Sirend held up his hand and dozens of similar scrolls appeared. “She sent me letters for months, all while we were at war. She was supposed to be leading our armies and instead, she spent her time trying to poison me against Reinala. I never sent her anything. When she asked me to meet her it was my intention to give them all back.”
Nisi was nonplussed. “I was busy leading our armies. I couldn’t have written those letters even if I wanted to. You’re the one who wanted a paramour.”
“I loved my wife! She was my morning and evening star! The sun rose in her eyes and set in her heart!”
Reinala was confounded. “How can you say that with a straight face? After what you did to me?”
Ouranos removed the podium. “So, no we will examine the veracity of those claims. Next witness.”
A new podium appeared, along with a very confused sphinx. “What? Where am I?”
“You’ve been called as a witness,” Storgen explained.
“It’s you! The salt-sucker who never paid me!”
Ouranos cleared his throat. “Please state your name.”
“Xuetzalquatatl.”
“Quiet…Yextza…um, my good sir…”
“Ma’am.”
“Right, ma’am. During the War of Wrath, what was your position?”
“I was a messenger for the gods.”
Ouranos snapped his fingers, and the piles of scrolls dropped before her. “Do you recognize any of these letters?”
“She looked them over carefully. “Yes, I delivered them to Nisi.”
“And who gave them to you?”
All eyes turned to Sirend.
“Fovos, elder god of the Underworld,” Xuetzalquatatl answered.
Reinala snapped her head. “Wait…what?”
Another podium appeared, with Cornett standing behind it. “State your name.”
“Cornett, the river guardian. Formerly Godfather of Poetry.”
“And do you recognize these letters?”
It only took him a moment to recognize them. “Yes. I wrote them.”
“You wrote them?”
“Well, parts of them. He had me leave the names blank so he could fill them in himself.”
“Who did?”
“Well, Fovos, of course. He said they were for Estia.”
Reinala’s eyes went wide. “It can’t be.”
Ouranos snapped his fingers and a third podium appeared, with an aged ailuros standing behind it. His long thick whiskers drooped like a mustache.
“State your name.”
“I am Paliágáta, chieftain of the ailuros….”
“…and a traitor and an oath-breaker,” Sirend completed.
“Please refrain from speaking or I will hold you in contempt,” Ouranos warned. “Now, do you recognize any of these items?”
Ouranos waved his hand and three immaculate items appeared. The quality of the craftsmanship was unsurpassed, yet Paliágáta regarded them as ordinary. “Yes, The Crown of Wisdom, The Scepter of Courage, and the Necklace of Beauty. My people crafted them. You can see my father’s crest right here on the clasp.”
“Who were they crafted for?”
“Fovos financed the commission. He said they were for his wife, Estia.”
Reinala covered her mouth. “Impossible.”
Ouranos turned back to the tiny sphinx. “Quetza… Xuetzala…”
“Xuetzalquatatl!”
“Quite. Did you deliver these gifts to Estia?”
“I delivered them, but not to Estia.”
“Who did you deliver them to?”
“Fovos had me deliver them to Nisi, Goddess of War.”
Reinala was crushed. “You mean…”
Storgen wheeled himself closer. “Fovos was furious after Estia was stolen from him. He knew he would eventually lose the War of Wrath, and so he engineered an incident in order to throw the gods into chaos. Your divorce, the splitting of the gods into two pantheons, and all the suffering that has occurred because of it, was his ultimate revenge.”
The mountain of rubble slumped away, and Reinala’s body grew dim. She looked up at Sirend, her eyes becoming moist. “So, you never actually…”
“No, I didn’t.”
She covered her mouth, aghast.
Sirend turned away. The great tidal waters settled back down, and his body lost its luster. “I told you I didn’t.”
“All those things I said…all those things I did. They were all based on a lie.”
“I told you I was innocent! You should have believed me!”
“I…no…I ruined it…I ruined everything…I’m…I mean, what can I say?”
Sirend clenched his fists. “There’s nothing you can say, there’s nothing anyone can say. Fovos had his victory, after all. What we had is gone. Gone forever.”
“I have something to say.”
They turned to Storgen.
“Fovos may have hurt you, but that doesn’t mean he has beaten you.”
Nisi lifted her hand and raised up Storgen’s chair so everyone could see him better.
“We’ve all lost things. Believe me, I know. Life chips away at us, drags us down, breaks and erodes us. But there’s something we always keep. Something sovereign in our core that can’t be touched, that can never be taken away from us.”
Reinala wiped her cheek. “What’s that?”
“Our ability to forgive.”
Sirend and Reinala looked at one another doubtfully. “It would be hard.”
“It will be very VERY hard. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. No, you have to do it. For all the people who died before finding the love of their life. For the people whose love was taken from them by force. For all those who sleep lonely at night and wake up to an empty room. For those people, you can choose to forgive.”
“But, why?” Sirend asked.
“So that they will know that love is stronger than hate. That benevolence is mightier than vengeance. That hope is stronger than grief. That while we may carry the weight of the past, it need not define our future.”
Sirend and Reinala looked at each other again, uncertain.
“She is your true love, and he is yours,” Storgen pressed.
Sirend’s harsh features softened. “It’s going to take a while.”
Reinala’s lip trembled. “Yes, it will.”
Sirend took a moment to calm himself. He walked over to Reinala, and looked at her sincerely. “I’m willing to try.”
“So am I.”
She reached out her hand, and he took it.
“I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.”
They pulled each other in close and embraced.
Ouranos wiped the sweat from his brow. “As adjudicator for this, the fifty-fourth divorce proceeding between Sirend, Lord of Waters, and Reinala, Mother of the Earth, I declare the previous dissolution of marriage to be invalid, as it was predicated on an event that never took place. Sirend and Reinala are husband and wife, and therefore, the war itself is invalid. As my posting authorizes me to do, I hereby demand that all hostilities between Agadis and Erotan cease immediately, as they are both territories held by the same couple. The war is over.”
The two armies cheered. Sailors and soldiers threw their hats into the air. Men and women hugged and shouted for joy. The rivers sank back to normal levels, the warships settling uneasily into the soft silt left behind. Out in the sea, the sea floor healed itself, and the quaking stopped.
As Sirend and Reinala embraced, it became less awkward. Slowly, imperceptibly, the first steps in a long journey towards healing began.
Nisi set Storgen back down. “That was amazing. How did you know what to say?”
Storgen shrugged. “I didn’t know what to say. I just shared what I feel towards Agaprei. That’s all any of us humans can do, share our own experiences.”
Nisi laughed a little. It was kind of strange to see her do so. “You are wiser than I remember you being.”
“All wisdom b
egins with sorrow.”
Amid the cheers and shouting of a thousand thousand relieved warriors, Sirend and Reinala floated over to Storgen. Reinala instinctively reached out to take his hand, but then thought better on it. Sensing her apprehension, Sirend took her hand, and she was surprised how happy it made her that he did.
“Storgen, I…” Sirend trailed off. “I’ve never been in so much debt before. You cleared my name, you restored my honor and my wife to me, even after every terrible thing I did to you. I…I’m not sure what to say.”
“Normally, we humans say thank you.”
“All right. Thank you.”
“You are welcome, but I didn’t do this for you. I need your help.”
Sirend and Reinala glanced at one another. “Help?”
“Agaprei has followed Fovos to the Sacred Orchard, and only you two know where it is.”
Reinala gasped. “The Sacred Orchard! No!”
“Why, is that bad?”
Sirend lowered his voice. “The Sacred Orchard is the last place in heaven or earth where celestial trees grow.”
“Without them, we cannot turn worship into ambrosia,” Reinala added.
“Without ambrosia, we would fade away forever. Do you know why Fovos went there?”
Storgen winced. “To destroy the trees.”
Sirend placed his hand on Storgen’s shoulder. “We must go. NOW.”
Chapter Thirty Eight
The mind of a child is fixated upon fairness. The idea that all sacrifices should be rewarded, all accomplishments must be acknowledged, all people must be cared for, and all things must be equal.
The adult mind understands that the world is not fair, nor has it ever been. It is common to love and not be loved, to give and not receive, to sacrifice and be forgotten, to chase a dream and never find it.
But the heart knows that love must be given, even at the risk of getting nothing in return; that others must be cared for, even if they are never grateful; that dreams must be chased, even if they will never be achieved.
Because to do otherwise, is to cease to live.
- Parable from the Holy Scrolls of Soeck, Fifth Binding, First Stanza
The breeze was cool and the sands were warm on the Nótos Peninsula. Lavish estates and gated communities. Summer homes for gods and demi-gods, with carefully spaced trees and meticulously cleaned roads.
And there, like an open wound amid the splendor and wealth, was an open pit. The previous buildings had been demolished. Ancient structures of beautiful antiquity torn apart like so much driftwood. Even their foundations had been uprooted, exposing the grey bedrock beneath.
Agaprei carefully worked her way among the exposed bedrock at the bottom of the pit. Crystal rods had been pounded into the stone by powerful drivers, though for what purpose she could only guess. The stone below had an iridescent quality to it, like raw opal, she could see several feet into the stone before the number of shimmering flakes obscured the view completely. Carefully, she flicked one of the crystal rods, and it gave off a steady base note. Following a hunch, she sang the same note and the rod responded, swirls of color moving through it. Slowly the colors faded away, along with the note.
She flicked another rod, then another, each one giving off their own note. Agaprei sang them in order forming a melody, until they all glowed at once.
Suddenly, she fell down the stone, the flakes of color swirling around her like water as she fought for breath. Panicked, her hands flowed through the rock as she kicked and thrashed.
Then the world seemed to flip, and she came splashing up out of the stone, taking in a long gasping breath. She found herself sitting on an area of exposed bedrock, the same as she had found beneath the foundations, but everything around her had changed. A great white grove of trees. But these were not trees of wood and leaf, but of celestial sunlight. Energy pulsed up their roots and the radiance of their leaves perfumed the air. The sky itself was different than she had ever known it before. No ruins among the clouds, no broken buildings and remnants of war. Instead, the clouds were pure and clean, like clumps of clean cotton.
“This place exists outside of time and space. A reality marble?”
She stood up and the trees responded around her, their light shifting into images of memories and thoughts. She could see brief glimpses of young girls praying, of factory workers giving thanks over their lunch, of the elderly pleading for the safety of their grandchildren. Offerings being placed on altars, and donations being placed into braziers. Each one of those moments drew up the trunk, and when it reached the leaves, the tiniest droplet of mist dripped free. Smaller than even the smallest bead of dew, each one fell, gathering into special vials placed at the base of each tree.
Agaprei stepped closer, and instantly recognized the golden liquid collecting within. “Ambrosia…these trees are what change worship into ambrosia.”
Some trees were more active than others. While some only slowly misted, others created visible trickles of ambrosia into their vials. Agaprei watched as a vial filled to capacity. It gave off a chime like the one she had sung, then disappeared, by sinking down into the stone. A moment later, an empty one rose up to take its place.
Each tree was connected to a god. Agaprei didn’t need a sign or a label to tell her that; it was plain as day. One tree radiated Lichas’ presence as if he were standing there himself. Another Warestus, another that of Mónos. Agaprei walked among the celestial trees. A trio of them were unmistakably Thelia, Celia, and Delia.
She stopped in her tracks. Before her, was a dead tree. Robbed of its light, it was nothing more than a dried up husk, bent over and cracked.
“This…this was my tree…”
Agaprei stepped closer, her heart flooded with emotion. When she reached out to touch it, the husk collapsed into a pile of dust.
A sound caught her ear, and she crept stealthily around a tree. Beyond, she saw the bubbling tar form of Fovos as he tied something to the largest pair of trees at the center of the forest. Suddenly, Fovos grew still, and she feared she had been detected.
Agaprei held perfectly motionless, daring not even to breathe.
“How did you find this place?” Fovos asked.
Finding no reason to continue to hide, Agaprei stepped out. “It wasn’t that hard. You buy an incredibly expensive and ancient site for your temple, but then once the old structures were cleared away, you halted construction. Therefore, you must have had some other reason for buying and excavating. Once you told me that Lord Fidi had demanded that you destroy the Eternal Grove in return for setting you free, it was pretty obvious that the site must be one of the entrances.”
Fovos gurgled. “I should have been more careful about what I said to you. You were always very insightful.”
Fovos looked around, his head a black skull dripping with tar. “We created this place, my brother and I, after our kind were cast down from the heavens. Before he betrayed me, that is.”
Fovos slid to the side, revealing a dead tree beside the two largest. “He destroyed my tree and left me to die trapped in the underworld.”
But Agaprei’s attention was drawn elsewhere. Kaia was tied to Reinala’s tree, complex runes drawn all over her unconscious body. Lachan and Naenia were similarly tattooed, tied to Sirend’s tree.
“What are you doing with my family?”
Fovos bubbled delightfully. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to sacrifice them. Their deaths will set off a chain reaction that will kill every tree in this forest.”
“Why them?”
“Oh, I could have used any old mortal. I didn’t have to use them.”
Agaprei balled her fists in frustration. “Your quarrel is with me, they have nothing to do with it.”
“That’s exactly why I’m doing it. To hurt you.”
Agaprei’s long ears twitched in frustration. He was an elder god, and she was just a mortal. What could she possibly do? She had never felt so weak and powerless as she did in that moment.
&nb
sp; “Take me instead,” she said.
Fovos tilted his gooey head. “You would take their place?”
“This is all my fault. All of it. I let myself fall in love. I neglected my duty. I betrayed my oath. In my last life I hurt you, and in this one, I hurt Storgen.”
Just the mention of Storgen’s name nearly brought her to tears. “I hurt him so badly…I’m a curse, a curse to everyone around me. I don’t deserve to live. But, at least in my death, I might be able to save a few lives.”
Fovos slid closer to her and reached out, tenderly tracing along her chin with a wet, bubbling finger. “You have such a noble soul. It reminds me of why I wanted you to be my wife. Why I fell in love with you…”
He cut himself off, and backed away. “You know, there was a time when I would have done anything to make you happy. I would have journeyed across the void of the stars and back again just to see you smile. You had such a beautiful smile.”
“Then do this for me. Let me atone for my mistakes in my last life…and in this one as well. I was the one who hurt you. I am the one who hurt Storgen. These innocents need not suffer. Let me be the one to pay the price.”
Fovos nodded. “Very well.”
Agaprei approached slowly. Her trained eyes looked over her parents for any sign of life, and was relieved to see them breathing. With a twist of her buckle, she took off her belt of vials and pouches, and handed them to Fovos. Standing between the trees, Fovos pulled away a sticky ball of his flesh. Letting it roll free, it slithered up her body, leaving behind inky trails that burned and stung where they touched. Agaprei endured the pain, her skin quivering as black strands bound her arms and legs. To Reinala’s tree her right arm and leg were attached by dripping black chords, while identical bands bound her left hand and ankle to Sirend’s.
Agaprei nearly cried out as the runes were burned across her face and neck.
The process complete, the ball of flesh returned to Fovos, and Agaprei gasped for breath.
“Now, let my family go.”
Fovos tapped his sagging chin. “No, I don’t think I will.”
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