Dark Star

by Amy Sumida

  “Shut up!” I screamed. “Don't you dare talk about my children!”

  They're our children and you are so stretched thin that you can't even be a mother to them. Samantha is raising Lesya and Vero with their fathers, and a whole host of faerie nannies are helping Arach. Not you, lady. You show up for hugs and kisses and goodnight, Mommy, and that's it. You're an absent mother.

  “No, I'm not.”

  Yeah, girl, you are. But they all knew you'd be. They can't expect you to raise children and satisfy their rampant desires and save the world all at the same time. That's just ridiculous. They pushed you into having babies before you were ready. They can't expect you to be Mother of the Year.

  “I try my best,” I muttered. “It gets hard sometimes. It used to be just me and Nick but now...”

  Now, you got a palace full of cats, a bedroom full of lovers, and nurseries stacked on top of each other. Stacked! How much space do you have left up there? Soon the nurseries will go higher than the towers that border them. Vervain and her high-rise baby apartments. You're like the Von Trapp family. The Vervain Trap family. No, wait! Vervain Trapped by her family!

  “And Az is already hinting at wanting to try for Sebastian and Dominic,” I grumbled.

  Another layer to the nursery apartments and another set of twins. Twins! What did Grandma say about twins?

  “That she wouldn't wish that hell on anyone,” I whispered. “But it's not hell.”

  Yeah, we know what hell is, she agreed. But twin boys come close to being trapped in an ice cell with your worst fear.

  “And these will be angels,” I added.

  Which means that they'll both fly, just like Rian and Brevyn. One woman shouldn't have to give birth to two sets of flying boys!

  “No, I shouldn't!” I sat up angrily.

  We should be doing what we were born to do.

  “Yeah!” I crawled out of bed through the opening at the foot. “You're damn straight!” I punched the air with my finger but then went still and blinked with hesitation. “What are we born to do?”

  Rule the world, silly.

  “Oh,” I whispered as it all unfolded in my mind.

  With the power of my star open and able to fulfill my every wish, I could topple governments and conquer nations. I could end all wars, including the God War. I could make the world safe and then I'd never have to fight again. Then I could raise my children and love my men and not stress about other gods. So what if my star was turning purple? Purple is for royalty and it was time for me to rule.

  Now, you're starting to see the possibilities.

  “How does one go about taking over the world?” I mused.

  Why don't you just wish for it and see what happens?

  “Where's the fun in that?” I smiled wickedly, and the voice in my head started laughing.

  Chapter Six

  I woke on the couch in the morning, my laptop open on the low, brass-plate coffee table and scribbled sheets of paper covering me like snowflakes.

  “What the hell?” I muttered as I sat up and sent the paper sluicing to the floor. I sat amid the debris for a moment and then picked a sheet up and read it, “Queendoms of the Ancient World.” I tossed it on the table and picked up another handful. “Where did Rome go wrong?” I flipped through the pile. “How to rule the world. Tiamat; Dragon, Goddess, and Witch—we're fucking soulmates! Follow her lead. When Tiamat waged war on the other gods, the first thing she did was gather allies.” I dropped the pages in horror. “Cinderella's slippers, Vervain! What the hell happened last night?”

  We decided to rule the world. Don't act as if you don't remember.

  “Get out of my head!” I screeched as I stood, crunching tyrannical study notes beneath my feet. “I don't know who you are, but you aren't me.”

  Okay, fine, the voice huffed. I'm the Trinity Star. You happy? That make you feel better about talking to yourself?

  I fell back on the couch. “No. I'm not happy. You can't be talking to me; you're my magic.”

  Stars talk all the time. Usually, only other stars listen, but it looks as if I can do whatever I want now.

  “Can you?” I asked skeptically as I narrowed my eyes at the air before me.

  Okay, no, not exactly, she grumbled. I need you to direct me—focus my light, if you will—but my power has been released by Fate. We aren't restricted anymore!

  “Released by Fate? What does that mean?”

  It means that Vainamoinen freed us! That rapist bastard actually gave us a gift when he pushed us away from his power.

  “So, Al was right; Vainamoinen's soul tainted you.”

  He says tainted, I say liberated.

  “Vainamoinen was evil,” I growled. “There's no spinning that.”

  Yeah, but he only touched us with a minuscule amount of it. We're just a little bit wicked. A teeny tiny bit naughty. That doesn't make us evil, just normal.

  “We are not normal. This is not normal.” I waved a hand around me to indicate our conversation and the state of my living room.

  Fair enough. She—it—giggled. Whatever. Fate doesn't control us anymore, Vervain. That evil freed us from destiny. Your path is now up to you. Walk wherever you want. Hell, cut down some bushes and make a new path. Explore the forest!

  “But Faerie told me once that my destiny can't be changed; too many people are tied to it. Only the way to it can be altered.”

  Faerie doesn't know everything. She didn't see this coming, did she?

  “She didn't seem to know what this was. So, no; I guess she didn't.”

  This is what you've always wanted, Vervain; to be free to make your own choices.

  “But what about the people I'm connected to? What about their destinies?”

  They're alive. We're not going back in time to change anything. They can choose their own fate too. Isn't that a good thing?

  “I suppose so.” I frowned.

  A strange lethargy crept over me. What was this feeling? Oh, wait; I knew what it was. I had felt it once before. Peace. I was relaxed. This is what it feels like to not worry about anything. Wow; it was nice. I took a deep breath and let it out with a smile, all of my muscles going liquid.

  Yes; it is nice, the Star agreed. Nothing pulling us in a direction we don't want to go, demanding things of us that we don't want to give. The future is now a blank book; a journal to write upon. And we get to write whatever the fuck we want!

  As she spoke, I grew more and more relaxed. I sank into an alpha state; that calm, meditative condition where the brain slows down and becomes more receptive, creative, and focused. It's the same powerful state I sink into when I cast a spell. But I wasn't trying to cast a spell. I didn't have to do that anymore. Everything was within my reach, even those things beyond the scope of my base magics. The Trinity Star was greater than the sum of its parts. With its connections to the Void and the Great Nine Magics, I could do anything.

  I had a sneaking suspicion that the star was controlling me instead of the other way around. I would have worried about that if I could have felt worried but all I felt was calm. Once that calm settled in, another emotion started to blossom within it. One that should have felt at odds with the calm but didn't; excitement. The wild rush of possibility. The realization that I could truly have whatever I wanted. I could feel the old me sinking beneath these rising emotions. I clutched at her as she plummeted, but I couldn't hold on. Too slippery. Too tired. She wanted to lie at the bottom of the lake of our soul and just sleep. I needed to let her sleep.

  So, what do you say? Star asked once the old me slumbered.

  “I say; I want some breakfast. Eggs Benedict with crispy hashbrowns and coffee. It's been awhile since I've had coffee. I've been drinking a lot of tea lately, and I'm tired of it. I want coffee with lots of cream and sugar. In fact, make it a latte.”

  One latte coming up!

  Breakfast appeared on the table before me; hot and fragrant. I gathered up my notes and stacked them neatly aside, moved my laptop to
the far end of the table, and then started to eat. My laptop woke up when I moved it and showed me a frozen picture of a dragon; a YouTube video. I lifted my brows in interest and hit Play.

  The story of Tiamat, Babylonian Goddess, started to unfold. I watched in rapt fascination as I enjoyed every mouthful of my breakfast. It was a hell of a story. An inspirational tale.

  The collected Pantheon of Mesopotamian Gods is a little jumbled, with gods having multiple names depending on the region and century, sort of like the Egyptians. To add to the confusion, the Pantheon not only includes several regions and cultures but also spans several time periods. The oldest of these civilizations were the Sumerians from the Sumer region of Southern Mesopotamia. They were pretty badass; they invented writing—cuneiform, to be exact—and the wheel. Ever hear of the Epic of Gilgamesh? That's from Sumeria.

  Under the Mesopotamian umbrella are also Akkadian Gods, from the empire of the same name. They're a little younger than the Sumerians, and they ruled what is now Syria and Lebanon. Then there are the Gods of the Assyrian Empire, once a part of the Akkadian Empire. They ruled from Egypt and Cyprus in the West all the way to Persia—modern-day Iran—in the East. Finally, we have the Babylonian Gods. Babylon was a minor city-state until this guy named Hammurabi freed it from foreign rule and then went on to conquer the whole of Southern Mesopotamia. If you've been paying attention and happen to know your Middle Eastern geography (which I didn't until I watched the documentary), you'll realize that we've just circled back to what was once Sumer. And all of these civilizations were very generous with sharing their gods.

  Phew; talk about confusing. To make things easier, we're just going to call them all Mesopotamian. As in a big Mess-o-potamian Pantheon.

  Reminiscent of the Greek Pantheon, the Mesopotamian Pantheon started with creator gods. Well, there had been a couple of disembodied deities first but then Tiamat and Apsu showed up. Tiamat was the strong one of the couple; both good and bad, creator and destroyer. She could shift into a dragon and cast amazing spells. The myths say that she gave birth to poisonous dragons and other monsters; Demons. But then the younger gods came along and killed her husband. The bastards.

  As any grieving widow would do, Tiamat tried to avenge her husband. She raised an army of monsters and Star Gods. Hmm... Star Gods and monsters; that sounded right up my alley. No wonder I'd made a note of her. Tiamat got herself a new husband too—this guy called Kingu—and she put him in charge of her army. Not only that, she cast her spells over Kingu and gave him her most treasured possession; the Tablet of Destinies.

  Duhn-duhn-duh! The Tablet of Destinies, the Star intoned dramatically. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

  “Is it real?”

  Of course, it's real.

  “What happened to it?”

  Just watch the video, Vervain.

  “Fine,” I huffed.

  The documentary went on to say that no one knew what, exactly, the Tablet of Destinies was. Some call it the Babylonian Book of Fate, others say that with it, a god's every command became fact. One thing that all of the myths agree on is that whoever holds the Tablet of Destinies is said to rule the Universe.

  “I want that tablet,” I whispered covetously.

  Unfortunately, that's not something I can give you.

  “What do you mean?” I hit Pause on the video so I didn't miss anything. “I thought you weren't restricted anymore? I thought I could have whatever I want?”

  I'm not restricted but that tablet is a magical artifact; it has wards protecting it and one of the primary things it's protected from is magical theft. You have to physically claim it if you want it. That's the point. If you're strong enough to wrest it from the hands of its current owner then you're fit to rule. But forget the tablet for now; I can do the same things for you that it can. We don't need it.

  “Then why'd you bring it up?”

  I just thought it sounded cool.

  “I'm waving the bullshit flag, Star. You want me to go after the tablet, don't you?”

  Finish your breakfast and the video first then we'll talk about what I think you should do. One thing at a time, Vervain.

  I sighed and hit Play. The story of Tiamat continued. She attached the Tablet of Destinies to her new husband's chest and sent him forth into battle. Unfortunately, that didn't work out so well for them. This jerk called Marduk killed Tiamat's new husband—that poor woman; two husbands dead, one after the other—and then stole the tablet. Marduk went on to kill Tiamat as well. That asshole butchered Tiamat, slicing her up into pieces and tossing her around as if she were some horror movie monster who might pull herself back together and rise from the dead. After his Tiamat-scattering party, Marduk set himself up as King of the Gods.

  “What a dick,” I muttered around a bite of hashbrowns.

  Totally. He doesn't deserve that tablet.

  “He still has it?”

  Yep.

  “But you said that we don't need it.”

  Think of it as a piece of jewelry, Star suggested. It's not about need; it's about want. It's shiny and priceless and everyone wants it. Having that tablet will strengthen your position once you rule the world. But if you leave it out there, Marduk could use it as proof of his right to rule. It's something for him to rally the Gods behind.

  “Rally his troops to kill another dragon,” I muttered.

  It's kind of his thing.

  “Okay. New plan; breakfast, shower, kickass clothes, and then we go to rally our army.”

  Rally or create?

  “I don't have to create an army, I already have two of them.”

  But Arach won't let you take his faeries to make war on Earth, she warned me.

  “No; he won't. So, that leaves—”

  The Intare.

  Chapter Seven

  “I wonder if I should tell Al?” I mused after I appeared in the dining hall at Pride Palace.

  I'd jumped in time again; back to the last moment I'd left the God Realm. It was early in the morning. When Arach and I had last left Pride Palace with the twins, we did so before everyone else had woken up. We didn't want a big scene with the children; it was better to have them say goodbye the night before and then leave in the morning when they were still sleepy. Also, it meant that I could return to Pride Palace before anyone could miss me. That worked out well for me now; it gave me some time to prepare.

  Al doesn't understand. I've blocked him.

  “You blocked Al?” I asked in surprise.

  No one wants to hear his whining. It's not conducive to world domination.

  I chuckled. “Fair enough.”

  I headed into the kitchen and went to start the coffee. We had an industrial-sized coffee maker to supply my lions with the vast amounts of caffeine they consumed daily. I filled it with water and grounds and set it to brewing. I could have made coffee with a thought, but I needed something to keep my hands busy while my mind went over what I wanted to say to the Pride. When there was enough for a cup, I poured myself a mug and took it out to the veranda to enjoy.

  The wooden planks of the veranda stretched across our moat, which was just runoff from the pool. It looked like a drawbridge set permanently down, with a set of stairs at the end that led out to an expanse of African-inspired grassland. Victorian furniture clustered to either side of the Palace's main doors, poised daintily upon Persian rugs. I chose a velvet settee and sat back amid the needlepoint pillows. The sun was just starting to rise and watching it cast its blushing rays over Pride territory triggered a profound emotion in me.

  “It's time for a new beginning,” I whispered.

  Just as the Fates said.

  “What was that?”

  Don't you remember? The Fates told you that change was coming for the Gods.

  “That's right,” I murmured. “They said it would be rough, as all change is, but good too.”

  They likely knew that you would bring that change.

  “You think so?”

  “Who are you t
alking to, Minn Elska?” Trevor asked sleepily as he joined me on the drawbridge/veranda.

  “Huh? Oh, myself.” I smiled as he sat beside me, Vero nestled in his arms, a bottle angled into our son's mouth.

  “Would you rather feed him?” Trevor offered.

  “Oh. Um...” I looked down at the baby, his soft, dark curls swirling over his little head, eyes closed as he ate. “No; I'm okay.”

  “You don't need to?” He looked pointedly at my breasts.

  “Actually.” I blinked in surprise. “No; I don't.”