by Bri Amari
Joycob, Nia's eldest, seemed angry beyond anything I had ever seen in him. If it were not for the way his hands firmly but gently held his youngest sister Neeama, I would compare him to a volcano moments from erupting.
At thirty-seven, Jaycob had moved on from his parents home and was mated to a beautiful Bajang lioness. They had yet to ask for children and I feared Joycub would not return to create them if he allowed his anger to make his choices. I could see what he intended to do and it could only end badly.
I pondered a way to put obstacles in his path and still appear nonchalant. I'd given much blatant praise to this family as it was.
I looked to the rest of Nia's offspring. Laylania, second oldest, held firm to her mothers hand on one side and her little sister Ninyan on the other. Both girl's eyes were ringed in red and their cheeks lined with the tracks of spilled tears.
Between the legs of the eldest family members clung three little boys. The spitting images of their Father. Venn's chocolate brown eyes were framed by their mother’s long black lashes. Their hair was a chestnut brown, like Venn but held their mother's thickness. Venn's high cheek bones and sharp features would forever live on through his sons, Liiam, Lyun and Veta.
With a heavy feeling in my chest I closed the image and let the family mourn in peace. Mother Gaia would care for him now. I knew my sister's ways and Venn would be happy in his afterlife.
I wandered around my dimension. Pondering how the humans could kill their rightful Voice in cold blood. If it were not for marrying Nia, Venn would have taken his father's spot on the council of Voices and he and his wife could have done wonders for the races integration. I knew I couldn't let this continue. But how did you coral all of the people who do not wish to follow your rule in their heart and punish them without taking away their free will?
I felt like a tyrant. I couldn't punish Gaia's original children in the way I felt like I should. The Deity I hated most because of the way he controlled his world was starting to look more and more similar and it made my non-existent blood boil.
I wished to rain fire down on the human settlements. How could they be so ungrateful for everything I had done for them? Everything the races I brought to their world had done for them? They would still be in their Dark Ages if it were not for us.
I needed to kill something. Something that would come back to be killed again.
I dissolved into my patrons Pantheon. His brother had a list of those who deserved more than the punishments they were doled out and would receive them for as long as their souls held on. He was an asshole. But his brother was a charmer, I just had to remember. Do. Not. Drink. The. Wine.
*************************
Days had passed on Gaia by the time I had slated my thirst.
When I checked in on Nia to make sure everything was still peaceful beyond the grief I found her travelling alone. She was heading north with a sack around her neck in her shifted form, bounding at a pace that would suggest she was being chased.
I looked at her surroundings and felt for another soul in the area but there were none to be found. Without appearing myself I would never find out what happened unless I let the image of her go.
Reluctantly I closed the window and quickly brought up the days I'd missed.
I watched as it played by.
Nia walking her children to her home. Nia and Joycub arguing and her son taking Neeama with him. Nia travelling with her three sons to the home of a couple that had always been close to Nia. Nia hugging her three young sons with tears barely restrained in her eyes before leaving. Nia leaving the key to her home with Laylania and Ninyan.
I searched out the more detailed information of each image. I could not understand what I was seeing.
Nia asked Joycub to take Neeama with him, to live with him and his mate. He agreed but would not promise his mother he would be around to raise her. As I had found before he intended to exact revenge in his father's name.
Nia had left her three youngest sons with the couple closest to her to raise. I remembered they had been barren since their first failed pregnancy and realized then Nia intended to leave for good.
I closed the past and found Nia again.
Reaching into her mind I invaded her thoughts in a way I avoided at all cost but I needed this information.
Nia had heard of an important couple in the North that were looking for a nanny for their son. It tore her apart to leave her children to work for another but looking into their faces each day and seeing their father was tearing her apart. I felt she would never love again and I felt the physical manifestation of her pain run through me. It was unbearable. She figured she would disappear, change her name and start over. Her heart was shattered into so many pieces I knew she was running to try and numb the pain. I knew who she was heading to as well. She would do well there, she would find peace in her days to come. But just as I would never be done with Nia, I knew Nia could never be done with her children. She would have her happiness again if it was the last thing I ever did.
Chapter 12
945 years after creation...
Llyr's son had been giving me trouble ever since he was old enough to make mist. The Voice of the leviathans still sat on his seat, his son coming late in his life, after his time in punishment was long over. But Shay was fifty now and his mischievousness I used to find endearing was now causing such a wave in the sea of Gaian life.
Currently he was arguing with his father over the Drakon and their endless need to enter the sea for food or play. He felt their disruptions offensive and a risk to their secluded home. No other race had been able to dive to the depths of the Leviathan strong hold, until now.
I saw no issue with the Leviathans and the Drakon sharing the sea. The Leviathan people had gotten comfortable in their solitude but they were going to have to learn to share.
Listening in on the two Leviathan men arguing I collected that Shay had already put together an army of his kind that felt the same way.
This news surprised me. I couldn't have imagined that so many had gathered together without my notice.
“Son you have no right to do this. I swear if you move on the Drakon you will incur the wrath of the Goddess. Believe me son this is not what you want.” Llŷr pleaded.
“Father you must let go of your fear. The Goddess does not concern herself with us ants. Your stories stopped working with me long ago, old man. I do not believe them anymore.” Shay replied.
“Then that is your downfall, Son. Fine. Do as you will. You will not have my support, I will denounce association with this plan of yours. If you get yourself killed it will be your own fault, I am sick of fighting with you over this Shay. You're as thick headed as your mother!”
Shay spun in place and swam away from his father's throne room.
I was it, there was no one for me to pray too. So I closed my eyes and told myself I would fix this somehow.
***********************
Shay had made his move on the Drakon. The Urisk had stood beside the creatures on the front lines of the shores of the Ancient Forests edges. In the last month of battles I'd lost many children on both sides and the King of the Drakon had reported five losses of his immortal people.
I couldn't fix it.
I'd tried.
But today the fighting had stopped.
An Urisk and Drakon pairing came together in a way they hadn't been able to before and it had ended the unrest.
Dranen, an ancestor of the first Urisk voice had joined forces with Janty'alic-ana, a lilac purple Drakon female and together they had brought down Shay. After watching their leader fall most of his followers had made for the sea.
Llŷr would deal with them and if he didn't he would no longer have a seat on the Voices. No leader would condone their actions above the water's surface if they wanted to be blissfully away from my wrath.
I watched as the Drakon and her rider were rewarded by both the ancient creatures of earth and the Voice of the Urisk people.
/> The Drakon was presented with a torque of gold and sapphires while the people laid gifts of all kinds at Dranen's feet. The tall Urisk man looked to the beast beside him with the love a brother has when looking at his little sister and I knew that Dranen would always care for Janty'alic-ana and vice versa.
I felt just a little better knowing that these bonds were being forged between my children and the refugees of His earth.
This was the first time since then Drakon had arrived that the King Drakon had left my inner pocket paradise. He stood now in front of the pair and declared to all gathered. “Dranen, son of the Urisk people may your partnership with this bravest of Drakon always be fruitful and rewarding and may your days be blessed with victory. Your names shall forever be sung.”
The gathered creatures all raised their muzzles to the dusky sky and let loose towers of flame in different colors and the Urisk people surrounding the ceremony cheered.
Janty'alic-ana nudged Dranen causing him to stumble and laugh. The man placed his hand on Janty'alic-ana's neck and smiled.
I closed the viewing window, my face mirroring his.
There was some good in Gaia still.
Chapter 13
985 years after creation...
It seemed a blink of an eye since I saw the coming together of the Drakon and the Urisk, although it had been thirty years to my children the passing of time was just so different between us.
Now was not a time to focus on joyous memories, however. I had plenty on my plate now and none of it good.
An Urisk boy was being mourned on this day. A Succubus had gotten so carried away she had not stopped feeding in time and now there were more rumours of war surfacing every day. He had been found in a picture of perfection. Not a silver hair out of place, not a blemish on his skin. He was merely dead and smiling.
The party that had found him had come to their own conclusions and they were not wrong. There was no way they could have come to any other explanation and the Succubus has been so careless. She could have hidden or buried the young Urisk man. She could have taken the punishment and confessed, although I know that would be a rare act for my sky children, to admit any fault.
I knew that the tension between the Urisk and the Incubi and Succubi was so thick that there was almost a physical wall of it between them. Of all my children I was most surprised that the Urisk were being so unforgiving and showing such a lack of understanding. They were the one's I could always depend on to be the better child and do what needed to be done to extinguish conflict.
I understood their outrage but was one man's life and one Succubi's mistake worth discord? War?
At the moment I was watching as Juno flew past that invisible wall of unrestrained anger and hate on his way to speak to the Urisk Voice.
I knew before I watched it unfold that he would not be victorious. The Urisk people were starting to isolate themselves, only leaving the Ancient Forest to trade with the humans. They would not see the potential of a world where we were all together. They had become afraid and I had allowed it to come to this. I had made them so they would not abuse their earthly elemental power; so they would not want to use it to hurt or to kill.
I felt like a failure.
I waited. I knew Juno would be turned away by the Urisk Voice. I also knew he would seek out Nia for guidance. I knew she could cheer me up with her faithful optimism. Even when there was no bright side she would always create one for Juno and in turn, for me.
Chapter 14
1025 years after creation...
The humans had found the bane of the Earth I had come from. I had dreaded this day. I had hoped it would never come. I knew it was going to be the nail in the coffin of my hopes for peace. My hopes of one day showing the Pantheon that I could take care of my own race; my own children.
Guns, ammunition, chemicals. Drugs. The turning point from bad to worse.
It started with the drug. They called it smash. The humans, they formulated it in their medicine rooms by their doctors. For the humans it merely put them in a state where they could be worked on. But, for my children; the children born of magic, it was an entirely different effect.
It soon became an addiction that overruled their common sense. Their vows of duty and honour was soon devoured and replaced with something much, much different than what I had created.
I did not know how much longer I could do this alone. Maybe I had been foolish thinking I could do this on my own. I'd had no trial and error, no learning curve. I had dove into this with an ego the size of a God, a God I had been disgusted by my whole existence.
Wars waged and death tolls rose. There was no way for me to keep up with the turmoil, to corral those who cause chaos. It was so random, so unpredictable even my magic was taxed to keep up. The lands were ravaged and many of Gaia's beautiful creatures were slaughtered to extinction. The Capalleisc, the Hedgeflumps, the Raincoos, almost all of their homelands had been ravaged and burned. There was no where left for them to feed, to live. Juno had saved what he could but there were so rarely times when the races cared about what he had to say anymore.
Gaia cried and her tears stained the lands. I could barely stand to look upon her. I knew what had to be done. I would interfere more than I ever had. I would do my best to allow Gaia to heal, to rebirth and to become great again.
The guns were and evolution I would not be able to erase or stop from happening. It will come back again and again. I knew there was nothing I could do about that.
I could not fix this in one wave for I would be punishing those who had always stayed loyal to me. But I could destroy everyone who had this drug in their systems. There was no cure. I had tried to cleanse them but something about the drug rooted itself in their very souls. I would destroy the drug, everywhere it was and anyone who had it.
I needed them to heal as well.
Or they would never find the lands beyond the seas, they would never find the world I'd created in the sky, or the majesty they could have been as one super race by integrating completely until there was no way to tell one's own race.
I had made a mistake.
I had no faith left.
Chapter 15
1030 years after creation...
I did what I could in the aftermath of the destruction of all my well laid plans and hard work. I had convinced each of my races of children to go to their proverbial corners. Efficiently constructing the Four Kingdoms of my children. They're minds had been cleared of all memories of the drug. I could not risk it. Some had succumbed to a sickness once they no longer hard it and they had perished. My heart felt like it was bleeding.
I had used up an insane amount of my magic on that day making sure the humans would not remember their cousins in any manner and creating boundaries of magic to keep everyone separated for a short period of time. Time for them to reflect on what their lives had become.
I had one plan left.
If this did not work I would abandon my children to their own devices. They had battered my trust, spit on my gifts, offended their Mother Earth and dissolved the last strain of my faith in them.
Before I took an extended nap in the ether, away from Gaia and my patron Pantheon I was going to leave a treasure in the world for the future. Hopefully one day when that treasure was born, I would come out of my sleep and root her on from afar.
I heightened my sense of the future and hid little touches of my magic around the Kingdoms where the magic would be soaked up by the only supernatural it was meant for. The Unifier.
She would be born of hybrid races and control all of the elements. I created a fail-safe not to control who she would love but to assure me that she would love someone who would be diversifying to the world. My Unifier would benefit from the powers I took of myself, if they would just believe in themselves they had the potential to do as I did. The Unifier would be a force to be reckoned with. If my children would not listen to a deity, maybe they would listen to one who was physically there in front of them wit
h all the same power as one.
Making sure I still had a champion when I awoke I bestowed a certain Queen of the Jungle with the gift of immortal life. I knew the world would be world changed when I woke and that one feeling of home would help the adjustment. I gave her soul guidance to be where she needed to be when our Savior would need her. If anyone could help my new found hope, it was Nia.
My sister Gaia assured me she would do what she could with the information I had shared about my plans. She assured me she would protect the people who needed it for my plans to be fruitful. I trusted my sister. We had started this together after all, we wanted our children to succeed. I had much less faith now, I had started to believe that our dream centuries ago may have been just that.
A dream.
I started allowing my form to turn into vapour and suspended myself within the ether, only to be awoken when all of the magic I had left behind had been claimed by the one who was meant to bring us to the place Gaia and I pictured in the beginning. The one who would give me faith again. I felt as the connection to my children was numbed and I was locked into a pocket of my own making.
I whispered to myself before the ability was gone.
“And here I will stay until the Unifier is born.”
To be continued...
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