The Panagea Tales Box Set

by McKenzie Austin

  “Oi! Nico!” Brack came up behind him, striking an offensive stance. “What’cha need, mate?”

  “Let’s clear the snakes. We need to make a safe path to Penn for Elowyn.” While keeping a keen eye on the remaining serpents, Nicholai grasped Brack’s shoulder. “Please, Rabbit—spare their lives if you are able. It may be our only bargaining chip with Kekona.”

  Brack snorted and hocked a mouthful of spit to the side. “How did I know you were going to say something like that?” Lifting his gaze, he shouted across to Penn, “Hang in there, Elmbroke! Medics on her way!” Bringing his machete out before him, to act as a buffer between him and the snakes, Brack dug his heels into the deck. He prepared to keep them as far away from Penn as possible.

  With Brack’s assistance, Nicholai released the last of his two darts. Coiling together with weakening hisses, all but the last snake fell silent.

  “All right, love”—Brack glanced at Elowyn, as he took a step back to avoid the final viper’s snapping jaws—“you’re up!”

  Flicking her gaze toward the last snake, Elowyn grimaced. She could ease her way around it if Brack kept it busy enough—but one wrong step meant she’d be in the same predicament as Penn. “Granite.” She turned toward the behemoth and held out her hand. “Care to give me an aerial path?”

  Without further instruction, the man grabbed Elowyn’s hand. He pulled her up until he was able to clasp his hulking hands around her feet. Swallowing the woman’s petite boot entirely with his palm, Granite bent down, and with a single grunt, hurled her up and over the last viper.

  The landing was hard. Elowyn managed to ease the brunt of it with a precise tuck and roll. Righting herself quickly, she slid to Penn’s side and ripped apart the lower portion of his pant leg.

  “Elowyn,” Penn panted, his chest rising and falling like an ornithopter’s wings in a storm, “am I going to die?”

  “Shut your damn mouth.” The medic scanned the wound, jostling her brain for an idea. A tourniquet? No. That would do more damage to his leg than good. Sucking the poison out was no good either. If the viper’s venom was anything like an injection, it would already be well on its way through Penn’s lymphatic system.

  She had nothing in her arsenal to combat such a bite. Up until recently, snakes had not existed in Panagea. Rifling through her bag, Elowyn cursed while trying to find a solution.

  Revi stepped back, putting as much space between himself and the last snake as he could. After bumping into the airship’s edge, his ears pulsed. Was that scratching? Glancing over the railing, the man’s expression grew bitter. “She sent in the cavalry.”

  Rennington cursed, running to the edge to look over it. At the base of the airship, countless animals clamored at the sides. Beasts of all shapes and sizes. Some had more success than the others, managing to sink their claws partway into the ship’s exterior, but none met success in scaling its sides. Yet. “Never felt better about the ramp failing to lower than I do right now,” he muttered.

  “Gods damn it!” Revi clamped his jaws together, whipping his head toward Rennington. “Where’s the quartermaster?”

  The Southern soldier’s eyes widened. “Shit.”

  Their question was answered with the sounding of raw cursing on the wind. Both men turned their gazes downward, catching sight of Bermuda as she backed toward the ship with machete drawn.

  “Come on!” the woman barked, her brown hair lashing around her jawline as saliva flew from her mouth. She stared the animals down, her fingers squeezing her weapon’s handle.

  Revi and Rennington hurled themselves over the edge, each man burning his hands as they flew down the ropes and landed beside her. The Southern soldier wore a look of guilt when he placed himself before her. “Sorry about that, quartermaster.”

  “Save your apologies, Renn,” she snapped, swinging at a mid-sized mammal that dared to snap at her. “We don’t have time for them.”

  Above deck, Kekona manifested behind a crate. She wore a frown, panting. It had been many lifetimes since she last recalled being this fatigued.

  She had disregarded the God of Salvation too much. His fresh omnipotence should have made him a clumsy opponent, but no. Despite his inability to harness the full potential of his new godly power, his relentless combat skills remained unmatched.

  As the goddess leaned forward to peer out from behind her safe place, her opponent’s iron grip found her throat again. Before she could vanish from it, his other arm encircled her head, swallowing it into the material of his long jacket’s sleeve.

  The position. He intended to snap her neck.

  Kekona felt the physical touch of his body fade as she manifested elsewhere once again. Her heart pounded. She struggled to catch her breath.

  The animals could make short work of his companions … but she was failing to do her part. She needed to give herself an edge. A leg up. With a curse, the goddess departed once again.

  Kazuaki paced the deck, his eye scanning the area for her. When she did not reappear, he threw his head back in an outcry of frustration. “Kekona! Return immediately, or I shall burn your forest to the ground!”

  The threat echoed through the air, startling birds from their perches. The winged creatures cried in annoyance as they disappeared into the clouds.

  Waiting for the goddess to reappear was one of the longest moments of his life. Kazuaki snarled when he saw her rematerialize, and he clenched his fingers into a fist. “Thought for a second you ran.”

  The goddess wrinkled her nose. “No. I would never abandon my animals or my forest.” Slowly, she produced the wooden spear from behind her back. “I merely concluded that I would need a little help in subduing you.”

  The spear. Kazuaki stared at it, studying it as his brow shadowed his eye. A wooden shaft with an archaic stone-carved point secured to the pole with age-old vines. A maniacal grin stole over Kazuaki’s lips.

  The fool. She brought back a weapon from the gods’ realm.

  Kekona drew her shoulders back. She planted the edge of the weapon into the deck. “Smiling, Salvation? In moments, you will have no reason to sport such joy.”

  Kazuaki bent his knees. His fingers flexed. He twisted his neck, popping the stiff vertebrae inside. “That’ll be the second mistake you made today.”

  In a flash, the captain and goddess battled once more.

  Kekona slid back, positioning the spear before herself. It provided her with enough reach to temper Kazuaki’s unpredictable swings. As long as she could keep his hands at bay—his only weapons—she would be fine.

  For the first time since Seacaster, Kazuaki filled with the adrenaline of battle.

  There was no time to breathe.

  No time to blink.

  Time for nothing other than the desecration of this vile wench.

  Nobody, not man nor god, stole the life from one of his own.

  Kekona boasted more time alive than even he. She knew the ins and outs of omnipotence and all of its luxuries. But at the end of the day, Kekona was the Goddess of Animals. A caregiver. She was skilled at breathing life into creatures.

  Kazuaki was skilled at taking it away.

  Not seeing much opportunity to combat his wild carnage, Kekona planted her feet. She could not leave entirely. Could not abandon her forest or her creatures. She believed him when he threatened to burn it all down.

  Kazuaki threw a hand out to grab her, almost as if he feared no recourse. Kekona frowned. Did the fool not know that her weapon could kill him? Was he truly that disillusioned by the immortal life he once knew? At that moment, she didn’t care.

  With a single, powerful thrust, Kekona drove the spearhead straight through the oncoming hand. The satisfaction of the stone severing bone and gliding through his palm brought a victorious smirk to her face. He could not choke her to death if he hadn’t a hand to do it with.

  Her satisfaction was short-lived.

  Holding his position, as if he had waited for her to pierce his hand with her godly weapon
, Kazuaki closed his quaking fingers around the wooden shaft. Blood flowed down the pole, slithering through the imperfect crevices in the bark. With his opposite hand, he seized the weapon and ripped it from Kekona’s grasp.

  The goddess’s eyes grew into bulging circles. She stepped back, knowing now why Salvation wore such a cynical grin before. He spoke of mistakes. Yes, she had made one. She underestimated him too much. Gods alive, what had she done? She brought him the one thing he could not get himself. The one thing he could use to destroy her, save for his own two hands.

  “Do not run,” Kazuaki panted. His hand stained the deck with a crimson river as it dangled at his side. He ripped the spear from his palm and pointed it at her. “It’ll only piss me off more.”

  “Run?” Kekona took a step back, putting distance between him and herself. She scowled, holding fast to her dignity. “And leave my companions to your merciless wrath? I’d rather die.”

  Kazuaki took slow steps forward, hovering the spearhead that still dripped with his blood near her throat. “Then at the very least, we have one thing in common.”

  Kekona huffed. “You will only claim victory if you catch me. I will not beg for my life.”

  The goddess startled when a large hand fell onto her shoulder from behind. Gods, it dwarfed hers in spades. Spinning, Kekona stared up at the behemoth who stood at her back.

  His fingers squeezed around her shoulder. Not with aggression, but a plea. “You may have the dignity not to beg for your own, but I will beg for Penn’s,” Granite said, his grip on her still firm. “Is there nothing you can do to save him?”

  With his touch, Kekona’s mind flooded with his memories. His spirit. Everything that Granite was. A man with no surname; named after the dirt and pebbles that covered the floor of his home, by the woman who was only ever his mother by blood.

  She saw his birth.

  She saw his adolescence.

  She saw his adulthood.

  Every day that he had ever lived.

  She saw the beast. She saw her wolf. She saw the moose in the woods; how Granite defended his companions’ lives without pumping the creature full of bullets. She saw him stop Kazuaki’s blade swings to protect her animals. She saw compassion hiding in the heart of a mortal man. A man who could rip a spinal cord from a body with his own two hands.

  “You are not like the others,” she whispered.

  Carried on the same breeze that rattled the treetops, a howl rose above the countless other snarls, barks, yips, and caws. Her wolf. Her precious pet. She must have heard the carnage. Kekona’s gaze flew beyond Granite, toward the direction of the sound. “Kita.” Her pulse throbbed in her neck as she redirected her concentration back to the man before her. “She instructs me and my animals to show you mercy … for saving her leg.”

  Granite removed his arm, still fresh with the wounded wolf’s bite marks, and returned it to his side. “Give any mercy you would have shown to me … to Penn.”

  A sudden breath caught in Kekona’s lungs. She stiffened. Something about this man … the way that his soul felt when she looked through it … Kekona had not met a human with the same love for animals since they roamed Panagea hundreds of years ago, and even then …

  Lifting her fingers to her lips, she whistled. It was unlike any normal whistle the crew had heard before; it was a far more natural sound … like wind and birds, and wild dog barks and a flowing river. It penetrated the air. It pulsed through the ground.

  At the base of the ship, Rennington and Revi stood before Bermuda. The quartermaster scowled, shoving her way past them to meet the front line. There was no way she would perish like a pathetic weakling, cowering behind men whose lives she had saved before. No, if she were to go down, she would die as she lived: fearless of physical punishment.

  Bermuda’s fervor was met with submission.

  The animals’ ears rolled forward on their skulls as soon as they heard the howls. The very same howls that had tempered the others in the forest before. Some lifted their noses toward the main deck of the ship, sniffing. Whiskers and tails twitched. Heads tilted. Some turned, slowly returning to the forest’s interior. Others seemed far more torn, awaiting further instruction from the goddess who had birthed them.

  Kekona lowered her hand, her gaze still affixed to Granite. He had captured her attention so completely, she had nearly forgotten that Salvation stood behind her, with an omnipotent spear to her back. “I don’t know if she’ll forgive your comrade’s aggression for causing her injury … but Kita’s gratitude toward you outweighs her feelings of resentment for your leader. The unconditional honor of a canine’s heart is unprecedented.”

  Granite nodded. “I know.”

  Kekona laid a hand over her chest. After reliving every memory of the beast, every emotion that she had seen in Granite’s head, her voice came out softer. “Of course you do.”

  Having only granted the goddess the gift of a delayed death for Penn’s sake, Kazuaki glowered. “What about Penn?”

  Ignoring the captain’s violent antagonism, Kekona hesitated before placing a hand on Granite’s arm. “A life for a life.” Her fingers slid down his skin as she walked away, heading toward Penn. Kekona walked beyond the charmed snake that still slithered, glimpsing the life that clung to the others. Sedated. Not dead. She flicked a contemplative glimpse toward Nicholai before she sauntered past. She stopped near Elowyn and knelt.

  Elowyn scowled while Kekona grasped Penn’s leg. The man’s face was drained of its color; he was likely in a state of shock when the goddess pressed her lips against his bite wound.

  “Th-that’s not going to work,” Elowyn stuttered, rigid at being so close to the goddess. “The venom is already—”

  “Shh,” Kekona peeled her mouth away long enough to hush the medic. “I birthed the snake that birthed this venom. It comes from me, flower. As I gave it life, so too can I take it away.” Absent of another word, she returned her lips to Penn’s leg.

  The cook winced as he reached out to grip Elowyn’s hand. He squeezed so fiercely, her fingers turned white. In several drawn-out seconds of sucking, Kekona lifted her head and wiped away the small trail of blood that slid down her chin. “There. It is done.”

  Penn breathed heavily, and he scooted as far away from her as he could. His throat bobbed when he swallowed, feeling the languidness that had infected his limbs begin to fade. What the feck did he do? Thank her? No—she was the one that put him in this position in the first place.

  Kekona returned to her feet, fluidly whisking herself back to Granite’s side. She eyed him, as an animal in heat might eye a potential mate. Her head tilted, and she reached out to touch him, but she stopped herself short. “You really are out to destroy the Chronometers,” she whispered, having gleaned such insights from the touch that she already craved again, “aren’t you?”

  Nicholai cleared his throat, stepping forward. “Yeah, that’s …” The man rubbed the back of his neck, shuffling closer still. “That’s what I was trying to say before.”

  The goddess’s gaze snapped to Nicholai. She studied him fiercely. One, two, three steps and she was right before him, gripping his chin in her hands.

  Yes. There it was. Flooding into her palms, straight through his skin. Everything that Nicholai Addihein was. Everything he wanted to achieve.

  It was difficult to wade through the complex emotions residing at the man’s surface, but she spotted it. Through all the pain, all the torment, all the guilt, revulsion, mourning, and loss, she spotted it—a true, unequivocal desire to free Panagea, and everything upon it, from the possibility of the Chronometers’ misuse of power.

  Equal opportunity time for all, to do with what they will.

  Kekona’s fingers released Nicholai’s chin. The woman, whose eyes were once filled with malice, now filled instead with a strange sadness.

  Nicholai shifted his jaw from side to side, rubbing at his cheeks to rid his face of the lingering feeling her touch left behind. “Do you see now?” he asked
, spotting an epiphany in her expression.

  The goddess closed her eyes. Silence spread between those who stood upon the deck before she slowly blinked them back open. “I will take you to Emont,” she announced, her tone dim.

  “Ah-ha!” Brack clapped his hands together, rubbing his palms as he threw an open mouth grin in everyone’s direction. “We did it then, aye? That’s good news!”

  A slender hand lifted, silencing Brack’s joviality. “I must warn you,” she cautioned, sliding a considering glance over to Granite as she took a step toward him, “the time he has spent living out the chosen emotions that I have emphasized for him … dwelling as an amplified version of only one part of himself …” Kekona paused, pinching her lips together. “I want you to prepare yourselves. He is not the same man that you left in Southwestern years ago.”

  Chapter Ten

  Granite tensed while Kekona walked beside him. The goddess kept her focus upward, as the man loomed over her by more than a foot. She walked with precision through the forest terrain, having no need to peel her attention from Granite to guide her feet. Instinct wove her over every mushroom-crusted patch of wilderness and every moss-coated tree trunk.

  In between strides, Granite flicked her several inquiring glances. Curious sounds and behaviors emanated from the woman. Her pupils were wide, despite the shining sun above offering plenty of light. Every so often, her nostrils flared when she sniffed at him. And the noises … gods—was she … was she purring?

  “Your natural musk,” Kekona commented, leaning in with no regard to Granite’s personal space, “I quite like it.”

  The behemoth arched a brow. How did one respond to a comment like that? He never had a woman come on to him before. Was that even what she was doing? His lack of experience left him dumbfounded, and he cleared his throat. “I … am relieved you did not instruct your animals to maim my comrades,” he said, gesturing to those who strode beside them.