by David Burke
“I will get excited if the victory means something. But you are right…” He paused. “The challenge seemed rather trivial. Something didn’t feel right about it,” Kyle replied.
“Mortals are weak,” Hilde laughed.
“There is more to it than that,” he insisted.
“You are just unhappy to see the whore exposed for her connections to Begaer’s church,” Hilde argued.
“Maybe… but I’m not sure that wasn’t staged for my benefit.”
“To what end?” Hilde asked.
“To drive a wedge between me and Lash,” Kyle said. Then he groaned internally and added, “I don’t know. That actually doesn’t make very much sense. I just can’t shake the feeling that something is off.”
“Far be it from me to tell you not to trust your instincts. Maybe you are tapping into a level of perception that I can’t understand. All I saw was a potential mortal asset in this Lady Meeka and her doing you a favor by showing you where Lash’s true allegiance lies,” Hilde replied.
“You could be right, but I’m not sure. You aren’t without your own biases where Marie is concerned, even though you don’t want to tell me very much about your history with her. Even you have to admit that she is a good trainer, though. My Agility is at peak mortal already and I am starting to feel completely at home with most any weapon I pick up,” Kyle said.
“You will have to decide what you think, but don’t you find it a little suspicious that even though she has some inkling of what you are, Lash has only focused on your physical training? I shouldn’t need to remind you that your real power will come from your essence. Even the body you are in is only a construct made of essence channeled through your divine mantle.”
This made Kyle pause.
“By spending all of your time on weapons or team training, what do you get?” Hilde continued. “A little faster? Sure. A little better connection with the lycan and the sorcerer? Fine. But they are just minions and you haven’t even bothered to claim the lycan girl. Meanwhile, you are neglecting your most powerful tools.”
“And what would those be?” Kyle asked.
“Your mantle, your essence, and me,” the celestial replied.
“Then maybe you should stop distracting me while I am trying to work with essence. Unless you have any advice about gaining access to my Death Essence?” he queried.
“Only this and then I will be quiet. Remember, just like with earth—which you connected to through durability—you need to focus on one of the aspects of death and connect to it. Some of them are grim, and some, less so. It represents finality, sorrow, mortality, but also brutality, suffering, and even undeath,” Hilde instructed.
He didn’t respond to her but turned his entire focus inward.
Once again, he saw the wheel that symbolized his essence. As always, his wheel had a sense of being massive, much larger than any wagon wheel. It almost reminded him of a monster truck wheel, due to its size. Of course, he knew that was only a mental representation, but it definitely made him feel powerful. Hilde had assured him that mortals, and even celestials who learned to consciously harness their essence, might have a wheel, but it wouldn’t be nearly as imposing.
As he focused on it, he took it in again and simply ran his mind over it. The wheel and center were all one piece which represented the framework in which his essence flowed. It was his divine soul that was filled with raw essence. At first, it had felt entirely alien, but each time that he’d turned inward, it started to feel more natural.
That thought, of course, made him ponder if Hilde was right. He really should be spending more time working on this aspect of himself. Even Gilthan spent several hours a day meditating. At first, Kyle had been inclined to believe that was simply because the elf didn’t like the more physical aspects of their training. Maybe there was more to it, though.
His own dedication and work ethic might be impeding his progress as it pushed him to pursue the physical forms of exercise. Worse, it dawned on him that by failing to work on his essence, thereby trying to gain mastery of the mantle, he had broken his promise to Hilde. It was always so complicated with her. He could have her in any way that he wanted her—other than what he actually had committed to seek after. He wanted to find a real connection with the celestial, not just a fleeting physical relationship, as fun as that might be with a hottie like Hilde.
So, he had allowed his hurt feelings over the fact that she hadn’t jumped at the chance to be more than his servant stand in the way of his own progress and freeing her. He thought back over the past two weeks. He had indeed only spoken to her when absolutely necessary. Kyle kicked himself for missing out on the opportunity to do more valuable training.
He would have to make amends to her for being so stubborn.
The thing was, he was almost certain that she liked him just as much as he liked her. But something seemed to be holding her back. Of course, it was no less confusing that Nyda had thrown herself at him and he was just as hesitant to accept her advances, even though he thought they could form a great connection. She was beautiful and kind, not to mention intelligent and likely possessed of a powerful magical gift. So, what was the problem?
The situation wasn’t made any easier by his problematic relationship with Marie. He felt a true connection to her, but knew that was probably just an echo of the relationship she’d had with Krig. Kyle needed to decide if he could trust her, and he needed to decide sooner rather than later. This was to say nothing of Kierra’s odd behavior and now even Lady Meeka was making not so subtle overtures towards him.
Women were apparently complicated in any world. Being a reincarnated god hadn’t seemed to help him with that particular riddle. Neither, for that matter, did his determination to be a better man than he’d been on Earth, one who valued the relationships he formed more than the pursuit of victory. Well, at least as importantly as that.
This conundrum was enough to push him back to focusing on the wheel in his mind. The outside ring, as well as the center, had definitely gotten thicker and contained more raw essence. Of course, what little he had learned about the other gods told him that his current level was pathetic. He hoped his growth would speed up, otherwise building up millions of raw essence, let alone tens or hundreds of millions, was going to take forever.
It was something he’d have to remember to discuss with Hilde.
Looking back at the wheel, he saw the six spokes that extended out from the center. One was significantly larger than the others. That one, of course, represented his War Essence. It had the greatest potential for growth. Hilde had assured him this was only proper, but she also hadn’t expected him to gain access to the other types of essence. To him, it just looked lopsided.
Of the other five spokes, two were medium-sized, and the remaining three were slender—little more than rods. As he paid particular attention to all the details, he could see runes floating along each of the spokes. He had gained enough knowledge to recognize those runes.
Learning about them was like many of the things that he’d learned lately. It didn’t feel like a new concept. Rather, it felt like he was remembering something that he’d simply forgotten.
The largest spoke was filled with a rich, crimson colored essence. Not only did he know it to be his War Essence, but he recognized the runes along the spoke defining some of its natural traits. Beyond that, the color and density of the essence just seemed natural to him.
Unlike the first time he had looked at the wheel, he now saw brown Earth Essence slowly shifting inside its own spoke. Since he had condensed it, it appeared more like a liquid than the gas it had been at first. Unlike his more volatile War Essence, it seemed stable, sturdy and didn’t move about nearly as much.
He had also gained a single point in both Death and Deceit Essences, not that he had figured out how to open up access to either of them. Then again, he hadn’t really put any effort into it. All of his waking time had been spent either trainin
g or working on team building, and sometimes both at the same time.
Now though, he wanted to see if he could gain access to them. Deceit would come later. For some reason, he was even less comfortable with Deceit than with Death. He was letting his mind wander too much, though. Kyle buckled down and focused on the thin spoke filled with a tiny amount of black mist.
He thought about the many aspects of death and what it meant to him. His first experience with death had been when his grandfather had died. His mom’s dad had not been super close to Kyle, because he was more the sit down and talk kinda grandfather than the go outside and throw a ball type, like his other grandfather had been. Kyle was obviously biased towards preferring one type over the other.
His mom’s dad had passed when Kyle was just thirteen. He had been old enough to start appreciating the wit and insights offered by this grandfather, when the man was suddenly taken by cancer. Kyle searched his feelings about that. It had been unexpected, and he’d felt a loss but didn’t really know how to quantify it.
Everyone around him assured Kyle that his grandfather was going to a better place. Knowing a bit more about the universe—or multi-verse, as he now knew it was—Kyle had to wonder about that sentiment. He shook his head.
That didn’t really play any part in what that death had meant to Kyle. He realized now, looking back, that what his thirteen-year-old self had not been able to put into words, was the loss of potential that he’d felt. Who knows? Given more time, he and his maternal grandfather might have become close.
But death had put an end to that chance. It broke off their relationship before it could really blossom and cut off any and all future potential. As a child, he had mourned that loss without understanding it. It was strangely painful to consider, so Kyle pushed past it and started thinking about what the loss of death might mean for those assassins he had killed today.
As he understood it, they would normally be taken into Dod’s realm as soon as they sloughed off this mortal coil. The problem being that, without her scythe, Dod was crippled and unable to capture all of the mortals’ souls. As a result, many ended up being stuck on Verden. Some seemed simply to fade away, while others turned into undead. Kyle didn’t know what the distinction was, or what determined which path a lost soul would take, but it reinforced a sense of guilt in him.
Objectively, Kyle wasn’t responsible for what Krig had done. Perhaps, had he been in the same situation, he would have acted just as his predecessor had. It wasn’t guilt over those actions, per se, the guilt was for the suffering this caused lost mortal souls. And even more guilt for the world that was now tormented by a plague of undead. He hadn’t needed to worry about it, but listening to some of the slaves talk, he knew that outside of the city, safety was an issue.
Travel between city states had become perilous because of the undead.
With that, he lost his focus. Kyle slammed his hand into the ground hard enough to crack the flooring tile. He shouldn’t have let his mind chase down that rabbit hole. Now, he felt the need to blow off steam.
He owed it to himself and, apparently, the world to gain Krig’s power. More importantly though, he owed it to his team. He’d started to build a team and he owed it to them to keep them safe. And, even closer to home, he owed it to Hilde—who was still trapped inside the mantle.
Chapter 5 - Howling at the Moon
Kyle was surprised when he realized that his failed attempt at channeling had taken him much longer than he’d thought. He had meant to open access to his Death Essence but had failed to make the necessary connection. He was left with all the frustration that he’d had before, but without a way to release it.
The sun had already set, and the guards were no doubt on extra high alert after the attack earlier in the day. “Hilde, I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to break through and I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier.”
He heard a sigh in his head. “How many times do I have to tell you? I serve at your pleasure. You don’t owe me anything. You are a god. I thank you for trying to free me, but please don’t apologize to me.”
Kyle laughed. So many times in his life, women had asked him if he was going to apologize for something he had either done or not done. He had never been big on saying he was sorry. He figured that the best way to apologize, was just to fix whatever the problem was, or not to do it again. Now that he was trying to build connections and relationships, though, he seemed to feel the need to apologize more.
It was an odd sensation.
“Well then, as your god, I order you to stop being so cynical about Lash. Help me get to the bottom of this. Everything will be much easier if she is on our side,” Kyle thought back to her.
The tension built for a long moment before she replied. “As you wish, m’lord.”
Kyle decided to just let it go. He went downstairs, hoping that maybe someone would be up and ready to train. Of course, he should have known better. Skrug was already snoring, a half-eaten roasted pig resting on his chest. Food comas seemed to have become a common theme for the half-troll.
Gilthan was already out drinking with some of the elven slave girls. More power to the man, Kyle thought. He was definitely digging this newfound freedom.
Lash wasn’t anywhere to be found, but Kyle had learned that if he focused, he could detect the general direction she was in. He figured that it was a leftover from the shattered bond between Lash and Krig, but Hilde warned him against counting on it too much.
Still, the remnant of whatever bond they’d shared told him that she was up at the mansion. She was likely in meetings about what had happened today, planning what they would do to prevent it from happening again. It was probably best that he not train with Lash now.
He wasn’t sure if he would be able to avoid confronting her about the priestess of Begaer today and truthfully, Lash was the only one that Kyle wasn’t sure he could defeat. He thought he could now, but it would still probably take time. He put her out of his mind.
Instead, he found himself wandering outside. Maybe a walk or even a run would help clear his head. When he got out there, he found Kierra next to a tree sitting on her haunches, staring up at the moon. Not wanting to disturb her, he started to slip past her still form.
“Wait, you don’t have to go.”
Kyle turned when he heard the lycan’s voice. She spoke so rarely to him these days that he was caught off guard. At first, she had been standoffish, but lately she seemed nervous around him all the time. She’d refused to make eye contact with him since he had bested her in battle and his continued displays of power seemed only to reinforce whatever it was that she felt.
“It’s okay, I don’t want to interrupt… uh… whatever you are doing,” Kyle replied.
“You are so confusing. I can smell things, you know,” Kierra said.
He really looked at her, then.
His vision was surprisingly good even in the dark. Hilde said he was subconsciously enhancing it with War Essence but that it was such a tiny consumption that it didn’t show up as a skill. She had become even more muscular with their extensive training but, despite the fur that covered almost her entire body, she clearly had the curves of a beautiful woman.
She wore just her banded top and cut off pants, rather than her gladiator outfit—which was little more than a chainmail bikini and brief war skirt. Even in the dark, he could see that her fur was well cared for. She spent as much, or more, time on it than any of his girlfriends had ever spent on their hair. The result being that she had soft, fluffy fur that was clean and shone in the moonlight.
“What do you mean, you smell things? Is that a polite way of saying I stink?” Kyle asked in mock anger.
Apparently, she didn’t understand that he was kidding because she lowered her eyes toward the ground and let out a mournful whimper, while slowly tilting her head to the side and exposing her neck. Kyle was no expert on animal behavior—certainly not an expert on lycans—but he could recognize a sign of
submission when he saw one.
Then it hit him like a ton of bricks.
She wasn’t angry with him for having defeated her; she was turned on by it. He had been thinking in human terms, but if her people had some wolf-like traits, then it stood to reason that they had alphas in their pack. By beating her, he must have taken on alpha status. Now, how to handle this though. The last thing he needed was another woman throwing herself at him for the wrong reasons.
“Kierra, I don’t know much about your people. Would you be willing to tell me about them?” he asked.
She looked up at him, almost making eye contact. She ever so slightly sniffed the air and licked her lips. “It would be hard to tell you what it is to be lycan... probably no easier than if you were to tell me what it is that you really are.”
“Oh… okay…” Kyle began.
Surprisingly, Kierra interrupted him. “But, I could show you. If you are willing.”
Kyle could feel his blood start to race at the unspoken challenge. He needed this. Training was fine, but sometimes there was no substitute for a bit of adventure. “Fine, lead the lay.”