Godling (Kairenz Jistora Book 1)

by Dusks, Rydre

  "Where will revenge really get you?" I asked. "A fleeting moment of solace... and then you are right back in the muck and misery you stirred up."

  "Shut your mouth, Crow. This is my moment," Crane snapped.

  "You've nearly killed Sylvain."

  "He got in the way, just like he has this entire time. He was doing nothing but stalling me, the idealist."

  "Do you care about no one?" He had to care about someone. Right?

  Stelliot took another step, but his progress had slowed. "I care about SolTansra. I love the Fathergod, even if he refuses to love me in return."

  "You don't know anything about fatherly love, do you, Crane?" I straightened partway as Stelliot stopped walking entirely. "I would give anything to show Stelliot how much I love him."

  "You've done a fine job neglecting him over four years," Crane started, but I continued before he could.

  "I've fought for him since the day he was born. When his mother left him, I devoted my life to protecting my boy. Do you even realize how much it gutted me when I watched him get kidnapped? I felt like my life was over. Don't you think Sol feels the same kind of pain when he watches his own son betray his brothers and sisters?"

  Those eyes narrowed again, this time with skepticism. "You know nothing about Sol, Crow Hightower. You've forgotten everything about your life before mortality."

  "I know enough about gods to know that they feel just as many emotions as mortals do," I countered, now taking one step closer. "And I know for a fact that Sol would never want his own GaenVrellec, a wonderful healer and god of happiness and pleasure, to turn around and kill all the rest of his children... Especially his firstborn grandchild."

  I saw on his face that Crane had not thought of it this way. In fact he'd probably never thought that his actions would have such a traumatic effect on the Fathergod himself.

  "If Stelliot ever turned on me like that, I would be crushed. I wouldn't be able to live with myself knowing that I'd been rejected by my own child."

  "I'm not against Sol!" Crane suddenly shouted, but his eyes had lost their fierce stab. "I'm doing this to show him that I'm important! I'm noteworthy!"

  "Yes you are. You are extremely important to Kairenz's future, Crane. How can this world be a happier place without its God of Gratification?"

  "...Are you saying that what I'm doing is wrong?"

  The question threw me off guard. Crane didn't know? All this time he'd thought that he was the only good god out there? Doing the right thing?

  "Killing your own nephew is very wrong, Crane. Killing any of your family is wrong. Look... I'm sorry." The words nearly faltered, but I held to them. It hurt to apologize like this despite Crane’s monstrous actions, but there was nothing else I could think of trying at this point.

  He blinked.

  "I'm sorry about how much I treated you as an enemy. I'm sorry, Crane. Please... Stelliot doesn't deserve this. He's just a child. I'm deeply sorry for hurting you, and I hope you can forg--"

  My apology was cut short from a wet and wracking cough. It was violent enough that I covered my mouth, and my breath came back in with a shudder. Once the tears had cleared from my eyes, my chest tightened with shock. I stared at my fingers, painted red from my coughing fit, then panicked.

  When had I been hurt? Where? I felt hardly any pain. My back hurt slightly from banging around in the tank, but this was... This was...

  I touched my side, feeling my wet shirt cling to my skin around a barely visible tip of glass. I wouldn't have even noticed I'd been pierced through with a shard of the tank if it weren't for the coughing.

  This was...

  "Crow..." Crane began.

  This was the end.

  I sunk down to my knees and coughed again. Everything spun and tilted around me, but I barely noticed collapsing. I held off the urge to drift away, looking for Stelliot's face.

  There he was, looking small and afraid. Hair a mess, clothes a mess, and pale from fear. His eyes were back to their familiar black. Crane had left him. I watched him mouth my name before stuffing a terrified wad of jacket between his teeth.

  Oh Stelliot... I thought. I can't leave you alone again. Not again. Not in this place. Not...

  "Get up, Ikio."

  The voice was sharp and commanding. Then a shock of moss green hair and eyes as vivid as lamps came into my vision. He had his shawl on again, and that silvery circlet adorned his head once more.

  "Crane...?"

  "Get up," he said again.

  I wasn't in the shadowy realm anymore. Lights flickered above my head in a hallway. Something skittered over tile when I moved my arm, and I felt a small prick on my skin from broken glass. I was back in the same hallway that Crane had called purgatory.

  I sat up slowly, staring at the young god in all his green glory. His eyes were hard, but they didn't attack me like I was so used to them doing.

  "Promise me two things, IkioElle. Two things, and I'll heal your stupid wound and push you back into that mortal body."

  I checked myself over after remembering why I'd fallen unconscious. I wasn't able to see any blood or damage, and I felt no pain.

  "...Am I dead?" I asked weakly.

  Crane folded his arms and stepped back from me, frowning. "No. Not yet. But your life is hanging by a thread. I pulled you here before you could slip away."

  I lifted myself off the floor. "Why?"

  Crane stepped close again and unfolded his arms to push me with both hands. It made me take half a step back. "You're dumb and you're ignorant. You're stupid. I hate everything about you, and I hate..." He paused and took a deep breath, "...I hate that you are so forgiving."

  Leaving the physical realm seemed to have done something to Crane's sanity. He was more rational.

  "Do two things for me, and I will heal you and send both you and Stelliot back."

  I looked down the hall once, then back to his face. "Why? All because of what I said about Sol?"

  His gaze searched me. "Right now Sol spoke to me. I heard his voice through yours. You sounded as disappointed and desperate as Sol did the day that I walked out of his home feeling betrayed. I still hate you, and I want you to realize that. You're a fool." He gritted his teeth for a moment. "Everyone, including you, is saying that Stelliot’s meant to be alive. He is a blight, though. A smear on the godly name of the Crei."

  "But he's my son, Crane. It doesn't matter what he is. I wouldn't have even cared if he was born a monster. I would have cared for him and done my best to love him anyway."

  Crane locked his eyes with mine, and his next words were wispy and soft. "Just as Sol still sees me."

  I remained silent and watchful, waiting for him to make the next move.

  He pointed a slim finger my way. "Raise that heathen son of yours to be strong enough to take care of the planet. You have to live because you also need to apologize to Sylvain... KahRatese... for me. I never meant for things to spiral out of control like this. It wasn't my plan to hurt him like I did." He pressed his hand to my chest and pushed at me again. I felt a tingle of energy from his touch. "Go. You go back and apologize to Sylvain for me, and you go raise that godling right. And then maybe I'll forgive you. Do those things for me, and I'll go back to Sol and maybe. Maybe."

  He looked up into my eyes once more, and I read the desperation, misery, and longing within them. They burned bright, but not with evil toxicity. Not anymore. They burned bright because they were the eyes of a noble and suffering god.

  "I'll forgive. So go fix Kairenz, IkioElle."

  My eyes snapped open. Above me were two gleaming orbs filled with burning light. They weren't Crane's eyes. They belonged to the massive golden sun snake, its body shining so bright that the area around me was dim and hard to see. Sounds slowly came clearer as my consciousness returned to reality. I heard Rook whoop with joy, and someone else... it sounded like Blank... shout out something loudly, though I couldn't make out the words.

  I lifted my hand to touch the face of the
divine creature. Its breath was loud, powering strong lungs, but its humanoid face was so calm and comforting to gaze upon. I'd never looked so closely at a sun snake, but as I touched its cheek a deep warmth spread through my chest, and I felt like I knew the being to be my own parent.

  To be Sol.

  Then the creature lifted its head, and I dropped my arm. Saydea's Zone 7 came back into view for me. Someone stepped close and knelt to look me in the face.

  "Velzae," I uttered sluggishly as the man's pallid eyes looked me hard in the face. "I thought Crane killed you."

  He searched me, obviously checking me over for injuries or damage of any kind. "It's difficult to kill a god of life." Velzae lifted open my coat and noticed the heavily bloody area along my side, then immediately pulled my shirt up to search for a wound. His fingers brushed along where I'd been impaled, finding no injury. He hesitated, then dropped the fabric and looked me back in the face. "You've been healed."

  Now that clarity had returned, I gradually sat up. "Crane returned to Sol." It didn't clear up Velzae's confused expression, but his face did relax immensely.

  Rook limped close to us, his own expression excited and sparking with energy. "You're one crazy lucky guy, blackie!"

  "Luck rubs off," I breathed with a small smile, then looked around the room.

  Blank was on her way to meet with me as well, and the other gods were over by the once-tainted sun snake. But Stelliot... Where was Stelliot?

  My eyes rested on Sylvain propped up near the elevator, his wounds heavily covered. Stelliot knelt beside him, whispering something into his ear. I stood and left Velzae and Rook to approach the others. Sylvain seemed a little more awake than he had when I'd fallen through dimensions. He looked grey in the face, but there was enough light in his eyes to prove that he would make it.

  "Sylvain," I started once he noticed me. I knelt on the other side of him. "Crane... He--"

  "--wanted to apologize," Sylvain finished. "I know. Stelliot just told me."

  I looked at my son in surprise, who only proceeded to stuff more jacket into his mouth shyly.

  "Are you...?" I started, unsure of how to ask if Sylvain was going to be okay. Not particularly about his injuries, but more his state of mind.

  "I will be fine, yes," he answered quietly. "What he did broke my heart, but I will forgive him because I love him."

  Stelliot stood up and walked around Sylvain to take my hand and look up at my face. Despite the bruises on his cheek and blood on his neck, he smiled faintly.

  "The planet is happy, Papa."

  I touched his face with two fingers, returning the smile. My worries had been left behind with the sun snake. "How do you know, Stelliot?"

  He raised one finger and touched his forehead with his nail, never taking his sight off mine. "Because she spoke to me and told me so. Now that the green god went back to Sol, we can fix her."

  I glanced off and caught the gazes of some of the other gods.

  "We need to leave immediately!" Velzae shouted. I watched as the remaining sun snake slithered back to the hole it had created in the floor and wormed its way out of the facility. "The Fathergod is about to bring judgment down on Saydea, and we can't be caught in the middle!"

  Rook whooped as he was carried by Rovan to the elevator. He stuck his tongue out at me with a beaming grin, and I felt hands on my arm. "Come on, Crow!" Blank called.

  I seized Stelliot's jacket-covered hand and made it into the elevator with a few of the others.

  "Thank goodness this is all going to be over," Tienny commented from behind Rovan's massive figure.

  Velzae held the doors open as Sylvain was carried into the elevator by DatriaElle. There was barely enough room for all of us, leaving Velzae and the silver-haired SheenLerrin behind.

  "I want most of you to get out of GreyCross while you can," Velzae ordered. "Dat, take Sylvain to the Sendredin Hospital. And Kro."

  I focused on his icy blue eyes.

  "Go home."

  He let the doors close, and soon the elevator took us upward to the first floor. Velzae's command had been firm, and there was no reason for me to protest. I felt like the worst of it had passed.

  By the time we were out of Saydea, Blank pulled Stelliot and me into a tight hug. "I'm coming with you both, but I have to first help out the Strejca and make sure they're not around the Saydea premises. I'll meet you at your godfather's house, Crow." She leaned in and kissed me firmly.

  The entire ride back on the hovercycle had been done in a dream state. The events of what had just happened to all of us ran through my mind as I clutched Stelliot to me. A vicious quake ripped through the city about a mile from Toanwar's house, and I was forced to stop on the side of the road to avoid a potential crash. Stelliot questioned what the noise was, and I could only shrug in confusion, wondering the same thing. I had a sensation, however, that the rumble may have been linked to SolTansra's judgment.

  When we reached the Voelwrath residence, my legs were rubber, and my head swam. Stelliot skipped up the steps to the door, but I felt like I'd been wading through thick liquid up until now. I was ready to drop.

  "We made it, Stelliot. We're finally home."

  "Mhm." My son smiled up at me as he placed his fingers on the door handle. "We're gonna be happy for a while now. I just know it. Uncle Velzae says there's still work to do, but that can wait."

  "Right. It's time to rest for a good while," I replied.

  "No, Papa. It's much simpler than that."

  I had been staring at the wooden finish of the door, but I drew my gaze back to my son in question.

  "Before we fix the world, I just want pancakes."

  With a weary grin, I watched him push open the door and bound inside... as if he'd just come back home from a regular day of school. I heard a shout from Toanwar in the kitchen; a mixture of tearful joy and utter shock.

  "S-Stelliot!"

  "Mapa!"

  My smile spread to relief as I stepped inside the house, and with one final sigh, I shut the door firmly behind me.

  Epilogue

  "Thousands stood back in shock at the sight of Saydea of the Future sinking into the earth after the first earthquake in almost nine hundred years shook GreyCross yesterday evening."

  I stabbed a triangular slice of pancake and popped it into my mouth. Papa walked to the couch and dropped heavily beside me, causing the slices on my plate to nearly bounce off. He smelled like soap and body wash from just finishing up a very long shower. Mapa had gotten angry that he'd used all the hot water, but not for long. Mapa was very glad that Papa was home with me finally. He cried a lot about it last night.

  "Reports say that the building was evacuated due to a different scale of emergency only twelve hours before this devastating act of nature, with only one fatality. President Allan Dentrin of Saydea was unfortunately caught in the catastrophe. GreyCross has received a blow today that will leave many of its citizens mourning for the loss of the miracle doctor of Saydea of the Future."

  I couldn't remember much about how Mapa's house used to feel when I was tiny, but I decided it pretty much felt the same. Zlade was in the kitchen finishing up cooking the last of the pancake batter, and Click was at the table pretending to read the newspaper. Mapa was busy in his study writing up notes about some robot chips that Papa had gotten in the desert prison.

  Papa had welcomed his girlfriend Blank to come and stay at Mapa's house for a while until they could get a house of their own, so she was in the back-yard planting herbs, but Papa had said it would be hard to get a house because President Era still didn't want him in the country.

  I didn't like President Era because he didn't like my papa.

  "And in the Voelwrath residence, we say good riddance," Papa muttered as he lifted the remote and changed the channel. I scooted a bit closer to him, and he put an arm around my shoulders.

  "Will GreyCross be happier now that Saydea is gone because of Sol and the Strejca are back?" I asked, setting my fork down.
/>
  Papa's brow pulled in tightly from my question, and he waited a couple of seconds before he answered me.

  "I don't know, big guy. At the heart of GreyCross is Era, and I don't think that Era will ever be happy."

  I stared down at my pancakes. Era will never be happy. I wondered what could make him happy. Maybe a friend, or a hug. I wondered if he liked hugs, or if he could eat something that could make him less mad. Or maybe he just needed to stop being president for a while.

  I set my plate to the side and leaned against Papa's chest. His heartbeat was strong and steady, like the heart of a big, protective warrior. I hoped one day I could be a warrior like him.

  Papa had told me last night that here in this spot... next to his heart, I was safe. And as he put his arms around me and hugged me tightly, I knew that I was.

  Pronunciation Guide

  Characters:

  Alakri OrrVieh - Uh-la-kree Or-vee-uh

  Allan Dentrin - Al-an Den-trin

  Atta OrrVieh - Aa-tuh Or-vee-uh

  BaevZofold - Bayv-zoh-fuld

  Blanca Stone - Blawn-kuh Stone

  Bray'ed Rotuviqah - Bray-ed Roe-too-vick-uh

  DatriaElle - Dat-ree-uh-ell

  Donothan Weiss - Dawn-uh-thun Vice

  Draago Black - Draw-goh Black

  Ekra Phazer - Eh-kruh Fay-zur

  FaerorWint - Fayr-orr-wint

  G'tavei Brotheresa - Gih-taw-vay Braw-thur-eh-suh

  GaenVrellec - Gayn-vrell-eck

  IkioElle - Ee-kee-oh-ell

  KahRatese - Kaw-ruh-teez

  Kajaru Tojoru - Kuh-har-oo Tuh-hor-oo

  Kazlynn - Kazz-lin

  Kro Seaada OrrVieh - Kroh Say-ah-duh Or-vee-uh

  LazNuk - Lazz-nuck

  Lozhen Era - Loh-(z)shen Ayr-uh

  Oraia - Oh-rye-uh

  Radley Stone - Rad-lee Stone

  Rovan - Row-van

  Saidias Orlan - Say-dee-uss Orr-lan

  Scarsar Insidd - Scar-sur Inn-sihd

  SheenLerrin - Sheen-layr-inn

  Siivash - See-vash