The Panagea Tales Box Set

by McKenzie Austin

  Ganther’s eyes darted across the letter as soon as he convinced himself to open it. The excitement on his face became more visible with each word he read. From the desk of Nordjan, signed and sealed for authenticity, and pressed with the wax seal of the Northern division. There it all was, everything he ever needed, authenticated on all counts, and written in bold black script.

  Edvard Addihein had poisoned his wife.

  Lowering the letter back into his lap, Ganther absorbed the details. He knew every family held skeletons, but he never took Edvard Addihein for a murderer. “Is this true?” he asked, though he already knew.

  Barron gestured to the document with a confident smirk. “Signed and sealed by the Northern Time Father, himself.”

  A slow bloom of suspicion rose in Ganther’s gut. His eyes flew to Barron, and he threatened him with his stare. “Nordjan and Edvard have held mutual respect for one another for decades. I know their current relationship lingers in icy neutrality, but how did you get him to cough up this information?”

  If Barron was offended at Ganther’s implication that he was a man of little importance, it did not show in his actions. Instead, Barron stretched, acclimating himself with his newfound fortune. “It was easy,” he said, “once I told him about what I saw in Western.”

  Ganther’s eyes narrowed. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “What did you see?”

  As a small method of torture, Barron lingered in silence for a moment. A devilish grin stretched his lips before he uttered his confession. “The elder Addihein is a goddess worshiper. I observed him for nearly a week.” The man issued a cruel laugh. “He prays to her, even has a shrine of sorts tucked away in that mansion of his. The man’s a gods-damned lunatic if you ask me.”

  Vile excitement glistened in Ganther’s eyes. It was everything he needed and more. “He killed his wife ... and betrayed all of his people who despise the gods ...” His words fell away with a quiet thrill. Beaming, he turned his attention to his informant. “You have earned your pay, Barron. Now, you must never speak of this again.”

  The man nodded, patting the place on his vest where his earnings hid. “You have bought my silence as well, my good sir.” He stood and tipped his hat. “A pleasure doing business.”

  Ganther rose to his feet as well, wiping away his former feelings of defeat. “The doorman will see you out. I hate to cut our quality time short,” he said, an air of confidence forming around him as he smoothed out his suit, “but I have pressing matters to which I must attend.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dead leaves made a lot of noise. As they swished about on the earth near Avigail’s feet, she absently wondered if the trees mourned the loss of them as people would. She wrinkled her nose at the thought. The idea of a graveyard sprawling across the forest floor as far as the eye could see was a morbid one.

  It was certainly the most beautiful collection of dead things she’d witnessed. The bodies the young woman had spied upon traversing Panagea into Northwestern’s borders almost mirrored the quantity of the fallen foliage. There was nothing beautiful about that. Avigail frowned at the memory. Gray, bloated corpses held no comparison to the leaves, she decided. Both were an assemblage of once-living things, yes, but the graveyard of flora had the added benefit of colors to make the deaths seem less vile.

  Brass, gold tones, flecks of greens and oranges wove through the leaves on the ground before her. The leaves did share one other thing in common with the horde of dead people she saw, however: both sported undeniable splotches of red.

  She shook her head, suddenly feeling alarmed at the macabre nature of her thoughts. Avigail thought, perhaps, if she shook it hard enough, she could clear the thoughts away. But did she want to rid her mind of them? Which thoughts did she wish to carry more? Unintentionally macabre thoughts about leaves, or the burning curiosity of who that man was? The mysterious figure, who stared at them in the forest, was never far from her thoughts.

  A sigh escaped her as she walked beside Itreus, soaring trees coming and going from sight as they passed by them. The silence gnawed at her. He had been quiet since they left that person behind.

  Avigail peered up at Itreus from beneath her uncombed hair. He wore a stable look of constant ambiguity. Always quiet, unless pressed. Too enigmatic for her sanity. If the rest of her search for Revi Houton was to match her experience with the God of the Lost thus far, she’d surely lose her mind.

  Caution prevented her from seeking more information about him in their early days. Still burdened by the dark whispers she had heard from the mouths of men, Avigail clung to a natural apprehension in Itreus’ presence. But she found herself wanting to know more. It was human nature, to crave companionship. Conversation.

  And if Itreus happened to fill her in on who the mysterious stranger was that they left behind them, then that was only a perk.

  The girl bit her lip. She tilted her head, trying to secure a better look at him. She’d start casually. “What’s it like to be a god?” she asked, her voice sounding unnatural in the otherwise placid environment.

  Itreus blinked as he continued walking. He adopted a look of contemplative thought before he raised a shoulder. “I do not know how to accurately describe it.”

  For one of the first times since they encountered one another, Avigail found herself smiling. Itreus seemed almost human in his inability to express himself; it was a refreshing parallel to the stoic god she’d come to know. “It’s easy,” she said, turning to look ahead once more. “What’s a typical day like for you? When you’re not helping people find lost things, I mean.” Her curiosity consumed her. “Do you feel pain? Do you eat? Sleep?”

  Itreus mulled over his reply as a ray of sunlight poked through the treetops. “I do not need nourishment in the form of calories or rest to sustain myself, no.”

  Avigail arched a brow. “And the pain part?”

  One of the god’s eyes closed halfway. His responses were slow. Languid. It was as if he needed to assess them in thorough completeness before he trusted their validity. “I didn’t think so.” He paused. “But I must ... on some level.”

  Avigail glanced down while walking. She found herself unsure what Itreus meant by his reply, but she’d grown accustomed to his enigmatic answers. The woman ran her tongue over her lips to moisten them but to no avail. They felt constantly dry these days.

  “What is it like,” Itreus asked, surprising her with his voice, “to be human?”

  A self-deprecating laugh left Avigail’s mouth. “Not great, in my experience.” She pulled her clothing tighter around her body and shifted her arms to hold her elbows. “There’s just ... a lot of unnecessary problems to deal with.”

  Itreus side-stepped a low branch, his movements fluid and graceful. Without looking at her, he asked, “What is it about them that makes them unnecessary?”

  Avigail pondered over the question, but not for long. She had nearly her entire life to ponder over the difficulties of living, and those memories were never far from her thoughts. “Well, they hurt,” she emphasized, the corner of her mouth tucking up into her cheek. “Problems bring a lot of heartaches, you know? Sometimes it just feels like a constant daily struggle to overcome something. Anything. Everything.”

  Itreus fluttered his eyelids, his exterior calm. “Is that not the goal of living? Overcoming, persisting, continuing, until you cannot overcome anymore? Until life overcomes you?”

  “I suppose,” the girl muttered with an apathetic shrug, “when you boil it down to its nuts and bolts.”

  “Then, problems seem necessary.” Itreus kept his eyes forward, though he remained hyper-aware of Avigail’s actions. “If there is nothing to overcome, how will you measure your success at living?”

  “Wanting for nothing would be a good start.” Avigail released a condemnatory chuckle. “Never being hungry. Having a stable home. A mansion, maybe?”

  Itreus found himself smirking, though the facial expression lived on his face for only a short
time. “Even rich men go to the Underworld you created for yourselves.”

  Avigail swept her hands through her hair, holding them at the back of her head. She stepped over a fallen log, landing with a slight stumble as she peered up at her companion. “What do you mean, the one we created?”

  They arrived at a bubbling stream. Itreus paused, staring at the water that flowed over smoothed stones. As he lowered his foot into the clear liquid, it dispersed, as if an invisible barrier lived around his feet that prevented them from getting wet. “All souls had a place to go after death. And it is not the prisons mankind created for themselves.” When he arrived on the other side of the embankment with not a drop of water on him, he folded his arms over his chest. “Your desires for mental comfort made your heavens. Your Underworld. Men saw the uncertainty surrounding death as a problem they needed to overcome. As such, they invented their own afterlives.” The god frowned, his eyes staring past Avigail, settling on something behind her. “But I often wonder if they overcame the problem, or just created a new one for themselves.”

  Avigail watched him cross, fascinated. She searched the stream, finding several large stones that managed to reach up past the water’s depth. Wobbling legs succeeded in leaping from stone to stone, her arms extended from her sides to steady herself until she reached the other side to join her companion. “What’s the problem with going to the heavens?” she asked, panting from her mild endeavor. “The volunteers at the home always made it sound like a nice place. A good afterlife.”

  Itreus shrugged. “I do not know. I only know that it is not where souls were meant to go.”

  The young woman parted her lips, prepared to ask more questions, but a sound from inside the forest walls stilled her. Her eyes narrowed. It had been a while since she heard the noise, but she recognized it for what it was. Human voices. “There are people around here,” she announced, though she saw no one through the thickness of the trees.

  With a nod, Itreus drew his shoulders back and stood straighter. “Yes. We are near Bricklemore. Or, what used to be known as Bricklemore.”

  “Bricklemore?” Avigail’s eyes grew wide at the memory. “I came through here ... before ... when I first started looking for Revi.” Her nose wrinkled as she tried to remember more, but the images came up empty. She knew Itreus cautioned her to steer clear of people, but she found herself asking, hoping he’d changed his mind. “We should try to find the source of the voices, shouldn’t we? We can ask if they can help. Maybe they’ve seen Revi—”

  Itreus cut her off by holding out a slow hand. “They will be of no help to you.”

  A predictable reply. Unable to keep a low bubble of offense from boiling up in her gut, Avigail frowned. “Why not?”

  The god found her eyes. His face gave nothing away. “You must trust me.”

  With a scoff, Avigail turned away. She stared into the breadth of the forest, wondering where the voices stemmed from. Wondering what they knew. What they’d seen. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw another human ... save for that man in the forest.

  Feeling the weight of Itreus’ hand on her shoulder, Avigail paused. A calmness trickled into her. Much as she wished to seek the foundation of the voices, she remembered what Itreus had done for her. He appeared when no one else would. He dedicated his time to her cause. Though results were slow, she felt she owed him something. Her trust would be a small token.

  “All right,” she whispered, blowing a few strands of hair out of her eyes. “I trust you.”

  Itreus’ hand fell away. “Thank you.”

  Avigail watched him turn his back toward her as he started off farther into the forest. Away from the people. It felt wrong to separate herself from the voices, but Avigail found herself doing just that. With her eyes on the floor, she trailed after her companion. “So ... what’s the real afterlife like, then? The one people were supposed to go to before they made their own?”

  The god paused. He seemed reflective. “Now that ... I could not even begin to describe.”

  “Come on.” Avigail came up to his side, staring up at his face. “You didn’t think you could describe what it’s like to be a god, either, but you did that.” She frowned upon realizing he had only briefly touched on the subject. “Kind of ...”

  “It is less about my capability and more about the afterlife itself. It is ... a place without description.” Itreus lifted his gaze to the sky, the wind pushing his hair from his shoulders. “I cannot explain it, because it is not a mold in which the human mind can fit. Only the soul.”

  Soul. The moment the word left his lips, the breadth of the forest floor came to life. A typically quiet place, with tree trunks blocking the high winds, the vegetation had remained still in Avigail’s experience. As if propelled by a whirlwind that spiraled outward, small twigs and pine cones flew past Avigail’s feet and settled several yards behind her. Crunching leaves sang a familiar tune, like a giant lifting a finger to its lips to hush the world.

  Avigail lifted an arm to shield her face from flying debris. But as soon as the woodland ground threw its tantrum, it was over. When the upturned foliage and dirt settled back to the ground, standing in the center of the blast: the man.

  A ring of withered plant life circled his feet. He stood, shoulders slumped, peering out at Itreus and Avigail from beneath his flattened hair. Though his appearance seemed aggressive, his eyes were curious. Innocent. He peered at Itreus with a tilted head.

  The god closed his eyes. Soul. The single word was like a treat to the follower. Itreus chastised himself for uttering it out loud. He should have known it would have beckoned the man forward. He was never far from Itreus’ side, even when unseen or unheard.

  Itreus cast his gaze to Avigail. She stared at the man, open-mouthed and wide-eyed. The god had no desire to entangle the tales of the two. They were separate tasks. He could not ignore the dead and yet still-pleading eyes of the newcomer, however. That man had already suffered enough. Disregarding him in the rare moment that he still showcased a thread of humanity would have touched cruelty beyond Itreus’ ability.

  “I am sorry, Rayen.” Itreus stepped forward, separating himself from Avigail. “I ... should have chosen my words more carefully. I did not mean to torment you with false hope.”

  The glow in Rayen’s eyes dimmed. The curiosity was gone, giving way to the blank eeriness Avigail saw in the forest earlier, to return to his face.

  “Rayen ...” Avigail whispered the name, stepping up behind Itreus. Her eyes fixated on the man, her fear replaced with pity. “What is he doing here?” Her eyes lifted to the god. “Are you ... helping him?”

  Itreus refused to look at her. “I am helping you. Come. We must continue.”

  “Wait, what—” Avigail peeled her eyes off her companion and threw them once more to Rayen. He had already gone. The only sign that he was once there at all, was the deadened ring of brown where his body once stood.

  If Itreus was affected by Rayen’s disappearance, he did not show it. On the contrary, he continued walking, as if nothing had happened at all.

  “Oh, come on!” Avigail caught up with the god, her arms stretched out from her sides. “What is going on, Itreus? Who’s Rayen? Why does he keep following us?”

  A look stole over the god’s face. It was not a happy one. A small rise of disappointment dangled off the edge of it. “Rayen’s circumstances will not assist you in achieving your goal. Just know that he is of no danger to us.”

  “If you need to help him, I don’t mind a delay,” the young woman uttered, glancing around her to see if Rayen would reappear. “He looked like he needed the help more than I do.”

  Itreus stiffened. He looked down at Avigail, his expression unreadable. “If I do not help you efficiently ... you run the risk of becoming something like him. Let us continue.”

  She did not know what to say. Avigail watched as Itreus walked ahead and pulled away from her for, perhaps, the hundredth time. The woman spun a full circle on her feet once
more, hoping to catch a glimpse of the poor man, but her eyes fell on nothing.

  She didn’t know what to feel. Itreus’ words left a strange sentiment in her chest. Avigail did not fully understand it, but the context clues were enough to propel her legs forward, after the God of the Lost.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Even if he were to live as many lifetimes as Kazuaki Hidataka had, Revi would never have guessed in any of them that he would ever find himself sitting in a small, simple shelter in the middle of a forest with Vadim Canmore.

  The scent of pine filled his nose. It made him exhale through his nostrils to clear his airway. It smelled strangely medicinal. He did not enjoy it one bit.

  A humble fire brought warmth to the small space. Circled by rocks to keep it contained, Revi sat cross-legged on the floor, wearing a look of disapproval. Why had he come here? He had no earthly need to seek the company of others. He should have left when it became immediately clear that they worshiped Northwestern’s gods.

  But if there was a small chance that they could point him in a direction to Avigail ...

  He glared at Vadim, his elbow propped upon his knee. Resting his chin in his open palm, his eyes flicked to the tea the Time Father prepared over the open flames. A floral scent rose up from the oxidized kettle. Where Vadim found that sorry-looking thing, Revi had no idea. It looked as if it had been plucked from the rubble of Northwestern’s fires.

  Perhaps it was.

  When the kettle began to squeal, Vadim wrapped a protective layer of animal skin around his hand and reached out to remove it from the blaze. Seizing simple cups, hollowed out of wood, the man filled them with the leaves and liquid.