared greatly for his irregular, unusual creations.
‘Oel believed logic and order were most important, and so he created the Issen and gave them control. Control over themselves and over ice and snow.
‘Sanrott saw such order as restraint – confinement – and fought against it, if only to place himself apart from his brothers. And so came the Sannings.’
At the name of her own people, Thessa’s gaze turns darker.
‘Under Sanrott’s guidance, we roamed the world, land and sea.
It is said that he gave us the gift of Raven Sight so that we could always search for the safest path home, but some also believe it was because he wished us to be a greater creation than those of his brothers, granting us both human and animal sight.
‘We were life, love, and freedom. Free-spirited, with magic unlike other men. Yet some grew weary of roving, and they made the Eastern Isles their home. They welcomed any and all to their lands, and with the influx of other cultures, they decided that all Gods were worthy and began to worship them all equally, as did the children of the daughter Gods.’
‘The people of the Eastern Isles are descended from the Sannings?’ Benny gapes.
Thessa inclines her head. ‘Indeed,’ she replies, drawing in a long breath before continuing.
We lean forward, hooked on every word. There is a magnetism to the way she speaks, a charisma to it. She holds us in the palm of her hand as the story of the Gods unfurls from her lips.
‘But as all the Gods’ creatures filled the world, Mother Aitara foresaw a problem: the world was only so big. It could not handle all of the different groups growing and multiplying in perpetuity. The Gods would need to step in.
‘The family met in a conclave. It was the first time they had all been together since the creation of their peoples, and immediately the bickering began among the sons, each trying to prove why their creations were the greatest.
‘When Aitara told them all of her concerns and proposed a way of preventing the inevitable from happening, her daughters immediately refused to assist, for they loved their people. They had done all they could to strengthen them and refused to be complicit in bringing about their end.
‘And so, to help return balance to the cycle of life, Aitara turned to her ever-bickering sons. Oel understood his mother’s logic in her wish for such a thing, yet he also knew that all three brothers desiring to do it their way would lead to chaos and disorder, so he, like his sisters, withdrew any offer of assistance.
This left the most competitive siblings, Sanrott and Mortidem, to vie for the position of God of Death.
‘They were almost feverish with their need to prove their superiority over the other and to take on a challenge they had never foreseen: balancing the magic of the world as it passed from life to death and back again.’
We are rapt and silent, all eyes on Thessa as she weaves her words around us as surely as if she has spelled us.
‘Mortidem, desperate to be given the chance, offered to forgo his creations to shoulder this new task, while Sanrott insisted that he did not need to give up his people, for they were the most gifted. In truth, he did not want to give up his people’s worship of him.
He thought he could continue to guide the Sannings while also controlling the flow of life, death, and magic.
He was eager to add that power to his own, for he sensed that whoever took on that role would be placed higher in their mother’s esteem.
‘The decision took countless cycles around the sun, and with each one, Aitara was pulled towards first one beloved son and then the other.
She saw the virtue in both and believed them both capable of the task, but she knew it was not a role they could take on together, not with the way they bickered and fought.
‘And all the time she was struggling to decide, each group continued to grow. The daughter Gods urged her to make a choice and threw their support behind their brother Mortidem. And so, still agonised, Aitara chose her youngest son to oversee death and the redistribution of power.
‘Yet Mortidem’s delight at being the chosen one was tinged with regret, as the God had no choice but to keep the promise he had made to his mother to abandon his people to take up this charge.
‘As he could no longer be with them, he increased their gifts.
The v?tte he gifted with illusion. To the jotnar, he gave an increase in size and strength.
To his dire wolves, he gifted intelligence and the ability to bond.
And for all, he sharpened their ability to kill, knowing it would see them in better stead, now that they no longer had a God to protect and guide them.
With his creatures thus strengthened, Mortidem took up his role of passing magic from one life to the next.
‘Rejected by his mother, Sanrott seethed, his indignation and fury growing year after year. Even centuries were not enough to quell his anger. Instead, the passage of time stoked the flames that raged within him, and slowly he withdrew from his family entirely.
‘And all the while, Mortidem’s creatures continued to thrive, and people’s numbers continued to grow. The humans reshaped the world to their needs. They chopped down trees, dammed rivers, and carved up the beauty of the earth to build their homes and palaces.
‘Sanrott watched on in disgust, his anger at his family growing so strong it began to supplant even the love he felt for his people. He moved his attention solely to the land and sea, trying to protect them from the poisons and pollution of men, but it did not stop the new temples rising from the stripped earth or prevent the trees and bushes from being harvested bare. In the future that Sanrott foresaw, the world would become nothing but a wasteland, ravaged to desolation by men. And so his love for his people faded entirely, so much so that any temples of his own he destroyed.’
Thessa continues, ‘Neither his fading love nor the destruction of his temples changed what Sanrott believed would come to pass, and he felt more drastic action was needed to protect the world from what they had created.
‘He knew his family would not agree, and so his approach needed to be subtle. The first stage of his plan was simply to make man weaker, and he began with his own people – the ones he was charged to protect.’ Her jaw works, clenching in visible anger.
I think of my Raven Sight, somehow gifted from my Sanning heritage despite the fact that the Sannings no longer have any magic. Etta, I realise. She said she would give me my requested gift and more besides.
Horror curls through my gut. The reason the Sannings have no magic…
‘Sanrott removed your people’s magic,’ I whisper.
Her chin dips in another nod. ‘We believe he planned on doing it to all the races, but the Sannings were the only ones he managed to strip before the Gods realised what he was doing and stepped in to stop him.’
My eyes slide closed. I know the pain of having your magic taken from you, the agony of feeling it ripped out of your body as if your soul itself is being torn in two.
The pain of being stripped is only half as bad as the emptiness that follows, the hollowness that fills your veins where magic should flow.
My body clenches at the memory. But to do it to a whole people?
All the Sannings? To be without your magic forevermore?
Generation after generation? It’s beyond cruel.
A dagger-like pain pierces behind my ribs for her. For all of them.
I open my eyes and look at Thessa. ‘How did they stop him?’ I ask. ‘The other Gods. What did they do?’
She shakes her head. ‘There were rumours, but all we know for certain was that he no longer answered our prayers.’
‘Was he killed?’ I wonder. ‘Killed by the other Gods? Is such a thing even possible?’
‘Maybe. Or bound somehow? It is said that even his own priests could not feel his presence any longer.’