“Could it...could it be poison?” the Queen asked, her high voice already aware of how ridiculous a thought it was.
“Couldn’t be,” Nepia said from outside the prison cell. She wrapped her long, webbed fingers over the ivory tusks in front of her. “There’s no poison potent enough to kill a god. That is a certainty we are all aware of.”
And then I dared speak.
“But...if Lady Helia is truly dead, why has she not disappeared?” I asked. “Once a god has died, so too goes its body. Instantly. The whole of the world knows of this fact.”
“Yes, you’re right, Lady Lillian,” the Skylord gasped. He slipped into deep thought as he stared down at his daughter. “This is strange. Very strange.”
“What if it’s...” The Queen looked up at Nepia, her eyes full of terror. “You don’t think...”
Nepia’s hands unwound from the ivory and she took a step back. Her skin turned a pale, ghostly blue, and the great fin on her head slowly flattened upon her head and neck. Wilting with fear.
Onyxia seemed to suddenly realize what her own words had suggested, and in a flash, she was against the walls of the prison. Afraid of catching whatever Helia might have? I wondered.
“That’s rubbish!” Othum blustered, still kneeling, holding his daughter’s body that much closer to him. “And I’ll hear no more suggestions of such things! That menace has long gone, we all know this.”
Still, Onyxia and Nepia kept their distance, looking upon Helia with fear. What could they possibly be so afraid of?
“What do we do now?” asked Nepia, her voice hailing from the corner of the chamber.
“We lock down the island is what we do,” said the Queen with a look of sudden anger. “No one leaves until this is solved. If someone somehow has made a poison this powerful, we must find out who before others fall victim. Or if it’s”—she swallowed—“then we’ll need to solve that just as well.”
“She didn’t deserve this,” said Othum, his wrinkled face scrunched up yet again to forewarn of more tears. “My poor, sweet Helia. Please, forgive us for this. Please, please forgive us.”
He cradled her and sobbed. I looked down at her feet, narrowing my eyes upon the blisters and calluses and burns that plagued her soles. I wondered what would have happened to her if she had not been slain there in that cell. How many years would she have been forced to walk through the pitch blackness of the Darklands? Had she been murdered...or had someone shown her mercy?
“What of her Throne?” I asked. “The Balance—can it take another hit like this?”
“She’s right,” Nepia agreed. “We already have two unattended Thrones.” Nepia’s skin turned a dark, worried sort of blue. “The Balance cannot afford to become any weaker. We could lose our foothold on this earth. In this war.”
“Calm yourself, Nepia,” said the Queen. She straightened herself and raised her chin. “It will be dealt with. But for now, we must not let anyone but the gods of this pantheon know what has happened. Does everyone understand?” She looked to the two guards standing against the chamber’s walls. “Does everyone understand?”
The guards nodded feverishly, the taller of the two doing so with more of a nervous nature, I noted. It stood out to me in that moment, though I could not say I knew why. Nepia turned her attention to the guards then.
“Soldier Thorn,” she told the taller, more nervous of the two. “You must go to Thoman. Instruct him to summon the shield over the island. As of now, Illyria is on lockdown. No one enters, no one leaves.”
Thorn nodded without hesitation. “Y-yes, Sea Queen,” he replied before rushing out of the chamber.
But as soon as he left, and my eyes once again fell upon Helia, a crackling sound began to play in my ears. It twitched and rattled in chaos at first, but when I tried to shake it from my hearing, a single voice broke through.
“Save me,” she spoke, her voice eerie and ghostly. So very like Helia’s.
Then came more. A jumbling of voices speaking all at once, desperate for my attention.
“Save us,” they said, sounding old and gravelly. “Can’t breathe. So dark. Can’t see. So dark. Can’t feel. Can’t feel. Can’t feel...”
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE THUNDER LORD
The Chancellor stared down from his bench, dissecting each of the gods before him as though he himself was the god. He had the gaze and heavy brow of a leader, that much was certain. Countless battles he’d led against Illyria, to fight for the City Under the Sun. And he was intelligent, too. Beyond even his two-hundred years, Illindria had told us. For not only was he the High Commander for the Solian army, but he also acted as the ambassador to the other Citadels, overseeing trade and the like.
“So this is the new Endari pantheon I’ve heard so much about?” he asked, sounding unimpressed.
Illindria cleared her throat. “Why, yes, Chancellor, it is. You remember my children, Solara and Spike, I’m sure?”
He studied them with displeasure. “How could I not? My people were less than pleased to have the offspring of an Illyrian living behind our walls. Still they distrust me for giving the Twins refuge.”
“The people of Sol are smart,” said Illindria. “For so many years they have watched the gods of Illyria rip their lands and lives to shreds. They are right to distrust.”
“So you understand the amount of pressure I’m under in even meeting with you?”
She nodded. “I do, Chancellor. But as you well know, I have always disagreed with the heinous acts committed by the Illyrians, and that in recent times, I’ve sought the reversal of such atrocities.”
He ran a hand through the end of his braided, golden beard. “Yes, I recall them fondly. But I must say, Illindria, erasing hundreds of years of starvation, battles, diseases—it will take more than just a few acts of kindness.”
“This is truth,” said Illindria, her nod a considerate one. “But a goddess must start somewhere, no?”
He paused in thought. “I’m listening...”
“I do not seek to have Sol and the other Citadels of the Humans forget what has been done to them,” said Illindria. “In fact, quite the opposite is true. The Illyrians do not wish the death of the human race. Because they need you. After all, what is a pantheon without a race to worship it?”
“I know this,” the Chancellor bristled. “I have sat upon this chair for two hundred years, watching the gods bear down upon us with heat and floods and disease. They want us weak. So weak that we buckle at the knee and return to worship as the slaves they see us to be.”
“Indeed,” said Illindria. She stepped forward, her face hopeful. “But what if another pantheon was to offer you service in exchange for worship?”
“Ah, there’s that word again: worship,” said the Chancellor. “You mentioned it a number of times in your letter to me. But there is a reason the humans relinquished themselves of Illyria’s chains. Give a king gold and he’ll only want more. And the same will always be said of a god and his desire for worship.”
“No wiser words have been spoken,” said Illindria, suddenly solemn. “But I am no king, Chancellor. I am a queen. As much as I understand the pain my family has caused you, without a benevolent pantheon to watch over you, the time of man will meet its end sooner than not. The humans need gods, as the gods need humans.”
The Chancellor clenched his jaw. “What do you truly know of a human’s needs?”
“I know that I am the Supreme Goddess of the Seasons,” said Illindria, her head held high. “And I know that in being so, I felt nothing but death creeping through your crops as soon as I entered your city. My ears have heard the cries of your underground wells as the last of its water dries up, as well. You are not in the company of the ignorant, Chancellor. Let us help you. And in turn, let Sol help my pantheon.”
“But your pantheon is so young,” said the Chancellor. He took his gaze away from her to consider the Guardians. “In more ways than one. Half of your gods appear to be only fourteen or so
.”
“Minor details, Chancellor,” she assured him sweetly. “We are a young pantheon, yes. But already we have two gods of the earth, one of the sky, one of the seasons, and in time, Lord K’thas here will once again sit upon his Throne in the Darklands and command those whom Illyria has killed to seek their vengeance. All we need is a race to empower us. All we need...are Thrones.”
The Chancellor paused, and suddenly threw his head back with a laugh. “Thrones? You’d have us make you Thrones?”
She gritted her teeth. Men and their pious cackles, I could imagine her saying. “No pantheon of true power can exist without them. We’d need their might and the human worship that builds them to make our mark upon this earth, to show Illyria what fear truly is. Gods and humans have been striking deals since the Beginning. But the gods forgot themselves and that without the humans they cannot survive. I have not forgotten. And so here stands a new pantheon willing to offer you its protection and power...for a cost.”
The Chancellor considered her words, his cheeks twitching as he chewed on the inside of his mouth.
“But,” Illindria said, before he could speak, “for now, if it makes you feel any better, I am willing to request only one Throne. For me, Empress of the Endari. And as further incentive, while my Throne is being built, the Guardians will offer complete and utter servitude until its construction is complete.”
“Gods as servants?” said the Chancellor, his face twisted into a confused knot.
“To lift your city from its dismal existence, yes,” said Illindria. “The three Guardians standing before you are among the only ones capable of rescuing your city from the grips of the hungry desert.”
The Chancellor regarded us with suspicion. “I am aware of the destruction the Guardians could and have offered to our cities in the past.”
“Ah, but the Guardians have always had a softer side,” said Illindria with a sly grin. She played with one of the diamonds hanging from the branches growing out of her shoulders. “Might we show you?”
He hesitated, trading glances with his guards, before answering: “Make it quick.”
Illindria and K’thas bowed and took five steps back, leaving me in a line with the Twins.
“My son, Spike, is the Guardian of the Earth, the Earth Shaker,” she explained from behind. “He has a mastery over stone and rock unmatched by any other god alive or dead.”
Spike stepped forward, bowed to the Chancellor, and with his elbows in, placed his fists on his waist. He clenched his jaw and focused ahead. Sand fell from the ceiling and the walls, and gathered with the grains that had already accumulated on the floor. With a hiss as though a thousand snakes had filled the room, the millions of grains of sand swept along the floor, blowing wildly about in the space before the Chancellor. He remained plastered to his chair as the whirlwind of sands rotated before him. But with the stomp of Spike’s foot, the sand snapped inward all at once, compacting in only a second, no grain left a stray. In the whirlwind’s wake stood a mighty statue of sandstone.
A statue of the Chancellor.
“As you can see, Spike’s Earth Mastery is so grand,” said Illindria, smile now so proud beneath her veil, “no grain of sand in this city will go unused. With the Earth Shaker at your side, no longer will your city be clouded by dust and sand, no longer will your buildings wilt to the ground, drawn down by age.”
The Chancellor stood and walked down the ramp. He stopped at the statue molded exactly in his like and ran his hand over the smooth surface of its face. He felt the bridge of his statue’s nose and pressed lightly on its cheeks.
“Impressive,” he noted. “But you could’ve lost a few of these wrinkles, Earth Shaker.”
“Apologies, Chancellor,” said Spike, looking to the floor.
“Yes, many apologies,” Illindria said quickly, eyeing Spike.
The Chancellor stepped away from his statue and returned to his bench atop the ramp. “All right. Who’s next?”
Spike waved his hand and the statue slid to the side of the room, the sound of grinding stone rumbling through the room.
“Solara, the Light Bringer, is the Guardian of Life,” said Illindria, as Solara stepped forward and bowed to the Chancellor. “Although Solara is widely considered to be a mainly offensive Guardian, with her Insect Control making her nearly invincible in battle, her uses to your city are high in number.”
Solara crouched down on one knee and held out her hand, palm upturned. She closed her eyes, looking peaceful for a brief moment. The skin of her hand dried before my eyes, flaking off and crawling toward the tips of her fingers. It continued to shed, gathering more and more at her fingertips, until it hardened, and in between them was a single tiny seed. She placed it in a crack in the stone floor, leaned down, and blew gently onto it. In an instant, a small root snaked its way out of the seed and across the floor, erupting out of the stone beside the Chancellor. He leaned away on his bench, watching with concern as the root thickened into a small trunk, and continued to grow, higher and higher. It stopped just above the Chancellor’s head, before one branch extended out to him. From its fingers bloomed a flower, and from the flower grew a pear.
The Chancellor gazed upon the fruit like a hungry child. But he held himself back.
He looked back at one of his guards and said, “Taste it.”
The guard nodded without hesitation and approached. He plucked the pear from the branch and bit. The Chancellor watched the guard chew and swallow as he himself chewed nervously and excitedly on his lip.
They waited. We waited. Until finally the guard looked to the Chancellor and nodded his approval.
“It’s safe.”
“Give it here, then!” he snapped, snatching the fruit out of the guard’s hand and biting into it. The juices of the pear slicked his lips and ran down his chin.
“We’d heard pears were your favorite, Great Chancellor,” said Solara, “so I made sure to perfect the growing of that particular fruit before my arrival.”
“Th-they are,” he replied. “And this one is...this one is the best I’ve ever tasted! Not that I could remember the last one I’d had.”
Solara smiled, so pleased with herself.
“Solara’s numerous abilities in Plant Generation would greatly benefit your soil,” said Illindria. “That means fresh, healthy crops and a reliable harvest. Enough to sustain a larger population, which means fielding more troops, more scientists, more workers. It could mean everything and more for Sol.”
The Chancellor considered the pear in his hand, a bit of it clinging to his upper lip. He looked so enticed by the idea now, but there was still resistance in his eyes.
He turned to us, composed once again, despite the bit of pear still above his lip. “And this one?” he asked, eyes now on me.
“Ionikus the Thunder Lord, is our Sky Guardian,” said Illindria, and immediately the Chancellor stiffened.
“The Sky Guardian?” he bristled. His eyes grew huge and watery, and his hands grew tight around the underside of the bench he sat on.
Just then, I felt a small hand slide into mine, and in the corner of my eye, I saw Thornikus standing beside me. He was staring at the Chancellor with heavy eyes, exhausted by what he saw in the man.
“He is afraid,” Thornikus whispered. “And what does fear do?”
Gazing into the man’s eyes, I whispered, “It cripples.”
“My dear Chancellor,” Illindria’s voice broke through my thoughts, “i-is there something wrong?”
He stared at me, so hard and full of such fear. “How. Dare. You,” he spat through his teeth, each word harsher than the last.
“Might I ask what’s bothering you so?” Illindria asked, her tone as gentle as a mother with her angry child.
“How dare you bring that...that monster into my city!” he shouted, pointing at me as he rose from his bench.
My heart pounded in my chest as I felt the heat rise in the staves of the guards at the Chancellor’s side. I wanted to say I didn
’t know what it was about, wanted to seem oblivious. But I knew deep down. That fear in the Chancellor’s eyes...I had seen it all before in the eyes of Spike, Lillian, even my own sister.
“Chancellor,” Illindria snapped, bringing his attention back to her, “what is the meaning of this?”
“Two-hundred years ago, I watched that beast swallow the city of Manhattan in snow and rain and wind. I watched him rip my home to shreds, watched him freeze my mother and father beneath layers of ice. If I’d known you were bringing him here I would’ve had you shot dead outside the walls!”
“He thinks you are me,” said Thornikus at my side.
But he is aware of our reincarnations, I thought. All of the human world is, beside the naïve and gullible ones who call Eldanar home.
“Guards!” screamed the Chancellor. “Kill him! Kill him now!”
Their staves swept through the air, and from their pointed ends, shot beams of blue light. I leapt to the right as the columns struck the stone where I’d just stood. I rolled on my side, stopped on one knee, and with a single sweep of my hand, a gale of screaming wind whipped the guards across the room and into the nearest wall.
I stood, looking at the Chancellor, who took a frightened step back.
“Ionikus,” said Illindria, “you mustn’t—”
“Chancellor Mythborne,” I said. “I must apologize for the crimes I have committed in the past. Against your city, against your people, against you. I did horrible, dark things. Crimes that will weigh heavily on my mind until the end of my days. But as much responsibility as I take for my actions, I was only following orders. Commands given by the gods of Illyria, whom I now live only to see deposed, dethroned, and dead.”
He was quiet as he considered my words. He stumbled backward and sat on his bench. He looked even more like my father then, with his eyes all heavy with bad memories.
At my sides, I constricted my fists until the veins in my arms lifted beneath my skin. With a thought, I commanded the air of the room, my chin low as I focused on collecting what moisture there was in this dry desert air. The air around us grew heavy and humid, and beads of moisture accumulated on the surrounding walls. The skin of my arms once again tightened uncomfortably until my bones were revealed for the room to see and my veins were black as night. I released my fists, breathed inward, and with an exhale, the moisture was pulled from the walls. It bled upward into a white gaseous form until the entire ceiling was nothing but a blanket of clouds.