I stepped through the camp the others had set up, past a bonfire Jasin had started, where fresh fish now roasted. My mates stirred as I strode past them but must have seen the serious expression on my face because none of them said a word. Doran was stretched out in front of the ocean, leaning back as he gazed up at the stars, his hands folded across his stomach. He looked up as I approached and his expression changed, as if he sensed that something had occurred, but he wasn’t sure exactly what.
I stopped in front of him and met his eyes. “Tell me about the Spirit Goddess.”
15
Kira
My father ran a hand over his beard, which was looking more rugged with each day that went by. “I’d planned to tell you about this once we reached the Water Temple, but I suppose now is as good a time as any. Sit down. This might take a while. And someone get me some ale.”
I sank onto the ground across from him, pulling my knees to my chest, while my mates gathered around. “Nysa told me she had to drain my life in order to contain the Spirit Goddess. What does that mean? Why would she need to contain her?”
Doran scrounged up a bottle of something dark from his pack and popped off the top of it. “I'll get to that, but I need to start at the beginning. The first thing you need to know is that the Spirit Goddess is really two entities: Life and Death. Twin sisters, two sides of the same coin, bound together as one.”
Auric grabbed his notebook and began furiously scribbling in it. “Why have we never heard of this before?”
“All records of this are long gone. Nysa made sure of that.” My father took a long swig of his alcohol before continuing. “Long before any of us were on this earth, the Spirit Goddess ruled with her four mates, the other Gods of Fire, Earth, Air, and Water. They created the elementals to represent each God and humans to represent the Goddess. But over the years the Death side of her became too strong and corrupted the Spirit Goddess. The balance of life and death shifted too far to one side. To stop the world from falling into darkness, the Gods broke up the two aspects of Life and Death, creating two separate Goddesses instead of one. The Death Goddess was banished to the Realm of the Dead, where she became its ruler, while the Life Goddess stayed here with her four mates. They created the Dragons to act as their representatives in the world, and to make sure that the Death Goddess could never return.”
“I thought the Dragons were created to keep the balance between elementals and humans,” Jasin said.
“That is one of their duties, yes. But they were also created to ensure that the Life Goddess had assistance in protecting the world from the Death Goddess. Kira you are actually a descendant of the Life Goddess, as were all the other female Dragons before you.”
That would explain why the bone cage harmed me the way it did, but not why my mother was immune to it. “What about Nysa?”
“I'm getting to that.” Doran scowled and stared at his bottle. “When Nysa turned twenty, she became a Dragon, like her mother. Back then she wasn’t dark or evil, not like you know her now.”
“What happened?” Slade asked.
He took another chug of his drink as he gazed into the fire. “Shortly after she became a Dragon, shades began appearing in our world in vast numbers, sucking the life from both elementals and humans alike. We learned later that they were the creation of the Death Goddess. She'd grown tired of living in the Realm of the Dead and jealous of her twin for having all four mates to herself. She sent the shades to attack us, and they fed her power with each life they took. Soon, she had enough power to leave the afterlife and return to our world. When she did, she brought death and darkness everywhere she went, and every time she took a life, she grew stronger. And with the Death Goddess gone, the way to the Realm of the Dead closed, trapping all fallen souls between the two worlds. No one has been able to find peace since then.”
“Enva mentioned that,” I said, nodding.
Doran arched an eyebrow. “How do you know of her?”
“She comes to visit me sometimes.”
“Does she? Interesting.” His eyes turned haunted, the firelight flickering in his eyes. “Yes, the Death Goddess’s arrival changed everything. The Life Goddess fought her twin sister, but their battle nearly tore the entire world apart. The Death Goddess had become too powerful from all the lives she had stolen. As a last resort, we worked with the Gods to bind the two Goddesses together again, but all it did was create a dark, twisted Spirit Goddess who began to devour all life with an insatiable hunger. We realized we’d made a terrible mistake, but the other Gods refused to help us separate them again. The Spirit Goddess was their mate, their queen, their leader, and they had to obey her. So we decided all the Gods had to be stopped, for the sake of the world.”
“How do you stop a God?” Reven asked.
“It’s not easy.” Doran drained the last of his bottle and tossed it aside. “We imprisoned all the Gods in their temples, one by one, using the element that is their opposite. Fire versus water, earth versus air, you get the idea. Once they were gone the Spirit Goddess was weakened and we tried to imprison her in the Spirit Temple, but we failed. She was too strong, even then. But Nysa found a way to cage the Spirit Goddess...by trapping her within her own body.”
I gasped. “The Spirit Goddess is inside Nysa?”
“She is. It was the only way to stop her, although we didn’t realize the consequences of doing such a thing.” His jaw clenched. “Nysa fought against the Death Goddess's darkness for years, but eventually she succumbed to it and became the Black Dragon. She still maintains some control, which is how she keeps the Spirit Goddess contained, but she’s become twisted…and incredibly powerful. She controls both life and death magic, along with all the elements, making her nearly unstoppable. With a single touch, she can drain a person's life, and her body heals itself immediately. That’s on the rare occasions she is injured at all, since she’s immune to all five elements.”
I dug my toes into the sand, taking in everything he’d said. It was a lot to absorb, and it made our task seem even more daunting. “Is it even possible to defeat Nysa? And if we do, what will happen?”
“It’s possible but won’t be easy. And if Nysa dies, the Spirit Goddess will be unleashed upon the world again. This is why she started sacrificing her own children…and why we reluctantly went along with it.”
“I don’t see how any of you could agree to that,” Slade said with disgust, echoing my own thoughts.
“No, because you didn’t see how bad it was when the Spirit Goddess was free. She would have wiped out all life on this world within months. If we let her continue, this would be a second Realm of the Dead under her rule.” Doran pinched the bridge of his nose. “Nysa was desperate to keep the Spirit Goddess contained, and she tried draining humans, elementals, and shades, but none of it extended her life. But then she had a daughter, continuing the Dragon cycle. The magic within the child was strong enough to keep Nysa—and by extension the rest of us—alive for another thirty years, when she could have another child.” He shuddered a little. “It was horrible, but we told ourselves it was one life taken in exchange for millions saved. We didn't realize what the toll would be on our own souls.”
“And yet you kept doing it,” Jasin growled. “For hundreds of years.”
My father dropped his head. “We had no other choice. Until Kira and her twin sister were born.”
“Why were we different?” I asked.
Doran’s eyes rested on me again. “All of our daughters were born with both life and death magic inside them, except for the two of you. Your magic was split, with Kira having life magic, and Sora having death magic. I thought it was a sign that the Spirit Goddess could be divided again, and our mistakes could finally be undone.” He clenched his fists in the sand. “After I got Kira to safety, I released the Fire God from his prison. I was the only one who could do it, since I’d been the one who put him there. Once the Fire God was freed, he helped me release the other Gods one by one in secret, so that t
hey could choose Dragons for Kira’s mates when her twentieth birthday arrived.”
Silence settled over the group as we took in everything he’d said. His story explained so much about my past and about why Nysa did so many horrible things, but I didn’t feel any relief now that I knew the truth.
Finally, I asked, “How are we supposed to stop the Spirit Goddess?”
“That I don't know,” Doran said. “All I know is that this horrible cycle can't continue. We thought we were saving the world, and maybe we did for a short time, but now I fear we've made it even worse.”
“Would the Gods be able to divide the Spirit Goddess into two halves again?” Auric asked.
Doran shrugged. “They have the ability, and that was the deal when I freed them. Will they hold up their end of the bargain? Who knows.”
“Then we can't trust them either,” Reven said.
“I agree,” Doran said. “But right now, we need to focus on defeating Nysa. Otherwise, we won't have to worry about any of that.”
Everyone’s faces were grim as we prepared for bed. My mates asked me if I was all right, but I didn’t know what to say. Doran’s words had shaken all of us, making us realize the task ahead of us was much more daunting than we’d realized, and the price of our failure was even higher than we’d imagined.
As I pulled my blanket around me, my eyes stared at the moonlit waves and tried to make sense of it all. We’d reach the Water Realm the next afternoon, thanks to Doran's relentless pace. I was torn between wanting to hurry as much as he did, and wondering if we should stay away, after what we'd learned. The longer we waited, the more chances the Dragons would find us or the new Water Temple first. The sooner we got to the Temple, the sooner I would have to face my mother. The Gods had told me it was my destiny to defeat her, but they hadn't told me everything. By defeating my mother, I would be unleashing something much worse on the world. How could I do that, without some plan to stop the Spirit Goddess?
I'd have to ask the Water God for advice when we spoke to him, except now I wondered if the Gods had been honest with us all along. They could be as twisted as the Goddess, manipulating us to do what they wanted—freeing her.
Things had once been so clear. The Gods were good. The Dragons were evil. Now I realized nothing was as simple as black and white. My mother had a reason for what she’d done, something she and the other Dragons had believed was right. The Gods had their own plans and their own reasons. Even Doran and Enva had motives that might be contrary to what I wanted. The only people I could trust were my mates. I knew in my core they would never betray me, and they would always steer me true. Everyone else wanted something from me. My life. My service. My power.
But I wasn't sure what I wanted anymore, or what the best action was for the entire world. For the first time since this all began, I wasn't certain of my path anymore.
16
Auric
The Water Realm was connected to the Earth Realm by a bit of land that jutted out in a peninsula, before splitting into hundreds of islands that made up of most of its territory. Doran was taking us on a long route to avoid running into the other Dragons, flying us over turquoise waters and islands with white sands and tall palm trees stretching into the sky.
We took a break at midday after hours of travel. Still in my dragon form, I stretched my wings and devoured some food to combat the aches and exhaustion of flying for days with people and supplies on my back, though I could tell I was getting stronger. Every day my endurance as a Dragon was building, as was my skill at flying. Now if only we could get Slade to fly too. He practiced every morning before we set off and could hover in the air for a few minutes, but anything more than that was still a problem. I wished I could help him in some way, but this was something he had to do on his own.
I spotted Kira standing by herself across the small island, gazing out at the clear blue water with troubled eyes. I trudged over to her and curled up around her with my large scaled body, giving us a hint of privacy from the others. “Are you all right?”
“I’m okay,” she said with a smile that looked forced. “Just thinking about what we learned last night.”
“It was a lot to take in. So much of what we thought we knew about the Gods was a lie.” I’d recorded everything Doran had told us in my journal, which was running out of pages at this point. Every time we spoke with him we learned something new, something which had been lost over time or removed from history purposefully. The other Dragons had kept people living in ignorance and fear, with knowledge restricted to the few. That would not be our legacy.
Kira sighed. “I’m not sure we can trust anything the Gods tell us, and I have no idea what to do about Nysa now. We have to defeat her, but I worry that doing so will only make things worse. And although I still hate her, I understand why she became the person she is now. She thought she was doing what was best for the world but made some bad choices that led her down a dark path. Who’s to say we won’t do the same?”
I wrapped a golden wing around her. “We’ll figure it out. I have faith in you, and we’ll be with you through all of it.”
She ran her hand along my scales slowly. “Thanks. I couldn’t do this without the four of you at my side.”
“Once we reach the Water Temple, I’ll talk to the priests and see if they have any old texts about the Gods. Perhaps we’ll find something useful.”
“Perhaps,” she replied, although she sounded doubtful. I didn’t have much hope either, but I had to try.
She leaned against my large side, gazing out at the water again. I wished I could shift back into my human form and hold her, but I still had all the supplies strapped to my back, and we would be leaving soon. Doran would grumble at us if we held the group up by even a minute.
“We’ll be at the Water Temple soon at this pace,” I said, trying to distract her from her dark thoughts. “Is Reven going to be ready?”
We’d all heard them arguing the night before we went to the Earth Temple, and Reven had never been very amenable to the idea of becoming a Dragon. But he’d also sacrificed himself to save Kira, so we knew he cared for her—even if he didn’t want to admit it to himself.
“I think so. Things with him have been…difficult.” Her eyes darted to Reven, who stood apart from everyone else, leaning against the palm trees with his arms crossed. As usual, his brooding face made him look like he would rather be anywhere else, unless you noticed that he was turned toward Kira. He always kept an eye on her, even though he tried to make it seem like he didn’t care.
I rubbed my head against her side. “I know he’ll come around when it’s time.”
“I wish I had your optimism.”
“It’s not optimism. I believe in you, and in your other mates.” I grinned, giving her a glimpse of my fangs. “And I don’t see how Reven could possibly resist you.”
She took my large, scaled head in her hands, then pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Thank you. I always feel better after we talk.”
Through our bond I did sense that her troubles had lifted slightly. They’d always be there, at least until all of this was over, but they no longer weighed her down quite so much. Good. If I could ease Kira’s burden or make her smile, I’d done my duty as her mate.
“Enough standing around,” Doran roared, as he flexed his wings. “Do you want to make it to the Water Temple before the Dragons find us? Then let’s get moving.”
The others grumbled at the shortness of our break while Kira rolled her eyes. I nudged her with my tail. “Come on, let’s join the others before your father yells at us again.”
“He can be quite annoying, can’t he?”
“Sometimes, but he’s just looking out for you.”
“Is he?” She cast a skeptical eye at him. “You’re the only one who seems to trust him.”
“I’m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. I truly think he wants to help us.” I flexed my talons and bared my fangs. “But if he turns against us, I’ll be ready.�
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17
Kira
We stopped that night at a small fishing village where everyone knew Doran and greeted him warmly—a reaction I'd never seen before. Most people cowered in fear from the Dragons, but he'd flown right into the village and had shifted in front of them. Instead of hiding, people had run out to say hello with smiles on their faces.
“I saved them from a group of elementals a few years ago,” Doran explained, as he led us to the small building that served as a tavern and inn for sailors.
“I thought we were supposed to be traveling in secret,” I said.
“Trust me, no one from this town will go running to the other Dragons, and it's such a small, inconsequential village none of them will bother coming here.”
I glanced across the town, with its wind-battered and sun-bleached buildings, some of which had straw roofs. Palm trees blew lazily overhead, and the air smelled of saltwater and fresh fish from the nearby harbor. Memories of my childhood, living in a place just like this, came rushing back. “This town reminds me of Tidefirth.”
“Does it?” Doran asked. “I suppose it is similar.”
“Is it possible to go back there?”
“No. Sark burned it down after you left, probably to punish me for making him spare your life. The entire village is little more than ash, along with all the people who once lived there.” He rested a hand on my shoulder briefly. “I’m sorry.”
Pain gripped my heart. Sark took all those innocent lives...and for what? Some petty rivalry between the two of them? Maybe he and Nysa had started out with good intentions, but they'd done many terrible things over the years too, which couldn’t be forgiven. They had to be stopped.
Ride The Wave: Her Elemental Dragons Book Four Page 7
